Diary of a Culture Hedonist

It's not even Christmas yet, but inside the Royal Opera House tonight, it felt like Easter has come early. Tonight's performance of Parsifal was a revival of the 2001 production. Christopher Ventris sang the title role with conviction. Petra Lang was a convincing mad and schizophrenic Kundry. John Tomlinson sang a more lyrical than usual Gurnamanz and Willard White added wickedness to the scorer Klingsor. Its minimalist design and light-touch stage direction really let the music carry the drama. OK, there was the feet washing and flying sword, most of the time the singers were allowed to give the music care and space. The real star was Bernard Haitink. The orchestra gave Haitink 110% tonight - not a split note in the brass section, the woodwind department was full of rich colours, even the strings were adding warmth to the music (I recall the drunken-sounding brass section in the Ring). But Haitink didn't take any of this for granted - he was phrasing and shaping the ...

Last night I went to see Aida at the English National Opera. When I booked a few weeks earlier, there were just  the odd single seats left - clearly I forgot about the fact that Aida is a bit of a crowd-puller. So being two seats behind Ed Gardner I had a rather wide-angle view of the stage! Claire Rutter was  the defiant yet passionate Aida. Jane Dutton made a tempestuous and bitchy Amneris. John Hudson, as Radames, took a little while to warm up at the beginning. He was brave enough to sing the last note of Celeste Aida with a pianissimo sotto voce rather than blasting it out. However, against the strong voiced Aida and Amneris, Ramades sounded at times overwhelmed (there were one or two moments where his voice sounded pushed). The chorus did very well in the second act with multiple divides - there were slaves, women, high priests, normal priests - and added much atmosphere to the subsequent trial and entombment scenes. The acrobatic show during the ballet music also wo...

Located adjacent to the Economist Building, Sakenohana opens its doors this week serving Kaiseki cooking. Apart from tempura fish and vegetable, all the dishes are authentic using lots of real Japanese ingredients (I'd dread to think what's the carbon footprint). Yam with fish eggs, slow cooked yellow tail tuna and fried rice balls in dashi fish stock all tasted real and honest. The deco had a peculiar combination of Japanese tatami with Nordic wood fixtures. There is no omakase yet, but that would be a nice addition to a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

Lang Lang (郎朗) opened his concert at the Royal Festival Hall with Mozart's piano sonata K 333. He played it with much fluidity, though I was not sure whether it was Lang Lang or Mozart that I was listening to. His playing of Schumann's Fantasie in C was captivating - with longing pensive moments (at least for a 25 year old). The second half of the concert began with him describing the few Chinese works that we was going to play. It was nice to see such a young performer at ease on stage not performing but talking to the audience. These pieces were playful yet evocative of Chinese (taking a broader sense as he made a point to describe the west Chinese origin of one of the pieces) poetic and instrumental colours. These were followed by a stylistic playing of a Granados. We were then thrown into the complex Wagnerian world with Liszt's transcription of Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde - Lang Lang was able to sustain a rich and complex orchestral sound taking us through to...

It was the London Jazz Festival and there was much happening at the South Bank Centre last night. I was with a friend and we didn't warm to the kind of rapping jazz that they were playing so we thought it was a good idea to eat. Rather than popping down riverside, we went to the rearside to try out Canteen. The backless chairs and chunky wooden tables gave the place a distintively Nordic feel. The food was decidedly English fayre - pies and roast aplenty. I had a chicken pie followed by an apple crumble. It was surprisingly good and there was a distinctly clean taste. The waiter explained to us the most ingredients were locally sourced.

Having just seen the Ring, it's a big mind shift to go to L'elisir d'amore at the Royal Opera tonight - with no gods, semi-gods, superheroes, etc. - it turned out to be an evening of light-hearted entertainment - nothing too demanding. Aleksandra Kurzak gave a superb performance with wonderful coloratura and witty acting as Adina. Her opposite number Stefano Secco gave a convincingly mad and idiotic portrayal of the love sick Nemorino. The production was clever with bails of hay giving a lot of visual interest. Mikko Franck conducted the band with much needed steadiness.

The three norns in the prologue were fantastic - who told the "story so far" with mysticism and conviction. The opening love duet between Siegfried (John Treleaven) and Brünnhilde (Lisa Gasteen) was almost good as both were fresh voiced at the start of the opera. Kurt Rydl's Hagen had bite and evil - perfect for the character. Gunther (Peter Coleman-Wright) and Gutrune (Emily Magee) were good as supporting characters. The chorus was a much welcome addition to Act II with the wedding procession. The whole thing dipped a bit in the second half of Act II and the beginning of Act III - was it the pitch of the tempi, the poor string ensemble in the orchestra or the wayward brass section? The audience laughed at the horrendous entry of the horns at the beginning of Act III - I guess it was a funny way to say "you have had a long evening, but don't relax too much". The whole cast rose to the challenge for this final act of the last opera in the Ring. Lisa Gasteen...