Plácido Domingo Verdi I due Foscari Royal Opera House

"Why should I go to hear Plácido Domingo" someone said when the Royal Opera House Verdi I due Foscari was announced.  There are very good reasons for doing so. First, Plácido Domingo is an icon. Even past his prime, he has such presence that he can present a role with style. When he does retire, we can look back and say we were there.  Secondly, Francesco Foscari is a role that doesn't present extreme vocal demands. Domingo didn't go much out of range. Foscari is an old man, worn out by tragedy and the intrigues of state. Sounding pinched and dry is part of the character. Domingo knows how to marshall his reserves. At the end, the old man rages against the city and the fates that have destroyed him. Mellifluous sounds would be inappropriate. Domingo sings with such intensity that it feels like a statement. We shouldn't shaft old Doges because they aren't what they were, any more than we should shaft Father Figures like Plácido Domingo. The Council of Ten might be ungrateful, but I, for one, treasured his performance.

Domingo's presence in Los Angeles honours the city, just as a great Doge would have honoured Venice. That's perhaps why the Royal Opera House brought this production to London, so we could enjoy Domingo once again in a role he can still achieve well. The narrative is bleak and sombre. There aren't all that many flashy "big moments" for Antonio Pappano to whip the orchestra into full Verdian glory. The set (designs by Kevin Knight, with costumes by Mattie Ulrich) thus serve to distract from the opera itself. We delight in the gorgeous jewel colours that show Venice at its gaudy best.  But the gem is flawed. The city is rent by vicious intrigue. The Doge is destrotyed in a way that would hurt the most: his last son is accused, exiled and dies. It's not a pretty story. Still, we can fantasize, like the crowds in the piazza watching the circus acrobats and fire-eaters doing their tricks. What a brilliant metaphor! Even at this early age, was Verdi making oblique statements?

Wonderful atmospheric lighting by Bruno Poet, whose lighting suggests mists descending on the city, enveloping it in gloom. Most of the effects are created by video projections. so the set travels well. Just as the invention of electric light changed opera, video allows infinitely greater possibilities than, say, painted flats.  The art comes in using technique well. Here, though,  we see a backdrop of waves, which might have been exciting in Los Angeles, but London audiences would recognize as the backdrop to Birtwistle's The Minotaur. Numerous other projections onto cloth, which seem to be done by fairly basic oil and water washes projected onto cloth. The giant face of the Lion of Venice doesn't do as it's told. Maybe there's a very subtle truth in that but the production isn't quite that deep. The projections dissolve as the cloth is lowered, clumsily, into a hole in the floor. Apart from the nice costumes, the production feels minor house. Thaddeus Strassberger, an American, is director, but there's not much direction as such. The singers strike am-dram theatrical poses, but since the production revolves entirely around Plácido Domingo, there's probably little need to develop the other roles as drama.

Vocally, Maria Agresta's Lucrezia Contarini.was the high point of the evening.What a pure, clean voice, capable of passionate conviction. Agresta and Francesco Meli, who sings Jacopo Foscari, provided the vocal colour otherwise in short supply, in an opera that depicts a harsh, repressive regime.  When Agresta and Meli sang their final duet, the opera came to life. That said, though, Maurizio Muraro, singing Jacopo Loredano, member of the Council of Ten, impressed with the authoritative richness in his voice. The other members of the Council,and the rows of women in white, priests, servants and so on, operate anonymously, which is perhaps right, but Muraro's Loredano has power and individuality. So, yes, go to this I due Foscari, for Plácido Domingo, around whom it's all been created.

Photos :Catherine Ashmore, courtesy Royal Opera House, details embedded. 

New Mariinsky II Theatre Gala Opening

The new Mariinsky Theatre, or Mariinsky II, St Petersburg, looks fantastic. It sounds fantastic too.

The design concept is so innovative that you should read the architectural specs. Here's a link with lots of photos to Diamond Schmitt Architects site.  More details on the Mariinsky site here. The new building is integrated into the historic urban landscape of the city. There's a rooftop ampitheatre with views across St Petersburg. The old building remains, linked to the new over a canal. Jack Diamond, the architect, says "we have used the elements of the old architecture, which are a masonry base and a metal roof. Instead of a classical portico, we have used great structural glass bay-windows......The public areas have an exuberance and a fun because going to the opera house today is, in a sense, in competition with people who can watch it on television, see it on their computer screen, can have videos and play them at will. The difference is that going to an event is a gregarious activity. And I often think that before the show begins, and during intermission, it is not the musicians who are the performers, it is the audience."

Anything new is bound to enrage but from what we've seen so far, the building is strikingly beautiful. The whole structure seems to glow with light and transparency.  How moth eaten and oppressive the red and gold trappings of traditional theatre seem in comparison! Now the focus is on performance, not performance space. The acoustic is breathtaking. It must be balm to sit and listen in a theatre like this, purpose built for music. Yet references to the past abound, blending clean modern elegance with references to theatre history and Russian culture in particular. The Opening Gala shows a backdrop of the "old" theatre with its Imperial Box.  A group of schoolchildren sing the Ave Maria, their young voices ringing out pure and clear: past, present and future unite in a single image.

Simplicity and extrvagance combine. A solo piano demonstrates the glorious acoustic. Then the stage explodes in a gorgeous tableaux: the opening scene of Boris Gudonov, bells ringing triumphantly. The Boyars, priests and Imperial retinue emerge from the crowd of massed peasants. A moment of sheer theatre! Yet there's no heaviness in this staging.The singing shines, not the costumes, though they're suitably "historic". Naturally, there's a political element to the opening of an extremely important new house like the Mariinsky, funded completely by the state. Yet Vladimir Putin is seen sitting in the orchestra stalls. Perhaps this is shrewd. On the other hand, it says much about the role of cultural heritage in Russia. Does art transcend petty concerns? One should sincerely hope so. The men of the Mariinsky chorus emerge from a backdrop showing the Tsar's box. They look like mafia in their dinner jackets, but the sound of their singing connects to the past, distant and not so  distant.

The new Mariinsky opens out internally, too. Although much has been written about the public face of the building, what's intriguing to theatre people is the backstage technology. This, too, must be state of the art, if the Opening Gala is anything to go by. The Mariinsky Ballet are shown dancing Balanchine against a pristine backdrop that suggests a dance studio. The backdrop them morphs into page after page of "etchings" evoking ballets past. Almost miraculously as the music turns to Carmen, the backdrop transforms into full, naturalistic colour.  Later, the Rite of Spring is recreated in Nicolas Roerich's designs and elements of Diaghilev's choreography. A "curtain" of light descends, and René Pape appears, singing Mefistofele.  This is projection technology at its finest, suggesting new possibilities, just as the advent of electric light did 100 years ago. Vivid changes of scene happen in an instant : no clunky machinery, no interruptions to dramatic flow.

Plácido Domingo sings Winterstürme wichen dem Wonnemond. His voice isn't what it was but who cares? Everyone loves him, and rightly so. Later, he takes over from Valéry Gergiev at the podium, and sings along from the pit. Anna Netrebko feigns surprise, but we all know she's in on the joke. Netrebko steals the entire show, singing almost non-stop for the last half an hour of the gala, often solo. Netrebko is in superb form: this evening will be one of the great memories of her life. Putin applauds with a grimace, but who cares? Gergiev, the Birthday Boy, throws his arms around her and kisses her. Surrounded by Pape, Domingo, Nikitin, pretty much the whole company, chorus and ballet, Netrebko is absolutely radiant. The girl from Krasnodar will forever be associated with the new Mariinsky.  Watch the full broadcast here, it's superb, and extremely well filmed. Beats the Bolshoi opening gala by leagues.

The Enchanted Island at the Met - deeper than expected

Extravagance is the essence of baroque, but few houses can do spectacles as well as the Met. So when the  Met throws its might behind The Enchanted Island, it can create a spectacle worthy of the genre. At last Met technology put to good use - this is baroque as it should be done! William Christie is one of the great baroque specialists, and a guiding force behind Purcell The Fairy Queen at Glyndebourne in 2009. That may have been part of the inspiration for The Enchanted Island, for both take material from various sources and present them as glorious extravaganza. Christie and the Met also use some of the finest singers in the genre.
 
Perhaps the idea that The Enchanted Island is a "new" opera panics people. But why not? "Pastiche" carries negative connotations now, but didn't in baroque times when recycling was part of what went into theatre. Recordings didn't exist then, so composers were expected to re-use popular melodies so people could enjoy them again. That's also partly why baroque operas adapt similar ideas over and over. Audiences delighted in new ways of hearing old. How many of Vivaldi's operas were all "new" or even all Vivaldi? And how many adaptations of Ariosto and Tasso? The baroque aesthetic blended characters  from ancient antiquity and medieval myth in joyous riot. Even Mozart had no qualms about recycling a good tune. So snobbery about this kind of pastiche is misguided. Indeed, I suspect the choices made in The Enchanted Island are wittier than might be expected.

The secret to The Enchanted Island is to take the story as it comes,  just as baroque audiences would have done centuries ago. The basic premise is that Prospero has usurped Sycorax on her island, and pushes his weight around. That's why Shakespeare's The Tempest gets banned in Arizona. It's a simile for what happens when indigenous people are colonized by masters from over the seas. Caliban has long been seen as a metaphor for the Third World.  Perhaps Shakespeare wasn't political, but there's no reason why a reworking of the premise shouldn't tease out new meaning from an old story. Handel did it all the time, as did many others. William Christie and Jeremy Sams emphasize the anarchy inherent in the plot. Please read what Sams wrote for the British press here.

Prospero (David Daniels) rules the island but Sycorax (Joyce DiDonato) this time fights back, by simply changing dragon's blood for lizard's blood  in the spell Prospero sets for getting off the island.  Immediately, we know that this retelling of the basic story will be mischief!  So Ariel (Danielle de Niese) conjures up a boat. It's the first of many visual special effects which baroque audiences would have gasped at in admiration. Only it's the wrong boat! It's carrying the lovers from A Midsummers Nights Dream, who've already been cast in several guises before. Ariel connects to Puck, Caliban (Luca Pisaroni) to Bottom. Fun is of the essence. More fool those who can't see the humour in The Enchanted Island. In the cinema where I saw it, the audience was chuckling with delight.

Exceptionally good performances from Joyce DiDonato (Sycorax) and Luca Pisaroni (Caliban). DiDonato pretty much creates the part on her own, since it's hardly developed elsewhere, but fundamental to the background of the story. DiDonato is magnificent. Her singing ranges from ethereally high textures to animal-like growls. She's a nature spirit, connected to the mysteries in the jungles of her island. She's also an earth mother who loves her son just as much as Prospero loves Admir'd Miranda (Lisette Oropesa, singing in American). Caliban (Luca Pisaroni) is costumed as half gorilla, but with a sensitive side, (he likes flowers). Pisaroni is a natural actor, moving half crouched and intuitively, like an animal, yet his voice expresses deep emotional feelings.  In The Tempest, Prospero holds all the cards. In The Enchanted Island, the underdogs Sycorax and Caliban get a fair chance. This time, they're evenly balanced, and the meaning of the plot enhanced. Incidentally, the plot is driven by pe-existing baroque materials - nothing 21st century added. Sorceresses on enchanted islands abound throughout the genre.

Then, one of the most magnificent coups de théâtre in recent memory. Ariel calls on the God Neptune nd suddenly he arises from the ocean, surrounded by four mermaids, suspended from the roof. It's an image straight out of baroque fantasy, the sort of scene baroque artists used to paint, except this time it's done with modern stage techniques baroque stage designers could only dream of. It's fantastic in the true, baroque meaning of the word, totally artificial and gloriously splendid at the same time. Some of the chorus fill the foreground, others as singing heads in a backdrop that could come right out of an 18th century painted flat.    Since when did Gods rise up out of the sea, except in the imagination? And part of the baroque aesthetic is to push the boundaries of imagination. Only a house like the Met can pull scenes like this off so well.

This magnificent scene must have been stunning live, given the gasps from the audience, on screen and in the cinema. But it's absolutely fundamental to the whole concept of the plot. Neptune is the Deus ex machina around whom the resolution pivots. What a wonderful way to make the most of Placido Domingo!  He doesn't have to sing much (thankfully) but his acting skills are superb. Again, the anarchic humour in the text. "I'm old, irritable and tired", he sings with a merry grin, "I don't do the high seas". Pun, pun, pun for those who forget he used to be a tenor. It's a measure of Domingo's greatness that he can do acidly witty self parody like this, upstaging the elaborate ostentation around him.

The scene where Pisaroni as Caliban is surrounded by dancers isn't there merely to squeeze in a bit of Rameau but to show how he's "enchanted" by nature spirits half-animal, half-human like himself.  It's crucial to the plot because Caliban is trying his hand at magic spells and conjuring a new world, unintended,  where things will be more in tune with nature. It won't happen, though, as Prospero won't let it. The proscenuim, which magically transforms throught the evening from dense jungle to baroque fanatsy now turns dark, two glowing orbs like the eyes of a wild animal, the stage like a gigantic mouth swallowing Caliban's dreams. It's time now for Neptune to restore the natural order.  In another spectacular scene, Domingo as Neptune conjures up another magnificent boat, complete with the sort of rolling "waves" baroque designers made out of painted horizontal sheets, shaken up and down. At once "traditional" baroque design, with modern technology. At last Ferdinand (Anthony Roth Costanzo) appears. Miranda is saved, and Prospero returned to where he belongs. "Forgive me" he begs Sycorax, and maybe he means it, but our sympathies are with DiDonato's wonderful characterization. But baroque means happy ending, so all join in in standard ensemble, praising new beginnings. Excellent ideas, excellent cast and the Met Orchestra playing idiomatically even though they're using modern instruments (plus harpsichord). The Enchanted Island shows that the Met has huge potential.  Had this piece been heard at Glyndebourne, where audiences are receptive to baroque and to innovation, it would have been greeted with the acclaim that The Fairy Queen received. (read more here)  


And HERE is a link to my most recent post which has another link to something even better.

New Year Broadcasts Verdi Strauss Mozart

Ten years into the new millennium! Yet it seems like only yesterday. Since then we've had 9/11 and the War on Terror with all the wars, terrorism and hyper-security that's followed. The economy nosedived worse than anyone could have imagined.  The last Great Depression took ten years, ended only with a war. This one started with a war and won't end unless fundamental structural changes are made. Won't happen soon. In 2008 I saw it coming and made predictions no-one then believed. Most have come true, unfortunately. But as Heinrich Herine put it 200 years ago:

Wenn die Kinder sind im Dunkeln, Wird beklommen ihr Gemüt, Und um ihre Angst zu bannen, Singen sie ein lautes Lied.(When children are in the dark, they sing to chase away their fears)

New Year's Eve BBC TV 4 extravaganza is Verdi Rigoletto, yes, the famous one from RAI Mantua with Placido Domingo, Ruggerio Raimondi and Vittorio Grigolo, the one that was filmed live on location. This is the one that proves blind adherence to stage directions means squat without dramatic vision. The ultimate "traditional" that proves traditional alone means zilch. On the other hand, the sense of occasion, and the sheer presence of Placido : I'm watching again, gladly.  Click on the link to see what I wrote originally. This time it seems to be compressed into 2 hours, which maybe means no chatty bits. If you really, really like chatter there's another week of the repeat of "The Best of European Opera 2010" from 2nd Jan but you might want to be fully tanked to watch that.

Still available on BBC i-player are Don Giovanni from Glyndebourne and Tannhäuser. from the Royal Opera house, both of which I've written lots about and much more than  reviews. Both will be discussed for years pro and con, so you need to know them.  On Saturday (New Year's Day), though, there's an alternative Mozart Don Giovanni. Franz Welser-Möst in Vienna with Ildebrando D'Arcangelo as Don G. Audio only but this should be sparky - it's Vienna after all

Earlier in the morning on New Year's Day,  the traditional all-Strauss extravaganza, also conducted by Welser-Möst, who has proved his real worth despite years of  abuse from smalltime bullies.  This programme wil also be broadcast live on BBC TV2 at 11.30 which might be better as we'll get the colour and sense of occasion  That's the medicine that makes the spoonful of sugar go down. (The Sound of Music is also on TV)

With the New Year, an unprecedented Mozart Marathon on the BBC, with every single scrap Mozart ever wrote, even the discards and juvenilia.  Normally blockbusters like this are overkill, but looking analytically at this series, it might actually be worth doing. It seems coherently put together, the focus being on learning and exploration. Some of the presenters are good, some borderline worthless, so we shall hear. If marathons like this are worth doing, they're worth doing well and only a big organization like the BBC can carry it off properly. Kings Place is holding a Mozart Unwrapped series which sounds interesting  but is of necessity limited to what can be done in a small venue. Mozart Total Immersion, full steam ahead!

IMPROVED Unique Rigoletto Domingo RAI live Mantua Mantova

This is the full review in Opera Today of the Verdi Rigoletto Live from Mantua with Placido Domingo - polished and tightened up.  Please click on the blue text, it's a link, with photos. I do a lot about film and miusic. Please also read with Paolo Gavanelli's comments on the role here.
Don't forget, the FULL broadcast can still be heard on demand online on BBCTV2 and other stations in Europe. The BBC have just introduced extra high quality HD, which is magnificent. PLEASE ALSO see my other posts on this unique production, including the latest, written after seeing the film broadcast again without chat and without breaks. At last it is revealed as an excellent dramatic piece of cinema !

Photo credit

Rigoletto Mantua Domingo

RAI's live TV film transmission from Mantua of Rigoletto should please those who think opera "must" belong to a specific time and place and can never be updated.  What better then than Rigoletto shot in the exact spots Verdi thought about, and even at the right time of day?  Scenery like this wouldn't be possible in the theatre.There never will be anything more authentic. PLEASE READ THE NEW IMPROVED REVIEW HERE on Opera Today, It's much better !!!.

Visually this film is truly spectacular - what panoramas, what incredible detail in the interior shots. The "sets" are painted by Mantegna, no less. Gardens shot in natural light, with living hedges.  Sixteenth century furnishings. You realize what a warren the complex of buildings round the palace are, a metaphor for the machinations at court. And the phenomenal scale of this production, available in simultaneous broadcast in 148 countries from Japan to South Africa.  You have to be impressed by the audacity of the vision. With modern technology and telecommunications, this tops the famous Tosca in Rome 20 years ago, (with real bells and real ramparts but fake suicide), also produced by Andrea Alderman.

Of course Verdi visualized the opera in these surroundings, because they pack a powerful emotional punch on culturally aware Italians (ie every Italian, as they don't grow up not knowing heritage). But opera is drama, not reality and certainly not historical fact.

Plácido Domingo's Simon Boccanegra was an artistic ttriumph because his voice fitted the role perfectly (and wasn't exposed by long arias).  As Rigoletto he's more challenged , but again, his acting is so intuitive that he makes Rigoletto a thoroughly interesting person.  If this Rigoletto lies somewhat too high and Domingo can't quite make the long legato, so what? Rigoletto is a hunchback, and congenital dwarves don't often have big lung capacity. Domingo's Rigoletto feels like an old man who's sick of life and its twisted games and has nothing left to fall back on but Gilda. There is an evil side to the part which Domingo doesn't develop, but he's extraordinarly moving in the scenes with his daughter. The despised buffo becomes a handsome hero ennobled by his love. Unlike the real nobles around him. As Domingo says before the film, "so the singing isn't perfect, but opera is drama". Another nail in the coffin to the theory that opera is "only" about vocal gymnastics.Please see my post where Paolo Gavanelli discusses the tessitura in Rigoletto - quite relevant for a tenor !

Besides, this was a live performance in the sense that what was shot happened.without lots of takes. The singing was realtime, the orchestra piped in from an auditorium nearby. This accounts for some slight discordance in parts, but that's to be expected, considering the logistics.  These certainly aren't studio conditions, so it's silly to even expect clinical perfection. Timing, orchestral clarity, singing and acting aren't studio quality either.

But this performance works, as film. It's completely different from theatrical conventions, so can't be judged in the same terms.  Directorial and photographic details play a greater part. There are shots here a theatre-constrained director would kill for. As Rigoletto runs from the courtiers, there's a shot of his anguished face against the famous Mantegna ceiling with its frescoes of cherubs. Everyone knows cherubs from Xmas cards and tourist tat. (click on image to expand). To the Duke, (sexy, fleshy Vittorio Grigolo), the trompe de l'oeil was amusing, particularly if you look close up and see what might have interested someone debauched about the babes. Never look at those angels without thinking. But to Rigoletto this depiction of beauty is painful, constantly mocking his imperfection. For a moment, though, it's as if the golden circle forms a halo round Domingo's head.

There's not much a cloistered teenager can do to express character, so Julia Novikova's Gilda  is helped by the production.  There are many mysteries about Gilda, often underplayed. She doesn't know her parents' names, and accepts Gualtier Maldè without question. No completely  rational girl would suddenly chose to die like this, before she's even lived.  Who is she, apart from having inherited her father's extreme personality?  Christine Schäfer is the definitive Gilda for me, because her cool exterior suddenly boils over, deranged and heroic at the same time. Paolo Gavanelli (how's that for name dropping) described her to me with the gesture "Wow!"

No chance of that depth with Novikova, who really is very young. But she's shot in a room filled with Lucca della Robbia medallions (real!). This is deliberate because showing her in the context of Madonnas and babies expands her character.  Gilda, with her convent-bred religious faith, thinks mindlessly in terms of love, death and sacrifice. Marco Bellochio, the director knows what he's doing. He understands the opera, and brings out its deeper levels. This deserves respect, for it's not something easily done on stage.

Where the live realism falls down is the Third Act, shrouded in darkness. Obviously murky shadows are part of the rationale, but when Ruggerio Raimondi's Sparafucile is obscured, it's not a good idea. Praise be for unnatural light. Perhaps the darkness caused the camera to focus on close ups which can be easily lit. Also, it shifts focus from Domingo's vocal muscles to his facial muscles, which become more mobile and expressive than his voice. 

This RIA Mantua Mantova Rigoletto is significant because it shows the possibilities of film in expanding the potential of opera to communicate. We're still in the early stages of discovering what can be done.  Although this isn't the most ideal performance, it's a reminder that opera is drama, not narrowly theatre. Ambitious ventures like this prove that surroundings are only part of what goes into making opera dramatic. After this, there can be no more realistic production. That done, we can now focus on the essential drama, which, as Domingo says, is the real business of opera.

A better new version of this article will appear soon in Opera Today. 

In the UK the whole opera is available online and on demand on BBCTV til the weekend.  Quite possibly also available online in other countries, where facilities exist. Avoid the youtube versions which break up every few minutes and ruin the flow. Horrible sound and incomplete, too.
PLEASE see my newest post on the broadcast on BBCTV4 at Xmas - more emphasis on the cinematic aspects of this production, which grow on you. Minus chit chat and continuity breaks, this Rigoletto is better on repeat viewing.
photo credit

Verdi Purdah Saturday Night

Saturday night and we're all indoors watching TV in this weather? Nuts? But Simon Boccanegra is on, from the Royal Opera House. BBCTV 2 tonight at 7.30. Pity it clashes with  Manon, also from the Royal Opera House at 7pm on BBC Radio 3, from 7. But this isn't any ordinary telecast, which is why it's on BBC TV2 a big channel. It's being broadcast simultaneously on BP big screens all over the UK, too, if you want to watch outdoors among crowds (which can be a lot of fun).

Before the premiere there was lots of negative comment on the internet about Placido Domingo's decision to sing Boccanegra. Success always attracts jealousy, so there are a lot of detractors, who'll pick at the least little thing. A lot of people get their kicks from hate. Fortunately people who know their stuff don't need to prove themselves by copying trolls. Domingo's Boccanegra is a historic occasion, beyond pettiness, and his performance much greater than meets the ear.

But there is more to performance than picking at nits. I was deeply moved "because" of the tension and imperfections. Boccanegra is an old man who's achieved a lot, but now the strain is showing on him. He knows that power and wealth don't mean a lot when you've got enemies all round and you don't have love.

So Domingo's performance in many ways benefits from the tension in pitch. Boccanegra is not what he was as a young man, he won't be as vigorous as he was. Notice how Domingo shepherded his resources in the prologue: he looked young and sang securely. Then by the poisoning monologue, he's letting the tension in pitch work for the characterization.

He's astute to pick on Simon B for his (perhaps) glorious coda. Listen how spare the textures are, more declamation than extended flourish, short, brief forays that don't expose a voice for long. And the orchestration, recognizably Verdi but austere and spartan, like the hard marble surfaces around him, and the political situation he's in.

There's a proverb that goes, when a hand is held high, some will see the dirt under the fingernails. Others will see that the fingers are pointing towards the heavens.

Please see my review  on Opera Today.and a more personal take on this site HERE.

Placido, Simon Boccanegra, ROH and my Dad

 Placido Domingo isn't a tenor, a baritone, or even a singer. He's a phenomenon. Dozens of people queued outside the stage door waiting for him to arrive at The Royal Opera House for tonight's Simon Boccanegra. Placido needs flowers? As one fan told me. "He's jetting off tomorrow to sing Parsifal". But people need flowers as a symbol to thank Placido for being who he is, and being so much a part of our lives.

Hearing Placido is a privilege. His voice may be showing slight signs of strain, but let's face it, hardly anyone still sings at 69, and then not major roles. Or juggles major responsibilities on several continents (sometimes all within a week). He's brought Italian opera, indeed, any opera, to the world. In Japan he'd be declared a Living National Treasure.

I grew up listening to Verdi because my Dad adored Italy, Italian culture, art, movies and opera.  So much so that when I rebelled in my teens I took up Wagner, to drive him mad.  Years later when my Dad was ill, he was in a coma. We put headphones on him and played Italian opera tapes.  Even though he was unconscious, his face would relax and soften - blessed relief.  So tonight at the Royal Opera House, hearing one of Dad's favourite singers and favourite operas was a very moving experience for me. I kept thinking how proud he'd be, how happy I'd made it to Europe and the ROH, which he never did.

Because my Dad was so interested in Italian art and architecture, he would have loved this production. The sets are stunningly beautiful. Checkerboard marble, curved arches. See the photo above, that's the Doge's Palace. Painterly is wonderful, but the drama seems to step out of a canvas in a marbled hall. One very good telling point, easily missed is the graffiti on the walls. These evoke both frescoes and punk scrawl, for the plebs were a powerful; force in 14th century Genoa.  It's an important part of Simon Boccanegra's personality - vagabond outsider who upsets plebs and patricians, and has to keep fighting to stay alive..

Apart from the graffitti, this production doesn't make much of that aspect of Simon Boccanegra, or the darker dramatic undercurrents.  It's so painterly that the singers don't need to move much, just stand and deliver. For movement, drama and vivacity, you have to depend on the music. Verdi didn't write that delicate but telling oboe solo for nothing, nor the sounds of the sea as Simon B lies dying.  It's not, by any means, a sedate opera but this production works well if you think of it as a beautiful canvas.

In any case, this audience came for the stars. Placido, of course, but also Joseph Calleja, Ferrucio Furlanetto, and Marina Poplavskaya.  Fans love stars, however they sing, but this was the best all round singing all season, and not only at ROH.  Pllacido comes on and everything racks up into high gear.  I'll write more about this performance tomorrow, and in a more formal way, but for now, this will suffice. (Please see Opera Todayhttp://www.operatoday.com/content/2010/07/pitch_and_pictu.php where it is, with photos)

Coming up : SIX operas in nine days!  Including Glyndebourne Don Giovanni. Keep coming back to this site for the next few weeks.photo credit