Live reviews

On Monday we went to see Handel's Atalanta at the Royal College of Music, presented as part of the London Handel Festival. A review will appear in due course.

Atalanta is not a long opera (3 acts of 50 minutes) and the LHF performance started at 7pm and ended at 10pm. As with the recent Barbican performance of Flavio, two acts were compressed into one, so there was only 1 interval. With an opera of this length could we not have run to a 2nd interval and finished 15 minutes later!

On Saturday we're off to see the new production of The Merry Widow at the London Coliseum. Thankfully Jude Kelly's modern concept has not survived her departure from the production. Instead we'll get a carefully crafted, moderately traditional presentation from John Copley. One which will make sense of the music and give ENO a production which will eminently revivable.

I've not seen the piece since Catherine Wilson did it with Scottish Opera in the 1970's (or early 1980's)