Live reviews

On Sunday we went to the Queen Elizabeth Hall for Chelsea Opera Group's concert performance of the 1857 version of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, a review of which will appear in due course.

The programme book had, on its back page, an advert for the group's 2009/10 season - Gluck's Alceste at Cadogan Hall on 28/11/2009, Verdi's La Traviata at QEH on 21/2/2010 and Rossini's Guillaume Tell at QEH on 23/5/2010. At the bottom of the advert there was a note that tickets for all these concerts were now on sale. Now this isn't COG's fault, generally booking periods are controlled by the venues. But increasingly we find ourselves booking at extremely long range in order to get the seats we want. That is what we've done here, but it rather grates having to buy tickets a year in advance. And I wonder who benefits? Do the Chelsea Opera Group get ticket proceeds early from the South Bank Centre, or does SBC hang on to our money until the concert date!