La Fille du régiment - Royal Opera House, London

To London, to see Donizetti's La fille du régiment at the Royal Opera House.  We booked to see this after seeing and enjoying Don Pasquale at Nevill Holt opera - prior to that I was completely unfamiliar with Donizetti.

One of the pleasures associated with writing entries for this blog is the opportunity to spend time doing background research and learning entirely new things.  I now know that Don Pasquale (which had its debut in 1843) is widely regarded as the last great Italian opera buffa (comic opera), harking back as it does to works such as Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro (1786) and Rossini's The Barber of Seville (1816).

By contrast, the earlier La Fille du régiment, written in 1840, actually belongs to the French tradition of opéra comique, which, despite its name, simply means an opera with spoken dialogue (rather than a sung recitative) combined with arias.  It has much in common with what would later become operettas and, eventually, musicals.

A straightforward run down on the 16.04 and a cab to the junction of Long Acre and Bow Street.  A measured stroll through Covent Garden for a quick peek in Ralph Lauren on King Street (no socks left in the sale - shame!) and then back to the ROH for light refreshments and people watching in the Royal Opera House Café.

To our excellent seats in the front row of the Donald Gordon Grand Tier:

And so to the opera itself.  I fully confess that at the time that we booked our tickets, and for some time thereafter, I had no idea just what kind of treat we were in for.  

The production was a revival of Laurent Pelly's celebrated staging, now famous because it avoids military realism in favour of theatrical whimsy: throughout much of the production, the action takes place against a backdrop of enormous unfolded maps, the regiment behaves like an oversized comic family and the comedy grows naturally out of individual's characters rather than artificially introduced slapstick.

The cast were headed by Spanish soprano Sara Blanch, making her ROH debut as Marie, and Juan Diego Flórez as Tonio.  Flórez first sang Tonio in Pelly's original production at Covent Garden in 2007 and, though we didn't fully appreciate it at the time, Flórez's is now regarded as one of the world's greatest portrayals of Tonio, and for those in the know (which did not include us!) his return to Covent Garden was one of the principal attractions of the revival.  

Although Tonio is a rather naïve Tyrolean peasant, Donizetti gave him one of opera's greatest vocal showpieces.  The Act 1 aria "Ah! mes amis, quel jour de fête!" contains a sequence of nine high Cs, all intended to be sung full voice (not falsetto) and negotiating them has become something of an operatic rite of passage. 

To put this in some context, Luciano Pavarotti earned the nickname "King of the High Cs" after singing Tonio at the Royal Opera House in 1966 and his performance there was one of the events that launched his international career.  Although stylistically very different, Flórez's portrayal of Tonio is now talked about in the same breath as Pavarotti's.

Flórez did not disappoint, and the end of the aria in question gave rise to the longest, loudest and most enthusiastic mid-performance ovation we have seen.  Flórez, who ended the aria with arm held aloft, maintained the pose until the applause died away and then, feigning muscle-cramps, pretended to pull his raised arm down with his other hand - leading to yet more applause.

Mention should also be made of Tamsin Greig - yes, the comic actor of Black Books, Green Wing, Episodes and Friday Night Dinner fame - as the Duchesse de Crakentorp.  This is a famous, entirely spoken cameo role; since it requires no singing, opera companies frequently cast famous actresses, comedians, or special guest personalities to play the supercilious and domineering prospective mother-in-law - and convention has it that topical ad-libs are, if not de rigueur, certainly welcomed.  

In the original 2007 ROH production, the role was taken by Dawn French; others who have since played the part include Miranda Richardson and - in a rare instance where a legendary opera soprano took the non-singing comic role (and humorously added an unscripted aria of her own) - Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.  

On this night (and, according to reviews, every other night!) there were times when Tamsin Greig’s performance came close to stealing the show, ad libbing as she did about "10 Downing Street" and "Andy Burnham" on the day of his taking over as PM.  To the audience's delight she maintained her haughty character right up to and during the curtain call - and here is a somewhat blurry and hastily snatched shot of one of those curtain calls:

Out, to quickly find a cab that got us back to St Pancras in time for the 23.35 and a straightforward run home, with time to reflect on what had been a truly memorable evening.

Bed by around 02.00.

Reviews

All That Dazzles

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Broadway World

London Theatre

Opera Now

operawire

The Stage

First Meeting - Ronnie Scott's, London

We're off to Ronnie Scott's to see Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Chris Potter, Larry Grenadier and Eric Harland - a genuine all-star modern jazz quartet.

The group formed around their first live four-night collaboration at Dizzy's Club in New York in 2022.  Dizzy's is one of a number of performance spaces in the Deutsche Bank Center run by Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the quartet was assembled specifically for that booking.  The idea had come from Jason Olaine, Vice President of Programming at JLC, who wanted to bring together these specific four musicians for a new collaboration. The story goes that they had only one brief rehearsal before the run. 

Fortunately, the final set of the run was captured for an album - "First Meeting: Live at Dizzy’s Club" ; in fact, it was doubly fortunate, in that the group thereafter named themselves "First Meeting", after the album - which is clearly a whole lot easier to say and write than "Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Chris Potter, Larry Grenadier and Eric Harland"…

Of the four, Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba was the only one we hadn't seen before - though I've had a couple of his CDs for years.  He's been described as "one of the most technically formidable jazz pianists of his generation", so I was excited to see him in action.

We'd seen saxophonist Chris Potter just once - at the Royal Festival Hall on 18th November 2002.  Potter and his band were supposed to be opening the London Jazz Festival, supporting the pianist Brad Mehldau's trio, but travel delays caused by bad weather in Europe meant that Potter's band arrived late (about which, more later…) and Mehldau - although headlining - had to play first.  

As a result of the delay, Potter's set was cut to around 45 minutes, but he still made an impression.  Interestingly, when I look back at the other members of Potter's band that night, I see three names with whom I was largely unfamiliar at the time, but who have since become, if not "household names", certainly worthy of attention in their own right - but that's for another time.

Bassist Larry Grenadier is probably best known for his long association with Mehldau, and we've seen him playing in Mehldau's band many times over the years.  They parted ways (by all accounts, quite amicably) a few years ago, but I still miss his playing with Mehldau, so tonight would be a welcome opportunity to see him play again.

We'd seen drummer Eric Harland just once before, in July 2014 - also at Ronnie Scott's, in bassist Dave Holland's band Prism; Harland played an absolute storm that night and I spent quite some time afterwards watch YouTube videos of him playing live in that band in different venues. I was looking forward to seeing him again.

And so, back to tonight - or rather, initially - this afternoon.

We were due to travel down on the 15.13.  Luckily for us, this service was running - trains before and after ours were cancelled at short notice.  It has to be said that the introduction of the new "Aurora" Class 810 fleet operated by EMR has been utterly shambolic, and today was no exception (about which, more later...).

We got in to London at 16.27 and went straight out to the rank to grab a cab - there was no way we were prepared to endure the underground on a day when the peak daytime temperature was predicted to be around 32°C.  

When visiting Ronnies I usually ask the cabbie to drop us on Denmark Street, near the junction with Charing Cross Road.  This avoids the time (and expense) of the cab having to negotiate the crowded one-way streets of Soho and, depending on the time available, we can then either spend a few minutes in Foyles, or simply carry straight on to Ronnies on Frith Street.  This cabbie was on the ball - "Are you going to buy a guitar?".

In the early years of the 20th century, Denmark Street became London's equivalent of Tin Pan Alley as the centre of Britain's music publishing industry; over time it evolved into a mecca for guitarists, with shops supplying everyone from beginners to major rock stars including Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton.  Although redevelopment has changed the area, it remains the UK's best-known concentration of specialist guitar shops.

I explained that if I had had both the talent and the money I might have been, but in fact we were just visiting the area, and we set off.  Almost immediately we could sense that the city traffic was crawling, and by the time we reached Bloomsbury Street we ground to a halt and watched the meter tick away our savings…  Eventually the cabbie became so embarrassed by the delays that he switched the meter off; there followed a brief discussion of options, a quick U-turn and he dropped us at the end of Bedford Avenue as close to Tottenham Court Road as he could and we set off on the rest of our journey (TCR - Oxford Street - Soho Street - Soho Square - Frith Street) on foot.

In spite of the heat we made it to Ronnies just after 17.15 and joined the queue - with less than 15 minutes until the doors opened (or so we thought).  

A few minutes later, one of the security guys walked slowly along the queues (there's a second queue on the other side of the door for members), announcing quietly "there'll be a 15 minute delay before the doors open".

Fifteen minutes came and went.  Suddenly a people carrier came tearing down Frith Street from Soho Square, pulled up opposite the main door of Ronnies and a troop of people and bags disappeared inside - the band, arriving very late.

As we expected, we were then further delayed in gaining admittance while the band set up and performed what must have been only the most rudimentary of sound-checks.  Later, during the set, Rubalcaba noted that their plane had arrived from Italy in plenty of time, but a 20-minute delay in being assigned a gate and then further delays in picking up Harland's cymbals at the baggage reclaim area had resulted in their late arrival - so this would be the second time we had seen Chris Potter, and the second time he was delayed getting in from the continent...

Once again, the security guys walked along the queues, keeping us up to date.  When he got to us he paused.  "Are you here to see Jamie Cullum?". Now, I have nothing against that particular tiny troubadour, but the look on my face and the tone of my voice when replying with a strangled and indignant "No!" made both him and Amanda smile - how VERY dare he! I assumed that Jamie was playing "Upstairs at Ronnies" (though it did seem unlikely to me that such a major star would be playing there without me being aware of it), and that the security guy was simply trying to assess the number of people going to each of the two gigs.

However, as we approached the door I could see the cause of confusion - my questioner had confused Jamie Cullum and Jamie Safir:

Finally, the doors were opened and we slowly made our way inside.

Our favourite table - which I had requested at the time of booking - was already allocated - no doubt to a member - but the alternative we were assigned was actually closer to the action, and perfectly acceptable.

The stage:

The view to our left:

Drinks:

Drinks and food ordered, we settled back and waited for the action.  

Two happy bunnies (for now):

It’s always a pretty hectic operation to get everyone fed and watered in the time between the doors opening and the band hitting the stage.  For that reason, I was hoping that the house would use some common sense and adjust the evening's schedule, to allow time for people at the first sitting to at least stand some chance of eating their meal before the band came on.  Somewhat disappointingly, they decided to stick rigidly to their original timetable, so the guys walked on stage at precisely 18.40. 

 

From that point on, it was definitely an evening of two halves. The band were superb; with a setlist that was effectively the same as that captured on the live CD recorded at Dizzy's they played up a storm and made me wish that we had booked to see both sets.  

Sadly, for perhaps the only time in our many visits, Ronnies let us down miserably.  When our food had failed to appear by 30 minutes into the set we enquired as to its whereabouts; our waiter scurried off and quickly reappeared looking somewhat flustered, claiming that "there is a problem with the ticket machine" and saying that he "would take our order now"...  We responded as one: "Forget it" – neither of us wanted the distraction of having to shovel our meal down while the band ended their set and the house staff tried to hurry us out to accommodate the second sitting.  Since we appeared to be the only table sans food I was not really convinced by his explanation, and suspected that the cause was better described by the phrase often used in computer support - "Fault lies between the keyboard and the chair".

So – "nul points" for Ronnies and a further demerit for not even offering to comp our (very modest) drinks bill for the evening.  An appropriate review was later posted on TripAdvisor – live by the sword, die by the sword.

Buzzed by the music, we sauntered out into the still very warm evening, confident that nothing else would go wrong...

A brisk walk down to Shaftesbury Avenue where we easily caught a cab which got us to St Pancras in plenty of time for our train at 21.32 - one of the advantages of the early set at Ronnies is that we get home at a reasonable time.  We picked up a variety of refreshments (having not eaten for around 10 hours) and headed up to the platform concourse - and bedlam.

• We were in the middle of a heatwave.  

• Extreme heat can and does cause travel problems due to the expansion and warping of continuous welded rail.  

• East Midlands Railways are in the middle of swapping from their ageing Class 222 Meridian fleet to a fleet of 33 Hitachi Rail five-car bi-mode trains (able to run on both electricity and diesel).  

• The transition is not going well.  

It was a perfect storm.

The marketing and brand name chosen by EMR for the new fleet is Aurora, and is intended to evoke ideas of a new dawn for rail travel in the East Midlands, cleaner operation (using electric power wherever the line is electrified) and a brighter, more modern passenger experience.  Based on our experiences thus far, I rather suspect that Ordure would have been a more appropriate name.

As we got to the top of the escalator up to the platform concourse we were met by chaos.  Trains into London (and therefore destined to form the next trains out of London) had been delayed or cancelled.  The delays appear to have been caused by "operating difficulties"; the cancellations had been caused by there being "insufficient trains available for operation due to ongoing technical issues with the new fleet".  Hundreds of people were variously milling, queueing, wandering around aimlessly or frozen to the spot.

With the best part of an hour to wait for our scheduled departure we managed to find somewhere to sit and watch the hordes, most of whom were looking expectantly at the departures board, the gates and anything or anyone who looked as if they might conceivably be able to make sense of it all.  Our late supper concluded, Amanda got up to take our rubbish to the nearest bin, while I stayed behind to guard our precious seats.  She returned a few minutes later and said "our train is boarding".  I looked across and for the first time in memory, saw every barrier open, no staff checking tickets, no indication of which train on which platform was serving which destination – and hundreds of people surging forward towards two trains on adjacent platforms (the others all being empty).

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  We jumped up, put our heads down and joined the melee.  Our one advantage was that the board had indicated that the first-class carriages on our service were "at the front" – that is, furthest from the barriers, so we skipped and dodged our way around people gathering around the nearer doors of the trains on both sides and headed up the platform.  Pointing to the train on the left, Amanda announced, "This is ours", with a confidence that I know from experience is – just occasionally – misplaced.  

I looked across and, as I suspected, saw that "the train" on our left was in fact "two trains on our left".  St Pancras does, on occasion, double-stack trains on platforms, and it's important to know the actual time of departure for each one, so as not to board one train only to see the other one departing at your scheduled time. Since there are no departure boards along the length of the platforms, and the on-board systems to identify the trains were not yet powered up, further confusion reigned.  As we waited by the small gap between the two trains I glanced across to the sole train on our right and saw the magic time of "21.32" suddenly flash up on the information board next to the dearest door.  "This one", I shouted and shoved Amanda ahead of me as we formed our own attacking cuneus.  

One of the great annoyances of the current EMR transition between fleets is the (supposedly temporary) suspension of reserved seating, so we knew that it was a case of "find a seat, grab it and defend it at all costs" – which, it must be said, is a strategy that plays to Amanda's strengths – she's small, agile and a lot stronger than she looks – and as I followed her, elbowing my way into the nearest first-class carriage, it was with some relief that I saw that she had nabbed the two seats nearest the door – designed for use by those accompanying a wheelchair user, and therefore with a large space in front of them.  Now just pray for no wheelchairs...

The already crowded carriage continued to fill up, with people occupying the aisle, the large space in front of our seats, the doorway and the vestibule.  Amanda - very conscious that we both look younger than we are - made sure her Senior Railcard was clearly visible on the table, thereby hoping to stave off any suggestions that we youngsters might give up our seats for some of the more obviously elderly wrinklies around us.

A number of on-board announcements apologised for the chaos and assured us that the on-board staff were doing everything they could to find out exactly what was going on.  Eventually, some time after 21.32 we departed. The train staff knew better than to try to ask to see tickets and passes under those conditions, and opted instead to pass through the carriage handing out bottles of water and bags of crisps for all who wanted them.  

A slow journey home, the only upside being that with a delay of 15 minutes or more we could claim compensation for a late arrival.  Given how the day had gone thus far I decided to take no chances and grabbed this shot to prove that, 15 minutes after our scheduled arrival time we were still only approaching Leicester.  (I need not have concerned myself - EMR duly paid us each the princely sum of £6.65 for our inconvenience).

So - taken all together, a pearl of a gig in something of a sow's ear of a day.  No matter - the band were THAT good.

Set List

• 500 Miles High (Chick Corea)
• State of the Union (Larry Grenadier)
• Con Alma (Dizzy Gillespie)
• Eminence (Eric Harland)
• Santo Canto (unconfirmed) (Gonzalo Rubalcaba)
• Oba (unconfirmed) (Chris Potter)