Another chapter closed

It's a relief when you go to an opera you don't know and realise at the final curtain that you need never see it again. Not that we didn't enjoy Les Vêpres Siciliennes, relayed from Covent Garden this evening. It has some good tunes, and opera doesn't come much grander. Though the programme strangely didn't mention his name, the excellent director Stefan Herheim spared no thought, and his paymasters no expense: the updating from 13th to mid-19th Century was an ingenious solution to what's pretty much an old war horse. It could be dire done straight.

During the intervals we were treated to tweets from cinema audiences around the world: someone from Ulster "wished we were there at the Royal Opera House": Caroline and I begged to differ. We felt far better off sitting in acres of space in our local Cineworld, enjoying our picnic topped off with a Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

And I reached the final chapter of "Still in the Game" last night. Charlotte had lent me her copy of Antony Hornyold's book when we met him at lunch with them last month. I much enjoyed its mixture of autobiography, history, adventure and reflection. Antony's own photographs are accompanied by good maps and some judiciously chosen archive material. Biggles was an earlier generation, but there are echoes in this self-portrayal of a brave and modest man, still very much with us. When's the next one coming out, Antony?

2000 trees?

We have just returned from our friendly multiplex cinema, where we went to see Eugene Onegin beamed from the Royal Opera House. Since seeing Ileana Cotrubas in the Peter Hall production at Covent Garden (twice) and Elisabeth Söderström in the Glyndebourne Prom - all more than 40 years ago - this has been one of my favourite operas.

Last night's relay was one of the best such we have seen, I think. A thoroughly original interpretaion - dancers in the main parts as well as the singing actors - excellent singing, and the orchestra in tiptop form! My only cavil was with the unchanging set, which doesn't do at all for the key duel scene.

Though we lived barely four miles North of Withington for many years, I had never - before this misty morning - walked from that village to Foxcote. My photograph is of Upcote Farm, the first building you encounter after leaving Withington. The farmhouse faces South and is surrounded by a large stone barn and other outbuildings. A fountain was playing in the pond - altogether rather idyllic. Not such a peaceful place, however, later this year, when the seventh annual 2000trees festival takes place there.

Why "2000trees"? I wondered; but then we soon walked on into and through Vestey territory (Foxcote), in which trees have altogether possibly been planted by the thousand in recent years.

High definition performance

It was Kenneth Tynan who coined the phrase "high definition performance". Tonight's Film Society film, last night's Royal Opera live stream and Sunday's Something Understood all come under this useful heading.

The Iranian director Asghar Farhadi won plaudits at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival for A separation: I had meant to catch it when it first came out, but failed. It was well worth waiting, though, for its superb screenplay and mesmerising acting. Only at the end, when music plays, do you realise there has been none throughout.

Music aplenty though from the Royal Opera House throughout yesterday, during the 10-hour live stream of backstage activity, available through theguardian.co.uk/music and thespace.org. We only watched a little until the evening, when we were rivetted by the relay of the whole of Act 3 of Die Walküre.

And Mark Tully's Something Understood is always worth listening to, but this week on "Dignity" he was on specially good form, particularly with his main interviewee, an eloquent Buddhist.

Tynan wouldn't have marked our High Street accordionist with "HDP", but I have recently been enjoying one particular tune he keeps playing. I don't know what it's called - we correspond in smiles, as he's from Hungary and speaks no English.

The thick of it

I took this photograph in 1999, when we were walking along a strada bianca near Pienza: it hardly does justice to the lichen, an extraordinary colour. I remembered it this morning, as I caught up with the latest goings on in The thick of it. It really does get better and better - and in the whole hour of this bumper episode there isn't a single F word (well, in direct speech anyway). How do they keep a straight face?

I couldn't watch it on Saturday as we were at the Parabola Arts Centre, where they were showing a recording of the Royal Opera's 2011 Tosca: a great cast, and - still more important - Antonio Pappano conducting. Before we went out, there was another Royal Opera House recording on Radio 3: Otello, Pappano again conducting. And earlier in the day, I'd been catching up on the Covent Garden Ring. Conductor? Pappano again.

Caroline's week-long Wagner widowhood ended last night. The highlights of this Ring for me were Act 2 of Die Walküre, with Sarah Connolly outstanding; and Act 2 of Götterdämmerung last night - Tomlinson terrific as Hagen, notwithstanding that wobble: only to be expected in a 66-year-old. (What contemporary relevance in the Prologue too - with all the Norns' talk about ash dieback.)

Are there other operas besides Tosca and Götterdämmerung where all the principals end up dead? (Is there a post on my blog containing more hyperbole?)

"Rigoletto"

Our dynamic New Zealander handyman, Arden, descended upon us early this morning, to dismantle a built-in cupboard. In the clearing out process, I came across some programmes dating back to the year I started living in London. I had a new love in my life then, opera, and the above evidences my first visit to see Verdi's Rigoletto. That was its 357th performance at the Royal Opera House, with Edward Downes at the helm of Zeffirelli's sumptuous production. American baritone, Cornell MacNeil sang the jester, with the lovely Reri Grist as his daughter. Though I can't give any critical analysis of that performance, the opera is one I have come to cherish through a number of subsequent listenings. I have a 1960 version on CD, with Bastianini, Scotto - and Alfredo Kraus: the only time I saw him was as the Duke at Covent Garden in February 1974: I remember standing at the back of the Stalls Circle for what was a sensational individual performance. Notwithstanding this warm memory, I have to rate as my top choice the 1956 Tullio Serafin recording, which I also have, with Gobbi, Callas and di Stefano.

Naturally, therefore, I was eager to catch the relay from the Opera House of its 497th performance tonight, sitting in the comfort of Cheltenham Cineworld. Nor I was I disappointed although, dynamically, John Eliot Gardiner's rendition nowhere approaches Serafin's, save possibly in the great quartet. This was - as ever for me - the highlight. David McVicar's production leaves little to the imagination. (Do we need full frontal male nudity? And how anyway do you carry out a rape without an erection?) Dimitri Platanias looks terrific in the name part, acts and sings superbly: his only disadvantage is being encumbered with a pair of distracting Lekis - and not being Tito Gobbi. Ekaterina Siurina's Gilda was likewise a great joy to hear; and Christine Rice's portrayal of the Act III mezzo role was as outstanding as we've come to expect from her.

Pura sicco me un angelo

I've been Listening Again to the Royal Opera House's La Traviata, broadcast on New Year's Eve (when I missed it). No performance by this particular cast seems to have been reviewed, but it does contain at least one outstanding interpretation, that of Ailyn Pérez in the title rôle. Nothing can quite erase the impression Ileana Cotrubas or Montserrat Caballé made on this impressionable listener in the Gods at Covent Garden decades ago; but Pérez sang with an intensity which I've not heard for a long time. Her vocal acting reminded me of Callas, which is saying a lot.

The words in the heading were not of course sung in reference to Violetta; and probably shouldn't be applied either to our granddaughter, who has been staying with us for a nice while; but she did look rather adorable, feeding the ducks by The Park's lake yesterday, in her "new" (eBay) coat. She's been enjoying Darcey Bussell's take on Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Debbie Reynolds and Cyd Charisse, sitting on my knee.

[I've since read of Hugh Canning's enthusiasm for Pérez's Violetta.]

"Die Meistersinger"

On Boxing Night, Caroline and I endured a grim night at Cineworld: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows looked the best of a poor selection, but neither of us enjoyed it much.

By contrast, Die Meistersinger triumphed last night at Covent Garden. I was the lucky holder of a staff ticket, entitling me to sit at the back of the Orchestra Stalls at a fraction of the normal price. Within 18 months, I've heard it three times: I enjoyed the Glyndebourne production, with Gerry Finlay's notable Sachs, relayed to Malvern in June - a match for Bryn Terfel in the WNO version (which I caught at the 2010 Proms). But this consistently amazing Wagner score never sounded so well as under Pappano's baton at the Opera House, despite some quibbles with the production. What a treat!

Lord Harewood RIP

I last visited the magnificent Palladian Harewood House whilst on my bike trip through Yorkshire in May 2009. The current (7th) Earl clearly not only cherished his immense inheritance, but had enhanced its collections in so many ways. Of his renowned collection of 20th Century paintings and sculpture, the first glimpse you have upon entering the house is Epstein's still-shocking "Adam". My photograph shows Astrid Zydower's 1984 work, "Orpheus".

As an eager opera-goer in my 20s, my bible was Kobbé, in its radical revision by the same Lord Harewood, who seemed to know everything there was to know about opera. And so indeed Tom Sutcliffe confirms in his comprehensive obituary of the 7th Earl in today's Guardian.

It mentions "the competition between the Wells and Sir Georg Solti's Garden, which faintly echoed the royal operatic rows involving Lord Harewood's Hanoverian forebears in Handel's day." I wonder if he knew this: the 1st Earl's younger brother, Francis, 14 when Handel died, never married, but fathered ten children by one of the day's Covent Garden superstars, Ann Catley. A properly comprehensive biography of her is eagerly awaited, but from what we already know, she (and therefore Francis Lascelles) would certainly have been at the centre of many of the operatic controversies of the day.

Our children (no opera singers amongst them, alas) are part of Francis and Ann's immense brood - 4th grat-grandchildren.

BBC4 x 2

Today's Guardian has a "Spanish Spirit" supplement, which says the best known Churriguera retablo mayor is in the church of San Esteban in Salamanca. The article's accompanying photograph isn't as detailed as the one I took in San Esteban - and even that doesn't really do it justice.

Our visit to this (and sundry other equally magnificent Catholic churches and cathedrals in Spain) last Autumn came back to me last night as I watched Don Carlo on BBC4. I'm not a great fan of opera on the small screen, or even at the cinema - Cineworld have of course stopped their relays from the Met., which I regret. The Covent Garden production of Verdi's grandest opera came across superbly on TV, however, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything.

Marina Poplavskaya's Elisabetta stole the show for me - even with the great Rolando Villazón singing the title role. Her acting was terrific, and what a joy to hear a young, still lyric soprano, with no vibrato, in that great dramatic part! Only 29, Marina lives over a pub in Soho, the daughter of a Moscow chemist with five specialist diplomas, but working as a taxi driver because she can earn more.

The Poplavskaya family held to their Russian Orthodox faith throughout the Soviet years, keeping an icon hidden in a wardrobe. Nicholas Hytner's Don Carlo has plenty of icons of one sort or another to evoke the atmosphere of 16th Century Spain. Orthodoxy and the Reformation are the themes for last week's and next's instalments in Diarmaid MacCulloch's History of Christianity, also on BBC4. I really don't watch that much TV normally - just football (as I've said before): this week seems to have been an exception. But I'm not sure I am going to stick with MacCulloch. I envy him the opportunity of skipping around Europe and Asia Minor, seeing the sights, and he is distinctly likeable. Further, his substance is interesting enough: he makes it all sound fresh. The accompanying pictures are, however, repetitive and ultimately distracting. Radio 3 would be a much preferable forum.

Odd, that the previous week in MacCulloch's exploration of "the extraordinary rise of the Roman Catholic Church," there wasn't a single mention of St Benedict.