One girl can hit a high C, and how; the other would surely melt the iciest-hearted in Rodgers and Hammerstein torchsongs. That's Roberta Alexander, on the evidence of her "Somewhere" last night. Together with classy lyric-coloratura Claron McFadden, the beaming high Cs girl, and sophisticated pianist-animateuse Reinild Mees, she ran the gamut of Bernstein's song-and-dance cornucopia. With such physical ease and high spirits from these total artists, even the occasional archness in Lenny's heart-on-sleeve songbook passed with a relaxed sense of fun.
Let’s get the obvious one out of the way first: if a law firm is going to put on an opera, it should probably be Gilbert & Sullivan’s Trial by Jury. Instead, having progressed through G&S’s Mikado and Pirates of Penzance in previous years, Magic Circle firm Allen & Overy last weekend staged The Magic Flute, and not just anywhere, but at Glyndebourne. The house which has resounded to Peter Pears and Felicity Lott this time was filled by tax lawyers and legal secretaries.
Glyndebourne Opera's headline news this summer is its first-ever production of Britten's Billy Budd, to be directed by Donmar Warehouse director Michael Grandage in his own first venture into opera. A new Don Giovanni with Gerald Finley and a revival of the historic 1975 David Hockney Rake's Progress accompany listings of previous Festival productions of Macbeth, Cosi fan tutte and Hänsel und Gretel.
No great new movements or radically transformational figures emerged to dominate classical music in the Noughties (not even him up there). Just one small nagging question bedevilled us: will the art form survive? Well, it has. What appeared to be a late 20th-century decline in audience interest in the classical tradition was in fact a consumer weariness with the choices on offer.
As we all have only one shopping day left, theartsdesk hopes to make Christmas Eve a little easier by offering a few enlightened recommendations. From our writers on new and classical music, opera and ballet, film and comedy, here is a list of CDs and DVDs that we hope will enhance your 11th-hour shopping experience. Happy Christmas from all at theartsdesk.