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With a single dessert and just two glasses of wine our bill was kept in check - but the effort of doing so was not much fun
Babbo
Film
This is a film with beautiful performances and a visual style that urges you towards reflection
Bright Star
Theatre
Although the first half of Kwei-Armah’s production is pacy, funny and intelligent, the energy level then drops off
Seize The Day
I loved this film from start to finish. Take the girlfriend, tell your mum - I'd see it again tomorrow and will buy the dvd.
I saw this last night and can't remember the last time I was so moved in the theatre.
I have been to many of London's so-called best Japanese restaurants and none have been as good as the food that I've had at Aqua Kyoto
London,
Evening Standard rating
Reader rating
Dir: Francesca Zambello.
Cast: The Royal Opera, Maria Bjornson (des), Charles Mackerras (cond), Antonio Pappano (cond, Sep 27 & 30, Oct 2), David Syrus (cond, Oct 4), Simon Keenlyside (Don Giovanni), Mariusz Kwiecien (Don Giovanni, Sep 27 & 30, Oct 2 & 4), Marina Poplavskaya, Patrizia Ciofi (Donna Anna), Joyce DiDonato, Emma Bell (Donna Elvira), Kyle Ketelsen, Lorenzo Regazzo (Leporello), Robert Gleadow, Alex Esposito (Masetto), Miah Persson, Rebecca Evans (Zerlina), Eric Halfvarson (Commendatore), Ramon Vargas, Robert Murray, Ian Bostridge (Don Ottavio)
Description: Francesca Zambello's lavish staging of Mozart's tale of dissolution and retribution, with Simon Keenlyside as the philandering Don (Mariusz Kwiecien, Sep 27 & 30, Oct 2 & 4). Sung in Italian with English surtitles.
High jinks: Jonathan Miller's production of Don Pasquale is a pain in the neck
There must be a seat in the Royal Opera House from which Jonathan Miller's doll's house staging of Donizetti's Don Pasquale looks perfect. It is not the top-price front stalls.
Dr Miller may be shocking the bourgeoisie by giving that privilege to those in the gods. For the rest of us, it's an evening of neck-craning. As with looking at fan vaulting in churches, the principle is fine but eventually gravity and physical frailty force your eyes down to ground level.
The problem, evident when this 2004 production was new, is that in Isabella Bywater's period townhouse design, too much of the action happens in the upper storeys. You find yourself staring at an empty stage with glorious singing coming from somewhere up aloft.
Indeed this was a strong cast all round, conducted with Italianate lilt and panache by Bruno Campanella, and with fine playing.
Eric Cutler as the drippy, droopy hero Ernesto sang with the right degree of reedy finesse, his Poor Me (I am paraphrasing) aria accompanied by a darkly melancholy solo trumpet. Alessandro Corbelli's lugubrious Don Pasquale had crisp humour, especiallyin his duet with the Malatestaof Christopher Maltman, who looked unrecognisable beneath gruesome make-up but transformed his superb rich baritone into an instrument of bantamweight agility for Donizetti's acrobatic vocal writing.
Miller's scheme, presumably, was to emphasise the mechanical and clockwork in Donizetti's poised score, a version of the traditional old fool duped by young lovers story. But the net result is like speeded-up weather persons forever emerging and disappearing from their box.
Garsington's recent witty production had blown the cover on this kind of version by investing the characters with un-toytown, down-to-earth, humanity. Reduced to dolls, even when graced by a fine musical performance, they lack heart
In rep until 22 July (020 7304 4000).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
