Early Treats
15 May

After last weekend's trip to London, the pre-birthday treats have continued.

Thursday evening took us off to the Plaza cinema for Kingdom of Heaven, Ridley Scott's latest battle epic. Whilst it was not as good as Gladiator, it was somewhat better than either Troy or Alexander. I still can't be moved to give it more than two stars, however.

I did worry about the idea of Orlando Bloom as the lead character. He's no Russell Crowe. But Ridley Scott said that, after working with him on Black Hawk Down, he felt he could do the job. I'd say that the film was carefully scripted around Mr Bloom's lack of macho charisma. I don't think I'd follow him into battle. Bed, yes. Battle, no. But then, I'm of the Make Love Not War generation.

Mind you. Let's be clear about this. We don't go and see films like this for the plot or the acting. We go to sand and sandals films for naked male flesh. In Troy, it was Brad Pitt's bum and Orly's chest. In Alexander it was Colin Farrel's nob and Jared Leto's chest. Kingdom of Heaven was disappointing in this respect also.

Friday evening, I journeyed over to Buxton with Colin to see English Touring Opera's production of Mary Stuart by Donizetti. The last time I saw this work was in a very underwhelming performance and lacklustre production by English National Opera back in 1998.

Whilst never achieving the heights of dramatic bel canto, it was a stalwart rather than a thrilling evening in the theatre. The production, constrained by the exigencies of touring, was minimal but misjudged.

The two tier metal structure seemed to cause more problems than it solved, added little to the stage pictures and was distracting in its use of sliding panels. Frankly, the money might have been better spent on better costumes for the two principle ladies.

Anne Mason sang the title rôle with some aplomb and much jaw manipulation. Sarah Rhodes gave of her utty as Elizabeth but seemed very out of sorts to be on stage. They were not best supported by Noel Davies in the pit who conducted a very muddy account of the score. Best singing came from the men. I liked Nicholas Ransley's clearly focussed tenor voice as Leicester; best of all was Charles Johnston's resonant baritone as Talbot. All in all, a good three stars.

I was there again at the theatre on Saturday night, this time with Ross. We stopped off for a lovely meal at the Bells of Peover on the way there and were well prepared for ETO's second offering, Cosi fan tutte by Mozart. It's over ten years since I last attended a performance of this work. It's not been my favourite Mozart; pretty tunes but I just didn't get it.

That all changed on Saturday. I suddenly understood the sheer emotional pain involved in this piece about deception and personal discovery. This is what the best of ETO's work is about; a direct and unforced presentation of the core of operatic masterpieces.

The first half was scintillating and frothy drawing enthusiastic applause from the audience. The second half became progressively more painful and the applause at the end, whilst generous, was more muted signifying that the audience had been gently unnerved.

The problem with the piece, in general, is what to do with the end. Timothy Walker's direction took its cue from the text and the music.

Leslie John Flanagan's nicely sung Guglielmo muttered his way though the final sextet wishing that the wine they were drinking was poisoned; he couldn't bring himself to re-unite with Fiordiligi. She, meanwhile, was totally bereft. Amanda Echalaz gave us a virtuoso Come scoglio setting out the character's high ideals. Her fall from grace, when it came, was all the more heart-rending and her lover's rejection all the more devastating.

The other couple were more accommodating of each other. Rachel Nicholls gave us a flighty, bubbly Dorabella. Her beau, Ferrando, played by Gardar Thór Cortes, was honeyed in Un'aura amorosa, though he tired as the evening progressed. They were happy to forgive and forget, though goodness only knows what the future held for them with all trust gone.

Amy Freston's Despina was a pert, child of nature, happy to entertain Don Alfonso's suggestions without ever understanding what he was up to - until the end. Her desolation at the end was complete; her fun was annihilated by the cynicism of the older man's machinations. And Andrew Slater's Don Alfonso achieved his aim. But there was no pleasure or triumph in his achievement. Everyone had behaved as badly as he had known they would.

Why was it special? I know that the cast at Covent Garden a decade ago sang the music with much greater beauty and unforced projection. But. And this is a controversial but. Singing the text in Italian may suit the lie of the music but, with a text as complex as this, Italian forms a barrier to understanding and empathising. Similarly at ENO a decade ago, English was a key to enjoyment but, in the barn that is the Coliseum, much of the subtlety went for nothing. Buxton Opera House is exactly the right size of venue for a work as intimate as this. And with a small orchestra, conducted with pungent brio by Robert Dean, the words and music came across in spades.

Overall, I was transported; I was engaged; I was entertained; I was moved; I was given pause for thought. Excellent, quite excellent.

I've completed a couple more books. Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst was a good read - pleasurably satirical about the moneyed classes during the mid-Thatcher period. However, I couldn't really like it because the characters were mostly so awful, especially the ligger of a narrator, Nick Guest. I mean just how long did he think he could keep sponging off the upper classes before they would bite him in the bum. In fact, the novels ends just as the story is getting interesting. How will Nick survive once he has to actually earn a living. Still, I raced through it in a matter of days.

More weighty, in all sorts of ways, was Colossus by Niall Ferguson, who was also responsible for Empire. This tome investigates the American empire and is very good on the internal contradictions of American foreign policy - yes, we will invade you but we won't say very long and whoops we're now embroiled in guerrilla warfare with an enemy we don't know anything about and public opinion is turning against us in an election year so we'd better get out of here as quickly as we can and damn the chaos we leave behind. That was the story of an intervention in the Philippines in 1901, by the way. But you can see Korea, Vietnam and Iraq there as well.

What I'm less happy about in the final analysis is Ferguson's conclusions that the world needs the USA to be more and not less of an Empire builder. He believes that they should invade countries and that they should then occupy for a long period of time to bring stability to a region. But what he really seems to be wanting is for classic Western monetarist economies and the circumstances for them to thrive to be imposed on all countries of the world whether they are a viable solution for a region or not. So, although I found the book informative, I disliked the final assessments so much that I'm only going to give it two stars.