Going all Austro-Hungarian

Brendan Carroll gave a fascinating evening at the Austrian Cultural Forum last night devoted to Korngold's film music. With meaty extracts from Max Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1934) as well as Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk et al, and some rare interview recordings from those who were there at the time, the packed audience was transported to another world. Here's one of the stories:

Max Steiner, composer of King Kong and Gone with the Wind, among others, was a friend of Korngold's in Hollywood. One day he remarked to Korngold, "You know, Erich, since you've been in Hollywood, your music has got worse and my music has got better. Why do you suppose that is?" Without missing a beat, Korngold replied: "That's easy, Max, it's because you've been stealing from me and I've been stealing from you!"

I reckon it's time for a palette-cleanser before the LPO Korngold events kick in with tomorrow's film music bonanza at the RFH. I'm currently proof-reading novel number next, Hungarian Dances. So here, with an appropriately Danubian breath of fresh air, is Andras Schiff (evidently filmed some years ago and relayed somewhere interesting in the Far East) playing Schubert's Hungarian Melody. Just listen to that tone...

Reviews coming in...

It's a mixed bag for Saturday, with most reviewers and bloggers (Intermezzo and Mostly Opera) focusing on the facts that a) there weren't enough programmes, and b) Pekka Kuusisto's clothing was somewhat unconventional. It was, of course - red & black trainers plus a shirt with sparkly sleeves - though not half as unconventional as his playing, the peculiarities of which went largely uncommented-upon, except for Robert Matthew Walker's entertaining write-up at Classical Source. Meanwhile the Daily Telegraph felt there was too much Korngold in the Korngold day, quite apart from reviewing the 'Nach Ensemble', and the Times thinks EWK should have copied Zemlinsky more (if the reviewer had come to our film and talk, he might have understood why Korngold didn't, 'nuff said). They can't agree on Anne Sofie's singing/sense of involvement, to which I can only add that she sang beautifully except for a couple of top notes, that as a very tall, blonde Swede she often comes across as aloof even if she doesn't mean to, and if you were disappointed at not seeing her shoes, assume that she was probably not in high heels.

Anne Sofie von Otter sings Marietta's Lute Song

Glaub, es gibt ein auferstehen

I'm happy to report that Erich Wolfgang Korngold is well and truly resurrected. Heliane herself, whose trial is to raise her beloved from the dead, would have been proud yesterday.

Korngold Focus Day was an even bigger success than I'd hoped. Attendance was excellent, a forest of hands went up to ask questions at the round-table talk, the Nash Ensemble played the socks off the Piano Quintet, Pekka Kuusisto and Bengt Forsberg made the Violin Sonata shine out as one of EWK's most extraordinary and original works, and after Anne Sofie von Otter sang the Lute Song, there wasn't a dry eye in the hall.

Presenting the discussion was extremely enjoyable. Huge thanks to everyone for their marvellous, insightful contributions.

Next Friday, 2 November, the LPO gives a Royal Festival Hall concert of film music conducted by John Wilson, including the UK premieres of 'Tomorrow' from The Constant Nymph and a suite from Escape Me Never as well as perennial favourites The Sea Hawk and The Adventures of Robin Hood, plus works by Korngold's Hollywood contemporaries and successors.

Queen Elizabeth Hall TODAY

Please come and celebrate Korngold at the Queen Elizabeth Hall today!

1.30pm - Barrie Gavin's documentary Adventures of a Wunderkind (free admission)

3.30pm - Round-table discussion with Brendan Carroll, Erik Levi and Ben Wallfisch. Yrs truly asks the questions. (Free admission)

6pm - The Nash Ensemble plays chamber music featuring Zemlinsky, Brahms and Korngold's Piano Quintet

7.45pm - Anne Sofie von Otter sings, Pekka Kuusisto plays the violin, Bengt Forsberg plays the piano. Programme includes Four Shakespeare Songs, the Violin Sonata, the Much Ado About Nothing suite and extracts from Die tote Stadt.

Korngold features today on Music Matters, BBC Radio 3

Presenter Tom Service features Korngold in BBC Radio 3's flagship magazine programme today at 12.15. Includes interviews with biographer and apostle Brendan Carroll, Academic Erik Levi (who is joining Brendan, me and Ben Wallfisch for the South Bank round-table discussion next Saturday), Andre Previn, Korngold's daughter-in-law Helen and archive material from the composer's sons Ernst and George. You can hear it online for 7 days after the broadcast. More info here.

UPDATE, 12.55pm: It was a great feature - with one bad mistake. The date given at the end for the UK premiere of Das Wunder der Heliane is wrong. Tom says '14 November' and it is actually 21 November. But if you turn up on 14th, you can hear Nikolaj Znaider play the Violin Concerto.

Also, I'm not sure that they made it clear that Korngold's sons George and Ernst are not actually alive - their interview extracts were from archive material which I believe was provided by Brendan. AND nobody mentioned the kick-off events in the QEH Korngoldfest on 27 October: 1.30pm, Barrie Gavin's documentary; 3.30pm, the discussion. Nash Ensemble is after that.

Korngold piece in today's Independent

I have a largish piece about Korngold in today's Independent.

A Korngold rarity - countdown # 2

I found this on Youtube and could hardly believe my eyes/ears. This is from Korngold's mid-1930s Hollywood musical Give Us This Night starring Gladys Swarthout and Jan Kiepura, the great Polish tenor for whom Korngold created the role of The Stranger in Das Wunder der Heliane. Kiepura plays an Italian fisherman who is 'discovered' and transformed into an opera star, singing Romeo to Swarthout's Juliet. Here is the love duet that closes the opera-within-a-film and the film itself. And if you think this is OTT, just wait until you hear Heliane.

I have only ever seen this film once before, on a tiny reel-to-reel machine in the basement of UCLA in 1993. Some of the melodies are so delicious that if Pavarotti had got hold of them they'd have been world famous 20 years ago.

Enjoy.

Korngold countdown begins

The amount of excitement surrounding the forthcoming Korngold celebration at the Southbank is absolutely fantastic. Latest news is that BBC Radio 3 is to feature Korngold in 'Music Matters' on 20 October and will be talking to people who were close to the composer in person; and on 26 October 'In Tune' will be interviewing musicians involved in Korngold Day on 27th, including Anne Sofie von Otter and Bengt Forsberg.

Here's a link to the details of 27th. (Not sure how/why he has been transformed into 'Eric' on this page, since his name is, was and always will be Erich Wolfgang...)

And here are links to the LPO's Korngold Focus concerts:

2 November: Film music, alongside works by Waxman, Newman, Rozsa, Williams etc. Includes the UK premiere of Korngold's 'Tomorrow' from The Constant Nymph. John Wilson conducts.

14 November: Orchestral programme conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, with Nikolai Znaider as soloist in the Violin Concerto. Programme also includes Zemlinsky's Sinfonietta and Shostakovich's Symphony no.6.

21 November: UK premiere of Das Wunder der Heliane, concert performance conducted by Vladimir Jurowski.

And finally, here is Renee Fleming singing 'Ich ging zu ihm' from the Prom on 6 August, on Youtube. Listen, watch and marvel. Heliane lives! (The embedding function is not available for this video.)

Meanwhile in Vienna...

...Opera Chic is having a lorralorra fun. Following on from the more daring inspirations named after Mozart and Tchaikovsky, I hope that the shop she's been frequenting might consider creating a special gadget for the Korngold anniversary? It wouldn't be inappropriate to certain bits of Das Wunder der Heliane...

On a slightly different note, Solti the cat, while somewhat 'indisposed', has discovered some Youtube video footage of Richard Tauber, whose voice conveys the essential spirit of Vienna. And the home movie passage shows him cuddling some lion cubs.

Covent Garden to present UK Korngold premiere

Yes, Die tote Stadt is coming to the Royal Opera House. Not that they're risking trying to stage it themselves; instead they're taking on Willy Decker's production from Salzburg and Vienna. Thanks to Brendan for the tip-off, and to the Unofficial Korngold Website which confirms it and tells us that there will be seven performances, opening on 26 January 2009. Ingo Metzmacher will conduct and the cast is to include Nadia Michael as Marietta, Stephen Gould as Paul and Gerald Finlay as Frank/Pierrot.

Die tote Stadt, as I pointed out in a comment box the other day, has only been performed once before in Britain; in concert; by a non-professional orchestra (the fabulous Kensington Symphony Orchestra and their inspiring, Korngold-friendly conductor Russell Keable). That was a decade ago. Productions? None. This will be the UK staged premiere. I regret that I haven't yet seen this production, but am relieved that they are not taking the one from Zurich a few years ago - with Olaf Baer in high heels and black wings, 'Eurotrash' indeed - or the ghastly thing that was filmed from the Opera du Rhin and that remains the only available DVD of the opera.

Well, folks, it's about time, too. Better late than never.

Read more about the opera in Brendan Carroll's splendid introduction to the New York production, here.

Poor old Erich

Oh dear. I hate writing things like this.

I know Korngold is difficult to play, difficult even to decipher, and can be overwritten etc etc, but still I don't think that's any excuse for what I heard last night.

It purported to be the Sinfonietta that EWK penned at the tender age of 15 and which induced Sibelius to describe the youngster as 'a young eagle'. Of course it's great that they programmed it - but I couldn't think when I last heard a professional orchestra and conductor produce such a dreadful performance of anything.

Most of it went around half the necessary tempi. The balance was non-existent. The dynamic contrasts likewise. Light, shade, colour, ebb, flow, the white-hot energy that flows in Korngold's musical veins, all were spectacular by their absence. Some of the players seemed to be struggling and ensemble didn't really come into it. My companion put it well, saying she was astounded that such non-four-square music could be made to sound - utterly four-square. Korngold normally changes his time signatures and expressive instructions every few bars - flexibility is crucial... The best I can say is that they played it at all.

The culprits? The BBC Concert Orchestra under Barry Wordsworth. One didn't expect the Berlin Philharmonic, of course, but it was depressing, particularly as the concert was well sold and most people there would never have heard the piece before and won't know how beautiful it can be. Besides, Wordsworth is probably the only conductor in Britain who knows the work well, having performed it a number of times at the Royal Ballet for La Ronde. Perhaps it would have been better if he'd decided just before the concert that he didn't believe in it...

Before the interval our friends Philippe Graffin and Raphael Wallfisch did a splendid job with the Miklos Rozsa Sinfonia Concertante and afterwards we all went for a pizza, which was nice.

LPO TO GIVE UK PREMIERE OF KORNGOLD'S 'DAS WUNDER DER HELIANE'

It's true! Korngold's biggest, greatest opera is finally to receive its UK premiere, nearly 80 years after it was written. The London Philharmonic will play, Vladimir Jurowski will conduct, and an all-star cast is headed by Patricia Racette, Michael Hendrick and Andreas Schmidt; supporting roles will be taken by the likes of Willard White, Robert Tear, Ursula Hesse von den Steinen and Andrew Kennedy. Date for the diary: 21 November 2007. Pre-concert talk by a Korngold devotee closer than you think (*blush*). Full details here.

Yesterday the upbeat team of what's now written as the Southbank Centre launched the classical music programme for the reopening season of the spanking newly refurbished Royal Festival Hall. 11 June is the big day; the first 48 hours are all free; and all four resident orchestras - the LPO, the Philharmonia, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the London Sinfonietta - will play together for the very first time (Ravel's Bolero included). There's a tremendous bonanza of world-class music-making to look forward to. I note with tears in my eyes that the Philharmonia lists piano god Radu Lupu among its soloists. He hasn't played at the South Bank since...well, I can't remember. Pollini will be playing two Beethoven concertos with the LPO. The Piano Series includes recitals by Uchida, Brendel, Andsnes and Krystian Zimerman. Violinists include Mutter, Fischer, Kavakos. There's a run of Carmen Jones in the summer, and later there'll be festivals of Nono and of Messiaen for his centenary.

And they are going to do a Korngold anniversary series. A couple of years ago, I realised that 2007 would be the 50th anniversary of EWK's death and decided that someone had to do something, otherwise nothing would happen. Sketched out my Fantasy Football Korngold Festival, took it to the then head of classical music at the South Bank and left it in her capable hands. Cripes - they went for it. I'm still pinching myself in wonder. Of course, the series has evolved from the basic plan, with everyone deciding which pieces to do; and Vladimir himself plumped for Heliane, not Die tote Stadt.

The LPO is doing three Korngold concerts: a film music programme on 2 November conducted by John Wilson, putting his music alongside Steiner, Newman, Rozsa, Williams et al; the Violin Concerto with the glorious Nikolaj Znaider on 14 November, in a programme with Zemlinsky and Shostakovich conducted by Jurowski; and Heliane to culminate. The Korngold series will also feature a day of events on 27 October, with the showing of Barrie Gavin's splendid documentary, a round-table discussion with a panel of exerts (I'll be asking the questions), a chamber concert by the Nash Ensemble and a song recital by Anne Sofie von Otter with that great Korngold champion Bengt Forsberg at the piano.

I'll introduce a Korngold Watch series on this blog as soon as I can, as there are events taking place all over the world. But to the best of my knowledge, ours here in London is one of the biggest. BOX OFFICE IS NOW OPEN: 020 7840 4242 or online via the concert links above.

Please sign this if you like Korngold

I've just discovered that Brendan G Carroll's definitive biography of Korngold, The Last Prodigy, is out of print. As next year is the 50th anniversary of EWK's death and there is going to be A LOT going on to mark the occasion, it seems completely ridiculous that this book, which took Brendan 25 years to write, should be unavailable. It's an invaluable and irreplaceable resource. The Korngold website, run from Athens by another devoted Korngold fan, Eleftherios Neroulias, is carrying an online petition to the publisher, Amadeus Press, begging for the reprint of the book. You can read and sign the petition here.

My own rather more modest book still seems to be in print, but it's no substitute and I am the first to admit that.

Ten years on

I've had a lot of messages recently about Korngold. It's ten years since my biography of him came out (ouch) and next year is the 50th anniversary of his death, so all of this is very timely. Any musicians who want to schedule 50th anniversary celebrations for 2007 should start planning NOW. Ariadne has been zapped by Das Wunder der Heliane and the possibilities offered by a show named Farewell Vienna!; she also offers links to online Korngold forums. At home, my own Tomcat has started learning the Violin Concerto, for reasons best known to himself. A mysterious correspondent from the States is urging me to do a second edition of the book since so much new material has come to light in the past decade.

Keep up the good works, folks. But don't hold your breath for the second edition. I think that the Korngold field needs new voices now. I'm glad to have been part of it, but I feel I have little more to add. The facts are: my book is out of date, Brendan Carroll's is hard to find, and so if anyone else feels it is timely to write a new one, they should get on the case, fast. I for one would applaud that.

Proms news

Oh, I do like to stroll along the Proms Proms Proms...the launch party is one of the schmoozing highlights of the musical calendar. This year's was held at Tate Britain yesterday evening. I had alarming visions of someone missing a step and a glass of wine zooming rather too vigorously towards a priceless Pre-Raphaelite, but it didn't happen; instead everyone seemed very mellow and unusually up-beat. Proms director Nick Kenyon cracked some jokes that actually made people laugh and declared his optimism for the future of classical music: Proms audience figures were up last year, while this year the harnessing of various technologies will make them even more accessible than they are already. The lunchtime chamber music series got too popular for its own good and has been shifted from the V&A museum to the larger Cadogan Hall. Here's the full website for the 2005 BBC Promenade Concerts!

I came the closest I have ever been to embracing 'Old Nick' when I turned to the very last page of the listings. There, under the heading LAST NIGHT OF THE PROMS, I saw a magic word I never expected to see: KORNGOLD. Yes, they are doing Korngold at the Last Night - the suite from The Sea Hawk! And they are starting the second half with it, which means that it will be broadcast live on BBC1 and all over the world to an audience of millions if not billions. It would have been very undignified to turn a cartwheel in the middle of the Proms launch, but I can't say I wasn't tempted.

As if that wasn't enough, Philippe has his Proms debut on 9 August, playing the Coleridge-Taylor Violin Concerto, which, if I'm right, is getting its first Proms airing since its British premiere in 1912. About time too - for both of them. Paul Lewis is also in an overdue spot: he'll be playing Lambert's The Rio Grande on the Last Night, something he was scheduled to do in 2001 but was bumped out by the replacement programme that was put on after September 11.

Otherwise, plenty of goodies to tempt us all to Kensington through the summer: 'themes' include Fairy Tales, especially Andersen (why couldn't they have told me this 6 weeks ago?!), The Sea, the End of the War (they'll be playing Gorecki 3 for the first time) and some Big Stuff including a Royal Opera prom of Die Walkure, complete (and oh my, it stars Placido Domingo and Waltraud Maier). The first night features Tippett's A Child of Our Time. New(ish) works by Turnage, Ades, MacMillan and Sørensen, to name but a few, and prime-time soloists include Leif Ove Andsnes, Christian Tetzlaff, Viktoria Mullova, Manny Ax and Anne Sofie von Otter.

No doubt there'll be complaints from everyone else about why there isn't more of this, that or the other, but I reckon the Proms team, generally speaking, is doing a fantastic job against all the odds.


ADDENDUM: 10pm. I knew it: here we go, here's what Norman Lebrecht has to say about English music or lack of it. And it's a darn good read: I for one never knew that Alan Rawsthorne got together with Constant Lambert's widow... Stormin' Norman asks why everyone else has forgotten about these guys' centenaries falling this year and, of course, blames British orchestras for ignoring them. Isn't it more the case, though, that Certain Bigwig Composers, even long-dead ones, now have entourages rooting for them with guns blazing, while others aren't so lucky? Or didn't build the appropriate power-base while alive? Or upset the wrong people in the wrong way (drinking like a fish and getting sacked for it doesn't help). The truth is that composers need someone to fight their corners.

Getting into Korngold

A Comments note from Ken Nielsen in Oz asks where to start with Korngold. Here we go:

START with the films - Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Deception. You'll probably find you've heard them before, somewhere in your distant past. Next, the Violin Concerto is the best-known orchestral piece: try Gil Shaham with the LSO and Andre Previn. Happy? Now for his best opera, Die tote Stadt, in the recording by Erich Leinsdorf (don't bother with el cheapo Naxos, recorded live in Sweden complete with stage clonkings and swingeing cuts). If you get along with that, move on to Das Wunder der Heliane, the most ambitious of the operas and the work he regarded as his masterpiece - and turn the volume up high! If you can swallow Heliane, you are truly a Korngold person...

In which case, you can gorge happily on all those beautiful but underplayed orchestral works like the Sinfonietta, the Abschiedlieder, the Symphony in F sharp, the Cello Concerto (here with hot young cellist Zuill Bailey), and the Piano Concerto for the left hand (with the glorious Marc-Andre Hamelin); and the songs, gloriously sung by Anne Sofie von Otter (this recording also features some of the chamber music, which is interesting, but not really the best place to begin).

Er, Ken, do I take it you've read my book already? If not, here's the Amazon link...

This is Solti

Solti
Originally uploaded by Duchenj.

It's the silly season, it's Saturday night and as usual I'm home alone because Tom is working, so here is a picture of our cat, Solti - Sir Georg for short. He lives up to his name. He thinks he's the boss. He thinks he's a tiger. We think he's a mobile teddybear with whiskers and, sometimes, claws.

It's warm and muggy here in London. After a hectic patch I've been doing useful things like washing my autumn skirts, buying jeans and trying, rather half-heartedly, to practise Faure.

A propos of ACD's comment on my misuse of the word 'crossover' the other day, I wonder what people made of the use of Mahler 3 in the Olympic opening ceremony yesterday? Despite the symbolism of the half-nude dancer on the sugarcube suspended above all that water, which according to the BBC commentator was 'man becomes a logical, spiritual being in quest of knowledge', it is still only a major sporting event that can expose Mahler 3 via TV to an audience of 4 billion. With my naive facility for being wonder-struck, I was blown away by the whole thing and am thoroughly in favour of Mahler being aired in this way, which goodness knows he deserves. The rest of the summer is going to be deathly, with nothing on TV except sport, sport and more sport. Honest to goodness, the BBC had nothing better to do today than show the HUNGARIAN Grand Prix. Excuse me while I vote with the red button at the top and take up a good book instead.

Speaking of good books, my Vilnius thoughts were reawakened today by a conversation with the editor of the Jewish Quarterly, for whom I've written a substantial article about the trip (yes, the editor of the JQ is prepared to work on a Saturday and so, mercifully, am I!). I am now reading The Pianist, Wladyslaw Szpilman's memoirs on which the film was based - immensely harrowing. But not nearly as harrowing as the book that Philippe gave me for my birthday last year, 'The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania' - an 800-page tome of the diary kept by Herman Kruk, a librarian in the Vilna ghetto chronicling, day by day, moment by moment, the descent into destruction, horror and death of 90 per cent of entire community during the Second World War. Kruk, too, was eventually shot. Just before, anticipating his fate, he had buried the manuscript of his diaries in the presence of six witnesses, one of whom later dug them up; they constitute a horrendously vital document.

Oh my, there is a series about Stalin on Channel 4. I shall now go and watch a programme about Soviet genocide...


PS - I've been tinkering with my list of Musician Friends, deciding to limit it to those who have been round to dinner and/or invited us to their place, or with whom we have good intentions about getting together socially if they and we can ever find a moment when we're in the same place at the same time. I've also put the list into alphabetical order, since it was previously random and "there's some as might take their placing amiss". At some point I'll get round to making a list of Musicians I Think Are Interesting, to restore the casualties of these decisions.

Deconstructing Faure

I've set to work on the piano part of the Faure A major violin sonata. (Yes, Faure does have an acute accent, but my browser can't deal with it.) This was one of the pieces that got me into Faure when I was still a student. I got obsessed with several of Faure's chamber works, one at a time; this one took over from the C minor piano quartet. I was given a recording of it by Thibaut and Cortot and listened to it every day for about two months. Eventually I had to get it out of my system, so - unbeknownst to my piano teacher, who didn't really approve of chamber music - I practised it until blue in the face, then press-ganged an unsuspecting violinist into playing it with me. Sixteen years later, I'm at it again. Tom and I are planning to play it in our next recital, which will be in Borough Bridge, North Yorkshire, later in the autumn.

The A major sonata goes like the wind, or ought to. It surges along on waves of ecstasy and elan. It's Faure in love. Honest to goodness, he was in the full flood of a passionate attachment to Marianne Viardot, daughter of the great opera singer Pauline Viardot, and hoped to marry her. The sonata is dedicated to her violinist brother, Paul. The year the sonata was finished, 1877, Faure finally got Marianne to accept his proposal, but she later broke it off. It seems that his ardour frightened her away.

All of that ardour goes into the A major sonata - a bittersweet irony, too, in that its passion seems to be a ferment of white-hot anticipation for a love which was never to be fulfilled. (Faure was heartbroken after Marianne dumped him, but then discovered that there were plenty of other women in Paris who were more than happy to say yes to many things where he was concerned. After his eventual marriage to Marie Fremiet, he became one of those notorious French charmers who across many generations have misinterpreted Marie-Antoinette as having said 'Let them have their cake and eat it'.)

The task facing me here in 2004 is how to get to grips with the flurry of notes that convey these surges of ecstasy. A glance at the metronome marks nearly gave me a heart attack; fortunately Roy Howat's edition for Peters suggests slightly more humane ones. Amazingly, after 16 years, this piece is still somewhere in my fingers - not like starting from scratch at an age when the brain cells are dying off scarily fast. But there's nothing terribly ecstatic about it at the moment. It's a question of practising those pages of rippling quavers for hours, varying the rhythm to develop control on each note, steadying the pulse with a metronome, trying to keep the left hand quiet and let the right hand sing though not enough to obscure the violin (who will take all the credit as per usual). And so on and so forth. If, somewhere in the heart, Faure's ardour can survive the hard slog, then it can survive anything.

Korngold rides again

Opened The Guardian this morning to find a massive article about Erich Wolfgang Korngold and his two finest operas, Die tote Stadt and Das Wunder der Heliane, staring back at me. By Martin Kettle! Not a moment too soon, EWK's going mainstream. There's a new production of Die tote Stadt in Berlin, which seems to have prompted this latest article, and the year 2007 will mark the 50th anniversary of his death and the 110th anniversary of his birth. Read Martin's article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/fridayreview/story/0,12102,1167046,00.html

Someone needs to do something about the anniversary. Lots of people need to do lots of things. Most of all, someone needs to stage Die tote Stadt in Britain. In its illustrious lifetime, this absolute bloody masterpiece has received just one concert performance in Britain - by the Kensington Symphony Orchestra, essentially a bunch of highly talented amateur musicians (extremely good it was too!). Last year I badgered Glyndebourne about it for all I was worth, only to receive the rather glum outlook that the orchestra pit probably isn't big enough.

Come on, ENO, come on, Covent Garden, what are you waiting for?