LA FILLE DU REGIMENT – REVIEW OF ROYAL OPERA, COVENT GARDEN, PRODUCTION

PATRIZIA CIOFI AS MARIE, PIETRO SPAGNOLI AS SULPICE PINGOT © ROH / CATHERINE ASHMORE

 Reviewed by James Karas

Watching La Fille du Regiment at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, I was struck by the similarities between opera and Olympic figure skating. You see the handsome couple glide around the ice surface, leap gracefully in the air, twirl several times and land as if they were snowflakes falling to the ground.

We enjoy all of it but most attention is paid to those difficult moves, those twirls and those landings. One mistake and farewell medal contention.

La Fille has broad comedy, splendid music and some of the toughest arias in the repertoire. Donizetti was not satisfied with just a work of melodies and comic business – he wanted vocal gymnastics. What else would you call nine high Cs in one aria alone?

In the current production, as in the Olympics, there is stiff competition. In this case it is Canada v. Peru. You will recall, the Canadian pair of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir giving a breathtaking performance at Sochi. With utter objectivity, good faith and sound judgment, we expected them to win gold. They were pitch perfect in their singing …er …skating, got all the high notes (OK, there were a couple of booboos, but the others were worse) and in the end Canada ended up with silver.

The tenor in La Fille who belted out the nine high Cs for the first four performances of the current revival of Laurent Pelly’s production was Peruvian superstar Juan Diego Flórez. For the final two performances, the role was sung by Canadian tenor Frédéric Antoun. Like most of the Canadian team at Sochi, Antoun is a Quebecois. The Peruvian has sung the role of Tonio umpteen times, in fact he sang it at the Met in 2008 and that performance was broadcast around the world as part of the Met’s Live in HD series. The audience could not stop applauding at the time. It was like watching those Russian gymnasts who dominate that sport as if they own it.

Antoun was making his debut at Covent Garden and one could compare the standoff between Canada and Peru like a David and Goliath match of the vocal chords. Before we get to the singing pyrotechnics, the defining twirls in the air, so to speak, we listen with pleasure to Antoun skating around his notes with grace, and beauty. We notice that his partner Marie (soprano Patrizia Ciofi) has a big and marvelous voice. She brings energy and vocal resonance to a delightful Marie. Her voice is just a bit bigger than our Canadian hero’s.

We arrive at the crucial test of the high Cs in Tonio’s first act aria “Pour mon âme” and hold our breath. Will Canada best Peru? With poise and ease, Antoun leaps once, twice … nine times and does not miss a single beat. The audience, those relentless judges, roars its approval. In the medals ceremony, alas, as happened to Tessa and Scott the gold medal went to the Peruvian. As gracious Canadians, we accept the result but do not give up.

La Fille, as its name states, contains a regiment and Choreographer Laura Scozzi has created dance routines and comic business around Donizetti’s boisterous music.

Contralto Ewa Podleś played La Marquise de Berkenfeld. She is a crusty old woman and Podleś enjoyed showing off her low notes and indeed getting a laugh out of them. That is what a good singer/actor does in a comic opera – sing well and evoke laughter.

Pietro Spagnoli has better vocal power than comic talent, or at least he was not allowed to display the latter. Pelly had him play more a straight man than a broadly comic character.

Dame Kiri te Kanawa made a cameo appearance as La Duchesse de Crackentorp. She did some vocalizing, sang an aria, did some comic business and the audience loved her. She just turned 70 and nothing other than appreciation and applause are called for.

The set by Chantal Thomas consisted of indications of a mountainous area covered by maps in the first act and wood-paneled opulence in the second act.

Pelly moved the action from the Napoleonic Wars to World War I. The reason escapes me. War as fun and glory never existed but one is more ready to accept it as myth in the Tyrolean Alps of two hundred years ago than in the trenches of the Great War one hundred years ago. Christian Räth was the revival director.    

Despite the World War I setting, including a tank, this is a thoroughly enjoyable production be it with Flores or Antoun.

But one of my convictions is absolute and unshakeable: Tessa and Scott should have gotten the gold medal at the Olympics. As for Juan Diego, it won’t be too long before Canada produces a tenor who will consider nine high Cs in an aria as a mere warm up. And the Maple Leafs will win the Stanley Cup!

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La Fille du Regiment by Gaetano Donizetti was performed six times between March 3 and 18, 2014 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London. www.roh.org.uk

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UN BALLO IN MASCHERA - REVIEW OF LJUBLJANA PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

As the curtain goes up on Un Ballo in Maschera in Ljubljana, we see a huge staircase with three landings occupying almost the entire stage. We are listening to the overture as eight men dressed in white military uniforms emerge furtively from trapdoors in various areas of the stairs. They have their pistols out and are looking for someone. They reach the bottom of the stairs, find a chair and as they point their guns, notice that it is empty. They disperse as the overture ends.

This is the dramatic curtain-raiser that Director Vinko Möderndorfer and Set Designer Branko Hojnik have devised for Ballo. They want to emphasize the conspiratorial aspect of the opera where a few men can collude in the murder a ruler. More about this later.

Möderndorfer and dramaturge Blaž Lukan have brought the plot to a modern setting with a powerful civic leader, Riccardo, rather than an Earl or a King as in the original and revised versions. In the original version, the main character was a Swedish king but a hypersensitive censor forced Verdi to make him the Earl of Warwick, Governor of Boston, where it was presumably more acceptable to murder a high-ranking official.

The production has several alternate casts but I saw the opening night performers on March 13, 2014. Two singers stood out: tenor Branko Robinšak as Riccardo and soprano Natalia Ushakova as Amelia.

Robinšak has a marvelous lyric voice and he handled the role of Riccardo with ease. He has to be generous, passionate and remorseful as he pursues illicitly but ardently his friend’s wife (wearing the mask of a friend, of course) and gives her up with her virtue intact. Robinšak shows vocal flair and gives us a fine Riccardo.

Ushakova makes a moving and very effective Amelia. She was fine throughout but rose to the heights in “Morró, ma prima in grazia,” her emotional aria where she begs her furious husband Renato to let her see her son before he kills her for her suspected infidelity.

Baritone Jože Vidic seemed to be doing a workmanlike job as Renato until Act III where in “Eri bu che macchiavi” he bursts out with such passion and marvelous singing that his performance becomes anything but workmanlike. The joy of his life loathsomely poisoned everything and Renato expresses the ultimate loss of his life through the treachery of those he loved most: his wife and his dearest friend. 

The sorceress Ulrica emerges from the crevice between the divided stairs and looks as if she is materializes from the underworld. The stage is darkened and the conspirators lurk ominously around the stage. Slovenian mezzo soprano Mirjam Kalin looks very dramatic and acts as such but her singing was not as convincing.

The conspiratorial appearance of the officers led by Samuel (Saša Čano) and Tom (Peter Martinčič) during the overture gives way to the brilliant scene in the court or residence of Riccardo. Almost everyone is wearing white and it is a brilliant scene. For the second scene, the stairs are pulled apart in the centre, as I said, creating a dark path through which Ulrica enters. It is a dark, mysterious and dramatic scene.

The same stairs are moved to the side to create the grisly execution area where Amelia goes looking for the magic herb to kill her illicit love for Riccardo. About a dozen or so decaying corpses are lowered on the stage making the place indeed gruesome. The final scene is the masked ball where the colour red is emphasized, including the uniforms of the conspirators. Again, a brilliant tableau.

Against the usual advice about not putting children or animals on stage, Möderndorfer puts a child on stage (Amelia’s son) who is cute and steals the scene. When the men must choose who will kill Riccardo, they put their names in a toy truck. The little is asked to draw a name and he picks his father as the killer. A terrific and imaginative touch.

Conductor Marko Gašperšič took a very deliberate approach to the score and the small orchestra performed well.

Möderndorfer took possession of Ballo and gave us a fresh, imaginative, effective and exceptional production.

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Un Ballo in Maschera by Giuseppe Verdi opened on March 13 and continues until March 25, 2014 at the SNG Opera in balet, Ljubljana, Slovenia. www.opera.si

BARBER OF SEVILLE - REVIEW OF LA FENICE PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Director Bepi Morassi gives an energetic and well-sung production of Il Barbiere di Siviglia at Venice’s Teatro La Fenice. The sets are kept to a minimum but spirits are high, the singing is generally excellent and the orchestra of La Fenice is in superb form.

Morassi and Set Designer Lauro Crisman have draped off the top and sides of the stage, lopping off about a third of the playing area. This gives the effect of a miniature theatre and the feel that you are watching a delightful play in intimate surroundings. The relatively small and ornate La Fenice helps in creating and sustaining the impression.

The set for the opening street scene where Count Almaviva (Giorgio Misseri) courts the beautiful Rosina (Marina Comparato) is sparse and almost papier mâché in keeping with the miniature theatre idea. The reduced playing area means that the set for the rest of the opera is also limited but elegant.

That sets the stage for opera buffo fun. Tenor Misseri’s approach to his role is not just lively, it is downright athletic. Not just physically, I mean vocally as well. He does not just hit his high notes, he leaps to them with fervor.

He is well-partnered by South Korean baritone Julian Kim as Figaro. In keeping with Morassi’s approach, the youthful Kim attacked the role of the wily barber with vigour and relish and sang superbly. “Largo al factotum” and largo al Julian Kim.

Italian mezzo-soprano Marina Comparato sang the lively and lovely Rosina. Comparato has a lush voice with a beautiful mid-range and an amazing low register. Fair enough that with that type of range, she is not at her best with high notes. But she is and amazing mezzo in the middle and lower registers. And as the decisive, self-assured and I-get-what-I-want young lady, she is just the type of girl you want to love.

The opera is a non-stop conveyor of melodious arias, ensembles and comedy but there are two set pieces that I wait especially to see: Rosina’s “Una voce poco fa” and the Music Lesson. “Una voce” defines Rosina’s character and the singer’s ability to handle all of Rossini’s embellishments. Here Comparato was not at her best when she had to deal with those high notes.

The Music Lesson is full of comedy and melody as the two lovers furtively express their feelings, sing beautifully and fool Bartolo as to what they are really up to. Delightful.

In Bartolo Basilio and Berta, Rossini provides three relatively minor but very juicy roles. Each is provided with comic business so necessary to the opera and an opportunity to show off their vocal dexterity.

Baritone Omar Montanari is Rosina’s foolish guardian Bartolo who wants to marry her. The old boob (Bartolo, not Montanari who seems quite young) is set up as the butt of the romantic liaison between Rosina and Almaviva. Montanari is very adept as a comic and as a singer.

Bass-baritone Luca Dall’Amico is Bartolo’s sidekick, Basilio. The tall singer with his flaxen hair in the role reminded me of Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Sir Toby’s sidekick in Twelfth Night. Dall’Amico gets to sing “La calumnia,” one of the famous arias in the opera and the repertoire and he handles the crescendos with aplomb. He also does his comic business well.      

    

Bartolo’s maid Berta is given some comic business and a nice aria, “Il vecchiotto cerca moglie,” and soprano Giovanna Donadini does well in both.

Giovanni Battista Rigon conducted the Teatro La Fenice Orchestra with verve and every crescendo got its due in a splendid afternoon at the opera.

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Il Barbiere di Siviglia  by Gioachino Rossini is being performed eight times bteween Feebruary 20 and March 20, 2014 at the Teatro La Fenice, Venice.

  

MEDEA - REVIEW OF THEATRE LAB PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Hammersmith is nowhere near Ancient or Modern Athens but that is where you have to go to see one of the finest productions of Greek tragedy. Director Anastasia Revi has captured all the essential elements of Athenian drama in her recreation of Medea, a production that takes some liberties with the text but remains fundamentally faithful to Euripides’s play.

Ancient tragedy contained music, singing and dancing in addition to the script or libretto, if you will. Except for the few scripts that have been miraculously saved, we know precious little of how the plays were in fact produced and why Athenians went to the theatre in the pre-dawn hours by the tens of thousands.

Revi provides her personal view and it is convincing and brilliant. Her Medea is a gypsy who married a Greek. A gypsy is, of course, a foreigner, an outsider as was Euripides’s Medea who came from the eastern shore of the Black Sea (think of Sochi) when she fell in love with Jason who just stole the Golden Fleece.

Revi’s production opens with a wedding. A young man is pawing his bride, the bridesmaids are having fun and an older man is enjoying the event as well. Above them all is a woman dressed in black with her back turned to the party. We hear melodious and pleasant Mediterranean music.

None of this is in the play but it fits completely as a prologue. Then the Nurse (Helen Bang) speaks the first lines of Euripides’s play in the excellent translation of Ian Johnson. We quickly learn that the groom of the prologue is Jason (Tobias Deacon) getting married to Glauce (Denise Moreno). The other man is her father King Creon (George Siena).

Jason is already married to Medea and they have two sons. His marriage to a foreigner is not valid and he is marrying the daughter of the king for obvious reasons. Medea is quite angry, to use an understatement.

Glauce does not appear in Euripides play but Revi adds her without disturbing the integrity of the play. She appears again in her wedding veil when the Messenger is describing her hideous death. She acts out the description of her death in a brilliant coup de théâtre by Revi.

Revi tightens up the play by doing away with the Tutor and giving some of his lines to the Nurse and having the children appear only imaginatively. They are made quite real by Medea walking on stage with their shoes strung around her neck after she murdered them. Another brilliant directorial touch.

Because of the long choral passages and speeches, Greek drama can easily descend into static and often boring recitatives. Revi will have none of that. The play is choreographed from simple body movements of the Chorus of three young women, to more complex dances. When Jason visits Medea, the scene becomes one of sexual passion and erotic dancing using two folding tables as props. It explains what brought the Greek and the gypsy together.

Medea becomes almost raving mad as she plots the death of Glauce and the murder of her children. As she crouched on the floor filled with grief for her children, we hear a gorgeous obbligato sung in Modern Greek. One can barely make it out but it is a nanourisma, a lullaby that a mother would sing to her children when putting them to bed.

Kaminsky plays a brilliant Medea. She is not a young woman in contrast well with Glauce, her replacement who is young and pretty. This Medea is passionate, cunning, angry and full of hatred. She speaks with an accent that I can only describe as Mediterranean but she slides out of it during her more dramatic moments. We are so enthralled with what she is doing, we hardly notice it.

Deacon is a playboy Jason. He has to do what he has to do but he will never forget Medea and his children, he tells us. He does have a very dramatic scene when he finds out their fate and does a fine job in Revi’s view of the character.

George Siena plays Creon, the Messenger and Aegeus and does a very good job. Helen Bang is equally good as the Nurse.

The Chorus (Denise Munro, Laura Morgan and Charlotte Gallagher) comes in for special praise both for the performances of the three women and the conception of Revi. They provide movement and poetry and, as I said, solve one of the major issues of producing Greek drama.

The music and musicians deserve special mention and praise. The music of Daemonia Nymphe (Spyros Giasafakis and Evi Stergiou) forms an essential part of the production. We are not talking about a few dissonant chords at lengthy intervals but music that is an essential part of the production.

If you have solved the delivery of text, the choral and musical aspects of a Greek tragedy, you have gone a long way into grasping what those early risers may have seen on the foothills of the Acropolis in 431 B.C.         

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Medea  by Euripides in a translation by Ian Johnson opened on March 7 and will play until March 22, 2014 at the Riverside Studios, Crisp Street, Hammersmith, London, England. www.theatrelab.co.uk

TWELVE ANGRY MEN – REVIEW OF REGINALD ROSE PLAY AT GARRICK THEATRE

 

Reviewed by James Karas

One benchmark for the quality of a play or of a production is how much you can enjoy the second or third time you read or see the work. This is even more critical when you know the play well and whose dramatic effect depends to a significant extent on not knowing how it will end.

Anyone who has seen the film version or a stage production of Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men will recall that it is about twelve jurors who must decide the guilt or innocence of a young black boy who stabbed his father. Eleven of them, gathered in a sweltering jury room in New York, have no doubt about the guilt of the accused and are quite prepared to send him to the electric chair. One juror has some questions that he wants clarified.

The result is an explosive drama that comes down to a dramatic resolution in the last minutes of the play. If you do not know the jury’s final decision, you are in for a treat. If you do know it, you will still experience a searing drama as if you had never seen the play before. That is the effect of the current production at the Garrick Theatre in London.

Twelve Angry Men started as a TV script but was re-written for the stage in 1955 and, in addition to the superb drama, it gives a snapshot of American society of that era. Some people may say that very little has changed.

Juror 8, played by Marty Shaw, (the characters have no names – just numbers and it can be annoying) is a gruff-looking but soft-spoken architect who has some questions about the guilt or innocence of the accused. He does not express doubts nor is he prepared to vote “not guilty” before he gets some answers. Shaw holds a steady hand on the wheel through some very stormy waters and his performance stands out for its boldness, sagacity and intelligence.

The opposite of Juror 8 is Juror 3 (Jeff Fahey) who is irascible, passionate and a threatening bully who may explode into violence. He gives us a key to his emotional outbursts and unshakeable convictions at the beginning of the play but we probably miss it. Fahey as the juror, standing tall and indomitable will stop at nothing to get a conviction. The knife that the murderer stuck in the victim’s chest is felt by Number 3 as if it were driven in his own heart. I will not spoil it for those who do not know the story but Fahey’s performance is one of the most powerful and emotionally charged that I have seen in a long time.

There are jurors who make their points quietly, others who are flashy and shallow but as a group most of them show a real concern for justice. The one who brings some unintended clarity and provides an emotional peak (one of several) is Juror 10 (Miles Richardson). When he becomes exhausted and emotionally drained from the lengthy arguments, he bursts out with his diseased and disgusting bigotry. Blacks are taking over his racist America and they do not deserve any consideration. This is racist America fully exposed and extent and depth of this juror’s evil awakens some of the others whose judgment was at least subconsciously clouded by the colour of the accused’s skin. A superb performance by Richardson.

Robert Vaughn, old, gray-haired and wearing a bowtie appears a Juror 9. He says relatively little but represents the type of patience and rational thinking that jury panels require.

The jurors represent a cross-section of white American society. The salesman (Nick Moran), the blue-collar worker (Robert Blythe), the advertising executive (Owen O’Neill), the foreign-accented immigrant and watch-maker from Europe (Martin Turner), the hospital worker who grew up in the slums and knows something about switchblades (Ed Franklin), the stock broker (Paul Anthony-Barber), the successful businessman (Jeff Fahey), the shy and indecisive clerk (David Calvitto), the football coach (Luke Shaw).

Even if you have seen the play before, this production, masterfully directed by Christopher Haydon and acted by a first-rate cast, will stimulate, infuriate and confuse you. And that is what theatre is supposed to do, isn’t it.

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Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose opened on November 11, 2013 and continues at The Norman Conquests (2013)
Photos by Cylla von Tiedemann

The Garrick Theatre, 2 Charing Cross Road, London WC2.  Tel: 0844 579 1974

BEING SHAKESPEARE – REVIEW OF SIMON CALLOW PERFORMANCE

Simon Callow in Being Shakespeare Photo: Alastair Muir

Reviewed by James Karas

Simon Callow provides a couple of very pleasant hours of theatre with his one-man show Being Shakespeare at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London.

The show is written by renowned Shakespeare scholar Jonathan Bate and directed by Tom Cairns. Bate structures the programme around Jaques’ speech in As You Like It which is referred to as “The Seven Ages of Man” or “All the World’s a Stage.”

Callow has a marvelous voice and an impeccable delivery of poetry and it was a delight listening to some biographical and historical information about Shakespeare and his times and, of course, hearing some lines from the plays, the sonnets and the poems.

Callow starts with the infant “mewling and puking” and informs us that Shakespeare coined that colourful word for bringing up. Shakespeare was raised very much by his mother, we are told, he wore dresses and his father had very little to do with his upbringing.

Shakespeare attended the local grammar school, a new idea in public education at the time, where he learned grammar, rhetoric and Latin and not much else. Was he a whining school boy with a shining face creeping unwillingly like a snail to Stratford’s new educational establishment? We will never know but there is no doubt that what he learned there stood him extremely well as a writer for the rest of his life.

We know something about the lover who got Anne Hathaway pregnant and had to marry her in a hurry. As to whether he sighed like a furnace, with a woeful ballad
made to her eyebrow, we can only guess at.

After marriage come children, acting, writing and success but where was he for all those years that we know nothing about?

Being an actor, Callow is very interested in Shakespeare’s acting career and even more so in his advice to actors. Henry V’s speech to his soldiers and Hamlet’s advice to the players are in effect acting lessons.

Callow tells the story of the Earl of Essex offering Shakespeare’s company forty shillings to perform Richard II and add a few lines that will hopefully foment rebellion. The company had not done the play for a while but the offer of twenty thousand pounds in today’s money convinced them to learn their lines quickly.

The play went on, the rebellion got nowhere and Essex, Shakespeare’s patron Southampton and their followers were arrested, as were the actors. The latter could have been charged with treason and beheaded but they got off because they were believed when they said they were just trying to make a living.

 

All the ages lead inevitably to the last scene of all, that ends Shakespeare’s and everybody else’s strange eventful history. When he died at age 52 in his home town, almost no attended his funeral. Francis Beaumont, a second-rate playwright who died around the same time in London, got almost a state funeral.

Callow is a first-rate Shakespearean and, as I said, you get resonant recitations, some facts and a very good night at the theatre.  

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Being Shakespeare by Jonathan Bate played from February 26 to March 15, 2014 at the Harold Pinter Theatre, Panton St, London, SW1Y 4DN.

RODELINDA – REVIEW OF ENO PRODUCTION OF HANDEL

 

Reviewed by James Karas

Abduction, usurpation, treachery, attempted murder are the staples of opera and all of them can be found in George Frideric Handel’s Rodelinda. But this is opera seria, 1725 vintage, and truth to tell, it can be very static.

Director Richard Jones will have none of that. His production for the English National Opera at the London Coliseum has splendid singing and a plot that moves like a gangster picture. Forget the ornate palace and the magnificent attire that these royals and would-be royals are entitled to. Jones moves the action to the 20^th century with some realistic and some surreal elements.

All the characters wear dark clothes, suits for the men, long gowns for the women. I choose to think of the plot as a turf war in an organized crime family but it may just be a film noir about gangsters. Grimoaldo (John Mark Ainsley) has usurped the throne/territory of Bertarido (Iestyn Davies) and is lusting after his wife Rodelinda (Rebecca Evans). Grimoaldo is already engaged to Bertarido’s sister Eduige (Susan Bickley).

Grimoaldo’s henchman Garibaldo (Richard Burkhard) advises him to dump Eduige. Grimoaldo does and Garibaldo forms and alliance with her in his bid for power. We also have Unulfo (Christopher Ainslie) who works for Grimoaldo but secretly supports Bertarido. And that’s just the beginning.   

Handel has provided music and vocal parts to delight any audience. But the arias and duets can be sung in front of a single set in the palace with the singers’ feet nailed to the floor. The opera can almost be performed as a concert piece. Jones and Set Designer have created a multi-faceted set that allows for movement and fluidity. In the third act, for example, the stage is divided into six separate sections including a holding cell, a corridor, an office and a couple of other rooms for the good and the bad characters to wander through.

Some of the men carry daggers stuck in the front of their pants which I found rather surreal. When Grimoaldo is tempted to murder Bertarido he is provided with a sledge hammer, a torch and a huge sword. There is also a detonator used to blow up Bertarido’s monument and some use of video projections. In other words, there is no lack of activity in this production.

 

That in no way detracts from the essential character of the opera or diminishes the music and singing that are the hallmark of its greatness. Soprano Rebecca Evans is superb in the title role. She has some gorgeously affecting solos and duets that she performs with emotion and vocal finesse.

She is well-matched by countertenor Davies who, like Rodelinda, gets some of the finest arias and duets in the opera. His trills, his smooth transitions, the sheer beauty of his voice are simply a delight for the ear.

Kudos to countertenor Christopher Ainslie as Unulfo, the other nice guy in the opera. He displayed beauty of tone and singing to a very high degree.   

With mezzo soprano Susan Bickley as Eduige the voices go lower as the moral standards of the characters decrease. Not Bickley’s singing, I hasten to add.

The lower voices of baritone Burkhard and tenor Ainsley represent the villains and I was not as happy with them. Beside the countertenors, they did not sound as satisfactory and they certainly could not handle some of the trills as well. I may be unfair to compare them to the different voice ranges but there it is.

Christian Curnyn conducted the orchestra to gorgeous effect. The opera is sung in English in this new coproduction with the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia.
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Rodelinda by George Frideric Handel opened on February 28 and will be performed eight times until March 15, 2014 at the London Coliseum, St. Martin’s Lane, London. www.eno.org Box office: 020 7845 9300