Uncle Rudolf (2002): Paul Bailey

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★★★½

At a dinner party a couple of weeks ago, I ended up sitting next to another keen reader. He listened indulgently to my pitch about why he should go and read Dorothy Dunnett right now, and then not only made a recommendation of his own but actually gave me the book there and then. I’ve always thought it’s rather brave to do that after only a couple of hours’ acquaintance, but since I’d also mentioned the whole Baroque opera side of things, he said he thought I’d click with this. And he was right. I picked it up the other night, when I had a little time before going to bed and, to my surprise, simply couldn’t put the book down until I’d finished it. It isn’t all that long – 184 pages – and its atmosphere draws you into an elegiac bubble of a world which is best savoured all in one go.

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Rameau: Maître à danser

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Rameau: Maître à danser

★★★★

(Les Arts Florissants at the Barbican, 18 November 2014)

It’s the Christmas holiday: a chance to escape from London and retreat to the countryside: time for family, log fires, games of charades, and hopefully a chance to work on my overdue posts. This seemed a good place to start. Conceived as a tribute to the French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) , this was my first introduction to Baroque ballet, which played such a crucial role in early operas and entertainments. It was a real feast for the eyes – and even more rewarding because I was able to see yet another Baroque legend live on stage: the doyen of French early music, William Christie himself.

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Tristan und Isolde (1865): Richard Wagner

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Wagner: Tristan und Isolde

★★★★

(Royal Opera House, London, 14 December 2014)

I ended up at Tristan by accident, if such a thing is possible. Shortly after I’d seen Poppea at the Barbican and Giulio Cesare on DVD, I was enthusing to my opera buddy about how marvellous Sarah Connolly was. She said that Connolly would be at the Royal Opera House this December. Would I like to go to see her? ‘Hell, yes!’ I said. Then my friend mentioned the catch. Connolly was singing in Wagner’s Tristan. Five hours of psychologically intense angst including a forty-minute love duet. In German.

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Max Emanuel Cencic: Venezia

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Venezia: Max Cencic

(Wigmore Hall, with Il Pomo d’Oro and Riccardo Minasi, 12 December 2014)

First I must apologise for the recent hiatus in my posting. For the last few weeks life has been little more than an extraordinary barrage of events that finally came to a head this week in surreal but glorious fashion. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Now it’s all over and I can slowly get back into my normal rhythm again. There are lots of things that have been going on which I’d love to share with you in due course. And I’m going to kick off with the most recent and the most exhilarating.

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Rembrandt: The Late Works (2014-15)

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Rembrandt: Self Portrait

(National Gallery, London, until 18 January 2015)

The National Gallery is currently playing host to another winter blockbuster. Rembrandt might not be quite as unbearably crowded as the Leonardo show was a couple of years back, but I’ve heard that queues are still snaking around the building before opening time. A few days ago I was lucky enough to see the exhibition at a relatively quiet time and it made for a gripping and illuminating experience. There’s a lot to see, which isn’t always a good thing when you have to elbow your way past other visitors, but it’s worth a visit for the sheer quality of the exhibits. The highlights for most people will be the paintings, which are deservedly celebrated, but for me the greatest legacy of the exhibition will be a better appreciation of Rembrandt’s achievements, daring and creativity as a printmaker.

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The Soldier of Raetia (2009): Heather Domin

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★★★½

Valerian’s Legion: Book I

This was an automatic recommendation from Goodreads, which clearly leapt to certain conclusions about my reading preferences based on the large number of books I own by Mary Renault. However, as has happened before, their suggestion hit the mark. Domin writes beautifully, creating rich and believable characters, and succeeds in giving the flavour of an historical period without overloading the exposition and research. I’d never have stumbled across her book by myself and, even if I had, I might’ve (unfairly) been a little cautious because, when I read it, it had only been published digitally. In that case, I would have missed a rather lovely novel. It was a very pleasant surprise; and I’m pleased to hear there’s a sequel in the works about the same characters.

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Idomeneo (1780): Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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Mozart: Idomeneo

★★★

(Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 3-24 November 2014)

The one with the shark

There’s something rather exciting about going to see a production which has divided opinion as starkly as this new staging of Mozart’s Idomeneo. There has been at least one one-star review and one five-star review, but most critics seem to come down somewhere in the middle, struggling in a sea of interesting ideas which never quite come together. I sympathise with them. There were certain things I liked very much and some things I found self-indulgent and silly, but my overall impression was that it was a mixture of promising concepts which lacked the Promethean spark to bring them to life.

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Original Scores: Le Malade Imaginaire: Molière (1673)

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The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

★★★

(Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

Last Monday I ventured away from my usual theatrical fare of blood-soaked Jacobean vengeance and tried something a little different. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment are performing some candlelit concerts in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse this season, based around the concept of ‘original scores’. They present incidental music which was composed for early theatrical performances, originally intended to accompany ballets or intermezzi. This music is almost always stripped out of modern productions, leaving us with the bare unadorned text and, perhaps, depriving us of some of the subtleties which the playwright originally intended.

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Giovanni Battista Moroni (2014-15)

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Moroni: Portrait of a Tailor

(Royal Academy, London, until 25 January 2015)

He’s a familiar sight in the National Gallery. A young tailor has been distracted in the middle of his work. Resting his scissors on the table for a moment he glances up, as if you’ve just wandered into his workroom, half-inquisitive, half-challenging. His clothes are simple but well-made, showing off his craft: his cream doublet is elaborately pinked and finely-detailed lace peeks out at collar and cuffs. In a moment his assessing gaze will shade into something more specific: a frown at being disturbed, perhaps, or a welcoming smile, but for now he’s captured in that split second where everything is still possible: a moment of infinite potential.

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