• I go to the Coliseum - I love the Coliseum for its stunning acoustics – for Deborah Warner's take on Handel's Messiah, accompanied by a friend.
• As one would expect of the ENO, the singing is breathtaking (esp Sophie Bevan & Brindley Sherratt), so is the orchestra.
• What the staging lacks in subtlety it makes up for in fake blood. My companion was disappointed that the Hallelujah chorus was a tad underpowered & that it looked like a corporate golfing weekend. I thought it was more like a Barmitzvah, what with everyone shaking hands and, apparently, congratulating each other.
• Some people came out moved to tears, but I wasn't the only one giggling when, to the lyric ' The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised, the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed ' Ms Bevan got up from the hospital bed, where she had recently died (she had a drip and a sheet over her face), looked around, and someone came over & gave her some flowers & a cardi. And all the rest of the chorus got up from the perspex plinths on which they'd being lying (dead), with expressions on their faces that clearly read 'Oooh! Look at me. I'm risen incorruptible.'
• Meanwhile, Ms Bevan put her cardi over her hospital gown. And lo. She was changed!
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