After all, who doesn’t want to ‘go to the ball’ at the moment? Williams’ Tiggerish cry, “Yes! Thank you! That’s how to get a party started.” seemed slightly out of tune with Wigglesworth’s insight.Īct 2 of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel took us from dreams fulfilled to darkness threatening.
Wigglesworth balanced frivolity with sensitivity in impressive fashion: Cinderella is the perfect fairy-tale for sad times – acknowledging hardship, promising fulfilment of one’s dreams.
The camerawork offered a rare glimpse of the close working and dynamics of the pit. The ROH Orchestra got things underway with the Overture to Rossini’s La Cenerentola: colours were finely distinguished (some terrifically shapely playing from the woodwind was especially noteworthy), rhythms were razor sharp and amid the fizz of those ‘Rossini crescendos’, here perfectly gradated, the sentimental moments were allowed to breathe. Roderick Williams (c) 2020 ROH, photograph by Tristram Kenton Roderick Williams was a customarily genial host, though occasionally he tried a little too hard – there are only so many times we need to be told everyone is “super excited” – guiding viewers through the evening as presents and performances were ‘unwrapped’. What might have been a cringingly twee concept in the event proved a warm-hearted affair, thanks to some fantastic singing from familiar and new faces, characteristically expressive and accomplished performances from the ROH Orchestra and Chorus, and keen-eared and sharp-batoned guidance from conductor Mark Wigglesworth. Beneath its decorated pine branches gathered lost children, bohemians, enlightened questers, and a bird-catcher with his ‘catch’. The operatic excerpts were overlooked by the stalwart Christmas Tree which has done long service in the Royal Ballet’s perennial The Nutcracker.
Having shed tears for Tier Four, those audience members now compelled to enjoy the party via their various digital and television screens were presumably similarly attired, fostering, one might imagine, a consoling sense of ‘we’re all in this together’. Lockdowns and homeworking have made pyjamas the sartorial style of choice during 2020, so who would be surprised that director Dan Dooner decided to turn the Royal Opera House’s Christmas Concert into a Christmas Eve night-wear jamboree – the pyjama romp seeming all the more fitting given the last-minute dashing of Covent Garden’s hopes to welcome a live audience to their festive celebrations.
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