I've never set foot on Eastern European soil, never mind been to the opera there, but a good friend of mine (a regular on TOP) has a great story about seeing Peter Grimes while accompanying her husband on a business trip in Bratislava. The heavy Slovak accents alone might have been amusing enough, but the production also had the characters reacting to the threat of an impending violent Suffolk-coast storm by erecting their umbrellas in a genteel fashion.

Enjoy Bucharest!  My experience of the Romanians' contribution to opera is limited to (on the one hand) the touring companies which perform in Britain under the promotion of Ellen Kent/Opera International, and (on the other hand) the country's propensity to produce unique and characterful star sopranos, e.g. Varady, Cotrubas, Gheorghiu...  From these experiences I have concluded that anybody who's any good gets themselves onto the international scene and out of Romania as son as humanly possible.

Hello Don B! 

Thanks for mention, although all I did was to fire a warning flare   I'm glad you've got yourself booked for TROVATORE!   E European productions these are extraordinarily polarised...  the majority are still in the "worn-out and tatty" style (painted flats, dodgy period costumes etc), but a minority of new productions are now appearing which strive to out-do even the most postmodern productions you might have found at ENO?  (I saw an amazing RIGOLETTO in Saratov in which the jester was reinvented as a transvestite nightclub compere, forced into this work by his evil employer who drove around the stage on a forklift truck...).  I am not sure which of this two extremes you might prefer? 

We'll be expecting a full report!

I can't say I like Bucuresti much as a city, the "Paris Of The East" claim seems a mite far-fetched to me?  If you possibly can try to get to Sishishoara, the most beautiful medieval town in Romania?   

Night train through Transylvania!!       I think you go through Baia Mare that way, so hang some garlic cloves up in the windows!  Romanian train wagons aren't the most elegantly-accoutred in the world!  There is a lot to be said for a supply of elegant snacks, a bottle of Bombay Sapphire Gin and some cans of tonic on such trips

By the way, it's not Romania at all but across the border, but have you seen Kusturica's film BLACK CAT, WHITE CAT?  Well worth catching to get the anarchic spirit of Balkans humour   And with a Goran Bregovic soundtrack that features Nelle Karadjic and a cast of stars of the Balkans music scene too

Ah, that's the message I've been watching for!  More details eagerly awaited

I am still waiting for reiner to say A was fine as Violetta in Minsk, B was dodgy as Wulfram von Escenbach in Riga and he's been to bed with C.  D's designs for L'enfant et les sortileges at Lvov left a lot to be desired.

The Opera House at Bucharesti was a baby bear's  porridge of an opera house, not too big, not too small, but just right.

I might give up waiting  and just give you the gory details in any case.

Before the curtain went up some guy wandered round in front of the curtain, who those of us who actually read programmes knew was meant to represent Verdi.  No beard.  He waved vaguely and lugubriously at a bloke and a dame in boxes on opposite sides of the stage, representing the Count's Father and Azuncena's mother.

The conductor arrives and gets a heartening round of applause.

The curtain rises.

The opera was sung in Italian with Romanian surtitles.

The permanent set was a wall of perspex at the back, on which various images were projected and of which portions could slide up to reveal spaces behind.

Ferrando was a competent, portly Romanian bass in long coat and long wig.  The chorus were similar attired with hard hats.

When  new characters appeared, their name was projected on the back wall, with bits of the score, and the costume designers first drafts.

To make things clear, Ferrando's narrative was accompanied by mime by Azucena's mother et al.  At this point I realised that I don't really understand the story after all.

At one point some woman enters pushing a perspex perambulator, reminding me of The Importance of Being Ernest.


She was meant to wheel it forward, and then lock it in to grooves on the stage so it could cross from stage left to stage right without visible means of propulsion.  She had obvious difficulty in making the pram engage with the rail tracks.

At the end of the scene Ferrando recounts how the ghost of the old gipsy woman can still be seen.  This was incredibly exciting (thank you, maestro Verdi) with a projection of going down a tunnel very fast.  It was less exciting when used subsequently for the third or fourth occasion.

At the very end, a bit of the perspex backdrop slides up to reveal a monster mantelpiece clock striking the hour of midnight, when the ghost is often seen.

And so on to Scene 2...

Hi reiner.

I made full notes.  I will reveal bit by bit.  Nothing as obvious as your suggestion, but you might like to get on to Bucharest and suggest you are just the guy they need!  But it would be nothing like us fun.

Musically, it was incredibly exciting.  I am not a great judge of musical ability, but I thought the Romanian soloists fine.  I will tell you all about the Italian tenor later.

Noapte buna.  (I can't do the twiddle over the final a or I can't be bothered to  find a way.)