Having contributed to three separate obituaries last week, I delayed viewing, until last night, a new DVD of Janacek's 'From The House Of The Dead'.   
Patrice Chereau's staging in collaboration with Pierre Boulez, Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Arnold Schoenberg Choir - surprisingly this production's first release in any format.     DG  00440 073 4426.

I haven't attended a performance of the opera since the late 1970s in Colin Graham's production at the Coliseum, conducted by Charles Mackerras.   Several ENO stalwarts in the cast, including a regular contributor to this board!

The Boulez recording is, as expected, a most compulsive experience but it starkness also reminds us that in every man there is a spark of God.  I'm minded to take a second viewing this day.

The 'Sacred Music' series, on BBC 4, has been a perfect antidote.   Not only really glorious music and architecture but I swear I could also feel the warmth of the sun, too.   Perhaps this also encouraged the BEEB to return to form, again!   Welcome back.

  I do agree, RT.       Ironically, I viewed the ENO off-air video recording of the ENO Bach St John Passion which Deborah Warner directed in March 2002, as I was transferring it to DVD.  The cast included Mark Padmore as the Evangelist.   Next day, I listened to the R3 broadcast which also featured Padmore as I was fascinated to learn how his 'work in progress'? had developed over the subsequent years.   I concluded that it was fine but perhaps too studied as the organic spontaneity of the original performance had gone.    Lady Bracknell's  'Ignorance is like a delicate fruit.   Touch it and the bloom is gone', perhaps.   Instant memories of several long runs in the West End when nuances could be detected and developed for, say, three months after the first performance.   Ethel Merman had a clear diktat when she remained pliable to changes, on the road, but she instinctively knew when to say, or usually bellow, "Right.   From now on, you can call me Miss Bird's Eye.   This performance is frozen."     I certainly couldn't subscribe to autopilot mode, although it can guarantee technical precision, but always felt that the process of change needed a constant reference to the roots, developed in the rehearsal process.     Even here, I've changed the emphasis of your viewpoint.    Warner's production cleverly opened with a montage of the cast, Padmore, Paul Whelan, Cathryn Wyn Rogers, all converging on The Coli (under renovation, too) against different London locations under an overcast sky and this made a smooth transition to the performance, almost Brechtian!   Stephen Layton conducted the ENO production.

I now know where my preferences are based.