I’ve just returned from my latest trip, and most enjoyable it was.  De Nederlandse Opera keeps coming up with the goods without needing the celebrity names or fancy prices we have in London.  To be honest, I’m easily pleased and will happily sit through the less-than-perfect productions and performances one gets in German provincial houses; but DNO is consistently high quality and it’s possible to sit in the stalls without straining a modest budget.  The orchestra is usually first class – sometimes we even get the Concertgebouw band but on Saturday it was the extremely competent Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest.   No Jansons, Haenchen or Metzmacher this time, but Marc Albrecht got wonderful performance out of the NPO.  Most of the voices were very good, too.  I picked out Doris Soffel as die Amme and Terje Sterveld as Barak as my two favourites.  If I had to pick fault I’d say Gabriele Fontana as die Kaiserin often seemed to be reaching for notes she was never going to get but most of the time she was fine; as was the rest of the cast.  The production – which, according the the programme, was from an original at the Grand Théâtre de Genève – was quite simple; which is possibly a good approach to a work that is so full of fantasy and allusion.  I still can’t see the ending as anything but a cop-out; but no production can remedy that. 

There’s one more performance left in this run (28th Sep) if anyone has the opportunity to get there.  In fact 28/29 Sep would be a good time for a flying visit as John Tomlinson opens in Boris Gudunov on the Monday (though tickets for that might be hard to get at this late stage).  My flying visit was completed by a Sunday afternoon at the Concertgebouw; Jansons and Zimerman with the Lutoslawski Piano Concerto and Bruckner 4.  Then it was back to London for the opening of our concert society season – the Kungsbacka Trio with works by Suk, Beethoven & Saint-Saëns.  After a trip like that it was a bit difficult to believe I was in the capital of culture when I got off the train at Lime Street; but if there are still seats available I’ll be at the Verdi Requiem on Saturday.