Not so quiet, Milly.  I've been enjoying it too. For the first time in ages, I can hear EVERY word. Fresh, upbeat performances all round. A real tonic, and lovely sound! Congrats, strina et al. 

Sorry to have missed you, Strina   (reasons mentioned above - in fact I even missed the 7pm curtain for FIVE:FIFTEEN too, and had to sneak in at the back later).

Hi George - unless there are plans afoot of which I know nothing, it was a one-off.

I'll throw one of my niggles among the pigeons - I didn't get a real sense of abandoned hedonism in the feasting and drunken moments.  It was louder, and obviously Handel's writing is quite different in those sections than in the more pious ones, but I didn't feel the characterisation was very strong.  How we played/sang them they may as well have been battle moments (except they were mostly in triplets, weren't in D major and had no timps/drums).

The only cut I noticed (and George if he was following my online version) was Daniel's Act 3 number, sensitive souls probably judging the words tactless now, viz, from memory:

Can the black Aethiop change his skin
His spots the lepard lose?

Or something like that.  A brief and perky little number, and it deprived us of another chance of hearing the lovely tones of that fine example of young Welsh manhood, Iestyn Davies.

I gather a number of females afterwards would have liked to take him home in a doggy bag.

And there were some accompanied recits with the words printed out in the proggie, but cut, notably Cyrus' liberal sentiments before the closing ensemble (a very muted piece - the chorus only sang "Amen" and there were no trumpets or drums.)

And very nice to meet strina and David U at last, as well as others, and they know who they are.

I got the impression from cognoscenti that Paul Groves wasn't quite right for Belshazzar - he has never done anything earlier than Idomeneo according to his biog and he overacted his arias.  (He wisely did not attempt to act the wonderful stage direction "he.. turns pale with fear, drops the bowl of wine, falls back in his seat, trembling from head to foot, and his knees knocking against each other."  You may think Charles Jennens wrote dreadful verse, but he sure could write wonderful stage directions.)

By comparison Bejun Mehta as Cyrus and Robert Gleadow as Gobrias entered into the spirit of things without appearing to camp it up.  Despite having a seat at the edge, I stood up to watch them.  Gleadow's facial expressions as he sang "Behold the monstrous human beast Wallowing in excessive feast" were a delight.  Handel emphasized the word wallowing with lots of runs, and Gleadow clearly enjoyed them.

In fact I may be a highly superficial person, but my chief feeling was it was all tremendous fun.

If the programme is correct, there were 10 Firsts and 8 Seconds.

Confirmed. This was done in his late 1970s ENO Julius Caesar with Dame Janet Baker: I've mentioned before how he handed over the batten for part of the orchestral rehearsal in the theatre to his assistant and then went the rear of the auditorium to check the balance. Even with no possible view of the pit he was immediately aware that there were more desks playing for one number than had been agreed.

That's not necessarily merely about dynamics, though, is it. Cutting the number of players to a part also affects the texture and timbre of the sound, and perhaps Sir Charles was concerned with that too? Composers play with that kind of idea all the time (I know I do). Six violins playing PP sounds very different from 10 violins playing PP, but they don't necessarily sound quieter.