A heads up for night owls.      Die Walkure will be broadcast on R3 at 01.00hrs on Saturday, 10 November (listed in Radio Times on the Through the Night schedule for Friday, 9 Nov).

I assume that this is a repeat of the Proms broadcast of 18 July 2005 (Prom 4) on R3 and BBC 4.    The cast in the Proms brochure matches the listing in the RT.   This includes Placido Domingo/Siegmund and Waltraud Meier/Sieglinde.

I've checked a DVD recording for an earlier transmission, March & May 2005, from Covent Garden and the listing includes Jorma Silvasti/ Siegmund with Katarina Dalayman/Sieglinde.        Antonio Pappano conducted the ROH orchestra on both occasions.

The broadcast should finish around 04.40.   Time for heads down.

I've also just noticed TTN 04.31 tomorrow (Sunday)morning: a Götterdämmerung Immolation scene: Nilsson/Concertgebouw/Pierre Monteux

Hmmm, Ms Termite-aficionado...    there are a quite a lot of anvils in RHEINGOLD, the first of the tetralogy... Alberich the Dwarf-King has enslaved his brethren (including his own brother Mime as a kind of kapo),  and has them mining and forging in the depths of the earth.  Although it's not really intended to be funny...   but I suppose it depends which production you see 

Mime turns up again with an anvil right at the beginning of SIEGFRIED (the third opera of four), trying to remake the sword Notung from its shattered pieces (provided the special effect worked, the sword fell to bits by Wotan's treachery in the second opera).  However, it's not a chorus, despite a cheerfully memorable tune.  (When I was a student we had a fridge in the kitchen whose motor tapped-out the "forging" rhythm - rat-ta-dat-tat - with remarkable accuracy).

You're not on about the Anvil Chorus in IL TROVATORE, are you?    Or its spoof in THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE, "Come, friends, who plough the seas! Truce to navigation!" etc?  :-)

Thanks for the heads-up on this excellent broadcast, btw  I was away when the concert took place, so it's a chance to catch it in full