Mears was appointed ROH’s Director of Opera in 2017 and from his first hard-hitting and sexually explicit Rigoletto, with no redeeming human characteristics – well, Verdi’s corpse-strewn corrupt morality tale is hardly a comedy – Mears signalled that compromise was not in his dictionary.

So it proved with Handel’s Jephtha, not set in the usual context of a Middle East biblical battle between the Israelites and Ammonites, but in England somewhere between the seventeenth century Civil War and Handel’s era. The conflict is between Puritans – whose humourless women folk are decked out in bonneted Amish fashion – and a Hogarthian self-indulgent upper class orgying splendiferously in the background. 

Set designer, Simon Lima Holdsworth, drew heavily on the visual arts. As well as a portrayal of one of Hogarth’s famous seamy London works series there was a vision of William Blake’s The Song of Los, which transformed spectacularly into the corona of a solar eclipse. 

The staging was dominated by massive moving walls with biblical text etched onto them, inspired by contemporary American artist Richard Serra. With distinctive lighting by Fabiana Piccioli, the staging reeked puritan disapproval, yet was visually compelling.

Mears, like any wise theatrical impresario kept his best to last. In the closing moments of the final scene, he delivered a coup de théâtre that had hairs bristling on necks, open-mouthed afficionados gasping, and those less familiar with opera’s tricks of the trade wondering if they had slipped into a performance of The Lion King down the road at the Lyceum Theatre by mistake. Before the big reveal some background and plot narrative.

Jephtha started out as a sung oratorio. Performances involving biblical characters were banned from theatres in Handel’s time. It was the last of his great works and the music is sublime. Listen to the aria Angels waft her through the skies if you entertain an iota of disbelief. Jump into this Kenneth McKellar/Adrian Bolt recording about four minutes in. 

ROH has started including one handel-staged oratorio each season. Last year, it was Theodora. Fabulous. Traditionalist commentators still question whether or not it is “proper” to stage oratorios. My view is that it brings Handel’s masterpieces to life. Get over it. 

Seeing a bunch of stuffed shirts and cocktail dresses standing still while singing about passion, death and general Armageddon seems to me to miss the point. The censor is no more – at least for portraying biblical characters on stage. Get with the dramatic action. I hope the ROH continues its habit in the 24/25 season.  

The Jephtha biblical story is almost straightforward – if a tad bizarre. The Gileadite, Jephtha, some years before had been banished by the Israelites because his mother was a prostitute, and he was a bit of an embarrassment at the Gilead family Passover dinner. He is, however, still recognised as a great warrior so, when the Ammonites invade, “Who you gonna call? …… Jephtha”.

Unsure of his perhaps atrophied skills, Jephtha enters a pact with God. “Tell you what, your Wondrousness, if you give me the smiting rights over those pesky Ammonites, I will sacrifice the first person who comes out of my house to welcome me.”

What’s all that about? Why gods in general are persuaded by this sort of useless sacrifice offered by idiot heroes in biblical operas is unclear. The prospect of a traditional glass of sherry and a home-made mince pie on the fireplace at down-chimney time would surely be more tempting to any demanding sublime being. Better than some hacked-about corpse at the front door. Wouldn’t you think?

And those deities are all at it in opera. Easy plot line. Not just the Israelite’s Jehovah, the Greek gods too. In Mozart’s Idomeneo sailors make their way ashore in the storm, begging the gods to show mercy. Their king, Idomeneo, has drowned. But, as the sea calms, Idomeneo appears. Not dead. Saved by Neptune. God of the sea. 

But only after Idomeneo has vowed to sacrifice to Trident-man the first person he comes across on the shore. That man turns out to be his own son, Idamante, who has come to the beach seeking solace in sand-kicking, after hearing of his father’s death. You can see an operatic plot trope developing here. 

So, if any of your family has entered into a festive season pact with a deity, or perhaps Ho-Ho S. Claus, to secure that must-have prezzie, be jolly careful when answering the doorbell to Amazon. You may end up as an unwitting sacrifice in a future Mears-directed Handel or Mozart opera.

Back to Jephtha. Jephtha accepts the Israelites/Puritans’ invitation to return and take up arms, confident in his virtue and goodness. He is a bit of a smug sod. Jephtha was sung by tenor Allan Clayton, who inhabited the role as convincingly as he did the role of Hamlet in the New York Met’s recent Bret Dean production.

Clayton is, arguably, one of the world’s current go-to tenors. His combination of total commitment to acting and strong tenor chest-delivered voice were perfect for the shambolic and conflicted Jephtha character Mears conjured up.

Offstage Clayton takes great pride in being known as something of a scruff-bag. In fact, for this role, he was probably the only available tenor who had to “down-scruff” for the role and “scruff-up” when exiting post-performance onto Bow Street. It is said if you bumped into him in the street, you would be tempted to offer him a half-sovereign. But nothing can take away from his performing genius. He made the role of the conflicted Jephtha his own.

Jephtha’s wife, Storgè, next confides she will sorely miss him, but will subdue her feelings to the national cause. Selfless. Anything to get the old smiter out of the house. 

Iphis, their daughter and only child, enjoys an encounter with her suitor, Hamor, but when he asks her to name the day, she turns austere recruiter and requires him first to join up and help save their people. Hanky panky post-conflict.

Jephtha feels inspired by God and vows that, if granted victory, he will sacrifice or devote to God whatever or whomever he first sees on returning home. Storgè, a bit of a psychic, is frightened by premonitory nightmares of danger threatening Iphis, who reassures her mother, anticipating a happy future with Hamor. 

An embassy to the Ammonites having been rebuffed, Jephtha encourages the Israelites/Puritans, who declare their trust in God prior to battle. Hamor and his companions bring joyful news of a divinely assisted victory. Iphis prepares a hero’s greeting for her father.  Jephtha congratulates his comrades, acknowledging that the victory was God’s, not his.

On his return, the first being Jephtha meets is …… Iphis, welcoming him with a festive procession. Distraught, he sends her away. There is horror and confusion and much Clayton cloth-rending. You get the pessimistic gist from his aria, Open thy marble jaws, O tomb.

Now comes the awkward moment when Jephtha says “Oops!”. And, to his dumbfounded brother, wife, and prospective son-in-law, explains that this beloved only child must die because of his vow, which God has sealed by giving them victory. 

Storgè invokes universal chaos. Hamor, keen to impress future father-in-law, offers to die instead. Pointless, as that would prevent Jeptha ever becoming his father-in-law. Never mind. All join in an anguished quartet, Jephtha refusing to break his pledge to God, Oh, spare your daughter. 

Iphis returns, having learned her fate. She accepts it, content that the vow resulted in her country’s salvation. Jephtha is overcome by her goodness and his terrible predicament. 

In one of Handel’s most deeply felt and disturbing choruses, How dark, O Lord, the Israelites/Puritans attempt to come to terms with God’s apparent will. The sacrifice is prepared. Jephtha prays that angels will waft Iphis to heaven – that Angels, waft her through the skies aria. Iphis encourages the hesitant priests to carry out the vow and prepares to die, looking toward a brighter world. 

An angel, whose day job is to read the small print on online terms and conditions consent pages, appears and explains that the vow did not require Iphis’ death, which God would abhor. “Come on Jephtha, you also said she could be devoted to God, as a perpetual virgin, eternally honoured.” There follows a celebratory aria. But she and the luckless Hamor don’t appear entirely convinced. 

In the traditional interpretation, Jephtha was not wrong to hold to his sense of his vow. After all, The Holy Spirit dictated it. Not a Spirit to cross. Jephtha expresses his gratitude. The community hymns God’s justice and mercy. Storgè and Hamor in turn voice their gratitude for Iphis’ reprieve. Storgè and Hamor, bemoan their loss, but are reconciled to their doomed prospects of marriage.

Iphis again sets a pattern of acceptance, as she and Hamor face their future apart. Their duet of love and resignation becomes a quintet celebrating Iphis’ courage and faith. The final, rousing chorus, Ye house of Gilead, rejoices in God’s preservation of His people. 

Finally, the promised big reveal. The foregoing is what the ROH synopsis and conventional interpretation broadly led the audience to expect. We were all lulled into a sense of conventionality. 

Instead, Mears the mould-breaker delivered an ending from the other end of the emotional spectrum, a completely novel interpretation of the libretto without changing its text.

Storgé and Hamor refused to be thwarted, looked at each other, embraced and eloped. Jephtha was accused of thwarting the will of God for insisting on human sacrifice in His name. Mears was inveighing against every fundamentalist who straps on a body bomb or commits murder in the name of his/her God. Powerful stuff for these troubled times.

Instead of celebrating a happy resolution the house was suddenly coiled in tension. Suddenly spotlights blazed, framing the Amish-bonneted female chorus who had, unseen, processed down the stall aisles, bursting into the Ye house of Gilead chorus, while pointing accusing fingers at a now-cringing Jephtha.

The immersion in the chorus surround sound was overwhelming. We, the audience, were swept up in the drama. As the lights dimmed, I turned to my neighbour, a Covent Garden regular. We were both visibly shaken. We agreed it was for such occasional heart-stopping moments we came to performances again and again. 

Opera directors like to think they can change the world. At Covent Garden that night, Mears did.

Write to us with your comments to be considered for publication at letters@reaction.life     

Picture a day like this tells of a woman whose baby is dead. She is encouraged by women who never emerge from the background to wrap the corpse in silk prior to burning. What society does that? The woman – who is never named – refuses to believe her child cannot live again. If plants can sprout from barren ground, why cannot her child be reborn?

The mystery women, who flit in and out of the background tell her the child has a chance to live. “Find one happy person in this world and cut one button from their sleeve. Do it before night and your child will live.”

Is this promise true? Is the challenge impossible? Will there be a happy ending?

The ultimatum plot in opera is not unknown. Turandot (Puccini’s Turandot) sent her courtiers on an all-night quest to discover the name of her lover – Prince Calaf – on pain of death if they failed. Is Benjamin going to give us a new World Cup aria, Nessun Button?

Spoiler alert. No, he isn’t. But after a series of promising encounters with people who seem happy, but on closer inquiry are clearly bonkers, the miracle seems to have been pulled off and the woman finds her “bright button”. No, wait for it. The reveal is at the end.

The piece is about a voyage of self-discovery and shattered illusions. The encounters the woman has on her journey are bizarre set pieces, each enthralling and visually beautiful in its own way. First, she encounters a couple making luxuriant love on a mat. They are totally bound up in each other. They are happy. 

But the man invites the woman to join them in love making and then reveals he also sleeps with Anne, Clara, Michelle and Amandine – his current lover’s best friend – Charles, Antoni and worst of all, the girl from the coffee shop. He calls it “polyamory” and is told by his lover to “take all your f…ing polyamory and go to hell.” Hardly happy then! 

Next, we have the man in the glass case holding a bunch of dying flowers and wearing a suit enspangled with 35,000 buttons he has made himself. At least he has buttons to spare. He is an artisan and happy in his buttons. But he reveals slashes of self-harm on his left arm and rope burns round his neck. He is a drug addict and far from happy. 

Then comes the comic turn of a self-infatuated composer and her “PA”. She is introduced taking a call. Tokyo is on the line, or is it Rome? With five brilliant symphonies to her credit, she is the composer du jour. But is she? She has no time for conversation and “takes no questions”. She turns out to be completely insecure and terrified that she may, after all “be banal”. No button here.

So far, so bad. When a rich art collector hoves into view there are grounds for optimism. But he wants to add the woman to his collection, which he is forced to keep behind bars. He is alone and offers the woman a home. “I will only look at you”. She is to be part of his collection. The woman demands “the door” to escape. Weirder and weirder.

The man introduces the next character, Zabelle, with whom he has clearly had a relationship. She owns his carpets. Zabelle now lives in a make-believe world created by stunning special effects. Underwater? Certainly surreal. Maria Christin Soma, the set designer has delivered a pull out all the stops other world. It really is magical.

It is Zabelle’s paradise. Hers is the last name on the woman’s list. There must be happiness here. Maybe leaving the art collector behind and dumping the carpets has done the trick for Zabelle. Rose gardens are better than carpets.

But there is a sense that in confronting Zabelle, the woman is facing herself. Their exchanges are too intimate for them to be complete strangers. Zabelle tells the woman to “Picture a day like this”. Her bright day gives way to starlight and men try to force her metal gates and occupy the park. 

When Zabelle, confronted by the men drops her baby, he is cold, “doesn’t seem right”. She finally confesses “I am happy, but only because I don’t exist”, throws the woman the button she craves and fades from the stage. 

Benjamin and his librettist Martin Crimp have three operas to their credit, Into the Little Hill, Written on Skin and Lessons in Love and Violence. All have attracted critical acclaim. Musically, Picture a day like this finds Benjamin deploying all his atmospheric skills. Luscious harmonies give way to clashing atonality as the true characters of the people on the woman’s list emerge. 

Crimp’s libretto is taught, often tragic and frequently funny. Jibes are woven into the bleakness. Marianne Crebassa, the French mezzo-soprano who sings the woman does a fine job but shows surprisingly little anger. What’s going on? She is being put through hell with this damned list. Crebassa is too refined. Lacks the rough edges needed for this role to truly fly.  

At Covent Garden the role of the woman will be taken by Ema Nikolovska, a BBC New Generation artist. The Macedonian/Canadian mezzo is already acknowledged as having a high sense of drama and “being a tour de force of terrifying skill”. I have a sense she will define the role of Benjamin’s “woman”.

Watch her singing Schubert’s Der Zwerg and you will discover her eyebrows alone muster more power than the combined forces of the Wagner group. Nikolovska will be the force to reckon with this opera demands.

Picture a day like this delivers bleakness, I think the intention of composer and librettist. And also a timely warning about the dangers of self-deception and the need to question often alluring first impressions. Those glitzy photos on social media seen on days like this, any day, may be disguising a more sombre reality. Always scratch the surface.

The woman catches the button thrown by Zabelle. She returns to where she began, the small child bed where her child lies still and confronts the women who now cruelly tell her the book of the dead cannot be altered after all, “punched through with human thread”. 

The woman smiles. She proffers Zabelle’s button, “The bright button in my hand”, but the light of understanding slowly dawns in her eyes. She has lost. The scene fades to black.    

And Another Thing!

More from the fearsome twosome, Eliza Thompson and Selina Cadel, moving forces behind OperaGlass Works, whose filmic masterpiece, Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw is about to be followed up with their film version of Verdi’s La Traviata.

Eliza updates me, before she delivers her donation punch:

“We are about to start our 4th week of rehearsals for our film of La Traviata. It is proving to be very thrilling indeed. Roddy Williams is going to be a magnificent Germont, as are Susana Gaspar as Violetta and Thomas Elwin as Alfredo.

We have seven dancers from Matthew Bourne’s Company joining us soon…they guide us through the film. The creativity in the room is palpable and we are both excited by it.

We are doing well with our fundraising, but we do need more to complete phase 2 of the filming, which includes recording the orchestra and doing the edit. Anyone who contributes towards our project will of course get a credit on the End Roller.”

I’ve already coughed up. What about you? This project simply has to happen. You don’t need to be a high roller to be an End Roller. 

Write to us with your comments to be considered for publication at letters@reaction.life

Steven Pinker is a rare bird. An optimistic psychologist, whose 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, argued with convincing statistics that the human race’s propensities to violence and war were in long term decline. The negative left hated that positive conclusion.

Pinker is engaged in a war of his own. He says his opponents believe “reason, truth and objectivity are social constructions that justify the privilege of dominant groups”. 

Campus evangelists preach facts that are constructs of the privileged and should be ignored. Rational conclusions drawn from “facts” should thus be discarded as tainted, an approach Pinker profoundly deplores.

So is salted the battlefield on which the Marxist left in America, especially in the Elysian fields of higher education, hopes to win the hearts and minds of the rising generation to their cause. To the left rationalism is racist, because, by their own definition, rationalism is based on privilege. White privilege. 

Their unshakeable circular logic allows them to omit facts and argue that Pinker, a genial, approachable look-alike for Sir Simon Rattle, with a dry sense of self-deprecating humour, is a bouffant-haired Trumpist Satan. 

He is anything but. Groundless conspiracies of the right are given as short shrift as those of the left in this book. For 300 or so pages, Pinker mounts a stalwart argument in defence of the tools of rational thinking. In sharp, readable prose, the disciplines of logic, critical thinking, probability, statistics and game theory are explained in un-condescending terminology that a reader relatively fresh to the discipline can easily grasp.

This a much more accessible book than its recently published counterpart, American Marxism, by Mark R. Levin, which starkly describes how the core elements of Marxist ideology are now pervasive in American society and culture, often cloaked in candied terms like, “progressivism”, “democratic socialism” and “community activism”. While Levin describes the state of battle in highly technical, academic terminology, Pinker gives us more straightforward intellectual tools to fight “the blob”.

A wry sense of humour colours the text. When dealing with irrationality in the context of career choices, Pinker slyly observes that “deciding that the pleasure of five minutes of fellatio was a greater priority than forging a reputation in history” is an obvious example of irrational judgement. Now, whoever can he be talking about?

The opening chapter, “How Rational an Animal”, takes us back to the rationality of the San tribe of the Kalahari Desert, one of the oldest peoples, who moved from undisciplined foraging to persistent hunting, enabling societal evolution based on rational thought. Joined up thinking brought benefits in its wake.

And so we have gone on, until our species can walk on the moon, decode genomes in minutes and invent vaccines against global epidemics in months. 

The book splits into discrete sections on current decision-making theories: “Bayesian Thinking” – informing the probability of successful decision-making with accumulated experimental evidence.

A good example is the changing policy decisions over Covid-19 restrictions as fresh evidence from the field emerged over time. (Unless you happened to be a hydroxychloroquine salesman, that is.)

Then he moves onto “Rational Choice and Expected Utility” – how to temper a decision by balancing its potential advantages against more adverse outcomes. The least bad choice. Next, “Signal Detection and Statistical Decision Theory” – a combination of Bayesian Theory and Rational Choice. Is that blip on the sentry’s radar screen a cruise missile or a flock of seagulls?

 Previous experience must be brought into play to temper a potentially disastrous auto response. 

And finally, “Game Theory” – as introduced to the world by von Neumann and Morgenstern, useful in a confrontation when assessing if the potential payoff depends on the other guy’s choice. 

This means understanding when some confrontations such as Paper, Rock, Scissors are zero-sum games where analysis of both players’ choices sums to zero and the difference when choice may affect the likelihood of a winning outcome, such as mice deciding who shall bell the cat. 

It boils down to a risk worth taking because it has a potentially beneficial outcome for all mice, but never the cat. Even for the sole loser mouse, the chance of a cat-free future is a respectable 50/50.

I would buy this book for its Index of Biases and Fallacies, a two-page addendum, alone. There are about eighty, ranging from exponential growth bias (every Initial Purchase Offering pitcher is guilty of that), through the dieter fallacy, “I can’t get fat by eating just one more French fry,” to my favourite, the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. 

No True Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge. Angus puts sugar on his porridge. Angus cannot be a true Scotsman. I dislike porridge, so perhaps I’m Welsh. 

This amusing fallacy has serious implications if followed in the wider non-porridge eating world. “No true Christian kills, no true communist state is repressive, and no true Trump supporter endorses violence.”

To lighten the mood, there are some great cartoons. My favourite is from my hero Dilbert’s syndicated strip: “What rational process do you use to determine who is right?” “I label people who disagree with me “idiots” and call it a day”. Pinker draws readers into engaging mind game examples, especially those based on cognitive fallacy, such Tversky and Kahneman’s “Linda the Banker Problem”, which focuses on preconceptions skewing evidential judgements.

This lightness of touch drives the reader on through the necessary but more obscure swamps of academe.

This is Steven Pinker’s twelfth book. He is also a respected editor of many other publications and author of regular articles appearing in learned magazines and the popular press. He is a top-class public speaker. To get the measure of the man I suggest tuning into a lecture he gave at the University of Edinburgh on his book The Better Angels of our Nature. 

He comes across as unstuffy, well in command of his subject and happy to be engaged with sceptical members of the audience. Unfamiliar with Pinker until I read this book, I shall now be watching for further articles and future publications from his pen.

His is a timely rebuke to muddle-headedness. And a reminder to the complacent that unless we not only mount guard but fight back, we risk the irrational taking over the earth.

Topping the bill, Matt Hancock, former Health Secretary. He’ll be belting out “I Wanna be Sedated” – a cover version of The Ramones’ 1978 pharmaceutically inspired hit. Fooled you! Of course, he isn’t, but with “Nothing to do, nowhere to go, oh” in the lyrics perhaps he should be. 

The actual billing is: Smetana – “Overture, The Bartered Bride”; Brahms – “Symphony No.2”; Dvorak – “Cello Concerto”. A romantic German composer sandwiched between two Czechs. Both the Czechs highly patriotic; Brahms, from the less nationalistic school of German music. 

The balance is intentional. Conductor, Stephen Brearley, a vascular surgeon by day, puts much thought into selecting programmes. So, a Wagner belter would be a no-no clash of Mittel-Europa cultures. 

To Hitler, Brahms was iffy. In 1933, Adolf having recently become Chancellor, Brahms festivals in Hamburg and Vienna were disrupted by Nazi-inspired racist incidents. Wasn’t his name derived from the Jewish “Abrahamson”?  The Fuhrer’s house conductor, Wilhelm Furtwängler, attempted to cast Brahms as a supporter of the Nazi “Volk” culture in two essays, but with little success. Off most concert bills. 

The upcoming concert is for the charity Freedom from Torture. Composer choice is sensitive. With a full house, the medics hope to raise north of £40,000. Over their series of concerts, more than £250,000 has been donated. Freedom from Torture is not a pressure group. It is a practical care provider, giving therapeutic care for survivors of torture who seek protection in the UK. 

Since it was established in 1985, over 57,000 survivors of torture have been referred to the organisation for help and it is one of the world’s largest torture treatment centres. That practical intervention motivates the members of the orchestra. So, it’s plain why Wagner spear waving might have been an iffy choice. 

The programme is of broad appeal but carefully avoids cliché. A great balance across the light Smetana overture, refreshingly pastoral Brahms and the deep romanticism of the Dvorak concerto. None of these pieces are, technically, an amateur walk in the park. This orchestra will have to be at the top of its customary excellent form. 

Full disclosure. Stephen Brearley is a good friend; always passionate about music, an interest indulged with great practical effect alongside his professional duties and an earlier spell as a leading light in the British Medical Association. I have long envied his baton-wielding exploits. Own up! We’ve all wanted to. It’s not well known, but I finally laid down my baton while unsuccessfully conducting an orchestral 78 RPM version of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No2. I fell off the kitchen chair, aged 5. Brearley persisted, to great effect.

This is his medic band’s twelfth concert. It is quite an achievement to herd a bunch of hard-pressed medics into a serious ensemble capable of attracting professional soloists to the same platform. Gemma Rosefield will perform the Dvorak Cello Concerto. She is a catch.

Gemma won the Pierre Fournier Award in 2007 and made her debut at the age of 16 in Oslo where she won first prize in the European Music for Youth competition, playing the Saint-Saëns concerto. Her many concert appearances attract universally rave reviews, and her discography has been well received. 

She has been entrusted with the Prince Regent’s cello, made in Naples in 1704 by Alessandro Gagliani, apprenticed to Nicolo Amati and Antonio Stradivari, famed violin makers of Cremona. The Prince Regent – surprisingly a skilled cellist – was given it by the King of Spain. Gemma borrows it from the Royal Pavilion collection in Brighton. She will have it with her. When you see that cello gleaming warm red in the Cadogan Hall lights on the night, you will be in doubly exalted company. 

There are lots of Doctors’ Orchestras out there, so many it’s confusing. Brearley’s Orchestra is upper case, THE DOCTORS’ ORCHESTRA (TDO). He also plays in the European Doctors Orchestra (EDO) but does not conduct it. Dodgy gig now that Brexit has kicked in. Then, there’s The London Doctors’ Orchestra, a group of medics who studied at Imperial and wanted to keep playing together afterwards. They seem to have gone to ground. 

Some history. TDO is an offshoot from EDO but independent of it. EDO was asked to put on a concert in support of Freedom from Torture – then The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture – in 2010. This did not fit in with EDO’s existing schedule, so Brearley formed a “scratch band” of largely UK based EDO players plus pals. I remember that inaugural concert – all Beethoven – as an amazingly accomplished performance.  

All TDO players are doctors, except for a few medical students and the odd guest. There are some doctor-harpists and tuba players but not many. Those instruments don’t go well with an itinerant career. Soloists are all professional and paid.  

Several members of TDO were professional musicians before they took up medicine, including current orchestra leader, Rebecca Hirsch.  She won most of the violin prizes at the Royal College of Music when a student, led the London Sinfonietta for a while, was also a soloist and has had several concertos written for her by living composers. Don’t expect to find a scratch surgery band.

Why do doctors do it? It is easy in these times when hard statistics reign omnipotent to forget that the practice of medicine is an art, based on science. Too often these days the science cart gets ahead of the art horse. In a tightly managed cost-conscious service with an emphasis on outputs, outcomes and box-ticking it is too easy to misidentify doctors as merely rude mechanicals. 

In the 1990s, the then Chief Medical Officer for England and Wales, Sir Kenneth Calman, set up a small group to rekindle the connection between medicine and art. It was a gesture, but, I thought, an important one that got government support. 

The Cadogan Hall Doctors’ Orchestra concert is a timely reminder that the professionals we admire and rely on so easily have their own hinterland. Reflect that the sentiment inspiring their playing in the concert hall infuses their practice on the ward. Music and medicine are not just about technical skills. Enjoy the concert they are thrilled to perform. There will be reasons aplenty to clap these players to the echo.

Book tickets now.

Despite frequently being dismissed elsewhere as mediocre it’s last performance during the current revival was the Met’s 81^st – this time in a Sir David McVicar tour de force, co-produced with London’s Covent Garden. The Met has been loyal to Cilea down the years. Rightly.

Francesco Cilea abandoned his operatic career in 1907 when “Gloria”, conducted at La Scala, Milan by Arturo Toscanini was booed off after two performances. The rejection hit hard and Signor Cilea thereafter devoted himself to teaching and occasional composition.

I don’t care if Signor Cilea didn’t compose much. I’m glad he composed Lecouvreur and wish he had composed more. He and his librettist, Arturo Colautti 1851 – 1914, created a work of swooping melodies – some memorable, needle sharp dialogue and a whirling storyline based on historical fact that, with its sumptuous McVicar production, easily holds its own with the usual 19^th century indefatigables populating the regular repertoire.

Arturo Colautti was a piece of work. He was foremost a campaigning journalist; a “Dalmatian irredentist” – claiming Dalmatia for Italy, in the midst of the nationalistic furore kicked up by Garibaldi. In his Andrea Lecouvreur libretto he draws on all his journalistic skills. There are no repeats, every phrase moving the action on, or adding new colour. Sometimes in arias he is quite the poet.

I won’t précis the entire plot. I can’t. A précis would take until Brexit is done and dusted, even with an Article 50 extension. Complex? Whew! I was hanging on by my fingernails. Let’s just say lots happens and not all of it’s obvious while it’s happening. So, essentials only.

Many turn of the 19^th century operas are pure fiction and carry plot beyond the boundary of disbelief. Adriana Lecouvreur is reality-based and the plot almost understates the bizarre life stories of the main characters.

Here goes on the history and plot essentials. This is Paris 1730, high Rococo, which Sir David captures perfectly. Settings are; backstage Comédie Francaise; the villa of Madame Duclos, an actress in bitchy competition with the great Adriana Lecouvreur; the palace of the Prince de Bouillon, married to a villainous Princess; finally, Adriana’s “solitary retreat” – looked pretty classy and unsolitary to me – in the last scene.

Sir David has set the production in period, no surprising modernist twists, a whiff of decadence ascending from every candle flame, of which there are many, in teetering candelabra and wall sconces.

Adriana was the great actress of the age, her unique selling proposition being delivering her lines with a directness at the audience, never attempted before. Adieu, simpering behind fluttering fans. She was in love with the illegitimate son of the Duke of Saxony, in the opera – just to complicate things – Maurizio, passing himself off as a soldier in his real persona’s army. Spoiler alert. He’s really the Count of Saxony, a military hero and in search of a throne.

Adriana had a real life compétitrice for Mauritzio’s/the Count’s affections. In the opera it’s the Princess de Bouillon who lusts after him. Her husband – who doesn’t give a monkey’s about her infidelity – is enamored of Mme. Duclos, Adriana’s on stage competition. Still with me? Thought not. Pay attention at the back!

In fact, Adriana died in 1730, in mysterious circumstances never fully explained, foul play suspected. Sadly, Poirot had not yet been born. In the opera the Princess does away with Adriana by poisoning some violets the actress had given to Maurizio in the opening scenes, sending them back to Adriana in a box, implying Maurizio had finally rejected her.

The Princess had got hold of them nefariously. Her husband, the Prince, we are told in a micro second aside, is a dabbling, amateur chemist. And when, in the final Act, she returns them – withered, and lethal remember – to Adriana there is almost an involuntary Glasgow pantomime shout from the audience – “Don’t sniff the violets, Adriana”! But, this is the Met, so no shouting. Adriana …… yes, you’ve got there before me. Sniff and snuff.

I’d taken the unusual precaution of printing off and reading the libretto beforehand. I’m usually more cavalier and a synopsis is good enough. The libretto is only 25 pages and I wondered afterwards why I don’t read them more often. After all, sitting through any opera in partial ignorance is daft.

No, hush there. It’s not nerdy. It’s obvious. You wouldn’t pick up a novel in Serbo-Croat and pretend to enjoy it. Would you? Um … if you actually speak Serbo-Croat, I suppose you might. I apologise unreservedly. “This is a cheap ethnic jibe from my past, which may have fitted the historic context of the era, but with which I am now ashamed to be associated in these more enlightened times. Notwithstanding, I see no reason to resign as Governor of ….. zzzzzz.” Anyway, the point is, why go to an opera and miss half the plot? Read the libretto.

Up to Scene VIII the action is driven along at lightning pace often by two-word, rapid-fire exchanges amongst at least six of the characters, mainly the Comédie Francaise actors joshing about. Blink – and you’re lost. May as well wait for the interval to catch up.

I was sure the Met Titles editor would be completely overwhelmed, but I was wrong. The supertitle whizz kids were well up to the job. The Met’s surtitles are actually screens in the back of the seats – 3,989 of the things, with a wiring loop long enough to encircle Manhattan. The system is trademarked “Met Titles”. Now you know. The auditorium is too large to accommodate readable, projected surtitles onto the proscenium without them becoming a dominating distraction, hence the screens.

It takes five editors to compose the displays. Boy, they earn their corn. In Act I those screens were flashing like strobes on an NYPD Cruiser. Amazingly, they captured most of the relevant dialogue. I found, buried away in page 26 of the Playbill, the names of the “Met Titles Supervisers”. Step forward Michael Panayos and Cecilia Sparacio – you deserve your own bow – Bravo! Without your attention to detail, this production would have been incomprehensible.

The performance I attended featured Cleveland, Ohio, soprano Jennifer Rowley, an alternate to the better-known Anna Netrebko, who fronted the production, as Adriana. Make no mistake, Ms. Rowley was no “second string”. She was as compelling an ambassador for the medium of opera as a sublime, immersive experience as I’ve seen.

This opera would not have “come off” had not all the principals been top rate – as actors as well as singers. Jennifer Rowley blew the place apart with a lustrous voice that seemed effortless. She filled the auditorium – and projected even whispers well. In so far as anyone can be convincingly poisoned by damned violets, she was. Her sensitive, calibrated descent to oblivion was touching.

Signor Cilea avoids the Puccini error of having tubercular heroines on their last legs unexpectedly revive for a final, belting aria. His Adriana simply slipped away.

Piotr Beczala, the Polish tenor, who played Maurizio/ Count of Saxony is often quoted, a bit weirdly, as owing all his success to his wife, Katarzyna. But, as she was not on stage as far as I could make out, I’m going to put it down to his effortlessly lyrical voice and expressive acting. Sorry, Katarzyna.

Maurizio Muraro is a rumbustious Italian bass. He played the Prince of Bouillon with a devil may care abandon that I have to suppose is typically Rococo. The Prince’s amorality came through strongly.

Anita Rachvelishvili is a Georgian mezzo soprano (mercifully not Serbo-Croat) who knew how to use that wonderful register to full intimidatory effect as Princess Bouillon. I shall be on guard for any unexpected Amazon delivery of violets from her.

Michonnet, the Comédie Française’s stage manager, is, despite being her senior by 20 plus years, secretly in love with Adriana. He assists her loyally and touchingly throughout her misadventures. Ambrogio Maestri, an Italian tenor, played him with pathos and avoided the risk of descending into pathetic mawkishness as his romantic hopes rise and fall throughout the action.

I have one gripe – apart from the annoying violets. There is an Abbé, essential to the plot; the Abbé of Chazeuil, played by Italian tenor, Carlo Bosi, sidekick to the Prince of Bouillon. He lurks in the background as the Prince’s enforcer. Clearly an actress groper, dissolute and bibulous, this Abbé is intended to represent everything Martin Luther had been banging on about two centuries earlier. But he didn’t look like an Abbé at all. He just looked like another well-padded courtier, dressed similarly to his Prince. How to know he was an Abbé?

In a previous production I’d seen him portrayed as a lecherous, tonsured twat in a brown cassock – which was a bit overdone. But, his religious persona is a plot-driver, framing the ambiguity of all the characters. Go on, buy him some kit from Duffy and Quinn, Ecclesiastical Outfitters, 247 West 37^th Street. I see they have a Purple Silk Zucchetto, “Dita Annibale Gammarelli” no less, on clergy holiday offer for $79.95. Job done.

In the pit was Gianandrea Noseda, a renowned Italian conductor about to take up the post of music director of Zurich opera in 2020 -2021. He is a Met regular. Signor Cilea wrote Andrea Lecouvreur in the emerging seamless style of the time – vide Verdi’s “Otello” – and Maestro Noseda wrung every ounce of emotion from the score. Plangent. That’s the word I’m looking for.

Part of the fun of opera-going is to occasionally stumble across an unexpected jewel, especially a work like Adriana Lecouvreur, which is widely ignored. Of course it has some thematic flaws – those bloody violets for a start. But, well produced, performed by a top-notch cast and with a Maestro in total command of the score, Signor Cilea and Arturo Colautti deliver a riveting evening, up there with the well-loved, old familiars.