… in Opera Land, never to be confused with Classical Music Country:

A great evening’s music – marvellous principals, chorus and orchestra and Donizetti at his finest.

Saturday night’s Anna Bolena with Hashtag Opera Co. No footage of this I’m afraid – yet: it was filmed but I haven’t got my grubby self-promoting hands on the results so far.

At all but three and a half hours of music (excluding interval!), this might just be the longest gig I’ve ever played. It certainly felt like an endurance event for all concerned!

Which didn’t stop Rochelle Hart, in the title role, setting new standards of theatricality for a concert performance, as well as maintaining superb musical ones. The principal violin seat (mine this time) is, depending on how you look at it, an excellent one for view of the soloists or a terrible one for risk of distraction … Very special mentions to tenor John Upperton (battling a stinking cold manfully), conductor Fred Platt (it’s been weird not being in email contact several times a day!) and the full cast, chorus and orchestra.

I’m certainly not going to claim my performance, or the ensemble, was flawless. But I think it’s fair to say we carried a (literally) capacity audience with us every step of the way, no mean testament to the music or to their attention spans!

My next gig might be little less theatrical but is going to seem a lot more claustrophobic … Brighton / south coast residents, see you at The Yellow Book on Saturday for a Filthy extravaganza!