A touch of culture

On Sunday we (F, G and B) went to see Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes at a nearby cinema. The performance was relayed from the London Coliseum and the opera company was the English National Opera.  Though the story plot is quite bleak the director managed to put some humour in his interpretation of the different scenes and characters.  The quality of the singing and the orchestral playing was what you would expect from a national company.  Between acts there was commentary and interviews with the director and some of the lead singers.  This has been our first experience of seeing opera as a cinema relay broadcast, but we would go to more such performances on the strength of this experience.

On the downside, you did not get the same atmosphere as you would in a theatre, and we missed being able to order drinks for the interval.  On a positive note the close-ups of singers and the focus on the orchestral players when they were playing the overture and the music to set the scene for each act was better than using opera glasses (if you had them). Another positive – the cost for all three seats was less than we would have paid for one of the cheaper seats at a performance at the theatre.