The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, which was opened in 1964, seating 3,200 people, is a beautiful opera house.  There is lots of wood and no carpet and the sound is excellent and everything is tall and big, quite typical of such concert halls in America.  However, the seat rows are at times more than 60 seats long with no middle section.  That’s a long walk along the row if you start at the wrong end!  I particularly reflected on the initial announcement made in the auditorium asking the audience to ‘refrain from talking during the opera’! 

Nearly 30 years has passed since Jonathan Miller’s production of the Barber of Seville adorned the Coliseum stage of the English National Opera.  The moving sets are clever, well lit, light and as relevant today as they were 3 decades ago.  The biggest complement to the restaging by Peter Relton was the joy in which it was received by Jonathan Miller himself, who said ‘its brilliance is nothing to do with me!’  Relton has found comedy and humour where previously there was none, in this 18th century Seville setting.