King Idomeneo
Birmingham
Osud
Royal Albert Hall
Last year Birmingham Opera Company imported La traviata from Verona, and performed it to huge and enthusiastic audiences. Result: the Arts Council, in its infinite malignant imbecility, axed its grant, along with that of many other institutions which survive on an annual budget that would keep one of the metropolitan ‘centres of excellence’ going for a week or two. Gratifyingly, the outcry was such that the BOC was ‘reprieved’, and, to demonstrate how up and running it is, has staged one of Mozart’s most impressive but lengthy and demanding operas in a disused rubber factory on the outskirts of Birmingham. The local community has been heavily involved, as usual, and any visitor from elsewhere has as his first task finding where the Sherborne Building is and getting there, encountering on the way the amazing ghastliness of the city’s spaghetti junctions.
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