Stand and deliver

Some opera-lovers prefer concert performances to full stagings. I don’t. It’s that whole Gesamtkunstwerk thing: opera needs to be seen as well as heard. There’ll always be circumstances in which concert performances are welcome — to rescue a neglected score, say, or if a symphony orchestra wants to stretch itself. But when a major company presents standard repertoire in concert, it feels like an admission of defeat. Opera North recently mounted a magnificent concert version of Wagner’s Ring — but for all the brave talk about a ‘radically stripped-back’ production, who seriously doubts that, if funds had allowed, it’d rather have gone the whole way?

Now it’s doing Turandot in concert. Let’s consider this an end-of-season bonus rather than a response to financial pressure, because Opera North could certainly use the benefit of the doubt: its music director Aleksandar Markovic quit last month without public explanation. His replacement for Turandot was Sir Richard Armstrong, and personally I’d call that an upgrade.