Tosca

More than a thousand musicians took part when Handel’s Messiah was performed in Westminster Abbey in May 1791. It wasn’t the only item on the bill, either; it was part of a day-long blow-out that lasted from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and also included the whole of Handel’s Israel in Egypt. The crowd came prepared. According to Adalbert Gyrowetz, a Bohemian composer then living in London, the audience munched on ‘hard-boiled eggs, ham and roast meat’ during the intervals. ‘One had almost to wade through a mass of eggshells and other rubbish on the way out of the church,’ he noted. Romaniw was everything you’d want in a Tosca:

London felt like its old self on Friday night. Possibly it was just me; when you visit the capital once a week, your impressions will only ever be snapshots. Still, it’s been a while since I’ve battled such a flood tide of commuters on the ramp at Euston, or since the Royal Opera House seemed to be buzzing quite so excitedly. Crowds were four deep at the champagne bar; a latecomer in a spangly tux squeezed past and into his seat, grinning a slightly tipsy apology. And at the heart of it all — the succulent hunk of well-aged rump steak generating all this sizzle — was a revival of