Royal Opera

Hairy McMungo is going to see the second cast of Turandot. He’d much rather have seen the first cast with the Scotsman Alasdair Elliott as Pong. He’s going to be the best in the whole of the first cast but Hairy McMungo’s not going to (p)review them. Turandot isn’t a bad opera, it’s probably Hairy’s favourite Puccini opera. Hairy does think it’s a load of soppy rubbish but the orchestration isn’t bad for Puccini. But Hairy can’t stand that Nessun dorma. If any opera company wants Hairy McMungo to sing it they’ll have to pay him a lot. Hairy can hit his top Bs and Cs and even E flats just fine if he warms up properly but he only sings them if they’re worth singing. None of the notes in Nessun dorma are worth singing in Hairy McMungo’s opinion. He hasn’t even sung it to his wee Caledonia when she’s keeping Hairy up all night. Sometimes Hairy wonders how much of his Scottish blood she really has because she seems to have no idea how much nappies cost. But anyway Happy Half Birthday to Caledonia who was 6 months old on 25th June. Yes her birthday is on Christmas Day. Hairy McMungo was hoping it would be so he wouldn’t have to spend so much Money on her but with Caledonia Hairy is in danger of falling victim to one of the deadliest of the Deadly Sins, Generosity.

The man singing Nessun dorma and probably getting bigger applause than everyone else put together just for that is Yu Qiang Dai. He’s not bad. He sings pretty well. Hairy does wish he could have a night off though, just for fun because Hairy doesn’t want anything to happen to him. Hairy McMungo just wants to see his understudy Andrew Sritheran because he’s half-Scottish. But Dai or Qiang Dai or Yu or whatever you’re supposed to call him isn’t bad at all.

Hairy really doesn’t understand what Calaf sees in Turandot or what she sees in Calaf at the end for that matter but love does funny things to you like making you want to buy drinks not only for you but for other people too. Hairy supposes that love might make you want to marry a crazed murderer or a poncy prat. Turandot is Audrey Stottler, she’s a replacement because the other singer is replacing the singer in the first cast but she sang in the production last year so she knows what she’s doing. Hairy thinks she’s good but you have to be more than good if you want to make something of this role. You have to be Scottish.

Susan Gritton is Liu. Hairy McMungo knows she’s good and he expects her to be good but her performances keep on surprising him. So this time he’ll predict that she’s going to surprise him and then Hairy McMungo will be right. Arutjun Kotchinian is Timur. Hairy wishes he was going to see Robert Lloyd in the first cast, that’s much easier to spell. Kotchinian isn’t bad but not as moving as some of the others Hairy has seen in this role. Ping, Pong and Pang are a good team, Quentin Hayes who has sung this role loads of times was Ping and the other two were Young Artists, Nikola Matisic and Robert Murray, two of the ones without Scottish blood that Hairy knows about but they were good. Hairy McMungo is still disappointed not to be seeing Alasdair Elliott but on second thoughts perhaps it’s undignified for a Scotsman to jump about and wear those clothes. Francis Egerton is still very effective as the Emperor Altoun but if he’s that spooky (not that Hairy was scared) Hairy is surprised he hasn’t sorted out Turandot. Eddie Wade is the Mandarin, he’s good and there are a couple of good solo sopranos from the Chorus too.

HAIRY McMUNGO

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