Placido, andiamo
THERE is not, contrary to received opin- ion, all that much wrong with the opera at Covent Garden. What needs to be changed is the audience, which would be familiar to Sir Henry Wood — who, idly contemplat- ing a fishmonger's slab, started up with the cry: 'That reminds me — I ought to be at the Queen's Hall.' Honour to the Midland Bank, which, in its listening way, heard the difficulty and found the solution. This is the time of year when the Midland has all the stalls seats uprooted, and their more torpid occupants with them. The great red amphitheatre is then filled with 700 enthu- siasts who have queued night and day to pay £3 — first come, first served, one queuer, one ticket — to hear Placido Domingo in La Boheme. If sponsoring the arts should bring the best to those who could not otherwise experience it, then the Midland's opera proms are sponsorship in a class of their own. I shall consider allowing a future prom to stage my grand opera about Margaret Thatcher, La Donna di Ferro. I found another aria for it last week, in Massenet's Manon. Nigel Lawson can sing it: 'A quoi bon re'conomier
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