Placido Domingo has withdrawn from Tamerlano at The Royal Opera, following news that he needs to undergo "medically recommended preventative surgery". It is believed that he has been suffering from abdominal pains whilst performing in Tokyo and has been advised that an operation is required, with a rest period of approximately six weeks to follow. This has no doubt produced quite a headache for The Royal Opera who have heavily advertised Domingo's presence in this years schedule of operas. He is still due to perform in Simon Boccanegra in June, but one suspects that both The Royal Opera and the paying public will be on tenterhooks as to the likelihood of his participation.
In quite a departure from the norm, The Royal Opera will be in contact with all the ticket holders for the Tamerlano performances featuring Domingo, with the aim of offering the individuals a 20% credit note.
Whilst his departure will certainly be a blow for his fans, there is much to enjoy in Tamerlano, one of Handel's masterworks, not least of which is what promises to be an accomplished performance of the score under the direction of Ivor Bolton. Kurt Streit will now take on all of the performances previously assigned to Domingo as Bajazet, as well as retaining his own.
invited to join composer Anna Meredith, sound designer Sam Godin and the classically trained Indian singer Falu, in an evening where they can record Satyagraha-inspired loops that will form part of the “Remix”. 
even as warmly as they did to Thomas Adès’ The Tempest. Both these works were broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, and each of these broadcasts has been cleaned up and recently issued on double CD (Adès on EMI, 2009; MacMillan on Chandos, 2010). Both operas also have composers who enjoy successful careers as conductors, but while Adès conducted The Royal Opera House forces at Covent Garden, it was unfortunate that on the night when The Sacrifice was broadcast from the Wales Millennium Theatre with Welsh National Opera, MacMillan was unwell and was therefore forced to hand over the reins to Anthony Negus.
of recession by the magnificent margin of point squit of a zillionth, it was nice actually to encounter something quite so uncomplicatedly positive as her recital. Opera singers, in the up-close and personal context of a recital room, fall into extremely contrasting categories, ranging from the all-singing, all-dancing Ethel Merman-esque firecrackers (Cecilia Bartoli) to the half-barmy and catatonic (um, better exercise some discretion here, I suppose) by way of sassy, sweet ‘n simple, straightforward or sepulchral, the raunchy or the reverential, the bullish or the businesslike. 
Covent Garden, the Metropolitan and, as preserved on this DVD, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, each of the original directors was no longer around to supervise his show's latest outing. This matters less, of course, in stagings that cleave close to the scenic and theatrical givens of the work as conceived by Hofmannsthal and Strauss in microscopic detail, than in ones like that under consideration here that avail themselves of varying degrees of liberty and licence.
