Massenet: Le Roi de Lahore ****
Queen Elizabeth Hall, 1st March 2015
This is what Chelsea Opera Group was put on this earth for! Take an obscure grand opera that Covent Garden wouldn’t touch with a barge pole, prune it ever so slightly, cast it solidly and serve it in concert form to a public eager to lap up French delicacies. For Massenet’s Le Roi de Lahore, however, the casting was truly starry – Michael Spyres, no less, as the King – and the amateur orchestra, under the watchful eye of Renato Balsadonna, was on inspirational form. Together, they presented the strongest case imaginable for this Gallic rarity.
Anush Hovhannisyan
© Vigen Mnoyan
Read the full review on Bachtrack.