The sweet sorrow of this aria was the more affecting for seeming to demand a response from its recipient. According to James Robson, the senior doctor in the Lions party, the World Cup-winning outside-half is not considered more susceptible to this type of injury than any of his peers, despite a casualty record that would do justice to Gettysburg. "Had there been a game on Saturday week, Jonny would have been ready," Robson said.Henson picked up a similar injury in Wellington, but its effects were rather worse. It is great for sport in this country and a real boost for London in particular.I always thought we had a real chance because London is a great city and this is a country with a great heritage in sport and passion for it. A lot of people were downbeat about our chances because we are used to not succeeding. And if the final vote had been us against the Germans, it probably would have gone to penalties - and we all know what would have happened then!Dame Kelly Holmes, double gold medal-winner It's absolutely incredible because I know how passionate it is to be involved in an Olympic Games.So it's really emotional, I can't believe it. What a way to launch your Royal Opera debut. Like most opera seria of the 1700's, self-contained solo turns are the thing, elaborating on emotions opened up in the sung recitatives.
This is a testing night for overwrought coloratura techniques and it got off to a sizzling start here when the young Polish-born soprano, Aleksandra Kurzak - as Aspasia, Mitridate's aforementioned betrothed - gave vent to her anxieties in a near-perfect display of rhythmic, evenly-produced, stratosphere-reaching coloratura singing (the Queen of the Night in embryo) Not an aspirate to be heard anywhere. That's sibling rivalry with a twist and par for the course in the world of opera seria. But it takes on a weirdly Oedipal complexity when the composer himself is just 14 years old. Still, Mozart, as we know, was always a few years ahead of the game and Mitridate, re di Ponto, one of his earliest operas, appears scarily grown up in the ways of Jean Racine's source material Bring on the child psychologist.
Not that opera seria has much to do with real life, of course. But Mozart was well-versed in the ways of the key emotions - love, lust, anger, rage, and revenge - and even at 14 he knew exactly how to address them in vocal terms. Several slower arrangements would have played to Beny's strengths. But then Natty would have been at a loss, his cartoonish pimp persona not being suited to reflective music.But reflection is not what Ska Cubano are about. Two brothers conflicted in desire for their father's betrothed - and he a king. They're out to deliver an old-fashioned knees-up and they do this, winning you over with sheer exuberance.. Having triumphed at Glastonbury, Ska Cubano arrived at the Academy sounding ready to take on the world.