On a bit of a hiatus here caused in part by bad luck with some library DVDs; a couple of which turned out to be pretty much unwatchable and certainly not worth a full blown review.  For the record:

Shannon Mercer - Extremely Silly

Le Nozze di Figaro; Glyndebourne 1973.  Dates from the era before acting or stage direction made it into opera.  eg: Susanna “this is the hat that I made”. Stops, grins, points to hat…

Not the Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy); RAH 2009.  I was searching the library catalogue for Claus Guth’s staged Messiah.  Not a chance of course but I did find this.  How bad could a Monty Python oratorio be I thought?  That bad!  How did the lovely Shannon Mercer and a trouper like Rosalind Plowright get mixed up with this pile of dreck?

Hopefully the “to watch” pile will turn up something better soon.