I’ve always been a fan of those BBC Radio 4 programs where people have to do silly things so I was naturally drawn to LooseTEA’s fundraiser “Whose opera is it anyway?” in which a select band of singers (Greg Finney, Whitney Mather, Michael York, Charlotte Church, Fabian Arcineagas and Kijong Wi) got to do silly things bid on by the audience.  Some of the silly things even involved members of the audience. Asa Iranmehr was on the keyboards and comedian Andrew Johnston, despite almost total ignorance of anything operatic, MC’d.

It was great fun and much funnier than the average bel canto “comedy”.  Highlights included Sit, Stand Lie where Michael, Greg and Fabian had to perform La mia Dorabella with one of them in each position at any one time, Moving People where Greg and Whitney were “manipulated” by Aria Umezawa, Michael Mori, Katja “polkadots” Juliannova and Rachel Krehm while singing the Papageno/a duet.  The best/weirdest singing was probably a couple of “in the style of”s.  I was really impressed by Whitney’s Deh vieni non tardar in the style of Miranda Sings.  It takes real talent to sing that badly!  Greg’s Catalogue Aria in the style of (a very lugubrious) Vladimir Putin was a hoot too.  My sunglasses came in handy in “Props”.

The snacks were decidedly better than they often are at these events too.  Really good pizza!  So, a good time was had by all.  More people should come to these things.  Have a few drinks, meet fun people, see just how multi-talented some of our singers are and have fun.  Why not?

Sorry about the photo quality.  Taken by me on my phone.