Oh sweet Jeeeez, this beggars belief. Turning third-rate pop-stars into three-hundredth-rate "opera singers" with the help of "opera singers" Jenkins and Bocelli?!? And WTF is Rolando Villazon doing in it? Have things really got that bad for him?
Happy new year to you too, ITV. If you were funded by my licence fee, I'd refuse to pay it. Fortunately you are not.
As for Rolando, here's an extract from Werther at the Paris Opera last year, including the great aria "Pourquoi me reveiller". The debate on YouTube (double-click on the video to acccess it), is all about whether this wonderful voice can be saved... Compare his contribution with the vocal ease of Susan Graham as Charlotte.
Jessica Duchen is a music journalist and the author of four novels, two biographies and several stage works. She writes regularly for The Independent and BBC Music Magazine. Her latest novel, Songs of Triumphant Love, is published by Hodder.
- Chronicling The Crash: A Standpoint Ebook
- Grounds for Hope
- Is Islam a Peaceful Religion? Daniel Johnson at the Oxford Union
- Standpoint's Autumn Salons
- Win Tickets to the Inaugural Standpoint Salon
- Is Hunter's History Bunk?
- Lawson Collects on Climate Change Bet
- The Cabinet meeting that kept Salman Rushdie alive
- Russia's Win-Win Election
- The Kremlin Plays Old Tricks With Pussy Riot
- A Pyrrhic Victory for Georgian Democracy
- Abandoned in Moscow
- Standpoint's New Facebook Page
- No need to pander to the Bear, Mr Obama
- Govemania
- Standpoint Recommends: The Tacitus Lecture 2012
- Goodbye, Vienna
- Friends Indeed — Daniel Johnson on Gertrude Himmelfarb
- New Culture Forum Lecture: Jeremy Hunt
- Kangaroo Courts Arrive Down Under
- The BBC's painful novelties
- Money can't buy you love - Nichi Hodgson
- World Youth Day Diary: Day Four
- World Youth Day Diary: Day Three
- World Youth Day Diary: Day Two
- World Youth Day Diary: Day One
- Breivik and Anti-Muslim Bigotry
9:01 PM