A British conductor trawling the townships of South Africa for opera singers takes notions of outreach to a new level. Charles Hazlewood painstakingly auditioned a thousand voices and selected some 50 for his production of Carmen for Broomhill Opera. The results are astounding. When it began life a few years ago Broomhill, taking its name from an estate near Tonbridge Wells, was one of the new wave of country house opera venues, impoverished compared with others but offering a similarly bucolic experience at cheaper prices. Two years ago, in a volte face which still takes some grasping, this little company forsook picnics and green vistas, reinventing itself as a seedbed of operatic creativity in the concrete thicket of London's East End.
Restoration is under way.
Original balconies and barley-sugar cast iron columns still intact, Wilton's has a way to go before it is likely to earn the epithet 'comfortable'. But the spirit of mission, if of a more secular variety, is alive once more. The zeal is infectious. The sense of company is evident in the natural, untrammelled physicality and musical ensemble of the performance. The chorus, full-throated, rich and raw, achieves a volume which makes your ears ring.