It is a collection of nasty people, all wearing masks in life as well as on stage, all lying about something and more than ready to blame everyone else. Nothing really matters. Only the mocked fool Donna Elvira has a heart and sincerity, yet she too ends as a prisoner of life's devious double deals. She is going to waste away her life, asking forgiveness for sins she has never committed. The opening bars of the overture are trully awful.
Some great maw is about to take a bite out of everyone.
And it is almost longer than Aida. Even the hard edged sounds the Small Hall so often makes were lacking. Under El-Saedi we plunged into the ink. The sounds of the orchestra were really thrilling, and so the overture continued, prehensile, sinewy, fizzing with primeval energy and pitilessly beautiful. The second piece, the Piano Concerto in C major no. 21, K 467 of Mozart is an unanswerable enigma, easy to look at, beautiful to listen to, with a racy, sprightly speedboat ending.