Noa Lachman (soprano) and Rebecca Hughes (mezzo) presented a fun-filled evening of arias and duets from your favourite operas, with William Hancox at the piano.
It’s just possible that some of you will be old enough to remember when the Flower Duet from the opera Lakme by Leo Delibes was the theme tune for British Airways – and that’s just one example of the many ways in which the drama and excitement of opera has entered popular culture. This programme of arias and duets included a colourful cast of characters who took us from the perfumed riverbanks of British India to the American naval presence in early twentieth century Japan.

Along the way we had time to spare a passing glance at the changing social status of female opera singers, from a time when they were considered little better than courtesans to the rise of the diva in the 19th century and at the phenomenon of the trouser role and its relationship to the gradual decline of the castrato tradition.

Opera inspired the great piano composers too, so the audience had the chance to hear one of Liszt’s virtuoso takes on the operatic masters.