They don't make them like this anymore - Domingo shoots the breeze with Yentob

Placido reacts with genuine enthusiasm after my audition for Washington National Opera


Thankfully not all the hours on television are given over to talent shows, reality programmes, soaps... (fill in the list with your own grumbles) - sometimes tiny shards of quality make it to the screen and tonight is one of those occasions. Alan Yentob, not a man unfamiliar with the world of opera during his time making the Imagine programmes, has been at it again picking the brains of Placido Domingo. No preview tapes were available at the time of writing as I'm not a journalist or BBC insider but at a rough guess I'll say the programme is centred on PD's recent debut as a baritone in Simon Boccanegra.

For viewers in Wales please note that the programme begins thirty minutes later while folks in Scotland and Northern Ireland you'll have to wait an hour.

While I'm not giving Charlie Brooker a run for his money I thought I'd point out a few other operatic small screen appearances over the holiday season. The recent ROH production of Tchaikovsky's The Tsarina's Slippers will be shown on BBC 2 on Christmas Eve at 2.15pm. Securing the afternoon slot on Christmas Day itself is the recent Netrebko / Villazon film version of La Boheme on BBC2 at 4.10pm. The last sighting of anything minus an X-Factor contestant is Bryn Terfel's recent Bad Boys concert at St David's Hall, showing on S4C at 8.25pm on the 30th of December under the title of Bryn Terfel: Cyngerdd y Bechgyn Drwg.

Getting to know you...

Hand on heart my first ever single I bought was Stu Francis' classic rendition of "Ooh, I could crush a grape!" and the first LP I bought was Shakin Stevens' "Green Door" – not exactly the natural way into opera, nor were doses of The Cure, Tori Amos, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Blake Babies, BB King, Robert Cray…you get what I'm trying to say, right?

There are countless ways of coming to the world of opera – or any other music genre for that matter, but getting to know who, and what's what, can be a daunting prospect with something that's been around a bit longer than electricity. But you needn't gulp loudly and think you're in for a lot of brow furrowing times reading tomes and listening to talks given in libraries.

First and foremost opera is music, with acting thrown into the bargain. Even if you've never sat through an opera, or even half a one odds are you'll have come across it in some way. Television, films and advertising are full of the stuff – and with the World Cup on the horizon you can bet that there'll be the odd montage used.

So if you're harbouring an interest in it getting into opera what should you do? As with most things the answer is – anything. For some people jumping in head-first and going along to a staged opera will be ideal while for others buying a recording of an opera with a libretto will be more their thing (in case you're wondering a libretto is a chunky booklet with the low down on the plot and all the words / lyrics that are sung – especially handy if you don't speak too many languages and haven't got the hearing abilities of a bat). Whatever you do just remember to enjoy it, and not feel overawed, and especially don't feel you have to prostrate yourself in honour to the music. Enjoy it.

Okay, so if you've decided to take option a and go along to see one in the flesh you're thinking, "Where should I go?" The answer to this question can be found closer to home than you think. Most people will have heard of The Royal Opera and Covent Garden – and quite rightly so – but for many people a trip to London can be too expensive to see something they're not sure of. But help is at hand in the form of several smaller opera companies dotted throughout this humpbacked pig shaped island of ours. Starting off with the pig head there is WNO that though based in Cardiff tours throughout Wales with extensive forays across the border. Opera North represents the lower part of the hump, while the upper part of the hump can be found with Scottish Opera. The beauty of these smaller companies is that they travel around enough to reach most parts of Pig Island while not charging a lot for their efforts.

Okay, the bit that everyone worries about their first time. Dress code. Unless you've got a thing for Superman / Naughty Nurse costumes pretty anything else goes. Some people like to go the whole hog and bow tie / ball gown the evening while others prefer a suit, which is fine by me. Personally, I'm a jeans man myself (though I do like the odd ball gown now and again) and have turned up to the opera houses of London, Vienna, Budapest and of course Cardiff in varying degrees of colour and bagginess of the blue stuff without an ounce of embarrassment. Wear what you like – if someone does a raising of their nose to you just shrug your shoulders and remember the line from Ferris Bueller's Day Off – "It's understanding that makes it possible for people like us to tolerate a person like yourself."

Once you're sat and the curtain comes up it can help if you know a bit about what happens in the opera beforehand, but on the other hand going with the flow can be a bit of an adventure. To help things along surtitles are shown above the stage giving an idea of what's being sung on stage. Don't worry if you get lost now and then – it'll have happened to everyone at some point. Okay, one slightly important thingage. Clapping. To be on the safe side wait until everyone else claps during the performance – but only if you feel like it. But come the end of the night, which can be between two and three hours plus it is the done thing to applaud the performers even if they didn't rock your boat – they've tried their best after all.

If you've gone for option b – buying a recording – there are several ways to go about this. You can splash some serious(ish) cash on the more expensive recordings out there, or you can buy recordings from smaller labels like Naxos. Increasingly though the larger labels are re-releasing their catalogues without libretti at affordable prices. A good source for libretti on the internet is the EMI Classics website that has a fair few free libretti on offer, or you can buy single libtretti for a few quid. But hang on! Aren't we in the age of DVD? Yep. And you can buy pretty much any opera on DVD – but prices do vary so shop around to get the best for your wallet. If you like your opera big sized you can catch The Met Live in HD in cinemas, But for the freebie lovers keep an eye on BBC Radio 3 on Saturday evenings.

So there you are – a brief introduction into introducing yourself to opera. I won't give a list of what you should see / listen / watch as my tastes aren't yours. If you try it and it isn't for you then don't worry. If you try it and you love it then great! But at least give it a try. And okay, I will drop one name into the ring of an opera that is very much a firm favourite with audiences the world over, and it will include a couple of ditties you're bound to know...Carmen.

And so it is Christmas...(sort of)

No mince pies for you after midnight

With the year coming to a close and the traditional festive gales upon us I thought I'd take a trip down memory lane and pick out my operatic highlights of the year. Dragging this old chestnut of an idea out in November is a bit like carols in September, but I've decided to plough on regardless. For those of you expecting a top ten list I'm sorry to disappoint but I'll be head scratching like a mad scientist if I tried to choose any single performance, so I'll stick to fence sitting and splinters…

In many ways this has been my coming out year in terms of Wagner – despite the odd quibble here and there by some critics I was hooked by the ROH production of Der fliegende Holländer earlier in the year. Everything seemed to fall into place – the generous casting (Bryn Terfel, Anja Kampe and Hans-Peter König) the set design and direction, conducting and of course who could forget the music? As introductions to Wagner goes I think it's an ideal piece that affords the audience a hint of what to expect from his later works…as long as you catch his later works being performed properly. I'll say no more about I Know What You Did Last Summer…

Sticking with ROH productions it's going to be hard to ever forget Il barbiere di Siviglia with Joyce "Hard as Nails" Di Donato singing through the pain barrier (and later from a wheelchair) with a cast (living, not pink) that lived up to all the hype; Juan Diego Florez, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Alessandro Corbelli and Pietro Spagnoli as a great late replacement for Simon Keenlyside who returned to sing in another cast bursting at the seems with talent in Don Carlo. Jonas Kaufmann led the line expertly with Marina Poplavskaya carving arias exquisitely and Ferruccio Furlanetto playing an altogether more complex baddie.

For the soprano / mezzo loving guy that I am I was richly spoiled with the pairing of Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca in I Capuleti e i Montecchi – it was as if I'd dived into a swimming pool full of the creamiest chocolate known to mankind.

Not everyone's favourite production of Carmen gave me second helpings of Garanca and firsts of Roberto Alagna in a three hour "name that tune" fest that certainly had me humming for days on end afterwards (tunes that is, not donkey doo). Complaints were made about the lascivious nature of Garanca's Carmen, but speaking as a male of the species I can't say I was all that offended...

Scariest moment of the ROH year however must go to Bryn Terfel's Scarpia and his "Tre sbirri, una carozza" skit from Tosca – such a shame that Puccini went and spoiled it by having Angela Gheorghiu going all Kill Bill on him.

Other London highlights included Berlioz's Faust with Joyce "Still as Hard as Nails" Di Donato and super super super-sub Willard White while ENO's superb Turn of the Screw was dripping in atmosphere from the get-go.

But London wasn't my only port of call this year and the Hungarian State Opera offered up an inventive production of Handel's Xerxes that made me forget the hardest seat I've ever sat on in my life – and I have to mention the relatively unknown Gabriella Fodor who excelled in her role as Romilda.

The numero uno highlight of my non-UK excursions though was catching Anna Netrebko as Violetta in Vienna with Joseph Calleja and Vladimir Stoyanov as Love Thang and Papa Love Thang's extraordinaire. I'll just stick to "marvellous" and move on. A big thank you to my fellow international queees on the day for making it a wonderful experience – especially to the Viennese local who offered me a stool.

And then there was WNO - the whole reason why I've become interested in opera. Battling the likes of the Royal Opera House and the Wien Staatsoper with their starry role calls of singers and conductors you'd think they'd struggle to compete – but I'm proud to say they certainly didn't. Performances of Salome and Le nozze di Figaro were devoured by audiences, not forgetting the Charles Mackerras conducted Mitridate with Aleksandra Kurzak and Emma Bell.

But my personal WNO highlight of 2009 has to be the revival of Richard Jones' take on Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades. I'm not exaggerating when I say the production (with the exception of a slightly large skeleton) would not have been out of place on any international stage. Misha Didyk and Tatiana Monogarova may not be names familiar to many people but they gave heartfelt and thrilling performances, aided and abetted by Alexander Polianichko conducting and the likes of Ann Murray, David Solari, Tomas Tomasson and WNO's very own David Soar. A very large gripe I have is that S4C in their agreement to record a WNO production every year missed out on a wonderful opportunity to capture WNO at its best.

Closing out this year I can't, of course, not mention BBC Cardiff Singer of the Year 2009. For a whole week I was treated to some thigh slapping seriously good singing from some thigh slapping seriously promising singers. The finalists you will (I hope) remember – Ekaterina Scherbachenko (the winner), Yuri Minenko (the nearly winner), Jan Martiník (Song Prize Winner), Eri Nakamura (ROH Jette Parker Young Artist / pocket rocket) and Giordano Luca (seven year itch).

But what of those who didn't make it through? Katherine Tier of Australia should be Wagnering your soul in the coming years if her rendition of Wesendonck Lieder No. 3 is anything to go by. I hope Bulgarian Emiliya Ivanova will be travelling around a lot more after her performance of Gounod's "Je veux vivre". Javier Arrey should have made the Concert Final in my books although he did make it to the Song Prize Final as did the sassy Swansea lassy Natalya Romaniw who, for the record, is Welsh, despite what some people thought. Anyone else? Dana Bramane is another name to follow and...oh just take a look at the video clips and keep your eyes peeled for them all over the coming years! Apologies for you who live outside the UK but the BBC I- (don't) Player only works in the UK.

On a sad note it was announced earlier this month that competition founder J Mervyn Williams died at the age of 74. To read a warmly written tribute pop along to the BBC Cardiff Singer of the Year website.

So it's been a superb musical year that sadly has to end…and next year? That can wait, apart from savouring the performances from this year I've still got to squeeze a few more!

Ow! Then Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Get out your violins and pack the submachine gun in its case - thanks to the equation of metal bar + kneecap = swollen knee I am, instead of making my way merrily to St Davids Hall to see Bryn Terfel in concert, sitting at home holding a sandwich bag full of frozen peas on my knee. I've used up every known swear word in the English language, invented a couple more and regressed to around about eight years of age in the space of a few hours and am only now (vaguely) acting my real age - which is far bigger than anyone's shoe size.

The cause of the indisposition? No - I don't owe loan shark Mad Lou any money - instead it's the idiotic design of train tables. Do the people who invent these things ever consider the fact that people have to propel themselves out from a seat using at least some forward motion? How about using a table that doesn't require a forest of hidden metal bars? How about padding them in some way? How about I be more careful in future? Ummmm, no - it's far easier to blame someone else for my knee.

Thankfully the concert is being recorded for TV - which is a tiny crumb of comfort at the moment.

I'd better be off as the peas are defrosting, but before I do I hope that everyone who's off to the concert tonight has a great time.

Okay, I'm lying.

I hope there's an electrical failure causing the performance to be rescheduled for a later date. Isn't that what one of Bryn's Bad Boys would say?

The Demon Barber of Queen Street

Potentially hairy business is afoot at HMV Cardiff next Tuesday morning as Bryn "Menace II Society" Terfel swaps Sweeny Todd's razor for a much nicer Bic as he signs copies of his new CD Bad Boys instore (11.00am in case you were wondering).

Less than sixteen hours earlier he'll have kicked off his UK tour at St David's Hall where he'll be sharing the stage with some of the more colourful malcontents of the musical world including Scarpia and Mefistofele / Mephistopheles.

Having listened to the CD a few times I can confirm that Big Bryn T is indeed a Bad Boy extraordinaire, but I'm a bit disappointed that there was no collaboration with Will Smith.

For more inside skinny you can pop along to DGG's Bad A$$ mini-site.


Monday's concert is being recorded for future broadcasting on S4C - so if you miss the show you know where to go!

(Apologies for an unpoetic use of rhyme)

If it smells off, then more than likely it is off...

Artist's (not quite accurate) impression...

For those of you waiting for my reviews of Letters of a Love Betrayed and Porgy and Bess I can only offer apologies for the likelihood of there not being any.

Due to the "it smells a bit funny but it should be okay to eat" part of my brain taking over while I inspected a piece of cheese earlier this week my concert trips have been sidelined while the side-effects of stupidity took over.

As I'm off to London tomorrow for the weekend I won't be skipping down to the Armadillo in time to see Cape Town Opera...they're in good company though as I missed Tristan und Isolde at the ROH earlier this week due to travel complications.

I'll never doubt another "indisposed" notice in my life...

Cape Town Opera – Porgy and Bess WMC

Of course this has been acquired from the WMC - where else would I go?

If you've travelled through Cardiff in recent weeks you'll more than likely have seen the colourful billboard advertisements for Cape Town Opera and their coming visit to the Armadillo to continue the 5th Anniversary Celebrations. Though you could call this the double birthday event as CTO are celebrating their 10th Anniversary this year.

Taking up residence from Wednesday until Saturday they are performing the Gershwin / Heyward / Gershwin classic Porgy and Bess – transplanting the drama from Southern California to Cape Town during the recent apartheid era. For an illuminating read about the production and the company you can do no worse than reading an article by Louise Jury of the London Evening Standard – either at the Standard's website or on CTO's own website.

After Cardiff the company will head for the Festival Hall in London for a pair of semi-staged gigs before heading up to Edinburgh and the Festival Theatre for a fully staged performance (which is what we're getting at the Armadillo if you're wondering).

The folks at the WMC have been busy getting bits and pieces together again and you can find them magically here...