Callas in concert: as grim as it gets

Anna Picard in the Times this morning manages, out of the goodness of her heart, to find one solitary star for the Callas in Concert hologram show at the London Coliseum:

Heavily glossed with reverb, the amplified orchestra-with-no-name chugged joylessly through repertoire that the real Callas had recorded with the Philharmonia and the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano under conductors such as Serafin, Prêtre and Giulini. Equalised at the mixing desk to a degree that stripped this distinctive voice of its tannic, acidic extremes and smudged the meticulous artistry of the phrasing, Norma’s Casta diva, Lady Macbeth’s Vieni, t’affretta and even Ophelia’s Á vos jeux, mes amis acquired a dull, tranquillised haze, as did we.

The trouble with holograms is that they cannot respond to a live audience….

Read on here.