“After a year of valiant efforts across the country to sustain at least some vestige of a live-performance culture, it seems that a return might just be within sight,” writes Andrew Clements in Friday’s (3/19) Guardian (U.K.). “The summer opera festivals will be the best placed to go ahead…. It’s over a year since Welsh National Opera put on any staged performances and none of the UK’s permanent opera companies have announced any firm plans … The Southbank Centre [and] its resident orchestras, the London Philharmonic and the Philharmnonia, have been streaming their own concert series…. At the Barbican, … concerts [are] planned through the remainder of the current season, some with live audiences if and when permitted…. The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Royal Northern Sinfonia in Gateshead, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra have all streamed extensive online seasons…. The Hallé in Manchester and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra … have been reluctant to put on events from there, while the London Symphony Orchestra has not only been streaming concerts but making commercial recordings from its base at LSO St Luke’s. The biggest question mark remains … how the BBC will plan its summer [Proms] season.”
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