Word: opera
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...this be what it felt like for Alice when she went through the looking glass? The elevator that transports guests down to Bel Canto provides a surreal start to an evening in London's first lyrical dining room - the elevator carriage resembles a shrunken La Fenice, Venice's gorgeous opera house. Downstairs in the plush velvet-and-gilt dining room, which convincingly resembles an opera box, dimensions are restored to conventional expectations. The service, however, goes beyond them. Not only are the waiting staff attentive and swift, but all of them boast voices so utterly pure and transforming that...
...This is the London debut of Bel Canto, www.lebelcanto.co.uk, an established Paris eatery which harmoniously pairs understated French cuisine with theatrical entertainment of the highest order - the front-of-house ensemble are all trained opera singers specializing in bel canto (meaning beautiful singing), the melodic Italian vocal style of the 18th and early 19th centuries, which impresses with all manner of embellishments, fast scales and long trills. The playlist judiciously balances pieces that appeal to the aesthete yet remain accessible to the opera-ignorant: most of the extracts - performed for a couple of minutes at approximately 15-minute intervals...
...index finger measures eight feet long, tipped by a 13-inch fingernail. Designed by French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi to celebrate the centennial of the Declaration of Independence, the statue's $250,000 tab was covered via donations, a French national lottery and a benefit concert at the Paris Opera, among other things. America, in return, was responsible for the statue's base and pedestal, to be constructed within the existing walls of Fort Wood, an Army post on what was then known as Bedloe's Island. At first, most Americans weren't fans of Lady Liberty; out-of-town...
...managed the seemingly impossible by drawing in new audience members with contemporary operatic work. Around 70% of the 15,000 people who attended a recent run of the contemporary American composer John Adams' Doctor Atomic had not been to the ENO before, a startlingly high figure given that the opera borders on atonality for much of the first half. When the ENO promoted Leos Janacek's 20th century masterpiece Jenufa with a money-back guarantee for first-time ticket buyers, it didn't end up refunding a single ticket...
...season will include revivals of some past ENO classics, but there will also be a dozen new productions. London has a long history of competing theatrical companies, going all the way back to Shakespeare's day. But when it comes to opera, Berry says, "the days of the ENO being thought of as London's second opera house are over...