Monday 27 May set a landmark in the live transmission of opera to cinema screens. For some six years now there have been regular transmissions live from the NY Metropolitan, filling cinemas around the world, and rarer, less well attended transmissions from other leading Opera Houses. For the cinema audience the usual feeling is that one is eavesdropping on a stage performance, at its best still a poor substitute for the live presence in the theatre. Occasionally the cameras transcend this limitation and the performance becomes a pure cinematic event and we have what I have dubbed a ciné-opera. Recent examples from The Met have been as varied as Handel’s Rodelinda, Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda and Wagner’s Parsifal. This new production from Covent Garden of Rossini’s La Donna del Lago sets a new standard in that one feels one is getting a more complete experience than in the opera house. This is down to a number of factors, technical and artistic: the quality of visual and sound projection, the ability to read subtitles without stretching the neck but above all to see in close-up the best singer-actors of the day. In the cinema this was a complete mind-blowing experience leaving the audience spellbound and speechless. The tumultuous applause from the ROH left us thinking ‘I’m glad they enjoyed it too’! For many in the audiences in the nine hundred cinemas it will have been the operatic experience of a lifetime; for hardened opera goers it will be remembered as the highlight of the season, year or decade.

In 1809-10 Sir Walter Scott wrote a long narrative poem entitled The Lady of the Lake consisting of six cantos, each representing a day’s duration. It is concerned with a fictional plot against James V of Scotland by the Clan Alpine under the leadership of Roderick Dhu in alliance with James Douglas, father of the Lady Ellen. The poem, told around a love story against a background of rivalry between lowland Scots and the highland clans, was influential in inspiring the Highland Revival in the nineteenth century. Rossini’s opera, first performed in 1819, focusses on la Donna Elena and the four men in her life: her father Duglas who wishes to force her to marry Rodrigo, a Highland Chief, the King of Scotland disguised as Uberto, and Malcolm, a warrior whom she is in love with and who loves her. Elena encounters ‘Uberto’, who has become detached from his hunting party, offers him hospitality and he falls in love with her. Duglas wants Elena to marry Rodrigo to seal an alliance against the King. In battle, Umberto defeats the rebels, killing Rodrigo and, revealing his true identity, claims Elena’s hand, magnanimously yielding her to Malcolm on learning where her heart lies.

The Director is John Fulljames, well-known for his work with The Opera Group, touring with impressive productions of chamber operas and ‘operlets’ on a small stage. Here, on the large stage of the Royal Opera House, he comes up with a brilliantly imaginative production, restoring the historical and literary gravitas of the original source. The drama unfolds within a framework of Sir Walter Scott and his drinking companions in their club, intermingling with a cast conjured out of the author’s mind. In the cinema, before the curtain rises, Joyce Di Donato, who plays Elena, introduces the cast and gives an invaluable summary of the plot and explanation of the production, a simple and informative device, an improvement over the now rather stilted interviews with the stars of the Live from the Met transmissions.

The cast of singer-actors is stupendous. Juan Diego Flóres is the only disappointment. We have come to expect his superb vocal technique and characteristic sound which enchant as usual, but he remains somewhat detached in his acting. It is not helped by having him dressed as a redcoat! On the other hand, the other tenor Colin Lee, unknown to us, playing Rodrigo from his first notes caught the ear with his fluid bel canto and his stage presence as a believable boorish chieftain easily holding his own against Flóres. Simon Orfila portrayed the stern and inflexible father but truly sensational were the two ladies, contralto Daniella Barcellona, playing Malcolm, and Di Donato. Barcellona, in the trouser role but wearing a kilt, is a formidable, towering warrior, yet strangely insecure when it comes to affairs of the heart. Di Donato further establishes herself as the leading singer-actress of the day, following her portrayal of Maria Stuarda at The Met with a very subtle performance divinely sung. Her Elena is an affectionate, hospitable and innocent young woman, leading all the men she encounters to believe themselves specially favoured, but remaining steadfastly loyal to Malcolm.

This was opera at its best, losing little and gaining a lot, including a much wider audience, from its transfer to the screen.