1) Princess Ida, Gilbert & Sullivan, Lamplighters Music Theatre. This is a revival of a production from the 90s, so I must have seen it before, purportedly rewritten slightly to make Ida's marriage to Hilarion at the end voluntary instead of enforced on her. If so, it didn't work: still looked enforced to me.
Excellent staging (great medievalist costumes) and brilliant performances as usual. Best parts were the very strong high voices of the two leads, Jennifer Ashworth and Robert Vann, and the stage business for Ida's two younger (and usually neglected) brothers, which was very amusing and served to emphasis just how dimwitted the characters really are.
2) New Millennium Chamber Orchestra, an all-Beethoven program because it's the anniversary year. I still like Beethoven anyway, so I decided to go. Leonore 3, with the offstage trumpet onstage. Finale from the Violin Concerto, with concertmaster Colyn Fischer as soloist. Arrangement for winds of a piece for musical clock. Lastly, the Eroica. This built up into a powerful performance: by the finale, it became - except for a glitch in a winds section where the oboe dropped out - as if a mighty machine were just running on its own momentum.
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