Through the years I have often stressed the importance of knowing where a reviewer was placed to listen to a musical event. Critics are allocated expensive seats, but those are not always the best for sound. I am prompted to return to this topic having heard in rapid succession the Khovanschina and The Capture of Troy productions at ENO, both operas featuring the large chorus, which is threatened with cost-cutting slimming and redundancies (on arrival we received protest leaflets). At Khovanschina, from the middle of the front circle, the stage picture looked good, but this is always less so there for the ears. The words were mostly indecipherable and I wrote that the chorus sang 'lustily', a euphemism for lack of subtlety. Other critics from leading publications wrote of "choral singing of the most vital, gripping kind" etc, but I am fairly sure they were in the stalls. Placed ideally for The Capture of Troy (stalls, side aisle near the back) many more words could be heard and the same singers sounded vibrant and incisive, with an eager, thrilling tone quality, giving a totally different effect.

How significant was seat location for my general disappointment with the Mussorgsky and far greater enjoyment of Berlioz? I reserve final judgment of The Trojans until after The Trojans of Carthage, which reaches The Coliseum later in the Spring (the two parts will not be brought together and played as a whole - as intended - until next year).

The Capture (1½ hours with no interval) had a distinctly preludial feel. It ended with Cassandra (the excellent Susan Bickley, who dominated the evening) leading the assembled women of Troy to plunge to their deaths from the roof of a USA tower block to avoid mass rape. The urban, '60ish costuming sorted incongruously with the welcoming a too-literal horse, purporting to contain the warriors who would bring mayhem and destroy the city; unavoidable contemporary parallels, even though fortuitous - we were assured the production was planned before the fateful 9:11 in New York.

I have vivid memories of being greatly moved by The Trojans many years ago at the historic Covent Garden production (Kubelik,1957) in traditional stage settings, but Berlioz's masterpiece has become problematic again in these days of trendy directorial deconstruction. I am unable to enthuse about the austere, cost cutting, visual approach of the Salzburg production of Les Tryoyens seen on DVD (Arthaus 100 350) though it sounds well, with Deborah Polaski satisfying as Kassandra (doubling Dido). Best, as of now, is to settle for the bargain LSO/Colin Davis CDs of the great concert performances at The Barbican, preserving on disc the unsurpassable singing of Petra Lang as Cassandre (LSO Live 0010).

Peter Grahame Woolf