Review: Hallé Orchestra ****

Justin Doyle, a young conductor who should be snapped up by a major opera company, directed a section of the Hall orchestra shoe-horned onto the small stage in the hotel's Radcliffe Room, their playing of the Furiant from the Bartered Bride adding a nice moment of sparkling zest.

Two of the best known singers in the London opera houses, the soprano, Mary Plazas, and tenor, John Hudson, brought together a mix of well and lesser-known arias and duets interspersed with orchestral excerpts.

The sumptuous soprano aria, Il est doux, from Massenet's sadly neglected opera, Herodiade, and the pretty Cherry Duet from Mascagni's L'Amico Fritz, were particularly welcome.

Tailoring his fulsome voice to the small venue, Hudson, did open out with a pouring of grief in Vesti la giubba from I Pagliacci., and with no such inhibitions Plazas tore into the part of the murderous Lucrezia Borgia in Donizetta's dark drama and providing the vocal acrobatics for The Jewel Song from Gounod's Faust.

Rudding Park, Harrogate