Rehearsals are well underway, although it has been a complex week with our Mozart and Gluck concert (a delight!) at the Purcell Room on Wednesday to rehearse and organise as well. Today's Cimarosa tasks have included proof-reading our material for the programme for the Buxton Festival, rehearsing for the first time the brilliant Act 2 Finale, and celebrating (a day late) the birthday of our 'Lord Arespingh' - Bampton favourite, Robert Winslade Anderson.

There seems to have been far too much to do recently, and blogging has fallen by the wayside. But of course opera preparations are moving on apace. Rehearsals have begun in central London, and we’re beginning to get a grip on the shape of the work (well, Act 1 at least) and the characters. As usual our cast is a mixture of regulars and singers new to us, and we’re delighted by the blend and rapport already growing. Kim Sheehan, our ‘Italian Girl’ is also currently “moonlighting” (?!) brilliantly as Queen of the Night at Garsington, and Gilly and I much enjoyed seeing her there last night, even if the winter temperature seeping up through the seating, and the torrential interval rain prevented us from experiencing the new opera house at its best. Depicting Sarastro’s followers as hippies was appropriately reminiscent of our own production in 2000 of the Philosophers’ Stone, the Mozart-Schikaneder forerunner of the Flute – but without the dancing Dalek, which we managed to cast! For us now with Cimarosa, much is afoot technically too, and the photo shows part of our set (unpainted) of a London hotel which has just been built – we hope to take delivery later this week.