Tony Hall

‘He’s the reason I’m working in opera,’ one of the stage managers told me in the middle of the 12-minute standing ovation for Plácido Domingo, ‘he’s the most generous artist there is.’ As she spoke, Plácido was pushed yet again to the front of the stage to acknowledge the applause on his own. His reluctance was genuine. He picked up some of the flowers raining down on him and threw them back, to the orchestra, to the audience. Backstage, he greeted everyone, literally everyone, but not in a rush — with real interest. A programme from his very first performance at Covent Garden — as Cavaradossi in Tosca in December 1971 — was signed: ‘Forty years on...’ ‘Have I talked to everyone?

Beijing Last time I was in China it was for the handover in Hong Kong. I stood in Tiananmen Square with tens of thousands of others as the clock went to midnight. This time another clock is ticking — counting down to the eighth of the eighth of 2008, an especially chosen auspicious date, for the opening of the Olympic Games. *** Beijing in nine years is transformed. Not just the Starbucks you see as you come though customs. Not just the buildings, the ring roads; for Tiananmen Square itself is changing, and at one corner an egg is growing. It is the National Grand Theatre, a great shining blob of a building, positioned in stark contrast to the classic Communist party architecture of Mao’s mausoleum and other party buildings replete with red flags.