In his career, Domingo's done so many amazing things that this is just one more feather in a cap that is thick with them but it it must be thrilling for a performer to appear at the Proms. We'll probably witness the ultimate adulation anyone can experience on Monday."Mr Kenyon said the Proms audience was driven to book as much by the music as star performers. Major names such as Valery Gergiev invariably sell out, but this year one quick seller has been a concert with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in a programme including Mendelssohn and Vaughan Williams.The hot tickets* 23-24 July BBC Philharmonic - popular classics* 23 July. Royal Liverpool Philharmonic- Mendelssohn's 'Hebridean Overture', Bruch's Violin Concerto, Vaughan Williams's 'Sea Symphony'* 27 August. World Orchestra for Peace - Rossini, Debussy, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Wagner and Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Scheherazade'* 31 August.
Cleveland Orchestra - Beethoven's 'Missa Solemnis'* 1 September. Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra - Mahler's Symphony No 6* 8 September Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra - Bruckner's Symphony No 8. That moment, one of the many dimensions in Sir Michael Tippett's oratorio "A Child Of Our Time", came late in a long, stirring but sprawling programme. There was really one work too many, though with what could you have left out? Certainly not the swashbuckling Berlioz overture, "The Corsair".
Guest conductor Sir Roger Norrington got the BBC Symphony Orchestra to produce some of the most vivid, fleet-footed playing this band had delivered in living memory. There was an early-music touch about the strings which felt a bit mean in tone for the big romantic melodies but the overriding character was pace and verve. However Norrington does it is presumably down to rehearsal tricks, since his flamboyant gestures and podium ballets are a legendary distraction. Any TV viewer who thought he was playing to the camera can be assured he's exactly the same when the only audience is in the hall. The Mendelssohn Violin Concerto was equally lithe and exact, with an eager collaborator in the soloist Janine Jansen.
