Montiverdi, with Kate & Nathan

As I grew up I often listened to my mother singing soprano lines in practice for her choir's next performance. Though it's not so often in life you find yourself living with a professional opera singer. Having emmense volume Kate's voice carries up through every floor of our house & waking to the sound of her vocal warm ups is really quite pleasant. Lately, I've found myself living with two opera singers after Kate's boyfriend Nathan joined us in the house. Not content with living together, right now they're also working together for English National Opera, performing in Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea at the London Coliseum. With company tickets my parents, Tay & I watched the show from the stalls.

"There's Kate, she's first to sing" I advised my parents. Sure enough, out strutted Kate in a mauve wig, transparent PVC dress and six-inch high heels. "Oh yes, we saw her earlier when we delivered a basket of flowers backstage" says Mum. Right, no need to point her out then! The tone for the whole show was set. Performers scantily clad in neon colours, women playing men, men dressed as women, simulated sex on-stage... In short, this modern adaptation was debauched, what an introduction to the opera!

Despite this production being sung in English with the lyrics displayed above the stage I did find opera a tad heavy-going. The first half featured the introduction of most of the characters which meant listening to singular voices each tell their part of the story for an hour or so. Of course we're somewhat biased but Tay & I agreed that Kate's voice, in comparison to other sopranos on the night (including the leading lady), had a particularly sweet tone, like a nice, soft, oval wine gum. Mmmmm, lovely. Nathan's turn to sing ushered in some welcome harmonies. From there the show slowly swelled into the crescendo of the majority of the cast during the coronation scene.

Looking back at the show as a whole I really did enjoy it. Opera has a canny knack of drawing you in to the more delicate parts of a scene. It can feel drawn out at times and it's hard at first to merge with a story told only in song. But given a real chance, some undivided attention and an appreciation for the acted, sung and orchestral elements of the show it's a technically amazing and powerfully creative performance to watch.