<<  -- 4 --  Rex Harley    INFUSED WITH MAGIC

With her death, the release of the children and the arrival of the woodcutter and his wife, all ends jubilantly. The children's singing was as good as their acting: focused and beautifully blended. It summed up a production in which, under the aegis of director Alan Privett, every detail had been carefully considered, and every contributor enabled to play his or her own distinctive and invaluable part.

I can't finish, however, without commenting on the success of Tony Burke's orchestral reduction which serves to make the music yet more transparent and lucid; and also on the orchestral playing, which was second to none. I still have to pinch myself as a reminder that I heard work of this quality in a Gloucestershire garden!