Nesting red robin makes his presence felt at the opera

 
7 June 2013

For the first year in living memory, Michael Winner will not be complaining about Opera Holland Park triggering the park’s peacocks squawking during summer season performances adjacent to his mansion. But in advance of tomorrow’s gala opening of Puccini’s weepy Madama Butterfly, played by French soprano Anne Sophie Duprels, the opera festival has a bird problem of a different kind.

A red robin has built its nest backstage. The organisers haven’t moved it for environmental reasons but have put up a sign which reads “Please do not move — robin’s nest under construction.”

“He’s known as Giacomo, after Puccini,” says Mike Volpe, general manager of OHP. “He’s moved his nest closer to the stage so we think he likes the opera.”

Says my tame castrati: “Miss Duprels spends much of act two yearning for her lover Pinkerton, who promises he’ll return when the robin makes his nest. ‘Maybe I need fantasy / A life of chasing Butterfly /

I told you I would return / When the robin makes his nest’.” Where’s Michael Winner when you need him?

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