Sidney Outlaw’s fancy footwork wins praise

Like ships that pass in the night, Rupert Christiansen of the Telegraph and Plushmusic’s editor Simon Ings passed each other in the corridor at the end of this evening’s semi-finals, Rupert headed for the door after a full day’s commenting upon the performances (which we’ll be editing and putting on-line all tomorrow), Simon headed for the – well, the bar, to be honest.

Sitting in the BBC production office, we were a bit disappointed by the last set: Benedict Nelson, hot-foot from a rehearsal of Turandot, seemed unable to shift gear. His performance seemed uncomfortably operatic.

No so, says Rupert. For him, Benedict was one of the stand-out performances of the day. This either goes to show that (a) we know nothing and/or (b) listening to stellar performances on a single tinny speaker propped up on a box of industrial screenwipes is no way to judge a performance.

Sidney Outlaw, on the other hand, performs very well through a cheap set of speakers (or even one speaker). This is not back-handed praise: the applause that greeted his recital was nothing short of, well, loud, and Rupert was impressed too: ‘I couldn’t take my eyes off his feet. Of course, sat where I was, I hardly had a choice. But there was something in the way the man moved really struck me.’

We grabbed Sidney as he came off-stage and again, the theme of communication loomed large in his conversation.

The list of demands on a singer of lieder grows by the hour, it seems. Today Dame Ann Murray discussed the form’s literary demands. A couple of hours later, John Tusa spoke about its dramatic requirements.

What next? Choreography?