Adam Liaw's Asian Cookery School

Bass-baritone Adam Plachetka presents Molieri, a programme of opera arias by Mozart and Salieri, together with the Czech Ensemble Baroque under the baton of Roman Válek. Thanks to fictional works such as the film Amadeus, Antonio Salieri is often scapegoated as the man who allegedly caused Mozart’s untimely death out of professional envy. Despite the fact that this is obviously not true, Salieri’s popularity has suffered from this popular myth-making, and most of his operas have sunk into oblivion. Molieri brings the two composers together, focusing on bass-8 baritone arias from their opera buffas. Famous arias from Mozart’s Da Ponte operas are heard in a completely different light when paired to excerpts from Salieri’s Falstaff, Axur, La grotto di Trofonio and La scuola de’ gelosi. It also makes clear why Salieri enjoyed such success, as well as why great composers such as Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt all wanted to study with him. Given the importance of Prague for Mozart’s operatic successes, the music fits the players of Czech Ensemble Baroque like a glove, and Plachetka possesses the optimal combination of vocal authority and agility to sing these buffo roles.

Adam Faith, born Terry Nelhams in Acton, London, on June 23, 1940, was second only to Cliff Richard as Britain's teenage idol in the early Sixties. His first ambition was to be a film editor and after school he worked as a messenger boy at Rank Screen Services. But caught up in the skiffle craze, he became vocalist with the Worried Men, a group formed by workmates at Rank, until after a year, Jack Good, the scholarly ombudsman of English rock'n'roll, suggested that Nelhams go solo as Adam Faith.