If a week is a long time in politics, 30 years is an aeon in popular culture. It was in 1996 that Danny Boyle’s film of Irvine Welsh’s novel, Trainspotting, exploded over Britpop Britain, with its frequently horrifying but perversely life-affirming saga of a bunch of Edinburgh junkies.
Can the 1916 Prologue of Strauss and Hofmannsthal added to a revised version of a 1912 opera-within-a-play setting the backstage shenanigans to music ever fail? Yes, alas. It fell horribly flat last night despite some radiant singing.
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