The Traitors Prom assessment – iconic present’s biggest hits flip the melodrama as much as 11 | Classical music

Even the Royal Albert Hall’s public announcement system was stepping into the spirit of issues. “Traitors and faithful, this is your five-minute warning. Please take your seats. The concert begins in five minutes.”

In the corridor references to iconic moments of the TV present upped the ante. Three massive screens performed montages from the sequence, and a familiar-looking spherical desk stood within the centre of the promming enviornment. Twelve dancers dressed alternately within the distinctive traitor cloaks and masks, or because the extra cartoonish characters of the duties (It-referencing clowns, lurching scarecrows trailing straw from a very nightmarish Wizard of Oz), stalked by means of the auditorium. The stage too was full of the massed ranks of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC Singers, all led by Irish conductor Karen Ní Bhroin, making a assured proms debut.

Master of ceremonies for the primary ever Traitors Prom was its much-loved presenter Claudia Winkleman – knitwear and fingerless gloves understandably lacking on a moist July afternoon however clad in a sublime black velvet jacket, eyeliner and fringe intact. She arrived on stage heralded by a piper and a palpable sense of pleasure.

The actuality TV present – mainly wink homicide in a gorgeously furnished highlands citadel – has been one of many BBC’s biggest successes lately. Its soundtrack, which options covers of chart hits, large on gothic menace, sluggish of beat, is an integral a part of its environment, with the occasional piece of classical music a part of the combo (Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky – as long as the melodrama could be turned as much as 11).

“With its themes of betrayal and treachery and intrigue, the Traitors fits classical music like a glove,” stated Proms director Sam Jackson on the season’s launch in April. In the occasion nevertheless, the classical content material was slight, touched solely glancingly on betrayal, and was cautious to not outstay its welcome, whereas over-orchestrated cowl variations of songs by the likes of Billie Eilish (Bad Guy), Oliva Rodrigo (vampire) and Imagine Dragons (Believer) and Sam Watts’ Traitors theme tune dominated the programme.

The BBCSSO and Ní Bhroin proved their versatility as they moved from the stodge of Hidden Citizens’ Nothing Is As It Seems to whirling colors of Saint-Saëns’s Danse macabre; tenor Andrés Presno was impassioned and sparklingly clear in Cavaradossi’s heartbreaking aria E lucevan le stelle from Puccini’s Tosca, the opening clarinet solo significantly stunning. During Dance of the Clowns from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker ballet eight performers in fright wigs and boiler fits jerked as if electrocuted on the entrance of the Albert Hall stage.

Singers Hayla and Andrea Lykke, sharing pop performing duties, have highly effective voices however within the corridor lyrics have been misplaced and each gave curiously uninvolved performances to their three numbers. Darrell Smith introduced extra power to Believer and Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder on the Dancefloor, which closed the present on a excessive power notice. Luckily, a handful of ex-contestants have been readily available – their tongues firmly of their cheeks – to maintain issues enjoyable. Minah and Linda have been on stage to reminisce briefly with Claudia, Alexander, whose backwards singing (you needed to be there) was one among sequence 3’s finest moments, was “discovered” within the ranks of the BBC Symphony Chorus. The live performance’s finale featured, after all, the unmasking of a traitor. Series 2 winner, Harry Clark, was discovered sitting on the Royal Albert Hall’s organ. “I’m the best traitor in the Proms,” he shouted, echoing his well-known victory cry, twirling his cape.