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Even the Royal Albert Hall’s public announcement system was getting into the spirit of things. “Traitors and faithful, this is your five-minute warning. Please take your seats. The concert begins in five minutes.”
In the hall references to iconic moments of the TV show upped the ante. Three large screens played montages from the series, and a familiar-looking round table stood in the centre of the promming arena. Twelve dancers dressed alternately in the distinctive traitor cloaks and masks, or as the more cartoonish characters of the tasks (It-referencing clowns, lurching scarecrows trailing straw from a particularly nightmarish Wizard of Oz), stalked through the auditorium. The stage too was packed with 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 confident proms debut.
Master of ceremonies for the first ever Traitors Prom was its much-loved presenter Claudia Winkleman – knitwear and fingerless gloves understandably missing on a humid July afternoon but clad in an elegant black velvet jacket, eyeliner and fringe intact. She arrived on stage heralded by a piper and a palpable sense of excitement.
The reality TV show – basically wink murder in a gorgeously furnished highlands castle – has been one of the BBC’s greatest successes in recent years. Its soundtrack, which features covers of chart hits, big on gothic menace, slow of beat, is an integral part of its atmosphere, with the occasional piece of classical music part of the mix (Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky – so long as the melodrama can be turned up to 11).
“With its themes of betrayal and treachery and intrigue, the Traitors fits classical music like a glove,” said Proms director Sam Jackson at the season’s launch in April. In the event however, the classical content was slight, touched only glancingly on betrayal, and was careful not to outstay its welcome, while over-orchestrated cover versions 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 colours 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 particularly beautiful. During Dance of the Clowns from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker ballet eight performers in fright wigs and boiler suits jerked as if electrocuted at the front of the Albert Hall stage.
Singers Hayla and Andrea Lykke, sharing pop performing duties, have powerful voices but in the hall lyrics were lost and both gave curiously uninvolved performances to their three numbers. Darrell Smith brought more energy to Believer and Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder on the Dancefloor, which closed the show on a high energy note. Luckily, a handful of ex-contestants were on hand – their tongues firmly in their cheeks – to keep things fun. Minah and Linda were on stage to reminisce briefly with Claudia, Alexander, whose backwards singing (you had to be there) was one of series 3’s best moments, was “discovered” in the ranks of the BBC Symphony Chorus. The concert’s finale featured, of course, the unmasking of a traitor. Series 2 winner, Harry Clark, was found sitting at the Royal Albert Hall’s organ. “I’m the best traitor in the Proms,” he shouted, echoing his famous victory cry, twirling his cape.
English (US) 