Lakmé review – finely sung but unambitious

Opera Holland Park, London
This faithful production of Delibes’s rarely staged 19th-century opera exposes weaknesses in his writing but is lifted by solid performances all roundDelibes’s Lakmé has notched more than 1,600 performances in Paris since its 1883 premiere, but it rarely crosses the Channel these days. That’s particularly odd, given the pop-classic status of the first act’s Flower Duet — best known as the music for the British Airways ad — and the enduring fame of th