Pleasure; Tannhäuser – review

Opera North, Howard Assembly Room, Leeds; Royal Opera House, London
Lesley Garrett is fabulous as a perceptive toilet attendant in Mark Simpson’s opera set in a gay club. But a revival of Tannhäuser leaves everyone in the darkThe scene is Pleasure, a gay club in an unnamed city in the north of England, “where men come to express their instincts and desires”. Hedonism rules. Out the back with her knitting and her bumper pack of bleach is Val, lovely Valerie, “bel