Normally, that ringing mobile in the audience is the bane of opera, but in the Edinburgh Festival’s online version of Gian Carlo Menotti’s witty 22-minute The Telephone, it’s centre-stage.
Ben (Jonathan McGovern) wants to propose to Lucy (Soraya Mafi) but cannot pop the question in as she gossips away with one caller after another.
It was back in 1947 that Menotti wrote the piece, and Daisy Evans’s updating to the digital age, complete with spam and text messages, gives it an extra edge, with a series of mini arias beautifully sung by Mafi, with attractive interjections by McGovern. When he can get a word in.