Last Night of the Proms review: four-hour finale marred by walkouts — SkimNews
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- The Last Night of the Proms finale ran for nearly four hours — longer than Wagner's Rheingold, the review notes — and was framed as a "bloated classical variety performance" mixing serious works with populist showpieces.
- Conductor Sakari Oramo served as the evening's MC and offered a tongue-in-cheek redefinition of AI as "Artistic Integrity" in his traditional speech.
- Tenor Nicky Spence performed the Prince's aria from Rusalka, Guys and Dolls' "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat" complete with hip flask and New York accent, and a Scottish music tour that smuggled in the Proclaimers and "Yes Sir, I Can Boogie."
- Yuja Wang played Samuel Barber's 1962 Piano Concerto — prompting a steady trickle of walkouts despite a "stylish, near-superhuman" performance — and Alexander Tsfasman's Soviet-era Jazz Suite with Richard Hosford, which the reviewer praised for its "sardonic dances."
- The BBC Singers delivered the world premiere of Anne Dudley's "Iris of Life," singled out for "lightly worn choral excellence."
- A rocket balloon was let off during the soaring central theme of Holst's Jupiter and again during the cello solo of Peter Warlock's "Tom Bowling," prompting the reviewer to consign the culprit to "a place in musical hell."
Why it matters: The review frames the Last Night as a "bloated classical variety performance" trying to be both a serious season finale and a flag-waving party — with audiences walking out during challenging works like Barber's Piano Concerto. For the BBC's flagship classical event, that mismatch between program ambition and audience tolerance shapes whether the Proms still functions as serious music advocacy or pure entertainment.
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