‘The Flower Duet’ from Act 1 of Lakmé by Léo Delibes, has, in its time, been purloined by a Dutch hip hop group, the makers of a Korean drama and for a film where two women are swimming naked under a glass-bottom boat in a piranha-infested lake. In this version, the roles of the daughter of a Brahman priest and her servant, normally sung by two sopranos, are taken by one soprano and a fella with a falsetto voice. And the tenor—or should it be counter-tenor?—of the libretto has been slanted rather cleverly by Mr. Stilgoe to warn of the potential perils that lie in wait for any England cricket manager…

from notes by David Allen © 2011