Glyndebourne drools over opera queen Danielle de Niese

Audiences at Glyndebourne this Saturday were treated to nothing less than operatic Viagra in the lissom form of 28-year-old Californian soprano
Danielle de Niese (pictured). This, at least, was the almost universal view of the critics who watched her performance in the title role of Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea.

Among those practically dribbling with excitement were Hugh Canning in the Sunday Times. "Her voice may not be a fabulous instrument, but the whole package - her looks, her histrionic know-how - is a knockout, and it was good to see that she can delve deeper as a dramatic artist than the ditzy, bottom-wiggling showgirl that was her Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare here three years ago."

But even this palls when compared with David Mellor in the Mail on Sunday, who appeared in need of a cold shower. He wrote: "Wearing next to nothing most of the time, her sex scenes with Nero... were as highly charged as anything I have seen on an operatic stage in a long time."

Altogether more calm in his appraisal was the Observer's Anthony Holden, who said de Niese "sings the taxing role with an accuracy beyond her years" before reminding readers - and his fellow critics - that the Australian-born singer is the girlfriend of the man who runs the annual opera festival, Gus Christie, and is rumoured by some to be the next chatelaine of Glyndebourne.

Holden wrote: "Both cast and drooling audience seem in awe of [her]... but only the most cloth-eared cynic would say it's because she's walking out with Glyndebourne's own Nero."