Even a perfect opera such as Don Giovanni improves with a good red

End of season is always bittersweet, the melting snows a bit like autumn leaves. But the days are longer and soon spring will chase away any remaining winter blues. The Eagle Club’s closing is a perennial festive day, with speeches by our president Urs Hodler, an almost teary goodbye to our very own Pino — who has seated and fed us for 44 years — and the Taki Cup awards, won the past two years by my son J.T. in record time: 34 minutes to conquer the highest mountain in Gstaad. (Charlotte Cotton was only five minutes slower, an amazing feat for a young woman.)

It was a hell of a good season — plenty of snow, some fun parties and my forthcoming move to the top of a mountain and away from the madding crowd. Actually, I reserved the best for last, the two greatest operas by the greatest ever composer, shown on Sky Arts and watched by me while downing some very good Haut-Brion. I know it sounds impossible, but even a perfect opera such as Don Giovanni improves with a good red. As does the second greatest, Figaro. As our own Paul Johnson wrote in book Mozart: A Life, ‘it is difficult to produce Figaro badly, it is not, alas, impossible …and I believe Don Giovanni has been massacred even in Prague.’

The two versions I watched on the telly were as good as it gets. The Kiwi baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes is a terrific Don, towering over his rivals, and when he prepares to run through Masetto, or Don Ottavio, it looks terribly uneven. And in the lighthearted Figaro, he amuses and delights. I grew up on Don Giovannis played by Cesare Siepi, Franco Corelli, Ruggero Raimondi and so on.