On Wednesday that energy was in the pit, where the conductor Carlo Montanaro led a spirited performance featuring a big-voiced cast powering its way through the score.
The talent pool of black actors is now deep and wide, but as Nathaniel Martello-White's satirical Blackta at the Young Vic demonstrated last year, the casting opportunities for black actors are influenced strongly by the prejudices of those with the casting power, perceptions around what skin colour signifies to audiences, and the lack of roles that place black actors centre stage.
It is obvious to all that Van Horn is not playing like an All-Star, even in a conference with an exceptionally weak cast of power forwards.
This way, if the opponent somehow builds up before you can cast your power players, you are not entirely helpless.
Casting for "Power" was not immediately announced.
But it casts the power of rock music – the old home of the counterculture – into sharp relief.
Astonishingly, it casts soft power as a tool of the Russian government's commitment to "universal democratic values" and "human rights" — Moscow style.
As he developed a taste for younger men, so ballet brought him the male beauties he desired; and his status gave him maximum casting-couch power.
As for the promises and the warnings that Trump issued after the April cruise-missile attack, it's not clear who in the cast of powers is still paying attention to them.
Not your boring, movie-friendly kind of goddess – all flowing locks and silky fabrics – but what a real goddess might be like should she actually come to earth: overwhelming and terrifying, casting off power like a heatwave, leaving scorch marks where'er she walked.
