Recently in Performances
English Touring Opera are delighted to announce a season of lyric monodramas to tour nationally from October to December. The season features music for solo singer and piano by Argento, Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich with a bold and inventive approach to making opera during social distancing.
This tenth of ten Live from London concerts was in fact a recorded live performance from California. It was no less enjoyable for that, and it was also uplifting to learn that this wasn’t in fact the ‘last’ LfL event that we will be able to enjoy, courtesy of VOCES8 and their fellow vocal ensembles (more below …).
Ever since Wigmore Hall announced their superb series of autumn concerts, all streamed live and available free of charge, I’d been looking forward to this song recital by Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper.
Although Stile Antico’s programme article for their Live from London recital introduced their selection from the many treasures of the English Renaissance in the context of the theological debates and upheavals of the Tudor and Elizabethan years, their performance was more evocative of private chamber music than of public liturgy.
Evidently, face masks don’t stifle appreciative “Bravo!”s. And, reducing audience numbers doesn’t lower the volume of such acclamations. For, the audience at Wigmore Hall gave soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn and pianist Simon Lepper a greatly deserved warm reception and hearty response following this lunchtime recital of late-Romantic song.
For this week’s Live from London vocal recital we moved from the home of VOCES8, St Anne and St Agnes in the City of London, to Kings Place, where The Sixteen - who have been associate artists at the venue for some time - presented a programme of music and words bound together by the theme of ‘reflection’.
'Such is your divine Disposation that both you excellently understand, and royally entertaine the Exercise of Musicke.’
‘And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven … that old serpent … Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.’
There was never any doubt that the fifth of the twelve Met Stars Live in Concert broadcasts was going to be a palpably intense and vivid event, as well as a musically stunning and theatrically enervating experience.
‘Love’ was the theme for this Live from London performance by Apollo5. Given the complexity and diversity of that human emotion, and Apollo5’s reputation for versatility and diverse repertoire, ranging from Renaissance choral music to jazz, from contemporary classical works to popular song, it was no surprise that their programme spanned 500 years and several musical styles.
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields have titled their autumn series of eight concerts - which are taking place at 5pm and 7.30pm on two Saturdays each month at their home venue in Trafalgar Square, and being filmed for streaming the following Thursday - ‘re:connect’.
The London Symphony Orchestra opened their Autumn 2020 season with a homage to Oliver Knussen, who died at the age of 66 in July 2018. The programme traced a national musical lineage through the twentieth century, from Britten to Knussen, on to Mark-Anthony Turnage, and entwining the LSO and Rattle too.
With the Live from London digital vocal festival entering the second half of the series, the festival’s host, VOCES8, returned to their home at St Annes and St Agnes in the City of London to present a sequence of ‘Choral Dances’ - vocal music inspired by dance, embracing diverse genres from the Renaissance madrigal to swing jazz.
Just a few unison string wriggles from the opening of Mozart’s overture to Le nozze di Figaro are enough to make any opera-lover perch on the edge of their seat, in excited anticipation of the drama in music to come, so there could be no other curtain-raiser for this Gala Concert at the Royal Opera House, the latest instalment from ‘their House’ to ‘our houses’.
"Before the ending of the day, creator of all things, we pray that, with your accustomed mercy, you may watch over us."
The doors at The Metropolitan Opera will not open to live audiences until 2021 at the earliest, and the likelihood of normal operatic life resuming in cities around the world looks but a distant dream at present. But, while we may not be invited from our homes into the opera house for some time yet, with its free daily screenings of past productions and its pay-per-view Met Stars Live in Concert series, the Met continues to bring opera into our homes.
Music-making at this year’s Grange Festival Opera may have fallen silent in June and July, but the country house and extensive grounds of The Grange provided an ideal setting for a weekend of twelve specially conceived ‘promenade’ performances encompassing music and dance.
There’s a “slide of harmony” and “all the bones leave your body at that moment and you collapse to the floor, it’s so extraordinary.”
“Music for a while, shall all your cares beguile.”
The hum of bees rising from myriad scented blooms; gentle strains of birdsong; the cheerful chatter of picnickers beside a still lake; decorous thwacks of leather on willow; song and music floating through the warm evening air.
Performances
08 Apr 2005
Ambrose Thomas’s Mignon at OONY
Mignon at OONY turned out to be a mixed experience last night. Eve Queler is controversial as a conductor and last night’s opera did not play to her strengths or do anything to conceal her deficiencies. The overture began in a plodding fashion and only came intermittently alive in the conclusion based on the coloratura showpiece for Philene. Throughout, Mignon has some really lovely arias and ensembles but a lot of note spinning as well and not just during the recitatives (the opera was presented in Thomas’s second of three scores, the one in which he suppressed most — not quite all — of the spoken dialog and wrote his own recits). Ms Queler provided almost nothing to enliven, vary or give grace and charm to these conventional passages.
Stephanie Blythe (Photo: J Henry Fair)
Mignon at OONY turned out to be a mixed experience last night. Eve Queler is controversial as a conductor and last night's opera did not play to her strengths or do anything to conceal her deficiencies. The overture began in a plodding fashion and only came intermittently alive in the conclusion based on the coloratura showpiece for Philene. Throughout, Mignon has some really lovely arias and ensembles but a lot of note spinning as well and not just during the recitatives (the opera was presented in Thomas's second of three scores, the one in which he suppressed most — not quite all — of the spoken dialog and wrote his own recits). Ms Queler provided almost nothing to enliven, vary or give grace and charm to these conventional passages.
Mignon needs a major infusion of French singing style in order to blossom. This was intermittently available last night. Firstly, there was a huge divide in vocal quality and/or size. Ms Blythe and Mr Relyea have extremely large voices — the rest of the cast considerably smaller. In trios, ensembles and numbers sung against the overly large chorus, a lot of solo lines were not audible versus others that soared out easily. Ms Blythe is a wonder and was in fine form. She can control her dynamics, has great legato and unquestionable star power. The lower quarter of her voice has become the most formidable mezzo chest I have heard since Horne in her prime and there lies my one complaint. This Mignon sounded as if she could have easily dispensed with the Gypsy leader and Philene with one stroke of the back of her hand. There was little vulnerability or charm about her Mignon. But vocal health and beauty for days, oh my! Mr. Relyea also scored on vocal plushness and legato — in fact these two roles depend on those qualities as others in the cast get the ear-catching numbers. There wasn't the great rolling bass-of-the-old-school authority about his Lothario but, again, lots of vocal health and ease in the music.
Announced as singing with a cold, Massimo Giordano nevertheless showed off a very good tenor voice, all of a piece from bottom to a secure, freely spinning top as Wilhelm Meister. Eglise Gutierrez must still be showing the effects of her cold. She was in and out of phase all night, sometimes quite absent in the middle and lower registers, sometimes singing securely and interestingly. The climax of "Je suis Titiana!" collapsed into a pitchless yell and scrambled conclusion, after which she seemed unable to open the door to leave the stage and decided to sit in chairs vacated by percussionists. Unfortunately, she elected to slump into a most inappropriate posture for a concert stage. In her vibrant red dress, strange posture (and while flipping pages of her score back and forth) she created an unfortunate distraction as Blythe, Relyea and Giordano were trying to bring the opera to its conclusion. Much of this may be due to inexperience. Her career is only eighteen months old. She showed a lot of vocal promise and we'll have to hope she's at her best next year as Lakme.
Kate Aldrich wowed everyone with Frederic's lilting song, and clear-voiced lyric tenor William Ferguson again impressed in the role of Laerte — what a fine Prunier in La Rondine he will be if and when he takes on the role. Backed up against the stage wall, the massive chorus sometimes overpowered the soloists and could have afforded to be a good deal more modest in size, although they did sing with admirable tone and vigo (perhaps Ms Queler could job some of them out to patch things up in the Metropolitan's chorus).
Only about 75 to 80 percent of a house — rare for the usually sold out or close to sold out OONY performances — was in attendance. On the whole, a very good if not extraordinary evening of a lovely, tuneful piece. Next year: Guglielmo Tell (with Marcello Giordani), Lakme, and L'Amore dei tre re with Fabiano Bravo and Samuel Ramey.
William Fregosi