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.
Very attentive readers will have noticed I put “Siviglia” in quotation marks as it refers in this production to the name of an Italian hairdresser’s salon and not to the Spanish city. Director Joosten who always keeps an attentive eye on surtitles and has them changed when the sung lines are contrary to the happenings on the scene nevertheless let a reference to the Spanish Prado slip in.
Scene from Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Photo: Annemie Augustijns)
Il Barbiere di "Siviglia"
| Lionel Lhote | Figaro |
| Stephanie Houtzeel | Rosina |
| Iain Paton | Almaviva |
| Alexander Vinogradov | Basilio |
| Urban Malmberg | Bartolo |
| Anja van Engeland | Berta |
| Benoît de Leersnyder | Fiorello |
| Michael Autenrieth | Ambrogio |
| Giuseppe Grisorio | Notaio |
| Patrick Cromheeke | Ufficiale |
| 2=. Symfonisch Orkest en Koor van de Vlaamse Opera | |
| 2=. Conducted by Ivan Törzs | |
| 2=. Directed by Guy Joosten | |
| 2=. Sets and Costumes by Johannes Leiacker | |
| 2=. De Vlaamse Opera - Antwerp | |
Very attentive readers will have noticed I put "Siviglia" in quotation marks as it refers in this production to the name of an Italian hairdresser's salon and not to the Spanish city. Director Joosten who always keeps an attentive eye on surtitles and has them changed when the sung lines are contrary to the happenings on the scene nevertheless let a reference to the Spanish Prado slip in.
Anyway that was the only reference to a traditional Barbiere as Rossini's opera was fully updated to somewhere in the south of Italy. We are at the same time in a modern hairdresser's salon but one so open that the view of the windows of the apartments above unobstructed. The important thing is that the set worked well and helped to make the necessary comic points.
As is usual with Joosten he changed traditional perceptions of the protagonists. Figaro was not only the "factotum della citta" but a nice charming gay hairdresser who tries to seduce all and any male performer that comes within a distance of a yard (though I clearly remember a very macho Figaro in Joosten's Nozze di Figaro).
Rosina is a leggy young sexy lady not above using her many charms to get her man though that's where Joosten fails for the first time. Every time the lady appears she wears another wonderful often extravagantly coloured thick wig. At first the gimmick gets some tittering but by the sixth or seventh wig the hair is still as thick but the joke is definitely wearing thin. Joosten fails too (or hasn't sought for a solution) with Rosina's "billet doux" tricks. The letter jokes in 'Dunque io son' probably worked in Rossini's days but are stale nowadays. Joosten didn't have the courage of his convictions, let the lady write little notes instead of trying to work something out and let her SMS (Short Message Service) in this 2005 action play.
During the duet Figaro was extremely busy with some client who hid behind a newspaper. When he dropped the paper and left the salon, the audience discovered that one of Flanders' most popular entertainers had put in a cameo performance for a few seconds. The idea got a hearty and deserved laugh but the laugh would have been as big if the man had revealed himself after, instead of right in the middle of, the duet and the musical line wouldn't have been disrupted.
Almaviva corresponded more or less to the image of the Italian lover though Joosten had a small surprise. A pre-recorded "Se il mio nome" with a calypso rhythm and orchestra was played on a CD-machine.
The emphasis in Don Basilio was on 'Don' (as in Don Corleone) and he was changed into a machine gun handling gangster. Movie references are now a fixture of this director. In his Amsterdam treatment of Elisir d'Amore, Bryn Terfel was dressed and behaved as a mixture of Elvis Presley and Liberace. This time Ambrogio's (Bartolo's servant) main task was exactly repeating Gene Kelly's choreography (umbrella included and not in the libretto) around a lantern post (in the libretto) during the storm music. Don Bartolo was the only one behaving more or less in the traditional way, though he too was mainly busy shaving people instead of treating them.
The general impression was one of overdirecting, of too many jokes, of too clever ideas not always consistently worked out. One example: Seemingly drunken, Almaviva is not dressed as an Italian army officer but just as another of the bunch of carabinieri who is always entering and leaving the salon.
Still, the sum of this production is far more than the many small irritations. It is modern, respects the spirit of the work, gives sense and drive to the old warhorse. I hope the Antwerp opera will offer us a reprise in a few years when that great saviour of opera, 'plain routine', will eject a few of the extravagancies. But even now, I admit I wouldn't want to watch a traditional Barbiere in the seasons ahead; and that's maybe the highest praise I can give Guy Joosten (who will direct the new Roméo at the Met).
Musically there were a few problems. Conductor Michel Tilkin left at the last moment as things didn't work out well with his orchestra. Anyway that's the official reason. Rumour has it that he simply left in disgust at Joosten's treatment (that Calypso serenade?). So the Antwerp music director Ivan Törzs had to jump in.
Now Italian belcanto is not exactly Mr. Törzs speciality but the orchestra is so fine that the Rossinian crescendi didn't suffer and that harmony reigned between pit and scene (I attended the second performance). There were a few times when Törzs lingered too long on recitatives and he almost brought the music at a dead end in "Freddo ed immobile" but he still made the best of a difficult situation and singers didn't need to keep their eyes glued on the conductor.
Originally Gary Magee should have sung Figaro but already at the beginning of the season it was clear that Walloon baritone Lionel Lhote would take over. The baritone has a clear, big booming voice which is improving all the time. His is probably the greatest talent in the country and I would dearly love to hear him in a big Verdi role. A pity we have to suffer once more the inevitable Caproni or Vanaud next season in all the theatres over here when there is such a fine voice and an exuberant actor available.
Mezzo Stephanie Houtzeel has a ripe fruity mezzo that becomes rather shrill above the staff; and her coloratura are not exactly pure either. I fear the lady was somewhat more chosen for her fine looks, long legs and fearless acting than for Rossinian musicality. Tenor Iain Paton has the right voice colour but his voice too is somewhat unwieldy and he had his difficulties too with the intricacies of the score. Already in 1964 Ugo Benelli proved (too soon for the times) that "Cessa di piu resistere" is a necessary but acrobatic show piece for the tenor but Juan Diego Florez has now made it so popular that it is no longer acceptable to cut it as happened here (though it would probably have exposed Paton's lack of coloratura in a cruel way). This was rather conspicuous as Berta's almost unknown aria was restored, though sung rather sharp by Anja van Engeland. Apart from Lhote, the best singing came from the wonderful black resounding bass voice of Alexander Vinogradov. Urban Malmberg was a fine Bartolo.
Though Joosten may ask a lot of movement and antics from his singers, he is cleverly enough not to demand they should sing with their back to the audiences or swinging on a rope etc. They could easily project their voices in the audience.
Jan Neckers