The Sixteen continues its exploration of Henry Purcell’s Welcome Songs for Charles II. As with Robert King’s pioneering Purcell series begun over thirty years ago for Hyperion, Harry Christophers is recording two Welcome Songs per disc.
In February this year, Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho made a highly lauded debut recital at Wigmore Hall - a concert which both celebrated Opera Rara’s 50th anniversary and honoured the career of the Italian soprano Rosina Storchio (1872-1945), the star of verismo who created the title roles in Leoncavallo’s La bohème and Zazà, Mascagni’s Lodoletta and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
Collapsology. Or, perhaps we should use the French word ‘Collapsologie’ because this is a transdisciplinary idea pretty much advocated by a series of French theorists - and apparently, mostly French theorists. It in essence focuses on the imminent collapse of modern society and all its layers - a series of escalating crises on a global scale: environmental, economic, geopolitical, governmental; the list is extensive.
Amongst an avalanche of new Mahler recordings appearing at the moment (Das Lied von der Erde seems to be the most favoured, with three) this 1991 Mahler Second from the 2nd Kassel MahlerFest is one of the more interesting releases.
If there is one myth, it seems believed by some people today, that probably needs shattering it is that post-war recordings or performances of Wagner operas were always of exceptional quality. This 1949 Hamburg Tristan und Isolde is one of those recordings - though quite who is to blame for its many problems takes quite some unearthing.
The voices of six women composers are celebrated by baritone Jeremy Huw Williams and soprano Yunah Lee on this characteristically ambitious and valuable release by Lontano Records Ltd (Lorelt).
As Paul Spicer, conductor of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir, observes, the worship of the Blessed Virgin Mary is as ‘old as Christianity itself’, and programmes devoted to settings of texts which venerate the Virgin Mary are commonplace.
Ethel Smyth’s last large-scale work, written in 1930 by the then 72-year-old composer who was increasingly afflicted and depressed by her worsening deafness, was The Prison – a ‘symphony’ for soprano and bass-baritone soloists, chorus and orchestra.
‘Hamilton Harty is Irish to the core, but he is not a musical nationalist.’
‘After silence, that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible is music.’ Aldous Huxley’s words have inspired VOCES8’s new disc, After Silence, a ‘double album in four chapters’ which marks the ensemble’s 15th anniversary.
A song-cycle is a narrative, a journey, not necessarily literal or linear, but one which carries performer and listener through time and across an emotional terrain. Through complement and contrast, poetry and music crystallise diverse sentiments and somehow cohere variability into an aesthetic unity.
One of the nicest things about being lucky enough to enjoy opera, music and theatre, week in week out, in London’s fringe theatres, music conservatoires, and international concert halls and opera houses, is the opportunity to encounter striking performances by young talented musicians and then watch with pleasure as they fulfil those sparks of promise.
“It’s forbidden, and where’s the art in that?”
Dublin-born John F. Larchet (1884-1967) might well be described as the father of post-Independence Irish music, given the immense influenced that he had upon Irish musical life during the first half of the 20th century - as a composer, musician, administrator and teacher.
The English Civil War is raging. The daughter of a Puritan aristocrat has fallen in love with the son of a Royalist supporter of the House of Stuart. Will love triumph over political expediency and religious dogma?
Beethoven Symphony no 9 (the Choral Symphony) in D minor, Op. 125, and the Choral Fantasy in C minor, Op. 80 with soloist Kristian Bezuidenhout, Pablo Heras-Casado conducting the Freiburger Barockorchester, new from Harmonia Mundi.
A Louise Brooks look-a-like, in bobbed black wig and floor-sweeping leather trench-coat, cheeks purple-rouged and eyes shadowed in black, Barbara Hannigan issues taut gestures which elicit fire-cracker punch from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
‘Signor Piatti in a fantasia on themes from Beatrice di Tenda had also his triumph. Difficulties, declared to be insuperable, were vanquished by him with consummate skill and precision. He certainly is amazing, his tone magnificent, and his style excellent. His resources appear to be inexhaustible; and altogether for variety, it is the greatest specimen of violoncello playing that has been heard in this country.’
Baritone Roderick Williams seems to have been a pretty constant ‘companion’, on my laptop screen and through my stereo speakers, during the past few ‘lock-down’ months.
Melodramas can be a difficult genre for composers. Before Richard Strauss’s Enoch Arden the concept of the melodrama was its compact size – Weber’s Wolf’s Glen scene in Der Freischütz, Georg Benda’s Ariadne auf Naxos and Medea or even Leonore’s grave scene in Beethoven’s Fidelio.
Watching this DVD, your reviewer suddenly recalled a brief exchange from the film Reversal of Fortune, when the Ron Silver/Alan Dershowitz character says to the Jeremy Irons/Claus von Bulow one, “You are a very strange man, “ and Irons, in the moment that may have won him the Academy Award, replies with eerie blandness, “You have no idea.”
And until the gentle readers of Opera Today avail themselves of the experience of viewing Rued Langgaard’s Antikrist, they will have no idea how strange it is.
It is very, very strange. But more importantly — it fascinates on a deeper level than mere stunned incomprehension could ever effect.
The production comes from 2002, from the Royal Danish Opera and the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. An American citizen has the right to let his mind reel contemplating the Metropolitan Opera and PBS putting on a similar show…
Briefly, Langgaard created a “religious mystery opera,” an allegory of the Antikrist wreaking havoc in the despoiled realm of modern society. Many a singer has a Rodolfo or Mimi or Marcello on his/her resume. How many have “The Mouth Speaking Great Things” or “Spirit of Mystery.” Camilla Nylund takes on the demanding role of “The Great Whore.” Before this production perhaps no other soprano had ever ventured this role on stage. How many have assayed it offstage is a very different matter.
The accompanying booklet has two extensive, well-written essays. Bendt Vinholt Nielsen’s introduction gives the sources and inspiration for Langgaard’s work, and Jorgen I. Jensen offers a more analytical approach to the work and its meaning. Your reviewer read these AFTER viewing the DVD, and can vouch that they both clarify some matters, but that the opera as performed here works well on its own, on its own very, very odd terms.
Nielsen succinctly describes the opera’s form: “There are no recurrent characters, there is no plot in the traditional sense, and the opera consists to a great extent of monologues.” Almost an oratorio? But an oratorio, with a row of singers in tidy eveningwear, would belie the composer’s vision. This production, with a fine cast of actor/singers, lands us in his surreal landscape from the first moment and keeps us there, willing prisoners, until the end. At the very least, the repeated references to our modern world as “the church- ruin of noise” provides a useful epithet for flinging at the TV when watching the nightly news.
Not much set is required. The bare stage suggests the austere interior of a Protestant church, and the singers at first look dressed for Sunday service. Sten Bryiel’s wild-eyed Lucifer calls forth the antichrist, and off we go. No film director is listed, so perhaps stage director Staffan Valdemar Holm decided to include a roving on-stage cameraperson (unseen), who zooms in for close-ups and follows the stage action closely. This heightens the immediacy of the production, not to mention its oddness.
And the music? One might think the score would be some harsh, modernistic screech-and -scream affair. Not at all. Langgaard’s textures are thick and at times streaked through with bi- or polytonality. For the most part, however, the music is recognizably tonal, but driven and nervous, hardly starting off on one theme before scattering off onto another idea. It makes for brilliant, unsettling listening, and Thomas Dausgaard leads the Danish Symphony orchestra with confidence, as if this were another “Turandot” or possibly “Salome.” The hall might have been unfriendly to voices, or the orchestration; for one or both of those reasons, the singers have been provided with unobtrusive microphones. The sound suffers a bit, therefore, from a lack of real focus as to origin. But better to have heard the music than to have it swallowed up by the acoustics.
So who should seek out this DVD? Obviously, fans of twentieth century should consider this an essential purchase. But at only 95 minutes, the opera has something for even those usually averse to more progressive works. At the very least, they will be able to say they have seen “The Great Whore” on DVD.
But who hasn’t?
Chris Mullins
Los Angeles Unified School District, Secondary Literacy