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
23 Feb 2006
La Forza del Destino at the Met — Four Reviews
METROPOLITAN OPERA: "Commissioned for St Petersburg (the premiere was in 1862), La Forza del Destino was based on a play by the Duke of Rivas, and was at first only a moderate success. Although Verdi revised it for Milan in 1869, it took a long time for audiences to come to appreciate the sprawling drama; several years take place between the first and last scenes, and the number of coincidences in the plot stretches credulity to the limit. But the overture, the arias for Leonora (including “Pace!”), and the duets for tenor and baritone have ensured that the opera remains popular whenever it is revived." Here are four reviews.
A Conductor's Date With Destiny
BY JAY NORDLINGER [NY Sun, 22 February 2006]
One of Verdi's best operas is now playing at the Met: "La Forza del Destino," a stew of arias, duets, choruses, and drama that makes a near-perfect operatic feast. If you don't like "Forza," you don't like Verdi. And you probably don't like the Italian repertoire. I won't go so far as to say you don't like life.
Click here for remainder of article.
The Marquis's Daughter and the Inca Prince Who Loves Her
By ALLAN KOZINN [NY Times, 22 February 2006]
The economics of opera being what they are, there are reasons to worry about a production that the Metropolitan Opera files away immediately after its premiere and leaves in storage for a decade. When it finally returns, it looks as if the company is holding its finger to the wind, trying to sneak it past an audience that either missed or has forgotten the original run, and hoping it's safe to slip it into the repertory.
Click here for remainder of article.
La forza del destino, Metropolitan Opera, New York
By Martin Bernheimer [Financial Times, 22 February 2006]
It looked so promising on paper. La forza del destino, virtually uncut, was returning to the mighty Met on Monday after a decade's absence, with a cast that seemed elite by current standards. Reality, alas, did not reinforce expectations. For at least one observer this was a sad night at the opera.
Click here for remainder of article.
'La Forza' may not be with you at the Met
BY MARION LIGNANA ROSENBERG [Newsday, 23 February 2006]
Seas of anguish surrounding islands of bitter humor, lit by the faintest glimmers of grace: Verdi's "La Forza del Destino" (1869) is volcanic, giddy, pious and among the hardest operas to perform well. The composer had a special fondness for this novelistic work, which he deemed one of his "modern" operas and repeatedly withheld from performance unless an exacting conductor and a theatrically sharp ensemble could be assembled.
Click here for remainder of review.