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.
Towards the end of his life Britten became interested in the idea of developing the opera experience beyond the technical confines of the stage. He would have, I think, loved this film because it’s so intelligently sensitive to his fundamental ideas. It is, no less, a work of art built around a work of art.
Britten’s opera focuses primarily on the character of the aging Queen Elizabeth I. The plot may revolve around her feelings for the Earl of Essex, but Britten knew that most audiences would know the story already : his aim was to explore why Elisabeth needed to keep up her image of invulnerability. In the first scene, the Earl of Essex sings about a “chess game” in which the goal is to win the queen. This Queen has to keep ahead of the game, constantly, through stratagem and the illusion of invulnerability. Thus the stage action is woven with scenes from “behind the scenes”, creating the effect of illusion within illusion.
Like the Queen herself, Barstow the actress is under pressure to perform. In the opening scene, where she looks wearily into the mirror in her dressing room, while listening to the overture. It’s very moving. Not all singers make good actresses. Barstow, though, is exceptionally good. She’s so convincing that you forget, for a moment, that this, too, is illusion and stagecraft. Her whole performance is a masterclass in opera characterisation, and worth studying for its own sake. This Elizabeth is no fool, but watchful and tense, like a coiled spring. Hence the sharp delivery and attack, and the bristling, sharp edge to the voice. When the Queen steals her rival’s dress and dances in it, Barstow spits out her lines savagely, bringing out the menace that underpins the elaborate party games at Court. When Essex breaks into the Queens room and finds her unadorned and bald, Barstow’s very silence is moving. When she dismisses him, her voice wobbles, “Go, Robin, go” in an intense mixture of conflicted emotion, before she crumbles, the camera mercifully switching to long shot. It makes the “dressing scene” which follows all the more poignant. Her white makeup is lit so her face looks like a death mask. Later, when she assures Lady Essex that her children will be spared, her voice trembles with tenderness, “Frances, a woman speaks”. Seconds later, her voice becomes shrill with anger as she scolds Lady Rich, but when she’s signed the death warrant, her face contorts into a terrifying, wordless expression.
Film creates special new opportunities. For example, in the “Mortua”, when the Queen finally faces her mortality, there are long silences which would not work on stage or recording. Here though, the camera dwells on Barstow’s face which registers intense emotion. Sound, as such, is unnecessary. When she does sing, weakly, the song she and Essex had playfully sung long ago, she sing so quietly and tenderly that the impact would otherwise be lost. Similarly when she’d earlier explained her love for her nation, the camera pans the balconies in the opera house, backstage attendants and so on, as if all the world were listening to those noble, ringing words.
Just as the film draws out the effort the Queen makes to remain in control, the film shows how much work goes on behind the scenes of a production. Recordings alone can sometimes break the link between listener and performer, so sometimes people focus on recording values rather than on artistic creation. This film is an excellent reminder that it is people who make opera and that it isn’t easy work !
Musically, of course, this is very good, for Opera North has very high standards indeed. Britten’s score itself adapts early English music forms, weaving them into the whole, just as the film itself expands the basic opera. Early English music and poetry meant a great deal to the composer and this is one of the longest works in which he explores it. Therefore Daniels delineates these aspects of the score very clearly, because they, too, are an integral part of the multi-layered, shape-shifting whole. If the courtly dances are somewhat on the fast side, that relates to the narrative — the Queen deliberately tests the courtiers to their limits by making them dance and sing at a furious pace ! Daniels also has the measure of Britten’s acerbic dissonances which, throughout the opera add to the edgy tension in the drama. This opera has never been “popular” because its uncomfortable idiom seems at odds with the opulent setting, but that was Britten’s point. This is a powerful film, and completely unique.
Anne Ozorio