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.
With her performance of the “Four Last Songs,” ably partnered by Michael Tilson Thomas and his San Francisco Symphony, Deborah Voigt emphatically confirmed her place as one of the glories of the current roster of Strauss interpreters.
We are perhaps familiar with a more usual “Liederabend” approach as furthered by other celebrated sopranos -- you know, the often mewing, cooing, hushed treatment of every fragile syllable as-if-they-might-break-if-sung-too-operatically? Such studied wispiness was little in evidence in Ms. Voigt’s renditions on January 10th. No wilting violet she, Diva Debbie just flat out really sang ‘em all instead of over-“interpreting” them. And oh, how she sang! With steady tone of great presence in all registers and at all gradations of volume; with generous, soaring, high-flying phrases; with delicate nuance and telling detail; all of which was characterized by excellent diction and complete stylistic understanding.
Up against her seasoned Straussian standard then, the SFO was highly competent if not quite equally successful in essaying this richly detailed score. Oft times on past occasions I have wished this fine group of musicians would coalesce into a single-minded band of thrilling music-makers, and often as not I have found them a bit wanting in artistic vision and ensemble, no more so than now as they confronted these lush, complex orchestral songs. If history is a teacher, my past SFO experiences had perhaps taught me that Maestro Thomas (or “MTT” as he is marketed locally) seems to draw inspiration from superb soloists more than he appears to impart it routinely to his players. That was certainly true of such past luminaries as Lang Lang and Helene Grimaud, with whom he became a true collaborator, and with whom the orchestra excelled. Here, MTT inexplicably seemed content to allow the orchestra to be a somewhat aloof accompanist.
That said, there were some very fine orchestral moments to be sure, not least of which was a peerless violin solo in “Beim Schlafengehen,” matched by an equally superb horn solo in “Im Abendrot.” (Indeed, the horns were remarkably wonderful throughout the evening.) Having heard the Vienna Philharmonic take on this score, the bar was set very high for me, since those guys absolutely inhabit this music as a seamless ensemble. That SFO would not be so seamlessly involved was foretold by the concert opener, Knussen’s Third Symphony. It was dispatched with cool skill, but little overt joy or passion, the very talented individual musicians shining if somewhat independent. The Strauss merely continued that semi-detached, sit-back-and-play-the-notes pattern.
And then something happened. Barber’s seldom heard “Andromache’s Farewell” knocked us right between the eyes with a well-judged and committed dramatic reading from our soprano, matched thrill for thrill by expansive, virtuosic orchestral playing elicited by MTT’s fiery conducting. (What, did this guy knock back a couple of Red Bull’s at intermission?)
The wonderful, under-valued soprano Martina Arroyo premiered the piece in 1963 to open the new Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. How enjoyable to already encounter the vibrant palette of orchestral sounds and effects (especially the exciting brass fanfares) that the composer would further refine and put to good use a bit later in his “Antony and Cleopatra” which opened the new Metropolitan Opera House.
“Andromache’s” dynamic score certainly deserves to be heard more often. That is, if a dramatic soprano of Ms. Voigt’s bountiful gifts can be found. It is an interesting and varied scena with well-calculated dramatic tension; featuring a pleasing balance of signature Barber melodiousness and parlando passages; and with some sure-fire, slam-bang, full-Geschrei money notes that stir the soul and tickle the eardrums. And man, does our Diva ever have those money notes! Million Dollar Baby, baby! It was a singular treat to hear such a wholly realized, successful undertaking of this rarity.
After the prolonged ovation died down for the Barber, MTT then jumped right into a Puckish reading of Beethoven’s Fourth with equally pleasing results. Though it may not have the grandeur or gravitas of the “bookend” Third and Fifth Symphonies, it was delightful nonetheless, especially in this playful, inspired interpretation. My persistence in returning to Davies Hall for yet another concert after those several disappointing near-misses was amply rewarded this night, for now SFO was indeed not just “playing” but truly “inhabiting” the music with abandon.
MTT was in his element, inspiring and charismatic, enjoying himself (and Beethoven) so much that at a couple of points I was thinking he may just break into some spontaneous Schuhplatten. The orchestra responded in kind with flawless ensemble playing and sparkling, intricate solo work. (As Ed Sullivan might say: “How about a hand for that bassoon player? C’mon!”) The last stinging chord brought a rain of rousing cheers down on the assemblage, probably not a usual response for the Fourth, which says a lot for the dazzling magic that MTT and the SFO imbued on a piece of such gentler gifts.
After this exciting second half, representing the very best I have ever heard from this bunch and rivaling any other orchestra in the world, I wanted to shout “Dude, drink the Red Bull before Act One next time!” And for all I know, MTT did. . .
James Sohre