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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.’
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.
‘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.’
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.
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."
Much has been promised of London Lyric Opera. The newest company on the capital’s opera scene, it will collaborate with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to specialise in full-scale concert performances with high-profile soloists.
Plans are afoot for a Fidelio at Cadogan Hall in February 2009, and after that, Die Fledermaus and Der Freischütz.
It is unclear whether there might be an intention in the more distant future to broaden the company’s scope beyond the German language, but perhaps there shouldn’t be. Although LLO is selecting well-known operas, it is also actively seeking out unusual and historically-valid performance editions. The UK is virtually flooded with companies doing the same for Baroque opera, and for Italian bel canto rarities, but there hasn’t really been anybody around to take an equivalent interest in the core German repertoire — until now.
The company’s founder and mastermind is the Australian baritone James Hancock, and this inaugural concert was the fulfilment of his long-held desire to perform the title role. Hancock used to be a tenor, and his voice remains higher-lying than the role demands; more worryingly, his voice simply dried out as the evening went on, and by the end of Act 2 there was really no ‘juice’ left. Though it is the fashion these days to preserve the dramatic flow of the opera by going straight through without intervals (as Wagner had intended at the outset), the two breaks in this performance were a practical necessity. Karl Huml seemed somewhat too high for Daland, too, and I couldn't help wondering whether he would have fared better in the title role.
The performance’s unquestionable highlight was the British soprano, Gweneth-Ann Jeffers, making her role début as Senta. Lyrical and muscular of tone, with an assured stage presence and innate sense of drama, she captured the supreme emotional focus of Wagner’s early heroine in her desperation to break out of her downtrodden existence. This ‘authentic’ performance edition has the Ballad in its original A minor, a tone higher than the familiar key, and it fit Jeffers’s athletic soprano like a glove.
Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts is neither a natural Wagnerian nor a natural love interest, but his psychologically intense and highly-charged Erik was a fitting foil for Jeffers’s Senta. Their pairing was a highly intelligent piece of casting, and their scenes together were in a different league to the rest of the opera. If only there had been such chemistry between Senta and the Dutchman.
Tenor Richard Roberts’s dopey characterisation of the Steersman was engaging, though his opening song was something of a struggle; he was quite plainly suffering from a cold, though no announcement was made.
The soft lyrical passage at the end of Senta’s ballad defeated the ladies of the Philharmonia Chorus, but their male colleagues were a strong and lusty Norwegian crew; I’m sure there was nothing wrong with those who supplied the voices of the ghostly Dutch crew, but there was some nasty distortion on the amplification system which piped their rousing chorus through from offstage. Veteran conductor Lionel Friend — who was responsible for the research into the performing edition — made some strange tempo choices, but the RPO generally sounded full and energetic, a few cracked brass notes aside.
All in all, the performance would have benefited from better-balanced casting; Jeffers was just so good that she showed everybody else up. And better marketing would help ticket sales and thus financial viability; the Barbican Hall’s stalls were quite full, but there was plenty of space in the Circle and they didn’t even bother to open the Balcony. If they can sort these things out, London Lyric Opera could be an enduring success.
Ruth Elleson © 2008