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."
![Alice Coote [Photo by Anne-Marie Le Blé]](http://www.operatoday.com/anne-marie-le-ble.gif)
The Proms reach people all over the world, bringing them together for a kind of international street party, celebrating a shared love of music. If the arts make us more human and humane, then the BBC Proms are a force for good.
The atmosphere at the First Night is electric, everyone’s in a party mood. Yet the high point of this Prom was Alice Coote’s stunning Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody, op. 53, heard for the first time at the Royal Albert Hall in 41 years.
The Prom began with Stravinsky’s Fireworks, op 4. It’s a bagatelle, but Diaghilev liked it so much he commissioned The Firebird and then The Rite of Spring. So from this acorn grew modern music. Not even the carnage of the First World War could stem the tide. This year’s Proms will feature all of Stravinsky’s ballets.
Chabrier’s Ode to Music followed. Ailish Tynan has been on many Young Artist programs, many of which were BBC funded and promoted. She’s proof that such sponsorship nurtures performers. It must be nerve wracking to sing before an audience of millions, so Jiřì Belohlàvek led the BBC Symphony Orchestra sensitively. Belohlàvek is proving a revelation in London music circles. He has no equal in Czech and Slavic repertoire. Recently his Dvořàk’s Rusalka at Glyndebourne won great acclaim. At last year’s Proms, he produced a superlative Janàček Osud. This year he’ll be conducting Smetana and Martinů.
Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no 3 is another acorn, but one which didn’t grow past its first movement. Yet it’s interesting because it shows how full of life the composer was just before he died. No “curse of the Pathétique”, then. This rarity was a surprising choice for something as high profile as the First Night of the Proms, when the audience is happy with flashy crowd pleasers. But in a quirky way, that’s why it worked. The Proms may appear safe, but there’s enough challenge for those prepared to venture.
Back to fireworks with Katia and Marielle Labèque. Poulenc’s Concerto in D minor for two pianos is a three part drama, an interplay between two different pianists and orchestra, with individual instruments playing smaller supporting roles. Moods swing between tender and jazzy, from elegant serenity to uninhibited joy. For an encore, the Labèques then played four hands on one keyboard, a lively polka by Berio - not Luciano but his grandfather. Another Proms surprise !
International as the Proms may be, they symbolize Britishness to many, so it was good to hear Elgar, in sunny mode, In the South played with élan.
The heart of this Prom, though, wasn’t the obvious cheerful pieces but Brahms’s devastating Rhapsody for Contralto, the Alto Rhapsody. Alice Coote’s performance was searing, white hot with intensity, without sacrificing the compassion and dignity that makes the piece so moving.
Goethe’s poem depicts an outcast who sets off away into the wilderness. From a brooding orchestral introduction, Coote’s voice projects into the vastness of the Royal Albert Hall. It’s important that she has such command, for the poem pits an individual against overwhelming forces. “Die Ode verschlingt ihn” goes the text, “the desert engulfs him”. Coote breathed into the “o” in “Ode” so it rang resonantly, yet hinted subtly of the hollowness within. Then she extended “verschlingt”, stretching it to evoke distance and then oblivion.
There’s something neurotic about this poem. The disappointed man “furtively feeds on his own worth in unfulfilling self-love”. (“zehrt er heimlich auf seinen eignen Wert in ung’nügender Selbstsucht”). Coote showed how the repeated sounds “seinen” and “eignen” elucidate meaning. The protagonist is going round in circles, grinding himself down. Maybe that’s why the poem appealed to Brahms? Ostensibly he was upset that he’d been jilted by Clara Schumann’s daughter but there’s no evidence that he had a real relationship with her, or indeed with any woman, Clara included.
Perhaps that’s why the resolution in this piece comes from the way Brahms integrates the soloist, chorus and orchestra. A characteristic Brahmsian flute melody appears, at first tentatively, then grows in power, joined in the final strophe with the choir of men’s voices : no longer is the mezzo really alone, for the Vater der Liebe (father of love, possibly God) has shown mercy, revealing the “thousand springs that can help the thirsty in the desert” (“die tausend Quellen neben dem Durstenden in der Wüste”) Coote rounds the vowel sounds in “Wüste” making the word grow with as if absorbing nourishment.
The Alto Rhapsody is a powerful work, Brahms’s Winterreise, if you will, heralding the even more profound Vier ernste Gesänge, op. 121. After a performance like this it was hard to take in anything else.
All Proms are available for listening online and on demand on the BBC Proms website. The First Night was televised so there’s also a video upload, Over the next few weeks, Opera Today will be covering Proms of opera and vocal interest, including a new Handel Partenope (with Andreas Scholl) and Purcell’s The Fairy Queen. a semi staging of the current Glyndebourne production reviewed in June.
Anne Ozorio
Click here to access the BBC Proms web site.