‘A brief history of song’ is the subtitle of the 2020 Oxford Lieder Festival (10th-17th October), which will present an ambitious, diverse and imaginative programme of 40 performances and events.
‘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.’
Eboracum Baroque is a flexible period instrument ensemble, comprising singers and instrumentalists, which was founded in York - as its name suggests, Eboracum being the name of the Roman fort on the site of present-day York - while artistic director Chris Parsons was at York University.
‘There could be no happier existence. Each morning he composed something beautiful and each evening he found the most enthusiastic admirers. We gathered in his room - he played and sang to us - we were enthusiastic and afterwards we went to the tavern. We hadn’t a penny but were blissfully happy.’
When soprano Eleanor Dennis was asked - by Ashok Klouda, one of the founders and co-directors of the Highgate International Chamber Music Festival - to perform some of Beethoven’s Scottish Songs Op.108 at this year’s Festival, as she leafed through the score to make her selection the first thing that struck her was the beauty of the poetry.
“At the start, one knows ‘bits’ of it,” says tenor Mark Padmore, somewhat wryly, when I meet him at the Stage Door of the Royal Opera House where the tenor has just begun rehearsals for David McVicar’s new production of Death in Venice, which in November will return Britten’s opera to the ROH stage for the first time since 1992.
“Trust me, I’m telling you stories …”
When British opera director Nina Brazier tries to telephone me from Frankfurt, where she is in the middle of rehearsals for a revival of Florentine Klepper’s 2015 production of Martinů’s Julietta, she finds herself - to my embarrassment - ‘blocked’ by my telephone preference settings. The technical hitch is soon solved; but doors, in the UK and Europe, are certainly very much wide open for Nina, who has been described by The Observer as ‘one of Britain’s leading young directors of opera’.
“We need to stop talking about ‘diversity’ and think instead about ‘inclusivity’,” says Bill Bankes-Jones, when we meet to talk about the forthcoming twelfth Tête à Tête Opera Festival which runs from 24th July to 10th August.
The young Hong Kong-born British composer Dani Howard is having quite a busy year.
For Peter Sellars, Mozart’s Idomeneo is a ‘visionary’ work, a utopian opera centred on a classic struggle between a father and a son written by an angry 25-year-old composer who wanted to show the musical establishment what a new generation could do.
“Physiognomy, psychology and technique.” These are the three things that determine the way a singer’s sound is produced, so Ken Querns-Langley explains when we meet in the genteel surroundings of the National Liberal Club, where the training programmes, open masterclasses and performances which will form part the third London Bel Canto Festival will be held from 5th-24th August.
“Sop. Page, attendant on the King.” So, reads a typical character description of the loyal page Oscar, whose actions, in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, unintentionally lead to his monarch’s death. He reveals the costume that King Gustavo is wearing at the masked ball, thus enabling the monarch’s secretary, Anckarstroem, to shoot him. The dying King falls into the faithful Oscar’s arms.
A mournful Princess forced by her father into an arranged marriage. A Prince who laments that no-one loves him for himself, and so exchanges places with his aide-de-camp. A melancholy dreamer who dons a deceased jester’s motley and finds himself imprisoned for impertinence.
‘Aloneness’ does not immediately seem a likely or fruitful subject for an opera. But, loneliness and isolation - an individual’s inner sphere, which no other human can truly know or enter - are at the core of Yasushi Inoue’s creative expression.
What links Wagner’s Das Rheingold, Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Cavalli’s La Calisto? It sounds like the sort of question Paul Gambaccini might pose to contestants on BBC Radio 4’s music quiz, Counterpoint.
Though she won praise from the literary greats of her day, including Thomas Hardy, Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound and Siegfried Sassoon, the Victorian poet Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) was little-known among the contemporary reading public. When she visited the Poetry Bookshop of Harold Monro, the publisher of her first and only collection, The Farmer’s Bride (1916), she was asked, “Are you Charlotte Mew?” Her reply was characteristically diffident and self-deprecatory: “I’m sorry to say I am.”
“It lives!” So cries Victor Frankenstein in Richard Brinsley Peake’s Presumption: or the Fate of Frankenstein on beholding the animation of his creature for the first time. Peake might equally have been describing the novel upon which he had based his 1823 play which, staged at the English Opera House, had such a successful first run that it gave rise to fourteen further adaptations of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novella in the following three years.
It sounds like a question from a BBC Radio 4 quiz show: what links Handel’s cantata for solo contralto, La Lucrezia, Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, and the post-punk band Joy Division?
The first two instalments of the Academy of Ancient Music’s ‘Purcell trilogy’ at the Barbican Hall have posed plentiful questions - creative, cultural and political.
![Micaela Carosi [Photo courtesy of the artist]](http://www.operatoday.com/michaela%20carosi.png)
Micaela Carosi, the Verdi specialist, has created Aida many times, so she’s closely attuned to the role. The new production, at the Royal Opera House, London, though, is different. “It’s like singing Aida for the first time”, she says, her eyes sparkling.
“David McVicar has a vision that’s completely different”, she says. “He wants us to think about the origins of the characters and why they do what they do. It’s not just slaves, triumphs and so on. Instead we focus on motivations, on the human side of the story”.
“Aida is a princess, not an ordinary slave. She knows about political matters”, says Ms Carosi. When Amonasro is brought in as a captive, Aida’s first thought is for her father. “Tu! Prigioniero!” she says, with great feeling. But he whispers back “Non mi tradir!” (Do not betray me). “From that moment”, Ms Carosi says, “the drama changes”. Aida loves Radames, but she must protect her father and her country. “Duty first, love second. You do not often see this side of Aida”, she adds,”but it shows she has a very strong personality and a lot of courage”. Outwardly, Aida has to present the image of a slave. Inside, she knows her mission.
Micaela Carosi has created Aida many times, including with Franco Zeffirelli. There’s a wonderful photo of him kissing her on her website. She’s in full costume, having come right off stage after a performance at the Arena di Verona.
Verona is a large performance space, best filled with high drama. “I had to wave my arms a lot”, says Ms Carosi, gesticulating expressively. She must have been wonderful in performance. Zeffirelli also chose her to sing Aida at Teatro Verdi in Busseto during the Verdi centenary in 2001. The theatre at Busseto is small, with a different ambience. “I think that was one of the best productions ever. Zeffirelli really understands the difference, so he showed how to create the characters in an intimate way”.
Ms Carosi is looking forward to singing Aida at the Royal Opera House in London because it is a house which favours closely focused productions. “Usually you see the elephants, you hear the trumpets, but this time, McVicar wants attention on the personality inside the roles”. Radames, for example, which will be sung by Marcelo Álvarez, will return from battle covered in blood. “He’ll be a real warrior”, says Miss Carosi, who has worked with Álvarez several times in the past.
Aida of course will be presented as a woman of depth and intelligence, a characterization that comes naturally to Ms Carosi, who studied Modern Literature and Music History at the University of Rome. Her parents were artists, and taught the history of art. “In the conservatoire, you learn how to sing”, she says, “but I think we need more than just musical education. We need to understand the connection between all the arts and the time that they came from”. In Verdi’s time, theatres were smaller, often without electricity, so audiences were closer to the performers. Audiences were also passionately well-informed about opera, eagerly awaiting new works.
Micaela Carosi has created many major roles in the Italian operatic repertoire, and is deeply immersed in its aesthetic. Although she has sung Aida so often, she feels that each new production is stimulating because it opens new perspectives. She finds that being an artist means “being open. You can’t do the same thing by routine all the time. Every performance is an opportunity to learn something new and improve your understanding.” In London, she’ll be singing with a cast she knows well — Marcelo Álvarez, Marianne Cornetti, Marco Vratogna, Giacomo Prestia, Robert Lloyd and the conductor Nicola Luisotti. “The atmosphere is good”, she says, “It’s a “nuovo impresa”, a bold new venture.
Micaela Carosi sings Aida in a new production at the Royal Opera House London from 27th April 2010.
Anne Ozorio