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."
Julius Drake's latest Hugo Wolf Songbooks recital at the Wigmore Hall featured Angelika Kirchschlager and Dietrich Henschel. These singers have very different voices indeed, so Drake's programme made the most of the contrast.
The logic behind the song selections revealed itself as the recital progressed, but the evening started with five Mörike songs which Kirchschlager sings so well. Her distinctive, warm timbre adds depth to Wolf's songs, bringing out the sensuality fundamental to their interpretation. When Kirchschlager sings Wolf, there's nothing precious or effete, even when, as in Erstes Liebeslied eines Mädchen, the girl is so young that she cries "Grief ich eine Schlange" while less innocent ears know what she's really snared in her net. Kirchschlager's forte is natural graciousness. She's ideal in Wolf because she's subtle, capturing the delicate charm beneath which Mörike shields dangerous thoughts. In Das verlassene Mägdlein, Wolf writes turbulence into the piano part, expressing the emotional tempest the servant girl feels even though she's attending dutifully to her job. On this occasion, Kirchschlager was singing into words, as if the songs were a vehicle for hochdramatischer grand opera. She's good enough that she was still enjoyable, but it's not her usual style, nor one particularly suited to these songs.
Perhaps this concert was an experiment in turning Wolf's songs into theatre. It's perfectly reasonable to group Wolf's settings of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister poems into a kind of narrative. The saga is so well known that most listeners understand where the songs belong. Kirchschlager, Henschel and Drake presented the three Harfenlieder songs (plus Spottlied) with the three Mignon songs, withPhiline and Kennst du Das Land.
This was a welcome chance to enter into the world of the strange old harper and Mignon. Mignon is very young, but has a horrible backstory of abuse. Kennst du das Land is one of the most beautiful songs ever written, but part of its impact comes from the intense emotions it evokes, emotions almost too extreme to be expressed by a child. Sorrow is central to her personality. "Nun wer die Sensucht kennt, weiss, was ich leide!". The rcihness of Kirchschlager's voice suggests that there are mysteries to Mignon's personality which we may never know. When she sings the downward phrases at the end of Mignon 1 ("und nur ein Gott"), her voices seems to swoon. Julius Drake shows how the phrase is replicated in the piano part, the piano reinforcing what Mignon cannot tell.
In some repertoire, a voice like Dietrich Henschel's is an advantage. Recently he sang Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Ich wandte mich um und sah an alles Unrecht (Ecclesiastical Action) for Vladimir Jurowski at the Royal Festival Hall (read review here) where the harsh, apocalyptic subject requires a singer who can sing forcefully, often in tricky, disjointed phrases. Henschel sang that well, but singing Wolf is a different prospect.. Henschel was acceptable in the Harfenspieler songs, because Goethe deliberately contrasts the ravaged Harper with the angelic Mignon. In the earlier part of the recital, with other Goethe settings, like Prometheus and Grenzen der Menscheit his singing as marred by excessively wide dynamics. Phrases were pulled out of shape, harsh vibrato overcompensating for dry tone. It didn't help that Julius Drake pounded ferociously. He's one of the best pianists for song but here gave his singer no quarter. Henschel's good enough to know when things aren't going well for whatever reason. When Kirchschalger finished singing Philine, Henschel remarked on the final lines "Jeder Tag hat seine Plage, und die Nacht hat ihre Lust". Everyone has bad days sometimes. He then approached Spottlied with gruff good humour, defusing some of the bitter envy in the text, which is a perfectly valid interpretation.
Hugo Wolf been called the "Wagner of the Lied" but this refers to the way he rethought the relationship between poetry and song. Indeed, Wolf's sensitivity to miniature nuances precludes Wagnerian treatment. While it was good to hear the Wilhelm Meister songs together, they aren't music theatre but songs to be sung as lyrically as is reasonable. The encore was Leopold Lenz (1803-62) Nun wer die Sensucht kennt., for two voices and piano.
Anne Ozorio