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.
Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers confirms the composer’s deftness in penning a good tune and spinning a faux-Oriental orchestral fabric. But, opera is more than simply a catchy melody or two, and if it wasn’t for the tenor-baritone friendship duet ‘Au Fond du Temple Saint’, the opera’s one-dimensional characters and dramatic stiltedness would probably see it consigned to the drawer marked ‘lesser-known, justly neglected’.
Set in ancient Ceylon, among dirt-poor fisher-folk, Eugène Cormon and Michel Carré’s libretto offered Bizet an evocative exotic locale but little by way of dramatic interest or momentum.
We begin on a desolate shore, where the eponymous pearl-divers sing of the dangers and destitution which they face, praying for protection and performing ritual dances to fend off evil spirits. ‘Conflict’ is introduced when the recently re-united comrades, Zurga, the head fisherman, and Nadir, find themselves re-living an old rivalry for the beautiful virgin priestess, Leila - a rivalry that they had formerly renounced in the name of eternal brotherhood. Leila is herself torn between her sacred vows to Brahma - impressed upon her by the high priest Nourabad and which she must fulfil to ensure the fishermen’s safety - and her rekindled secular passion for Nadir. Raging jealousy leads Zurga to condemn the lovers to death, but anger is followed by remorse and finally mercy when Zurga recognises Leila, somewhat improbably, as the woman who had sheltered him when he was a fugitive. As the villagers fight to save their homes from an inferno which has engulfed them, Zurga releases the couple and urges them to flee.
Such a limp, cliché-ridden tale needs an injection of dramatic energy from its director. Oliver Platt and his designer Colin Richmond adopt a minimalist approach in this new production for Opera Holland Park, which looks pretty but generates little tension or sultry heat.
The bare stage is suffused with aquamarine light, and onto this Sri Lankan shore flood the villagers, bedecked in vibrant, multi-coloured costumes. A silky sheet billows sumptuously, serving to evoke sun, sand and, later, storm-tossed sail. It looks richly ‘authentic’; but, just as Bizet’s score somewhat disconcertingly juxtaposes a bevy of musical styles from East and West, so the fine-voiced chorus don’t quite pass as poverty-struck fishermen. Katharine Ryan’s choreography is uninspiring and at times inert; the ceremonial dances are hackneyed and in general the stage movements are rather amateur. Which is a pity as the Opera Holland Park chorus are on terrific form, vehemently ringing out their hymn ‘Brahma divin Brahma!’ to quell the storm which ends Act 2, and urgently awaiting the double execution as the dawn approaches, ‘Dès que le soleil’ in the final Act.
So much depends on the four leads and, fortunately for Platt, the soloists here tell the story clearly and with conviction. Australian baritone Grant Doyle was a characterful Zurga, establishing a powerful stage presence and alert to every dramatic gesture and detail. While not always secure at the top, Doyle sang with a credible dark tone and rich warmth, particularly in his Act 3 aria, ‘L’orage est calmé’ as both the natural tempest and his own anger quieten.
Jung Soo Yun was rather wooden initially as Nadir, but he warmed up and the South Korean tenor’s appealing lyrical brightness blended beautifully with Doyle in their renowned duet. His delicate, well-controlled falsetto was sweetly beguiling.
As the mysterious priestess Leila, Greek-Canadian soprano Soula Parassidis was befittingly glamorous, richly swathed in silks and veil, and glossily toned of voice. Combining a gleaming timbre with lightness and flexibility, Parassidis dispatched the French coloratura effortlessly, and with technical precision and assurance. Throughout she used her voice expressively, powerfully communicating character and feeling.
Making up the quartet of soloists, Keel Watson was an authoritative, imposing High Priest.
The small forces of the City of London Sinfonia summoned up a surprisingly rich array of tints and shades under the proficient baton of Matthew Waldren. The woodwind and string soloists rose admirably to their respective challenges and there was some wonderfully soft playing from the horns.
So, go along for the good tunes. The drama may lack credibility and sincerity, but the melodies delight and there is no doubting the singers’ conviction.
Claire Seymour