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.
On August 7, 2014, the Santa Fe Opera presented a double bill of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Impresario and Igor Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol (The Nightingale). The Impresario deals with the casting of an opera and Le Rossignol tells the well-known fairy tale about the plain gray bird with an exquisite song.
On August 7, 2014, the Santa Fe Opera presented a double bill of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Impresario and Igor Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol (The Nightingale). The Impresario deals with the casting of an opera and Le Rossignol tells the well-known fairy tale about the plain gray bird with an exquisite song. Since the same cast sang both operas, it could be inferred that Yussupovich, the impresario, is casting the second opera. Santa Fe’s version of The Impressario is a pastiche that uses other Mozart vocal works to replace dramatic material of the composer’s time that would be meaningless to today’s audience. Included were: K 541, Un bacio di mano; K 256, Clarice cara; K 539, Ein deutsches Kriegslied; the “Champagne Aria” from K 527, Don Giovanni; K351, Komm lieber Zither; K419, No, che non sei capace; and K561, the scatological canon, Bona Nox.
Penny Black translated Gottlieb Stephanie’s original text and Ranjit Bolt added the English words sung to the vocal music listed above. Thanks to the imaginative lighting of Christopher Akerlind and the effective projections of Andrzej Goulding, James Macnamara’s practical set with piano and desk could be used for both operas. Fabio Toblini’s costumes emphasized the caricatures created in the libretto. Director Michael Gieleta had his managers plan covert actions and his artists plant their feet and sing while ballerina Xiaoxiao Wang and five limber male dancers performed Seán Curran’s engaging choreography around them.
As impresario Yuri Yssupovich and manager Otto van der Puff, Anthony Michaels-Moore and Kevin Burdette sang with aplomb as they tried to envision a financially viable opera company. They needed money from Eiler, the unscrupulous banker sung by David Govertson, to get the show on stage. In his aria set to the music of Ein deutsches Kriegslied, Govertson’s patter was perfectly synchronized with the orchestra and he did not miss a single syllable. Meredith Arwady was a thoroughly amusing Chlotichilda Krone but her low notes did not carry as well as the rest of her range. Brenda Rae and Bruce Sledge were Gieleta’s version of an opera “love couple.” They sang wonderfully as individual artists, but in the long run they could not help competing with each other.
The star of the evening in both The Impresario and Le Rossignol was coloratura soprano Erin Morley. She made us laugh as Adellina Vocedoro-Gambalunghi and brought tears to our eyes as the once banished nightingale that returned to sing because the emperor longed for her presence. In both operas, her singing was pure silver as her voice rose to rarely heard heights. With magical projections and lighting effects, the Impresario’s piano turned into a boat from which the Rossignol fisherman, Bruce Sledge, sang with warm tones as he plied his trade.
Brenda Rae was an attentive Cook and Kevin Burdette an officious Chamberlain. Until the end of the story, Anthony Michaels-Moore was an uncomprehending Emperor but his tears finally brought the bird back to sing above the fantastic decor of his early twentieth century palace. Kenneth Montgomery led the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra in exquisite renditions of both of these disparate pieces. His Impresario was elegant and precise while his Rossignol was sensitive and impressionistic. He brought out the essence of each piece and his translucent approach let the audience hear the sonorous beauty of each orchestration. The entire evening was thoroughly delightful.
Maria Nockin
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Cast and production information:
Conductor, Kenneth Montgomery; Director, Michael Gieleta; Scenic Design, James Macnamara; Costume Design, Fabio Toblini; Lighting Design, Christopher Akerlund; Projection Design, Andrzej Goulding; Choreographer, Seán Curran; Chorus Master Susanne Sheston; Yuri Yussupovich/Emperor, Anthony Michaels-Moore; Otto van der Puff/Chamberlain, Kevin Burdette; Heinrich Eiler/Bonze, David Govertsen; Chlotichilda Krone/Death, Meredith Arwady; Vlada Vladimirescu/Cook, Brenda Rae; Adellina Vocedoro-Gambalunghi/Nightingale, Erin Morley; Vladimir Vladimirescu/Fisherman, Bruce Sledge; Dancers: Anthony Bocconi, Jesse Campbell, Reed Luplau, Shane Rutkowski, Ziaoxiao Wang, Jonathan Royse Windham.