![Antonín Dvořák [Source: Wikipedia]](http://www.operatoday.com/Dvorak1.png)
06 Nov 2014
Antonin Dvořák: The Cunning Peasant (Šelma Sedlák)
What an enjoyable opportunity to encounter Dvořák’s sixth opera, Šelma Sedlák¸or The Cunning Peasant!
Recently in Performances
ETO Autumn 2020 Season Announcement: Lyric Solitude
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.
Love, always: Chanticleer, Live from London … via San Francisco
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 …).
Dreams and delusions from Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper at Wigmore Hall
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.
Treasures of the English Renaissance: Stile Antico, Live from London
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.
A wonderful Wigmore Hall debut by Elizabeth Llewellyn
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.
The Sixteen: Music for Reflection, live from Kings Place
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’.
Iestyn Davies and Elizabeth Kenny explore Dowland's directness and darkness at Hatfield House
'Such is your divine Disposation that both you excellently understand, and royally entertaine the Exercise of Musicke.’
Paradise Lost: Tête-à-Tête 2020
‘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.’
Joyce DiDonato: Met Stars Live in Concert
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.
‘Where All Roses Go’: Apollo5, Live from London
‘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 're-connect'
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’.
Lucy Crowe and Allan Clayton join Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO at St Luke's
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.
Choral Dances: VOCES8, Live from London
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.
Royal Opera House Gala Concert
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’.
Fading: The Gesualdo Six at Live from London
"Before the ending of the day, creator of all things, we pray that, with your accustomed mercy, you may watch over us."
Met Stars Live in Concert: Lise Davidsen at the Oscarshall Palace in Oslo
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.
Precipice: The Grange Festival
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.
Monteverdi: The Ache of Love - Live from London
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: Rowan Pierce and Christopher Glynn at Ryedale Online
“Music for a while, shall all your cares beguile.”
A Musical Reunion at Garsington Opera
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.
OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »
Performances
It is no Rusalka, let alone a match for Janáček, but, especially during the second act, there are both good music and fun to be had.
(Let us quickly pass over the truly dreadful overture; whatever was the composer thinking?) The librettist, Josef Otakar Veselý, perhaps does Dvořák few favours; as Jan Smaczny noted in his helpful programme note, ‘despite an avowed aim to transform the fate of Czech literature by producing drama which “did not resemble something written in the age of Shakespeare”,’ this twenty-three-year-old medical student ‘had little success with his work for the stage’. That said, he seems to have produced something, which, if anything but transformative, would have appealed to popular, national tastes, with its crowd peasant scenes and opportunity for dance. Parallels with The Marriage of Figaro have been drawn, but they are difficult to discern beyond the stock devices of an aristocrat who would seduce a serving girl and a plot to expose him. As Smaczny again observes, ‘the real focus of the plot is the fate of the couple, Jeník and Bĕtuska, and their love; the fact that this [their love] is the object of parental disapproval places the plot more in the realm of The Bartered Bride and The Kiss, than Figaro .’ There is certainly none of the characterisation that forms Mozart’s — and Da Ponte’s — eternal masterpiece.
Director Stephen Medcalf has, seemingly in part as a result of the opera’s dramatic weakeness, decided to move the action to Hardy’s Wessex, even going so far as to rename the characters. Jeník and Bĕtuska become Joseph and Bathsheba, and so on. No particular harm is done, though I am not quite sure that the effort was necessary. Perhaps it just made a performance in English translation easier, though Medcalf also alludes to ‘an attempt to avoid the potential hazard of generalised Slavic folksiness’. The only case in which I found the shift problematical — and, unless I have misunderstood, entirely unnecessarily so — was the transformation of Vacláv, the farmer’s son to whom Martin/Gabriel would have his daughter wed, into a Jewish merchant, Reuben. Having a Jewish character ‘humourously’ rejected by the girl, mocked by the crowd, and consoling himself with his money left a bitter taste in the mouth and struck me as the sort of thing that might have been better altered rather than introduced in an adaptation. Otherwise, Medcalf presents the action, potentially complicated plotting included, clearly, with attractive period designs and — a particular boon, this — highly effective changes of lighting from John Bishop.
Dominic Wheeler led the largely impressive orchestra with flair and tenderness. It was striking how voluptuous a sound the strings (10.8.6.6.3) could make during the ‘romantic’ sections of the second act. And if the opening could not be turned into anything especially interesting, the fault for that should lie with composer and librettist, certainly not with the performers. As the music became more interesting — could not some of the material for the scene around the Maypole have been reused for a better Overture? — so did the performance sparkle all the more. Dancers (Thomas Badrock, Jessica Lee, Claire Rutland, and Rahien Testa) from the Central School of Ballet made a fine mark here too.
Vocally, there was much to admire too, starting with a highly creditable choral contribution. Unfortunately, the central couple proved less impressive than the supporting cast, Lawrence Thackeray’s Joseph often highly strained and Laura Ruhi-Vidal struggling with her high notes in particular. However, Martin Hässler’s Prince/Duke made an excellent impression, suggesting a baritone of considerable music subtlety, nicely complimented by Alison Langer’s attractively-voiced Duchess. John Findon, a late substitution in the role of John, displayed excellent comedic and musical gifts alike, with Emma Kerr more than his dramatic match as Gabriel’s housekeeper, Victoria. Anna Gillingham, David Shipley, and Robin Bailey rounded off a spirited young cast, from many of whom I suspect we shall hear more.
Mark Berry
Cast and production information:
Bĕtuška (Bathsheba): Laura Ruhi-Vidal; Jeník (Joseph): Lawrence Thackeray; Martin (Gabriel): David Shipley; Václav (Reuben): Robin Bailey; Veruna (Victoria): Emma Kerr; Prince (Duke): Martin Hässler; Princess (Duchess): Alison Langer; Jean (John) — John Findon; Berta (Fanny): Anna Gillingham. Director: Stephen Medcalf; Set designs: Francis O’Connor; Lighting: John Bishop; Choreography: Sarah Fahie; Dancers from the Central School of Ballet/ Chorus and Orchestra of the Guildhall School/Dominic Wheeler (conductor). Silk Street Theatre, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, Wednesday 5 November 2014.