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.
Last year we tracked Orfeo on his desperate search for his lost Euridice, through the labyrinths and studio spaces of Central St Martin’s; this year we were plunged into Macbeth’s tragic pursuit of power in the bare blackness of the CSM’s Platform Theatre.
This production is English Pocket Opera Company’s eighth collaboration with undergraduates studying for the BA degree in Performance Design and Practice at CSM, and it provided an opportunity for these students to engage with many aspects of the design process and to impress us with their creative flair, and theatrical and musical awareness.
Dispensing with stage sets and relying on costume, props and lighting (a stunning design by Alex Hopkins which juxtaposed warmth and coolness most powerfully) to work their imaginative magic, the eight young designers fashioned the fairly small Platform Theatre into both the expansive bleakness of the heath and the claustrophobic chambers of Macbeth’s castle with equal persuasiveness.
There were some innovative and striking effects. Within the castle three tapered candles, suspended aloft like misshapen stalactites, formed suggestive motifs as Macbeth lunged frantically at the imagined dagger which lures him towards evil. Later their number magnified and their distortions augmented: grotesque tubers, their light-bulbs flashing erratically, they embodied the monstrous disorder of Macbeth’s own mind, one crown-shaped miscreation dominating his consciousness. The entrance of King Duncan was similarly startling and thought-provoking. Entering from the rear of the audience, bathing the previously shadowed auditorium and stage in a haze of glowing golden light, Duncan’s attendants held an out-sized, be-tasselled crown above his head. Turned on its side this glowing circle was both an emblem of ambition’s trivial pursuit of power and a symbol of inescapable fate: Duncan slept through the gleaming ring to his bedchamber, and certain death. Then, contemplating their murderous deed, Macbeth and his wife stood either side of the gilded ring which intimated the disfigured love which has driven them to their act of violence and folly.
Designer Rosemary Elliott-Dancs’ Banquet Scene was an arresting coup de theatre¸ which drew a gasp from the unsuspecting audience. Crimson-gowned ‘table-bearers’ — their culinary fare borne atop outsize Philip Treacy-style millinery — paraded and assumed their positions at the back of the stage square. When Macbeth’s ghost-strewn delusions commenced, they dropped to the floor just as a huge, red bunraku effigy reared up, its white eyes gaping, its gnarled hands grasping at the hallucinating protagonist. Equally entrancing and chilling was the appearance of the Apparitions: as each Witch stood, in turn, with the circle inscribed in the stage, lurid projections formed amid the blue glow, mouthed their mystical prophecies and dissolved to wisps of smoky light. The Kings who then process before Macbeth were graced with beautifully ornate masks, a sign to the ailing regicide of the nobility and inner beauty that he lacks.
Musical standards were high too. The star of the show was Anna Gregory’s Lady Macbeth — fittingly, given that it is she who, with the Witches, pushes Macbeth to his foul, filthy deeds Indeed, her costumes throughout intimated the unfeminine confidence of one who repeatedly questions her husband’s masculinity: the black smock, accessorised with dagger, of the opening act was ornamented with golden regalia upon her accession to the throne, but even in her decline she retained a suggestion of military mind-set — her nightgown evoking her husband’s silver chainmail. Gregory has a glossy tone, but she was not afraid to risk the occasional stridency to suggest the emotional extremes which fuel Lady Macbeth’s treacheries and lust. Her dramatic skills flourished in the Banquet Scene, and both her love for her husband and her unbridled ambition were evident in the Act 3 duet in which the pair plan the death of Fleance. Gregory demonstrated considerable vocal power and control: trills were crisply executed, pitch was well-centred through even the fiercest runs, and the tone was appealing and bright.
As her husband, baritone Keel Watson was less secure initially but soon inspired both pity and horror in equal measure. Watson is a fine actor and used his voice most expressively, switching from fear and vulnerability to brutal defiance, and judging the pace and tenor of the role skilfully. His voice can be both nimble and sturdy, and he used it with intelligence and discretion: Macbeth’s relationship with Gregory’s Lady Macbeth was progressively more persuasive and Watson’s distracted dismissal of the Doctor (Simon Wilding) and Gentlewoman (Mai Kikkawa), who bring him news of his wife’s decline, was saddening evidence of his own loss of humanity.
Wilding was strong, too, as Banquo; and his scene with Fleance (Tatiana Delaunay) was touching, a fabric chequerboard suggesting the inevitability of their fates. Tenor Paul Featherstone was impressive as Macduff — all imperiousness and indignation — and interacted well during the more conversational scenes. His Act 4 aria, in which he declares his determination to avenge the deaths of his wife children was emotionally affecting, and revealed a tenor of appealing power and which can carry emotion, although it was unfortunate that the pitch so often strayed upwards.
The three Witches — Grace Nyandoro, Rosalind O’Dowd and Grainne Gillis — were fairly successful in overcoming Verdi’s rather tame, ‘rum-te-tum’ musical evocation of their evil. Three ladders adorned the first appearance of the heath, presumably suggesting a descent into the Hadean realms and the psychological hell from which Macbeth will struggle futilely to escape. Black-masked, the Witches moved with menace; intonation took a little while to settle, but the female voices were individually characterised and blended pleasingly.
The EPOC community chorus, cloaked in shapeless, colourless gowns and hoods for much of the performance, had their moment as the ‘trees of Birnam Wood’: ultimately their natural-toned bunting foliage ‘buried’ the defeated Macbeth — the last of the production’s many economical and engaging visual gestures.
I enjoyed this performance immensely. The lighting scheme, design details, strong musical qualities and theatrical immediacy made the two hours fly by. Much of this success was undoubtedly due to Musical Director and pianist, Philip Voldman, whose sterling accompaniment was startlingly alert to the dramatic intent and mood of each scene. Voldman needed every ounce of his considerable stamina and skill to galvanise the entire cast to aspire so high. Primary school children attending the schools’ matinee performances may find that a lot is demanded of them, however, given that there is no interval. But, once again EPOC and the students of CSM have shown that opera does not need grand budgets to reach out to its audience: just passion, resourcefulness and creative discipline.
Claire Seymour
Cast and production information:
Macbeth — Keel Watson, Lady Macbeth — Anna Gregory, Banquo/Doctor — Simon Wilding, Macduff — Paul Featherstone, 1st Witch — Grace Nyandoro, 2nd Witch — Rosalind O’Dowd, 3rd Witch — Grainne Gillis, Malcolm — Alexander Wall, Lady in Waiting — Mai Kikkawa, Duncan — Will Ferguson, Fleance — Tatiana Delauney; Director — Paul Featherstone, Musical Director/Pianist — Paul Voldman, Lighting Designer — Alex Hopkins, Make Up — Helena Jopling and Georgia Hallgalley.
Designers: Emily Bestow, Rosemary Elliott-Dancs, Katrina Felice, Harriet Fowler, Rosie Gibbens, Alice Guile, Rosemary Millbank, Roísín Straver. Central St. Martin’s, London, Wednesday, 28th January 2015.