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.
![Isabella Ivy [Photo courtesy of Opera Las Vegas]](http://www.operatoday.com/ARJjt6A_BIrGrXYMwHkdtiAVWukX7FUlUP9Vmsq4jno.jpeg)
On September 9, 2015, Opera Las Vegas presented James Sohre’s production of Viva Verdi at the Smith Center’s Cabaret Jazz. It was a delightful evening of arias, duets and ensembles by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901). The program included many of the composer’s blockbuster arias and scenes from famous operas such as Aida, La traviata, and Macbeth.
The hall was set with tables rather then theater seats so that the audience could enjoy dessert and beverages as they listened. The program featured sopranos Isabella Ivy, Marcie Ley, and Sheronda McKee; mezzo-soprano Erin Gonzalez; tenors John Tsotsoros, and Johar Hernandez-Carr; along with baritones Daniel Sutin and Eugene Richards. Daniel Sutin is a regular at the Metropolitan Opera. Isabella Ivy, formerly an Opera Las Vegas artist, sings at Opera San Jose, while John Tsotsoros sings with various regional U.S. opera companies. The other artists are active at Opera Las Vegas.
Francesco Maria Piave (1810-1876), who worked more closely with the composer than any of the others, wrote the texts for five of the operas from which we heard selections: Ernani, Macbeth, Rigoletto, La traviata, and La forza del destino. Termistocle Solera wrote the libretto for Nabucco; Salvatore Cammarano, Il Trovatore; Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier, I vespri Siciliani; Antonio Ghislanzoni, Aida; and fellow composer Arrigo Boito, Falstaff.
Soprano Sheronda McKee opened the program with an aria that showed her fluent high register. She sang Elvira’s plea to her lover Ernani involami (Ernani, fly away with me) with silvery brilliance that put the audience in the mood for the fireworks to come as Lady Macbeth tried to make sure that she and her husband would not be blamed for murdering the king. Marcie Ley was a conniving Lady and Eugene Richards an easily led Macbeth as they sang the dramatic music that described their deadly deed. John Tsotsoros ended the segment with a poignant rendition of Banquo’s lament on the death of his wife and sons.
For a complete change of pace, Erin Gonzalez sang Preziosilla’s thoroughly rousing but rarely heard military recruitment aria from La forza del destino: Al suon del tamburo (At the sound of the drum). Marcie Ley then exchanged her murderous character, Lady Macbeth, for a saintly hermit, and rendered a touching, dynamically alert version of Pace, pace, mio dio (Peace, peace, my God). Daniel Sutin sang the Count’s memorably melodic aria from Il trovatore, Il balen del suo sorriso (The radiance of her smile), with variations of vocal color, spinning tone and a most expressive interpretation. To end the first half of the program, Isabella Ivy and Johar Hernandez-Carr sang of La traviata’s thoughts on love and freedom. They ended with the charming Libiamo ne' lieti calici (Let’s drink from cups of joy), a toast to life and opera in which the whole audience joined in.
After a twenty-minute intermission during which food and drink were served, the entire group of singers entered from the back of the auditorium singing the composers’s beloved Va pensiero, sull’ali dorate, (Go, thought, fly on golden wings) from Nabucco. Then the evil machinations continued. Amneris, Erin Gonzalez, needed to know if her rival for Radames’s affection really was Aida, sung by Sheronda McKee. Amneris offered a bit of pretended friendship until she found it to be true. Then she turned on the slave with a vengeance. The two young artists gave us a short but fascinating drama. After the duet, Isabella Ivy regaled the audience with a lilting rendition of Merce, dilette amiche, (Thank you dear friends), from I vespri Siciliani.
Turning to the darker side, Ley, Gonzalez, Sutin and Richards combined their outstanding abilities in the difficult Giustizia quartet from Don Carlo. Sutin then sang the monumental aria from Rigoletto, Cortigianni, vil razza dannata (Courtiers, vile, cursed rabble), after which Ivy, Gonzalez, Tsotsoros and Richards returned with an impressive version of the quartet from Rigoletto. To end the evening on a happy note, the group presented the closing fugue from Verdi’s last opera and his second comedy, Falstaff. Tutto nel mondo è burla (Everything in the world is a joke).
Pianist Spencer Baker accompanied all of this fabulous music with great musicality while paying a great deal of attention to the needs of the singers. The young artists from Opera Las Vegas all showed abundant promise. Some of them are ready to start their careers now while others still need to do some growing, but all have tremendous talent. This delightful evening of Verdi’s music left the audience in a fine mood and, after a good bit of applause, I could still see the smiles on many faces as people left the building.
Maria Nockin
Cast and production information:
Sopranos:Isabella Ivy, Marcie Ley, and Sheronda McKee; Mezzo-soprano: Erin Gonzalez; Tenors: John Tsotsoros, Johar Hernandez-Carr; Baritones, Daniel Sutin, Eugene Richards; Pianist, Spencer Baker; Producer, James Sohre.