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.
The Sixteen continues its exploration of Henry Purcell’s Welcome Songs for Charles II. As with Robert King’s pioneering Purcell series begun over thirty years ago for Hyperion, Harry Christophers is recording two Welcome Songs per disc.
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.
In February this year, Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho made a highly lauded debut recital at Wigmore Hall - a concert which both celebrated Opera Rara’s 50th anniversary and honoured the career of the Italian soprano Rosina Storchio (1872-1945), the star of verismo who created the title roles in Leoncavallo’s La bohème and Zazà, Mascagni’s Lodoletta and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
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.
Collapsology. Or, perhaps we should use the French word ‘Collapsologie’ because this is a transdisciplinary idea pretty much advocated by a series of French theorists - and apparently, mostly French theorists. It in essence focuses on the imminent collapse of modern society and all its layers - a series of escalating crises on a global scale: environmental, economic, geopolitical, governmental; the list is extensive.
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.’
Amongst an avalanche of new Mahler recordings appearing at the moment (Das Lied von der Erde seems to be the most favoured, with three) this 1991 Mahler Second from the 2nd Kassel MahlerFest is one of the more interesting releases.
‘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.’
If there is one myth, it seems believed by some people today, that probably needs shattering it is that post-war recordings or performances of Wagner operas were always of exceptional quality. This 1949 Hamburg Tristan und Isolde is one of those recordings - though quite who is to blame for its many problems takes quite some unearthing.
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."
As part of their Madness season, presenting three very contrasting music theatre treatments of madness (Handel's Orlando, Bellini's I Puritani and Sondheim's Sweeney Todd) Welsh National Opera (WNO) presented Handel's Orlando at the Wales Millennium Centre on Saturday 3 October 2015.
Directed by Harry Fehr, designed by Yannis Thavoris, lighting by Anna Watson, video by Andrzej Goulding, movement Kelly Lloyd-Jones (also associate director), the production was originally created for Scottish Opera. The WNO performances featured Lawrence Zazzo as Orlando, Daniel Grice as Zoroastro, Fflur Wyn as Dorinda, Rebecca Evans as Angelica and Robin Blaze as Medoro. Rinaldo Alessandrini conducted the Welsh National Opera Orchestra.
From the first notes of the overture, played with the curtain down, it was clear that Rinaldo Aessandrini, who is best known for his work with period instrument groups, had developed a creative partnership with the modern instruments of the WNO orchestra. The overture was crisp and lively with some lovely firm playing, not too much vibrato, and a clear feel of period style.
When the curtain did go up for the first scene, Zoroastro's great scena as he looks at the stars, the setting was a 1940's hospital and instead of the stars, Zoroastro (Daniel Grice) was looking at the output from a device hooked up to Orlando's (Lawrence Zazzo) brain. Harry Fehr and Yannis Zavoris had transported the opera to the 1940's with Orlando and Medoro (Robin Blaze) as injured airmen. Dorinda (Fflur Wyn) was now a nurse with Angelica (Rebecca Evans) a glamorous socialite. There were some neat touches; when, in Act One, Zoroastro talks to Orlando of following the path of glory rather than love, he showed Orlando pictures of the Abdication and the subsequent aftermath with the Duke of Windsor being pictured with Nazis.
But Orlando is a pastoral piece, and not only is Dorinda meant to be a shepherdess but many of the characters talk of the beauty of the place and the loss they will feel when they leave. More problematic, for me, was the relentless and busy naturalism of Fehr's production. His style seems to owe something to Katie Mitchell, as the whole opera had a sense of continuous narrative with something constantly happening, as if Handel's drama was somehow insufficient. When Lawrence Zazzo's Orlando sang, a group of doctors were constantly checking charts. I found it at best annoying, and at worst rather reductive. Zoroastro's opening scene seemed reduced when sung by Daniel Grice poring over medical charts in a busy hospital room. And despite Lawrence Zazzo's vivid performance in Orlando's mad scene, the drama seemed lessened by the obsessive detail of the surrounding action with Daniel Grice's Zoroastro and his group of doctor and nurses scurrying round in response to Orlando's actions. The new raison d'etre of the plot never really found a reason why Orlando was allowed so much lee-way, and despite the apparent naturalism of the presentation there was still a lot of suspension of disbelief required.
Handel wrote Orlando in 1733 at a difficult period in the business of Italian opera in London. Orlando would be the last role which his star castrato created for Handel, as Senesino and a number of leading singers then defected to the rival Opera of the Nobility. Perhaps Senesino did not really appreciate the daring way Handel had written the role of Orlando, with his highly innovative mad scene where all the musical rules are broken. And to show of the talents of the great bass Montagnana, Handel and his librettist effectively created the role of Zoroastro adding moments like the opening scene to the existing libretto. Orlando was not a great success at its premiere, and Handel never revived the work again.
Daniel Grice was a capable and effective Zoroastro, singing with a nice sense of firmness. But he did not really dominate the role, and was certainly not helped by the staging so that his great accompanied recitatives at the opening of Act 1 and the end of Act 3 were both a little too matter of fact.
Inevitably the opera was cut, but reasonably discreetly. Act 1 ran to 80 minutes, with Acts 2 and 3 each 40 minutes. Rinaldo Alessandrini kept speeds brisk, so we covered a lot of ground, and there were not waits for scene changes, so that the whole piece flowed well. And whilst speeds may have been fast-ish, there was never a sense of being driven and Alessandrini kept a lovely sense of flow with space for the singers. The orchestra kept up the promise given in the overture, and the arias and accompanied recitatives were all a series of stylish, vivid delights.
Yannis Thavoris' set, which was essentially a single piece set on a revolve, was elegantly imaginative and enabled the varied locations needed in the opera to flow without interrupting the music.
I have yet to see my idea production of Orlando but Harry Fehr's 1940's incarnation at least had the virtues of treating the story with seriousness, presenting the drama in his own way but treating it as serious drama and never guying it. Within this framework, Alessandrini, the singers and the orchestra created a series of very fine moments and ultimately, a rather moving drama.
Robert Hugill
Handel Orlando;
Orlando:Lawrence Zazzo, Angelica: Rebecca Evans, Medoro: Robin Blaze, Dorinda: Fflur Wyn, Zoroastro: Daniel Grice
Directed: Harry Fehr, Design: Yannis Thavoris, Conductor: Rinaldo Alessandrini;
Welsh National Opera at the Wales Millennium Centre
3 October 2015