Opera Today

Samuel Barber: Choral Music

The Choir, which comprises auditioned student singers (on this CD the arrangement is 9/5/6/6), has earned acclaim through their recordings for Regent Records and SOMM of music by Kenneth Leighton, James MacMillan, Ireland, Delius, Stanford and Howells — repertoire which reflects Spicer’s especial interest in 20th and 21st century British music. (Their disc of choral music by Herbert Howells, When first thine eies unveil (SOMMCD 0140), was Gramophone Editor’s Choice in December 2014.)

Samuel Barber, himself a talented baritone, wrote choral music throughout his career and the works on this disc span from early pieces from the 1920s through to choruses and opera extracts from 1968. The stylistic continuity, with regard to harmonic language and approaches to form and text setting, is notable; Barber’s essentially Romantic idiom may have been dismissed as ‘utterly anachronistic as the utterance of a young man of 28, A.D. 1938!’ by a letter-writer to the New York Times, but the composer stuck with it. (When asked whether a composer should write for himself of the public, he replied, ‘I write for myself and Helen Carter […] Mrs Carter once proclaimed that all American composers are dead except for Elliott. Well she’s the judge.’) But, the range of forms and genres — individual songs, motets, opera choruses, small and large-scale choral works, re-adaptations and instrumental transcriptions — is wide and appealing.

What is particularly striking is that taken collectively the works reveal Barber’s extensive knowledge of poetry and deep personal response to the selected texts. Daniel Galbreath’s succinct and informative liner notes cite a diary entry in which Barber professed that he spent ‘much more time looking for the poems than setting them’. He was specifically referring to his first group of choral works — a set of a cappella rounds (1927), of which ‘The Moon’, a setting of Shelley, was the only round to be revised as an independent piece with piano accompaniment (Ben Kennedy). The general low tessitura and steady, expansive piano chords evoke the text’s sense of mystery, and the choir swell through and shape the descending chromatic lines to convey a questioning tone. As throughout the disc, the voices are well-balanced and the part-writing is lucid.

Motetto on Words from the Book of Job is also an early work. In the neo-Baroque ‘There the wicked cease’, the contrapuntal entries are confident and the soprano line clear and strong. ‘Call now!’ has a madrigalian energy, though I find the basses a bit lacking in heft in the final two lines, ‘As the sparks fly upward, I would seek unto God.’ — the rising sopranos need a stronger counter-weight. The fullness of the homophonic textures of ‘Praise Him!’ captures the liturgical context well, while the individual lines are alert and lively.

Barber’s first published piece for chorus, ‘The Virgin Martyrs’ (1935), is scored for four-part a cappella women’s voices, and sets the medieval lyrics of the Belgian monk Sigebert of Gembloux (translated by Helen Waddell) which praise female martyrs. The undulating chromatic lines give the work a mystical quality and the fresh, youthful sound swells sonorously and beautifully as the ‘crowding maidens’ (Gertrude, Agnes, Prisca, Cecily, Lucy, Thekla, Juliana, Barbara, Agatha, Petronel et al) gather in ‘God’s company’. The tessitura of the short work is quite wide, and the penetrating soprano line has strong, warm support from the altos.

The disc contains two settings of texts by Gerald Manley Hopkins. God’s Grandeur (1938) shares the antiphonal grandeur of the Motetto (it was originally conceived as the third movement that work). Here, it begins with a thunderous homophonic proclamation that ‘The world is charged with the grandeur of God’, before the second line, ‘It will flame out’, initiates wandering melodies that are passed between the voices, as the music acquires a spirit of joy and celebration. Spicer makes much of the contrasts of texture and feeling, though; the thinner textures suggest a more contemplative mood, and the basses’ slow-moving, sustained low notes serve as firm pedals for the explorations above. The renewed energy in the final stages persuasively conveys the certainty that ‘the Holy Ghost over the bent/World broods with warm breast and ah! with bright wings’.

‘Heaven-Haven’ (1961) was originally a song for voice and piano (from Four Songs Op.13 of 1938) and its choral transformation seems to this listener to render the music overly heavy for the text’s austere sentiments, though it is sung with admirable focus. More successful is another of the Op.13 songs, ‘Sure on this Shining Night’ (also re-arranged in 1961), whose homophonic interpretations of James Agee’s reverential poetic lines sway beguilingly, propelled by the gentle, repeating rhythms of the piano accompaniment. The closing rallentando and diminuendo are sensitively crafted. There seems to be too much going in ‘The Monk and His Cat’ (1967) though, another of Barber’s re-adaptations, from the collection of Gaelic monks’ texts that form the Hermit Songs Op.29 (1952-53). The piano and voices are buoyant and bright, but we need less busyness in order to hear W.H. Auden’s text.

Barber’s melancholy strain is well represented on the recording. ‘Let Down the Bars, O Death’ (1926 — the same year as the string quartet which later yielded the Adagio for Strings) is a sombre chorale setting of Emily Dickinson’s eight-line verse. The work (which was performed at Barber’s own memorial service in 1981) begins with a muted invocation, but Spicer encourages his singers to expand majestically — the uneasy harmonies create an underlying restlessness — before the choral sinks back to a whisper. The text is clearly declaimed. This, like so many of the works on the disc, is a ‘miniature’ but the performance reveals the seriousness and intelligence that Spicer and the Chamber Choir bring these small-scale compositions.

‘A Stopwatch and an Ordnance Map’ (1940) for four-part male voice choir and three timpani is a highlight of the disc. Stephen Spender’s memorial poem for a soldier killed in Spanish Civil War acquires an ever darker air of dread as the timpani’s opening drum call (superbly played by Matthew Firkins) initiates a disturbing parodic march. Firkins expertly varies the volume of the pounding tread — first drubbing, then retreating — and the sliding pitches which precede the Choir’s statement, ‘He stayed faithfully in that place’, are ominous. The piece closes with a sustained major chord and a final restatement of the ‘stopwatch’ motif — a fading reminder of horror. The music feels truly ‘modern’ and the singing is superb.

‘A Stopwatch’ was composed for the Curtis Institute Madrigal Chorus which Barber conducted from 1938-1941, as were the three Reincarnations Op.16, settings of seventeenth-century Irish literature as reinterpreted by the poet James Stephens. ‘Anthony O’Daly’, which tells of an Irish environmentalist unjustly accused of firing a gun at another man, is an emotionally charged outpouring of disbelief and loss in which the basses do well to sustain their long-held note before taking up the melody, their lines surging until music halts arrestingly on the word ‘grief’. Barber’s more gregarious side is represented by ‘Mary Hynes’ — a woman reputed to be the most beautiful in all of western Ireland! The singers trip lightly and warmly through the short lines, ‘She is the sky of the sun!/ She is the dart of love!’, slowing temporarily in the second stanza, then racing again towards the final floating image: ‘Walking towards you airily’. Spicer shows similarly sensitive appreciation of the text in ‘The Coolin’ (a nickname for a loved one drawn from the curly lock of blond hair at the nape of the neck), where the sweetness of tone conveys a languid mood, which is enhanced by the merest silence after the repetitions of the tender line, ‘And a lip to find out a lip’.

Alongside the rarely heard, there are more familiar works. The ‘Agnus Dei’ a ‘double adaptation’ of the second movement of the Op.11 string quartet via the Adagio for Strings, concludes the disc, but there is another, perhaps more interesting, instrumental adaptation, the ‘Easter Chorale’ (1964, originally for brass and timpani, with choral parts setting text by Pack Browning added subsequently) in which the Birmingham Conservatoire Brass Ensemble make a sterling contribution to the closing moments. The Chamber Choir’s full power and richness is evident in choruses (with piano accompaniment, sensitively played by Kennedy) from Barber’s 1968 opera Antony and Cleopatra; ‘On the Death of Antony’ also showcases a fantastic soprano solo (unattributed), while in ‘On the Death of Cleopatra’ the singers negotiate the challenging chromatic parts with skill, and the abrupt ending is dramatic and telling. Barber’s Vanessa is represented by ‘Under the Willow Tree’.

Another late work, Two Choruses (1968) begins with ‘Twelfth Night’ (1968), a setting of Laurie Lee’s anguished text in which Spicer goads his singers from undemonstrative, hushed tones to a tremendous climax at the birth of Christ, before letting the voices fall away into despair: this is another show-stopper on the disc. The second Chorus, ‘To Be Sung on the Water’ (to a text by American poet Louise Bogan), is similarly evocative: the peaceful repetitions of the male voices conjure the quiet lapping of a lake while the female voices find a restrained but clean, open sound, fitting for the rounded assonances of Bogan’s poetry.

This disc will bring much pleasure. Not all of the compositions would be deemed ‘first-rate’ but they are performed with unvarying commitment and expertise. The sound quality is good (engineer, Paul Arden-Taylor) and the liner notes contain helpful texts and translations. It’s good to have such a comprehensive collection of Barber’s choral music brought together.

Claire Seymour

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Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir, Paul Spicer (director), Ben Kennedy (piano)*, Matthew Firkins (timpani)⁺, Birmingham Conservatoire Brass Ensemble**.

Reincarnations , Op.16 (‘Mary Hynes’, ‘Anthony O'Daly’, ‘The Coolin’; Easter Chorale **⁺, ‘God's Grandeur’ , ‘Let down the bars, O Death!’, Two Choruses from Anthony and Cleopatra (‘On the death of Anthony’*, ‘On the death of Cleopatra’*), Two Choruses (‘Twelfth Night’, ‘To be sung on the water’), ‘The Monk and his Cat’*, ‘Under the Willow Tree’*, ‘A Stopwatch and an Ordnance Map’⁺, M otetto on Words from the Book of Job, ‘The Virgin Martyrs’, ‘The Moon’*, ‘Sure on this Shining Night’*, ‘Ad Bibinem cum me Rogaret ad Cenam’, ‘Heaven-Haven’, ‘Agnus Dei’.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/0152.jpg image_description=Samuel Barber: Choral Music (SOMMCD 0152) product=yes product_title=Samuel Barber: Choral Music product_by=Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir. Directed by Paul Spicer product_id=SOMM Céleste SOMMCD 0152 [CD] price=£11.00 product_url=http://www.somm-recordings.com/somm/ifield.php?id=235

L'Arpeggiata: La dama d’Aragó, Wigmore Hall

Their 2013 recording Mediterraneo (Erato) journeyed through the ‘olive frontier’ - Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Spain, southern Italy; here they honed in on the north west Mediterranean and with soprano Núria Rial - herself a native of Aragón - presented a sequence of songs and dances from Catalonia and Mallorca.

One cannot imagine anyone more fitting to sing this music. Rial’s well-rounded soprano is clean and relaxed; at times cool and dreamy, elsewhere warm but insouciant, then fervent and full of yearning. Much of the charm derives from her fluent, supple phrasing, which is elegant but unaffected. Utterly unforced and perfectly tuned, her soprano sounds ‘natural’ - though Rial is a trained classical singer who focuses on Baroque and early Classical repertoire - and the ‘artlessness’ of the delivery is captivating.

This suppleness and ease were immediately apparent in the opening Catalonian song ‘La dama d’Aragó’ (The lady of Aragon). Rial is a natural story-teller and balladeer, and she effortlessly conjured the Aragon lady, ‘as fair as the sun, Her flaxen hair flows down to her feet. Ah, the lovely Anna aria, thief of love …’. The pace was spacious, gently propelled by director Christina Pluhar’s dulcet theorbo. Rial applied a little vibrato here, a darkening of hue there, and the odd rolled ‘r’, to add spice to the tale, while Doron Sherwin’s between-verse cornetto elaboration warmly reflected on La dama’s incomparable allure.

The programme revealed ancient Aragón to be a cultural melting pot: the empire extended from Iberia, through France and the Balearic Islands, to Sardinia, Naples and Sicily. Moreover, European influences combined with Moorish and Sephardic elements. And, the music itself travelled far and wide: ‘Bella, de vós som amorós’ (My beauty, I’m in love with you) was published in Venice in a collection known as El Cançoner del Duc de Calabria in 1556, which was widely known across Europe, from the Mediterranean to Sweden. In this song, the sighs and runs in the vocal line had an almost madrigalian quality.

Tempos and rubatos were well-considered and the songs were grouped in unbroken sequences adding to the air of spontaneity. Thus, the free giocoso mood of ‘La Filadora’ (The spinning girl), with its playful interjections by the cornetto and violin (Veronika Skuplik), generated a natural accelerando at the close. The final phrase, ‘Tra la ra la, she spins finely and goes on her way’, skipped into the next song, ‘La Margarideta’ (Maggie) in which Rial demonstrated her vivacious showmanship, embodying the lazy girl who insists she cannot get out of bed as she has no bloomers, stockings, or - the tempo slowing deliciously - shoes to put on, her craftiness underpinned by the chromatic tinges in the accompaniment. In contrast, in the succeeding ‘Mareta, no’m faces florar’ (Mummy, don’t make me cry), Rial became a guileless child and then, the clear tone enriched and warmed, a loving mother who promises to sing her daughter a song to lull her to sleep. The instrumental commentary - poignant prefatory remarks by harp (Sarah Ridy) and bass (Boris Schmidt), and after-word by psaltery (Margit Übellacker) and theorbo - gave this song depth and stature.

L’Arpeggiata’s Mediterraneo disc featured traditional plucked instruments, with qanun, saz, Greek lyre, lavta, fado viola and Portuguese guitar complementing the authentic baroque collection. Though the former were absent here, the sound world created by baroque harp and violin, cornetto, psaltery, harpsichord, double bass and theorbo seemed no less ‘authentic’. But, there were some surprises too: in ‘La gata i el belitre’ (The cat and the rascal) Francesco Turrisi spun from his harpsichord to the piano, creating a brighter more penetrating sound world in which the violin’s pseudo-melancholic reflections on whatever it was that was ‘lost’ were transformed into the bass’s pounding energy, representing the protagonist’s fury: ‘If I get my hands on him, a la nyigo, nyigo, nyigo, nyigo, I’ll certainly make him pay!’ The piano was also employed in the strophic ballad ‘La presó de Lleida’ (Lleida prison), one of the highlights of the programme, in which Rial’s voice balanced lucidity with emotive strength (most touchingly in the poignant question which the prisoners, entranced by her singing, are asking by the little girl, ‘Are you short of food or drink?’); the high bass pizzicato episodes between stanzas added further expressive nuance. Pluhar’s quietening, slowing cadential figure was beautifully crafted but there was to be no consoling point of rest, for it was picked up and transformed by Mayoral into the lively accompaniment to ‘La ploma de perdiu’ (The partridge feather), which raced along, propelled by cornetto and violin contributions, to the singer’s happy-go-lucky parting line: ‘I want to give her a little hug!’

Each song had unusual features - of instrumental timbre, rhythm or vocal colour - to catch the ear, such as the bass’s fluttering gesture at the start of ‘La Mare de Déu’ (Mary Mother of God) and the gentle diminuendo of the angel’s promise, ‘On Christmas night you will give birth … you will have a little boy as fair as a star’, as piano engaged delicately with the cool soprano line; or, the penetrating presence of the quotation of the linnet’s song, ‘Oh, how sweet and fair is the song of Mary!’, in the subsequent ‘El cant dels ocells’ (The Song of the birds). ‘Eixa nit és nit de vetlla’ (Tonight is the watch night of the vigil) began with an unaccompanied stanza which established a narrative mood, while in ‘El Mariner’ (The sailor) interesting modal tints coloured the repeating melodic and harmonic gestures.

Between the vocal numbers were interspersed various instrumental improvisations. A canario (a frolicking dance) was a fountain of colour and pulsation: Schmidt’s agile double bass pizzicato, became a fluid cornetto song, before Mayoral presented a fantasia of rhythmic reverie. A fandango by Antonio Soler demonstrated both the players’ artistry - a simple descending violin line was eloquent and affecting - and the symbiotic interaction between the instrumentalists, as the alert introduction by theorbo and percussion spurred first cornetto and harp, then psaltery and bass to ever more elaborate invention. Skuplik took centre-stage in an impressive rendition of Antonio Bertali’s Chiacona, beginning with refined control and organically developing more vigorous, exuberant gestures, while retaining a warm, focused tone.

I could have listened all night; a sentiment shared, I imagine, by many of the Wigmore Hall patrons who had filled the seated auditorium and crowded into a standing area at the very back of the Hall. (I did wonder, though, why there wasn’t more evidence of toe-tapping among the clientele, given the infectious spiritedness of the music; and, perhaps the stark lighting in the Hall might have been softened a little? It seemed a night for the Wigmore Hall to let its hair down …) We were treated to two encores. The first reaffirmed the skilfu manner in which Sherwin and Skuplik had blended ingenuity and sensitivity in accompanying the voice throughout the evening. The second, as the rolling ground bass triggered jazz-infused invention from first an enlivened Turrisi (on piano) and then a relaxed Schmidt, was a wonderful illustration of the seamless tapestry of folk, baroque and jazz threads that L’Arpeggiata weave.

Claire Seymour

Christina Pluhar - director, theorbo, Núria Rial - soprano, Doron Sherwin - cornetto, Veronika Skuplik - baroque violin, Margit Übellacker - psaltery, Sarah Ridy - baroque harp, David Mayoral - percussion, Boris Schmidt - double bass, Francesco Turrisi - harpsichord/piano

age=
image_description=
product=yes
product_title=Traditional: ‘La dama d’Aragó’; Canario (anon./improvisation); ‘Bella, de vós som amorós’ (from Cançoner del Duc de Calabria, pub. 1556); Traditional (Catalonia): ‘La Filadora’, ‘La Margarideta’, ‘Mareta, no’m faces plorar’, ‘La gata i en belitre’; Antonio Soler, Fandango; Traditional (Catalonia): ‘La presó de Lleida’, ‘La ploma de perdiu’; ‘Durme, durme’ (Canción Sefardí); Antonio Bertali, Chiacona; Traditional (Catalonia): ‘La Mare de Déu’, ‘El Cant dels aucells’, ‘Eixa nit és nit de vetlla’; Jota Marineira (Traditional, Mallorca); Traditional (Catalonia): ‘El Mariner’; Traditional (Mallorca): ‘Bolero de s’escandalari’, L'Arpeggiata, Wigmore Hall, London 21st December 2015
product_by=A review by Claire Seymour
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Tippett : A Child of Our Time, London

The circumstances which led to the composition of this oratorio, which received its first performance in 1944 are well-known: in 1938, 17-year-old Polish Jew Herschel Grynspan, who was being illegally sheltered in Paris by his uncle and aunt, was provoked by the frustration of his attempts to gain official papers and by the persecution of his mother, and shot Ernst von Rath, a German diplomat. The act prompted what has been described as one of the ‘most severe and terrible of the official pogroms in Germany’. Grynspan was imprisoned by the French authorities; after the fall of France he was handed over to the Nazis, and disappeared.

The oratorio may have had its origins in specific events, but Tippett was concerned with their universal significance - the evidence they provide of man’s inhumanity to man - and seventy years later, Tippett’s ‘impassioned protest against the conditions that make persecution possible’ seems just as relevant and necessary.

Gardner made the divisions between the work’s three sections clear: the Parts presents the experience of those individuals whose lives take them beyond the conventions of their rulers, then follows the personal drama of the ‘Child of Our Time’, and the work concludes with an exploration of the significance and potential healing effect of these events for all mankind. In this way Gardner created a structure in which the framing reflections had a dynamic relationship with the drama they embraced. The orchestral sound was prevailingly sombre, though through the darkness there were glimmers of light.

The oratorio’s musical and emotional contrasts, twists and turns were emphasised. Even in the opening bars, an almost Elgarian warmth was immediately quelled by a wonderful diminuendo: ‘It is winter’, we are told, and the world ‘turns on its dark side’, as the music shifts alarming between diatonicism and chromaticism.

Soloists, chorus and orchestra - the latter both as massed ensemble and as solo instrumentalists - were equally involved, and intertwined, in the unfolding arguments. Alice Coote’s opening statements in Part 1 were immediately engaging, though the part lay quite low for her, and she enunciated Tippett’s text dramatically; while in the ensuing instrumental interlude, the flute and solo viola offered pertinent reflections on, and energised debates with, Tippett’s words: ‘Truly, the living God consumes within and turns the flesh to cancer!’ In Part 2 the cellos’ imitative counterpoint emphasised the almost hysterical desperation of the mother who cries, ‘What have I done to you, my son? What will become of us now?’ Horns, brass and timpani added chilling power to the choral opening of Part Three: ‘The cold deepens. The world descends into the icy waters.’

Much of the impact of the work derived from the precision and vigour of the singing of the BBC Symphony Chorus. The choruses possessed a rousing contrapuntal vitality: the imitative drama of the ‘Chorus of the Oppressed’ recalled the rigorous polyphony of the Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli and the Concerto for Double String Orchestra, and the BBC Symphony Chorus encompassed a huge dynamic range, from whispered pianissimos to thrilling fortissimos. In ‘The Terror’ in Part 2, ‘Burn down their houses’ was sung with a rhythmic dynamism evoking the choruses from Britten’s Peter Grimes.

Of course, it is the Negro spirituals which Tippett included at pivotal points in each Part which most powerfully swell with emotion. The first, ‘Steal away’, was ardent and free; the lithe accents of the second, ‘Nobody knows’ were enhanced by quiet, buoyant playing by the cellos. The progression in Part 3 from Coote’s arioso, ‘The soul of man is impassioned like a woman’, through to the ecstatic greeting, ‘It is spring’, which precedes the final spiritual, ‘Deep river, my home is over Jordan’, was superbly controlled and emotionally compelling. ‘Deep river’ itself had both urgency and splendour. Tippett explained that he chose the spiritual form to serve as a substitute for ‘the special Protestant constituent of the congregational hymn’. But, Gardner couldn’t quite overcome the fact that the spirituals are not truly integrated into the oratorio. Stylistically, and in terms of the gap between the collective expression that they embody and more individual expression elsewhere in the oratorio, the division is perhaps too wide for the overall form to ever fully cohere. But, these soulful outpourings still made an absorbing and animating impact.

Soprano Sarah Tynan used her penetrating and crystalline voice as a persuasive dramatic and expressive instrument: the range of colours she found for the repetition of the word ‘How’ in her first contribution to Part 1, ‘How can I cherish my man in such days, or become a mother in a world of destruction’, seemed to embody the very irresolvability of the question. Tynan spun a wonderful pianissimo which then soared and bloomed entrancingly about the choral injunctions to ‘Steal away to Jesus’; in her Act 2 duet Scena with tenor Robert Murray, ‘On my son! In the dread terror they have brought me near to death’ the soprano’s rich timbre was replete with emotion. Murray sang with dignity and elegance.

The rhythmic poise of his calypso-like ‘I have no money for my bread’ was striking, set against the strong rhythmic definition of the orchestra. In ‘Go down, Moses’, as the voice of ‘Boy’, the lyricism of Murray’s phrase, ‘My dreams are all shattered in a ghastly reality’, served to push home the horror.

Brindley Sherratt narrated Parts 1 and 2 with the clarity of the Narrator from a Bach Pasion. If sometimes his bass was a little taxed by the most high-lying phrases, there was an ominous weight in the deepest and darkest of his utterances, such as ‘Men were ashamed of what was done. There was bitterness and horror’,which precedes Act 2’s Spiritual of Anger. In Part 3, Sherratt’s tone became ever more focused, his bass a true oracle: ‘The words of wisdom are these: Winter cold means inner warmth, the secret of the nursery of the seed.’ Gardner and his massed forces powerfully fused the dramatic with the contemplative; the results were both troubling and consoling.

The concert began with Oliver Knussen’s The Way to Castle Yonder, a ‘potpourri’ for orchestra drawn from the composer’s opera Higglety Pigglety Pop!, the second of his ‘fantasy operas’ in collaboration with Maurice Sendak. The suite comprises three episodes - ‘The Journey to the Big White House’, ‘Kleine Trauermusik and ‘The Ride to Castle Yonder’ - presented in a seamless sequence. Knussen describes it as ‘a theatrical requiem for [Sendak’s] dog, Jennie, in the frame of a ‘quest’ opera. Castle Yonder is Sendak’s imaginary theatrical heaven for animals’. The airy breadth of the opening of ‘The Journey’ established an ominous mood; within the spacious sound-world distinct textures and timbres emerged, meticulously defined by Gardner, like a rotating kaleidoscope. As more energised momentum accumulated, the trotting hooves of a milk-cart horse were heard, countering the eeriness with realism. The subsequent ‘meditation’ - Jennie’s dreams of lions’ - presented a simple, poignant contrast to such shifting complexities. The shift to the concluding ‘Ride’ was explosive and the percussive close shimmered thrillingly

The Chinese-Swiss pianist Louis Schwizgebel was the soloist in a refined performance of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto, though one occasionally lacking in strong characterisation. Schwizgebel was almost wrong-footed at the start by an intrusive sneeze which disrupted the pianist’s preparations for the placement of the crucial first chord of the Allegro moderato. When he did get underway, the elegant restraint of the opening chordal phrase was further disturbed by a splutter from the other side of the Hall. But, if Schwizgebel’s focus was unduly unsettled he did not let it mar the poetry of his exquisite phrasing. The first orchestral entry had an assertive ebullience which seemed out of keeping with the pianist’s self-possession; Gardner seemed to be urging the orchestra onwards, eager to find drama in the instrumental interplay, in contrast to the still, reflectiveness established by Schwizgebel; perhaps the pianist felt rushed, for his tone was rather brittle in the development section of the movement. The Andante felt overly brisk, and there was a never-quite-resolved tension between the asperity of the strings’ unison pronouncements and the piano’s more introverted expressiveness. The Rondo: Vivace was light of spirit but I’d have liked more brilliance and colour.

Claire Seymour

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Performers:

Sarah Tynan - soprano, Alice Coote - mezzo-soprano, Robert Murray - tenor, Brindley Sherratt - bass, Louis Schwizgebel - piano, Edward Gardner - conductor, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Chorus.

image=http://www.naxos.com/SharedFiles/Images/Composers/Pictures/23884-1.jpg image_description=Michael Tippett [Source: Naxos] product=yes product_title=Tippett : A Child of Our Time, London product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Michael Tippett [Source: Naxos]

Taverner and Tavener, Fretwork, London

Applying the same principle to a work from the sacred repertoire, in the first part of this deeply contemplative concert at King’s Place the viol consort Fretwork performed John Taverner’s Missa Gloria tibi trinitas, a Mass which was most probably first sung by the choir at Cardinal College (later Christ Church) Oxford, where Tavener was employed before 1530.

The transference from voice to viol seems apt for this Mass, which is named after the plainsong antiphon to the first Psalm at Lauds and Second Vespers on Trinity Sunday, actually generated a whole repertoire: many English composers, up to and including Purcell, based consort pieces on the ‘in nomine’ section of the Benedictus, for viol consort or keyboard. In this way it became one of the most influential works in the English repertoire. The Mass was also striking for its use of six voices, including a high treble, a combination perfectly suited to the wide-ranging tessitura of the different sized viols played by the members of Fretwork. And, it must be said, the glowing wood of their shapely instruments with their sloping shoulders and deep ribs, formed a beautiful visual image, arranged in a semi-circle and bathed in a subtle red glow.

Taverner’s Mass is florid and ornate, representative of the prevailing liturgical idiom of the 1510s and 1520s. Fretwork achieved a sensitive balance between the six strands, and the infinitely varied detail within each section of the four movements was clearly audible. The contrast between the full six-part passages and those for reduced parts generated interest, the latter often introducing highly ornamental and decorative gestures. The players’ phrasing was exquisitely graceful and unfailingly self-possessed, and the small motifs were skilfully extended into longer, sustained sequences; the music seemed to unfold organically and inevitably.

The two highest viols - representing the treble and mean voices - provided brightness and sweetness, the highest line dancing at times like a piping flute above the bed of sound. The chant which appears as a cantus firmus in the Mass - three times in the Gloria, Credo and Sanctus and twice in Agnus Dei - is sung by the mean voice (not the tenor, as is usual) and this placement, higher in the texture made the chant more audible, particularly when it was itself the uppermost line, tranquilly articulated while the lower viols busily explored the generating motifs below. Sometimes, however, as in the Credo, it was the bass’s vigorous movement which injected energy and passion. In the Agnus Dei the players seemed to adopt a firmer bow stroke, and once again the dynamism was driven from beneath. In contrast, the Sanctus gained strength from the reassuring quality of the repetitions of its motifs.

Towards the end of each movement, shorter rhythmic values created renewed momentum. However, though the viols’ smooth articulation was beguiling, the slight hollowness of the timbre could not generate the magnificence of massed choral voices in these climactic moments; there was much pleasure to be derived from the blended richness of the sound, but I regretted the lack of deep resonance.

In his CD liner notes for The Tallis Scholars’ first, 1984 recording of the Mass (Gimmell DCGIM 004), Peter Phillips suggests, ‘Taverner’s style of writing does not require the euphonious, seamless sound so often appropriate to the music of Palestrina and Byrd. The very length of this Mass recommends variety in its interpretation - as much of tempi and dynamics as of scoring; and the detail of the writing certainly supports this fundamental need for textual contrast.’

Here Phillips pins down the reasons for my own misgivings. For, while the tone beautifully subdued and mellow, and there was contrast of register, the timbre was essentially uniform. And, as the music was divorced from the text that inspired it, the ‘head motifs’ from which the phrases grow lacked a point of reference; seemed meditative rather than directly expressive. Indeed, the phrases might have continued evolving indefinitely, there seemed no logical structural stopping-points, such as a text might provide. For this listener, the overall effect was one of introspection and intimacy; players in an intimate domestic setting might gain much gratification from performing this music in this form, but I could not shake off the thought that the Mass was designed to communicate the glory of God.

In the second part of the concert, we moved forward almost five hundred years and Fretwork were joined by countertenor Iestyn Davies and oboist Nicholas Daniel for two works by Sir John Tavener. Nipson (1998) was composed at the suggestion of countertenor Michael Chance (and was recorded by Chance and Fretwork by Harmondia Mundi in 2002, on a disc which also includes The Hidden Face, with Daniel, and the Sanctus and Benedictus of Taverner’s Mass).

Tavener’s text is a Greek palindrome, "Nipson anomēmata mē monan opsin" (Wash the sins, not only the face), which is supplemented by Latin text. (The latter was not given in the programme, but I think I detected ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’ and ‘Kyrie eleison’.)

Above the sustained, full texture of the viol ensemble, Davies’ voice was astonishingly compelling: sometimes light, almost floating and otherworldly, then swelling richly and penetrating the air with striking power. The voice’s melismatic wanderings contrasted arrestingly with the viols’ rootedness, though there were passages were there was more interplay between voice and accompaniment; in one such, the viols’ repeating strokes, articulated initially with airy bowing then gradually growing in impact, were impressively co-ordinated and structured. Davies demonstrated his warm lower register too, in an unaccompanied passage; indeed, in the concluding section where the influence of the Greek orthodox liturgy were readily evident, the music makes huge demands on the singer and Davies was able to negotiate the large leaps cleanly and securely, and to encompass the music’s wide tessitura effortlessly.

The Hidden Face, arranged by the composer at the request of Nicholas Daniel and Michael Chance, was originally composed for countertenor, oboe and 16 muted violins and violas. The work is a prayer which Tavener has explained should ‘hold within it a whole tradition with nothing personal or idiosyncratic, as in ikon painting’. Richard Boothby’s programme notes contained Tavener’s full explanation of the work’s intent and meaning: ‘Prayer, in the Orthodox East, is from the heart. The mind must have gone into the heart … only the Divine Presence knows what is in our hearts, and this suggests a music of such humility, wrapped in a depth of inner silence and stillness of which we have no idea. Paradise was made of peace, and so Adam could hear the Divine Voice. It is almost impossible now. We have to cast off all the received, intellectual, sophisticated garbage and also the preconceived knowledge of God that modern man has so disastrously collected, and listen with a heart that has become so soft that the Face is no longer Hidden. But we are still at the beginning, so the title remains The Hidden Face.’

As the lights were lowered the two soloists were themselves almost hidden in the dim obscurity of the balcony above the viol players on the stage beneath. Fretwork demonstrated consummate discipline and poise, intoning Tavener’s radiant parallel harmonies with the transcendence of ritual, while aloft oboe and voice engaged in a fervent, elaborate exchange of increasingly impassioned melisma, ranging to extreme heights and depths. Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question came to mind, in which the strings are ‘the silences of the Druids, who know, see, and hear nothing’, above which the trumpet poses ‘the perennial question of existence’ and the woodwind represent the ‘fighting answerers’ who, for all their sound and fury, get nowhere.

The expressness of the performers’ technical mastery was remarkable; there was both luminosity and mystery. But, while I recognised and relished the expertise of the performers, the end result left me feeling rather distanced. Tavener once professed the he ‘wanted to produce music that was the sound of God. That’s what I have always tried to do’. I think it’s hard for non-believers to entirely immerse themselves in such enterprises.

It didn’t help either that the audience in the Hall did not aspire to the music’s meditational stillness. Coughing and spluttering repeatedly disturbed the rhapsodic transcendence of the two Tavener works, while Taverner’s Mass was twice interrupted by the arrival of late patrons, stamping down the wood-floored aisles. Given the concentrated intensity of this programme, this was a pity.

Claire Seymour

Iestyn Davies (countertenor), Nicholas Daniel (oboe), Fretwork - Asako Morikawa, Richard Boothby, Reiko Ischise, Emily Ashton, Richard Tunnicliffe and Sam Stadlen (viols).

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Fall of the House of Usher in San Francisco

The atmospheres of this famous short, deeply pseudo-psychological horror story were always present in vivid imagination even though they were seldom present in the War Memorial. The novella is that powerful. More than an artistic event it became a mental exercise in comparing Getty with Poe, Debussy with Poe and Debussy with Getty and fitting all this into the digital visual overload created by Swiss videographer David Haneke and English stage director David Pountney for the Welsh Opera in 2014.

While the Poe atmospheres oozed in and out of your mind the Getty Usher House, libretto by the composer, elaborated the Poe narrative into a complex plot woven by an evil scheming doctor who easily defeats a Poe sicko, his sick sister and his weird friend. Getty's music was much like recitative accompaniment though handsomely elaborated. It worked for a while.

Brian Mulligan as Roderick Usher, Jamielyn Duggan (dancer) as Madeline Usher, Jason Bridges as the friend in Getty's Usher House

Gordon Getty is better known as a philanthropist of opera than as a composer of opera. Nonetheless Usher House is real music, and the opera was not without some splendid moments, notably the danced scenes.

Debussy on the other hand greatly simplified the Poe narrative for his Chute de la Maison Usher (libretto by the composer), elaborating its atmospheres with the grotto and cave vocabularies of Pelleas et Melisande. But Debussy does not nor could he have approached the twisted complexities of the tale's actors. He does masterfully build some of the House of Usher’s moods, and this alone brought great pleasure.

Debussy abandoned this, his last opera for undocumented reasons, may one surmise he sensed it was not worth finishing. But this mere sketch of an opera by one of the great composers of the early twentieth century makes it therefore of great intrinsic value. British musicologist Robert Orledge completed the opera for Debussy with such understanding and authority that you do not question its impression as pure Debussy.
  
Brian Mulligan as Roderick Usher in Chute de la Maison Usher

Finally though the delicacies of the Poe malaise as respected by Getty and Debussy were bludgeoned by the huge size and overwhelming presences of the House of Usher itself, digital technology gone amuck on three huge screens that dwarfed the players. It is true that the monumental mysteries of the Usher mansion are the protagonist of Poe's tale but these are felt, sensed mysteries that were not manifest in the huge shapes of the constantly moving, precise particulars of English maybe Scottish gothic castles. There was not a whiff of Poe’s Boston or Getty’s Savannah, but there was a whole lot of video technology self congratulation.

Baritone Brian Mulligan sang Roderick Usher in both operas -- a tour de force well accomplished to say the least. Mr. Mulligan is a fine singer who is inexplicably and relentlessly overexposed to San Francisco audiences. He does not have the artistic stature to hold the stage for most principal roles much less the stature to hold our interest and respect for two and one half hours in this essentially one man show.

Jason Bridges was effective as Roderick’s friend Edgar Alan Poe (the novella’s narrator). The crucial role of the evil Doctor Primus was thrust upon first year Adler Fellow Anthony Reed who possesses a very fine bass voice. The role cried out for personality and presence well beyond the careful studio refinements of an Adler Fellow.

Conductor Lawrence Foster conducted this Robert Orledge completed version of the Debussy at the Bergenz Festival in 2006, perhaps explaining his presence in San Francisco. Within the covered acoustic of the War Memorial the fine SFO orchestra could not project the brighter colors of the Debussy score, colors that might have helped make the evening less dreary artistically.

Michael Milenski

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Cast and production information:

Roderick Usher: Brian Mulligan; Edgar Allan Poe: Jason Bridges; Madeline Usher / Lady Madeline: Jacqueline Piccolino; Madeline Usher (dancer): Jamielyn Duggan; Doctor Primus: Anthony Reed; Le Médecin: Joel Sorensen; L'Ami: Edward Nelson. San Francisco Opera Orchestra. Conductor: Lawrence Forster; Stage Director: David Pountney; Associate Director: Polly Graham; Choreographer ("Usher House"): Jo Jeffries; Production Designer: Niki Turner; Video Production Designer: David Haneke; Lighting Designer; Tim Mitchell; Lighting Supervisor: Benjamin Naylor. War Memorial Opera House, December 10, 2015.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Usher_SFO1.png

product=yesThe Fall of the House of Usher in San Francisco
product_by=A review by Michael Milenski
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All photos by Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.

The Merry Widow at Lyric Opera of Chicago

In this staging owned by the Metropolitan Opera, New York, Patrick Carfizzi performs the role of Baron Mirko Zeta, his wife Valencienne and her admirer Camille de Rosillon are sung by Heidi Stober and Michael Spyres. The aspiring Frenchmen, Viscount Cascada and Raoul de St. Brioche, are represented by Paul La Rosa and Jonathan Johnson, Njegus is Jeff Dumas, and Praskovia is performed by Genevieve Thiers. M. Carfizzi and Mmes. Stober and Thiers are appearing in their debuts at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Sir Andrew Davis conducts the Lyric Opera Orchestra, and Michael Black has prepared the Lyric Opera Chorus. For this production the operetta is performed in English.

Many of the orchestral themes and melodies are captured in the work’s overture, performed here with seamless lyricism under Davis’s direction. An anchor of place and time, Paris 1905, appears above the stage as the first scene is about to commence. A ball is underway at the Pontevedrian embassy, staged with glittering colors, elaborate décor, and an appropriately choreographed dance featuring multiple couples. The narrative action unfolds with a toast proposed by Viscount Cascada to honor the host of the ball, Baron Zeta, ambassador of Pontevedro. Mr. La Rosa’s Cascada has a fittingly smooth delivery, his measured syllables in the toast clearly meant to honor yet also to further his own cause. Baron Zeta’s corresponding toast to both the fatherland and to France are marked by a comparable multiplicity of intentions. In this scene Zeta communicates to his assistant Njegus the urgency of securing funds to bolster the woeful Pontevedrian treasury. Mr. Carfizzi’s Zeta dominates the stage in a performance incorporating a firm sense of line and well-chosen lyrical decorations. His solution, to arrange a marriage between the wealthy Pontevedrian widow Hanna Glawari and her countryman Count Danilo, motivates the remainder of the operetta’s action. Once Njegus is dispatched to “Find Danilo!” in time for the arrival of Hanna as guest of honor, additional guests and officials of the embassy begin to populate the stage. Praskowia, wife of a retired Pontevedrian colonel, narrates the background of Hanna Glawari’s marriage, wealth, and widowhood. Ms. Thiers, overdressed and similarly coifed as this spouse of a self-important attaché, embroiders with relish a version of Hanna’s rise in status and ultimate wealth. Thiers’s comic timing and subtle gestures - both here and in later scenes - make her a marvelous foil to the other characters. During this presentation of the main plot an emotional sub-text of sorts develops. Baron Zeta’s wife Valencienne spends considerable time responding to the advances of Camille de Rosillon, although Zeta presumes that political expediency remains her sole motive. In their secret exchange of mutual feeling Mr. Spyres’s Camille declares with tenorial excitement, “my heart belongs to you.” In response Ms. Stober captures the spirit of Valencienne’s dilemma with a convincing blend of theatrics and song. Her protest to Camille, “A highly respectable wife is forced to be cautious in life,” is delivered with lyrical fervor yet with a continued interest in the dalliance already begun. Once Camille writes on her fan “I love you,” a recurrent theme of the lost-and-found object is set up for the duration of the drama. For now Spyres and Stober conclude their scene with a joyful pitch on “together.”

During the balance of Act One the two principal characters enter separately, yet their inevitable destiny brings them to at least a shared dance by the close. Ms. Fleming assures an adoring male chorus that she had not expected to be “the toast of gay Paris.” Fleming fills the role of Hanna with dignity, assuredly executed trills, and the wistful need already here for another’s interest in more than her “millions.” In this production the poses and competitive gestures of potential suitors, led by La Rosa and Johnson, are entertainingly shallow. Soon after Hanna’s transfer to an adjoining room Danilo enters as summoned from the voluptuous pleasures of Maxim’s. Mr. Hampson is a comfortable fit in the role of Danilo. He acts the part with sufficient self-absorption to convince, and the vocal line suits him now especially well. In his entrance song, “As diplomatic attaché,” Hampson traces the changing tempos with natural grace, as he describes contrasting his daily bureaucratic tasks with nightly diversions at the club. His corporeal movements mimic a fatigued spirit until he accepts the invitation of Njegus to enjoy a nap on the divan. It is here that Hanna discovers him, prompting their unexpected reunion and the revelation of an earlier, potential relationship which was halted. The story of these memories feeds a repartee suggesting their continued attraction despite obstacles which must be softened. Camille and Valencienne enter to sing of their imaginary world where prior commitments are dismissed. Here Stober and Spyres show touching sentiment as they close their duet with a piano emphasis on the “Neverland” of their dreamed romance.

When Danilo learns from Zeta that he is expected to marry Hanna, the division between the two former lovers seems to widen. During the subsequent “Ladies Choice” of the ball Hanna offers the dance to Danilo who refuses as a continuation of their banter. Once the others present have arranged for partners, Danilo consents to dance but Hanna at this point refuses. Fleming and Hampson execute this repartee with telling movement and facial expressions so that the audience can sense a growing tension between their characters. The strains of the waltz ultimately melt this mutual resistance; the act ends with their dance, indeed suggesting a road which leads - eventually - to harmony.

The second and third acts elucidate this path further starting at the French estate of Hanna where a folk festival recalling the homeland is celebrated. The set for Act Two is beautifully realized with moonlight suggested through blossoming trees, statuary, and a requisite pavilion for subsequent encounters and hidden rendezvous. Hanna announces to guests the festival honoring “native custom,” for which both she and many of the others wear costume from the homeland. The “Song of Vilja,” maid of the woods who lures the lovesick hunter, is performed by Fleming in all its poignant beauty. Top notes are held and shaded piano, the aching breadth of the lines (e.g., “Vilja, where have you flown?”) is sung with an emotional intensity hinting at the possibility still of love to be caught. This scene with chorus participating is a vocal highlight of the performance. Danilo’s entrance and further interaction with Hanna suggests, again, on the surface a persistent distance in their relationship. As portrayed by Hampson, Danilo’s refusal to state his affections and instead to sing of the complex nature of women serves merely to underline a need to protest his true emotions. The identity of the lost fan’s owner becomes a task for Danilo to solve, so that Camille’s alleged affections for Hanna can finally be unmasked as bogus. The lyrical display of a romance between Camille and Valencienne continues with Spyres providing memorable expressive warmth on “The rose that blooms in April.” Yet this relationship, like such a flower, is destined to fade in contrast to the growing intensity evident between the protagonists. Although Camille and Valencienne meet alone in the pavilion, the liaison is further concealed from Zeta when Hanna assumes the woman’s place. Hampson’s delightfully furious outburst expressing Danilo’s pique when he sees Hanna and Camille emerge together and announce their marriage confirms the widow’s perception that he truly loves her . In the final act at Maxim’s, a refuge where Danilo can mask his bruised feelings, the principal characters appear to participate in both revelation and resolution. Hanna confesses her motivation with Camille to the delight of Danilo, yet Zeta refuses to forgive a presumed peccadillo on the part of his wife. The offending fan becomes a key to forgiveness, just as Hanna’s disappearing fortune moves Danilo to profess his love. Both couples resolve for a happy future in this happy, frothy production.

Salvatore Calomino

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Kindred Spirits: Cecilia Bartoli and Rolando Villazón at the Concertgebouw

Tenor Rolando Villazón was set to make his Concertgebouw debut in 2009, when he had to cancel the engagement for medical reasons. Reluctant to cancel a second time, in 2013 he sang an all-Verdi concert with a throat infection. Happily, this tandem concert with Ms Bartoli found him in healthier voice. In a rewarding programme with music by Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini, the two opera stars proved to be a perfect match, in tempermant if not in vocal finesse. Both are stage savvy and have mastered the art of entertaining an audience down to the merest detail. When she entered in a sparkly, powder blue ballgown, with flowing hair and flashlight smile, Ms Bartoli was an outgoing diva in a diva-worthy creation. But when she sang the elated “Non più mesta” from Rossini’s La Cenerentola, breezily trippling through its devilishly fast runs, the gown became a Cinderella costume for this centrepiece aria. With his comic panache, Mr Villazón had the audience eating out of his hand at the click of a heel or a slant of his famous eyebrows. Which is not the say that the two stars won the public over with artificial jiggery-pokery. Their warm personalities and passion for music are their ultimate charm weapons, and these qualities cannot be faked. Between the arias and duets, the early music ensemble Orchestra La Scintilla kept up the energy with its vibrant, woodsy sound. There was plenty of drama in the vivacious overtures, although not all entrances were tidy and the fine dosing of a Rossini crescendo eluded this choice group of musicians. The scintillating woodwind solos lived up to the ensemble’s name and, in an unusual musical interlude at such events, Pier Luigi Fabretti made the oboe sing effortlessly in Bellini’s Oboe concerto in E flat major.

Both singers started with arias Mozart wrote to be included in operas by other composers, Ms Bartoli with flowing brushwork, Mr Villazón with broad, emphatic phrasing. Throughout the evening, his dynamics varied little below loud and, in view of this, “Una furtive lagrima” from Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love was not an ideal selection. The Don Giovanni-Zerlina duet from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, “Là ci darem la mano”, a puzzling substitute for the originally announced soprano-tenor duet from Così fan tutte, gave Mr Villazón the opportunity to flex his acting muscles. This seemed to free him up vocally, as well as tame his arms, which swished up and down during his solo arias. However, although his voice is darker than it used to be, it did not ring baritonal enough for the inveterate seducer. He hit his stride before the intermission, during the Adina-Nemorino duet from The Elixir of Love, “Una parola, o Adina…”. While Ms Bartoli charmingly brushed him off with her precision-steered vocalism, Mr Villazón wooed her with blood-and-guts Italianate derring-do. After the break, he continued to make up for a lack of access to softer singing by caution-to-the-wind open vowels, notes held as long as possible and maximum feeling in every letter. Such emotional generosity in a singer is hard to resist.

Mr Villazón’s brimming intensity was a determining factor in making the excerpts from Rossini’s Otello the most riveting part of the evening. An armchair and a dagger were enough for him and Ms Bartoli to create the illusion of an opera stage, though her gorgeous ivory gown with willow bough pattern must be given some scenographic credit. Although she is comfortable in soprano roles like Adina, roles with a lower centre such as Desdemona, written for Rossini’s muse and wife, Isabella Colbran, bring out the richest shades in Ms Bartoli’s voice. Her Willow Song, with gently rippling harp, proved yet again that, although she leaves audiences slack-jawed by spooling endless coloratura, she achieves true greatness in plangent tragedy. When Mr Villazón entered, coiled with rage, both singers seemed to live every moment of the confrontation. Rossini effectively sets Desdemona’s murder during a storm and the orchestra rose to the tempestuous dramatic challenge. After this tense finale, the encores could not have been more different in tone. The ebullient duo decided it was time to party. They did so with Rossini’s “La Danza”, with tambourines, a cheek-to-cheek waltz to Lehár’s “Lippen schweigen” and a clap-happy Drinking Song from La Traviata. When Mr Villazón actually drank his bubbly, all bets were off as far as the singing was concerned, but by then the public had been well and truly entertained.

Jenny Camilleri

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Performers and programme:

Cecilia Bartoli, mezzo-soprano; Rolando Villazón, tenor, Pier Luigi Fabretti, oboe; Orchestra La Scintilla, Ada Pesch, concertmaster.

Mozart: Overture to Così fan tutte (KV 588), “Si mostra la sorte”, KV 209, “Chi sà, chi sà, qual sia”, KV 582, “Quel casinetto è mio... Là ci darem la mano” (from Don Giovanni, KV 527), Rossini: Overture to La Cenerentola , Donizetti: “Una furtiva lagrima” (from L’elisir d’amore), Rossini: “Nacqui all'affano, non più mesta” (from La Cenerentola), Donizetti: “Una parola, o Adina...Chiedi all'aura lusinghiera” (from L’elisir d’amore), Bellini: Oboe concerto in E flat major, “Torna, vezzosa Fillide”, Rossini: Overture to La scala di seta, “Assisa al piè d'un salice” (from Otello), “Deh calma, o ciel, nel sonno” (from Otello), “Eccomi giunto inosservato” (from 'Otello'), “Non arrestare il colpo” (from Otello), “Notte per me funesta” (from 'Otello'), “La Danza”, Lehár: “Lippen schweigen” (arr. P. van Utrecht), Verdi: “Libiamo, ne'lieti calici” (Brindisi) (from La Traviata)

Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. Monday, 14^thDecember, 2015

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Cav/Pag at Royal Opera

The perennial verismo partners, Pietro Mascagni’s 1890 one-act opera Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, have little need for any such directorial enhancement: passions reach stratospheric heights, the sordid sits alongside the sensational, and violent vengeance is rife.

Sexual infidelity and vigilante justice are at the heart of both operas. Michieletto entwines the works even more tightly together by setting them in the same late twentieth-century south Italian backwater, and by allowing the characters to wander between the two dramas. So, during the impassioned intermezzo of Cavalleria we see an assistant at the baker’s shop — on the walls of which Beppe has posted bills for the forthcoming performance of Pagliacci — tentatively approach a stylish young woman, proffer a gift, a silk scarf, and snatch a hasty embrace. Later, we understand that this was the first romantic encounter of Silvio and Nedda, whose illicit love will bring heartbreak to the commedia troupe in Pagliacci. Then, the equivalent instrumental interlude in Pagliacci witnesses the emotional reconciliation of the now-pregnant Santuzza with Turridu’s bereaved mother.

Martina Belli as Lola and Aleksandrs Antonenko as Turiddu

I’m not sure that such interlacing achieves much. Moreover, there is other directorial meddling that I found downright distracting, such as the presentation, in the form of a tableau, of Cavalleria’s final scene during the opera’s overture. The curtain lifts to present a prone figure in a shabby piazza, gloomily lit by the dull beam of a single lamp-post. Then, the bereft matriarch, Mamma Lucia, fretfully pushes her way through the shocked crowd of onlookers, discovers her dead son, and mimes an agony of bereavement as his body is borne away, aloft, to the strains of the Easter hymn. Given that so little actually happens in the course of the opera, and that the drama relies on the ratcheting up of the tension between the ill-fated lovers, does it make sense to give us the tragic ending before we’ve started?

Perhaps it explains why the entire action of Cavalleria seems to take place at night, though: we are in the shadow of death? The set doesn’t help to create a sense of forward momentum either, consisting as it does of a shrub-lined piazza and a run-down Panificio which revolve, unceasingly, transferring us back and forth, between the shop’s interior and exterior. Earlier this year, I noted that designer Paolo Fantin’s set for Michieletto’s Tell was dominated by a huge, uprooted tree, ‘horizontal and enlarged, its twisting branches and gnarled roots etch and score sharp gothic shadows onto the bare skies beyond’, which despite its visual impact was ‘a hindrance to movement … the fallen trunk can revolve to reveal different locations but there is little meaningful choreography within those locations’. The same might be said here of Fantin’s bakery which, though characterised by evocative period detail, limits the stage space available for the Chorus. Michieletto does little with the latter, in any case.

Dionysios Sourbis as Silvio and Carmen Giannattasio as Nedda

The design of Pagliacci re-configures the revolve into a simple, and much more successful, arrangement of interlocking walls which make up various rooms within a ramshackle community centre: the troupe’s dressing room, a bare hall and the auditorium itself. During the commedia performance, Michieletto cleverly highlights the theatre/reality dichotomy by using ‘doubles’ to step into the action on stage, while the ‘real’ protagonists step behind-the-scenes and Canio is taunted by Tonio and Nedda (as Taddeo and Columbina) in his dressing-room. The stage upon which they perform is ridiculously small too, adding to the sense of discomfort — the passions enacted are too vast to be squeezed onto the tiny platform, and the red of the proscenium frame is a like a bloody gash, a sign that carnage is inevitable.

The performers, on stage and in the pit, gave a truly persuasive account of both operas, but it was Pagliacci which saw the singers shine brightest. Aleksandrs Antonenko was a hard-hearted Turiddu — I couldn’t believe in his appeals to his mother to watch over Santuzza should anything happen to him — but his voice was warm and ringing, if a little insecure at the top. The role of Canio suited him better and, driven to near madness by Nedd’s refusal to name her lover, he gave an intense and emotionally wrought rendition of ‘Vesti la giubba’, forcing himself to prepare for the performance ahead. This was a high-point of the evening; here, the despair was absolute and genuine, reaching out to us beyond Canio’s twisted malice.

Dmitri Platanias, one of two Greek baritones in the cast, doubled as Alfio and Tonio. The former role did not ask much of him: returning from the ‘open road’, he lifted the boot of his battered Fiat and showered the expectant villagers with faux designer handbags and the latest fashions, picked up on his travels; but otherwise this Alfio did not always seem entirely engaged in the drama. However, as Tonio, Platanias’s baritone acquired fullness and suavity; the prologue of Pagliacci was riveting from the first, and he introduced nuances to his voice that had been absent in Cavalleria.

Dimitri Platanias as Alfio

Eva-Maria Westbroek was vocally fervent as the emotionally and morally tormented Santuzza, and gave her all dramatically; but, Westbroek used an overly wide vibrato to beef up the sound which at times affected the intonation — her duet with Alfio was particularly askew — and the soprano’s tone lacked a consistent glossiness and ripeness. Martina Belli, making her ROH debut, was a glamorous Lola debut, sparkling with cruel insouciance. Mezzo soprano Elena Zilio was affecting as Mamma Lucia; despite her stern façade, her devotion to her son was ever apparent — though her histrionics in the overture seemed out of keeping the strict self-control this matriarch exhibited elsewhere.

In Pagliacci, Carmen Giannattasio was superb as Nedda: the beauty of her voice was tinged with a slight steeliness, capturing Nedda’s allure and capriciousness. British tenor Benjamin Hulett (Beppe) and Platanias’s compatriot Dionysios Sourbis (Silvio) completed a fine cast.

Antonio Pappano may have been born in Epping and lived in the US, but his family roots lie in southern Italy, and here he showed that he has this music in his blood. In a recent interview in the Guardian, the conductor emphasised his commitment to these operas, despite their melodramatic clichés: ‘all those clichés are genuine. Go to Italian villages even today and you’ll still see the old women dressed in black and the villagers will look at you differently if you are a stranger. The Madonna being carried in the parades at Easter might look corny on stage, but it is not an invention. It happens. And while some of these images are easy to poke fun at, they are also compelling and authentic, especially in the south.’ And, Pappano drew an impassioned and unstinting performance from the ROH orchestra. Most notably, he underlined the score’s juxtapositions of softness and sentimentality with malevolence and viciousness, switching between the two with unnerving volte faces which helped to convey the volatility and impulsiveness of the lovers. Violins, flute and harp created sweetness but were repeatedly swept aside by the cello’s darkness. The ROH Chorus was in resounding voice, too, and the Easter Hymn swelled gloriously.

Michieletto ensures that both operas make an immediate emotional impact, but it is in Pagliacci that the melodrama builds with excruciating inescapability towards its murderous final moments. Canio’s closing words, ‘La commedia è finita!’, were chilling, just as the psychological drama presented was horrifically real.

Claire Seymour

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Cast and production information:

Cavalleria Rusticana : Santuzza — Eva-Maria Westbroek, Turiddu —Aleksandrs Antonenko, Mamma Lucia —Elena Zilio, Alfio —Dimitri Platanias, Lola — Martina Belli.

Pagliacci : Canio — Aleksandrs Antonenko, Tonio — Dimitri Platanias, Nedda — Carmen Giannattasio, Beppe — Benjamin Hulett, Silvio — Dionysios Sourbis.

Director — Damiano Michieletto, Conductor —Antonio Pappano, Set designs —Paolo Fantin, Costume designs —Carla Teti, Lighting design — Alessandro Carletti, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Royal Opera Chorus.

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, Monday 7^th December 2015.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/2737ashm_1052.png image_description=Eva-Maria Westbroek as Santuzza [Photo © ROH. Photographer Catherine Ashmore] product=yes product_title=Cav/Pag at Royal Opera product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Eva-Maria Westbroek as Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana

Photos © ROH. Photographer Catherine Ashmore

Verdi Giovanna d'Arco, Teatro alla Scala, Milan

This year was even more special because, after a long run of Barenboim and German opera, the focus was on Giuseppe Verdi and on Riccardo Chailly, La Scala's "favourite son", who started his career there more than 40 years ago, mentored by Claudio Abbado. Chailly has conducted Giovanna d'Arco many times before, but this performance outstripped expectations : totally committed, utterly magnificent

Giovanna d'Arco is sometimes described as flawed but this performance shows its true worth. The production, directed by Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier, deals with the deeper levels in the story. Anna Netrebko is fast making the role her own. Giovanna isn't a glamour figure, but Netrebko makes the part glow, as if, like the saint, she's transfigured from within. This Joan of Arc is vividly portrayed, so inspired by her mission that even her father thinks she's possessed by supernatural forces. No plaster saint, but a personality with depth and conviction, as worthy as any Verdi heroine.

The prologue plays over a stage lit so all we can see is black and white. This forest is a forest of ideas, where nothing is really black and white. Joan of Arc is revered as a saint but was burned at the stake for heresy.. Nowadays, hearing voices would get Giovanna medicated into stupor. Invisible voices rouse her. The dark room fills with colour. From this materializes Carlos VII, (Francesco Meli), a vision of gleaming gold. The idea of a king appealing to a simple girl thus makes psychological sense. The crowd, however, don't understand. Verdi writes hellfire into the orchestration, whips of sound rising like the flames which will eventually destroy Giovanna's body but not her soul. Unlike the chorus, Giovanna is paying attention. Carlo's long aria inspires her to rip her nightgown into a makeshift tunic and cut off her hair. Even as baby-faced gamine, Netrebko looks right. And then she sings "Oh ben s'addice questo, Torbido cielo" and we hear Netrebko transform into the saviour of her nation. The set lights up like a medieval church and Netrebko dons the golden armour Carlo was not worthy to wear.

In Act II, Verdi focuses on Giacomo, and on a father's anxieties, even at this moment of triumph. We see the populace, and soldiers in armour, and glimpses of Rheims cathedral, yet we also see Giovanna's bed. For Giacomo, the real drama revolves around his daughter's soul. Patriot as he is, he's a parent above all. The crowds mill round, but for Giacomo (Devid Cecconi) the bed is a symbol. The bed is also is a consideration which matters in an opera which makes so much of the idea that the king wants to marry Giovanna. Lit with white light, the bed reminds us that Giovanna's soul is pure and will remain forever virginal. Modern minds might detect psycho-sexual complexities in Giovanna's actions. Perhaps Verdi intuited as much, for he wrote the demon chorus "Fuggi, o donna maledetta", here illustrated by blood-red monsters with with phallic horns.

Captured, Giovanna, relives her past victories in her imagination. The crowd dress her in gold plated armour, for she is, indeed, protected by the justice of her mission. Now we see the towers of the Cathedral rise up, and Carlo VII astride a golden horse. But Giovanna is facing death. Soon, though, she divests herself of the worldly glory the armour represents. We see Netrebko again in a simple white shift.

But Giovanna d'Arco is not religious or even particularly spiritual. The plot diverges greatly from what we know of the historical record. Verdi's librettist was Temistocle Solera, who gave the composer Nabucco and I Lombardi, with their coded references to political liberation. Giovanna hears the sounds of battle, and only towards the very end dedicates herself to the Virgin Mary (who is, tellingly, a plaster saint in this production). Thus we don't see flames, or a show trial. This isn't the director's fault. Verdi himself created the final act so it unfolds through a series of dialogues between Giovanna and Giacomo, which could not possibly happen in real time. Even at this point Giacomo seems more bothered by his daughter's virginity than her imminent death. Vocally, Netrebko and Cecconi bounce off each other so well that literal reality isn't relevant., Instead we have emotional truth, which is far more powerful and closer to Verdi's fundamental ideas. Giacomo comes at last to understand Giovanna's sacrifice, and Carlo VII to respect her for what she's done for France Then, at last, can Giovanna be released from mortal concerns, and rise up to the skies, vivid blue like the cloak of the Virgin, only brighter, stronger and more gem-like.

Anne Ozorio

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Iestyn Davies, Allan Clayton and James Baillieu at Wigmore Hall

Benjamin Britten’s first Canticle, My beloved is mine, combines theatrical impact with divine reflection. When it was premiered in November 1947 by Britten and Peter Pears at a memorial concert for Dick Sheppard, the founder of the Peace Pledge Union, the composer described the ‘canticle’ as a ‘new invention in a sense although … [it is] modelled on the Purcell Divine Hymns’. Clayton and Baillie emphasised the concentration of My beloved is mine, the text of which, by Francis Quarles (1592-1644), presents a quasi-erotic meditation on a single line from the Song of Solomon. There was a growing sense of spiritual unity and fulfilment, as the performers moved through the sections. ‘[L]ike two little divided brooks’, voice and piano alternated in the opening part, the piano’s ritornello coolly countering the fullness of the tenor’s line, before the two combined and cohered, blossoming warmly in the first statement refrain, ‘So I my best beloved’s am./ So he is mine!’ It was the recurring refrain which articulated the emotional trajectory of the work. After the elaborate celebration, ‘We both became entire’, it was a poised, unaccompanied statement of certainty; after the dramatic insistences of the following episode — with its wide ranging, highly melismatic recitative — it was powerfully assertive. The harmonic ambiguities of the complexly imitative third section, culminated in a slower, more reverential declaration, Clayton’s lower register conveying introspection. The closing part was beautifully still and quiet, creating a mood of subdued veneration. As the voice rose, countered by the fall of the piano to low realms, it was as if the protagonist’s ecstatic faith in his Creator encompassed the world entire.

Allan Clayton and James Baillieu

Abraham and Isaac , Britten’s Canticle II, is more obviously dramatic and sets a scene from the Chester Miracle play. The two voices take the roles of father and son, and as Clayton and Davies enacted the strife between secular and spiritual loyalties which Abraham endures, they moved with fluency between the movements, creating a dramatic persuasiveness which partly mitigated our possible unease at the father’s resolution to offer up his child in obedience to an exacting deity. Yet, some of the most powerful moments come when the two voices combine in supple rhythmic unison to declaim the words of God. The contrasting vocal timbres of Davies and Clayton blended with potency and the singers added further weight to the awe which the Father inspires by turning their backs upon the audience during God’s opening demand for sacrifice. Baillie’s accompaniment intensified the highly wrought drama: for example, the running cadential motif that closed Abraham’s acknowledgement of his duty, ‘Ah! Isaac, Isaac, I must kill thee!’, evoked a tone of mocking inevitability. Similarly, Baillie’s staccato accompaniment to Isaac’s declaration of trust, ‘Father, I am all ready/ To do your bidding most meekly’, was painfully ironic, and the darkening of the tenor’s response, ‘Oh! My heart will break in three’, tightened the screw still further. Davies communicated Isaac’s trusting innocence with heart-wringing clarity; but the unsettling self-composure displayed by Isaac in the unaccompanied question, ‘Is it God’s will I shall be slain?’ was soothed by the blessing he offers his father, Baillie’s spacious chords and the warmth, then tenderness (‘Come hither, my child, thou art so sweet’), of Clayton’s reply conveying some consolation. Though the darkness could never be absolutely expunged, after the savagery of Baillie’s depiction of the moments leading towards the sacrificial surrender of the child to God the ‘Envoi’ drifted heavenwards in peaceful consummation.

In the second half of the programme, Clayton offered us more Britten — the folksong arrangements —showing, after the intricate, strenuous musical and dramatic dialectics of the Canticles, that simplicity can be just as affecting. In particular, ‘I wonder as I wander’ was delivered with a beguiling directness, while ‘Salley in our Alley’ and ‘Oliver Cromwell’ allowed Clayton to indulge his playful showmanship.

There were many pairings and counter-balances in this programme. Thus Davies, too, presented a series of traditional songs: American composer Nico Muhly’s ‘Four Traditional Songs’ of 2011. The sweetness of Davies’ countertenor and the poised elegance of his phrasing added much to the articulateness of these songs. The quirky rhythmic displacements and asymmetries of ‘A brisk young lad’ and ‘Searching for lambs’ were engaging. ‘The cruel mother’ allowed Davies to demonstrate his thoughtful approach to text: the repeating line ‘All alone and a loney’ acquired ever more poignancy as the tale of despair, matricide and spiritual banishment unfolded. Baillie’s entry, in the second verse of this song, was characteristic of the pianist’s admirable approach throughout the evening: his contributions stirred an imaginative response — the dramatic dissonant punctuations of the closing verse chillingly conjured the ‘fire beyond Hell’s gate’ where the mother will ‘burn both early and late’ — but they never drew undue attention.

There was new work too, as Mulhy’s Lorne ys my liking, dedicated to Clayton and Davies, was given its world premiere. A setting of a Chester miracle play, it — in the words of Mulhy — ‘imagines Mary Magdalene, Mary Jacobi (the sister of the virgin) and Mary Salome (the mother of James and John) at Christ’s tomb. There thy weep, and are confronted by two angels with the faces of children’. A debt to Britten is evident, and the frequent close harmonies created some lovely vocal colours, particularly in the opening section for Mary Magdalene and in the Angelus Primus, recalling the second Canticle. There is much dramatic detail and contrast too: Maria Jacobi’s devotional cry, ‘Mightie God omnipotent’, was given stature and resonance by the piano’s low meandering; and Baillie’s jagged interruptions of Marie Salome’s exclamations were a violent confirmation of her distress. But, the parts did not quite add up to a coherent ‘whole’; and, after the ‘cleansing’ balm of Mary Magdalene’s final words of acceptance, the six-hand piano postlude which saw Davies and Clayton join Baillie at the keyboard seemed a misjudgement.

At the start of his career, Thomas Adès’ precocity was often compared to the gifted facility of the young Britten, and the ‘The Lover in Winter’, written when Adès was just eighteen, intriguingly complemented My beloved is mine, telling as it does of a love frozen but not destroyed by the chilling frosts which shrivel the external world; a love whose fires flame once more in the final song of fulfilment. Davies’ control was evident in the opening song, which ranges high and low, and the absence of vibrato imbued the narrative with a spiritual air. There was a penetrating precision to the countertenor’s account of the subdued stirrings of the natural world, intimated by energetic piano flourishes and shifts, in the second song, and the isolation of the vocal line culminated in the numbed monotone which opens the third song, ‘Modo frigescit quidquid est’ (Soon all that exists grows cold). Following such numbness, the incantatory splendour of the final song, which Davies delivered with astonishing direction and focus, was almost overwhelmingly intense declaration of passion.

Clayton gave an engaging account of Samuel Barber’s ‘Three Songs’ Op.10, which were unfamiliar to me. James Joyce’s three poems seem to have inspired Barber's easy lyricism and Clayton’s committed delivery revealed Barber as a natural song-writer. After the aural evocations of the natural world in ‘Rain has fallen’, ‘Sleep now’ — which brought to mind Britten’s many musical depictions of sleep and dreams — began with beautifully settled repose. But, the rhetorical interruption of the ‘voice of winter’ brought unrest to the middle stanza, before Clayton’s delicate pianissimo returned us to slumber and peace. The tenor’s vocal power was harnessed to good effect in ‘I hear an army’ which concluded with the pained appeal, ‘My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?’

In his introductory essay to the published score of Peter Grimes, Britten declared his oft-quoted ambition to create vocal music which ‘transform[s] the natural intonation and rhythms of everyday speech into memorable musical phrases (as with Purcell), but in more stylized music’. On this occasion, the spirit of Purcell was present from first to last, not least because the programme was framed by realisations of his music by Britten, Tippett and Adès. Davies took ‘Music for a while’ at a fairly swift pace, and here and in ‘Sweeter than roses’ his gracefully flowing line was thoughtfully complemented by Baillie. Adès’ ‘Full fathom five’ opened with forceful clarion chords on the piano, demanding our attention and initiating the voice’s confident, expansive declarations. Britten, fittingly, had the last word, his arrangements of Purcell’s ‘Lost is my quiet for ever’ and ‘Sound the trumpet’ bringing both singers back to the platform and allowing us to enjoy the relaxed intertwining of the two voices.

And there things could have closed, perfectly, with the trumpet calling us ‘To celebrate the glory of this day’ — just as we had all rejoiced in this wonderful exploration of English settings which balanced the familiar with the fresh, the theatrical with the contemplative, the challenging with the artless. But, an encore of ‘The Deaf Woman’s Courtship’ initiated a role reversal: Clayton and Davies enjoyed the joke as they sang falsetto and in full voice respectively, but — while appreciated by the amused audience — I found the levity disturbed the blend of earnestness and joy which had made this such a revelatory occasion.

Claire Seymour

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Performers and programme:

Iestyn Davies, countertenor; Allan Clayton, tenor; James Baillieu, piano

Purcell: ‘Music for a while’ Z583 (arr. Tippett), ‘Sweeter than roses’ Z585 (arr. Britten), ‘Full fathom five Z631’ (arr. Adès); Britten: Canticle I — My beloved is mine Op.40; Adès: ‘The Lover in Winter’; Britten: Canticle II — Abraham and Isaac Op.51; Muhly: Lorne ys my likinge (world première); Barber: ‘3 Songs’ (James Joyce) Op.10; Muhly: ‘Four Traditional Songs’; (Britten: ‘Sally in our Alley’, ‘The Plough Boy’, ‘I wonder as I wander’, ‘Oliver Cromwell’; Purcell: ‘Lost is my quiet forever’ Z502 (arr. Britten), ‘Sound the trumpet’ Z323 (arr. Britten)

Wigmore Hall, London. Friday, 4^th December 2015.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/James%20Baillieu%20and%20Iestyn%20Davies%20at%20Wigmore%20Hall%204%20Dec%2015%20%28c%29%20Clive%20Barda.jpg image_description=Iestyn Davies and James Baillieu [Photo by Clive Barda] product=yes product_title=Iestyn Davies, Allan Clayton and James Baillieu at Wigmore Hall product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Iestyn Davies and James Baillieu [Photo by Clive Barda]

New Songs to English Poetry - Wigmore Hall, BCMG

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner intrigues because there's nothing quite like it in English verse. Though its tone suggests ancient saga, its subject was unequivocally modern, in the sense it caught the Zeitgeist of the Romantic era's fascination with the "Gothic". The Mariner breaks unspoken rules and kills the Albatross. He and his shipmates are cursed, dying of thirst though there's "water, water everywhere" around them. Two centuries later, the Rime still haunts. The Mariner's journey is a descent into the darker unconscious. Like the wedding guest, we "fear thee, ancient Mariner ! I fear they skinny hand!"

Howard Skempton's setting grows from the ballad, so symbiotically it seems a "living thing". The vocal part reflects the strange obsessive nature of the text which draws the listener in as if hypnotized. The cadences rise upwards and down, at a pace which suggests a hard march. Coleridge began the poem while hiking on the moors. Roderick Williams is a remarkable narrator, capturing the demented undercurrents in the verse. The lines run like a form of Sprechstimme, not recitation, yet not quite singing. This nightmare does not let a voice take full flight. Williams has a gift for natural, direct communication, without theatrical histrionics. He makes us sympathetic to the Mariner as a mortal man, which makes his fate all rhe more tragic.

The BCMG Wigmore Hall concert began with Dominic Muldowney's An English Songbook (2011) with a new song, "Smooth between the Sea and Land", a BCMG commission receiving its London premiere. This song is a setting of A E Housman, and reflects the poet's distinctive timbre, which stands out in contrast to the three settings of W H Auden, whose arch sophistication demands music of equal bite. Muldowney's "At Last the Secret is Out" and "Funeral Blues" reflect Auden's verbal intelligence, Yet when Roderick Williams sang "Stop the clocks.....", one could feel the sensitivity which Auden concealed behind his combative, cynical surface.

Songs to poems by Edward Thomas and John Betjeman bridged the divide between Auden and Housman, with Muldowney creating a nice, almost bluesy feel as if shadowing the spirit of the 1920's. Muldowney responds even better to Shakespeare. His version of "Winter" nips along, as if skidding on ice. "tu-whit, tu-who, a merry note", sharply manic. Finest of all, Muldowney's "Fear no more the Heat of the Sun". This song is the heart of the cycle, connecting to "Funeral Blues" and "Winter", but also in mood to the other songs in the group. It's a wonderful song, at once elegaic, yet tender. With Skempton and Muldowney, the art of English Song is alive and well.

Anne Ozorio

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A Heap of Utterly Brilliant Rubbish: Hänsel und Gretel at Dutch National Opera

Engelbert Humperdinck’s librettist and sister, Adelheid Wette, dethorned the story of Hansel and Gretel as much as she could, making the murderous parents fallible but caring, and dispatching fairy creatures to watch over the lost siblings. The witch is still a cannibal, but she is the single embodiment of danger. Even the hunger beast is tamed early on, when the father comes home laden with groceries after some lucrative broom-selling. Director Lotte de Beer puts the scariness back in by turning the tale into the escapist fantasy of a group of street children who scurry around a refuse dump like vermin, sniffing glue. Instead of angels, they dream of parents tucking them into soft, clean beds. They are terrified, not by the subconscious fear of abandonment and parental infanticide, but by real dangers—neglect, indifference and abuse. Ms De Beer’s concept indicts the world for failing to protect so many of its young while celebrating children’s imagination and resilience.

Kate Lindsey as Hänsel and Lenneke Ruiten as Gretel

To escape their harsh existence, the street children turn cardboard boxes into doll’s houses and fashion figurines out of earth and litter. Stage-wide video projections zoom in on their busy hands. The figurines become the singers, starting with Hansel and Gretel in a giant corn flakes box. It takes a while to get used to the singers’ latex masks and lumpy costumes. However, with regular reminders of the child puppeteers, the Hansel and Gretel “dolls” grow more affectingly human in each consecutive scene. Sets and costumes, fabulously lit by David Finn, combine the magical with the sinister. The midden in Act I provides the plastic debris for a colourful streamer forest. It is then transformed into a glistening mound of candy wrappers in lieu of the gingerbread house. The closer the children get to the Witch’s cottage, the prettier their surroundings become, and the more ominous. The Sandman’s dream dust is a crushed Valium pill. As the feathered Dew Fairy, he puts on a menacing, skeletal bird’s head. His motive for drugging the children is revealed when he turns up at the Witch’s cottage as her accomplice. Conductor Marc Albrecht ratcheted up the horror with a dungeon-dark take on the score. He consistently gave dusky orchestral colours the upper hand, with ravishing results, and expanded the symphonic breadth of the music as far as it can go. The Witch’s Ride was so ferocious, it sounded like a full-blown Witches’ Sabbath. He also created moments of hushed, spacious lyricism, most notably during the Evening Prayer. The Netherlands Philharmonic was in wonderful form, alternating full-force mettle with glowing transparency.

Charlotte Margiono as Mutter Gertrud, Thomas Oliemans as Vater Peter, Kate Lindsey as Hänsel, Lenneke Ruiten as Gretel with Kathedrale Koorschool Utrecht

The singing was equally gratifying, although the sets, with no backdrop or flats, did not favour the lighter voices. Both Lenneke Ruiten as Gretel and Kate Lindsey as Hansel were at times upstaged by the orchestra. Ms Ruiten was pitch-secure and vocally spry. Moving with splay-kneed bravado and singing with unfailingly beautiful tone, Ms Lindsey made a delightful Hansel. Charlotte Margiono’s Mother sounded steadiest and roundest in the lower range. Perhaps restrained by the concealing costume and blank-faced mask, Ms Margiono’s performance was less animated than her previous roles. As her husband, Thomas Oliemans was vocally impressive, full of zing and swagger, and with pin-sharp enunciation. A few phrases in the role require a bigger baritone, but Mr Oliemans wrapped his voice around them intelligently. Hendrickje van Kerckhove sang the Sandman and Dew Fairy with dream-like clarity and the children’s chorus was very well-rehearsed. Peter Hoare’s meaty tenor served the Witch well, but was challenged at the upper and lower limits. Although sung conventionally in comic character tenor vein, this Witch was truly unnerving, not for preteens and teens perhaps (this production is not suitable for young children), but for adults aware of “what’s out there”. The Witch was not a clay doll, but a real person, a bare-chested man in a Goldilocks wig and a frilly vaudeville costume; initially a ridiculous creature, but soon emerging as a sexual predator with a basement full of traumatized children. At this moment, it becomes clear what the elaborate construction of cardboard edifices, fantasy scripts and puppetry were all about—the exorcism of this evil by burning the Witch and unlocking the basement. The festive happy ending is all the more touching for having been imagined in such wretchedness.

Jenny Camilleri

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Cast and production information:

Peter — Thomas Oliemans, Gertrud — Charlotte Margiono, Hänsel — Kate Lindsey, Gretel— Lenneke Ruiten, Die Knusperhexe— Peter Hoare, Sandmännchen/Taumännchen — Hendrickje van Kerckhove, Conductor — Marc Albrecht, Director — Lotte de Beer, Set Designer — Michael Levine, Costume Designers — Clement & Sanôu, Lighting Designer — David Finn, Video — Finn Ross, Dramaturgy — Peter te Nuyl, Klaus Bertisch, Utrecht Cathedral Choir School Children’s Choir, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra. Seen at Dutch National Opera & Ballet, Amsterdam, Thursday, 3^rd December 2015.

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Photos by Marco Borggreve

Bejun Mehta: Yet can I hear that dulcet lay

As they explored the Baroque Italian cantata, on the genre’s journey from its homeland, across Europe to England and Germany, Mehta also communicated an infectious enjoyment and enthusiasm. And, considerable pleasure in making and performing this music — its sentiments amorous, its articulation dramatic — was evidently shared by all the collective musicians.

Mehta did not start the evening entirely comfortably though. Handel’s ‘Siete rose rugiadose’ (You are dewey roses) was not the sweet and delicately moist number we might have expected, as intimated by its title; the instrumental introductory bars were serene and poised, but Mehta found it difficult to match the continuity of line established by the theorbo, viola da gamba and harpsichord, and the fragmentary and ornate phrases of the initial vocal utterance were somewhat unsettled. It was as if considerable intellectual effort was being expended but the requisite suavity of phrasing remained elusive. Mehta’s tone felt a little constricted above the sparse accompaniment, and though he worked hard to focus the intonation at the cadence before the da capo repeat, there was some unease.

Fortunately, the virtuosic roulades of the first aria — an outburst of breathless love — of the composer’s ‘Mi palpita il cor’ (My heart throbs), delivered here with impressive precision, seemed to release whatever knot was causing the vocal tightness. Perhaps the fuller accompanying support helped too, as flute and double bass joined the ensemble; and, the moving inner voices of Bates’ organ continuo created both interest and succour. Mehta’s performance confirmed the emergence of Handel’s genius during his Italian journey in the opening years of the eighteenth century: the recitative combined grace and rhetoric; there was urgency in the melodic inventiveness. In the second aria, the countertenor used the harmonic nuances expressively, and he built effectively through the subsequent recitative. The final aria, which tells of the lover’s hopes that his devotion will be rewarded, was enriched by the bright warmth and agility of Georgia Browne’s flute; and this number was characterised by active communication between the musicians, encouraged by Bates, which ensured our strong engagement.

The first half of the recital concluded with Alessandro Scarlatti’s ‘Perchè tacete, regolati concerti?’ (Why are you silent, you well-ordered harmonies?), which saw violins and double bass join the ensemble to perform the cantata’s nine movements featuring an overture — which showcased some very agile cello and double bass playing in the fugal section — and various arias and recitatives. The through-flowing emergence of sentiments and moods of these strophic numbers made a satisfying change from the intense but fixed emotions of the da capo forms. Mehta’s tone was rich and replete with sensuous allure, and the climax of the cantata, the tender lullaby ‘Dormi, ch’il mio dolor/Nenia al tuo sonno’ (Go to sleep, but know at least that I die for you) was gorgeously seductive. Mehta’s control of musical line and dramatic peak was impressive, and the emotional intensity was extended by the tender, thoughtful instrumental contributions. There was an almost Monteverdian piquancy about the chromaticisms, and the delicacy of the violins in the instrumental postlude were a wonderful representation of the protagonist’s closing assertion that, after the fierce attacks which have assaulted his heart, ‘La mia piaga proverà/ Men crudo il duol’ (My wound will make my sorrow less painful).

The second half of the recital introduced two German cantatas, and if Mehta’s diction in the Italian works had occasionally been approximate, here he showed an instinctive feeling for the music’s spirit as expressed through the language; I was not surprised to find consequently, when reading the artist’s biography in the programme, that Mehta has a degree in German literature from Yale. The combination of sweetness and plangent lamentation in the instrumental opening of J.C. Bach’s ‘Ach, dass ich Wassers gnug hätte’ (O, that I had tears enough in my head; a reference to the Book of Jeremiah) was captivating, and the sublime expressivity of Mehta’s subsequent melody utterly transfixing. The line was effortlessly sustained, though textual details were brought to the fore: there was a growing intensity, as tears flowed from the poet-speaker’s eyes (‘Und meine beiden Augen fließen mit Wasser’, while the oppression of the heart (‘und mein Herz ist betrübet’) was strikingly enunciated.

Melchior Hoffmann’s ‘Schlage doch, gewünschte Stunde’ (Strike then, long awaited hour) was deeply affecting; Mehta employed an ‘open’ sound for the gentle melodies, which were complemented by quietly tolling hand-bells — a literal representation of the funereal clarion which accompanies the poet-singer’s passage to the after-life, marking the ticking clock as the singer approaches the death for which he longs. The processional character of the work was wonderfully conveyed, and the protagonist’s anticipation of heaven was deeply consoling.

The highlight of the recital was Vivaldi’s ‘Piani, sospiri e dimandar mercede’ (Weeping, sighing, and asking recompense). Here, Mehta’s countertenor was expressively flexible — it swooning beguilingly to depict the tempting breeze which tempts the boatman from the safety of the harbour, to confront the storm; large vocal leaps were despatched with ease, conveying the fickleness of the poet-speaker’s beloved. The instrumentalists contributed to the alternating melodious beauty and dramatic unrest, and the prevailing lyricism revealed the essential naivety of the helmsman. This is not ‘easy’ music: there are many harmonic twists and turns, and the intonation was sure. The rhetorical flourishes of the concluding aria, as the voice darted urgently, were theatrically striking.

Between the cantatas were interspersed some superbly executed instrumental works, including the Symphony, Song and Chaconny from Purcell’s King Arthur, in which the coloristic variations which imbued ‘Fairest Isle’ were eloquent and enthralling. Here, though the dynamic contrasts seemed surprisingly modern, the overall utterance was convincingly authentic. A striking variety of pace and weight of bow stroke distinguished the movements of Heinrich Biber’s Mensa Sonora Suite III in A Minor; similarly, there was a convincing juxtaposition of blended voices and vigorous dialogue.

The recital closed with Handel’s ‘Yet, can I hear that dulcet lay’ from The Choice of Hercules. Though the text of this rare English cantata by the composer seems to have possessed little to inspire Handel, there are momentary beauties — including this number in which Hercules refuses Pleasure’s offer of the blisses of Elysium. Mehta and his fellow musicians wonderfully drew forth the subtleties of this aria, and lulled us into peaceful contentment.

Claire Seymour

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Performers and programme:

Bejun Mehta, countertenor; La Nuova Musica, David Bates, director. Wigmore Hall, London, Monday 30^th November 2015.

George Frideric Handel: Cantata — ‘Siete rose rugiadose’ HWV162, Cantata — ‘Mi palpita il cor’ HWV132c; Henry Purcell: King Arthur — A Symphony, A Song and Chaccone; Alessandro Scarlatti: Cantata — ‘Perchè tacete, regolati concerti?’; Johann Christoph Bach: ‘Ach, dass ich Wassers gnug hätte’ (Lamento); Antonio Vivaldi: ‘Pianti, sospiri e demandar mercede’ RV676; Heinrich Biber — Mensa Sonora Suite III in A minor; Melchior Hoffmann: ‘Schlage doch, gewünschte Stunde’; George Frideric Handel: The Choice of Hercules HWV69 Part 2 No.10 ‘Yet can I hear that dulcet lay’.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Mehta.png image_description=Bejun Mehta [Photo by Josep Molina / MolinaVisuals] product=yes product_title=Yet can I hear that dulcet lay product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Bejun Mehta [Photo by Josep Molina / MolinaVisuals]

Il barbiere di Siviglia in San Francisco

The Tuesday night audience was once the grand old, rich San Francisco, and maybe it still is. But this past Tuesday (December 1) the railroad magnates and oil executives seemed to have disappeared into a crowd of much younger dot-commers (there is a quite a dot-com explosion in San Francisco in case you hadn’t heard).

Some, maybe many of us were not so excited given that it was a mere two years ago that we were given this same production created by Spanish stage director Emilio Sagi. There were then some fine artists on the stage, and the pit was more than adequate. It was a good show, the best Barber I had ever seen.

Il barbiere is in fact a very difficult opera to pull off, and the 2013 Sagi production almost did.

Luckily for those dot-commers who somehow found themselves in the opera house, and for the die-hard opera audience this revival was an even better show, coming ever closer to really making the grand old comedy everything it can be — an elusive ideal to be sure.

René Barbera as Almaviva

The star of the show is the set! Nothing more than a platform and a wall. These elements are basic comedy — the Roman street and the commedia dell’arte platform. This simplicity motivates the need for action and this makes comedy all about performance. It is a public place with a stage so let’s do a show!

This Barber was indeed about the comedians, each with his own abstracted comic personality, each with an individual swagger (Rosina’s outdid them all), each with their own silly schtick. They stepped on and off the platform reminding us that the opera is after all later-day commedia dell’arte, they played directly to the audience to get laughs and this meant much of the evening they were down stage center where all performers prefer to be.

The charm of each comedian was free to seduce the audience, and that they all did, silliness magnified by something as simple as body height. Almaviva and Don Bartolo are petite, Basilio towered over them, Rosina was slightly taller than Almaviva. All those provoked funny compromises in our perceptions of these archetypal comic characters.

Some of them could really sing! Texas tenor René Barbera had the most to sing, and sing he did, sailing easily into tenorino sphere when needed, cleanly executing coloratura (those exciting moments when there is so much excitement that musical line breaks into delirium). All this without losing a finely honed even sound. Exactly the same may be said of Argentine mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack, a former Adler Fellow, whose strong, lovely mezzo voice, beautiful high notes and solid diva confidence brought egotistical perfection to this Rosina.

René Barbera as Almaviva, Daniela Mack as Rosina, Andrea Silvestrelli as Bartolo, Lucas Meachem as Figaro, Catherine Cooke as Berta, Alessandro Corbelli as Bartolo

Italian baritone Alessandro Corbelli, Don Bartolo, is a bel canto specialist. Though his voice is not large he used it with easy freedom as complement to genuine buffo acting. His rather soft, fast patter made me yearn for louder, even faster patter. Mezzo-soprano Catherine Cooke is one of San Francisco’s treasures, her Berta startlingly present and very well sung.

American baritone Lucas Meachem played Figaro with a certain charm, though I found his singing sloppy and his tone production irritatingly inconsistent. This may have been his idea of making Figaro an amusing character. Italian bass Andrea Silvestrelli is a fine comic performer who is vocally unsuited for Rossini roles. He is San Francisco Opera’s catch-all bass, one night the Night Watchman in Meistersinger, the next night Basilio, etc.

All this wonderful singing, and much of it high Rossini art, occurred because of the pit. Conductor Giuseppe Finzi somehow finding the real Rossini simply unleashed the joy of singing on the stage. From the overture to the finale this fine Rossini maestro never dropped the constant percolation and the easy boil of the Rossini musical continuum. We joyfully felt, obviously with him, the wonder of opera on the stage, and this does not happen very often.

The stage director of this revival of the Sagi production was Roy Rallo. The staging seemed greatly streamlined from the 2013 Sagi directed performances, the individual performances more vivid, the chorus and ballet more abstracted, and the bicycles and other post modern touches were less obtrusive. It was very effective comic staging (see above).

Michael Milenski

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Casts and production information:

Figaro: Lucas Meachem; Rosina: Daniela Mack; Cout Almaviva: René Barbera; Doctor Bartolo: Alessandro Corbelli; Don Basilio: Andrea Silvestrelli; Berta: Catherine Cook; Fiorello: Edward Nelson; Ambrogio: Efrain Solis; An officer: Matthew Stump. Chorus and Orchestra of the San Francisco Opera. Conductor: Giuseppe Finzi; Production: Emilio Sagi; Revival Director: Roy Rallo; Set Designer: Llorenç Corbella; Costume Designer: Pepa Ojanguren; Lighting Designer: Gary Marder; Choreographer: Nuria Castejôn. War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, December 1, 2015.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Barber_SF1.png

product=yes
product_title=The Barber of Seville in San Francisco
product_by=A review by Michael Milenski
product_id=Above: Andrea Silvestrelli as Basilio [All photos by Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera]

The New York Festival of Song Creates Intimacy and Joy in a Series of Lesser-Known Rachmaninoff Songs

Unlike many traditional song concerts, Barrett and Blier program concerts with a story arc or theme, engaging the audience in meaningful music-listening and story synthesis. Their upcoming concert, simply called Schubert/Beatles, will feature compositions from both Franz Schubert as well as the Beatles, illustrating the different ways in which these two musical periods were very much their very own “smash hits” during their own respective time periods.

The New York Festival of Song opened their season this past November 10^th with From Russia to Riverside Drive: Rachmaninoff and Friends, a warm, intelligent evening of chamber music featuring the works of Rachmaninoff but also some of his contemporaries with jazz leanings, such as George Gershwin and Duke Ellington. Held in Merkin Hall, artistic director Michael Barrett brought a friendly intimacy to the evening that made it difficult not to leave the concert smiling.

Featuring soprano Dina Kuznetsova and baritone Shea Owens, the program began by alternating various Rachmaninoff songs, many of which are rarely performed and thus all the more pleasurable to hear. Kuznetsova has a magnetic charisma and ease onstage that allowed her to express the full range of emotions of each of her songs. Her vocal ability was equally matched, her voice a lustrously dark timbre. She made great use of dynamic contrast to illustrate the highs and lows of the music, her voice at its most thrilling in moments of fuller volume. At times, she erred on the side of too pianissimo for a voice of her size, causing uncharacteristic breaks in her tone. However, these moments were fleeting and didn’t distract from what was an excellent and impassioned performance.

Shea Owens [Photo courtesy of IMG Artists

Shea Owens’ interpretations feel slightly academic at times, but he gains energy as the evening goes on, especially in his more comedic moments. His vocal quality is stunning, with all the richness of a well-rounded baritone voice but with a striking brightness that thrills, particularly in his upper range. The Russian repertoire sits well in his voice, and he has an easy quality to his vocalization, yet he possesses a sound that’s not without gravitas and substance.

Barrett and Blier accompany on piano with joy and gusto, appearing to deeply enjoy their music making with an enthusiasm so genuine it was impossible not to become absorbed in their warm-toned playing. Blier paused between songs to give an affectionate and humorous play-by-play of Rachmaninoff’s personal and compositional history, which deeply enriched the listening experience. Blier managed to make the evening akin to a casual evening listening to music in one’s living room with friends, while never allowing the excellence of the musical quality to waver.

Dalit Warshaw joined in on several songs on the thereminist, an instrument Blier explained never quite took off in popularity as expected in Rachmaninoff’s time. Warshaw plays this fascinating instrument with tenderness and sensitivity, her precision and focus mesmerizing.

The feeling that the entirety of a cast of artists is enjoying their craft all at once in concert collaboration seems an increasingly rare experience in recital attendance. The New York Festival of Song manages to highlight the joy in this series of rare songs from Rachmaninoff and beyond, providing an evening of delightful musical excellence and true artistic pleasure.

Alexis Rodda image=http://www.operatoday.com/dina_kuznetsova_4.png image_description=Dina Kuznetsova [Photo courtesy of Harrison Parrott] product=yes product_title=The New York Festival of Song Creates Intimacy and Joy in a Series of Lesser-Known Rachmaninoff Songs product_by=A review by Alexis Rodda product_id=Above: Dina Kuznetsova [Photo courtesy of Harrison Parrott]