English Touring Opera are delighted to announce a season of lyric monodramas to tour nationally from October to December. The season features music for solo singer and piano by Argento, Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich with a bold and inventive approach to making opera during social distancing.
This tenth of ten Live from London concerts was in fact a recorded live performance from California. It was no less enjoyable for that, and it was also uplifting to learn that this wasn’t in fact the ‘last’ LfL event that we will be able to enjoy, courtesy of VOCES8 and their fellow vocal ensembles (more below …).
Ever since Wigmore Hall announced their superb series of autumn concerts, all streamed live and available free of charge, I’d been looking forward to this song recital by Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper.
Although Stile Antico’s programme article for their Live from London recital introduced their selection from the many treasures of the English Renaissance in the context of the theological debates and upheavals of the Tudor and Elizabethan years, their performance was more evocative of private chamber music than of public liturgy.
Evidently, face masks don’t stifle appreciative “Bravo!”s. And, reducing audience numbers doesn’t lower the volume of such acclamations. For, the audience at Wigmore Hall gave soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn and pianist Simon Lepper a greatly deserved warm reception and hearty response following this lunchtime recital of late-Romantic song.
For this week’s Live from London vocal recital we moved from the home of VOCES8, St Anne and St Agnes in the City of London, to Kings Place, where The Sixteen - who have been associate artists at the venue for some time - presented a programme of music and words bound together by the theme of ‘reflection’.
'Such is your divine Disposation that both you excellently understand, and royally entertaine the Exercise of Musicke.’
‘And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven … that old serpent … Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.’
There was never any doubt that the fifth of the twelve Met Stars Live in Concert broadcasts was going to be a palpably intense and vivid event, as well as a musically stunning and theatrically enervating experience.
‘Love’ was the theme for this Live from London performance by Apollo5. Given the complexity and diversity of that human emotion, and Apollo5’s reputation for versatility and diverse repertoire, ranging from Renaissance choral music to jazz, from contemporary classical works to popular song, it was no surprise that their programme spanned 500 years and several musical styles.
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields have titled their autumn series of eight concerts - which are taking place at 5pm and 7.30pm on two Saturdays each month at their home venue in Trafalgar Square, and being filmed for streaming the following Thursday - ‘re:connect’.
The London Symphony Orchestra opened their Autumn 2020 season with a homage to Oliver Knussen, who died at the age of 66 in July 2018. The programme traced a national musical lineage through the twentieth century, from Britten to Knussen, on to Mark-Anthony Turnage, and entwining the LSO and Rattle too.
With the Live from London digital vocal festival entering the second half of the series, the festival’s host, VOCES8, returned to their home at St Annes and St Agnes in the City of London to present a sequence of ‘Choral Dances’ - vocal music inspired by dance, embracing diverse genres from the Renaissance madrigal to swing jazz.
Just a few unison string wriggles from the opening of Mozart’s overture to Le nozze di Figaro are enough to make any opera-lover perch on the edge of their seat, in excited anticipation of the drama in music to come, so there could be no other curtain-raiser for this Gala Concert at the Royal Opera House, the latest instalment from ‘their House’ to ‘our houses’.
"Before the ending of the day, creator of all things, we pray that, with your accustomed mercy, you may watch over us."
The doors at The Metropolitan Opera will not open to live audiences until 2021 at the earliest, and the likelihood of normal operatic life resuming in cities around the world looks but a distant dream at present. But, while we may not be invited from our homes into the opera house for some time yet, with its free daily screenings of past productions and its pay-per-view Met Stars Live in Concert series, the Met continues to bring opera into our homes.
Music-making at this year’s Grange Festival Opera may have fallen silent in June and July, but the country house and extensive grounds of The Grange provided an ideal setting for a weekend of twelve specially conceived ‘promenade’ performances encompassing music and dance.
There’s a “slide of harmony” and “all the bones leave your body at that moment and you collapse to the floor, it’s so extraordinary.”
“Music for a while, shall all your cares beguile.”
The hum of bees rising from myriad scented blooms; gentle strains of birdsong; the cheerful chatter of picnickers beside a still lake; decorous thwacks of leather on willow; song and music floating through the warm evening air.
![Amber Wagner [Photo courtesy of IMG Artists]](http://www.operatoday.com/Amber_Wagner_2.png)
On Saturday, January 23, 2016, at the University of Arizona’s Crowder Hall, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton and soprano Amber Wagner gave a delightful recital entitled From Baroque to Broadway. The Baroque was Benjamin Britten’s realization of three Henry Purcell songs: Music for a While, Lost is my Quiet, and What Can We Poor Females Do?
Britten wrote out the figured bass parts for these songs. Wearing a most attractive long gold dress, Barton opened with a stately rendition of Music for a While. Wagner chose a simple but elegant black gown. Together, they continued with the pensive Lost is My Quiet and the comical What can We Poor Females Do?
Wagner sang the second group, a Bellini Song Cycle consisting of: Il fervido desiderio (The Fervent Wish), Dolente Imagine di Fille Mia (Sorrowful Image of my Phyllis), and Vaga Luna che inargenti (Lovely Moon, Who Sheds Silver Light). She sang them with admirable bel canto phrasing, effective dramatic expression and a lovely tone. Jamie Barton returned with the seven Cigánské Melodie (Gypsy Songs) that Antonin Dvořák set to the poems of Adolf Heyduk. She scored a notable impression on the Tucson audience with the fourth, Když mne stará matka zpívat učívala (Songs My Mother Taught Me).
Jamie Barton [Photo by Rebecca Fay]
Amber Wagner came back with three well-known songs by Richard Strauss. Beim Schlafengehen (Falling Asleep), with lyrics by Hermann Hesse, is one of Strauss’s Four Last Songs. It was published in 1950, the year after his death. Sung by an artist with large creamy voice, listeners gave no thought to slumber as they relished the luxury of hearing such a beautiful voice in a small hall. Morgen (Tomorrow) has words by John Henry Mackay, who was partially of Scottish descent but brought up in Germany. The last of four songs, it was part of the composer’s wedding gift to his wife, Pauline. In 1885, Strauss composed Zueignung (Dedication or Devotion) to words by Austrian poet Hermann von Gilm as part of his first collection of songs. Wagner sang both with exquisite tone quality.
After a short intermission, the two singers returned with a rousing rendition of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida and Amneris duet: “Fu la sorte dell’armi a’ tuoi funesta” (“Fortune Was Cruel to Your People”). Up to this point Barton had seemed much too agreeable to show a cruel streak but, as Amneris, she turned herself into an emotionally intense rival for the hand of the man both characters loved. Wagner was a poignant Aida.
At this point the program changed completely so that the singers could have some fun with songs they probably grew up with. In the program, they provided the text and translation for each of the classical selections, but they did not give their audience any notes on these later choices. Wagner offered Charles H. Gabriel’s 1905 His Eye is on the Sparrow, a work that won Mahalia Jackson a Grammy Award. Barton followed with the traditional Spiritual, Swing Low Sweet Chariot. Wagner then sang Harold Arlen and E.H. Harburg’s song Over the Rainbow originally sung by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, and it was fun to hear the piece done as more than an encore.
Barton countered with a song that gladdened the heart of every strong singer who has ever been told to sing alto because someone had to keep weak singers on their assigned part. The Alto’s Lament with music by Zina Goldrich and a text by Marcy Heisler was thoroughly amusing and showed Barton’s gift for comedy. Their finale was a duet rendition of Irving Berlin’s Sisters, originally seen in the Bing Crosby film White Christmas. The two young singers chose an interesting program and gave the Tucson audience a most enjoyable evening’s entertainment.
Maria Nockin