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.
The meaning of the term cantata (literally, ‘sung’ from the Italian verb, cantare) may have changed over time, but whether sacred or secular, the form — with its combination of declamatory narration and emotive arias — is undoubtedly a dramatic one, as this performance by Dunedin at the Wigmore Hall of cantatas by J.S. Bach and Handel confirmed.
The programme was clearly selected to show-case the qualities and strengths of soprano Sophie Bevan. And, her vocal assets were immediately evident in the opening work, Bach’s Falsche Welt, dir trau ich nicht! (False world, I do not trust you! (1726)). The fine definition of her phrasing, her evenness across the range, and the directness of Bevan’s stage manner made for an immediate and captivating opening recitative, which presents a sombre response to the Pharisees’ intention to trick Jesus, who has been preaching against them, into betraying himself.
From the assertive falling sixth and tight rhythm of the opening accusation, ‘Falsche Welt’, Bevan responded to every nuance in the text and score, avoiding extravagant gesture and letting the inherently dramatic music do the work. Vocal leaps were clean and the tuning of the biting chromatic twists was spot on. The richness that was evident in the anger conveyed here was strengthened in the confident assertions of the following aria, ‘Immerlin, immerlin’ (No matter); the repetitions of the short motif, ‘immerlin’, danced lightly and the rapid running passages — in which Bevan was partnered by an agile bass line — were gracefully nimble. In the central section, in which celebrates the singer’s faith in God’s friendship despite the falsity of the earthly world, Bevan revealed a plusher, fuller tone.
The triple-time second aria offered a calm contrast, ‘Ich halt es mit dem lieben Gott’ (I put my faith in God; as the singer spurns the world and joins with God, the oboes added to the lilting sweetness and composure, while the off-beat interjections of bassoon and bass helped to maintain rhythmic tension. Bevan’s singing was bright and joyful, endearingly candid and unfussy.
The opening sinfonia of the cantata is an adaptation of Brandenburg Concerto 1, and director John Butt and the players of Dunedin began in ebullient fashion, the musical arguments thrown buoyantly between the instrumental voices, with the pungent horns warmly supplementing the racing semiquavers of the violins and oboes. The players’ dynamism and clarity complemented the freshness of Bevan’s singing, although in the chorale — which was originally scored for four voices — single-handedly she could not quite match the strength of the horns.
Handel’s Alpestre monte (Alpine mountain) — written during the composer’s Italian ‘apprenticeship’ and after a perilous journey through the Alps — is perhaps more explicitly dramatic, but also quite madrigalian and cinematic. The opening recitative describes a Gothic terrain — ‘Triste albergo d’orror,/ Nido di fere,/ Fra l’ombre cupe e nere’ (sad refuge of fear, lair of wild beasts in the gloomy shadows) — and the chromatic contortions of the vocal line, atmospheric string playing and low vocal register created a sinister, twisted mood. There was further expressive sentiment from the strings in the following aria, ‘Is so ben ch’il Vostro orrore’ (I know well that the horror you inspire), and a stunning pianissimo which conveyed the potency of the pathetic fallacy (‘As in this surrounding gloom, so my heart is surrounded by shadows, horrible and fierce ghosts’).
Bevan treated the text luxuriantly in the recitatives, underscoring the tragic intensity of a love that is so fierce, ‘Al fin perdei me stesso,/ E il cor perdel’ (I ended up losing myself and losing my heart). And, in the final aria (‘Almen dopo il fato’) she made used of copious vocal light and shade, blending beautifully with the two violins, and imbuing the falling lines with poignancy. The soprano also appreciated — as is not always the case with soloists at the Wigmore Hall — how to modify her voice for the size and acoustic of the venue; and in so doing, she proved herself to be a real ‘singing actress’.
Handel’s Gloria HWV deest was the final vocal item. It’s a work which was only fairly recently identified as a Handel work, when in 2001 Professor Hans Joachim Marx’s research — while preparing a new edition of Handel’s Latin church music — led him to deduce that Handel was indeed the composer. It’s virtuosic in the extreme; but Bevan sang rings round the solo part — her technical arsenal enabled her to despatch ornate melisma, long-breathed phrases, rapid repetitions and octave transferences with ease. She also enjoyed the musical rhetoric: the suspensions and sequences that entwine with the vocal lines were teasingly articulated. The vocal delivery implied an insouciance which cheekily contradicted the sincerity of the text! — most especially when the ‘Amen’, switching to a duple metre, took off precipitously, and joyously.
The players of Dunedin also got their chance to shine, in instrumental works woven between the vocal items. Bach’s Fourth Brandenburg Concerto was rhythmically alert (hemiolas rarely sound this theatrical!), airy of texture, the phrasing by turns punchy and warmly rounded. Cecilia Bernardini’s solo violin phrases were elegantly shaped, while the recorder solos of Catherine Latham and Pamela Thorby had great character. My only query was whether Butt needed to work quite so hard, cueing all and sundry, and maintaining a dynamic presence throughout, when his players seemed to have an innate appreciation of the festive spirit which he sought to capture? Contrast, vibrancy and revelry were also features of Handel’s Concerto Grosso in Bb Op.3 No.2 (though why were the two oboes hidden away behind the string ripieno?).
In 2013 Bevan was awarded the ‘Young Singer’ award at the inaugural 2013 International Opera Awards. This was an enchanting performance which confirmed her vocal stature and maturity, and her stage presence.
Claire Seymour
Performers and programme:
Dunedin Consort: John Butt — director/harpsichord, Sophie Bevan — soprano, Cecilia Bernardini — violin, Pamela Thorby & Catherine Latham — recorder
J.S. Bach — Cantata: Falsche Welt, dir trau ich nicht BWV52, Brandenburg Concerto No.4 in G major BWV1049; Handel — Cantata:Alpestre monte HWV81, Concerto Grosso in B flat major Op.3 No.2 HWV313, Gloria HWV deest. Wigmore Hall, London, Friday 26 th February 2016.