![Carolyn Sampson [Photo by Borggreve]](http://www.operatoday.com/Sampson.png)
10 Mar 2016
Entrancing Orlando at the Concertgebouw
The English Concert’s travelling Orlando has been collecting rave reviews. Here’s another one from Amsterdam, the last stop on their tour before Carnegie Hall.
Recently in Performances
ETO Autumn 2020 Season Announcement: Lyric Solitude
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.
Love, always: Chanticleer, Live from London … via San Francisco
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 …).
Dreams and delusions from Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper at Wigmore Hall
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.
Treasures of the English Renaissance: Stile Antico, Live from London
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.
A wonderful Wigmore Hall debut by Elizabeth Llewellyn
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.
The Sixteen: Music for Reflection, live from Kings Place
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’.
Iestyn Davies and Elizabeth Kenny explore Dowland's directness and darkness at Hatfield House
'Such is your divine Disposation that both you excellently understand, and royally entertaine the Exercise of Musicke.’
Paradise Lost: Tête-à-Tête 2020
‘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.’
Joyce DiDonato: Met Stars Live in Concert
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.
‘Where All Roses Go’: Apollo5, Live from London
‘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 're-connect'
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’.
Lucy Crowe and Allan Clayton join Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO at St Luke's
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.
Choral Dances: VOCES8, Live from London
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.
Royal Opera House Gala Concert
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’.
Fading: The Gesualdo Six at Live from London
"Before the ending of the day, creator of all things, we pray that, with your accustomed mercy, you may watch over us."
Met Stars Live in Concert: Lise Davidsen at the Oscarshall Palace in Oslo
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.
Precipice: The Grange Festival
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.
Monteverdi: The Ache of Love - Live from London
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: Rowan Pierce and Christopher Glynn at Ryedale Online
“Music for a while, shall all your cares beguile.”
A Musical Reunion at Garsington Opera
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.
OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »
Performances
The Dutch capital is spoiled when it comes to baroque opera in general and Handel in particular. The current season alone has included concert performances of Theodora, Tamerlano and Partenope, as well as a staged run of Ariodante. This surfeit would explain the many empty seats at the Concertgebouw last Monday. By rights, this entrancing performance deserved a full-capacity house. Orlando relates how Roland, Charlemagne’s chief paladin, goes mad when he realises that Angelica, Queen of Cathay, does not love him but the African prince Medoro. The action takes place around a grove, the habitat of a shepherdess named Dorinda. She also falls for Medoro but, although disconsolate, accepts that he will never be hers. Orlando, on the other hand, refuses to resign himself and suffers a psychotic episode. He imagines himself visiting the underworld, then goes on a vengeful killing spree, after which he falls into a deep sleep. Fortunately, the fifth character in the cast is Zoroastro, a magician who must be the hardest working deus ex machina in all of opera. Zoroastro foresees Orlando’s actions and intervenes several times, with escape chariots, topographical transformations and healing potions. In the end, he brings Orlando to his senses and also reveals that he has saved Angelica and Medoro from his murderous rage.
Harry Bicket, conducting at the harpsichord, took the cue from the opera's pastoral character and presented the score as a Rococo idyll in soft sunlight. The listener could just sit back and bask in the assured precision and shimmering sounds of The English Concert. Consistent with the emotion-driven plot, the musical story-telling was inwardly sensitive rather than ostensive. Dramatic eloquence emerged from the disciplined and meltingly beautiful playing, such as in Dorinda's sad nightingale aria “Quando spieghi i tuoi tormenti”, where the laden rests suggested suppressed sobs. Such refined expression is impossible without soloists to match and all five were on a par with the orchestra. Soprano Carolyn Sampson was Dorinda, struggling valiantly between staying sensible and giving way to self-pity. Her first aria, expressing breathless infatuation, made a distant impression, but slowly her Dorinda developed into a detailed, endearing character. In an evening of stunningly sung arias, her lovelorn lines in “Se mi rivolgo al prato” lingered on, and the highs and lows of the whirlwind “Amore è qual vento” were a peak of technical brilliance.
Soprano Erin Morley and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke clad the desired couple, Angelica and Medoro, with befitting vocal glamour, diamantine glitter for her and heavy silk velvet for him. In “Vorrei poterti amar”, Medoro’s apology to Dorinda, Ms Cooke tugged a little below pitch, but elsewhere her performance was molten gold, especially her enchanting “Verdi allori”, one of Handel’s gorgeous tributes to vegetation. Ms Morley’s high-centred voice flared brightly at the top and she threaded Angelica’s bravura arias precisely and without a hint of effort. Zoroastro’s series of stunner numbers were entrusted to bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen. His lowest notes are not pitch-dark, but his smoothly produced voice has a most comely timbre and his singing grew finer with every entrance. Mr Ketelsen’s rationalist magician was fresh-voiced and lyrical—a young and sexy Gandalf, if you will. Or, in modern terms, a wise and kindly therapist one goes to see when love not only hurts, but breaks. And who would not be consoled by the optimistic “Sorge infausta una procella” sung with such roundness and yards of sleek coloratura?
As it happens, pristine coloratura was in abundant supply all evening, not least from world-class countertenor Iestyn Davies as a guileless Orlando. The orchestra’s gathering speed in the showpiece arias “Fammi combattere” and “Cielo! Se tu il consenti” showed off his unerring agility. During the mad scene, his Orlando was pitifully confused rather than terrifying. With a voice rich and resonant in the middle, but less so at the bottom, Mr Davies had to contend against the lower strings to be heard in “Già latra cerbero”. The subsequent “Vaghe pupille”, in which Orlando imagines the queen of the underworld crying, captured the essence of his superlatively sung portrayal—unaffected pathos in the measured A section and a rankled, brittle psyche in the manic B section. Daring is required to slow down music almost to a standstill for expressive purposes. In Orlando’s sleep aria, “Già l'ebro mio ciglio”, accompanied by two soothing violas, Harry Bicket and Iestyn Davies dared to float their phrases in a torpid haze, creating musical opium. It was just one of the many spellbinding moments of the evening.
Jenny Camilleri
Cast and production information:
Orlando — Iestyn Davies, Dorinda — Carolyn Sampson, Angelica — Erin Morley, Medoro — Sasha Cooke, Zoroastro — Kyle Ketelsen, Conductor & Harpsichord — Harry Bicket, The English Concert. Heard at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Monday, 7th March 2016.