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.
One of the initiatives for the community at the Lucerne Festival is the ‘40 min’ series. A free concert given before the evening’s main event that ranges from chamber music to orchestral rehearsals.
Without knowing what’s on the programme. For tonight’s edition with Berg and Gershwin, the queue outside went around the building. A huge interest! Inside, folks were arguing over seats. A disgruntled elderly couple planted themselves demonstratively on the reserved press seats next to me. They did not budge—I wouldn’t have either. That’s what you get when Barbara Hannigan performs!
The “Singing Conductor” shared her great musicianship with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO) in an insightful, albeit slightly haphazard, rehearsal for the concert the next day. The first part of that programme would also include Debussy’s Syrinx, singing Sibelius (Luonnotar), and a Haydn symphony. But tonight Hannigan performed the second half of that programme with a bit of Alban Berg’s Lulu Suite and most excitingly offered a sneakpeak of Bill Elliott’s adaptation of Gershwin’s Crazy Girl, specifically tailored for the Prima Donna. Elliott won a Tony for working on the orchestration for Christopher Wheeldon’s An American in Paris.
The rehearsal was a rehearsal, so I shouldn’t comment on the music...but it was great! What was more interesting was the insights into Hannigan’s collaborative spirit. She truly is rare jewel. The Lucerner Saal, a smaller venue within the marvelous structure of the Kultur und Kongresszentrum Luzern (KKL), made for an intimate experience that stimulated a dialogue between Hannigan’s wit and the audience’s laughter. Whispering kids full of curiosity added an additional giddy dimension.
On bare feet and in jeans with a casual but focused air, the virtuosa opened with a segment from Berg’s Lulu Suite. Having sung this role often, she knows all the tone rows of Berg’s characters, thus prepared to conduct this piece with dramatic perspective, but She did not sing. Instead she demonstrated her conducting skills were not just a gimmick and revealed an authentic talent. As extended extremities, her sinewy, muscular yoga arms became her batons. She performed the part of the piece where Dr. Schön’s in-love son Alwa meets Lulu right after she is released out of prison. Highly dramatic and very engrossing. Berg’s feverish music fit the humid summer heat arising from the lake.
Around the same time Berg was writing Lulu, Gershwin composed Crazy Girl. Hannigan recounted how the American composer supposedly was too shy to perform his music in front of the Austrian composer at a Vienna party. To which Berg responded: “Music is music”. Bill Elliott’s orchestration of Gershwin’s songs strangely resonated Berg’s atonality. I would have never associated the two with each other, if I had not heard them in this context: Gershwin like never before. It was a pity I could not stay next evening’s official premiere of Elliott’s Berg-echoing orchestration of “I’ve Got Rhythm”, “Embraceable You”, and “But not for me”.
Hannigan has a slightly dansant conducting style, natural and in tune with the music. Nothing overtly theatrical. With her fabulous voice and North-American intonation she brought Gershwin’s character immediately to life. Her sighs gave the songs authenticity. “Mister, listen to the the rhythm of my heartbeat” she sang. How poetic as conductor!
During this rehearsal, Hannigan revealed her collaborative spirit. She frequently requested feedback from the MCO’s musicians and strategically asked the saxophonist for a crescendo so she could recognize her cue: “The problems is, I cannot look at the my score then”. Her insistence on feedback resulted in great synergy: “Can I just hear that one, but without me?”.
The big reveal in Elliot’s orchestration was the sudden choral singing of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra as back-up to the Maestra. They really seemed to enjoy this part. Certainly an unforgettable rehearsal.
I highly recommend the intimate setting of the 40 min. series. A terrific place to bring small children.
David Pinedo