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.
![Bernard Haitink [Photo by Peter Fischli/Lucerne Festival]](http://www.operatoday.com/Haitink_Lucerne.png)
Bernard Haitink’s monumental Bruckner and Mahler performances with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (RCO) got me hooked on classical music. His legendary performance of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8 in C-minor, where in the Finale loosened plaster fell from the Concertgebouw ceiling, is still recounted in Amsterdam.
So it was with great expectations that I came to hear him perform with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and its assembly of superb musicians. However, after tonight’s performance it became clear, that the octogenarian conductor has lost much of his vigor and grip. Haitink’s masterful technique to sustaining suspense from beginning to end lacked, resulting in more than a few moments of monotony. Still, this is Bernard Haitink! So even if he is not performing as he used to, he is still more awesome than most conductors. The performance included several exhilarating, hair raising passages.
In the opening Allegro moderato, Haitink generated a thick, rich sound from the strings that he never let go. Lucas Macias Navarro (Assistant Conductor, Orchestre de Paris), a former soloist at the Royal Concertgebouw, where he has performed under Haitink, made his oboe passages sound ever so delicate against the backdrop of this lush texture.
In between Bruckner’s lengthy movements, Haitink was able to take a moment on the chair behind him to regenerate. The Scherzo was full of buoyant optimism. The flute solos by Chiara Tonelli (from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra) enjoyed vibrancy. Raymond Curfs (Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra) made his timpani roar, though Haitink made sure never too loudly. In the Trio, the Dutch conductor, and longtime citizen of Lucerne, kept a steady tension going.The elegance of the dreamy harp (a rare usage by Bruckner) contrasted sharply with the horns and trumpets. Slowly and deliberately with minimal direction, Haitink brought to life Bruckner’s heft.
In the third movement, the symphony lost its intensity. Haitink used to be a master at Bruckner’s and Mahler’s Feierlich passages. He would generate and sustain a slow burning suspense throughout an entire symphony, but here is grip was missing. The person next to me let out a deep, seemingly impatient, sigh--the third movement did feel a bit tiresome. On the other hand, the chemistry between oboist and flautist produced playful contrasts in their duets.
The energetic surge at the beginning of the final movement woke up the audience again. Thrillingly bellicose sounded the triumphing Brass. The Wagner tubas added to their glow. The dark timbres of the bassoons offered their distinct shades. Haitink’s minimal conducting here generated an awesome intensity that made for a stupendous finale. He intended to elongate the delicate tension after the last note of the symphony, but an eager audience broke the silence too soon and erupted in a feverish ovation.
David Pinedo