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.
The Sixteen continues its exploration of Henry Purcell’s Welcome Songs for Charles II. As with Robert King’s pioneering Purcell series begun over thirty years ago for Hyperion, Harry Christophers is recording two Welcome Songs per disc.
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.
In February this year, Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho made a highly lauded debut recital at Wigmore Hall - a concert which both celebrated Opera Rara’s 50th anniversary and honoured the career of the Italian soprano Rosina Storchio (1872-1945), the star of verismo who created the title roles in Leoncavallo’s La bohème and Zazà, Mascagni’s Lodoletta and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
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.
Collapsology. Or, perhaps we should use the French word ‘Collapsologie’ because this is a transdisciplinary idea pretty much advocated by a series of French theorists - and apparently, mostly French theorists. It in essence focuses on the imminent collapse of modern society and all its layers - a series of escalating crises on a global scale: environmental, economic, geopolitical, governmental; the list is extensive.
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.’
Amongst an avalanche of new Mahler recordings appearing at the moment (Das Lied von der Erde seems to be the most favoured, with three) this 1991 Mahler Second from the 2nd Kassel MahlerFest is one of the more interesting releases.
‘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.’
If there is one myth, it seems believed by some people today, that probably needs shattering it is that post-war recordings or performances of Wagner operas were always of exceptional quality. This 1949 Hamburg Tristan und Isolde is one of those recordings - though quite who is to blame for its many problems takes quite some unearthing.
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."
Globalization finds its way ever more to San Francisco Opera where Italian composer Marco Tutino’s La Ciociara saw the light of day in 2015 and now, 2016, Chinese composer Bright Sheng’s Dream of the Red Chamber has been created.
The Tutino opera was said to be a co-production with Teatro Regio di Torino though there is no trace of it in upcoming Torino seasons. Dream of the Red Chamber is a co-production with the Hong Kong Arts Festival where it will be performed in English. It is said that if there are additional performances in China Mr. Sheng will re-cast it in Chinese, with the intriguing question of how this English language Gian Carlo Menotti-like theater piece will sound sung in Mandarin.
The Bright Sheng Dream of the Red Chamber is a very Chinese indeed, based on a famous Chinese novel of the same name by one Cao Xueqin of the 18th century Qing Dynasty, his novel considered one of the four pre-modern Chinese classics.
As it came down to those of us sitting in the War Memorial Opera House it is the story of a family who owes the emperor money. The debt can be repaid if the family scion will marry a rich heiress. He however prefers to write poetry with a pretty cousin. He has a dream sleeping in a red chamber in which the two young women appear, confusing him.
Yijie Shi as Bao Yu seized by imperial guards
San Francisco Opera’s publicity enthused that this is the Chinese equivalent of Romeo and Juliet, though it really is the equivalent of Richard Strauss’ Die Liebe der Danae, originally titled A Marriage of Convenience.
Unlike the motivic subtleties Richard Strauss exploits, Bright Sheng has based his musical story telling on the tunes of Chinese folk songs, and there are four or five of them that appear and then reappear, one in particular stood out sung to the words “A woman's only chance for happiness is to marry well.”
Mr. Sheng’s style is middle-of-the-road, mid-last-century with strong moments of Stravinsky and Hindemith et al, though there is a strong dose of mid-range brass and jazz chords that adds a big-band feel from time to time. What makes his style unique are the lurid colors of the orchestration, glissandos and oriental intervals. Mr. Sheng is a very able composer, and of prolific invention when expanding his folk song material.
Most characteristic of his vocal lines was the leap of a major 7th to a high note, and there were high notes aplenty, delivered always forte to fortissimo.
Like musical comedy, Mr. Sheng and his famed Chinese-American co-librettist David Henry Hwang (Broadway’s M. Butterfly) set up situations and then sang songs about what had happened. There were lots and lots of songs. It is a very long opera.
A scene from the opera
Like musical theater, the sets, designed by Tim Yip (the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), were cloth drops that flew in and out and small wagons of set pieces that rolled on and off so that locations could quickly and easily be changed without breaking the pace of the opera’s musical theater song structure. Obviously there was much bright red color, and much richness in the imperial decor that threatened the debtor family. Mr. Yip, an Academy Award winning art director, supplied the costumes as well, of required 18th century Chinese dynastic splendor.
Of note in the large cast was tenor Yijie Shi who brought a fine level of operatic professionalism to his role as the family scion.
Michael Milenski
Cast and production information:
Dai Yu: Pureum Jo; Bao Yu: Yijie Shi; Lady Wang: Hyona Kim; Bao Chai: Irene Roberts;
Granny Jia: Qiulin Zhang; Princess Jia: Karen Chia-ling Ho; Aunt Xue: Yanyu Guo; The Monk/Dreamer: Randall Nakano; Lady-in-Waiting/Flower: Toni Marie Palmertree; Lady-in-Waiting/Flower: Amina Edris; Lady-in-Waiting/Flower: Zanda Švēde; Eunuch/Stone:
Pene Pati; Eunuch/Stone: Alex Boyer; Eunuch/Stone: Edward Nelson. San Francisco Chorus and Orchestra. Composer and Co-librettist: Bright Sheng; Co-librettist: David Henry Hwang; Conductor: George Manahan; Stage Director: Stan Lai; Production Designer: Tim Yip; Lighting Designer: Gary Marder; Choreographer: Fang-Yi Sheu. San Francisco War Memorial Opera House, September 18, 2016.