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.
When I look back on the 2016 Proms season, this Opera Rara performance of Semiramide - the last opera that Rossini wrote for Italy - will be, alongside Pekka Kuusisto’s thrillingly free and refreshing rendition of Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto - one of the stand-out moments.
This was a four-hour feast for bel canto devotees. Sir Mark Elder’s absolute belief in the work was tangible, and thrilling, from the first down-beat, and his unflagging vitality lifted the Opera Rara Chorus, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the illustrious team of soloists to sustain an incredible musical and dramatic intensity.
Semiramide, the Queen of Babylon, has inspired almost four centuries of plays and operas: her infamous sins rival those of Clytemnestra, Oedipus and Shakespeare’s Gertrude combined. She has murdered her husband Nino and, apparently, her son, with the aid of her lover, Assur. But, having ruled Assyria she is now forced to name an heir. Semiramide chooses the dazzling solider Arsace, and claims him as her husband. And, this is where things get a bit sticky: Arsace is in fact her lost son, and in any case he’s infatuated with the Princess Azema. The vengeful ghost of Nino - worthy of Macbeth or Hamlet - appears, and demands the slaying of the Queen in retribution for his murder. His wish is fulfilled but the unwitting matricide is more accidental than intentional and the opera ends, not on a triumphant note but with questions of redemption to the fore.
Premiered in 1823, Rossini’s opera took Voltaire’s play Sémiramis as its direct source. Voltaire had focused less on the Oedipal attraction between mother and son, and more on themes of betrayal and murder. A concert staging of the opera was perfectly apt. For nothing much happens in the course of Gaetano Rossi’s libretto: the assassination of the King happened years ago and now we are simply waiting for the gods to bring justice to bear on the perpetrators, while the protagonists keep us entertained with a series of elaborate arias about love - passionate, unrequited, familial and unwittingly Oedipal. But, Rossini gives us a cornucopia of wonderful melodies, with infinitely varied instrumental colourings, and vocal elaborations which are so beautiful they can win our sympathy for those guilty of the most abhorrent crimes.
There were some changes to the originally announced cast, but this did not affect the female roles - and this was definitely a ‘ladies’ night’. In the title role, created for Rossini’s wife Isabella Colbran, soprano Albina Shagimuratova revealed a huge registral and dynamic range - she has a breathtakingly controlled pianissimo; her combination of stage presence, vocal pyrotechnics and expressive abandon made Rossini’s fluent lyricism electrifying. She was utterly in command of both coloratura and style. As her Act 1 showpiece, ‘Bel raggio lusinghier’, confirmed, Shagimuratova has both an affecting chest voice and the dazzling high-lights. Her virtuosity served the drama and was always stylistically attuned.
Gianluca Gaspar (Oroe). Photo Credit: Chris Christodoulou.
She was partnered by Daniela Barcellona who, as a sincere and dramatically credible Arsace, demonstrated musical and dramatic acuity: indeed, it was as the musical demands increased that Barcellona seemed to communicate more directly and profoundly. The roulades of ‘Ah! Quel giorno ognor rammento’ presented no difficulty; but, more than vocal agility it was Barcellona’s tonal depth and range which was so impressive. When she joined Shagimuratova in duets such as Act 1’s ‘Alle più care immagini’ the results were stunning.
Barry Banks (Idreno). Photo Credit: Chris Christodoulou.
Ildebrando D’Arcangelo had been scheduled to sing the role of the unwitting mother-murderer Assur but his replacement, Mirco Palazzi, was no ‘second best’: that said, Palazzi’s lack of a strong, warm bass range was a slight weakness - especially in his ‘mad aria’ - but one that he more than made up for with nimbleness and vitality of tone. Barry Banks - replacing Levy Strauss Segkapane in the dramatically rather thankless role of the advisor, Idreno - despatched his high notes with fluency and ease, and displayed a lovely, appealing tone in his Act 2 aria, ‘La speranza più soave’, (though his role was truncated, despite Elder’s professed ‘respect for the proportions that Rossini established’). Even more hard-done-by was Susana Gaspar, as Azema. But, bass Gianluca Buratto made a striking impression as the high priest, Oreo - sonorous and insightful. A white-suited James Platt, raised on a pedestal in the RAH Arena, bellowed even more cavernously than usual, with the aid of a microphone-effect, and King Nino’s vengeful commands sent a shiver up the spine.
James Platt (Nino’s Ghost). Photo Credit: Chris Christodoulou.
Mark Elder clearly enjoyed himself. He exhibited a truly impressive grasp of the structure of the score, balanced with the relative import of the small gestures - and certainly had the means to communicate this appreciation to performers, and thus to the listeners. The Opera Rara Chorus sang splendidly. In the long overture Elder brought out all of Rossini’s intriguing orchestrations and he conducted throughout with muscularity and flexibility. Tempos surged perhaps rather too precipitously at times but as there were only a few cuts, this may have been judicious.
Wagner commented acidly that Semiramide exhibits ‘all the faults by which Italian opera can be distinguished’. Yet, on the evidence of this performance it seemed to me that one might argue that with Semiramide Rossini ‘saved’ opera seria with a medicinal dollop of glorious bel canto.
I had just one proviso. Four hours on RAH swivelling, low-backed seats left me - at moments during this Sunday-evening performance which commenced at 7pm - occasionally wondering if physical punishment would out-weigh the pleasures offered by Rossini. An Opera Rara recording is forthcoming and I look forward to being able to enjoy this terrific opera at a single sitting in more comfortable environs - and without a late-Sunday dash home. BBC please take note!
Claire Seymour
Rossini: Semiramide
Semiramide - Albina Shagimuratova, Arsace - Daniela Barcellona, Assur - Mirco Palazzi, Idreno - Barry Banks, Oroe - Gianluca Buratto, Azema - Susana Gaspar, Mitrane - David Butt Philip, Nino’s Ghost - James Platt; Sir Mark Elder - conductor, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Opera Rara Chorus.
Royal Albert Hall, London; 4th September 2016.