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.
![Madama Butterfly and Pinkerton [Photo by Monika Rittershaus]](http://www.operatoday.com/MB_Berlin_01.png)
It was like a “Date Night” at Staatsoper unter den Linden with its return of Eike Gramss’ 2012 production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. While I entered the Schiller Theater, the many young couples venturing to the opera together, and emerging afterwards all lovey-dovey and moved by Puccini’s melodramatic romance, encouraged me to think more positively about the future of opera.
No strange German regietheater here, but a decent and traditional take on Puccini’s classic. Eun Sun Kim brought out all the colours and exotic spices in Puccini’s score. The Berliner Staatskapelle was in top shape. Clearly, Puccini is part of its DNA.
Act I opens with the hustle and bustle of Japanese locale, where a giant American flag, lacking a few stars, hung imperialistically over the town. Peter Sykora’s traditional geisha costumes enriched the Japanese setting. Martin Wright’s choir of geishas sounded exceptional, but sinisterly innocent.
At the end of Act II, “Un bel dì vedremo” by Alexei Voulgaridou’s vulnerable Cio-Cio-San did not have the maximal impact of this aria’s potential. However in her duet with Katherina Kammerloher’s Suzuki, “Or vienmi ad adorner”, they churned out one of the evening’s touching highlights; quite moving and greated with the loudest bravi.
Scene from Madama Butterly
Act III overflowed with melodrama. Pinkerton returns with his wife, about to take his son away from his mother. Here the pace sagged a bit, and the audience became audibly restless. But Dmytro Popov as Pinkerton impressed conveying an American naivete, convinced of his own good intentions in his sweetly sung “Addio, fiorito asil”. He produced great vocal chemistry with Voulgaridou, especially in “Bimba, Bimba, non piangere”, the famous love duet that closes Act I. Though she did not have the emotional intensity in her acting, instead her vocal skills prevailed with feeling.
I was also impressed by the strong supporting cast. Kammerloher charged Suzuki with highly neurotic presentiments. Her fearful vibrato added a foreshadowing spell, her voice rich and commanding, alarmed by wisdom and concern.
Alfredo Daza as Sharpless stole the spotlight with the glowing humanity in his comforting voice. Through his skilled acting chops, he exude the sad realisation of the bigger picture and eventual tragic ending. He gave much heart to his scenes. Daza’s vocal humanity worked equally effective in his comedic timing. Comical moments also came from cultural caricature Yamadori. Sung intentionally off-putting and sycophantic by Vincenzo Neri. His foolishness coaxed some downplayed snickering from the audience.
Eun Sun Kim, for whom I have had sympathy ever since I saw her try so hard, but to no avail, conduct in the impossible lateral orchestral set-up next to the stage in the production of Cologne’s recent Nazi-oriented Lucia di Lammermoor. Tonight, she did not have to deal with any odd displacement of the orchestra. She kept the brilliance and momentum in Puccini’s score thrilling, while she made the soloists create several great emotional nuances. She cultivated the mood of American patriotism effectively, but also reflected the romantic anguish and despair at Cio-Cio-San’s death.
Swooning in its romance under a the staged starry night, the opera’s romantic mood continued as you left the Schiller Theater. The many young couples that I observed leaving, seemed particularly inspired by the performance, as their giddy displays of affection had no bounds. This production returns in March, and I highly recommend it to any opera newbie or just plain old traditionalists.
David Pinedo