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."
Theresa May could do with a Doctor Dulcamara in the Conservative Cabinet: his miracle pills for every illness from asthma to apoplexy would slash the NHS bill - and, if he really could rejuvenate the aged then he’d solve the looming social care funding crisis too.
It’s the bank holiday weekend and the sun is shining, both here in London and over the wheat fields and haystacks of 1950s rural Italy as conjured by Laurent Pelly and designer Chantal Thomas for their 2007 production of L’elisir d’amore, which is back at the ROH for its fourth revival. Last time round, in 2014, the big draw was Bryn Terfel making his first essay at the role of the fraudulent quack. On this occasion, we had the opportunity to hear both exciting ‘newcomers’ to the House, with South African soprano Pretty Yende making her ROH debut, and familiar returnees, with Italian bass-baritone Alex Esposito stepping into the duplicitous doctor’s boots for his role debut.
Alex Esposito (Dulcamara). Photo credit: Bill Cooper.
Three years ago, I described Terfel’s Dulcamara as ‘less sleazy smooth-operator and more grimy grease-ball’. Esposito’s swindler is even nastier: a veritable bruiser. Unshaven, dirty, with tattooed biceps and a contemptuous sneer, this Dulcamara’s dodginess couldn’t be hidden by designer shades and a scruffy white lab coat. No wonder the villagers scattered in advance of his arrival despite their excited chorus of expectation, but the strength of his call to his customers - ‘Udite, udite, o rustici’ - compelled, rather than charmed, them back. Esposito’s tone was wonderfully firm and strongly coloured. There was simply no arguing with his bullish self-promotion, as his side-kicks peered mischievously from beneath the dilapidated medic-truck watching their master humiliate and fleece his dupes. This Dulcamara could barely take the trouble to feign professionalism or concern, so gullible were the eager elixir-gulpers, and a grimy white ti-shirt poked out beneath the sleazy red suit he donned for the nuptial celebrations. In contrast, Esposito took great care with the text and the line; the grace notes in ‘lo son ricco’ were deliciously deft as the doctor made his pitch for Adina.
Pretty Yende’s Adina could look after herself though. Yende’s voice is plumper and more ample than the crystalline soprano of Lucy Crowe who took the part in 2014, and this gave Adina more obvious presence and self-possession: she pouted and posed with the panache of a 1950s Hollywood starlet. If Yende had any nerves on her first night at Covent Garden, she didn’t show them: her soprano was full and warm from the off, and she strolled through the arias with the ease, beauty and grace with which Adina lounged on the haystacks beneath a parasol. She was a feisty match for Liparit Avetisyan’s Nemorino in their Act 2 duet; the pause at the close was judged perfectly, allowing us to register the strength of the fiery emotions. But, Yende had the full measure of Adina’s heart and allowed her essential tenderness to shine through - as when revealing the extent of Nemorino’s delusions (he thinks because he worships her, she must return his love) to Belcore. Her Act 3 ‘Prendi, per me sei libero’ was absolutely exquisite, the coloratura roulades tumbling like jewels, the highest reaches clean and pure. It’s been quite a month for Yende: she’s won the International Achiever Award at the 23th annual South African Music Awards and her Sony Classical release, A Journey won the 2017 International Opera Award for Best Recording (Solo Recital). There will surely be many more such accolades.
Liparit Avetisyan (Nemorino). Photo credit: Bill Cooper.
Armenian tenor Avetisyan made his ROH debut earlier this season (as Alfredo Germont in Il traviata) and found himself back in the House following the withdrawal of the previously advertised Rolando Villazón took a while to warm up as Nemorino; initially a rather rapid vibrato made his tenor somewhat tight and he was occasionally just under the note. But, as the ‘elixir’ (a bottle of Bordeaux) worked its magic, so Avetisyan relaxed into the role, and his impish charm - he hoisted a bale aloft with nonchalant swagger, and his chirpy knee-and-elbow wiggle of glee raised a grin - was as winning as his appealing, pliable tenor. The big test was, as always, ‘Una furtive lagrima’, and Avetisyan sailed through; unaffected and focused, he let Donizetti’s expressive lyricism do the work and the aria cast its spell - time stood still as if the whole House held its breath.
Paolo Bordogna (Belcone) and Pretty Yende (Adina). Photo credit: Bill Cooper.
Paolo Bordogna made an impressive ROH debut as a ridiculously pompous Belcore, accompanied by two ‘warriors’ whose mismatched heights and over-enthusiastic goose-stepping added to the preposterousness of their boss’s cocksure conceit. Bordogna enjoyed his character’s pretentiousness, adding some neat details - chest-thumping through a trill, hip-twisting when demanding that Adina ‘Name the day!’, and launching into some impressive acrobatic tumbles down the haystack. His zealousness was not neglected either: Bordogna seemed to have Adina in a head-lock at one point, from which she struggled to extricate herself.
Jette Parker young artist, Vlada Borovko, has impressed me in the past (see Oreste at Wilton's and JPYA Summer Performance 2016 ) and here she was a rich, vibrant Giannetta who relished the opportunity to play to the crowd when delivering the latest gossip about Nemorino - she’s got the news from the haberdasher, so it must be true.
The ROH Chorus occasionally found it difficult to pick up conductor Bertrand de Billy’s beat - the opening ensemble was a bit scruffy and de Billy’s zippy accelerando in the closing scene of Act 2 wrong-footed them for a while. But, they kept cool heads and were in fine voice; the blocking and acting was precise and nuanced. The overture felt a bit ‘solid’ and I’d have liked a bit more brightness and sparkle from the ROH Orchestra but the playing was, as always, accomplished.
This was a beguiling evening which got better and better as it went on. The cast were committed to the drama, and there was an occasional sense of spontaneity which added a charming freshness (though, reassuringly, Alfie the dog and the bicycling sweethearts were back). The dashes of realism - the piles of rotting tyres and wonky lampshade that frame the sets of Act 3, the louring clouds on the back-cloth that seem to threaten storms ahead - were outshone by Nemorino’s heart-warming love, optimism and belief. In uncertain times, it’s good to be reminded that sometimes hopes and dreams do come true.
Claire Seymour
Gaetano Donizetti: L’elisir d’amore
Adina - Pretty Yende, Nemorino - Liparit Avetisyan, Dulcamara - Alex Esposito, Belcore - Paolo Bordogna, Giannetta - Vlada Borovko; Director/Costume designer - Laurent Pelly, Revival director - Daniel Dooner, Conductor - Bertrand de Billy, Set designer - Chantal Thomas, Associate costume designer - Donate Marchand, Lighting designer - Joël Adam, Royal Opera Chorus (Concert Master - Peter Manning), Orchestra of the Royal Opera House.
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London; Saturday 27th May 2017.