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."
‘I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where Oxlips and the nodding Violet grows.’ In her new production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Netia Jones takes us deep into the canopied groves of Oberon’s forest, luring us into the nocturnal embrace of the wood with a heady ‘physick’ of disorientating visual charms.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a felicitous choice for this year’s Aldeburgh Festival as it was the opera with which Britten opened Snape Maltings Concert Hall fifty years ago in 1967. Since then, the Maltings have burned to the ground, been reborn (in 1970), and undergone significant development while always remaining true to Britten’s vision and ethos. But, the concert hall itself, wide and lacking wings, is not the most accommodating space for opera. Jones makes a virtue of a problem, and dispenses with the usual trappings of theatre - set, props (bar a pendulous swing centre-stage), using digital projection, colour, light and movement to conjure an eerie hinterland.
The deep-blue back-screen twitches with a filigree of cobwebs, leaves as fragile as butterfly wings, and trembling droplets of dew on dandelion threads; images which echo the woods and waterfalls of John Piper’s original designs. It’s as if we are wandering through the botanical woodcuts of an Elizabethan herbal. And, with the night come bees and beetles, spiders and owls, busily spiralling or coolly perching. But, there are other visual resonances too. Velvety petals unfold and sticky stamens twitch with the sensuousness of Georgia O’Keeffe’s lilies; moreover, the exquisite detail recalls Richard Dadd’s The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke with its mesmerising vision of the microscopic secrets of the world sprites and spirits.
Spot-lit silhouettes mirror their subjects but, desynchronised movements also teasingly elaborate and challenge. The foliage seems to stretch out and enfold; figures drapes themselves in the leafy shadows. The disruptions of scale and distortion of perspective blur boundaries between the real and the fantastic. The overall effect is disorientating but mesmerising.
At the heart of this vision-scape is Iestyn Davies’ malevolent Oberon - a silvery portrait of, paradoxically, stillness and wrath. Like an alchemist skilled in secret arts, Oberon’s darkness is distilled in syrup of love-in-idleness, drops of which splash and infuse the sleepers’ dreams. This medic can both cure and harm, as the winding sinuousness of the snake who ‘throws her enammel’d skin’ reminds us. Davies was initially a cruel Oberon: the low range of his penetratingly precise countertenor resonated with menace. But, disembodied against his silhouette, his voice had a disturbing beauty which spoke of the fairy monarch’s passion for his estranged Queen. Touched by pity for the doting Tytania, Oberon removes the ‘hateful imperfection’ from her eyes, and as the vocal line fell once more in register, Davies’ imbued it with an expressive warmth, blending movingly with the tone-clusters in the low cellos and double basses.
Jack Lansbury (Puck) and Iestyn Davies (Oberon). Photo credit: Hugo Glendinning.
Like Prospero taunting Ariel, this Oberon dangles Puck on an invisible magnetic cord, spitefully tugging, pulling and twisting his goblin servant in meanness and rage. The acrobatic grace and physical responsiveness of Jack Lansbury’s lithe Puck was breath-taking; this Puck was mischievous but not malign, and his punishment - underscored by a vicious timpani roll and stabs of gong, cymbal and xylophone - emphasised the heartlessness of the imperious Oberon.
Sophie Bevan (Tytania) and the Fairies. Photo credit: Hugo Glendinning.
Jones’ fairy world is blanched of colour, drenched in silver light. School-boy fairies in shorts, knee-high socks and top-hats, protect their eyes with dark glasses, as they stand guard over the reposing Fairy Queen, the disputed Indian boy a tiny black-frocked figure in their midst. The boys of Chelmsford Cathedral choir sang their lilting lullabies and heralded their mistress’s beloved Bottom with purity, sweetness and strength. But, there was golden warmth, too, in the form of Sophie Bevan’s gloriously luscious soprano which had the density of bullion and the diamond-brightness of the stars. At the close of Act 1 when Tytania calls her elfin brood around her and reflects on the ‘clamorous owl’ that wonders at the ‘quaint spirits’, Bevan nailed the top C# with thrilling power, running down the octave with the elegance of Oberon’s melismatic charms. The besotted Tytania’s infatuation with the beastly Bottom was entirely credible: ‘Oh how I love thee! How I dote on thee!’ was radiantly soporific, burningly with monomaniacal passion. It was hard to know if such love was ridiculous or sublime.
Jones’ projections in the mechanicals’ scenes - a mosaic of cogs and buttons - alluded to their trades, and the rehearsals for their play were fittingly downbeat: these were a pretty dull and maladroit bunch of would-be thespians, lacking interest and energy and needing the bicycling Bottom’s coercive enthusiasm to stir them to creative endeavour. Matthew Rose was no buffoon, though his sonorous bass conveyed the weaver’s sense of his own stature and worth; even when adorned with ass’s horn and tail, and stripped to stockings and suspenders, Bottom was more a figure of pathos than of ridicule, as he executed a nifty Morris dance to the fairies’ percussive accompaniment.
The Mechanicals. Photo credit: Hugo Glendinning.
Act 3’s play-within-a-play is always in danger of being more ‘lamentable’ than comic, but Jones avoided too much hamming and dealt deftly with the stage ‘business’ of moonshine, walls and lions: the rustics chimed tunefully as a barbershop sextet, and though Snout (Nicholas Sharratt) and Starveling (Simon Butteriss) looked as if they might break out into ‘Brush Up Your Shakespeare’ they confined themselves to a quick toe-spin. Lawrence Wiliford’s Flute avoided too many echoes of Peter Pears’ original Joan Sutherland send-up, and Rose did not make a meal of Pyramus’ demise, adding only one extra "die", to the five expirations indicated in the libretto!
When, following a rehearsal, the mechanicals leave one of their carts behind in the wood, it provides a bed first for Lysander, then Tytania and finally for Bottom himself, thereby neatly linking three worlds. Awakening, Bottom puzzles over his experiences: it is ‘past the wit of man to say what dream it was’. Rose’s rendition of ‘Bottom’s Dream’ was a beautifully expressive climax to the opera, his bass falling with a beguiling sway through the descending thirds. Here it became clear that the weaver’s synaesthesic confusion - ‘The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man have not seen’ - had been so perfectly embodied by Jones’ design.
In contrast to the albino fairies, the mortal lovers’ arrival is accompanied by an injection of crimson red and verdant greens, the rustling leaves shifting with sensuousness, and the striking palette complementing the richness of the blended quartet of voices. The opera’s set pieces belong to the Fairies and to Bottom though, and it was harder for the four mortals to project the text (there were no surtitles), though there was a good attempt to individualise and distinguish between the quartet of duped beloveds.
Nick Pritchard (Lysander), Clare Presland (Hermia), George Humphreys (Demetrius), Eleanor Dennis (Helena). Photo credit: Hugo Glendinning.
Nick Pritchard’s Lysander was earnest and his tenor had an occasional grain which deepened the characterisation, while George Humphreys’s tall, tartan-trousered Demetrius was forthright, sonorous and indignant. Clare Presland’s Hermia flashed with fire during the exchanged of insults with Eleanor Dennis’s Helena, the latter’s breeches emphasising her height advantage over the ‘dwarfish’ Hermia, and the creamy richness of her soprano winning our sympathy for the maiden spurned by Demetrius: ‘I am sick when I do look on thee’. There were some welcome dashes of humour, too, to lighten the belligerent resentment of the fairies’ feud, as when Lysander’s struggles to lift his beloved Hermia’s suitcase, as they made their escape from the oppressive Egeus, indicated that this eloper did not intend to travel light.
The shift to the courtly elegance of the final act is always something of a jolt; as if not just the characters but we too are awakening from the compelling charms of the subconscious. Jones chooses to emphasise the schism by presenting a stunning sunrise of complementary indigos and oranges which brought to mind the vivid palette of Turner’s Dawn After the Wreck. White grid lines dissect the projection, emphasising the artifice of the image - a fitting complement for Theseus’s discourse on mimesis and myth. Clive Bayley was a stentorian monarch and Leah-Marian Jones his feisty consort.
Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth gave the Aldeburgh Festival Orchestra a pretty free rein, which allowed us to enjoy Britten’s orchestral mastery: celeste and percussion were an uncanny presence during Oberon’s pronouncements, the trumpet chirruped brightly during Puck’s escapades, the harps rocked with tenderness as Tytania instructed her fairies to attend to Bottom’s every need. This is a score I know well but there were still many places where my ear was caught by a fresh detail or colour. The lethargic glissandi which penetrate the score had the deep-breathed absorption of sleepy oblivion, but the richness and urgency of Wigglesworth’s account did at times make it difficult for the singers to get the text across.
But, leaving the Maltings, bathed in the serene glow of the full midsummer moon, I felt that I had been truly bewitched.
Claire Seymour
Benjamin Britten: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Oberon - Iestyn Davies, Tytania - Sophie Bevan, Puck - Jack Lansbury, Theseus - Clive Bayley, Hippolyta - Leah-Marian Jones, Lysander - Nick Pritchard, Demetrius - George Humphreys, Hermia -Clare Presland, Helena - Eleanor Dennis, Bottom - Matthew Rose, Quince - Andrew Shore, Flute -Lawrence Wiliford, Snug - Sion Goronwy, Snout - Nicholas Sharratt, Starveling - Simon Butteriss, Cobweb - Elliot Harding-Smith, Peaseblossom - Ewan Cacace/Angus Hampson, Mustardseed - Adam Warne, Moth - Noah Lucas, Chorus of fairies (Willis Christie, Lorenzo Facchini, Angus Foster, Nicholas Harding-Smith, Kevin Kurian, Charles Maloney-Charlton, Robert Peters, Matthew Wadey; chorus master - James Davy).
Netia Jones - direction/design/projection, Ryan Wigglesworth - conductor, Oliver Lamford -assistant director, Jenny Ogilvie - choreographer, Sam Paterson - production manager, Joe Stathers-Tracey - video technical manager, Katie Higgins & Madeleine Fry - costume supervisors, Aldeburgh Festival Orchestra.
Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Friday 9th June 2017.