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.
![Kamala Sankaram as Mukhtar Mai [Photo by Larry Ho]](http://www.operatoday.com/thumbprint-0613-01.png)
Thumbprint is the story of the young, innocent and illiterate Mukhtar Mai who was assaulted by a group of powerful men. Following the attack, Mukhtar, having supposedly been disgraced, was expected to commit suicide. Instead, she amazed everyone who knew her by going to the police and calling for the arrest of her attackers.
The opera, Thumbprint, originated with a play called Seven, a documentary work first performed in 2008 at New York City’s Ninety-Second Street “Y.” Seven tells the stories of seven women around the world who fought for the rights and wellbeing of women and girls. Susan Yankovich told of Mukhtar Mai, a Pakistani survivor of gang rape, who became a campaigner for women's education and won a 2006 Global Leadership Award.
Beth Morrison of Beth Morrison Projects suggested that Yankovich make her section of the play into an opera libretto for Indian-American composer Kamala Sankaram. Beth Morrison Projects commissioned Thumbprint as a song cycle that was first heard in 2009. As an opera, it received its world premiere in New York in 2014 and its West Coast premiere on Thursday, June 15, 2017. This reporter saw the first Los Angeles performance of Thumbprint as part of Los Angeles Opera’s “Off Grand” series performed at the REDCAT Theater.
Phyllis Pancella (Mother), Kamala Sankaram (Mukhtar Mai) and Leela Subramaniam (Annu)
Indian-American composer Kamala Sankaram wrote a strong score for this opera. Her music is powered by short rhythmic phrases that drive it forward and undergird it with dramatic force. A singer herself, Sankaram wrote fine ensembles as well as arias and her music utilized the most colorful parts of each artist’s range. With soprano Leela Subramaniam as Annu singing above her and mezzo-soprano Phyllis Pancella as the Mother singing below her, Sankaram’s Mukhtar begins her story as a charming young girl in a loving family. When Mukhtar’s twelve-year-old brother was accused of a sexual offense, she volunteered to apologize for him. Her apology was not accepted and she was physically assaulted. Sankaram’s music, which had been delightfully decorated by the flute, then lost its light hearted charm to become stark and dramatic.
Sankaram's exquisitely colorful score gave Music Director Samuel McCoy six players to accompany the singers: percussionist Brian Shankar Adler, bass player Greg Chudzik, pianist and harmonium player Mila Henry, flutist Margaret Lancaster, violinist Andie Springer, and violist Philippa Thompson. Although they were few in number, they presented Sankaram’s fascinating and repetitive fusion of Western and Indian music with ever increasing intensity.
Kamala Sankaram (front) as Mukhtar Mai, with Phyllis Pancella (Mother)
Director Rachael Dickstein, Scenic Designer Susan Zeeman Rogers, and the video designers of Automatic Release showed Mukhtar’s road to social redemption both on a screen and as a route around the stage. She walked across rectangular platforms that were also used to represent home furniture, a desk in a police station and the dock of a Pakistani Court. Kate Fry’s colorful Pakistani costumes featured long pants under full skirts and headscarves with intriguing designs for the women. The men wore light weight long shirts over slim pants.
Thumbprint is a dramatic piece in which the voices convey a story rather than concentrate on aural beauty. Sankaram, Subramaniam, and Pancella colored their tones so that they told of the events in Mukhtar's life with sound as well as words. Tenor Steve Gokool’s bright, powerful voice was the perfect foil for actor Manu Naroyan’s evil characters, while Kannan Vasudevan’s aptly created smaller characterizations filled out the roster of villagers. Although there were no supertitles and some words were hard to understand, Dickstein made sure that no member of the audience missed Mukhtar’s message.
At the end of the performance there was a Talk-Back at which the opera’s heroine, Mukhtar Mai, was present. Through a translator, she told us that her attackers were free on appeal and would probably never serve time in prison. She has put together a foundation, however, that provides education and support for women in Pakistan. She noted that little by little the tide is turning as village women begin to realize they have the power within themselves to ameliorate their situation.
Maria Nockin
Cast and production information:
Composer, Kamala Sankaram; Librettist, Susan Yankowitz; Creative Producer, Beth Morrison; Director, Rachel Dickstein; Music Director, Samuel McCoy; Lighting Design, Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew; Scenic and Object Design, Susan Zeeman Rogers; Costume Design, Kate Fry; Mukhtar, Kamala Sankaram; Mother, Minister of Justice, and other roles, Phyllis Pancella; Father, Judge, and other roles, Steve Gokool; Faiz, Police Chief, and other roles, Manu Narayan; Abdul, Shakur, Imam, other roles, Kannan Vasudevan; Annu and other roles; Leela Subramaniam.