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."
There can hardly be a dry eye in the house, at the ‘Theatre in the Woods’ at West Horsley Place - Grange Park Opera’s new home - when, in Act 3 of Janáček's first mature opera, Natalya Romaniw’s Jenůfa realises that the tiny child whose frozen body has been discovered under the ice is her own dead son.
As I wrote in my review of the production, ‘her terrible bereavement, at first quietly accepted, resurges with terrifying force when … she recognises the tiny red cap that she knitted for him. Never has such a small motif borne an emotional weight of greater poignancy.’
During our conversation, it’s clear that Romaniw genuinely ‘lives’ Jenůfa’s tragic disillusionment, when hopes of healing - through marriage with Laca - are destroyed in an instant by the irrevocable secrets of past sins and suffering. Indeed, who in the audience could doubt Romaniw’s utter commitment, so burdened by emotional truth is her searing soprano. But, it’s equally evident that the Welsh singer has a level-headed and pragmatic approach to her art, which brings an honesty to her interpretations and a striking lack of pretentiousness to her engagement with her profession.
Romaniw seems, with genuine delight, hardly to believe that she is singing in the UK’s top opera houses at all, let alone that she is receiving stellar reviews for her dramatically acute and vocally heart-grabbing performances. Last year her interpretations of two Tchaikovsky roles - Tatyana in Garsington’s Eugene Onegin and Lisa in The Queen of Spades at Investec Opera Holland Park, thrust her into the foreground with the Sunday Times extolling her as ‘a Tatyana in a thousand’ and the Daily Telegraph lauding her as ‘one of the outstanding sopranos of her generation’. More recently, Romaniw has been nominated for this year’s’ Times breakthrough category in the South Bank Sky Awards, with the winner due to be announced at the Savoy in London in Sunday 9th July.
But, as a young girl from Swansea, the daughter of police officers who enjoyed music theatre, the world of international opera must have seemed light year’s away. But, the Ukrainian grandfather to whom she owes her surname, who taught himself to play the accordion and played his granddaughter Ukrainian songs, must have sown fertile musical seeds. Singing lessons developed her nascent talent and after performances with Welsh National Youth Opera, she found herself at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Romaniw recounts with characteristic ingenuousness a singing class early on in her student career, where her enthusiasm and willingness to learn led her to volunteer to sing in front of other students who seemed amazed by her choice of ‘Vissi d’arte’. ‘It was what I knew,’ she laughs. And, little did her fellow students know, at that stage, that Romaniw would go on to win the prestigious Gold Medal in her final year. It is surely this candour, keenness and frank self-reflection that contribute to her utterly engaging stage presence.
Other accolades followed, including the Clonter’s Opera Prize in 2010 - an inter-conservatoire prize awarded to singers nominated by the heads of opera at six of the UK’s leading music colleges - and both the Loveday Song Prize and overall First Prize at the Kathleen Ferrier Awards in 2012.
It hasn’t all been absolutely plain-sailing, though. Having won the London Welsh Singer’s Competition in 2008, the following year Romaniv found herself selected as the Welsh representative in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, and though she obviously relished the experience and was a Song Prize finalist, she feels that the opportunity came a little too early in her career.
Photo credit: Patrick Allen, Opera Omnia.
But, she has a wise head on young shoulders. Following her Ferrier Award success, Romaniw joined the Houston Grand Opera’s Young Artist programme, deciding that this was the best route to develop her voice and experience a wide range of repertoire, in the process turning down places on the Jette Parker Young Artist scheme at the ROH and the study programme at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, for which she was also accepted. It was a good choice. In 2012, she was the second prize winner of the Eleanor McCollum competition at Houston, and during the two-year programme sang Ortlinde (Die Walküre), Mimi, Ines (Il Trovatore), Rosalinde ( Die Fledermaus), Micaela, and Krystina (The Passenger). Returning to the UK she won roles at Holland Park (as Maliela in Wolf-Ferrari’s I gioielli della Madonna, Romaniw was praised by the Guardian for her ‘forthright vocalism and astutely managed, siren-like tempting’) and at Scottish Opera (Foreign Princess Rusalka). She also sang the Governess in Glyndebourne’s 2014 touring production of The Turn of the Screw, having previously covered several roles in the main house including Anne Truelove (The Rake’s Progress), Armida (Rinaldo) and the Countess (Figaro).
Despite such accomplishments, Romaniw remains refreshingly self-effacing and down-to-earth, as when recalling a performance of Beethoven’s 9 th Symphony with the Hallé under Sir Mark Elder, before which she was a bundle of nerves in what she saw as the company of more experienced colleagues.
Of late, Romaniw’s successes have come in ‘Slavic’ roles and I ask her if she feels that she has a special affinity to the language and music of Eastern Europe. She replies that she finds the idiom comes naturally to her, that she is able to learn the roles quickly, and that she doesn’t find the language challenges too taxing; indeed, she enjoys working through the relationships that develop through the libretto text with her fellow performers during rehearsals.
There is more Janáček and Tchaikovsky to come: later this month she will perform the former’s Glagolitic Mass in Worcester Cathedral, at the Three Choirs Festival, and then she reprises her Tatyana with Welsh National Opera this autumn and with Scottish Opera next spring. She is aware that some may wonder why she wishes to repeat these roles, but Romaniw feels that her interpretation can grow further, especially in different productions and working with different directors.
I ask the usual ‘end-of-interview’ question: what next? For the first time during our conversation, Romaniw - who has been absolutely smashing company, delightfully garrulous and funny - becomes is a little reticent. She will just divulge that, to her delight, three of Puccini’s heroines are on the near horizon.
When, in April this year, Romaniw stepped into the indisposed Karah Son’s shoes as Cio-Cio-San in Welsh National Opera’s revival of Joachim Herz’s 1978 production of Madame Butterfly, at the Bristol Hippodrome - making her company and role debut - one reviewer remarked: ‘As one of the iconic roles in opera you’d expect some first night nerves, but this Welsh soprano … barely blanches … she already combines the timid and bashful young teen who falls in love with the wrong man, to the deluded romantic waiting for her husband to return home, to the grieving but resolute mother prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for her son. It’s a performance that more than merits the rapturous applause received.’ And, this is praise which more than whets the opera-lover’s appetite.
Claire Seymour