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."
Three years into their MOZART 250 project, Classical Opera have launched a new venture, The Mozartists, which is designed to allow the company to broaden its exploration of the concert and symphonic works of Mozart and his contemporaries.
For their opening concert, at the Wigmore Hall, they were joined by one of Classical Opera’s Associate Artists, soprano Louise Alder. Six months ago, one might have described Alder as a ‘rising star’ but recent accolades - including ‘Young Singer of the Year’ at the 2017 International Opera and the Dame Joan Sutherland Audience Prize at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World - have seen her ascend securely to the firmament.
I last saw and heard Alder performing the music of Richard Strauss, as Sophie in WNO's Der Rosenkavalier and on her debut recording, Through Life and Love ; here, she tackled two show-case arias: a Gluck rarity and the opening aria from Mozart’s opera seria, Idomeneo. Alder has a lovely stage presence. Relaxed and generous, she seemed delighted to be at the Wigmore Hall, to be sharing music with the instrumentalists of Classical Opera and to be communicating with the eager, sell-out audience.
My pre-concert research threw little light on Gluck’s festal opera Il prologo which was commissioned in 1767 as part of a three-day celebration marking the birth of the first child of Peter Leopold I (younger brother of Emperor Joseph II) and his wife Maria Luisa (daughter of King Charles III of Spain). But, an informative programme note explained that, setting of a dedicatory text by the poet Lorenzo Ottavio del Rosso, Gluck’s work was to be presented in the Teatro di Via della Pergola in Florence as a prologue to the centrepiece of the festivities - Tommaso Traetta’s opera Ifigenia in Tauride. In the event, lack of time to compose and rehearse a new work led Gluck to borrow the overture and opening chorus from his 1756 opera Il re pastore; but when Il prologo was first heard, on 22 February, it did include three accompanied recitatives, a concluding chorus and an extended aria in which Jove hails and blesses the new-born child.
Alder’s relaxed but direct soprano swept cleanly through the recitative, which was punctuated by increasingly extended string gestures building to a galloping imitation of the messenger - a figure of glory, in triumphal robes - who carries the new of the happy birth. Having intensified the tone to match the deepening reverence of the text, Alder softened her soprano to bestow ‘a thousand unaccustomed feelings of joy’ upon the ‘sovereign breasts’, with beautiful, fading tenderness.
Louise Alder. Photo credit: Gerard Collett.
The strings pulsed gently at the start of ‘De’ sublimi augusti eroi’ (O sublime, happy event), as Alder traversed the wide range of Jove’s opening phrases with impressive evenness, suggesting the all-encompassing embrace of peaceful contentment which will overflow from the souls of ‘lofty and majestic heroes’. This concertante aria has significant instrumental solos - the accompaniment is almost a double concerto: James Eastaway’s oboe entwined sinuously with the vocal line, Joseph Crouch’s cello commented eloquently on the phrase endings, while conductor Ian Page brought the middle voice undulations to the fore in the minor-key central episode.
Alder’s coloratura was lithe and luminous, flashing with gold and diamond; solo ascents were impressively relaxed, swooning gracefully at the top, and neat cadential trills were beguilingly echoed and enhanced by the two solo instrumentalists. In Patricia Howard’s 2015 Routledge edition Gluck (The Late Eighteenth-Century Composers), Max Loppert describes Il prologo as an example of ‘bizarre, reprehensible Gluckian backsliding’. After this performance, I have to disagree. The aria may ignore the reforms which Calzabigi and the composer had introduced in Orfeo ed Euridice and Alceste but Alder and the players of Classical Opera wonderfully confirmed Gluck’s ability to find freshness and beauty in the conventional da capo form.
Alder had originally planned to open the second half of the concert with Mozart’s concert aria ‘Vorrei spiergavi, oh Dio!’ K418, which was written in 1783 as an insertion aria for a performance of Pasquale Anfossi’s 1777 opera Il curioso indiscreto at the Burgtheater in Vienna. Instead, we were treated to Ilia’s Act 1 aria from Idomeneo in which, alone on stage having been rescued from the stormy seas by Idamante, the imprisoned Trojan princess reflects on the conflict between her familial loyalties and her burgeoning love for her Greek saviour.
The extended recitative, which largely sets the scene and introduces the drama’s protagonists, was skilfully structured, revealing a story-teller’s nous. The rhetorical tone grew in force towards Ilia’s fearful outburst at what fate may await her father and brothers, then abated in reflection: ‘Are the wrongs and the shame of Priam and Troy avenged?’ As in the earlier Gluck recitative, Alder’s Italian was idiomatic and the rhythm of the text convincingly natural. Page coaxed expressive accompaniment from his players and pushed forward with Ilia’s desperate question, ‘But does Idamante love me?’, accelerating still more as the despairing captive calls on the ‘ruthless butchers’ to destroy her ‘unhappy heart’, and surging into the ensuing aria.
The consistency of Alder’s soprano was of great advantage in the taxing lament, ‘Padre, germani, addio’ (Father, brothers, farewell!); she created a sense of breathless urgency and intensity at the start, but the fairly short phrases formed flowing units. The softness of line in the second part of the aria evoked a moving sadness as Ilia’s reflects on the betrayal of her ‘own blood’ which her irrepressible desire dictates. She balanced passion with pliancy: falling with slippery ease through the sinuous semiquaver motifs, rising with impressively precise intonation, ornament and rhythm through the final chromatic cry, and diminishing with heart-breaking regret and shame at the close when confessing that Ilia cannot bring herself to hate Idamante. Mozart was to express grief, in the same G minor tonality, ten years later, in Pamina’s ‘Ach ich fühl’s’, and it certainly whets the appetite to learn that Alder will essay her first Pamina in May 2018 in Garsington Opera’s new production of Die Zauberflöte, directed by Netia Jones and conducted by Christian Curnyn.
Reflecting the Mozartists’ raison d’être, the concert was framed by symphonic works. Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante opened proceedings, Page drawing a fairly full-bodied, warm, relaxed sound from his players at the start of the Allegro maestoso. There was nothing that was not disciplined, elegant and charming about this performance but, equally, there was nothing really very fresh or captivating either.
Violinist Matthew Truscott is an ubiquitous and reassuring presence in the leader’s chair of many a period ensemble - in addition to Classical Opera, he also leads The King’s Consort, Florilegium, St James’s Baroque and is one of the leaders of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment - but he and CO’s lead viola player, Alfonso Leal del Ojo, played the concerto as if it was chamber music rather than a soloist’s show-piece. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but why, then, did the orchestra not dispense with a conductor and place the soloists either side of centre (especially as this would have reflected the orchestral placement of the other two viola players)? I appreciate that these period players were performing in an intimate venue, but I found myself longing for just a little of the excitement and flair that Vilda Frang and Lawrence Power brought to the work at the Proms last month. Instead, Leal del Ojo seemed to look to Truscott to lead during the solo ‘duets’ and the first movement cadenza was disappointingly ‘straight’.
The Andante was taken fairly swiftly by Page - flowing a little too fast for Truscott perhaps, who seemed to try to apply the brakes at times - but, despite the fast tempo, the extended phrases did not seem to reach forwards, perhaps because there was insufficient time and space for flexibility of phrasing. The strings’ articulation in the Presto was delightfully feathery, the light texture allowing the oboes to shine through.
Mozart’s joyful Symphony No.29 rounded things off and I admired the dynamism and drama that was conjured, the violins now seated antiphonally: the sound was bright, the ornaments compactly sculpted, the bowing superbly disciplined - one could hear the bite at the start of every single rapidly repeated semiquaver played by every single violinist. The horns took a few risks and not all of them came off, but their rich, vibrant tone and exuberance brought humanity and spontaneity to the performance. The Andante was urbane, the ultra-pianissimo Menuetto rhythmically tight but never at the expense of the melodic line. The Allegro finale certainly observed Mozart’s spirito instruction!
The players’ communal enjoyment was evident and infectious. Did they need a conductor? Perhaps my question was answered by the encore, which saw Page relinquish the stage and Alder return, to be partnered by the leaders of the lower string sections.
Classical Opera will celebrate their 20th anniversary with a ‘Birthday Concert’ at the Barbican Hall on 9 October.
The Mozartists’ first recording is Perfido! , Associate Artist Sophie Bevan’s début solo disc with orchestra, which features concert arias by Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven.
Claire Seymour
Classical Opera/The Mozartists: Ian Page (director), Louise Alder (soprano), Matthew Truscott (violin), Alfonso Leal del Ojo (viola)
Mozart - Sinfonia concertante in E flat major K364; Gluck - Il prologo: ‘De’ sublimi augusti eroi’; Mozart - Idomeneo K366: ‘Quando avran fine omai/Padre germani addio’, Symphony No. 29 in A major K201.
Wigmore Hall, London; Monday 18th September 2017.