![Clonter Opera Gala [Photo by Jack Thompson]](http://www.operatoday.com/Clonter_Gala.png)
24 Nov 2017
Clonter Opera Gala
Clonter’s Opera Gala in the breath-taking beautiful ball-room at the Lansdowne Club in Mayfair was a glamorously glittering smattering of opera – which made me want to run out to every opera in town.
Recently in Performances
ETO Autumn 2020 Season Announcement: Lyric Solitude
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.
Love, always: Chanticleer, Live from London … via San Francisco
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 …).
Dreams and delusions from Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper at Wigmore Hall
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.
Treasures of the English Renaissance: Stile Antico, Live from London
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.
A wonderful Wigmore Hall debut by Elizabeth Llewellyn
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.
The Sixteen: Music for Reflection, live from Kings Place
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’.
Iestyn Davies and Elizabeth Kenny explore Dowland's directness and darkness at Hatfield House
'Such is your divine Disposation that both you excellently understand, and royally entertaine the Exercise of Musicke.’
Paradise Lost: Tête-à-Tête 2020
‘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.’
Joyce DiDonato: Met Stars Live in Concert
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.
‘Where All Roses Go’: Apollo5, Live from London
‘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 're-connect'
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’.
Lucy Crowe and Allan Clayton join Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO at St Luke's
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.
Choral Dances: VOCES8, Live from London
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.
Royal Opera House Gala Concert
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’.
Fading: The Gesualdo Six at Live from London
"Before the ending of the day, creator of all things, we pray that, with your accustomed mercy, you may watch over us."
Met Stars Live in Concert: Lise Davidsen at the Oscarshall Palace in Oslo
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.
Precipice: The Grange Festival
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.
Monteverdi: The Ache of Love - Live from London
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: Rowan Pierce and Christopher Glynn at Ryedale Online
“Music for a while, shall all your cares beguile.”
A Musical Reunion at Garsington Opera
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.
OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »
Performances
It was billed as an evening for newcomers and it delivered, dazzling them with a line-up of classy young singers, a world-class repetiteur and a slickly staged set of pieces. But it also worked for the aficionados in that the chosen pieces were certainly known yet not only Boheme and Butterfly, but also Rodelinda and Cendrillon – my only gripe was there was one too many in each half although you couldn’t fault the pianist Robin Humphreys who, along with director Lissa Lorenzo kept the action moving swiftly between the numbers. It was a cleverly crafted programme, and the arias flowed neatly on from one another with Lorenzo, acting as compere, announcing them in groups - the first lot involving kings and queens, she dubbed ‘Game of Thrones.’
Whenever Clonter is unearthed from its Northern roots, it rightly receives huge commendation for its work, namely paving the way between music schools and the big wide world by running courses where a singer can learn a role and perform it publicly. This is not such an original idea any more with opera houses themselves running young singers’ programmes. However, it was back in 1974, when Jeffery Lockett, a young singer himself at the time, invited Abbey Opera Group to perform in his barn. Possibly because of his own experience, Clonter’s residential artistic programme was born and due to his tireless audition process and talent for spotting young artists, Clonter has since been on the operatic map.
Last night’s talent didn’t disappoint. A line-up of three girls and two boys, they sang arias and duets, with skilfully light staging by Lorenzo. Working with the repertoire and these artists, Lorenzo paired them perfectly for duets. Tall Catalan tenor Eduard Mas Bacardit and tiny Spanish soprano Lorena Paz Nieto were authentically delightful in Breton’s La Verbena de la Paloma, while the more Northern (Anglo-Scottish) baritone Thomas Humphreys and Estonian soprano Mirjam Mesak were well matched in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci and (even better) Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma. The lonesome mezzo Bianca Andrew opened the evening in a show-stopping red halter neck gown with ‘Nobles Seigneurs, Salut!’ from Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots – aptly French bearing in mind the mirrored Louis Quatorze setting, her softly-rounded mezzo is intrinsically suited to this music, and she has an easy upper register and with her boyish good looks she’d be a gorgeous Cherubino. Interestingly a scout from the Royal Opera House’s young artist programme was at the concert.
This is an exposed venue for young artists as well as being a boomy one. Mirjam Mesak initially sang Ilia’s ‘Padre! germani! addio!’ from Mozart’s Idomeneo impressively having no problem with the tessitura as her voice lies high, but there’s an edge to the sound - as the evening wore on, she got louder and louder and really only came back into her own in the musical numbers – she’d be an exciting Donna Anna and even a Constanze. Her fellow soprano Lorena Paz Nieto has a smaller voice and sang Tornami a vagheggiar from Handel’s Alcina cleanly and crisply but again her inbuilt projection nearly played against her in close proximity, but she has huge charm and vitality on stage. The baritone Thomas Humphreys took some time to settle and by aria four, the sublime Ideale by Tosti, he was velveteen in tone. The one to watch in my book was the tenor Eduard Mas Bacardit who opened with the beautiful Fatty inferno…… ‘Pastorello d’un povero amento’ from Handel’s Rodelinda and sang meltingly legato lines – he’s a clean almost pretty sounding tenor with a firm Italianate tone, a natural stage presence and is quite easy on the eye too….
They ended with ‘The Saga of Jenny’ from Weill’s Lady in the Dark again choregraphed lightly by Lorenzo but ‘musical’ enough so they repeated the finale in true musical style – a hat’s off moment to a great evening.
Louise Flind