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.
![Andrei Bondarenko [Photo by Yuri Shevtsov courtesy of Askonas Holt]](http://www.operatoday.com/_J7B5961.png)
Compared to the oft-explored world of German lieder and French chansons, the songs of Russia are unfairly neglected in recordings and in the concert hall. The raw emotion and expansive lyricism present in much of this repertoire was clearly in evidence at the Holywell Music Room for the penultimate day of the celebrated Oxford Lieder Festival.
The rich and sensuous timbres of Ukrainian baritone Andrei Bondarenko, coupled with the consistently sensitive and elegant piano accompaniment of Gary Matthewman, made this a highly enjoyable recital.
The themes confronting us were heavy; life, death, doomed love and loneliness dominated the programme, with a sprinkling of nature and alcohol for good measure. However, whilst the programme was weighted with songs of melancholy and regret, Bondarenko was never afraid to show a lighter side, presenting a work in each half of the evening that lightened the pensive sound-world of the surrounding works.
The second half of the evening consisted of a dozen Tchaikovsky songs, songs which – despite the fact Tchaikovsky, as the programme acknowledges, looked down on them – form a key part of the Russian song repertoire. Bondarenko expertly conveyed the anguished soul at the core of these works, frequently displaying a powerful higher register that was equally capable of dropping to a delicate piano in the space of a bar; this was clear in Solovej (The Nightingale), where he brilliantly evoked the unjust power of “evil folk” in separating the narrator from his “fair maid”, only to rein in the undeniable force of his voice for the hushed whisperings of “a grave for me”. The interpretation at times lacked the sense of the sinister – the menace, the harshness, the coldness – that the texts conveyed. However, Bondarenko’s warmth worked well for Moj Genij, Moj Angel, Moj Drug (My Genius, My Angel, My Friend), the earliest surviving song by the composer; he dealt admirably with the higher leaps of “my friend” and “you bestow”, with the slightest hint of portamento adding an extra level of expressive power. What seemed most impressive to the audience, however, was the sheer power of Bondarenko’s voice, projecting the louder dynamics with great force and richness. The insistent fortissimo reached towards the end of the vocal line of Otchego (Why?), a setting of Heine, formed a great contrast to the quiet opening verse, whilst Matthewman deftly brought the dynamics back to a delicate softness for the extended piano postlude.
Indeed, Matthewman’s piano accompaniment was consistently elegant and sensitive, never overpowering the baritone nor afraid to raise the dynamics or reinforce a prominent countermelody. The biting dissonances of the major seventh chord in the introduction to Primiren’e (Reconciliation) makes clear Tchaikovsky’s sense of imperfect and pained happiness, taking “solace on the couch of suffering”; the composer’s extensive use of interludes and postludes showcased Matthewman’s soaring lyricism and heartfelt feeling, the richly romantic piano writing ruminating upon the words of the singer. Matthewman’s sensitive presentation of the insistently repeating single note that closes Snova, Kak Prezhde (Again, As Before, Alone) was profoundly moving, the sense of tolling bells not far away.
But melancholic reflection and sweeping lyricism were not the only qualities on display; lightening the heavy atmosphere of introspection was Don Juan’s Serenade, a bravura piece embodying Don’s endless romantic escapades. Despite a consistently rapid tempo, both Bondarenko and Matthewman maintained a superb sense of control, the baritone beautifully broadening the speed momentarily at the line “Fight them to the death”, as if to draw our attention to the histrionic force of Don Juan’s words. Similarly, Matthewman’s virtuosity was on full display with Tchaikovsky’s rapid runs, which the pianist captured with an energetic bounce and finesse. The delicate ending – brought about with great control and no slackening of tempo – was enjoyed by all.
The opening half of the evening was formed by a collection of songs by Anton Rubinstein, Rachmaninov and Sviridov; Bondarenko conveyed the wistfulness of much of the texts with well-controlled surges of dynamics, capturing the poets’ swell of feeling, and – notably in Sviridov’s Bogomater v Gorode (Virgin in the City) – he delineated the clear climaxes of each work with a powerful, ringing high note. However, Bondarenko’s consistent warmth may have been enhanced by an occasional reversion to harsher shades to more powerfully capture the anguish of the speaker and the rawness of this emotion. His frequent wistfulness of tone prevented him from, at times, embracing a harsher timbre, something that may have exposed the unattractive realities of the death and loneliness described; this would have further animated Sviridov’s Nevesta (Bride) - in particular the sub-clause “Not for him” in the parenthesis in the fourth verse - creating a greater sense of pain by emphasising its commentary on doomed love. Despite this, and in the same manner of the second half, the programme found an enjoyable contrast in the more light-hearted Ikalos Li Tebe, Natsha? (Did You Hiccup, Natasha?), Rachmaninov’s portrayal of a drinking song which Bondarenko conveyed with a great sense of burlesque and enjoyment, cueing a roar of laughter from an appreciative audience.
Andrei Bondarenko makes his debut at the Royal Opera House in the 2017/18 season, and – judging by the rapturous applause and stamping he received at the close of this enjoyable recital – he will be followed closely by those present that evening. His ringing top notes, rich and hefty timbre, and brilliant control of dynamic surges and sudden hush conveyed the dramatic and expressive power of so many of these songs. Gary Matthewman provided a sensitive and lyrical piano line that was greatly appreciated by all. The intimate environment of the Holywell Music Room was well-suited to the lyrical outpourings of these relatively neglected works. This was a thoroughly enjoyable concert that formed a fitting part of the finale to the rightly-celebrated Oxford Lieder Festival.
Jack Pepper