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."
Seattle Opera’s new production of Béatrice et Bénédict is best regarded as a noble experiment, performed expressly to see if Berlioz’ delectable 1862 opéra comique can successfully be brought into the living repertory outside its native France. As such, it is quite a success.
But as any scientist will tell you, an experiment that fails is as invaluable as one which comes off. As such, again, Seattle’s show is quite a success. We now have strong evidence that a number of plausible approaches to“fixing” B&B just don’t work.
The overarching problem with opéra comique today, even in France, is its incorporation of substantial passages of spoken dialogue. The theater for which almost all the traditional Parisian opéras comiques were written contained 1,100 seats. The newly-restored house, which opened in April 2017, only 100 more.
The Susan Brotman Auditorium of Seattle’s Marion McCaw Hall seats 2,900: more than 260% larger. A human voice, no matter how well-trained, cannot be understood from its stage without amplification. Even with amplification, the performers’ diction must be perfect to be comprehended, and the disproportion between great big voices and the tiny figures producing them creates a sense of eerie alienation rather than intimacy.
So: bottom line—B&B doesn’t fit this room and never will. But Seattle Opera’s production team couldn’t accept that. They wanted to do the show, period. And they convinced themselves that with enough tweaks and kludges it could be made to fit.
Tweak number one: the spoken dialogue is amplified, with just the effect it always has on the operatic stage: a clumsy jolt to the ear every time the music starts or stops.
Tweak number two: the opera is performed in English throughout, only the sung portion is supertitled, which only emphasizes how poorly one understands the dialogue when the mikes come back on.
Tweak number three: the perfectly serviceable dialogue Berlioz himself created to span the scenes between numbers with scraps of gen-yew-ine 100% Shakespeare, whose words can be hard to follow when spoken at speedby fine actors in an auditorium designed for spoken theater.
Not content with those additional challenges, they have restored scenes and characters cut by Berlioz, requiring an additional half-dozen speaking actors and 20 minutes more dialogue, most of it dry and expository. The only character Berlioz invented for his version, the tedious music master Somarone, is rendered somewhat less tiresome by giving him comic lines taken from Shakespeare’s constable Dogberry. To smooth the bits where the talk gets to be too much even for the innovators, they innovate some more, suturing in music from other Berlioz works including little tune-clips for underscoring.
Entire cast (singers and actors)
Overall it is a triumph of artistic perversity, and the physical production amplifies the torment for all concerned, with a stage-filling M.C. Escheresque assemblage of industrial-strength staircases leading to landings with no function. Sicily’s torrid Messina has never looked chillier.
Considering the unnecessary handicaps imposed on them, it’s a wonder the performers manage to survive at all. But Shakespeare’s play, and the characters of the squabbling titular lovers, are apparently indestructible; assoon as they are in charge, you can feel the musing audience come alive again. The laughs are real, not forced; the drama soars.
As the secondary pair of lovers Hero and Claudio, carried their weight but set no fires. Laura Tatulescu, a notably saturnine Despina in Seattle Opera’s recent Così, was a little colorless dramatically, even for the colorless-virgin character she was playing, but she sang appealingly, especially in the duet with her companion Ursule (Avery Amereau, a superb supporting performance). Craig Verm, the boisterous-bro Ferrando of Seattle Così, contributed fine vocalism to his ensemble numbers but was strangely subdued as Hero’s jealous lover; even with the advantage of an interpolated revenge number (from Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini) he seemed utterly unengaged with the role.
Andrew Owens (Benedict), Marvin Grays (Leonato), Craig Verm (Claudio), and Daniel Sumegi (Don Pedro)
But like the play, the whole show depends in the end onthe two principal singers’ gifts, and on Sunday afternoon we had a pair of pippins. Andrew Owens, bushy of beard and bouncy of demeanor, sings Bénédict’s busy, declarative music with brio; he has a sharp comic sense which enlivens his every scene. Most astonishingly, when forced by the director to climb the eternal stairs backwards, does it with élan.
Hanna Hipp, a Rossinian mezzo with the chops to take on Strauss’s Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos, was queen of the evening. Her sung and spoken English a model for everyone else on stage, her character, sprightly, furious, and rueful by turns, never let the moment down and bumped up the energy whenever it sagged.
The unobtrusive accompaniment of conductor Ludovic Morlot provided the most important support for the whole evening. The departing music director of the Seattle Symphony has particularly excelled in French repertory, and he excelled equally with the idiosyncratic chiaroscuro of Berlioz’ orchestration and the firmly traditional structure pacing of his arioso.
I’m glad to have had a second chance to see B&B live (the first was one streamed from Glyndebourne last summer). And though this ambitious remodeling turned out about as unsatisfactory as can be imagined, I feel I’ve learned two things about the piece. It is viable; but even in French we need to recognize that in opera houses as large as most in America, an all-sung version it the only way to go. I’m sure that Carmen was wonderful in its original opéra comique form; but does anyone really want to go back to regularly performing the original?
I don’t believe it. And if that’s the case, can’t we consider setting the spoken parts of B&B as “accompanied recitative,” as Ernest Giuiraud did for Bizet’s work? Isn’t there enough vocal music by Berlioz to allow a gifted pasticheur material for matching? What a shame we didn’t ask Stephen Sondheim to take a look at the job years ago.
Roger Downey
Cast and production information:
Cast (singing roles only): Daniel Sumegi (Don Pedro); Kevin Burdette (Somarone); Avery Amereau (Ursule); Craig Verm (Claudio); Laura Tatulescu (Hero); Andrew Owens (Bénédict); Hanna Hipp (Béatrice).Conductor: Ludovic Morlot; Stage director: John Langs; Scenography: Matthew Smucker; Lighting: Connie Yun; Costumes: Deborah Trout. John Keene: chorus