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."
It’s sometimes suggested that it was the simultaneous decline of the popularity of Italian opera seria among Georgian audiences and, in consequence, of the fortunes of Handel’s Royal Academy King’s Theatre, that led the composer to turn his hand to oratorio in English, the genre which would endear him to the hearts of the nation.
In fact, Handel’s first ‘Israelite oratorio’, Esther, dates from Handel’s early years in London. Like Acis and Galatea, which the London Handel Festival had presented at St. John’s Smith Square a few days earlier, it was written for James Brydges (later Duke of Chandos) and thought to have been performed at Cannons, Brydges’ Middlesex estate, during 1718-20.
The libretto, which was probably fashioned by the poets Alexander Pope and John Arbuthnot, is a dramatic adaptation of the Old Testament narrative, in which the pious Esther acts to save the threatened Israelites from a pogrom at the hands of their Persian oppressors, and Jean Racine’s play Esther of 1688 (which had been seen in London in 1715 in an English paraphrase by Thomas Brereton), which emphasises the challenge to God’s authority and the divine salvation of the Israelite people. Musicologists and commentators have sought allegorical relevance in the affirmation of Jewish courage and conviction but have been as likely to suggest a parallel between the English Anglicans and the ‘Chosen People’ as to see the Jewish minority as representative of the English Catholics within a Protestant majority. When the worked received its ‘public’ premiere, in London in 1732, additional text by Samuel Humphreys enhanced the connection to the Hanoverians through implied compliments to George II and Queen Caroline.
This performance by the London Handel Orchestra at Wigmore Hall was stylishly directed by Adrian Butterfield, who fulfilled a dual role as violinist-conductor. In fact, with such an accomplished band of musicians before him, I wondered if Butterfield might not have relinquished his fiddle on this occasion; for, while the vocal standards were high, not all of the young soloists were equally adept at creating character and developing the narrative momentum. The numbers that were most successful were the choruses, when Butterfield laid his violin aside and stood to conduct, creating exciting drive and momentum.
Indeed, one might feel that Handel’s finest achievements in Esther are the choral sections: the contrasting joy - when the Jews rejoice that Esther, a believer, has become Queen - and despair, when they learn of Haman’s vicious decree that they should be annihilated; their confident assertion, ‘He comes!’, that God will defend them; and the magnificent triumphal chorus which closes the oratorio. Almost all of the soloists joined to form the choral ensemble, producing a lively, bright sound, with the strings’ generating zip and vigour and Darren Moore’s trumpet adding majesty and jubilance to the final triumph: ‘The Lord our enemy has slain’.
The instrumental contributions in the arias were no less affecting and accomplished. Stephen Mills’ relaxed, pure tenor was graciously accompanied by the violins’ gentle pizzicato and James Eastaway’s beautiful oboe obbligato, as the First Israelite expressed the people’s unwavering trust in ‘great Jehovah’, and Mills’ clean tone was equally well-suited to persuading us of the condemned Mordecai’s faith. The horns (Gavin Edwards and Clare Penkey) added relish to the glorification of Jehovah of the start of Act 3.
Best of the soloists was Erica Eloff as the eponymous saviour of the nation. The winner of the 2008 Handel Singing Competition, Eloff has impressed before ( Adriano in Siria , Elpidia ) and on this occasion I was struck by the extended range of colours that the South African soprano deployed to convey Esther’s love, fear, doubts and hopes. She really made the text count in Esther’s first air, capturing the deep sincerity of the queen’s prayer, and her angry dismissal of Haman’s ‘flatt’ring tongue’ left none in doubt of Esther’s inner strength, an impression which grew in the elaborated repetitions of the aria’s da capo. Eloff even managed a convincing ‘faint’ when Esther quakes in fear before Ahasverus as she pleads for Mordecai’s deliverance, before reviving to invite her lord to a banquet at which she intends to expose Haman’s vendetta with sufficient beauty of voice and manner to convince Ahasverus to submit to his wife’s entreaties.
As Ahasverus, William Wallace - in common with some of the other soloists - took a little while to judge the acoustic of Wigmore Hall, in which a capacity audience was seated. Initially he forced his tenor a little too much, but as Esther’s appeals worked their magic, Wallace’s voice relaxed and charmed in ‘O beauteous Queen’. Baritone Josep-Ramon Olivé colourfully revealed Haman’s vengeful exasperation in the oratorio’s opening aria, expressing his indignant fury with plenty of bluster, though a little less might have been more - the diction was rather muddy.
Timothy Morgan was also somewhat over-earnest as the First Priest of the Israelites, which affected his tuning at times, but Morgan’s counter-tenor is appealing, and he communicated with directness. As the Israelite Boy, Camilla Harris displayed a lovely sheen and graceful phrasing in her single aria, which was further enhanced by exquisite interplay from the pianissimo violins, flute (Rachel Brown) and harp (Frances Kelly). Tenors Ben Smith (Habdonah) and Laurence Kilsby (Officer/Second Israelite) completed the accomplished vocal ensemble.
Claire Seymour
Handel: Esther HWV50
London Handel Orchestra: director/violin - Adrian Butterfield.
Esther - Erica Eloff, Ahasverus - William Wallace, Haman - Josep-Ramon Olivé, Israelite Boy - Camilla Harris, Priest of the Israelites - Timothy Morgan, Mordecai/First Israelite - Stephen Mills, Habdonah - Ben Smith, Officer/Second Israelite - Laurence Kilsby.
Wigmore Hall, London; Thursday 22nd March 2018.