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."
This performance of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas by La Nuova Musica, directed by David Bates, was, characteristically for this ensemble, alert to musical details, vividly etched and imaginatively conceived.
But, while my attention was drawn to freshening rhythmic gestures in the bass line or inner instrumental voices, and captivated by the enrichment provided by the varying continuo ensemble of theorbo (Alex McCartney (occasionally switching to baroque guitar) and Lynda Sayce) and harp (Siobhan Armstrong), I missed the essential simplicity and sincerity of the work in this lunchtime performance at the Wigmore Hall, where Dido was presented as part of the 2018 London Handel Festival.
I wondered how much time the talented young soloists and chorus members had had to consider and rehearse the practical matters of stage business. Although La Nuova Musica essentially played one-to-a-part and the chorus was formed largely from those taking small solo roles, the Wigmore Hall stage looked uncomfortably crowded. Principal soloists sat stage-right, moving centre for their arias; minor soloists, for the most part, moved to the front, negotiating the instrumentalists - and sometimes other singers - as they made their way to the fore-stage. Though Bates swept fluently from recitative to aria to chorus in a seamless musical continuum, it looked - and thus felt - a little clunky at times.
Singers dealt differently with the circumstances. While tenor Nick Pritchard fairly bounded forward to deliver the Sailor’s light-voiced, vigorous plea to his fellow tars to ‘Come Away’ from the shore-bound nymphs’ allurements and set forth with the impatient tide, bass Richard Bannon took two steps forward, through the viola da gambas, and forthrightly issued the Spirit’s decree that Aeneas must ‘forsake this land’ with statuesque and dark-hued weight.
After Anna Dennis had delivered Belinda’s slightly too frank and forte appeal to Rachel Kelly’s Dido to ‘Shake the cloud from your brow’ - for goodness sake stop wallowing in self-pity, for your solipsistic sorrow is making us all miserable, she seemed to infer - Kelly found herself directing her response, ‘Ah Belinda, I am press’d with torment’, to her conductor, as her companion-servant Belinda had retreated to her seat at the side. Subsequently, Kelly found herself ‘stranded’ onstage during ‘Fear no danger to ensue’ (Belinda, Second Woman and Chorus), and struggled to stay ‘in role’ (i.e. Dido has just sung of her fear that her pity for the distress of others will be her undoing) when tempted to smile at the beguiling quality of the choric assurance that Cupid has strewn Dido’s path with flowers.
But, these are, for the most part, tangential matters. The singing was characterful, and none more so than in the choruses which were invigorating, dramatic and lithe, always propelling the action forward - though the witches’ ‘Ho, ho, ho!’s were rather demure!
Dennis, after a somewhat resounding start - one might expect a slightly lighter voice embodying this impulsive stirrer - found the measure of the Hall, and her mezzo settled beautifully though she remained, to good effect, unafraid to lean on expressive textual details or emotive appoggiaturas. ‘Thanks to these lonesome vales’, sung within the tranquil grove, was bright, full and satisfying, the viola da gamba offering further comforting support. Emilie Renard was a Sorceress of supercilious eye-brow raising, sly smiles and sultry vocal tone, and Louise Kemény impressed as the Second Woman: her Act 2 number, ‘Off she visits this lone mountain’, was richly enhanced by the theorbos’ gentle charm and the contrasting animation of the viola da gamba.
I admired George Humphreys’ two embodiments of Cavalli’s Giove in 2016 (for English Touring Opera and for La Nuova Musica at Wigmore Hall (where I found his powerful baritone, ‘haughtily contemptuous as he surveyed the destruction wreaked on the mortals’ and that ‘his appealing tone captured Giove’s presumptuousness’), as well as the inspiring power and brightness that the baritone put to good use as Lieutenant Jenkins in WNO’s In Parenthesis that year. Humphreys has now joined the ensemble of Salzburg State Theatre and is no doubt destined for satisfying success. But the physical stature and vocal sonority which made his Demetrius so compelling at Snape Maltings in June 2017 made this Aeneas seem rather too big for his boots. One could not fault either technique or attention to textual detail, though; Act 3’s encounter with the Spirit was dramatically intense and engaging, the emotional twists and turns of ‘But ah! what language can I try/ My injur’d Queen to pacify’ being matched by diversity of tone, colour, dynamics, weight and pace.
My one disappointment was Rachel Kelly’s Dido, all the more so for the pleasure that her singing has brought on many other occasions. While the melismas bristled and shone, and she keenly communicated the moments of heightened emotional piquancy and distress, Kelly did not look entirely comfortable in the role of the deserted Queen. I missed a sure, smoothness of line; and the text was not always clearly enunciated, even when set with Purcellian naturalness. ‘Remember me’ is the appeal of the dying Queen … but, I’m not sure one would. I think it boiled down to ‘trying too hard’: vocal sophistication is not what is needed here, as I suggested at the start, it is simplicity and sincerity which make Purcell’s greatness, genius and musical generosity felt.
Claire Seymour
Purcell:
Dido and Aeneas
London Handel Festival
Dido - Rachel Kelly, George Humphreys - Aeneas, Belinda - Anna Dennis, Sorceress - Emilie Renard, First Witch - Helen Charlston, Second Witch - Martha McLorinan, Second Woman - Louise Kemény, Sailor - Nick Pritchard, Spirit - Richard Bannan; La Nuova Musica - David Bates (harpsichord, organ, director), Anaïs Chen and James Toll (violins), Jane Rogers (viola), Jonathan Rees and Ibraham Aziz (viola da gamba), Alex McCartney and Lynda Sayce (theorbo), Siobhan Armstrong (harp).
Wigmore Hall, London; Saturday 7th April 2018.