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."
Robert Carson’s 2012 ROH Falstaff is a bit of a hotchpotch, but delightful nevertheless. The panelled oak, exuding Elizabethan ambience, of the first Act’s gravy-stained country club reeks of the Wodehouse-ian 1930s, but has also has to serve as the final Act’s grubby stable and the Forest of Windsor, while the central Act is firmly situated in the domestic perfection of Alice Ford’s 1950s kitchen.
Chronological and geographical side-steps aside, the production is funny, frivolous and thoughtful in equal measure and just what was needed at the end of a long, hot summer week. (For further comment on the design and staging see my 2015 review of the first revival.)
The theatrical and vocal joy was supplied by a terrific cast. While at Garsington a few weeks ago, the women bonded over their suffragette placards and politics, here the ladies-who-lunch exuded a real sense of mischievous camaraderie and feminist nous.
Marie-Nicole Lemieux as Mistress Quickly. Photo credit: Catherine Ashmore.
Marie-Nicole Lemieux was a scream as Mistress Quickly, and if she was larger-than-life and milked the camp for all it was worth, it didn’t matter when she was a walking exclamation mark with every entrance and exit - a kick of the heel, a flash of leg, a sashaying curtsey or flamboyant spin - and equally rich and resplendent of voice. Marie McLaughlin’s Meg Page was assured and poised, and if Ana María Martínez sometimes couldn’t match her female ‘accomplices’ for plushness, then she acted superbly, and her phrasing was as poised as her posturing before the gullible Falstaff.
Frédéric Antoun as Fenton, Anna Prohaska as Nannetta. Photo credit: Catherine Ashmore.
Anna Prohaska’s Nannetta was a dew-drop of guileless charm and genuine love, a real breath of fresh air; she floated her first top Ab with stunning purity - it punched right to the heart - and if the second was less pointed, well, she was on her knees, crawling backwards under a table for an assignation with her beloved Fenton. Prohaska and Frédérick Antoun’s Fenton shone through the seedy, soullessness of some of the romantic liaisons with an honest, innocent affection that was truly touching. Fenton can sometimes seem a bit spineless but Antoun’s Act 3 aria granted him vocal and dramatic stature.
As a shiny-suited Ford, Simon Keenlyside was a powerfully bitter presence amid the sugary self-indulgence. Surely his disguise, as Brook, would have fooled no one, the lavish ease of his rock-star locks and flamboyant shirt overshadowed by a rage aria which was frighteningly vicious, but which could have done with a bit more punch in the lower register.
Simon Keenlyside as Ford. Photo credit: Catherine Ashmore.
But, this opera rests or falls on the stomach and heart of its eponymous Fat Knight. And, what a wonderful singing actor Bryn Terfel is. Perhaps there were a few rough edges at times - Act 3 didn’t quite make its sentimental mark, though he blossomed authoritatively in Act 1’s honour aria - but he can do belligerency, bravado and belly-laughs with equal panache, and despite all Falstaff’s boasting and bluffing there was still that telling touch of sincerity to win the audience’s sympathetic smile and sigh.
Though first espied loafing indifferently behind a newspaper in his outsized bed at the Garter ‘Inn’, as agitated waiters wafted unpaid bills, or imbibing indulgently in a grimy onesie - six boiled eggs for breakfast with coffee and cognac, all on the tick - this Falstaff could miraculously transform himself, instantaneously resurrecting that memory of the former slim Duke of Norfolk, to take his place amid the privileged and entitled, and irritate the bespectacled gents in the hotel Reading Room.
Bryn Terfel as Sir John Falstaff. Photo credit: Catherine Ashmore.
When visited by Mistress Quickly bearing an invitation to visit Alice, Terfel became the epitome of studied suavity à la P.G. Wodehouse. Terfel can twinkle his eyes, twaddle his cane and twiddle his top hat with stomach-tickling ease. Regaled in scarlet hunting regalia he was champing at the bit. In Act 2 he seemed to know how to place himself in the exactly the right place at just the wrong time, as the drama demands, commandeering his sexual territory atop of the formica kitchen units of Alice’s ‘perfect’ buttercup-hued kitchen, diving in the nick of time into a cupboard with the arrival of Ford, swinging - with some effort - his booted legs into the laundry basket as the jealous husband turned house and home upside down. Perhaps Terfel was upstaged by the munching horse at the start of Act 3, and, despite rolling athletically along the dining table, a delicacy at the cruel feast, couldn’t quite find his niche in an Act which in this production rather loses its way, but at the close he grasped the opportunity to quash his opponents with a quip, a flourish and winning flair.
Given the intemperate ego at the centre of the show, conductor Nicola Luisotti was a bit too restrained and the score might have zipped along with rather more spice. But, this revival is a sparkling summer spritzer.
Claire Seymour
Sir John Falstaff - Bryn Terfel, Alice Ford - Ana María Martínez, Ford - Simon Keenlyside, Nannetta - Anna Prohaska, Fenton - Frédéric Antoun, Mistress Quickly - Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Meg Page - Marie McLaughlin, Dr Caius - Carlo Bosi, Bardolph - Michael Colvin, Pistol - Craig Colclough; Director - Robert Carsen, Conductor - Nicola Luisotti, Set designer - Paul Steinberg, Costume designer - Brigitte Reiffenstuel, Lighting designers - Robert Carsen and Peter van Praet, Royal Opera Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House.
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London; Saturday 7th July 2018.