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."
Schoenberg Gurrelieder at the Royal Festival Hall, with Esa-Pekka Salonen, demonstrating how well the Philharmonia Orchestra has absorbed Schoenberg's idiom. A blazing performance, formidably dramatic, executed with stunning assurance. Salonen has made his mark on the Philharmonia through in-depth explorations of the 20th century repertoire he loves so well.
After their first Gurrelieder with him in March 2009, I was at an airport where many of the players were talking excitedly about Gurrelieder and the way Salonen worked with them. Musicians can be blasé (at least on the surface), but these players were genuinely enthusiastic. And they didn't know that I was listening in !
The deep surging undercurrents in the Prelude, lit by bright sparkling figures, seemed almost to vibrate. Well-defined the strings, harps and horns introduced the dream-like mood, textures gradually build up in sweeping arcs, string lines swelling and heaving. Perhaps Schoenberg had in mind Tristan und Isolde, or Siegfried's journey down the Rhine. Either way, vast cosmic forces are being invoked. Or can we hear echoes of Verklärte Nacht writ infinitely larger ? Schoenberg then introduces the mortals, King Waldemar (Robert Dean Smiith) and Tove (Camilla Tilling). The parts are tricky to cast, since Schoenberg, in his youth, pits the singers against huge orchestral forces. Yet voice along doesn't create a part. Simon O'Neill, for example, doesn't have a pretty voice but more than compensates with artistry and insight. Waldemar was anti-hero enough that he dares curse God : a Flying Dutchman of sorts. Dean Smith didn't quite have the heft or gift for characterisation, so this Waldemar came across in milder form, though the music around him roared with passion. Tilling created a refined Tove, her lines soaring gracefully, serving the part well. Few Tove's are truly "wunderliche" but Tilling is attractive, as gentle as a dove. Tove is silenced, but the Wood Dove takes her place.
The Wood Dove, a much stronger personage than Tove, is an Erda figure, who sees all, and the mood is almost incantation. . Michelle DeYoung was ideal, her rich timbre enhanced by sombre dignity. The recurring line "Weit flog ich....." rose forcefully from the surging undercurrents, bringing out the rhythmic flow. Every good performances helps us think more about the music. This time I was pondering how the Wood Dove's music might resemble Sprechstimme. A pity that the "Herrgott ! Herrgott!" part didn't have quite the impact in the Royal Festival Hall as it could have. The front of that stage sucks voices into the void even if you've got a voice-friendly seat. On the BBC Radio 3 broadcast, Dean Smith's can be heard with better balance. In the orchestra, however, the "Herrgott!" chords were magnificent, executed so they seemed to have a metallic quality, like hammerblows striking stone.
A haunted, baleful introduction to the final part, when the orchestra seemed to explode with the horror of the apocalyptic vision being described. Trombones wailed, percussion rumbled, strings evoking a sense of wind and wildness. Waldemar and his doomed knights are riding theough the sky. Another excellent cameo with David Soar's Peasant. The firmness in Soar's timbre suggested that even a doughty peasant can be so shaken that he must bolt his door and pray. The Philharmonia Voices were augmented by the male voices of the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.In the relatively small space of the Royal Festival Hall, the impact could have been overwhelming, but under the direction of Aidan Oliver, what came over was clarity, not sheer volume. Good articulation, the "Holla!"'s wild, the sudden descent into near silence chilling. Yet again, the orchestra set the scene. The strings surged, then opened out to strangely disturbing calm, the woodwinds adding quirky menace. Despite the turbulence around him, Waldemar is alone.
Thus the spooky interlude before Klaus-Narr sings, cloaking the part with surreal horror. Wolfgang Ablinger Sperrhacke is one of the finest "Character" singers in the business, so this cameo, like Michelle DeYoung's Wood Dove, was a major highlight. Ablinger-Sperrhacke captured the strange, disjointed rhythms in the part extremely well, the "fool" easily the match of the orchestra. Perhps Waldemar is the fool, still obsessed by ."Ich und Tove, wir sind eins", oblivious to his predicament. Thus the brooding in the orchestra before the male choirs returned, textures subdued yet uncowed. "Ins Grab! Ins Grab!" A particularly good Wild Hunt of the Summer Wind, tubas booming, let by high winds, with chamber-like delicacy in the playing. The role of the Speaker is usually cast with a singer whose voice is past its bloom, but whose musical instincts are still strong enough to declaim with Sprechstimme intonation. Some of the great singers of the past have done the Speaker so he/she feels like a ghost from the past, revived, like Waldemar and his Knights, a thoughtful insight. Barbara Sukova is an actress with musical nous, whose voice is still fairly youthful, so her Speaker was different, closer perhaps to Klaus-Narr commenting on the spectres, as opposed to being one of them, which is perfectly valid. A blazing "Seht die Sonne!"! and the audience in the Royal Festival Hall went wild. In orchestral terms, this was an outstanding Gurrelieder, Salonen and the Philhrmonia delivering with insight and understanding.
Anne Ozorio