Recently in Reviews
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."
Reviews
06 Sep 2018
Prom 71: John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique play Berlioz
Having recently recorded the role of Dido in Berlioz' Les Troyens on Warner Classics, there was genuine excitement at the prospect of hearing Joyce DiDonato performing Dido's death scene live at the BBC Proms. She joined John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique for an all-Berlioz Prom at the Royal Albert Hall on Wednesday 5 September 2018. As well as the scene from Les Troyens, DiDonato sang La mort de Cleopatre and the orchestra performed the overture Le Corsaire and The Royal Hunt and Storm from Les Troyens, and were joined by viola player Antoine Tamestit for Harold in Italy.
Playing standing, the orchestra launched into Le corsaire with
enormous energy. Throughout the music was by turns headlong and thoughtful
with a real tang to the timbres, creating a vivid performance full of
contrasts.
This was followed by La mort de Cleopatra, Berlioz's third attempt
at winning the Prix de Rome (in fact that cantata was far too daring for
the jury). It is a striking sequence of recitative and aria which Berlioz
sets in a fluid manner, creating a single narrative. Joyce DiDonato gave a
dramatic performance, full of arresting detail and a vivid attention to the
words. She was complemented by the timbres and textures of the orchestra,
everyone making the music full of quick changes of mood. The death scene at
the end was terrific.
Next came the Royal Hunt and Storm from Les Troyens, the
ballet sequence which is as much orchestral showpiece as anything else.
Gardiner started quietly but again it was the sound and contrasts of the
period instruments which brought the music alive. Gardiner brought the
off-stage brass on-stage so that we were able to make the most of the
saxhorns, and it was lovely to be able to hear the contrast between the
smooth even tone of the saxhorns and the more varied timbres of the
hand-stopped French horns. This was a performance full of contrasts and
textures you could cut with a knife, a vivid and theatrical orchestral
experience.
We plunged on directly to Dido's death scene, with Joyce DiDonato rushing
on during the prelude. She gave us fluidly shaped recitative, complemented
by the colours in the orchestra. She made a passionate and dignified Dido,
with touching references back to the love duet. Unfortunately, given such a
vivid performance, we did not get the final death scene and the performance
finished with the air 'Adieu, fiere cite'.
In the second half we returned to earlier in Berlioz' career with his
symphony Harald in Italy. Gardiner and the orchestra began the
first movement with the soloist, Antoine Tamestit, off stage. Gardiner
brought a classical sweep to the music, yet the timbre of period
instruments gave romantic spice to the music. The piece is hardly a
concerto, Harold is the eternal observer, and Tamestit emphasised this by
coming on stage and observing the orchestra before playing, and he rarely
stood in the classic soloist’s position, instead wandering round the stage
creating a sense of visual dramatic narrative. He plays quite a big viola
with a beautiful singing sound, so that though not a virtuoso work
Tamestit's melodic line was the passionate centre of attention, and both
Tamestit and Gardiner brought sheer energy to the work. The second movement
was full of attractive textures, whilst Tamestit’s playing had real poetry
to it in the third movement. In the lively last movement, Gardiner and the
orchestra emphasised the crisp and lively rhythms, whilst Tamestit's viola
wandered in and out of the orchestra both physically and musically.
This was a programme which showed what can be gained from performing
Berlioz on period instruments, and Gardiner and his team complemented this
with a vivid sense of energy. It was lovely to hear DiDonato in the snippet
from Les Troyens, but as with the recent Proms performance of two
arias from Samuel Barber's Anthony and Cleopatra, it made you wish
that room could have been made for more substantial excerpts or even the
whole work. As it was, there was rather a sense of greatest hits about the
evening, but what hits they are.
Robert Hugill
Prom 71: Hector Berlioz - Le corsair, La mort de Cleopatra, ‘Royal Hunt and Storm’ (Les Troyens
), Dido’s death scene (Les Troyens), Harold in Italy
Joyce DiDonato - soprano, Antoine Tamestit - viola, John Eliot Gardiner -
conductor Orchestra Revolutionnaire et Romantique.
BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, London; 5th September 2018.