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.
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.
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.
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.’
‘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.’
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."
The doors at The Metropolitan Opera will not open to live audiences until 2021 at the earliest, and the likelihood of normal operatic life resuming in cities around the world looks but a distant dream at present. But, while we may not be invited from our homes into the opera house for some time yet, with its free daily screenings of past productions and its pay-per-view Met Stars Live in Concert series, the Met continues to bring opera into our homes.
Music-making at this year’s Grange Festival Opera may have fallen silent in June and July, but the country house and extensive grounds of The Grange provided an ideal setting for a weekend of twelve specially conceived ‘promenade’ performances encompassing music and dance.
There’s a “slide of harmony” and “all the bones leave your body at that moment and you collapse to the floor, it’s so extraordinary.”
“Music for a while, shall all your cares beguile.”
The hum of bees rising from myriad scented blooms; gentle strains of birdsong; the cheerful chatter of picnickers beside a still lake; decorous thwacks of leather on willow; song and music floating through the warm evening air.
![Stars of Lyric Opera at Millennium Park Cast [Photo © Todd Rosenberg]](http://www.operatoday.com/Full%20Stars%20of%20Lyric%20Opera%20at%20Millennium%20Park%20Cast_c.%20Todd%20Rosenberg.png)
Lyric Opera of Chicago’s annual concert, Stars of Lyric Opera at Millennium Park, given during last weekend, was both a tribute to the many facets of opera and a preview of what lies ahead in the upcoming repertoire season.
The first part of the evening was devoted to excerpts from works by Giuseppe Verdi surrounding judiciously chosen selections from operas by Saint-Saëns, Mozart, and Puccini. The second half of the concert featured a selection form Act I and the whole of Act II from Puccini’s La bohème, with which the new season will open on 6 October 2018. The Lyric Opera Orchestra was conducted by Domingo Hindoyan, who will make his debut with the company in the performances of La bohème. The Lyric Opera Chorus was prepared by its Chorus Master Michael Black; the Chicago Children’s Chorus was prepared by Josephine Lee. General Director of Lyric Opera Anthony Freud provided welcoming and introductory remarks along with prefatory commentaries for the musical selections.
After a lyrically gentle and subsequently rousing performance of the overture to Verdi’s La forza del destino, led by Hindoyan with thoughtful precision, vocal selections began with the aria “Eri tu” (“It was you”) from Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera. Baritone Zachary Nelson performed the piece as an evocative reflection on the conflicting emotions of live, presumed betrayal, and hatred. Nelson’s assumption of the character Renato’s persona was evident from the start as he recalled with touching legato the happy days of love presumed lost. The emotional shift focused here on the intonation of “Traditor!” left no doubt of the fury now predominant in Renato’s heart. Nelson’s final, summary line, “O dolcezze perdute, o speranze d’amor, d’amor, d’amor,” (O lost delights, o hopes of love, of love, of love”), was sung with urgency and a gracefully held top pitch to close. In the following, two-part selection from Verdi’s Ernani, bass Adrian Sâmpetrean expressed Silva’s initial lament at finding his niece Elvira the object of unexpected suitors; in the following cabaletta Silva’s determination to exact revenge emerged in rapid melodic ardor. Sâmpetrean’s many roles in bel canto opera make especially suitable his assumption of this part in n early Verdi masterpiece. The voice maintains an attractive vibrato in the middle range, which Sâmpetrean allows to color individual lines distinctly. His credible shift into the cabaletta showed further decorative and dramatic sensitivity in underscoring the character’s text. Later in the first part of the concert the Lyric Opera Chorus performed with gusto and absolute control the “Anvil Chorus” from Il trovatore. Also a treasured Verdian favorite, the Lyric Opera Chorus performed together with soloists Whitney Morrison and Mario Rojas the brindisi “Libiamo” from Act I of La traviata. The timing between Chorus and soloists was comfortably observed and followed the impassioned lead projected by Rojas.
A trio of soloists provided significant interest to the remaining selections before intermission. While taking the place of the regrettably indisposed Elizabeth DeShong, mezzo-soprano J’nai Bridges sang an unforgettably mesmerizing account of the aria “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix” (“My heart opens to your voice”) from Samson et Dalila by Saint-Saëns. The arching lines of this seductive aria were taken with gracefully languid tempos as Bridges emphasized with extended notes key words such as “tristesse” (“sadness”) and l’ivresse” (“intoxication”). Her low pitches on these textual elements communicated an emotional shiver, just as Bridges’s voice rose upward in fervent appeal. This stunning vocal range was then capped by a final “Je t’aime” (“I love you”) taken here piano in intimacy. Danielle De Niese’s Lauretta from Puccini’s Gianni Schichi was a delight of maidenly enthusiasm with vocal flights shading into diminuendo. In her performance of “Placido è il mar: (“Calm is the sea”) from Act II of Mozart’s Idomeneo Ann Toomey’s voice bloomed impressively in phrases alternating with the Lyric Opera Chorus. Toomey’s dramatic top notes are a natural extension of the vocal line, the latter sung here with seamless legato. The decorative embellishments applied to Elettra’s aria were a further revelation in Toomey’s lovingly sculpted version of this Mozartean gem.
The second part of the concert presented excerpts from Puccini’s La bohème sung by the cast that will perform in the new production of this work at Lyric Opera in the next month. Michael Fabiano and Maria Agresta sang Rodolfo and Mimì joined, for Act II, by De Niese and Nelson as Musetta and Marcello. In the roles of the new lovers who discover each other in Act I Fabiano and Agresta fit their parts ideally. As a result, they are able to approach their vocal lines with truly individual color. As Rodolfo Fabiano sings “Che gelida manina” as a natural feeling of the poet who seeks to express the new inspiration of his heart. Likewise, Agresta transforms vocal innocence into a revelation of love’s magic by the close of the act’s duet. In the ensemble of Act II the sprightly yet urgent line performed with melting lyrical beauty by De Niese’s Musetta was a credible balm to the seemingly aloof Marcello. In the latter role Nelson’s voice resonated through the ensemble until both couples were, for now, united.
As a sample of this new production and much of the forthcoming season the evening’s concert provided an exciting introduction with the promise of an enjoyable season to come.
Salvatore Calomino