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.
The Dutch National Opera season opens officially on the 7th of September with a third run of Simon McBurney’s production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, an unqualified success at its 2012 premiere. Last Tuesday, however, an audience aged between sixteen and thirty-five got to see a preview of this co-production with English National Opera and the Aix-en-Provence Festival.
The company went all out to make the young spectators feel at home, especially first-timers. Ticket prices were affordable and an insert in the program contained a synopsis of the synopsis and ten Magic Flute fun facts. General Director Els van der Plas welcomed the sea of fresh faces, stressing that opera is also for them and mentioning the various discounts and associations aimed at patrons as young as those still in high school. Judging by the spontaneous reactions during the performance and the loud cheers at the curtain call, DNO picked the right fare for its intended audience.
The cast was a mix of new faces and carry-overs from the previous two runs. Overall, it is the most vocally charismatic yet. After a hint of trouble with flexibility in the portrait aria, Stanislas de Barbeyrac, as the unflagging Prince Tamino, wielded a classy lyric tenor with a heroic glint. On a quest to rescue the captive Pamina, Tamino must also attain enlightenment by undergoing a series of ordeals set by high priest Sarastro. Matching his strong stage presence, soprano Marie Eriksmoen as Pamina sang in unblemished silvery lines. Although sounding every bit like royalty, she also projected relatable warmth and dejection. Fortunately, the Papageno of baritone Thomas Oliemans remains unchanged. Totally at ease vocally and coherent down to the last eye-roll, Oliemans’s Bird-Catcher is one of the best ever performances on this stage. The good-hearted but volatile man in search of a mate triggered both sympathy and mild exasperation. After a brilliant comic routine with wine bottles and a pair of leeks to “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen” one couldn’t help but root for him, bird poo stains and all. When Lilian Farahani’s Papagena decided to put an end to his loneliness, the pair descended into the audience and carried it away with their hyperactive duet.
A trio of fine Dutch singers, Judith van Wanroij, Rosanne van Sandwijk and Helena Rasker, sang assertively as the Three Ladies. These sexually aggressive beings with kohl-rimmed eyes are agents of the Queen of the Night, soprano Nina Minasyan, whose waning power is symbolized by her reliance on a cane and a wheelchair. Minasyan, a most valuable newcomer to the cast, effectively conveyed the Queen’s helplessness while fulminating with razor-sharp coloratura. Conductor Antonello Manacorda sculpted the score lovingly, giving the singers all the space they needed. A few lapses in crispness were amply compensated by the balmy sound of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra on period instruments. The audience loved it when principal flute Hanspeter Spannring and Jan-Paul Grijpink on the glockenspiel joined the stage action. The house chorus iced the cake with velvety ensembles.
McBurney relates the tale straight, on a set drained of color, but which constantly fizzes with surprises. The viewer is playfully engaged by the ingenious use of simple theatrical techniques, such as live projections of chalk drawings. Papageno’s birds are actors flapping white pages, leather-bound books form the pillars of Sarastro’s temple. Live sound effects emerge from a cabinet of wonders and the raising and lowering of a suspended platform keeps the characters on the go. No attempt is made to analyze Emanuel Schikaneder’s libretto, an exposition of Masonic ideals larded with the unquestioned racism and sexism of 18th-century Europe. An ugly racial slur is erased by having the slave overseer Monostatos describe himself as a monster instead of referring to his skin color. The misogyny remains: women don’t do much except talk a lot and their brains are too feeble to comprehend the knowledge monopolized by Sarastro and his Brotherhood. The work’s Masonic symbolism is absent from the staging, and without it the plot raises several questions. Why is the Queen of the Night evil? How does Tamino ignoring his girlfriend purify and edify either of them? McBurney does not provide any answers.
Although no sides are taken, Sarastro is presented as a messianic, coercive leader. With his silver main and granite bass, Dimitry Ivashchenko was both magnetic and unnerving in the role. One wouldn’t want to run afoul of his right-hand man either, the cold, stern-voiced Maarten Koningsberger. In a cast with practically no weak links, even Sarastro’s goons were pitch-perfect, from tenor Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke as the hateful Monostatos to the exemplary Armored Men of Tristan Llŷr Griffiths and Geoffroy Buffière. It may take some extra effort to get young patrons into the opera house, but it is nights such as this one that will make them want to go back.
Jenny Camilleri
Cast and production information:
Pamina: Mari Eriksmoen; Queen of the Night: Nina Minasyan; Tamino: Stanislas de Barbeyrac; Papageno: Thomas Oliemans; Sarastro: Dimitry Ivashchenko; First Lady: Judith van Wanroij; Second Lady: Rosanne van Sandwijk; Third Lady: Helena Rasker; Papagena: Lilian Farahani; The Speaker: Maarten Koningsberger; Monostatos: Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke; First Priest/Second Armored Man: Geoffroy Buffière; Second Priest/First Armored Man: Tristan Llŷr Griffiths. Three Boys: Boys’ Choir of the Chorakademie Dortmund. Director: Simon McBurney; Movement: Josie Baxter; Set Design: Michael Levine; Costume Design: Nicky Gillibrand; Lighting Design: Jean Kalman; Video: Finn Ross; Sound Design: Gareth Fry. Conductor: Antonello Manacorda. Dutch National Opera Chorus. Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. Seen at Dutch National Opera & Ballet, Amsterdam, on Tuesday, 4th of September, 2018.