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."
Fairy-tales work on multiple levels, they tell delightful yet moral stories, but they also enable us to examine deeper issues. With its approachably singable melodies, Engelbert Humperdinck's Märchenoper Hänsel und Gretel functions in a similar way; you can take away the simple delight of the score, but Humperdinck's discreetly Wagnerian treatment of his musical material allows for a variety of more complex interpretations.
The Royal Opera's new production of Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel replaced Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier's rather dark, contemporary vision of the opera, one that was mostly aimed at adults. On 13 December 2018, Antony McDonald's new production was firmly on the family-friendly side, the production notes saying that it was suitable for children over the age of six. McDonald, who both directed and designed, took a picture-book fairy-tale approach, yet did so with style and intelligence.
The eponymous children were played be Jennifer Davis and Hanna Hipp with Michaela Schuster and Eddie Wade as their parents (Wade was a very late replacement for an ailing James Rutherford), and Gerhard Siegel as the witch. Plus, Christina Gansch as the Dew Fairy and Haegee Lee as the Sandman. Sebastian Weigle conducted.
During the overture, the drop curtain depicted a picture-perfect Alpine valley, but we had two glimpses of Hänsel, Gretel and their family, the first happy and prosperous, the second dejected and poor, with a Swiss clock at the top of the proscenium indicating the passage of time. The look of the opening act was very much that of older traditional productions, with a realistic wooden chalet and even a stove (on which Mother would 'cook' at the end of the act). Yet the realism only went so far, and this was very much a fairy-tale with the family's hard times not having any of the dirty, sharp edges which some productions bring to it.
James Rutherford as Peter, Michaela Schuster as Gertrud. Photo credit: Clive Barda.
Michaela Schuster was a magnificent mother, really singing the role and making the character quite serious yet approachable. Eddie Wade gave sterling support as Father, a role which he only took over as short notice, and their scene at the end of Act One was a complex delight.
As the two children, Jennifer Davis and Hanna Hipp created an engaging and believable interaction, though these were fairy-tale children and the games never descended into nastiness or awkwardness. Jennifer Davis sang Elsa in the Royal Opera recent new production of Wagner's Lohengrin [see my review], so this was no light-weight account of the role, but Davis brought lightness and flexibility to her performance as well as admirable depth of tone. And she was well matched by Hanna Hipp's engaging Hänsel, so that there were none of the balance problems incipient in the opera when youthful voices collide with Humperdinck's neo-Wagnerian orchestrations.
Jennifer Davis as Gretel, Hanna Hipp as Hansel. Photo credit: Clive Barda.
McDonald's vision of the forest in Act Two moved us firmly away from naturalism and into the world of fairy-tale, as his rather dark yet stylish forest was peopled with animals and magical beings, including a striking insect which slowly crawled up McDonald's false proscenium, a fox with a spade and a deer with a gun. Haegee Lee was unrecognisable as the charmingly gnome-like Sandman who was joined by a fairy who seemed to be the presiding genius of the forest.
The dream pantomime at the end of the act always presents a challenge for directors, and few try to implement directly the stage directions with the vision of fourteen angels, though here McDonald wittily gave reference to this when the Sandman and the Fairy placed strings of cut-out angels above the sleeping children's heads. Instead the forest was suddenly filled with characters from other fairy-tales by Brothers Grimm, all interacting in unusual ways so that Little Red Riding Hood stops Snow White from eating the apple. A charming idea, but it rather liked the cathartic emotional climax which this scene needs.
Act Three introduced us to Christina Gansch's delicious Dew Fairy with her watering can, a lovely cameo. The witch's house, when it appeared was firmly in the haunted house category, evoking either the motel in Psycho or perhaps the house belonging to the Adams Family . It certainly did not look like the classic gingerbread house, though there was a giant cherry on the top.
Gerhard Siegel as Witch. Photo credit: Clive Barda.
Gerhard Siegel made a cosily characterful witch, transforming from a dirndl-clad Hausfrau into something of a mad-scientist in charge of the complex chocolate-making apparatus contained within the witch's house. Siegel sang well, and if you have to have Rosine Leckermaul played by a man, then this was perfectly admirable though I still prefer having her sung by a mezzo-soprano (that said, the one time I heard a counter-tenor singing the role was memorable indeed). The scene was delightful rather than disturbing or scary, and the climax was very much the moment when Rosine was pushed into the chocolate vat, its subsequent explosion and the witch's reappearance as a chocolate figure!
The children at the end, all chocolate covered, were played by members of the ROH Youth Opera Company.
Sebastian Weigle drew a richly romantic account of the score from the Royal Opera House Orchestra, making the music form a fine part of the overall fairy-tale.
I have to confess, that I rather prefer my productions of Hänsel und Gretel to have something of a psychological edge to them, but if you want pure fairy-tale then this production does it with great imagination.
Robert HugillEnglebert Humperdinck: Hänsel und Gretel
Hänsel - Hanna Hipp, Gretel - Jennifer Davis, Mother - Michaela Schuster, Father - Eddie Wade, Sandman - Haegee Lee, Dew Fairy - Christina Gansch, Witch - Gerhard Siegel; Director/designer - Antony McDonald, Conductor - Sebastian Weigle, Lighting designer - Lucy Carter, Movement Director - Lucy Burge, Associate Set Designer - Ricardo Pardo.
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 13 December 2018.