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."
To remind you that Wagner’s Dutchman had its premiere in Dresden’s Altes Hoftheater in 1843 and his Tannhauser premiered in this same theater in 1845 (not to forget that Rienzi premiered in this Saxon court theater in 1842).
The Altes Hoftheater, designed by Danish architect Gottfried Semper, had opened in 1841 but burned to the ground in 1869. It was rebuilt by Semper and his son only to be bombed in 1945. Painstakingly restored by the then East Germans it again opened in 1985. Somewhere along the line it became the Semperoper — as well as an homage to its architect the name has become a clever play on words.
The 1300 seat Italian style theater offers rare insight into what might have been the long ago sounds of these first two operas of Bayreuth’s “Wagner canon.” The Semperoper has a very present pit, and not a very large pit.
The colors of the winds that emerged from the Tannhäuser pit were quite pure and very distinct, volumes and intensities of sound were measurably calibrated resulting in specific musical atmospheres for Wagner’s leitmotifs. The strings found bite when needed, and most of all emitted a truly stringy tone that molded a sharply etched harmony. Brass was brilliant, tympani were thunderous, and, cherry atop the cake, the Tannhäuser pit harp sounded loudly, as if it were just by the Wartburg minnesingers on stage. The Semperoper sound is distinctly not the Bayreuth sound.
Stephan Gould as Hermann (far left), Ekaterina Gubanova (standing) as Venus
The Dresden Stadtskapell principal conductor, Israeli born, thirty-seven year old Omer Meir Wellber was in the pit for this seventy-first performance of the 1997 production by the famed German director Peter Konwitschny who was fifty-two years old at its premiere. The nineteenth century painting that was the show curtain disappeared during Mo. Wellber’s splendid account of Wagner’s famous overture to reveal a huge stage wide, tilted golden bowl into which a bevy of mythological Bacchantes joyously slid. We knew we were in for a good time.
When once again we were among the mortals of Wartburg director Konwitschny replaced the bowl with a huge, stage wide, acutely curved crescent shaped platform wittily reminding us that there were some slippery slopes ahead (Tannhäuser’s salvation). It can be mentioned that the high step up onto this soaring platform and ascending its slopes was challenging for some of the performers.
Of extraordinary pleasure were the male choruses, the theater’s immediate acoustic supporting the clarity of its uniquely beautiful tone, this acoustic as well permitting the voices of the protagonists to project clearly through even the most intense orchestral fortes. Though the actual words of Wagner’s poem were very present in our ears, and supertitles may have been superfluous, the Semperoper provides supertitles in German and in English (there are no supertitles at Bayreuth).
Ricarda Merbeth as Elisabeth
If the initial vocal and physical movements of American Heldon tenor Stephen Gould were clumsy, by the third act when we had arrived at his extended narration of his pilgrimage to Rome he redeemed himself, if unfortunately not spiritually certainly artistically, and we were genuinely moved by his torment and later by his death. German soprano Dorothea Röschmann delivered a solidly sung Elizabeth throughout, though she did not plumb the emotional depths of Wagner’s sublime prayer to the Virgin Mary. American baritone Christoph Pohl sang Wolfram in requisite beautiful voice and depth of feeling as Elizabeth’s rejected suitor.
Stage director Konwitschny pursuing his Berliner Ensemble roots made his few scenic elements into abstracted symbols of Wagnerian philosophical aspirations. Of special prominence were the outsized swords wielded first by Tannhäuser and the Baccantes, then by the knights of Wartburg and finally by Elisabeth as she crouched before Wolfram while he delivered his exquisitely sung hymn to the evening star. The sword became the Calvary cross born by Jesus in his sacrifice to save sinners, now borne by Elisabeth to save Tannhäuser’s soul — this a quite striking image.
The musical edition for this production seems to be a combination of Wagner’s 1860 Dresden version, his 1861 Paris version and his 1875 Vienna version. Though there was no Act I ballet, Venus did appear at the end of the opera tempting Tannhauser to return to her. And in this Konwitschny staging the rejected Venus does not disappear, but overcome, she caresses the dead Elisabeth while Tannhäuser whispers his final plea for salvation to Elisabeth, the offstage chorus of pilgrims extolling the infinite mercy of God.
Venus was sung by Russian mezzo Ekaterina Gubanova, a role that is perhaps wasted on this gifted artist of wide emotional range (cfr. her Paris Eboli). The Konwitschny production works in bold conceptual strokes, any subtleties in Mme. Gubanova’s discrete performance were invisible and superfluous.
If the Tannhäuser pit revelled in the acoustical glories of the Semperoper, the Holländer pit underscored the stylistic limbo of this first mature Wagnerian music drama. American conductor John Fiore favored a bright, Italianate sound, making no effort to explore the darker atmospheres that can make Wagner’s Dutchman a magical experience.
Act II: Senta's bedroom
This was the thirtieth performance of this 2013 production by German opera and theater director Florentine Klepper. Most striking was the doubling of Senta with a pre-adolescent girl who rescued a wounded vulture during the overture and caressed it during much of the first act. She is also cruelly ensnared in fishing net by raucous sailors in the joyous music the closes the first act.
The spinning chorus of the second act brings thirty or so, identically dressed, pregnant women onto the stage who proceed to give live births on the stage (my third experience with scenic live births this year), Senta’s friend Mary is the midwife. The third act opens as a sort of marriage festival, with Senta’s father Daland lying Freudianly dead on a bed downstage left.
Act III marriage
Said and done, the Dutchman exits stage left to board his ship, sacrificed forever to the sea, video projected vultures obsessively circling. Senta puts on a coat, picks up a suitcase and exits stage right.
As you can imagine we were on the edge of our seats struggling to make all this somehow make sense, and of course we heard Wagner’s music as never before. The Semperoper fielded a plausible cast and Mme. Klepper was vindicated. If not the masculine redemption Wagner intended, it was still high music drama indeed, Mme. Klepper making the case that the Wagner muse had set its sights well beyond the mid-nineteenth century to the moment when the feminine spirit was as redeemable as the masculine.
Senta was convincingly sung by German soprano Ricarda Merbeth, a role she performed last summer at Bayreuth. Korean born, Italian finished baritone Antonio Yang was the rich, youthfully voiced Holländer who projected a threateningly confident and finally a sympathetically complex character. Senta’s first love, Erik was sung by Croatian tenor Tomislav Mužek, also an alumnus of last summer’s Bayreuth Dutchman. Bass Georg Zeppenfeld of the original 2013 cast again sang Daland, Simeon Esper also from the 2013 cast sang the Steersman.
Michael Milenski
Cast and production information:
Tannhauser
Landgraf Hermann: Georg Zeppenfeld; Tannhäuser: Stephen Gould; Wolfram von Eschenbach: Christoph Pohl; Walther von der Vogelweide: Patrick Vogel; Biterolf: Jukka Rasilainen; Heinrich der Schreiber: Tom Martinsen; Reinmar von Zweter: Alexandros Stavrakakis; Elisabeth: Dorothea Röschmann; Venus: Ekaterina Gubanova; Ein junger Hirt: Tania Lorenzo. Sächsischer Staatsopernchor Dresden, Sinfoniechor Dresden, Staatskapelle Dresden. Conductor: Omer Meir Wellber; Staging: Peter Konwitschny; Set Design: Hartmut Meyer; Costume Design: Ines Hertel; Choir Jörn Hinnerk Andresen. Semperoper, Dresden, Germany, March 2, 2019.
Der Fliegender Holländer Holländer: Antonio Yang; Senta: Ricarda Merbeth; Daland: Georg Zeppenfeld; Mary: Michal Doron; Erik: Tomislav Mužek. Steersman: Simeon Esper. Sächsischer Staatsopernchor Dresden, Staatskapelle Dresden.
Conductor: John Fiore; Staging: Florentine Klepper; Set Design: Martina Segna; Costume Design: Anna Sofie Tuma; Lighting Design: Bernd Purkrabek; Video: Bastian Trieb. Semperoper, Dresden, Germany, March 1, 2019.