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.
Manitoba Opera capped its season on a high note with its latest production of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, sung in the key of goofiness that has inspired even a certain “pesky wabbit,” a.k.a. Bugs Bunny’s The Rabbit of Seville.
The company last presented the 203-year old opera buffa in November 2010, with its newest incarnation stage directed by Montreal’s Alain Gauthier for its three performances held on April 6th, 9th, and 12th. The 185-minute production (including intermission) boasted a strong cast of five principals with Tyrone Paterson leading the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra with his customary finesse.
Based on Cesare Sterbini’s Italian libretto, the production now transplanted from the 1800s to early 20th century Seville is admittedly plot-shy, relying rather on its stable of colourful characters painted in broad brushstrokes to bring its narrative to life.
First up is Figaro, with internationally renowned Canadian lyric baritone Elliot Madore’s dazzling MO debut as the tall, dark and strapping barber exuding conviction and swaggering ease every time he took the stage during the April 6th opening night performance, his booming vocals that filled the hall matched only by his flashing kilowatt smile.
Andrea Hill (Rosina), Elliot Madore (Figaro), and Steven Condy (Dr. Bartolo) [Photo by R. Tinker]
He nearly stopped the show with his Act I entrance aria, “Largo al Factotum”, receiving prolonged applause with cries of bravo for his performance that only gathered momentum until his final, enthralling burst of tongue-twisting patter spat out with razor-sharp precision. It is hoped that the Toronto-born dynamo, who has also graced such illustrious opera houses as Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Zurich Opera House, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Bavarian State Opera, among others, will return to the MO stage again – and soon.
Canadian mezzo-soprano Andrea Hill (MO debut) reprising her role of Rosina from Calgary Opera’s November 2017 production, also directed by Gauthier, instilled flesh-and-blood nuance into her all-too-human character, her growing exasperation at being shuttered away by Bartolo palpable.
Her opening cavatina “Una voce poca fa” immediately displayed her full palette of tonal colours, including a shimmering upper register and warmly burnished tones in her lower range. It also provided the first taste of her sparkling colouratura, as she nimbly scaled vocal heights with quicksilver runs, later heard as well during duet “Dunque io son...tu non m'inganni?” sung with Figaro.
Like Madore, Hill is also a crackerjack actor, possessing a flawless comedic timing that includes furiously plucking flower petals in rhythm during her colouratura passages, and mugging and mocking Bartolo during the Act II “lesson scene” that elicited open guffaws from the crowd.
American tenor Andrew Owens (MO debut) as Count Almaviva - first appearing as poor student Lindoro – admittedly had a tough act to follow with his own opening cavatina, “Ecco, ridente in cielo” performed in the riptide of Winnipeg baritone David Watson’s servant Fiorello (also doubling as the Notary), with the latter’s earth-shaking vocals always seeming a force of nature.
Nevertheless, despite a few minor intonation issues and balance issues with the orchestra that quickly settled, Owen’s supple voice as a true Rossini leggero tenor proved its expressive best during “Se il mio nome saper voi bramate”, accompanied by Figaro’s mimed guitar accompaniment, and sung with elegant grace.
American baritone Steven Condy (MO debut) created an imperious Dr. Bartolo who bellows orders to his charge, also not afraid to let his own hair down when warbling during his own number in falsetto after taking over from Rosina’s “The Useless Precaution” during her singing lesson. His “A un dottor della mia sorte” that ends with his own crisply executed patter did not disappoint, equally straddling both worlds of hilarity and threatening power that also fascinated.
Canadian bass-baritone Giles Tomkins likewise brought dramatic intensity to his role as Don Basilio, Rosina’s vocal tutor and ostensibly Bartolo’s slimy sidekick. His performance of Act I’s “slander” aria, “La calunnia” with its famous long crescendo in which he advises Bartolo to smear Count Almaviva’s name became an early highlight.
Special mention must be made of Winnipeg soprano Andrea Lett who threw herself into her role as whiskey-swilling, cigarette-puffing maid Berta. Her heart-wrenching Act II aria “Il vecchiotto cerca moglie” in which she reveals her fear of growing old without love became the opera’s poignant underbelly and sober second thought, sung with artful compassion.
Gauthier – who also directed MO”s production of Verdi’s La Traviata in November 2017 – wisely allows his cast to venture off-leash as the show progresses with the well-staged production (albeit a trifle “park ‘n’ bark” at times) eliciting frequent hoots of laughter from the crowd.
One of the comic highlights (naturally) included the lesson scene, with Almaviva, now disguised as mop-topped singing teacher Don Alonso appearing to channel the wacky spirit of Victor Borge complete with “air harpsichord” effects.
The highly stylized Art-Deco flavoured set originally designed by Ken MacDonald for Pacific Opera Victoria, evokes the swoops and angles of Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali, instilling a dreamlike atmosphere further heightened by Winnipeg lighting designer Bill Williams’s shifting rainbow of pastel hues, with all costumes designed by Dana Osborne, also for POV.
A recurring visual leitmotif of umbrellas held aloft and twirled at strategic points (mostly) by an all-male Manitoba Opera Chorus (prepared by Tadeusz Biernacki) created fascinating counterpoint to the voices. Pure magic also arose during Act I’s final chorus “Mi par d'esser con la testa” when the policemen’s “bayonets” suddenly morph into brollies. However, despite the tightly synchronized choreography, this clever idea began to feel too much of a good thing as overly fussy stage business, pulling focus from the leads also gamely navigating their own rain gear props.
The first Act alone clocks in at 105 minutes, with several scenes, including extended recitatives between characters needing to be tightened further. Still, the production’s palpable joy delivered with gusto by a well-balanced cast made one long for their own well-coiffed Figaro, able to fix all of life’s woes with a swish of his wrist and gleam in his all-knowing, watchful eye.
Holly Harris