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."
When Engelbert Humperdinck's sister, Adelheid Wette, wrote the libretto to Hansel and Gretel the idea of a poor family living in a hut near the woods, on the bread-line, would have had an element of realism to it despite the sentimental layers which Wette adds to the tale.
But from our contemporary perspective it is difficult to make such a setting seem anything but picturesque, so opera directors have mined the psychological elements underlying the story. Two iconic 20th century productions, that of David Pountney for English National Opera and by Richard Jones for Welsh National Opera set the piece in urban 1950s with the wood and the witch representing a psychological nightmare based on reality.
Stephen Medcalf's production of Englebert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel was shared between the Royal Northern College of Music (where it debuted last year) and Grange Park Opera, where we saw the second performance on Thursday 27 June 2019. Caitlin Hulcup was Hansel and Soraya Mafi was Gretel with Susan Bullock as Mother and the Witch, William Dazeley as Father, Lizzie Holmes as the Dew Fairy and Eleanor Sanderson-Nash as the Sandman. George Jackson conducted the orchestra of English National Opera.
Medcalf and his designer Yannis Thavoris set the piece in the 1890s with the family as urban poor, whilst the 'forest' is simply the outside city (Thavoris provided a striking forest of street lights) and foraging for the children consists of scrounging and stealing Oliver Twist-style. The witch's house is in fact a magic sweet shop, but its interior is a magically larger version of the children's home. All this would seem to provide some interesting psychological layers to explore, particularly as the production had Susan Bullock doubling as the Mother and the Witch.
In fact the urban forest entirely lacked a sense of danger and, populated during the Witches ride by a cast of Dickensian-type characters, seemed simply picturesque with the children remarkably in charge of their own destiny. Whilst the third act's setting in a version of the children's home had interesting resonances, none of this was explored as Susan Bullock's Witch was a magnificently comic creation which had little link, physical or metaphorical, to her performance in Act One as Mother.
The intention, as with the Royal Opera's disappointing recent new production of the opera seemed to be to provide an evening of unthreatening entertainment, and within these constraints Medcalf's production was surprisingly imaginative, and coupled to one of the finest musical performances of the opera that I have heard in a long time.
The musical delights started with the first notes of the overture as the horn melody rose out of the pit, rich in texture and beautifully shaped. George Jackson and the orchestra brought out the well-made counterpoint which underlies Humperdinck's score. Yes, the glorious melodies were there, finely phrased and, well, glorious. But weaving them together was a sense of this beautifully made German counterpoint, which showed the work's complex history. The orchestra of English National Opera seemed to be demonstrating what we were missing by not using a full orchestra for ENO's recent production of Hansel and Gretel at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. And George Jackson, a young conductor to watch, was clearly alive to the various resonances in Humperdinck's score. Yes it is Wagnerian, but I also heard pre-echoes of Mahler in the Act Two folk-sequences. Throughout the amount of detail was wondrous, yet woven into an enchanting construction which mixed humour with the magical. The angel pantomime at the end of Act Two provided the element of transformative radiance, which was entirely lacking in Medcalf's lamp-lighter's ballet. Whatever other musical delights the production offered, and there were plenty, I kept coming back to Jackson and the orchestra.
Soraya Mafi and Caitlin Hulcup made a delightful pairing as Gretel and Hansel, for all the picturesque charm of the characters' depiction there was a fundamental seriousness to their performance which emphasised the music's quality. Mafi was a poised Gretel, shaping the lovely melodies carefully and expressively, and she was matched by Hulcup's wonderfully boyish Hansel (one of the best 'boys' I have seen in this opera for a long time), with the two voices blending and contrasting. They kept the action moving so that the scenes between them in the first two acts, which can sometimes drag somewhat, flew by.
There was a fundamental realism to Susan Bullock and William Dazeley's performances as Mother and Father which anchored Act One in the real world rather than magic or fairy-tale, and this vastly benefitted the performance. Both were well sung, providing rounded depictions rather than just sketched in 'characters'. Bullock was transformed in Act Three and her Witch was a gloriously comic creation, vocally commanding and delightfully outrageous.
Eleanor Sanderson-Nash's Sandman was a louche opium addict, a picturesque and nicely bohemian touch, whilst Lizzie Holme's charming Dew Fairy was in fact the milk-man. Both women looked unrecognisable in the male personae. The women from this year's ensemble at Grange Park Opera provided the children's chorus at the end, appearing from the oven as a fleet of refugees from Oliver Twist.
For some reason this was sung in German, when the accessibility of the production would have suggested using an English translation. But the cast's diction was excellent and all made Humperdinck's setting of the German tell.
George Jackson, the orchestra and the cast made this performance a musical delight which meant that the music transcended the rather picture-book nature of the production, giving us a highly musically literate and satisfying evening.
Robert Hugill
Hansel: Caitlin Hulcup, Gretel: Soraya Mafi, Witch / Mother: Susan Bullock, Father: William Dazeley, Dew Fairy: Lizzie Holmes, Sandman: Eleanor Sanderson-Nash; Director: Stephen Medcalf, Conductor: George Jackson, Designer: Yannis Thavoris, Lighting design: Jason Taylor.
Grange Park Opera, West Horsley Place, Surrey; 27th June 2019.