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 enchanting grounds of West Green House in the heart of rural Hampshire offer the ideal venue for Rossini’s fairy-tale-based opera, La Cenerentola. Glass side panels bring the 400-seater auditorium’s leafy surroundings a little closer and heighten the impact of a derelict Renault and no less shabby looking Land Rover that front the stage with a boldness redolent of Banksy’s ‘Monet with Shopping Trolley’.
Making the best of limited stage facilities, Richard Studer shrewdly adopts a one-size-fits-all design which neatly amplifies the contrasting fortunes of, and social distinctions between Don Magnifico and his daughters and Prince Ramiro, his tutor and valet who, together, shape over two hours of comic interaction, the whole given slick, clear-sighted direction by Victoria Newlyn.
This new production manages not just to point up clear-cut class difference outlined by Jacopo Ferretti’s libretti (drawn from Charles Perrault’s tale Cendrillon) but wittily brings into focus unfulfilled social aspirations notwithstanding the central rags to riches narrative of Cinderella. We meet her stepfather Don Magnifico near the beginning of Act One emerging sleepily from his abandoned car around which his loutish daughters Clorinda and Tisbe torment Cinderella with cooking and cleaning chores. An image of the family’s former home is shown backstage, so too a palatial residence but, owing to limited resources, any lavish ballroom scene is left largely to our imaginations - as are the voices of the Chorus which arrive pre-recorded.
Sioned Gwen Davies (Tisbe), Heather Lowe (Cinderella) and Zoe Drummond (Clorinda)
Rather than being short-changed by this specially tailored staging (along with Jonathan Lyness’s slimmed-down orchestral score) this made-to-measure version emphasises with potent immediacy the personal relationships of a cast of seven who, mostly at the start of their careers, provide strongly defined performances. Leading the young team, Heather Lowe made a wholly sympathetic Cinderella, no lily-livered personality here but a spirited young woman burdened by her lot without being entirely submissive to it. Vocally she was a joy to listen to, assured from her first folk-like ballad through to her enraptured final aria. On the way she combined an easy command of the role’s extended tessitura with a vocal agility that made room for plenty of expression no more so than her pleas to attend the prince’s ball. Hers was a voice that dispatched her multitudinous notes with an effortless facility, yet always placing technique at the service of the music.
Heather Lowe (Cinderella) and Filipe Manu (Ramiro).
She fashioned a believable partnership with New Zealand-Tongan Filipe Manu as the urbane Ramiro whose pleasing lyric tenor made light work of Rossini’s vocal demands, though his stage movement didn’t always convince in his dual roles as servant and prince. That said there was much to admire in his collaboration with Nicholas Mogg’s flamboyant Dandini attired in kilt and mismatching socks, and clearly revelling in his comic creation. Possessed with a clear, well projected voice, Mogg consistently held the ear and eye. His will be a name to watch out for.
Matthew Stiff (Don Magnifico), Filipe Manu (Ramiro), Blaise Malaba (Alidoro) and Nicholas Mogg (Dandini).
Matthew Stiff also had stage presence as Don Magnifico, a role both comic and cruel, and sung here with a vocal warmth that brought plenty of appeal to his ‘used-car salesman’ characterisation. His daughters, Zoe Drummond’s Clorinda and Sioned Gwen Davies as Tisbe, were superb as bickering siblings; to the manor born as chavvy teenagers whose attempts to win the hand of Ramiro made for some truly cringe-making moments - a compelling coupling. Finally, there was the sobering presence and rich tones of the young Congolese bass Blaise Malaba.
Cast of La Cenerentola at West Green House Opera.
Some of the most impressive musicianship came from the ensemble numbers where meticulous rehearsal paid off in assured performances occasionally supported by cheesy dance movement. Not exactly ‘Strictly’, but the disco-influenced routines were all part of this fun-filled evening. Giving support to those above stage was the West Green House Opera Orchestra skilfully directed by Matthew Kofi-Waldron. He secured stylish playing throughout and steered well-judged tempi that brought buoyancy and plenty of excitement without compromising ensemble. Altogether, a thoroughly enjoyable evening.
David Truslove
Cinderella (Angelina) - Heather Lowe, Ramiro - Filip Manu, Dandini - Nicholas Mogg, Don Magnifico - Matthew Stiff, Clorinda - Zoe Drummond, Tisbe - Sioned Gwen Davies, Alidoro - Blaise Malaba; Director - Victoria Newlyn, Conductor - Matthew Kofi-Waldren, Designer - Richard Studer, Lighting - Sarah Bath, West Green House Opera Orchestra.
West Green House Opera, Hook, Hampshire; Saturday 27th July 2019.