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.
![Amanda Woodbury as Violetta [Photo by Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival]](http://www.operatoday.com/KarliCadel-GGF19-Traviata-GenDress-3528.png)
From the first haunting, glistening sound of the orchestral strings to the ponderous final strokes in the score that echoed the dying heartbeats of a doomed heroine, Glimmerglass Festival’s superior La Traviata was an indelible achievement.
This is owing in no small measure to the inspired baton of Joseph Colaneri, who reinvented this timeless classic with fresh ears. Maestro Colaneri has cleansed the performance of some time honored performance indulgences, and if some standard rubati and fermati were missing, the result was liberating. The sprightly passages of Verdi’s masterpiece fairly crackled, while the poignant stretches were heightened by contrasting, intense introspection. The instrumentalists responded with a cleanly detailed, stylistically apt reading that was arguably their best work in the pit, in a season marked by fine playing. The cast was assuredly up to the demands of Verdi’s middle period masterpiece.
Violetta Valery is one of the pinnacles of operatic soprano roles and Amanda Woodbury met its challenges head on. Ms. Woodbury has a pliable, sizable lyric instrument that is completely able to meet the well-known challenges of this complex and lengthy role. She has the goods to dispatch Act I’s flighty coloratura with consummate ease; she has good command of the mid-range conversational passages of Act II and hurls out the spinto outpourings of Amami Alfredo with thrilling commitment; and she is in total control of the weighted pathos and limpid lyricism of Acts II and IV.
(Center) Amanda Woodbury as Violetta, Kang Wang as Alfredo and members of the ensemble
I have written before that Violetta, like Carmen, is a complex persona, sometimes enigmatic, often unpredictable, and endlessly malleable to the interpreter’s individual gifts. Amanda has at her command a surefire technique, a captivating vocal quality, and a heart-rending way with the many plangent sacrificial phrases. She is a wonderfully engaged actress who communicates the text with deep understanding, and vocalizes the part with a technique that is even and secure from top to bottom. The diva is also possessed of a lovely stage presence, making her Violetta assured and affecting.
As Alfredo, tenor Kang Wang reveled in the role, lavishing it with an assured lyric tenor of ample power and even production. Mr. Wang was able to encompass all of the sways of emotion the lad experiences, from unrestrained puppy love to discarded inamorato to penitent mourner. His confident singing wholly embraced Verdian styling, even though his instrument may lack just that final measure of Italianate squillo.
Adrian Timpau scored a huge success as Giorgio Germont, his large, incisive baritone filling the Alice Busch theatre to the rafters. Mr. Timpau nails both the ferocity and the compassion of the paterfamilias, and he invests his phrases with utmost meaning and clarity. His musical and theatrical journey with Ms. Woodbury in the great Act II duet was remarkably nuanced and gorgeously sung.
Amanda Woodbury as Violetta and Adrian Timpau as Germont
The minor roles were cast from strength with Apprentice Artists. Kameron Lopreore lent his sweetly solid tenor to Gastone, and Jonathan Bryan’s substantial, burnished baritone made much of Baron Douphol’s brief appearances. Schyler Vargas’ bright baritone was a welcome fit for the Marchese, with Wm. Clay Thompson’s refined bass true luxury casting as Doctor Grenvil. Bryn Holdsworth was an exceptionally affecting Annina thanks to her appealing lyric soprano and sympathetic presence. Lindsay Metzger’s solid, crisp mezzo and animated demeanor commanded attention as Flora.
The production was all one could wish, handsomely elegant, atmospheric, and grounded in a highly effective concept. Director Francesca Zambello begins the piece in a tubercular sanatorium, where Violetta (and others) was abandoned to die alone. Peter J. Davison’s monumental set design fills the upstage with a foreboding, clinical looking framework. Violetta is in a humble iron bed swathed in a white sheet against the chill. And lo, when the Act I party begins, she strips away the sheet to be revealed in a ravishing deep violet gown, as she is joined by revelers in similarly dazzling party wear. The splendid array of costumes was designed by Jess Goldstein, while Samantha M. Wootten contributed a magnificent hair and make-up design.
Set-wise, we soon learn that the “wall” behind the metal framework is actually a row of periaktois that now turn to create a sumptuous Parisian salon, as the hospital bed disappears and two extremely long tables get pushed together to create a “Grand Opera” setting with great economy of means. Mr. Davison also gifts us with an inviting country kitchen porch for Act II, and a hot-blooded, red-hued casino in Act III complete with over-sized gaming tables. Mark McCullough has lit the whole affair with a knowing sense of mood and color, contrasting the spirited nature of the public gatherings with the impending tragedy that comes to the fore in private spaces.
Kang Wang as Alfredo and Amanda Woodbury as Violetta
In spite of the expanse of the settings, Ms. Zambello has managed to create a very intimate experience through well-motivated blocking, carefully judged character relationship, and highly inventive stage business. I loved the way Violetta and Alfredo jumped on the long tables during the Brindisi walking to meet each other center above the heads of the other guests. And I loved that Alfredo mirrored that by jumping on a gaming table to denounce Violetta from above in Act III. There was wonderful use of a vase of flowers in Act II, which also had country farmhands parade across the back of the stage with a live chicken and dog. And then there was the spooky return to the sanatorium at the end of Act I. And, and, and. There were simply too many entertaining, illuminating, honest, heart-tugging moments to document here.
While Andrea Beasom contributed some clever choreography to enliven Flora’s party scene, it was emphatically Ms. Zambello’s creative staging combined with the sterling music-making and effective design that made this a La Traviata to treasure and cheer.
James Sohre
La Traviata
Music by Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave
Violetta Valéry: Amanda Woodbury; Alfredo Germont: Kang Wang; Giorgio Geront: Adrian Timpau; Gastone de Letorières: Kameron Lopreore; Baron Douphol: Jonathan Bryan; Marchese d’Obign: Schyler Vargas; Doctor Grenvil: Wm. Clay Thompson; Flora Bervoix: Lindsay Metzger; Annina: Bryn Holdsworth; Giuseppe: Aaron Crouch; Messenger: Allen Michael Jones; Flora’s Servant: Peter Morgan; Conductor: Joseph Colaneri; Director: Francesca Zambello; Set Design: Peter J. Davison; Costume Design: Jess Goldstein; Lighting Design: Mark McCullough; Choreographer: Andrea Beasom; Original Choreographer: Parker Esse; Hair and Make-up Design: Samantha M. Wootten; Chorus Master: Katherine Kozak.