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."
Stendhal (as recorded in his Life of Rossini) was not a fan of Rossini’s La Cenerentola, complaining that after the first few bars of the Introduzione he was already suffering from a ‘faint feeling of nausea’, a condition which ‘never entirely dissipated, [recurring] periodically throughout the opera, and with increasing violence’.
Stendhal blamed the banality of the music - ‘a servants’ hall vulgarity’ - which failed to inspire his imagination, because it left too little to the imagination.
The same certainly could not be said of director Stuart Barker’s production of Rossini’s prince-and-pauper fairy-tale romance for British Youth Opera at the Peacock Theatre, which found a perfect balance between fantasy and realism. Bek Palmer’s designs merged the Dickensian with the Expressionistic, with an occasional dash of Walt Disney thrown in. The acute rakes, plunging angles and oppressive shadows of the Act 1 set established the grey, bleak world in which Angelina toils and suffers: after all, the very name Cenerentola suggests a life lived amid ashes - and on this occasion the bullying Don Magnifico and his dastardly daughters, Clorinda and Tisbe, practically shoved this ragged Angelina into the fire-place with a broomstick. The only touch of colour was the purple velvet of ‘Dandini’s’ jacket and ‘Prince Ramiro’s’ splendid green spencer jacket - the gilt trimming and brocade hinting at Cinders’ future good fortune, perhaps.
Jerome Knox (Dandini), Natalie Davies (Tisbe), Adam Maxey (Don Magnifico) and Holly Brown (Clorinda). Photo credit: Bill Knight.
Transformation came via a starry indigo front-drop, as Angelina was whisked in a crescent-moon stagecoach - the man-in-the-lunar-carriage smiling beneficently - to the Klimt-like arbours, vaults and turrets of the Prince’s palace, for Act 2. There may be no glass slipper in librettist Jacopo Ferretti’s version of the fairy-tale, but Angelina’s essential goodness and preciousness seemed reflected in her surroundings - a shimmering dazzle of gold and light.
Rossini makes considerable demands upon his cast and the young singers uniformly met them with panache. Mezzo-soprano Siân Griffiths has made a strong impression as part of the ensemble in several recent BYO productions - Riders to the Sea and Sāvitri Riders to the Sea and Sāvitri (2015), English Eccentrics (2016) and Judith Weir’s The Vanishing Bridegroom (2017) - and it was satisfying to see her take her moment in the title role in her stride, expressively establishing Angelina’s sadness and gentility in ‘Una volta c’era un re’ and stylishly negotiating the glittering coloratura and gleaming peaks of ‘Nacqui all’affanno’. Griffiths’ mezzo has a lovely darkness at the bottom, capturing the depth of Cinders’ melancholy, and it brightens as it rises, accurately and agilely nailing every individual note in Rossini’s fearsome fioritura.
Siân Griffiths (Angelina). Photo credit: Bill Knight.
Ferretti avoided the erotic symbolism of the glass shoe, replacing it with a bracelet, so we are spared the gruesome sight - à la Brothers Grimm - of the sisters hacking at their toes in order to stuff them into the silken slipper. But, this ghastly pair were a grisly duo indeed: Holly Brown (Clorinda) and Natalie Davies (Tisbe) groaned and grimaced with a sourness that would curdle the blood, all the while singing with winning gloss and glitter, and interacting with terrific comic accord - it was hard to believe that they weren’t in fact sisters.
Adam Maxey (Don Magnifico). Photo credit: Bill Knight.
I admired Adam Maxey’s Figaro at the RCM last autumn and he used his strong baritone to balance the brutality and buffoonery which characterise Don Magnifico: threatening Angelina with violence and cruelly pronouncing her to be dead with the Prince comes calling, and ebulliently juggling the Prince’s vintage vinos in celebration of his promotion to ‘Master of the Wines’. The surreal cavatina in which Don Magnifico dreams he is an donkey, but a dignified one - “un bellissimo somaro … ma solenne” - was exuberantly comic. Maxey’s height - and his coiffure and superciliary extravagance (a touch of Disney’s Lady Tremaine, perhaps?) - helped him command the stage, and made Don Magnifico’s fall from disdain to discomfort all the more satisfying.
Liam Bonthrone was a Prince Ramiro of integrity. Bonthrone and Griffiths blended beautifully in their Act 1 duet, ‘Un soave non so che’, both crafting shapely melodies, and the tenor fearlessly climbed to the top of Rossini’s challenging vocal lines, using the energy of the music to suggest the Prince’s ardency and nobility. Jerome Knox enjoyed his chance to be Prince for a day: his Dandini was confident and ingratiating.
Ferretti gives Angelina no fairy godmother to replace her own absent one. Instead, she has to make do with Alidoro, allegedly the Prince’s tutor. In BYO’s The Rake’s Progress last year, bass Thomas Mole was a splendid Keeper of the Madhouse, a title that might have been just as fitting on this occasion: attired in a tweed suit and adorned with charmingly whimsical whiskers, Mole was an altruistic guardian, ensuring that goodness got its just rewards but retaining just the right touch of mystery and magic.
Jerome Knox (Dandini), Liam Bonthrone (Prince Ramiro), Tom Mole (Alidoro). Photo credit: Robert Workman.
In the pit, conductor Peter Robinson led the Southbank Sinfonia in a performance that failed to match the dizzying, dazzling action on stage. The instrumental playing was competent but lacked the kaleidoscopic colour and movement which Rossini score offers.
The performance was sung in Wilfred Judd’s 1986 English translation in order, according to Assistant Conductor Chloe Rooke’s programme note, to ‘give the singers the opportunity to communicate directly with an audience and to reproduce English speech rhythms in their working of the musical lines’. Well, they certainly communicated with punch - particularly impressive given the rather unhelpful Peacock Theatre acoustic - but since the open vowels and soft consonants of the Italian language, particularly at word-endings, facilitate the bel canto style, one wonders whether the young singers might have welcomed the opportunity to develop their skills in that idiom.
That said, this was a delightful evening of astute comedy and accomplished singing. The young cast were fully in command of their roles and the drama unfolded with a naturalism that belied the comic follies. Ferretti eschews the dark conclusion of the Brothers Grimm - in which the sisters have their eyes pecked out by doves, punished for their wickedness with blindness - preferring Charles Perrault’s reconciliation in which Angelina pardons her sisters for their former viciousness. Given the current confusions and absurdities of contemporary public life, it’s reassuring to think that, perhaps, a ‘Happy Ever After’ ending might be possible after all.
Claire Seymour
Clorinda - Holly Brown, Tisbe - Natalie Davies, Angelina - Siân Griffiths, Don Ramiro - Liam Bonthrone, Dandini - Jerome Knox, Don Magnifico - Adam Maxey, Alidoro - Thomas Mole, Chorus (Joseph Chalmers, George Reynolds, Matthew Salter, Theo Perry, Ben Knight, Tormey Woods, John Holland-Avery, Joseph Hookway, William Rennie, Matthew Secombe, Samuel Kibble); Director - Stuart Barker, Conductor - Peter Robinson, Designer - Bek Palmer, Movement Director - Caitlin Fretwell-Walsh Lighting Designer - John Bishop, Costume Supervisor - Laura Pearse, Southbank Sinfonia.
Peacock Theatre, London; Tuesday 3rd September 2019.