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.
![View of audience at Millennium Park [Photo by Todd Rosenberg courtesy of Lyric Opera of Chicago]](http://www.operatoday.com/Crowd%20Shot_c.%20Todd%20Rosenberg.png)
Lyric Opera of Chicago presented this year’s annual concert, Stars of Lyric Opera at Millennium Park. The evening’s program featured a range of selections from works to be presented in the 2019–2020 season along with arias and scenes from other notable and representative operas.
Soloists performing in this concert were Marianne Crebassa, Lawrence Brownlee, Adam Plachetka, Krzysztof Bączyk, and members of the Patrick G. and Shirley W, Ryan Opera Center. The Lyric Opera Orchestra was led by the company’s music director, Sir Andrew Davis, and the Lyric Opera Chorus was prepared by Michael Black.
Both halves of the concert were introduced by an orchestral selection. The overture to Giuseppe Verdi’s Luisa Miller, scheduled to begin performance in October, opened the evening’s program. Davis elicited lush, lyrical motifs from the string section while punctuating these with dramatic lines emphasizing the opera’s fundamental tensions between love, family, and political intrigue.
Adam Plachetka [Photo courtesy of Askonas Holt]
In the first vocal selection Mr. Plachetka gave a spirited performance of Ford’s monologue from Verdi’s Falstaff. Since Plachetka is arguably equally skilled as an actor as singer, this role and scene fits his voice ideally. He concluded the aria with dramatic extended pitches.
Lawrence Brownlee [Photo by Shervin Lainez courtesy of IMG Artists]
The audience was subsequently treated to the bel canto artistry of Lawrence Brownlee in Fernand’s aria, “Ange si pur,” from Gaetano Donizetti;s La favorite. Brownlee’s matchless sense of communicating the spirit of the piece while respecting the beauty of the musical line was manifest in this performance. His choice of piano emphasis, gleaming top notes of perfect pitch, and innate sense of legato throughout rendered this selection a memorable highlight of the evening.
As a fitting prelude to the new season’s production of Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly Matilda Edge sang “Un bel dì.” Ms. Edge showed an excellent use of shading on top notes, while the final bars of the aria floated into the aether. Experience and innocence were captured nicely by Kayleigh Decker and Christopher Kenney in their rendition of “Lã ci darem la mano” from Mozart’s Don Giovanni. In a subsequent excerpt Mr. Kenney performed Prince Ylizky’s aria from Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades. As one of the memorable solo, lyrical passages from that opera, it is essential for the baritone to give a sense of focused, emotional longing. Kenney’s rounded, full tone succeeded with a touch of melancholy in the mix.
Krzysztof Bączyk [Photo by Ksenia-S Photography courtesy of GM Art & Music]
The first part of the concert featured two additional soloists in noteworthy performance. Mr. Bączyk sang an aria from Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Aleko. Bączyk’s commanding vocal and stage presence suggested a blend of emotions, enhanced even more by shades of coloring in repeated phrases and words. The message of musical urgency resulted dramatically even for those not conversant in the Russian language.
Marianne Crebassa [Photo by Simon Fowler courtesy of IMG Artists]
Ms. Crebassa concluded this portion of the concert by singing the “Habanera” from Bizet’s Carmen in a scene also featuring the Lyric Opera Chorus. Crebassa sounded at once seductive and subtle, her breath control allowed for extended note and rapid shifts in tempo, while occasional passages taken with rubato gave appropriate emphasis.
The second half of the evening included four iconic arias from Il barbiere di Siviglia and the finale to the first act of the opera. Brownlee sang the serenade “Ecco ridente” with sufficient yearning so that his urgent desire to see Rosina was surely perceived. Brownlee’s rapid passagework, his performance of runs and decorative trills, and his beautifully phrased top notes were flawless. The emotional fervor of the scene was captured in the beauty of the singing. In much the same way, Crebassa’s performance of “Una voce poco fa” demonstrated those rare qualities of a Rossinian mezzo-soprano. Her evenness of projection and range with effortless, full low notes and flexibility of line throughout made this clever Rosina appear even more likely to outwit her superiors. Mr. Plachetka sang “Largo al factotum” with gusto and comic intensity, while Bączyk delivered a thundering performance of “La calumnia,” in which speed and volume were varied so that individual pitches communicated as much as phrases taken as a whole. The finale was spirited and bright, acting as a invitation to hear and see more of this glorious performance on stage. Since the artists here performing will be the principals in the opening of the 2019–2020 season at Lyric Opera of Chicago, there should be much to enjoy in the months to come.
Salvatore Calomino