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."
A double celebration was the occasion for a packed house at the Barbican: the 150th anniversary of Berlioz’s birth, alongside Michael Tilson Thomas’s fifty-year association with the London Symphony Orchestra.
If, over the course of this symphonie dramatique its cumulative impact didn’t quite bring that special thrill factor, there was much to appreciate in the extraordinary daring of the composer’s conception. There’s the originality of its orchestration (with much favour given to the cello section), the striking novelty of its choral recitative and the odd, uneven distribution of the vocal forces where two of the three soloists (who never sing together) only participate in Part One. For some, this might be considered a wilful lack of consideration for his singers, and not least there’s the reduction of Shakespeare’s play to scattered scenes - barely a narrative in any conventional sense. That the doomed lovers are musically evoked from within the orchestra is a masterstroke.
This performance did not have the most convincing start and subsequently the ensuing reimagining of the warring Montagues and Capulets felt a little earthbound, though the intervention of the Prince brought some majestic brass tone. A polished semi-chorus of 12 singers from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama brought wonderful transparency to the Prologue’s text, closely followed by a poised Alice Coote - positioned between two harps and second violins - for her singular and memorable contribution. Ideally cast for this cameo role, her fine delivery and creamy tone enriched the folk-like melody and perfectly caught the pains of young love amid soft summer breezes, the whole enlivened by shapely phrasing from a reduced cello section.
American tenor Nicholas Phan made a similarly brief appearance for his Queen Mab narration, sung with jewel-like tone and much scintillation from some nimble woodwind playing. Romeo’s solitary thoughts were nicely captured by the LSO strings and Olivier Stankiewicz’s expressive oboe also caught the ear in the Larghetto espressivo. The ensuing ball and the arrival of both Romeo’s and Juliet’s themes (one noble, the other playful) drew a riot of colour, brass and violins keenly responsive to Tilson Thomas’s animation. Returning party revellers (the gentlemen of the LSO chorus) sang deftly, if not quite conveying an image of cavorting youths saying their farewells. It’s a tiny quibble, and of no great import since the LSO players have this music in their bones (transfused into their collective bloodstream over the years via Colin Davis) and the Love Scene glowed with exquisite tenderness, while the secondary reference to Queen Mab was delightfully buoyant.
From this fantasy the action moves to the presumption of Juliet’s death (thanks to a sleeping potion) and the surrounding lament. If the Funeral Procession didn’t quite mesmerise, the ensuing tragedy was vividly fashioned, a haunting clarinet for Juliet’s awakening and an explosive orchestral response as both lovers take their lives. French bass Nicolas Courjal made the most of his dramatic role, initially woolly-toned as a guilt-ridden Friar Lawrence, later commanding in his assertion that Verona will be ‘great in history’. The London Symphony Chorus (as Montagues and Capulets) responded to his pleas for reconciliation with strength of tone and characterful intensity.
Overall, this was a performance that illuminated the richness of Berlioz’s imagination, if not his dramatic instincts.
David Truslove
Alice Coote (mezzo-soprano), Nicholas Phan (tenor), Nicolas Courjal (bass) Michael Tilson Thomas (conductor), Guildhall Singers, London Symphony Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra.
Barbican Hall, London; Sunday 10th November 2019.