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.
![Lucas Meachem and Sondra Radvanovsky [Photo © Cory Weaver]](http://www.operatoday.com/Lucas%20Meachem_Sondra%20Radvanovsky_THE%20QUEEN%20OF%20SPADES_Lyric%20Opera%20of%20Chicago_c.Cory%20Weaver.png)
If obsession is key to understanding the dramatic and musical fabric of Tchaikovsky’s opera The Queen of Spades, the current production at Lyric Opera of Chicago succeeds admirably in portraying such aspects of the human psyche.
Sir Andrew Davis conducts the Lyric Opera Orchestra in the gripping score and the Lyric Opera Chorus is prepared by its Chorus Master Michael Black. The central role of Gherman is sung by Brandon Jovanovich. Lisa who develops into a gradual emotional attachment for Gherman, is sung by Sondra Radvanovsky. Both artists delve into the portrayal of their characters with an intensity that demands attention from the audience. Also giving performances of urgency and commitment are Lucas Meachem as Prince Yeletzky, Elizabeth DeShong as Pauline, Jane Henschel as the Countess, Samuel Youn as Count Tomsky, and Jill Grove as their Governess. The production was directed originally by Richard Jones; the revival is directed by Benjamin Davis. Making her debut at Lyric Opera in these performances is Ms. Henschel.
The Lyric Opera Orchestra is led by Davis with sensitive shaping through the hauntingly lyrical introduction, just as the interplay of lighting and scrims draws the spectator into the lives and minds of the characters. Groups and smallish crowds alternate with individuals in the opening scene staged in a public park in St. Petersburg. The lively choral passages of nannies and their youthful charges give way with a smooth transition to the conversation of several offices now alone in the park. During the course of this scene the group of officers is variously seated on three uniformly placed benches, such feature suggesting a parallel between the depiction of public space and the fixation of the individual. At the entrance of Gherman change in the personality of the protagonist is noted by his fellow officers. In the dialogue between Count Tomsky and Gherman Mr. Youn succeeds admirably at depicting the compatriot bent on learning Gherman’s secret reserve. In the latter role Mr. Jovanovich creates an astounding figure: at first irritable and withdrawn, in response to Tomsky’s urging Gherman’s confession of his love for an unidentified, noble maiden proceeds into an opposing trajectory. In his determined yet admittedly hopeless focus on this attraction Jovanovich moves nervously from one bench to another of the three, his voice shifting convincingly from lyrical and dream-like statements to impassioned outbursts making use of head-tones to indicate excitement or despair. Once Prince Yeletzky announces his intention to marry, Gherman realizes that the object of his desire is even further from reach. Lisa and her grandmother, the Countess, appear in this public sphere, so that Gherman is now fully aware of his position. Once the story of the Countess’s youth in Paris - along with the intrigue of the secret three cards - is told, the protagonist’s obsession can here scarcely be contained.
Jill Grove, Elizabeth DeShong, and Sondra Radvanovsky
In the following scene the private interior of the noble household predominates. Lisa and her sister Pauline sing for their circle of intimates, the voices of Radvanovsky and DeShong blending in graceful arching lines. When subsequently alone in this scene, Radvanovsky’s impassioned self-examination shows a vastly contrasting approach. While she struggles to comprehend her diminished feelings for Yeletzky and an undeniable attraction to Gherman, Radvanovsky’s soaring top notes accelerate as her excitement at the thought of the officer persists. The encounter between Lisa and Gherman, who has secretly entered her room, intensifies until Jovanovich sings in terms of despair. The final moments of the act seal a union which cannot help but lead to a downward slide for the protagonists.
Brandon Jovanovich
In the second act social festivities at first predominate. When alone together Yeletzky attempts to plead his cause with Lisa, whose emotional distance he senses. In Yeletzky’s well-known aria Mr. Meachem sings with a lush, romantically infused line, so that his words should melt the heart of his beloved. Yet the stage-blocking indicates the futility of this lyrical reminder. At the start of the aria, the two characters stand together, by the close of Meachem’s wistful lines, they remain at opposing corners of the stage. With Lisa’s intervention Gherman is later able to gain access to the Countess’s chamber where he plans to confront her after the social event. Here Jovanovich moves as though one possessed while he remains concealed until alone with the Countess. His threats to obtain the secret of the cards are as credible as his dejection at not learning the secret when the Countess dies of fright.
The third act brings Ghernan’s obsession to an inevitable conclusion. As he reads a letter from Lisa in his barracks Jovanovich depicts his character as oddly and uncharacteristically calm. Once visited by the ghost of the Countess, Gherman’s demeanor changes. When Lisa attempts to appeal to his presumed devotion, Jovanovich ignores her in both thought and speech. Radvanovsky’s final lines before suicide are heart-rending. In the final scene in the gambling parlor Gherman realizes, of course, that he has been tricked by the spirit of the Countess. His suicide on a circular platform of the gaming table recalls the position of the three benches in the opening scene. Obsession reaches its inevitable conclusion in this stunning production and cast at Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Salvatore Calomino