Recently in Reviews
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."
Reviews
02 Aug 2017
Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen at Grimeborn
Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen can be a difficult opera to stage, despite its charm and simplicity. In part it is a good, old-fashioned morality tale about the relationships between humans and animals, and between themselves, but Janáček doesn’t use a sledgehammer to make this point. It is easy for many productions to fall into parody, and many have done, and it is a tribute to The Opera Company’s staging of this work at the Arcola Theatre that they narrowly avoided this pitfall.
But a narrow miss doesn’t lead to a triumph of a production, I’m afraid.
There is some irony in the fact that the somewhat threadbare and ragged
forest in which this production was set mirrored the paucity of magic and
fantasy one craves for in this opera. I couldn’t really understand why the
woman sat two seats to my left seemed to be helpless with laughter for much
of this production when I found it to be largely oppressive, heavy-handed
and lugubrious. Some rather clumsy on-stage set changes exaggerated this
feeling.
If there was a strength to The Opera Company’s production then it rested in
Janáček’s more experimental concepts, such as ballet and mime. These
weren’t ideally synchronised - but then neither is nature. Two flies
shadowing one another appeared barely symmetrical but were all-the-more
realistic for it. The clever, quasi-puppetry of the hens was genuinely very
imaginative, and in one of the few instances of light used beyond the glare
of headlight white (in this case a muted red) to imitate death and
blood-letting it seemed momentarily chilling; red ribbon hanging from
severed hen’s heads rippled like streamers of blood. At its worst this
opera can seem very fragmented with its very short scenes and at times the
production really didn’t know what to make of these minimal pieces of
action. It sometimes seemed chaotic, and some entrances felt so brief as to
be almost meaningless. It felt like a little more direction, or just
magical imagination, was all that was needed to lift the values up a notch.
As is so often the case with this opera, the Act II duet between the vixen
and the fox is something of a tour de force. Perhaps the drama and
the tension of the scene, which was really rather splendidly sung by Alison
Rose (Vixen) and Beth Taylor (Fox) risked being undermined by the sheer
cutesiness of their offspring (Janáček really does move this scene along at
a frenetic pace). This was by some measure amongst the most assured singing
of the evening - it had a nuanced balance of warmth and affection between
the two principals that was largely missing elsewhere. Diction was very
fine, something which had been a nagging problem with other singers most of
the evening, despite the libretto having been sung in English and the
cosiness of the venue itself. Olive Gibbs’s Forrester, too, was largely a
resonant and clean performance.
The most controversial, and certainly problematic, part of this production
was the orchestration. Arranged for a piano quintet Janáček’s score largely
felt uncomfortably outside the decade in which it was written - the 1920s.
It’s often alluded to how close this particular score is to some of the
more Romantic late-Strauss operas but the effect here was to quash notions
of Romanticism and instead highlight somewhat darker, more jagged motifs.
Janáček uses woodwind in his full score to captivating effect but a piano
simply doesn’t replicate this. Nor, it should be said, was colour really
highlighted (something that was also emphasised by singers taking on
multiple singing roles). This was a mahogany-hued scoring that was
psychologically dark and sometimes menacing. The reduction did have the
advantage of highlighting the brutalist ostinatos which reflect the less
sentimental approach the composer took over his subject but perceptions of
the opera were largely changed beyond all recognition.
The Opera Company took a major risk in presenting this particular work as
their very first production and in many respects it didn’t quite come off.
Marc Bridle
Alison Rose (Vixen), Camilla Farrant (Cricket, Frog, Hen, Forrester’s Wife,
Fly, Fox Cub), Beth Taylor (Dog, Hen, Fly, Fox), Tim Langstone (Mosquito,
Rooster, Schoolmaster, Jay), Oliver Gibbs (Forrester), Ashley Mercer
(Badger, Priest, Harasta), Abigail Atttard Monalto and Jade Brider
(Dancers).
Guido Martin-Brandis (Direction), Oliver Till (Music Direction), Nina von
Der Werth (Choreography), Alexander McPherson (Set Design).
1st August, Arcola Theatre, London E8.