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."
In this BBC Radio 3 lunchtime concert at the Wigmore Hall, soprano Roberta Invernizzi presented Italian songs from the first half of seventeenth-century, exploring love and loyalty, loss and lies, and demonstrating consummate declamatory mastery.
Invernizzi and her instrumental partners - lutenists Craig Marchitelli and Franco Pavan, and viola da gamba player Rodney Prada - began with two solo madrigals by Caccini. It took a little time for the musicians to settle, the sparse lute textures of the opening of ‘Dolcissimo sospiro’ (Most gentle sigh) providing only the mildest anchor for the voice, while the piquant chromaticism freed the vocal line still further. But, Invernizzi did not compromise the purity of her tone, floating dreamily. The entry of the viola da gamba underpinned the tangibility of the ‘sweet pain’ and drama accrued at the close, with a sudden injection of fleetness at the protagonist’s self-chastisement for futilely addressing a rambling sigh that would surely fly off to another’s heart - ‘Ad un sospiro errante/ Che forse vola in sen ad altro amante’.
All the qualities that would make this such an enthralling recital were present in this song. Invernizzi contrasted a ‘clean’, sincere sound, employing little vibrato, with richer colours, rippling through a musical or textual gesture to indicate a surge of anger or pain. Dynamic contrasts were similarly emotive and enhanced by vocal exclamations. Ornamentation was restrained, ensuring the listener’s engagement with the text, but the decoration of sustained notes was beautiful, and complemented by virtuosic diminutions and gestural flourishes in the accompanying parts. Most notable, though, was Invernizzi’s phrasing. She was responsive to the harmonic insinuations, bringing musical phrase, text and chromatic nuance together in a flexible line, often ‘bending’ the pitch towards a particular note or syllable and so blending the pain and pleasure which are the essence of these songs.
Caccini’s strophic dance ‘Dalla porta d’Oriente’ (From the gateway to the East) tripped along freely, until an affective rallentando at the close conveyed the suffering of the dawn sky, whose colorific splendour is paled by the fire of rubies that burns in two lovers’ hearts, an extravagant lute flourish sharpening the bitter tears which infuse the ‘roseo manto’ (rosy mantle).
It was good to hear some rarer songs too. Tarquinio Merula’s ‘Folle è ben che si crede’ (He is indeed mad, the man who believes’ was a droll protestation of fidelity, the final repetition of the stanzas’ indifferent refrain - ‘Dica chi vuole,/ dica chi sa’ (Let them speak who want to,/ let them speak who know’ - thrown away with an insouciant wry shrug. Luigi Rossi’s ‘La bella più bella’ (The most wondrous beauty) sparkled with the flightiness of the woman who vanishes abruptly from a sleeper’s dream, before the wriggling vocal line revealed his self-indulgent revelling in the piercing pains of love. The winding vocal line of Sigismondo d’India’s ‘Intenerite voi, lagrime mie’ (Move to pity, my tears) fired chromatic darts of pain, twisting and burning; the composer’s ‘Crud’Amarilli’ (Cruel Amarilli) was more pensive, submitting in crushed resignation in the final two lines, ‘Poi che col dir t’offendo,/ I’ mi morrò tacendo’ (and by saying this I offend you,/to my death silent will I go’).
The music of Monteverdi was the heart of the recital. ‘Ecco di dolci raggi il sol armato’ (See the sun armed with gentle rays) was a drama of fire and ice, the arioso fluid and seemingly spontaneous. A lovely bloom was followed by the soft diminishment of the voice at the close of ‘Si dolce è’l tormento’ (So sweet is the pain) to convey first the ardent lover’s unrequited passion, then his bitter resignation: ‘Ben fi ache dolente/Pentita e languente/Sospirami un dì’ (let her one day, repentant and languishing, suffer and yearn for me) ‘Disprezzata regina’ from L’incorozanione di Poppea was gripping, as Invernizzi communicated all the theatre of the rejected Ottavia’s emotional rollercoaster, in which, vulnerable and confused, she grieves for lost love (‘Dove, ohimè, dover sei’; hurls her anger at her evil deserter, ‘empio Nerone’; and imagines her tears reflecting her husband’s sensuous delights mingled with her own distress, the slippery chromatic line culminating in a delicious slow trill.
Woven between the vocal items were instrumental toccatas and passacaglias. In a passacaglia by Giovanni Kapsberger, the contrasting musical characters of the two lutenists made for an engaging duet discourse, as Marchitelli, more extrovert, leaned over his chitarrone towards Pavan, as the initial mood of gentle intimation and mystery became invigored with stronger animation and definition. Kaspberger’s Toccata Arpeggiata (from Libro I d’intavolatura di chitarrone) was rhythmically playful and impulsive, retreating to a whispered pianissimo and then, just when the threads of sound seemed about to disappear, propulsively swelling once more. Rodney Prada roved across the full range of his viola da gamba in Orazio Bassani’s Tocatta per B Quadro, producing a full, juicy bass tone, while in a Canzone by Giralomo Frescobaldi an engaging discourse ensued between the sweet, decorative melody of the viola da gamba and the vigorously brushed chords of the lutenists.
Invernizzi returned to Caccini at the close, offering one of the best-known madrigals of the period, the composer’s ‘Amarilli, mia bella’, as her encore. Once again, one marvelled at her declamatory technique and style, which gave such life to the fictional poet-singer that one could believe he was indeed present in Wigmore Hall.
Claire Seymour
Roberta Invernizzi (soprano), Rodney Prada (viola da gamba), Craig Marchitelli (lute), Franco Pavan (lute)
Caccini - ‘Dolcissimo sospiro’, ‘Dalla porta d’oriente’; Kapsberger - Passacaglia; Monteverdi - ‘Ecco di dolci raggi il sol armato’, ‘Disprezzata Regina’ (from L’incoronazione di Poppea); Bassani - Toccata per B Quadro; Frescobaldi - Canzone a basso solo; Merula - ‘Folle è ben che si crede’; Rossi - ‘La bella più bella’; Kapsberger - Toccata Arpeggiata from Libro I d’intavolatura di chitarrone; d’India - ‘Intenerite voi, lagrime mie’, ‘Cruda Amarilli’; Monteverdi - ‘Sí dolce è’l tormento’, ‘Voglio di vita uscir’.
Wigmore Hall, London; Monday 19th November 2018.