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."
It’s an opera by Vicentino composer Domenico Freschi that premiered in 1681 at the country home of the son of the doge of Venice. Villa Contarini is a couple of hours on horseback from Vicenza, and a few hours by gondola from Venice).
Sig. Freschi’s little divertimento was a but a small part of a much bigger evening that went on, I assume, to include at least a naval battle on the villa’s pools, grandiose entertainment for a multitude of invited dignitaries.
A larger perspective of Venetian opera finds Monteverdi’s complex Coronation of Poppea premiere in 1643. Francesco Cavalli’s racy, slice-of-debauched-aristocratic-life operas that we see these days come from the 1650’s (his famed Parisian misadventure with theatrical machinery, Ercole Amante, was in 1662). Antonio Vivaldi, the resident musician of a Venetian orphanage for musically talented girls, came onto the local opera scene as an impresario of the newer Neopolitan style in 1712, and later (1727) wrote his own Orlando furioso based on Ludovico Ariosto’s 1513 epic poem that had established a psychopathology of love that more or less endured until the Romantics.
Sara Couden as Clorindo, Kindra Scharich as Rosaura
All these threads converge in Sig. Freschi’s little comedy for the Doge’s son Marco whose country estate included an orphanage for talented girls. Possibly this orphanage resource is why the Ars Minerva production made use of only treble voices — one male lover was a trouser soprano, the other was a trouser contralto. Ermelinda and her friend Rosaura were duly female. Ermelinda’s father was a male mezzo-soprano (countertenor).
In short, Ormondo loves Ermelinda, Armidoro does too. Ermelinda loves Ormondo, Rosaura does too. Ormondo becomes the mad Clorindo who pretends to love crazy-in-love Rosaura. Aristeo, Ermelinda’s father, intervenes. Ermelinda tries to kill herself for love. Unlike a Cavalli plot this one is quite simple, and unlike Cavalli’s variety of musical forms Sig. Freschi limits himself to recitative, arioso and through composed arietta. There were a few ritornellos and only one sort of duet in the string of solo numbers that told the story very simply and very directly. The dignity of early Venetian opera had long since been thrown into the canals and the grandiose, embellished arias of the Baroque are many years away,
There was no need for theatrical machinery. We were either indoors or out. The Ars Minerva production covered the huge back wall of the 171 seat ODC Theater (a fine dance venue in San Francisco’s Mission district) with projected images created by Entropy (a person’s name) that colorfully abstracted architectural detail vaguely reminiscent of the period.
The elaborate costumes, wittily abstracted from period shapes were designed by Matthew Nash, now retired from the San Francisco Opera costume shop. Stage director Céline Ricci deftly moved her actors around simple, portable props in the center of the expansive dance floor, the Ormondo gone mad — as Clorindo — teased theorbo player Adam Cockerham who was seated with the harpsichord, cello, and three da braccio viols far stage left.
The program booklet does not credit an edition of Sig. Freschi’s little opera, thus we may assume that early music harpsichordist and conductor Jory Vinikour organized the production musically based on a manuscript found at Venice’s Marciana Library. It is lively music that flows in very natural speech rhythms enhanced with very inventive melodic riffs that tease and amuse us and become upon occasion quite specific songs. These players were a confident lot that gave us great delight in their ritornellos. The three instrument continuo cleverly supported the excellent performances center stage.
Nikola Printz as Ermelinda, lighting design by Thomas Bowersox
Those 17th century dignitaries will have been mightily amused as we were with the broad comic antics of a nicely matched cast. Ermelinda was sung by mezzo-soprano Nikola Printz who brought rich tone and informed period inflection to her femme fatale role, and created, with Sig. Freschi’s help, convincing musical pathos in her attempted suicide. Her friend and rival Rosaura was sung by Kindra Scharich who made this love sick character a comic masterpiece, every sung phrase an insidious calculation, every movement a neurotic gesture, and all in beautiful voice that flowed naturally over composer Freschi’s finely chiseled lines.
Contralto Sara Couden sang Ermelinda’s suitor Ormondo who disguised himself as a peasant named Clorindo to fit into pastoral life. Mlle. Couden possesses a rare contralto voice that offers her a wide range of roles — from this vocally convincing castrato role, to the nurses, grandmothers and witches of later repertory. She gave herself to the creation a truly rustic Clorindo who goes out and in of feigning madness. Clorindo’s rival for the love of Ermelinda, soundly thwarted, is Armidoro sung by soprano Deborah Rosengaus who created one of the most beautiful musical moments of the evening in her final lament, singing composer Freschi’s fine music with exquisite phrasing.
And what would an Italian opera of this period be without a countertenor! Thus male mezzo soprano Justin Montigne sang Ermelinda’s father Aristeo! Not exactly gender bending, but possibly representative of the musical norms of a time gone-by where voices interacted and competed musically rather than theatrically.
Ars Minera is in its fifth year of presenting the modern world premieres of forgotten operas (one opera each year)!
Michael Milenski
Cast and production information:
Ermelinda: Nikola Printz; Ormondo/Clorindo: Sara Couden; Rosaura: Kindra Scharich; Aristeo: Justin Montigne; Armidoro: Deborah Rosengaus. Conductor/Harpsichord: Jory Vinikour. Stage Director: Céline Ricci; Projections: Entropy; Costume Designer: Matthew Nash; Lighting Designer: Thomas Bowersox. ODC Theater, San Francisco, November 23, 2019.