Challenging conventional ideas of vocal performance: Contemporary Vocal Sünds from Eleanor Westbrook & Oskar McCarthy

Two contemporary singers are joining forces to present a recital of experimental vocal music. Eleanor Westbrook and Oskar McCarthy, along with pianist Ben Smith are presenting Contemporary Vocal Sünds at The Uplands, St Leonards-on-Sea (20 July) and Lauderdale House, Highgate (22 July) with playful and radical approach to voice in works from the 20th and 21st century, challenging conventional ideas of vocal performance.

The recital features composers such as John Cage, Iannis Xenakis and Georges Aperghis, alongside pieces by Errollyn Wallen, Judith Weir, Cheryl Frances-Hoad and Liz Dilnot Johnson, plus the premiere of an electronic reworking of Jean-Philippe Rameau by Nico Bentley. 

Eleanor Westbrook is an interdisciplinary performer working at the intersection of opera, physical theatre, clowning, and experimental music. She is artistic director of TUFT, producing large-scale performance events in Hastings Castle and Caves, and is currently developing a multidisciplinary production of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. Oskar McCarthy has premiered operas by Avner Dorman, Robert Reid Allan and Bertie Baigent, and commissioned new work including Laura Bowler’s Lines, Letters and Disinformation for baritone and tape, performed at Snape Maltings and Café OTO. A VOICEBOX alumnus [see my article], he trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and recently worked with the Royal Opera House’s Opera Lab, part of the Jette Parker Programme.

Further information about the St Leonards-on-Sea performance, and the Lauderdale House performance.  

Robert & Clara: Stephan Loges & Jocelyn Freeman at SongEasel

Stephan Loges at a SongEasel recital on 22 June 2025
(Photo: Kate Kantur)

Robert & Clara: songs by Clara Schumann & Robert Schumann including Liederkreis, Op. 39; Stephan Loges, Jocelyn Freeman; SongEasel at St Matthew's Church
Reviewed 27 June 2025

An evening of intimate lieder in Elephant & Castle, intertwining songs by Robert & Clara Schumann including his complete Eichendorff Liederkreis

For its latest season, Jocelyn Freeman's SongEasel has been filling South East London with song, bringing distinguished artists such as Helen Charlston, Sholto Kynoch, Juliane Banse and James Gilchrist to give recitals in local venues.

On Friday 27 June 2025 it was the turn of St Matthew's Church, Elephant and Castle, a modern hall-church that is home to a bilingual (Spanish and English-speaking) Church of England congregation. Bass-baritone Stephan Loges (SongEasel's artist in residence for this season) was joined at the piano by Jocelyn Freeman. The focus of these concerts has been Robert and Clara Schumann, including performing Robert's major song-cycles from 1840 and all of Clara's songs. 

For this recital, the first half alternated Clara and Robert's songs, picking up on the themes present in Robert Schumann's Eichendorff Liederkreis which formed the second part of the evening.

450 children celebrate & take part in a wide variety of music: Richard Shephard Music Foundation's annual Make Music Day in York

Richard Shephard Music Foundation's annual Make Music Day in York

Over 450 school children gathered last week (25 June) at York St John University for a day of inspiring music as the Richard Shephard Music Foundation hosted its annual Make Music Day. The event brought together over 450 primary school children from across the region to celebrate and take part in a wide variety of music.

There were hands-on workshops ranging from Beatboxing to Trinidadian Percussion, intergenerational music workshops with organisation Musical Connections and interactive performances from Back Chat Brass and Royal Birmingham Conservatoire’s Learning and Engagement Orchestra. 

Since the Foundation was established in memory of composer Dr Richard Shephard in 2021, over 7,500 children have received weekly subsidised music lessons, 15 music specialists have been recruited to work in our schools and 800 places have been provided at free music holiday clubs.

Full details from the Foundation's website.

New concertos, more Mozart Made in Manchester, expanding Music in Mind: Manchester Camerata's new season

Gábor Takács-Nagy conducts Manchester Camerata (Photo: Anthony Robling)

Music director Gábor Takács-Nagy conducts Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 with Caroline Pether plus music by Fanny Mendelssohn and Beethoven, and returns with Mozart, Made in Manchester, with soprano Ying Fang in arias by Mozart.

Daniel Pioro, one of Manchester Camerata’s artistic partners, will premiere a new violin concerto by Nick Martin. Inspired by the sculptor Dame Barbara Hepworth, the piece will receive premier performances at Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester and The Hepworth Wakefield in Yorkshire, plus Kings Place in London. Composer and conductor, Jack Sheen conducts his own Hollow Propranolol Séance (II) alongside music by Ravel and Isabella Gellis at The University of Manchester and Wigmore Hall. Thomas Fetherstonhaugh conducts Pärt’s Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten in a programme with Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus.

Laurence Osborn’s horn concerto written for soloist Ben Goldscheider, commissioned by Trinity College, Cambridge will be premiered by Goldscheider in a concert conducted by Karel Deseure at The Stoller Hall with Manchester-based dance group Company Chameleon. The programme includes Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 “Haffner” which the orchestra will perform from memory whilst the musicians tell stories through movement and dance alongside Company Chameleon.

John Andrews conducts an all-British programme with music by William Alwyn, Doreen Carwithen and Elizabeth Maconchy with soloists violist Alex Mitchell, pianist Alexandra Dariescu and cor anglais player Rachael Clegg. John Andrews returns to conduct Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ monodrama, Eight Songs for a Mad King, directed by Ruth Knight with mezzo-soprano Idunnu Münch, at The Stoller Hall 

At Christmas there is Handel’s Messiah with Kantos Chamber Choir conducted by Laurence Cummings, plus  gospel celebration with the critically acclaimed vocal group and Camerata artistic partner, AMC Gospel Choir. The programme, Festive Happening, will be performed in Birmingham and Manchester. The orchestra will perform Sir James MacMillan’s Eleven at the National Football Museum conducted by Enyi Okpara in a programme centred around the theme of football. 

For five days in October, Manchester Camerata is crossing Greater Manchester in its festival called Here We Are. The orchestra will perform in chamber-group pop-ups across all 10 boroughs, meeting people where they are. 

In the 2025/26 season, the orchestra is expanding its Music in Mind programme. Twelve of its flagship Music Cafés for people living with dementia across are currently live with a further eight being introduced in autumn 2025, collaborating with local delivery partners in each Greater Manchester borough such as Age UK, Together Dementia Support and Lighthouse Project. Manchester Camerata welcomes all people living with dementia and their carers to take part in the Music Cafés. Their expansion follows a partnership with The University of Manchester of more than a decade and the launch of the UK’s first Centre of Excellence for Music and Dementia in Greater Manchester last year, hosted by Manchester Camerata.

The Camerata 360° Ruth Sutton Fellowship is also expanding. This supports musicians and composers based in Greater Manchester and the surrounding counties. The 2025/26 season sees the inclusion of wind, brass and string players under 30 with an undergraduate music degree or equivalent qualification. The fellowship trains young musicians and composers in their individual crafts, combating the increasing lack of such opportunities in the region, giving them hands-on work experience across the community, performance and creative aspects of Camerata’s work, preparing them for careers in an ever-changing sector.

Full details from the Manchester Camerata website.

A vivid sense of style & stagecraft with some of the best Handel singers around: Rodelinda at Garsington Opera

Handel: Rodelinda - Lucy Crowe - Garsington Opera (Photo: courtesy Garsington Opera)

Handel: Rodelinda; Lucy Crowe, Tim Mead, Ed Lyon, Brandon Cedel, Marvic Monreal, Hugh Cutting, director: Ruth Knight, the English Concert, conductor: Peter Whelan; Garsington Opera
Reviewed 29 June 2025

With a title role performed with real style and agency by Lucy Crowe partnered by Tim Mead singing with luminous tone there is plenty to enjoy, complemented by an intelligent and imaginative presentation of some real drama

Unlike some Baroque operas, where narrative logic takes second place to the creation of dramatic situations that put their characters through a series of moral dilemmas, Handel's Rodelinda has a remarkable focus to its plot. Partly, this is because the drama concentrates on Rodelinda and Bertarido and the piece becomes, effectively, an examination of marital fidelity. Of course, there are logic holes too; in Act Three, for instance, Nicola Francesco Haym's libretto rather trips up on itself in order to give Rodelinda a scene where she believes Bertarido is dead. But what a scene it is. And that is the attraction of this opera; Handel at his peak writing music allied to a libretto that requires a lot less special pleading than some Baroque operas.

For its new production of Handel's Rodelinda, Garsington Opera has turned to Ruth Knight for a production that builds on Handel's focus on the title role by giving Rodelinda real agency. We caught the performance on Sunday 29 June 2025. The English Concert was conducted by Peter Whelan, artistic director of the Irish Baroque Orchestra with whom he performed Vivaldi's L'Olimpiade with Irish National Opera in 2024 [see my review].

Handel: Rodelinda - Tim Mead, Marvic Monreal - Garsington Opera (Photo: courtesy Garsington Opera)

Lucy Crowe was Rodelinda with Tim Mead as Bertarido, plus Ed Lyon as Grimoaldo, Brandon Cedel as Garibaldo, Marvic Monreal as Eduige and Hugh Cutting as Unulfo. Designs were by Leslie Travers with lighting by Ben Pickersgill and movement by Rebecca Meltzer.

Travers' elegant set was based around steelwork that almost seemed an extension of the theatre itself. The look was modern, with a series of balconies and linking upper walkway which imaginatively gave the stage two levels. Costumes were modern, but there was also an element to the exotic too; place and time were nonspecific, though the characters' obsession with regal regalia (crown, orb and sceptre) placed it at a remove from the contemporary. There was a playful element, when Bertarido is in disguise in Act 2, Tim Mead wore a costume that would not have disgraced Elton John in his pomp, and when Garibaldo made public appearances he wore a mask somewhat similar to something Orville Peck would wear. But the biggest visual stimulus during the opera was the use of 14 dancers who formed a troupe that did Garibaldo and Grimoaldo's bidding, but also acted as a sort of visual commentary.

A different focus: Timothy Ridout in Mozart & Hummel with Academy of St Martin in the Fields plus Rossini & a Weber symphony

Hummel, portrait by Joseph Willibrord Mähler, c. 1814

Rossini: String Sonata No. 1, Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante in E flat, Hummel: Potpourri Op. 94, Weber: Symphony No. 1; Timothy Ridout, Tomo Keller, Academy of St Martin in the Fields; Church of St Martin in the Fields
Reviewed 26 June 2026

Mozart's violin and viola concertante work in context of music written within the following 40 years including Hummel's wonderfully engaging concertante work for viola 

Johann Nepomuk Hummel was very much at the centre of things during the later Classical era. Some 22 years younger than Mozart, Hummel was something of a prodigy, had lessons from Mozart, Salieri and Haydn, was friends with Beethoven and played in Beethoven's orchestral works, whilst Schubert dedicated three late piano sonatas to him. Haydn recommended him to take over Haydn's responsibilities at Prince Esterházy's Eisenstadt estate.

His music could be forward looking and he would have an influence on the music of Mendelssohn and Chopin. Hummel's focus was the piano, including eight concertos [it is well worth investigating Stephen Hough's recording of two concertos on Chandos] so it is ironic that nowadays he is best known for his Trumpet Concerto.

For their final concert of the season at St Martin in the Fields on 26 June 2025, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, leader Tomo Keller, joined forces with viola player Timothy Ridout for a programme centred around Hummel's Potpourri (Fantasy) for viola and orchestra written in 1820. There was also Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante in E flat for violin and viola (with Keller and Ridout) written in 1779, Rossini's early String Sonata No. 1 in G major from 1804 and Weber's Symphony No. 1 in C from 1806. 

It was a programme that placed Mozart's piece in an entirely different context yet one that made complete sense. All the works in the programme was written within roughly a 40 year period. Hummel's Potpourri quotes opera by both Mozart and Rossini, whilst Weber was not only Mozart's wife Constanze's cousin but the young Weber admired and was influenced by Mozart.

From Handel to Verdi & beyond: I chat to soprano Soraya Mafi about singing in Handel's Saul at Glyndebourne, & expanding into bel canto & Bernstein

Handel: Saul - Soraya Mafi - Glyndebourne Opera (Photo: Glyndebourne/ASH)

Soprano Soraya Mafi is currently singing the role of Michal in Handel's Saul at Glyndebourne in the 2025 revival of the 2015 production by Barrie Kosky which can rightly be called iconic [see my review]. Soraya returns to Handel next year when she makes her debut at the Komische Oper, Berlin in Belshazzar. Before then she will be performing the role of Cunegonde in Bernstein's Candide with Welsh National Opera this Autumn as well as premiering a new song cycle by Emily Hazrati at the Oxford International Song Festival. I chatted to Soraya recently, in a break between performances of Saul.

Soraya first appeared on these pages when studying at the Royal College of Music where in 2012 she was in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea, with Louise Alder as Poppea [see my review] then in 2013 she was Arianna in Handel's Arianna in Creta [see my review] in collaboration with the London Handel Festival. Since then we have seen her as Mabel in G&S's The Pirates of Penzance at English National Opera [see my review], Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare in English Touring Opera's brave staging of the uncut opera [see my review], Titania in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream at ENO [see my review], Gretel in Humperdinck's Hansel & Gretel at Grange Park Opera [see my review], Amor in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice at ENO [see my review], and Morgana in Handel's Alcina at Glyndebourne [see my review], as well as in recital at Wigmore Hall [see my review].

Performing in Saul at Glyndebourne has been an intense and physically demanding experience she has found. She needs to be on full all the time, the stage is raked and her role is very active, she describes her character, Michal as very bouncy. All of which means that it is aerobically challenging. But she is also finding the performances inspiring, working with Iestyn Davies and Christopher Purves (both of whom are returning to the roles they created in 2015) and finding them coming back to the roles with the same level of dedication. She finds the performances fresh and exciting.

Handel: Alcina - Soraya Mafi, Samantha Hankey, James Cleverton - Glyndebourne Opera. 2022 (Photo Tristram Kenton)

An alternative way people can encounter classical music: Baldur Brönnimann & Felix Heri introduce Between Mountains Festival

This summer, the Between Mountains Festival makes its debut on 19 July at Holdenweid in Hölstein, Switzerland. More than just another music festival, Between Mountains seeks to redefine how classical music is presented and experienced by bringing it into conversation with electronic, ambient, and experimental genres. Set against the unique backdrop of a former psychiatric facility turned cultural centre at the foothills of the Jura Mountains, the festival appeals to curious audiences interested in a different classical musical experience.

The festival is the vision of conductor Baldur Brönnimann and cultural manager Felix Heri. Longtime collaborators with a shared mission to challenge traditional classical concert formats, Baldur and Felix have created Between Mountains to bridge divides – between genres, audiences, and generations – and to foster a new kind of musical community in Switzerland. Drawing inspiration from Germany’s Detect Classic Festival, they have tailored this project to resonate with local artists and listeners while maintaining a spirit of experimentation and openness.

In this interview, we speak with Baldur Brönnimann and Felix Heri about the origins of the festival, their ambitions for changing classical music’s cultural landscape, and how Between Mountains invites audiences to encounter music in unexpected ways.

How did the idea for Between Mountains Festival first come about? What inspired you to create a new kind of music gathering in Switzerland?

Baldur & Felix: We worked together for years, sharing the philosophy of breaking up the classical music concert formats and bringing them in tune with 21st-century audiences and 21st-century listening habits. We worked together as a chief exec and as a principal conductor at Basel Sinfonietta, and from that time, we always tried to present classical music in unexpected and non-traditional ways, because we felt that the format often stood in the way of establishing a direct relationship between the listener and the music.

Baldur: In 2021, I worked at the Detect Festival in Germany with the Junge Norddeutsche Philharmonie, and I thought this festival was really an interesting concept. It was a festival that had a younger audience who were looking for a great musical experience without the formalities of a traditional classical concert.

Then, when I won the culture prize of Baselland in 2023, we started to talk to the region about starting a new classical event for new audiences. And there was a political interest. That's when we first had the idea to bring the concept of Detect to Switzerland. We looked at several locations, but finally, Holstein was the ideal place to try and make our first festival work.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra’s visit to this year’s Aldeburgh Festival offered a couple of favourable concerts that stamped the quality and commitment of its fine bunch of players.

Britten: Our Hunting Fathers - Allan Clayton, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo - Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh Festival (Photo: Britten Pears Arts)

Daniel Kidane: Awake, Helen Grime: Violin Concerto, Strauss: Tod und Verklärung, Vier letzel Lieder; Anu Komsi, Leila Josefowicz, BBC Symphony Orchestra, cond. Sakari Oramo; Snape Maltings Concert Hall.
Helen Grime: Night Songs, Britten: Our Hunting Fathers, Brian Elias: Horn Concerto, Sibelius: Symphony No.5 in E flat; Allan Clayton, Ben Goldscheider, BBC Symphony Orchestra, cond. Sakari Oramo; Snape Maltings Concert Hall
Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 21 & 22 June 2025

The performance by Allan Clayton of Britten’s song-cycle, Our Hunting Fathers, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra proved a highlight of my Aldeburgh Festival weekend

When the BBC Symphony Orchestra turns up on the Suffolk coast, it’s a grand event all round. Blooming marvellous, I say! In their first concert for this year's Aldeburgh Festival (Saturday 21 June), opening with a brilliant performance of Daniel Kidane’s Awake, a 12-minute work written by Kidane in his early thirties when ‘raring to go’ making (and marking) a breakthrough in his blossoming career.  

Kidane writes to my liking and Awake (which received its première at the Last Night of the Proms in 2019) offers the listener a host of soaring melodies punctuated by erratic rhythmic patterns and extremely bold harmonies thereby reflecting the composer’s interest in jazz and all the associated ‘spin-offs’ that this musical genre inspires. 

There’s no ‘let-up’ for members of the orchestra as from the first to the last bar of this riveting and exciting work of exacting proportions they’re playing at full speed with Kidane’s bright and colourful score constructed round a series of interconnective sections thereby creating continuity and flow. 

A brilliant curtain-raiser to the concert the visual and musical aspect of it was highlighted by a member of the percussion department who (proudly standing) circled above his head a ‘wind whistler’ (‘whirly tube’) adding so much to the overall soundscape of an interesting and challenging piece which the audience lapped up. 

Helen Grime: Violin Concerto - Leila Josefowicz, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo - Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh Festival (Photo: Britten Pears Arts)

Brilliant reinvention & razor sharp take-down: Scottish Opera's double-bill pairs Gilbert & Sullivan with Toby Hession's brand new comedy at Opera Holland Park

Gilbert & Sullivan: Trial by Jury - Jamie MacDougall - Scottish Opera (Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic)

Gilbert & Sullivan: Trial by Jury, Toby Hession & Emma Jenkins: A Matter of Misconduct; Richard Suart, Jamie MacDougall, Kira Kaplan, , Chloe Harris Ross Cumming, Edward Jowle, directors: John Savournin & Laura Attridge, Scottish Opera, conductor: Toby Hession; Opera Holland Park
Reviewed 24 June 2025

A brilliant reinvention of Gilbert & Sullivan's legal satire as 1980s reality show, plus a brand new operetta that featured a razor-sharp take down of contemporary politics.

Having given us John Savournin's somewhat disappointing reinvention of Lehar's The Merry Widow [see my review], Scottish Opera completed its residency at Opera Holland Park with a double bill featuring Savournin's brilliant updating of Gilbert & Sullivan's Trial by Jury alongside a new commission, Toby Hession's A Matter of Misconduct with a razor-sharp libretto by Emma Jenkins and a cast featuring four Scottish Opera Emerging Artists.

On 24 June 2025 at Opera Holland Park, Toby Hession conducted Scottish Opera forces in Gilbert & Sullivan's Trial by Jury and Hession & Emma Jenkins' A Matter of Misconduct, with both operas designed by takis.

John Savournin directed Trial by Jury with Richard Suart as the judge, Jamie MacDougall as the Defendant, Kira Kaplan as the Plaintiff, Chloe Harris as Counsel for the Plaintiff, Ross Cumming as Foreman of the Jury, Amy J Payne as First Bridesmaid and Edward Jowle as the Usher.

Laura Attridge directed A Matter of Misconduct with Ross Cumming as Roger Penistone, Deputy Prime Minister, Edward Jowle as press secretary Hugo Cheeseman, Jamie MacDougall as special advisor Sandy Hogg, Chlose Harris as Cherry Penistone and Kira Kaplan as Sylvia Lawless.

Toby Hession & Emma Jenkins: A Matter of Misconduct! - Ross Cumming, Chloe Harris, Kira Kaplan, Edward Jowle, Jamie MacDougall - Scottish Opera (Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic)

A new work for piano duet: The Clements Prize for Composers 2025

Photo from Art UK

Conway Hall Sunday Concerts is inviting young composers to submit a work for piano duet to The Clements Prize 2025.  Up to eight submissions will be selected to be performed by Clíodna Shanahan and Simon Callaghan at the final round in Conway Hall’s Main Hall on 2 November 2025.  A workshop involving all the final round composers and the performers will take place at 2pm on the same date. The winner of the first prize will be awarded £1,500.

Alfred J. Clements (1858-1938) was the organiser and secretary of the South Place Sunday Concerts (predecessor of Conway Hall Sunday Concerts) from their inception in 1887 until his death.  In the first half of the twentieth century the competition bearing his name encouraged the composition of new chamber works, establishing a tradition which set Conway Hall right at the centre of British contemporary music.

Re-inaugurated in 2021, the present competition aims to continue this work, encouraging the composition of innovative, exciting chamber music and presenting it to a wide audience.  Through workshops, social media activity and through enabling interaction with professional performers, the competition furthermore seeks to establish and nurture a community of diverse, young composers and to enhance the chamber repertoire.

Before the final round performance, scores submitted for previous competitions from the Conway Hall Archive will be available via the Conway Hall website and a selection exhibited before the final round performance.

Full details from the Conway Hall website.

A trio of concerts at this year’s Aldeburgh Festival highlights the diversity of music to be found on the Suffolk coast.

Edward Gardner & Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra - Aldeburgh Festival (Photo: Britten Pears Arts)

Daniel Kidane: Sirens, Mark-Anthony Turnage: Refugee, Nielsen: Symphony No.4; Allan Clayton, Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, cond. Edward Gardner; Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Suffolk 

Alex Tay, Mingdu Li, Liucilė Vilimaitė, Hy-Khang Dang, Sam Rudd-Jones, Jasper Eaglesfield, Helen Grime, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Colin Matthews, Goehr, Saariaho; Britten Pears Contemporary Ensemble, cond. Jonathan Berman/Claudia Fuller; Britten Studio, Snape Maltings, Suffolk  

Purcell: King Arthur; Gabrieli Consort & Players, dir. Paul McCreesh; Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Suffolk  
Reviewed by Tony Cooper: 19-20 June 2025

The concert performance of Purcell’s King Arthur by the Gabrieli Consort and Players would take some beating. 

The opening concert of my first Aldeburgh Festival excursion this year featured a storming and high-energy work (faster than an F1 car!) entitled Sirens by Daniel Kidane, born to a Russian mother and an Eritrean father in 1986.  

For sure, an energetic and appealing composer, Kidane harbours bright and original ideas and I well remember (and favoured) his orchestral work Awake premièred by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sakari Oramo, when attending the Last Night of the Proms in 2019.  

A frenetic and tasteful opener to the Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra’s concert in Snape Maltings as part of the 76th Aldeburgh Festival, Kidane’s Sirens, flamboyantly conducted by Edward Gardner, proved an atmospheric, eclectic and jazz-inspired piece capturing so well the sounds and energy of Manchester’s nightlife by incorporating elements of various musical genres from jungle to dubstep spiced up and mixed with an R&B cocktail for good measure. 

Helping so much the musical landscape and feel to the piece was Kidane employment of bowed crotales to create a sustained smooth ethereal sound harbouring rich overtones while the harmonies of the work become more intense and dissonant towards the final bars.  

Purcell: King Arthur - Gabrieli Consort & Players, Paul McCreesh - Aldeburgh Festival (Photo: Britten Pears Arts)

One of the four featured artists at this year’s festival, Kidane (a name to be reckoned with!) keeps good company with the likes of tenor Allan Clayton, composer Helen Grime and violinist Leila Josefowicz. 

That was quite a party! Paul Curran's production of Die Fledermaus at The Grange Festival makes for a terrific evening in the theatre thanks to a brilliant cast

Johann Strauss: Die Fledermaus - The Grange Festival (Photo: © Richard Hubert Smith)

Johann Strauss: Die Fledermaus; Sylvia Schwartz, Andrew Hamilton, Ben McAteer, Ellie Laugharne, Claudia Huckle, Trystan Llŷr Griffiths, Darren Jeffery, Myra DuBois, director: Paul Curran, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, conductor: Paul Daniel; The Grange Festival
Reviewed: 22 June 2025

With cross-dressing chorus, all-singing, all-dancing soloists and chorus, this was a terrific evening in the theatre 

Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus is about a party, isn't it? With productions of Strauss' best-known operetta, it is often difficult to remember that amidst the rollicking good tunes and party antics is an actual plot.

Strauss did not have much luck with his librettists. It is fascinating to discover that Offenbach was thinking about adapting the play, Le Revéillon by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, a project prevented by the Franco-Prussian war. Instead, Richard Genée and Karl Haffner adapted it as a German libretto for Johann Strauss. The best libretto that he set.

The virtue of Paul Curran's new production of Strauss' Die Fledermaus at The Grange Festival was that as well as giving us a rattling good party in Act Two, Curran never let us forget that there is actually a plot too.

We caught the 2nd performance of the production on 22 June 2025, Paul Daniel conducted the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra with Sylvia Schwartz as Rosalinde, Andrew Hamilton as Eisenstein, Ben McAteer as Falke, Ellie Laugharne as Adele, Claudia Huckle as Orlofsky, Trystan Llŷr Griffiths as Alfred, Darren Jeffery as Frank, Isabelle Atkinson as Ida, John Graham-Hall as Dr Blind and Myra DuBois as Frosch. Designs were by Gary McCann.

Johann Strauss: Die Fledermaus - Ellie Laugharne, Andrew Hamilton, Sylvia Schwartz - The Grange Festival (Photo: © Richard Hubert Smith)

Act One played out like a 1930s drawing room comedy, and after all Noel Coward did write Operette! Gary McCann's stylish circular set owed something to the Courtaulds' Eltham Palace. Act Two was a far more ritzier setting, the two-tiered circular set used to great effect by the chorus, dressed here in high gender fluid style. Yes it was one of those parties. Act Three played out against ranks of cells, but the presiding genius here, and I use the term advisedly, was Myra DuBois as Frau Frosch. Myra DuBois being the drag name of comic Gareth Joyner.

The text was given in John Mortimer's English version which was commissioned by the Royal Opera in 1989. This worked well in the first act, but the busier numbers in the remaining two acts Mortimer's limits as a lyricist showed, words and music did not always fit well. But the cast were all admirable both in making the words count and in delivering the dialogue without any hint of over-emphasis.

Proponents of this opera would have you think that the piece is a masterly take-down of late 19th century Vienna, but this rarely comes over in production as what little plot there is in Acts Two and Three evaporates in a welter of fun. Here, Curran brought an edge to the fun with elaborate cross-dressing for the chorus. This was dressing up for fun and more.

Johann Strauss: Die Fledermaus - Ben McAteer, Isabelle Atkinson, Myra DuBois, Ellie Laugharne, Darren Jeffery - The Grange Festival (Photo: © Richard Hubert Smith)

Modern resonances & musical style: Richard Farnes conducts Verdi's La traviata at the Grange Festival with Samantha Clarke & Nico Darmanin

Verdi: La Traviata - Samantha Clarke - The Grange Festival (Photo: Richard Hubert Smith)

Verdi: La traviata; Samantha Clarke, Nico Darmanin, Dario Solari, Annie Reilly, director: Maxine Braham, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, conductor: Richard Farnes; The Grange Festival
Reviewed 21 June 2025

An impressively fully realised account of the title role from Samantha Clarke in a period production that pulled no punches, with a strongly balanced cast and terrific Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in the pit. 

Verdi intended La traviata to be a reflection of contemporary moeurs but censorship prevented that and the first performance was set in the 17th century. That the opera's plot has resonance for modern audiences is in no doubt but dramaturgically the piece works best when set in the 1859s.

At the Grange Festival, director Maxine Braham (who directed Verdi's Macbeth there in 2022, see my review) and designer Jamie Vartan kept the 1850s setting, paying the audience the complement of not underestimating their intelligence. [seen 21 June 2025]. The festival assembled a strong international cast with Australian/British soprano Samantha Clarke as Violetta [we caught her as the Countess in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at Garsington last year, see my review], Maltese tenor Nico Darmanin as Alfredo, and Uruguayan baritone Dario Solari as Giorgio Germont. Richard Farnes conducted the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

Verdi: La Traviata - Nico Darmanin - The Grange Festival (Photo: Richard Hubert Smith)

Maiden, Mother and Crone: mezzo-soprano Rowan Hellier talks about her interdisciplinary project integrating music & movement exploring the fascinating figure of Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga workshop -Ana Dordevic, Rowan Hellier, Carola Schwab - (Photo: Pascal Buenning/Deutsche Oper)

Rowan Hellier is a mezzo-soprano who, along with her operatic career, is known for creating projects which blur the boundaries of genre, discipline and aesthetic, often centring on women’s stories and her concepts have featured at major venues such as Wigmore Hall. At the Oxford International Song Festival in October, Rowan is presenting her latest project, Baba Yaga: Songs & Dances of Death. This production combines music, dance, spoken word, and a specially commissioned song cycle by Elena Langer. 

Baba Yaga workshop (Photo: Tina Dubrovsky)

For the evening, Rowan will be joined by pianist Sholto Kynoch, dancers Ana Dordevic and Carola Schwab and will be collaborating with choreographer Andreas Heise, whose version of Winterreise with Juliane Banse was a highlight of the 2023 Oxford International Song Festival. Baba Yaga is a co-production between Beethovenfest Bonn and Oxford International Song Festival, and the new cycle by Elena Langer is an Oxford International Song Festival production.

The idea for the show originated when Rowan was reading the writings of Mexican-American writer and Jungian psychoanalyst Clarissa Pinkola Estés, best known for her book Women Who Run with the Wolves (1992). Rowan was interested in Estés' ideas about the wildness and wisdom inherent in women and how these relate to archetypes like Baba Yaga. She was fascinated by the ambiguities which Baba Yaga embodies; a figure from Slavic folklore, you don't know whether she is good or bad. In some tales, she helps people and in others she hinders. She can be seen as an ogress, a snake, a death figure, the shadow self or a matriarchal ancestress. All of which link to the idea of witches. 

Rowan is interested in reclaiming the idea of the witch as an alternative to society's script for older women. In a culture obsessed with youth, this feels like a radical act, she says. The figures of real witches were originally medicine women and healers in the community, yet they were then turned upon and persecuted.

For music, Rowan has turned to folk music, Slavic, Scottish, Lithuanian, so that alongside Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death there will be music by Tcherepnin, Dvorak, Janacek, Jake Heggie and Tori Amos, plus Elena Langer's new commission. 

The Merry Widow meets the Godfather: Scottish Opera brings John Savournin's new production of Lehár's operetta to Opera Holland Park

Lehár: The Merry Widow - Alex Otterburn, Henry Waddington - Scottish Opera (Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic)

Lehár: The Merry Widow; Paula Sides, Alex Otterburn, Rhian Lois, William Morgan, Henry Waddington, director: John Savournin, Scottish Opera, conductor: Stuart Stratford; Opera Holland Park
Reviewed 19 June 2025

Scottish Opera brings its New York Mafia Merry Widow to Opera Holland Park in a production where the two principals shine despite distractions and overdone comedy

Viennese operetta was written as escapism, usually based on boulevard comedies with plenty of mistaken identity and pretence, settings were largely exotic. in 1905, librettists Viktor Léon and Leo Stein turned to Henri Meilhac's 1861 comic play L'attaché d'ambassade, to create Die lustige Witwe. They transferred the action to Paris, moving the protagonists' native land to the exotic Montenegro, introducing extra plot involving the baron's wife and transferring the last act to the chic Parisian restaurant of Maxim's. The result seemed to have all the ingredients required for an operetta.

Hungarian composer Franz Lehár wrote music that was inflected by these Parisian and Balkan settings, yet his treatment of the opera's two couples, Hanna and Danilo, Valencienne and Camille, gives them sentimentally touching music that makes their emotional journey's believable. Die lustige Witwe isn't just about comic situations, it is about people, yet these four are surrounded by a welter of determinedly comic, stock characters, and that is the challenge when it comes to bringing the operetta alive on today's stage.

It is tempting to wonder what the original production was like (the original Hanna, Mitzi Günther did in fact record parts of the opera and you can hear her Viljalied on YouTube). Now, I expect that we would find the original tedious and hardly escapism, after all neither Paris nor Montenegro has the same exoticism. ENO has had two goes at getting the piece right in recent decades, neither the John Copley production in 2008 [see my review], nor the Max Webster one in 2019 [see my review] seem to have stuck, though both got some things right. Graham Vick directed it at the Shaftesbury Theatre for the Royal Opera in 1997, an experiment that seems never to have been repeated. At Glyndebourne last year (I only saw the production on video), Cal McCrystal brought his familiar style to the work, keeping the original setting yet overegging the drama.

Lehár: The Merry Widow - Paula Sides - Scottish Opera (Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic)

Scottish Opera, Opera Holland Park and D'Oyly Carte Opera Company have collaborated on a new production of Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow in what was presumably hoped were the safe hands of director John Savournin. Savournin with David Eaton founded Charles Court Opera and have long experience in this game, whilst Savournin and his company have collaborated with Opera Holland Park on a series of Gilbert & Sullivan stagings. For this production Savournin and Eaton produced a new English version.

Having toured the production for Scottish Opera earlier this year [see the review in The Stage]. The cast, the Scottish Opera Orchestra and Chorus, and conductor Stuart Stratford came to Opera Holland Park. We caught the first performance at Opera Holland Park on 19 June 2025. The cast was led by Paula Sides as Hanna and Alex Otterburn as Danilo, with Rhian Lois as Valencienne, William Morgan as Camille, and Henry Waddington as Zeta. Designs were by takis, with lighting by Ben Pickersgill and choreography by Kally Lloyd-Jones.

Savournin (book) and Eaton (lyrics) had the idea to transpose their new English version to Italian-American Mafiosi in New York, with Hanna's fortune coming from Sicily,  so that the second act moved to Sicily, whilst Maxim's was relocated to New York. In an article in the programme book, John Savournin argued cohesively for the new setting, which does make sense intellectually. Unfortunately, the relocation creates dramaturgical and emotional problems.

Enjoyment, exploration & sheer virtuosic fun: Sisters from Karine Deshayes & Delphine Haidan

Sisters: music by Rossini, Viardot, Gluck/Berlioz, Berlioz, Bertin, Bellini, Grandval, Saint-Saens; Karine Deshayes, Delphine Haidan, Orchestre national Avignon-Provence, conductor Débora Waldman; NoMadMusic
Reviewed 13 June 2025

Part celebration, part luxuriant delight: Malibran and Viardot celebrated in a programme that was clearly a joy for both soloists and performers, enjoyment, exploration and sheer virtuosic fun

From around 1825 to 1863 the sisters Maria Malibran (1808-1836) and Pauline Viardot (1821-1910) lit up the operatic stage. Both were daughters of Manuel García, a celebrated tenor much admired by Rossini (he created the role of Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville), and their brother, also Manuel, was also a singer and pedagogue who invented the first laryngoscope.

Malibran was some 13 years the elder and it was only her early, tragic death that forced Viardot to become a professional singer. Viardot had wanted to become a professional pianist, she had had piano lessons with Liszt and harmony and counterpoint lessons with Reicha.

Viardot was just 15 when her sister died, so any idea of them singing together must be restricted to the realm of the personal, and to fantasy. Both singers had fascinatingly unquantifiable voices, large ranges so we might see them as mezzo-sopranos with high extension, both had their names linked to some remarkable roles.

The disc Sisters on NoMadMusic from mezzo-sopranos Karine Deshayes and Delphine Haidan, and the Orchestre national Avignon-Provence, conductor Débora Waldman, celebrates this sisterhood with a selection of bel canto classics that the sisters either sang or might have sang, with music from Rossini's Otello, La donna del lago, Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra and Semiramide, Viardot's own Le dernier sorcier, and Les Monts de Géorgie, Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice in the version arranged for Viardot by Berlioz, Berlioz' Les Troyens, initially written with Viardot in mind, Bertin's Fausto, Bellini's I Puritani, where the composer produced a special version for Malibran, Grandval's Mazeppa and a song by Saint-Saens.

The programme is described a panorama of Italian and French opera, but Rossini is its anchor. Some of Malibran's key Bellini roles are lacking, whilst Viardot is notable for having Sapho written for her by Gounod and more importantly she created the role of Fidès in Meyerbeer's Le prophète. What is does give us is a rather gorgeous and somewhat self-indulgent programme of arias and duets from two luxurious voices.

Early Music Day in Oxford

The Continuo Foundation is joining forces with Oxford Festival of the Arts to present an Early Music Day on Saturday 12 July 2025 at Magdalen College. The day will consist of two afternoon concerts by Continuo grantee ensembles, the Linarol Consort and the Bellot Ensemble, plus a talk by Nicholas Kenyon on the early music revival.

The Linarol Consort is joined by countertenor William Purefoy for a programme celebrating the life and times of Oxford-born Orlando Gibbons, exploring a range of his works, alongside those of his contemporaries, John Bull, William Byrd and Thomas Weelkes. The Bellot Ensemble present Cupid's Ground Bass, which explores the extremities of love, through the ground-breaking works of 17th-century Italy, highlighting both the vocal and instrumental innovations of the time, with soprano Lucine Musaelian and tenor Kieran White.

Then, Nicholas Kenyon's talk, The Pied Pipers of Early Music will be celebrating a century of revolution of musical taste, looking at some of the highlights of this revolution and the richness it has brought to our musical lives, including the significant contributions from Oxford musicians.

Further details from the Continuo Foundation website.

Opera in the heart of Clapham: St Paul's Opera's Summer Opera Festival

Rehearsal images from St Paul's Opera's forthcoming production of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore

My local opera company, St Paul's Opera is presenting its annual Summer operatic staging at St Paul's Church, Clapham next month (3 to 5 July 2025) with Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore. The director is Eloise Lally who directed English Touring Opera's production of Bellini's The Capulets & The Montagues which we caught in Hackney earlier this year [see my review]. The music director is Adrian Salinero, a London-based Basque Spanish pianist, repetiteur and vocal coach.

The cast includes Ashley Mercer as Dulcamara, Martins Smaukstelis as Nemorino, Theodore Day as Belcore, Fiona Hymns as Adina and Isabella Roberts as Giannetta

L'Elisir d'Amore is an opera that seems to invite directors to come up with imaginative new settings. Whilst there are productions that stay with the original setting of a small Basque village at the end of the 18th century, many more give the piece a new look, finding inventive ways highlighting the class difference between Adina and Nemorino. 

Who can forget the strange effect of Jonathan Miller's American mid-West setting at ENO, though thankfully the recent ENO production set the opera in an English country house during World War II [see my review], whilst Guido Martin Brandis' production for Wild Arts used an inventive 1950s setting simply as a backdrop to the action [see my review]. A similar approach was taken in Victoria Newlyn's riotous modern dress production for West Green Opera [see my review]. Still in the 1950s, Waterperry Opera had Adina running an American wellness spa with Nemorino as the janitor [see my review]

For St Paul's Opera, Eloise Lally's production promises to also be 1950s, this time a hospital ward in post-war Clapham, where Matron Adina as keeps order among patients, staff, and neighbours—while the mysterious Dr Dulcamara offers his "miracle cure" to anyone in need.

There are three evening performances from 3 to 5 July, when you can picnic in the church grounds beforehand, as well as a relaxed matinee on Saturday 5 July which which will be a great opportunity for families to enjoy the comic opera in a family friendly atmosphere.

Full details from the St Paul's Opera website.

The earth moves: Antoine Brumel's 12-part Earthquake Mass & Tallis' 40-part motet from Peter Phillips & The Tallis Scholars

Watercolour of Nonsuch Palace where Tallis' Spem in alium may have premiered

The Earth Moves: Brumel: Missa Et ecce terrae motus, Gombert: Lugebat David Absalon, Josquin: Absalon fili mi, Tallis: Spem in alium; The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips; Cadogan Hall
Reviewed 17 June 2025

Did the earth move for you? The rich textures of Brumel's 12-part Earthquake Mass alongside the spatial and sonic effects of Tallis' 40-part masterpiece.

Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars returned to Cadogan Hall on 17 June 2025 (the concert is repeated on 25 June) for The Earth Moves, an evening that included Antoine Brumel's 12-part Missa Et ecce terrae motus, the so-called Earthquake Mass, alongside Tallis' 40-part motet Spem in alium and motets by Josquin and Gombert.

Antoine Brumel was a younger contemporary of Josquin, an important member of the Franco-Flemish school that dominated Italian sacred music in the 1500s. He is best known for his so-called Earthquake Mass, named not because the work has any sort of depiction of an earthquake, but for the plainchant on which the work is based. But it is notable also for the rich polyphonic textures that Brumel achieves thanks to using 12 voices. The work's most important source (and the earliest) is one created for a performance given by Orlandus Lassus in Munich around 1568 (well after Brumel's death which was probably in 1513). This mammoth manuscript, in some 60 folios, has the adult singers' names recorded in Lassus' hand. The final folios are partially lost as the manuscript had rotted, and thus the work needs some editorial hand. For this performance, The Tallis Scholars' soprano Amy Howarth had created a new edition.