Tuesday, 30 May 2023

An intimate, chamber production of Wagner's Die Walküre from Regents Opera

Wagner: Die Walküre - Justine Viani (Sieglinde), Catharine Woodward (Brünnhilde), the Valkyries  - Regents Opera 2023 (Photo: Steve Gregson)
Wagner: Die Walküre - Justine Viani (Sieglinde), Catharine Woodward (Brünnhilde), the Valkyries  - Regents Opera 2023 (Photo: Steve Gregson)

Wagner: Die Walküre; Brian Smith Walters, Justine Viani, Gerrit Paul Groen, Keel Watson, Catharine Woodward, Ingeborg Novrup Børch, director: Caroline Staunton, conductor: Ben Woodward; Regents Opera at the Freemasons' Hall
Reviewed by Florence Anna Maunders, 27 May 2023

Reduced forces, but heightened drama from the second instalment of Regents Opera's Wagner in the round

Regents Opera returned to the Freemasons' Hall for Caroline Staunton's production of Wagner's Die Walküre (seen 27 May 2023) with Brian Smith Walters as Siegmund, Justine Viani as Sieglinde, Gerrit Paul Groen as Hunding, Keel Watson as Wotan, Catharine Woodward as Brünnhilde, and Ingeborg Novrup Børch as Fricka. This was the second instalment of musical director Ben Woodward's new arrangement of Wagner's tetralogy, with the orchestra reduced to just 22 players, including organ. Combined with the staging, which thrust the action into the centre of the room, surrounded on three sides by the audience, the overall effect was to create an intimate, chamber production of Wagner's most intimate chamber opera, which rarely has more than two characters on stage at a time.

Wagner: Die Walküre - Keel Watson (Wotan) - Regents Opera 2023 (Photo: Steve Gregson
Wagner: Die Walküre - Keel Watson (Wotan) - Regents Opera 2023 (Photo: Steve Gregson

Monday, 29 May 2023

Style, imagination & not a little daring: a new staging of Handel's Saul at Berlin's Komische Oper

Handel: Saul - Rupert Charlesworth, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen - Komische Oper, Berlin (Photo Barbara Braun)
Handel: Saul - Rupert Charlesworth, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen - Komische Oper, Berlin (Photo Barbara Braun)

Handel: Saul; Luca Tittoto, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, Rupert Charlesworth, Nadja Mchantaf, Penny Sofoniadou, director Axel Ranisch, conductor David Bates; Komische Oper Berlin

An international cast bring Handel's oratorio to vivid and striking life in an evening of musical and dramatic pleasures.

Over the Whitsun weekend, the Komische Oper Berlin had something of a Handel festival on with revivals of Barrie Kosky's production of Handel's Semele and Stefan Herheim's production of Handel's Serse, plus a new production of Saul.

Axel Ranisch's staging of Handel's Saul opened on Saturday 27 May 2023 with David Bates conducting. Luca Tittoto was Saul with Rupert Charlesworth as Jonathan, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen as David, Nadja Mchantaf as Michal and Penny Sofoniadou as Merab. Stage design and videos were by Falko Herold and costumes by Alfred Mayerhofer.

The work was sung in English and was, perhaps inevitably, cut. Bates conducted the Komische Oper orchestra with the addition of Baroque harp, Baroque trumpets and Baroque timpani (duplicating the special low timpani that Handel borrowed from the Tower of London) plus two harpsichords, organ and two theorbos.

Before the music started, we heard a German voice whispering the plot so far (quite a complex one) to accompany Herold's vivid animation of the story. The orchestral sound, from the outset, was crisp and vivid, with historically informed string articulations accompanying an equally striking stage picture as the chorus appeared, rejoicing, in multi-coloured clothes (modern with a nod to hippie-chic).

Handel: Saul - Komische Oper, Berlin (Photo Barbara Braun)
Handel: Saul - Komische Oper, Berlin (Photo Barbara Braun)

Sunday, 28 May 2023

No ordinary evening: Christof Loy directs Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini at the Deutsche Oper Berlin with Sara Jakubiak & Jonathan Tetelman

Riccardo Zandonai: Francesca da Rimini - Sara Jakubiak, Jonathan Tetelman - Deutsche Oper Berlin (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)
Riccardo Zandonai: Francesca da Rimini - Sara Jakubiak, Jonathan Tetelman - Deutsche Oper Berlin (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)

Riccardo Zandonai: Francesca da Rimini; Sara Jakubiak, Jonathan Tetelman, Ivan Inverardi, Charles Workman, director: Christof Loy, conductor: Ivan Repusic; Deutsche Oper Berlin
Reviewed 26 May 2023

Loy's modern look at Zandonai's over-blown classic featured stunning performances from the two lovers and an intelligent approach to the drama, creating a remarkable evening in the theatre

Riccardo Zandonai's reputation rests almost entirely on his 1914 opera Francesca da Rimini, a work that retains a toehold on the repertoire. A somewhat overblown romantic tragedy based on a play by Gabriele d'Annunzio, the work would seem an unlikely fit for the stage of the Deutsche Oper Berlin under director Christof Loy's forensic eye. Yet the Deutsche Oper has evinced a fascination for operatic byways, witness its sequence of Meyerbeer productions, whilst Loy has proved highly effective in reviving romantic rarities, witness his powerful production of Weber's Euryanthe at the Vienna State Opera. And Loy's last appearance at the Deutsche Oper was for Korngold's Das Wunder der Heliane, another late Romantic.

Christof Loy's production of Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 2021 as a live stream without an audience. Thus the production's revival this month (with substantially the same cast) was the first performance with a live audience. We caught the performance on Friday 26 May 2023, conducted by Ivan Repusic, with Eva-Maria Abelein as revival director. Designs were by Johannes Leiacker with costumes by Klaus Bruns. Sara Jakubiak was Francesca with Lexi Hutton as her sister Samaritana and Kyle Miller as her brother Ostasio. Jonathan Tetelman was Paolo with Ivan Inverardi and Charles Workman as his brothers Gianciotto and Malatestino.

Riccardo Zandonai: Francesca da Rimini - Sara Jakubiak - Deutsche Oper Berlin (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)
Riccardo Zandonai: Francesca da Rimini - Sara Jakubiak - Deutsche Oper Berlin (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)

Zandonai's style is lushly romantic, somewhere between Verismo (Mascagni was one of his teachers), Massenet (a big influence on the composers of Puccini's generation) and the inevitable nod to Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. But unlike Wagner, Zandonai does not keep his passions under control. If Tristan und Isolde is one long-delayed orgasm, then Francesca da Rimini is a whole sequence of musical climaxes.

Friday, 26 May 2023

The story is 40 years old but nothing much has changed about women's rights in the region: Bushra El-Turk on her opera Woman at Point Zero which comes to Covent Garden next month

Bushra El-Turk: Woman at Point Zero (Photo Nika Prokopenka Transparant-AllArias)
Bushra El-Turk: Woman at Point Zero (Photo Nika Prokopenka Transparant-AllArias)

Bushra El-Turk is a composer who brings immense cultural richness to her works. Born in the UK to Lebanese parents, her musical practice can involve other musical cultures and traditions. Her opera Woman at Point Zero is being performed at the Royal Opera House's Linbury Theatre (28 to 30 June 2023) as part of Shubbak Festival and Aldeburgh Festival 2023. It is a multi-media piece, created by Bushra, with writer Stacy Hardy, director Laila Soliman and film designer Bissane Al Charif, with an instrumental featuring both Western classical instruments and traditional instruments from other cultures.

Bushra El-Turk (Photo Ben McDonnell)
Bushra El-Turk (Photo Ben McDonnell)

Woman at Point Zero is a co-production between LOD muziektheater, All Aria's festival (deSingel Antwerp, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Concertgebouw Brugge & Transparant), Royal Opera House, London, Shubbak, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Britten Pears Arts and Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, supported by ENOA Creative Europe programme of the European Union, Fedora and the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC). It premiered at Aix en Provence Festival last year and toured to Antwerp, Ghent, and Brugge, and the production will be presented at the Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg (7 June 2023). 

The opera is based on Nawal El Saadawi's 1975 novel which Bushra describes as just landing in her lap whilst she was writing her first opera, Silk Moth, in 2015. It dawned on her that El Saadawi's novel needed to be staged, and its story chimed in with Bushra's interest in stories about imprisonment and what it means. Woman at Point Zero features two women, Fatma, an activist imprisoned for manslaughter and Sama, an ambitious documentary filmmaker. Its dialogue form is very interior, just two women whose discussion constantly questions things, freedom today and power dynamics.

The director of Woman at Point Zero, Laila Soliman, who is Egyptian, was already looking into women prisoners and inserting documentary work into her theatre works. With Woman at Point Zero, they decided to take the work into the present day by introducing voices of women imprisoned for killing their husbands, voices of today from the real-life prison where Fatma is imprisoned.

Thursday, 25 May 2023

Norwich-based music writer, Tony Cooper, offers a glimpse to the 2023/24 season of Norwich Chamber Music opening in September.

Alim Beisembayev(Photo: Nabin Maharjan)
Alim Beisembayev(Photo: Nabin Maharjan)
Curated by Misha Donat - writer, lecturer and a senior music producer for BBC Radio 3 for more than a quarter of a century where he collaborated with many of the world’s leading musicians - the forthcoming season of Norwich Chamber Music offers classical-music aficionados another great, grand and exuberant feast of chamber music from a coterie of distinguished international performers.

The opening concert on Saturday, 16th September (7.30pm) falls to Kazakhstan-born pianist, Alim Beisembayev, playing Bach, Schubert, Debussy and Ravel. A pianist of extraordinary talent, Beisembayev’s career took off at an alarming rate after winning First Prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition in September 2021 performing Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Andrew Manze.  

Tuesday, 23 May 2023

Regents Opera's new production of Wagner's Die Walküre: a photo essay

Wagner: Die Walküre-Keel Watson (Wotan) - Regents Opera 2023 (Photo: Steve Gregson
Wagner: Die Walküre - Keel Watson (Wotan) - Regents Opera 2023 (Photo: Steve Gregson

Regents Opera's new production of Wagner's Die Walküre opened at the Freemason's Hall, London, on 21, May 2023, with further performances on 23 & 27 May. Ben Woodward conducts his own arrangement for 21 piece orchestra, Caroline Stanton directs, with Brian Smith Walters as Siegmund, JustineViani as Sieglinde, Gerrit Paul Groen as Hunding, Keel Watson as Wotan, Catharine Woodward as Brünnhilde and Ingeborg Novrup Børch as Fricka, and you can read Ingeborg's article, From Psychic Shellfish to a leading role in Wagner's Ring Cycle: Ingeborg Børch's Regents Opera journey on this blog.

We are pleased to present a selection of Steve Gregson's photographs of the production,

Wagner: Die Walküre - The Valkyries - Regents Opera 2023 (Photo: Steve Gregson
Wagner: Die Walküre - The Valkyries - Regents Opera 2023 (Photo: Steve Gregson)


Monday, 22 May 2023

Ein Sommernachtstraum in Essen: Jérémie Rhorer and Le Cercle de l'Harmonie

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel & Wilhelm Hensel
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel & Wilhelm Hensel
Ein Sommernachtstraum - Felix Mendelssohn, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel; Jacquelyn Wagner, Valentina Stadler, Le Cercle de l'Harmonie, Jérémie Rhorer; Philharmonie Essen

An imaginative evening combining music by Felix and Fanny with the texts that inspired them, along with the magical timbres and textures of the period instruments.

Beginning our journey to Berlin and Hannover with a stop over in Essen to visit the Folkwang Museum, we happened upon an imaginative concert given at the Philharmonie Essen on Sunday 21 May 2023 by Jérémie Rhorer and Le Cercle de l'Harmonie. The centrepiece of the concert was Mendelssohn's overture and incidental music to A Midsummer Night's Dream (Ein Sommernachtstraum). Rhorer and Le Cercle de l'Harmonie were joined by soprano Jacquelyn Wagner, mezzo-soprano Valentina Stadler, members of the Aalto Kinderchores and the Women's Choir of the Philharmonic Choir, Essen, plus actor Wolfram Koch. The remainder of the programme focussed on the idea of music and telling tales, with Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel's Szene aus 'Faust II' from 1843, and her Hero und Leander from 1831.

For A Midsummer Night's Dream Wolfram Koch gave us not a plot summary but speeches from the play, whilst before each of the works in the first half we heard extracts from the works by classic German authors that inspired the music, Grillparzer, Goethe and Schiller.  The result was to place the siblings' musical inspiration rather more firmly in a literary context than usual.

Saturday, 20 May 2023

The festival connects you with opera's good side: Wexford Festival Opera's principal guest conductor Francesco Cilluffo on the joys of operatic rediscovery

Halevy: La Tempesta - conducted by Francesco Cilluffo at Wexford Festival Opera 2022 (Photo: Clive Barda ArenaPAL)
Halevy: La Tempesta - conducted by Francesco Cilluffo at Wexford Festival Opera 2022 (Photo: Clive Barda ArenaPAL)

Conductor Francesco Cilluffo is the principal guest conductor at Wexford Festival Opera where he conducted Halevy's La Tempesta in 2022 [see my review] and he will conduct Marco Tutino's La Ciociara at Wexford this year in a new production directed by Wexford's artistic director Rosetta Cucchi [see my 2022 interview with her]. In the UK last year, Francesco conducted Opera Holland Park's Delius/Puccini double bill [see my review] and Verdi's Macbeth at the Grange Festival [see my review]

La Ciociara is based on the 1957 book of the same name by the Italian novelist Alberto Moravia, probably best known in the 1960 film adaptation (Two Women) starring Sophia Loren, which was directed by Vittorio de Sica and won Loren an Academy Award for Best Actress, making her the first such winner for a non-English film. Marco Tutino's opera premiered in 2015 at San Francisco Opera with mezzo-soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci, and the European premiere at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari followed in 2017 in the same production, also with Antonacci. For the Wexford performances, Tutino has produced a new, revised orchestration.

Francesco has a long-standing relationship with Tutino in Italy, working with him for the first time in 2011 on a production of Tutino's opera The Servant (also with Rosetta Cucchi directing). Francesco has conducted more of Tutino's work in Italy including the premieres Le Braci at the Festival della Valle d'Itria in Martina Franca in 2015 and Miseria e Nobiltà at the Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova in 2018, also directed by Rosetta Cucchi. And whilst Francesco has no experience of La Ciociara as a performer, he heard much of the music whilst it was being composed. He also caught the television broadcast of the Italian premiere of the work. 

Francesco Cilluffo
Francesco Cilluffo

Friday, 19 May 2023

Young musicians awards, a final and three winners

Owen Spafford & Jacob Jordan, winners of the 2023 National Centre for Early Music Young Composers Award
Owen Spafford & Jacob Jordan, winners of the 2023 National Centre for Early Music Young Composers Award

The final of the John Fussell Award for Young Musicians is coming up on 14 June at the Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea University, whilst in Yorkshire the winners of the 16th National Centre for Early Music Young Composers Award, presented in partnership with BBC Radio 3, were announced. And over in Manchester, The Hallé announced the latest winner of The Terence Judd-Hallé Award, in partnership with BBC Radio 3's New Generation Artists.

The John Fussell Award is funded by a Trust set up in memory of John Fussell, a well-known figure in the South Wales music scene from 1970 until his death in 1990. Four finalists currently attending a music college and in their final or postgraduate year are competing for a first prize of £2,500 to enable them to continue their studies in music.  To be eligible for the competition all competitors must have either been born or raised in Wales, have Welsh heritage or studied in Wales. 

This year the finalists are Cardiff-born Grace Hope-Gill (soprano), Samuel Willsmore (oboe) who is currently studying at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Vale of Clwyd-born Dafydd Jones (tenor), and Pembrokeshire-born Anna Phillips (harp). The final is free to attend, at the Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea University on 14 June 2023 at 7.30pm.

The final of the 16th National Centre for Early Music Young Composers Award, presented in partnership with BBC Radio 3, took place on Friday 12 May at the National Centre for Early Music (NCEM) in York. Aspiring young composers were invited to write a new piece for the acclaimed virtuoso period instrument group The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble. This year, young composers were invited to base their work on a popular tune from the Spanish 'Golden Age' of the 16th and 17th centuries and create a new piece in the same spirit, using the melody as a starting point for their musical ideas. 

This year's winner in the 19 to 25 years category is Owen Spafford, with Bog Bodies. The winner in the 18 years and under category is Jacob Jordan with A Ceremonial Dance for Mice. Their works will be premiered by The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble at The Stoller Hall, Manchester on 9 November 2023, when the concert will be recorded by BBC Radio 3's Early Music Show, for broadcast on Sunday 26 November. Details from the awards website

Tom Borrow, winner of The Terence Judd-Hallé Award.
Tom Borrow, winner of The Terence Judd-Hallé Award.

The Hallé has announced that BBC Radio 3 has selected Israeli pianist Tom Borrow as the latest winner of The Terence Judd-Hallé Award. The remarkably talented pianist, Terence Judd, tragically passed away in 1979 at the age of just 22. A trust was subsequently established in his name and an award has been presented in association with the Hallé for over 40 years. Notable past recipients include Stephen Hough, Nikolai Lugansky, Elisabeth Brauss and last year’s beneficiary, Alexander Gadjiev. Now presented in association with the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme, each year an outstanding young pianist approaching the end of the scheme is selected by the BBC to receive the award. 

Tom Borrow will receive support and professional development including at least one concerto performance with the Hallé, a chamber recital with Hallé musicians at Hallé St Peter’s, a solo recital as part of the Manchester Mid-Day Concert Series and a cash prize. Tom Borrow’s Hallé debut takes place on 21-25 February 2024 with five concerts in Manchester, Hanley and Sheffield. Tom has chosen to perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.3. Full details from the orchestra's website.



Songs of heartbreak and loss: American counter-tenor Randall Scotting explores 17th-century song from Dowland to Purcell, Étienne Moulinié to Antonio Cesti

Lovesick: William Lawes, Étienne Moulinié, Henry Purcell, John Blow, Antonio Cesti, Henry Lawes, John Dowland, Daniele da Castrovillari, Pierre Guédron; Randall Scotting, Stephen Stubbs; SIGNUM CLASSICS
Lovesick: William Lawes, Étienne Moulinié, Henry Purcell, John Blow, Antonio Cesti, Henry Lawes, John Dowland, Daniele da Castrovillari, Pierre Guédron; Randall Scotting, Stephen Stubbs; SIGNUM CLASSICS

A programme of songs of heartbreak and loss from the American counter-tenor, exploring a wide range of traditional and 17th-century song in a finely music and expressive performances

I interviewed American countertenor Randall Scotting in October last year, when he released his debut recital disc, The Crown: Heroic Arias for Senesino recorded with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Lawrence Cummings and released on the Signum Classics label [see my interview]. Having made his Royal Opera House debut in 2019 (in Britten's Death in Venice), Scotting's 2022 appearances included the Metropolitan Opera, New York, and his Bavarian State Opera debut, in Georg Friedrich Haas' Thomas. On 28 May 2023, Scotting will be creating the role of Adone in the world premiere of Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino's Venere e Adone (Venus and Adonis) at Staatsoper Hamburg, with soprano Layla Claire as Venere, conducted by Kent Nagano.

Randall Scotting's latest disc, with lutenist Stephen Stubbs on Signum Classics, is called Lovesick and was released, most appropriately, in time for Valentine's Day this year. It is a programme of anti-Valentines, songs of heartbreak and loss from the 17th century featuring music by William Lawes, Étienne Moulinié, Henry Purcell, John Blow, Antonio Cesti, Henry Lawes, John Dowland, Daniele da Castrovillari, and Pierre Guédron, along with a selection of Gaelic, Scottish, Irish and English traditional songs. 

Thursday, 18 May 2023

From Psychic Shellfish to a leading role in Wagner's Ring Cycle: Ingeborg Børch's Regents Opera journey.

Wagner: Das Rheingold - Ingeborg Børch as Fricka, Keel Watson as Wotan - Regents Opera 2022 (Photo Steve Gregson)
Wagner: Das Rheingold - Ingeborg Børch as Fricka, Keel Watson as Wotan - Regents Opera 2022 (Photo Steve Gregson)

On Sunday 21st May 2023, Regents Opera presents its new production of Wagner's Die Walküre, the latest instalment of their new Ring Cycle, directed by Caroline Staunton and conducted by Ben Woodward. Here, in this guest article, we hear from Ingeborg Børch, who sings Fricka.

As a little girl with pig-tails and a habit of turning every single roll of toilet paper in the house into a white, lush gown and bossing everyone around with a metre-long veil dragging after her, mezzo-soprano Ingeborg Børch was lovingly referred to by her parents as "their little Valkyrie". It was partly to do with her obvious desire to express herself, partly loving all kinds of competitions and challenges (she was later a high-level figure skater), and partly the family business. 

Wednesday, 17 May 2023

Oh, you, wretched singer, what are you hoping for? Musicians in support of Ukraine

Oh, you, wretched singer, what are you hoping for? Musicians in support of Ukraine
Following the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, violinist Roman Mints was unable to play his violin for nearly a year. 

He says, "When the war started I left (Russia) within a week.  I had to take my family out of that place where everyone goes on 'business as usual;', while their soldiers are killing and torturing people in Ukraine.  The only way a musician can resist this kind of aggression is to celebrate the culture that is threatened, earn money and send it to the victims. And that is what my friends and I are doing at this concert."

Now Roman Mints along with Vadym Kholodenko (piano), Sasha Grynyuk (piano),  Alexandra Raikhilina (violin), Yuri Zhislin (viola) and Helena Švigej (cello) is presenting a programme of Ukrainian music in support of Ukraine at Duke’s Hall, Royal Academy of Music on Sunday 25 June. The proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to the Odesa Peace Fund, which provides food, medicine, clothing, and other necessary assistance to those affected by the war in Ukraine. 

The concert will feature the UK premiere of Artem Lyakhovich’s Postludes from War Notepad written in Uman during the early stage of the Russian invasion. Other music in the concert includes 25.10.1893 … in memoriam P.I.Tch by Valentin Silvestrov, one of the most prominent, living Ukrainian composers. After the war began Silvestrov became one of eight million refugees and now resides in Berlin. His three pieces are dedicated to the memory of Tchaikovsky. Also in the programme are preludes from Songs Of Bukovina by Leonid Desyatnikov. Deeply shaken by Russian aggression towards Ukraine in 2014, Desyatnikov wrote a cycle of preludes on Ukrainian themes titled Songs of Bukovina. The twenty third prelude of this cycle is based on the song Oh, Wretched Singer, What Are You Hoping For? which gave its name to this concert. After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, Desyatnikov left Russia. The final work in the programme is the Ukrainian Quintet by Boris Lyatoshinsky (1895-1968). Renowned as one of the founders of contemporary Ukrainian music, Lyatoshinsky taught all the famous Ukrainian composers of the late 20th century including Silvestrov, Stankovich and Grabovsky. His Ukrainian Quintet was composed during World War 2 and is based on Ukrainian folk themes.

Further details from EventBrite.
   

Grażyna Bacewicz's piano concertos and more on an exciting disc from Peter Jablonski & the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Grażyna Bacewicz: Piano Concerto, Concerto for Two Pianos, Musi for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion; Peter Jablonski, Elisabeth Brauss, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Nicholas Collon; ONDINE
Grażyna Bacewicz: Piano Concerto, Concerto for Two Pianos, Music for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion; Peter Jablonski, Elisabeth Brauss, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Nicholas Collon; ONDINE

Three of the Polish composer's major symphonic works, including both piano concertos, in new recordings that bring out the power, range and brilliance of her music.

Grażyna Bacewicz wrote four symphonies and a Concerto for Symphony Orchestra, seven violin concertos, a viola concerto, two cello concertos, a piano concerto and a concerto for two pianos, along with five violin sonatas, seven string quartets, two piano quintets and much else besides. Yet, despite her music gaining currency in Western Europe, we rarely hear much of it. Before the war, she combined a career as a violinist (including playing with the Polish Radio Orchestra) with that of a composer but after the war, she concentrated on her compositional career. That she remained in her native Poland, behind the Iron Curtain, perhaps explains why her music never really percolated the West during her lifetime and rather disappeared afterwards.

The pianist Peter Jablonski, having given us a disc of Bacewicz's piano works on Ondine, returns to Ondine with pianist Elisabeth Brauss, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Nicholas Collon for a programme which features Bacewicz's Piano Concerto (with Jablonski as soloist), her Concerto for Two Pianos, Music for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion and OvertureThe music spans 23 years of her composing career, and it is fascinating to hear how her sound and her style developed.

Tuesday, 16 May 2023

Choir and six acoustic guitars: Danish ensemble Cirklen's debut album, Genklang

Cirklen-Genklang-excerpt from WE GO on Vimeo.

On 26 May 2023, the Danish guitar sextet Cirklen releases its debut album, Genklang (Danish for 'resonance'), a collaboration between the sextet and the Danish choir ensemble MidtVest Girls' Choir, featuring music composed for the unusual constellation of six acoustic guitars and classical choir.  

Composed by Niels Bjerg and Anders Holst for their guitar ensemble Cirklen Genklang was originally commissioned in 2020 by Vestervig Church. After having been performed in several Danish churches, Genklang will now be released in a recorded version – recorded in Herning Valgmenighedskirke and in KoncertKirken at Blågaards Plads in Copenhagen. Despite having been active since 2009 with a variety of pieces, collaborations and concert formats (spanning techno, sound art and contemporary dance) Genklang is Cirklen’s first official release.

The album features music that enters into dialogue with the architecture of the church and the sounds and associations which are traditionally connected to its vast reverb. The album will be released digitally and on vinyl with hand-printed covers by Danish artist Pernille Gjørup Bruhn.

Full details from Cirklen's website.

The first opera in Sanskrit: Jataneel Banerjee's Gaṅgā at the Wandsworth Arts Fringe

Jataneel Banerjee's Gaṅgā at Tete-a-Tete Opera Festival in 2022 (Photo Claire Shovelton)
Jataneel Banerjee's Gaṅgā at Tete-a-Tete Opera Festival in 2022 (Photo Claire Shovelton)

Composer Jataneel Banerjee's new chamber opera Gaṅgā is being premiered as part of the Wandsworth Arts Fringe with performances at the National Opera Studio, on 17 June 2023, and at Royal Academy of Dance, Battersea, on 25 June 2023. Gaṅgā is being billed as the first ever opera in Sanskrit, and it tells a story from the Indian epic, the Mahabharata. The performances will feature five singers, four musicians and a choir of (real) temple priests.

Composer, music producer and impresario, Jataneel Banerjee trained in both North Indian classical music and Western classical, he is a trained Indian classical vocalist and studied composition at the Royal College of Music. Gaṅgā was presented as a work-in-progress at the Tete-a-Tete Opera Festival 2022.

Full details from the composer's website.

High Barnet Chamber Music Festival

Joshua Ballance, artistic director of the High Barnet Chamber Music Festival
Joshua Ballance, artistic director of the High Barnet Chamber Music Festival

Conductor Joshua Ballance's High Barnet Chamber Music Festival returns for its third edition this Summer with a season of five concerts at St John the Baptist Church, High Barnet from 30 June to 16 July 2023. The festival opens with a concert from the New London Orchestra, performing music by Grace Williams, Joseph Suk and Lil Boulanger, alongside Carol J Jones' chrysalis in a newly commissioned version for string orchestra. The Jones is one of two new works at the festival, both of which came about through the festival's composition competition. The other new work is the festival's first commission, from emerging Australian composer Rob Hao. Hao's new work will be performed alongside Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and Helen Grime's Seven Pierrot Miniatures by Ballance's ensemble Mad Song with soprano Rebekah Jones.

Other concerts include pianist George Xiaoyuan Fu in Tailleferre, Beethoven, Ravel plus Cassandra Miller/Michael Finnissy's Sinner, Please Don't Let This Harvest Pass which consists of two pieces by Miller and Finnissy's two responses to them, and the Brompton Quartet in Haydn, Beethoven and Caroline Shaw. The festival ends with a charity concert by local musicians of all ages in memory of Jean Middlemiss, a music educator who lived locally.

Full details from the festival website.

A lovely immediacy to the performances: in Monologues, Anna Bonitatibus explores a century of dramatic scenes for solo voice

Monologues - Zingarelli, Donizetti, Rossini, Wagner, Viardot, Mel Bonis, Respighi; Anna Bonitatibus, Adele d'Aronzo; Prospero
Monologues - Zingarelli, Donizetti, Rossini, Wagner, Viardot, Mel Bonis, Respighi; Anna Bonitatibus, Adele d'Aronzo; Prospero

A terrific disc in which the Italian mezzo casts her net wide for a series of vivid solos, each from a different era, and each providing us with a different voice for a woman addressing us directly

On her new double-disc set, Monologues on Prospero, mezzo-soprano Anna Bonitatibus is joined by pianist Adele d'Aronzo for a programme of dramatic monologues from 1804 to around 1911 with music by Zingarelli, Donizetti, Rossini, Wagner, Viardot, Mel Bonis and Respighi.

The monologue, as a dramatic device, dates back to classical antiquity and here we hear how composers have transferred these ideas to a solo voice and keyboard, into a 'scena drammatica'. Unsurprisingly, many of the subjects and protagonists are classical in their origins - Hero (& Leander), Sappho, Hermione, Arethusa, plus Joan of Arc, Mary Stuart and Salome. But whatever the dramatic origins, there is no doubting the era that the music of each piece belongs to.

Monday, 15 May 2023

Steeping listeners in Indian classical music without them knowing it: sitar player Jasdeep Singh Degun

Jasdeep Singh Degun
Jasdeep Singh Degun

Jasdeep Singh Degun's tour of Anomaly featuring music from his acclaimed Real World Records debut disc opens on 17 May 2023 at the Howard Assembly Room in Leeds and continues to Norwich, Nottingham, Southampton, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Manchester and Liverpool [see website for details]. We met up earlier this month, whilst he was in London (the previous day he had been on BBC Radio 3's In Tune) to chat about Anomaly, and working with both Western classical and Indian classical musics.

Jasdeep is a sitar player and composer whose work in Indian classical music has crossed over into Western classical in such projects as Arya, his 2020 concerto for sitar written for Opera North, and for Opera North's Orpheus project which combined Monteverdi's opera with Indian classical music and for which Jasdeep was the co-musical director (with Lawrence Cummings).

Born in Leeds to Punjabi parents who came to the UK in the 1980s, in person, Jasdeep embodies this dual heritage, he wears a turban yet speaks with a distinct Leeds accent. At one point during our interview he comments that he is just a 'random guy from Leeds', he does not come from a musical family, his involvement in Indian classical music began at the local community centre and he only started concentrating on studying the sitar when he was in his teens, which is relatively late. He studied sitar with Ustad Dharambir Singh MBE, his teacher.


Jasdeep Singh Degun performing Arya: concerto for sitar and orchestra with Orchestra of Opera North (Photo Justin Slee)
Jasdeep Singh Degun performing Arya: concerto for sitar and orchestra with Orchestra of Opera North (Photo Justin Slee)

Then I play'd upon the Harpsichord: Ensemble Hesperi's engaging look at the musical life of Queen Charlotte

Then I play'd upon the Harpsichord

The musical life of King George III and Queen Charlotte does not seem promising for an evening's entertainment at first, but the two were highly cultured with music playing a big role in their private and public lives. Ensemble Hesperi's 2022 project, Then I play'd upon the Harpsichord interwove music of the period with diary entries from the period. At a performance at Six Fitzroy Square, Ensemble Hesperi, Mary-Jannet Leith (recorders), Magdalena Loth-Hill (Baroque violin), Miriam Kazcor (Baroque flute), Florence Petit (Baroque cello), Elias Sibley (theorbo/guitar) and Thomas Allery (harpsichord), were joined by Rowan Pierce (soprano), Nathaniel Mander (fortepiano) and actor Miranda Keeling, when the evening was filmed, and the resulting film is available from Ensemble Hesperi's website.

Saturday, 13 May 2023

A love of telling stories: Norwegian composer Bjørn Morten Christophersen on setting Charles Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species' to music

Bjørn Morten Christophersen (Photo Fartein Rudjord UIO)
Bjørn Morten Christophersen (Photo Fartein Rudjord UIO)

Norwegian composer Bjørn Morten Christophersen's recent large-scale works have explored Darwin's On the Origin of Species, the journey of refugees through the life of the Norwegian-born first Duke of Normandy, and a Requiem for Norway's World War II sailors.  

His Charles Darwin-based oratorio The Lapse of Time came out on Simax Classics earlier this year [see my review]. A large-scale work for soloists, choir and orchestra, the piece sets Bjørn's own poetic libretto based on Charles Darwin's 1859 book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Premiered in 2013, in Kristiansund and Ålesund by Ensemble Dali, Kristiansund Sinfonietta and conductor Eirik Sørborg, eight years were to elapse before Bjørn was able to find the finance for further performance of the oratorio and after a year delay because of the pandemic, it was performed and recorded at Frogner Church, Oslo with Ensemble 96, Telemark Chamber Orchestra, Ditte Marie Bræin (soprano), Frank Havrøy (baritone), Inger-Lise Ulsrud (organ), Nina T. Karlsen and Per Kristian Skalstad (conductors).

Bjørn has PhD in musicology from the University of Oslo and an MA in Composing for Film and TV from Kingston University in London. Since 2003, he has taught arranging and composition at the University of Oslo.

Whilst Bjørn is not from a religious family, the fact that he has sung in choirs for many years and plays the organ meant that he was curious about church music and found himself drawn to it. He has also followed the debates between creationism and those who believe in evolution. It seemed that it was becoming impossible for the two sides to consider the two texts, the Bible and Darwin's On the Origin of Species, together. Bjørn grew up with the Natural Sciences, one parent was a doctor and the other a pharmacist. He wanted to make a piece that was meaningful for both sides, for those that believe in the Bible and in Natural Sciences.

Friday, 12 May 2023

Britten, Brandstrup, Bostridge in Bath, and much more besides in Deborah Warner's new season at the Theatre Royal's Ustinov Studio

Phaedra/Minotaur double bill at Ustinov Studio (Photo Claire Egan)
Phaedra/Minotaur double bill at Ustinov Studio in 2022 (Photo Claire Egan)

Deborah Warner has announced her second season as artistic director of the Ustinov Studio at the Theatre Royal, Bath. As with her previous season, this new one mixes theatre, opera, and dance, along with a new recital strand.

Richard Jones will direct a new production of the play Machinal by American playwright Sophie Treadwell (1885-1970), an extraordinary epic masterpiece from the 1920s, based on the true story of the committal and execution of Ruth Snyder, who with her lover Judd Gray, had murdered her husband.

Isabelle Kettle will direct Benjamin Britten's opera The Turn of the Screw with Richard Heatherington as director of music and an accompaniment of piano and chamber ensemble. Complementing this tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Julius Drake will be presenting a programme of songs by Britten.

Other recitals include mezzo-soprano Christine Rice and Julius Drake in Brahms, Haydn, Frank Bridge and Rebecca Clarke, and soprano Sophie Bevan in lieder by Schubert, Müller-Hermann and Mahler.

Warner's previous season at the Ustinov Studio featured a double bill of Britten's Phaedra and Kim Brandstrup's new dance piece, Minotaur, and the double bill will be featured at this year's Edinburgh Festival. In the new season at the Ustinov Studio, Kim Brandstup’s Minotaur returns in a dance double bill with a brand-new work by Brandstrup featuring ballet stars Matthew Ball, Alina Cojocaru, Kristen McNally and Tommy Franzen.

Alongside Warner's seasons, the Ustinov Studio continues to present programmes of world and UK premieres, alongside small-scale touring theatre, comedy, music and dance.

Full details from the Theatre Royal's website.

Thirteen North: Scotland's dynamic new string ensemble makes its debut with three new commissions plus film from Bircan Birol

Thirteen North
Thirteen North

Formed by violinists and artistic directors Emily Davis and Catriona Price, Thirteen North is a new string ensemble made up of 13 of Scotland's best players with the aim of bringing classical music to a new and diverse audience. The ensemble's debut performance is Connected at St Luke's Glasgow on 29 June 2023. The ensemble will perform three new commissions by folk-influenced Scottish composers Pàdruig Morrison, Catriona Price, and Pippa Murphy, complemented by Bartók’s Divertimento for Strings. The event also features the work of Glasgow-based filmmaker Bircan Birol, who has collaborated with the three composers to create short films in response to the themes explored through their music – generations, culture, and tradition.

Connected aims to offers audiences an escape from the (oftentimes daunting) formal concert hall environment into a more relaxed and interactive space, stretching the boundaries of the traditional classical music experience and bringing it to the 21st century audiences it needs and deserves.

Further details about Connected from the St Luke's Glasgow website.

Finding his way: Opera Rara's revival of Donizetti's relatively early L'esule di Roma showed a composer finding his own voice

Donizetti: L'esule di Roma - Nicola Alaimo, Albina Shagimuratova, Carlo Rizzi, Britten Sinfonia - Opera Rara at Cadogan Hall (Photo Russell Duncan)
Donizetti: L'esule di Roma - Nicola Alaimo, Albina Shagimuratova, Carlo Rizzi, Britten Sinfonia - Opera Rara at Cadogan Hall (Photo Russell Duncan)

Donizetti: L'esule di Roma; Albina Shagimuratova, Sergey Romanovsky, Nicola Alaimo, Britten Sinfonia, Carlo Rizzi; Opera Rara at Cadogan Hall

With a mad scene for the baritone villain and an intense prison scene, this stylish performance showed Donizetti gradually moving away from the influence of Rossini

In 1822, Donizetti moved to Naples and began a relationship with the royal theatres there, in succession to Rossini who wrote nine operas for Naples between 1815 and 1822. In conventional chronology, Donizetti's serious operas for Naples are still journeyman works, very much dependent on the model of Rossini and it was only with Anna Bolena (written for Milan in 1830) that mature Donizetti begins. But Opera Rara wants to show us that Donizetti's operas from the 1820s do have something to say for themselves, so the company's latest project is a recording and performance of Donizetti's L'esule di Roma , ossia Il proscritto (The Exile from Rome, or the Proscribed Man) a melodramma eroico written for Naples in 1828 with a libretto by Domenico Gilardoni. This continues the theme of earlier Opera Rara projects, and in fact, Gilardoni would write the libretto of Donizetti's 1829 Neapolitan opera, Il paria which Opera Rara presented in 2021 [see my review] and his 1830 opera, Il diluvio universale which Opera Rara recorded in 2005.

Opera Rara presented Donizetti's L'esule di Roma at Cadogan Hall on Thursday 11 May 2023. Carlo Rizzi conducted the Britten Sinfonia with Albina Shagimuratova as Argelia, Nicola Alaimo as Murena, Sergey Romanovsky as Settimio, Lluis Calvet i Pey as Publio, Kezia Bienek as Leontina and Andre Henriques as Lucio and Fulvio.

Donizetti: L'esule di Roma - Sergey Romanovsky, Carlo Rizzi, Britten Sinfonia - Opera Rara at Cadogan Hall (Photo Russell Duncan)
Donizetti: L'esule di Roma - Sergey Romanovsky, Carlo Rizzi, Britten Sinfonia - Opera Rara at Cadogan Hall (Photo Russell Duncan)

Thursday, 11 May 2023

Hertfordshire Festival of Music 2023

Hertfordshire Festival of Music 2023
This year's Hertfordshire Festival of Music (HFOM) runs from 9 to 16 June 2023 with events in and around the county town of Hertford under the theme of The Art of Music & The Music of Art. The festival's principal artist this year is clarinettist Emma Johnson, and she will be heard in recital and at an in conversation event as well as giving a masterclass.

Genre-bending ensemble ZRI return to the festival with their mix of classical and traditional in their recreation atmosphere of the legendary Red Hedgehog bar in Vienna, at the McMullen Brewery courtyard in Hertford. Pianist Katya Apekisheva performs Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, violinist Litsa Tunnah will be exploring colour in music, guitarist Jack Hancher (winner of the 2022 Gold Medal of the Royal Overseas League Competition) gives a recital themed on art, whilst the Rossetti Ensemble performs music by David Matthews and the festival's artistic director, James Francis Brown.

To mark the Coronation, at Hertford Castle, the HFoM Community Concert Band musicians will perform arrangements of music associated with royalty in a fun, relaxed performance. The Hertford Chamber Choir and Manvinder Rattan take up the theme in a special performance at All Saints’ Church, including exquisite solo works for organ performed by William Whitehead.

There will also be 15 events/outreach projects in community venues, many free or with discounted tickets, and with the support of community sponsor, Network Homes and collaboration with Sing from the Heart, HFoM’s Music in Mind project offers a series of interactive sessions for people living with dementia, as well as their carers and families, in selected care homes across Hertfordshire.

Full details from the festival's website.

Giovanni Legrenzi: Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano explore motets by one of Venice's most prominent composers

Giovanni Legrenzi: motets; Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini; Naive

Giovanni Legrenzi: motets; Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini; Naive

Concerto Italiano bring out the engaging madrigalian quality of the motets by one of Venice's most prominent and influential composers from the late 17th century

For this disc from Naive, Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano explore the published motets of Giovanni Legrenzi. Not that much of a name today, but in the late 17th century, one of Venice's most prominent and influential composers, eventually became maestro di cappella at San Marco in 1685.

Born and raised in Bergamo, his first post was in that city then he moved on to Ferrara and finally settled in Venice in 1670 where he took a variety of posts. In 1676 he was a finalist for appointment as maestro at San Marco in succession to Francesco Cavalli, losing by a single vote to Natale Monferrato, and he would succeed Monferrato in the post in 1685. His pupils would include Lotti, Gasparini and Albinoni.

Wednesday, 10 May 2023

In case you missed it: our newsletter April on Planet Hugill is out

Nicole Chevalier in Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs at ENO, photo Clive Barda.
Nicole Chevalier in Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs at ENO, photo Clive Barda.

April on Planet Hugill
, the latest edition of our monthly newsletter is out, covering a wealth of reviews from last month, from Easter music to fin-de-siecle Korngold to the OAE's Nightshift in a bar in Brixton, The Fourth Choir at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the National Youth Orchestra at the Southbank and much else besides.

Interviews include Gábor Takács-Nagy on conducting Mozart, pianist Edna Stern on her approach to Bach, trumpeter Lucy Humphris on the ideas behind her debut disc, composer Neil T. Smith on the recent music that went into his new disc, and the founders of Vox Urbane on the importance of diversity.

Read the full newsletter at MadMimi, and if you don't already receive it, head over to the sign-up page.

Young Talent: news on schemes supporting young conductors, singers, performers and composers

Carys Davies, a previous member of WNO Youth Opera and current RWCMD student, performed in WNO’s main scale production of The Magic Flute.
Carys Davies, a previous member of WNO Youth Opera and current RWCMD student, in WNO’s main scale production of The Magic Flute.

The step between conservatoire and professional performer is quite a big one, and many organisations offer schemes that help this transition. There has been quite a bit of new in this area recently, there is a new Leverhulme Conducting Fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and Welsh National Opera are sharing a new multi-million pound legacy, the National Youth Orchestras of Scotland is starting a fund to support NYOS Camerata, a pre-professional chamber ensemble, and the current London Philharmonic Orchestra Young Composers scheme is reaching its concluding concert with five new works being directed by Brett Dean.

Following a selection process involving 150 global candidates, British-Canadian conductor Riley Court-Wood has been appointed as the new Leverhulme Conducting Fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS). The fellowship, in association with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra is for conductors on the cusp of their careers, offering a further step in the journey between study and the professional podium. Riley will work extensively with Martyn Brabbins – RCS’s Visiting Professor of Conducting and the Music Director of English National Opera – and will take up the role in September 2023, succeeding Emilie Godden. Further details from the RCS website.

Riley Court-Wood - new Leverhulme Conducting Fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
Riley Court-Wood - new Leverhulme Conducting Fellow
at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
A multimillion pound legacy, shared between the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama (RWCMD) and Welsh National Opera (WNO), will support the training of singers and musicians and also create future opportunities for young artists to perform on a professional scale.  The late Philippa and David Seligman  were passionate supporters of the arts, and David has left legacies exceeding £3 million pounds to RWCMD and WNO. 

RWCMD’s David Seligman Opera School offers a fully integrated operatic training experience, with storytelling through music and drama at the heart of its intensive, personalised training. Part of the legacy will be directly invested into the productions, whilst crucially-needed new scholarships will also be created in the Seligman name for opera and other music disciplines. 

WNO Youth Opera was established in the mid-1990s as a way for the WNO company to share its love of opera with aspiring young singers. The impact of David’s legacy will ensure that WNO Youth Opera can present a showcase performance every year. The legacy also allows for a continuation of a talent development pathway that has historically linked both WNO and RWCMD. Numerous youth opera alumni have gone on to train at the College and then subsequently returned to WNO in a professional capacity. Further details from the RWCMD website.

The National Youth Orchestras of Scotland (NYOS) has announced the launch of a new fund to create opportunities for aspiring young musicians. The Richard Chester Creativity Fund honours the life and legacy of Richard Chester MBE, the visionary Director of NYOS from 1987 to 2007 who passed away in 2020. 

The fund aims to honour Richard by raising £20,000 for NYOS in his memory. One of the projects that will benefit from the fund is NYOS Camerata, a pre-professional chamber ensemble for musicians aged 18–25. Bridging the gap between youth orchestra and professional ensemble, NYOS Camerata provides opportunities for exceptional young musicians through a range of performances and collaborations, working alongside inspiring professional musicians. 

To celebrate the launch of the fund, NYOS Symphony Orchestra will perform alongside guest soloist, violinist Elena Urioste, in Perth Concert Hall on 15 July. Conducted by Martyn Brabbins, the current Music Director for English National Opera, the programme features music from Strauss, Elgar and Coleridge-Taylor. Full details from the NYOS website.

This year’s London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) Young Composers scheme culminates on Thursday 13 July at 7.30pm at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall with its annual Debut Sounds concert, this year entitled Where to Begin? The 2022/23 cohort have created five new works inspired by other artforms, guided and conducted by LPO Composer-in-Residence Brett Dean.

The five new works take their leads from artforms including etching, animation, painting and circus. The composers and their pieces are:
  • Jakob Bragg Through gates unseen inspired by the artist Robert Andrew
  • Philip Dutton Etched inspired by the physical movement and experience of etching, and by artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi
  • Zakiya Leeming Eagle in the Ropes inspired by aerial arts
  • Matt London there must be more nature inspired by the artwork of Hundertwasser
  • Tayla-Leigh Payne i inspired by short films by Norman McLaren and Stan Brakhage
Each work will be performed by a chamber orchestra of 30 musicians comprising LPO players and Foyle Future Firsts, the LPO’s programme that bridges the transition between education and the professional platform for outstanding early-career orchestral musicians.  Further details from the LPO website.

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