Sustainable Opera for the Future by Max Parfitt of Wild Arts

Donizetti: The Elixir of Love - James Atkinson - Wild Arts 2023 (Photo: Lucy J Toms)

We humans, alone on earth, are powerful enough to create worlds, and then to destroy them. But we have one more thing – an ability, perhaps unique among the living creatures on the planet – to imagine a future and work towards achieving it.

- David Attenborough

The arts industry is aware of the environmental threat that we are under. Any good art has to be. Art should reflect present times and issues, even while celebrating the genius of the past. Environmental and social activism (successful or otherwise) is what will define this generation in years to come.

Productions have frequently been tilted towards environmental themes – see anything from Opera North’s Masque of Might [see Robert's review], to Barry Kosky’s staging of Das Rheingold at Covent Garden – there is something inherently operatic about the grand forces (light and dark, good and evil, man and nature) that such ideas invoke. Wild Arts’ Summer Opera this year, directed by James Hurley, is Mozart's The Magic Flute – a tale of enlightenment conquering the forces of nature, order (and civilisation) asserting itself over chaos. Though our production is set in a more fantastical world than our own, there is nonetheless a lingering question for any modern-day audience: as Sarastro triumphs and the forces of nature are crushed, are our heroes on the right side? Can the powerful final chorus be quite so celebratory when we know the consequences of the society it lauds? Done well, these lines of environmental commentary can bring an extra depth to their productions without crowbarring messaging irrelevant to the original material.

What does an opera world look like which is entirely sustainable?   What are the parameters we should be striving towards?   What do we all need to consider?   How should we be shaping the future.   

As vivid and vigorous as ever: David McVicar's production of Handel's Giulio Cesare returns to Glyndebourne with a terrific young cast

Handel: Giulio Cesare - Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, Louise Alder - Glyndebourne, 2024 (Photo: © Richard Hubert Smith)

Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto; Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, Louise Alder, Beth Taylor, Svetlina Stoyanova, Cameron Shahbazi, director: David McVicar, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Laurence Cummings; Glyndebourne
28 June 2024

Nearly 20 years old, McVicar's iconic production returns as vivid and vibrant as ever, with superb performances from a young cast

Amazingly, David McVicar's production of Handel's Giulio Cesare at Glyndebourne will be 20 years old next year. It debuted in 2005, with Sarah Connolly and Danielle de Niese, returning in 2006 (with David Daniels and Danielle de Niese) and in 2009 (with Sarah Connolly and Danielle de Niese). Now, after something of a gap, it is back as vivid and vigorous as ever with a young new cast.

We caught the second performance of the 2024 revival of David McVicar's production of Handel's Giulio Cesare at Glyndebourne on Friday 28 June 2024. Giulio Cesare was Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen [who was David in Handel's Saul at Komische Oper Berlin in 2023, see my review], Cleopatra was Louise Alder [who sang the title role on Arcangelo's recent recording of Handel's Theodora, see my review], Cornelia was Beth Taylor, Sesto was Svetlina Stoyanova [who was Ruggiero in Handel's Alcina at Glyndebourne in 2022, see my review], Tolomeo was Cameron Shahbazi [who was Hamor in Handel's Jephtha at Covent Garden in 2023, see my review] and Achilla was Luca Tittoto [who sang Saul at the Komische Oper], with Thomas Chenhall as Curio and Ray Chenez as Nireno. Laurence Cummings conducted the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Sets were by Robert Jones, costumes by Brigitte Reiffenstuel, choreography by Andrew George.

The production takes an admirably expansive view of what is actually a very long opera with a first act lasting just shy of 90 minutes and, correctly, two intervals, none of the arias is trimmed, Nireno got his aria and Achilla got both of his. The second interval is, however, placed after Cleopatra's 'Se pietà', with the scene for Tolomeo, Cornelia, Sesto and Achilla opening the third part.

Handel: Giulio Cesare - Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen - Glyndebourne, 2024 (Photo: © Richard Hubert Smith)

The production sets the action in the context of the British Raj, which gives a firm underpinning for the drama without the need for extensive back history, though Brigitte Reiffenstuel's costumes, particularly for Cleopatra are rather more playful. Robert Jones' sets might seem lavish but they are enormously responsive and scene changes happened smoothly and easily, with no awkward waits and only a couple of uses of the drop curtain. This has the admirable effect of allowing Handel's drama to flow exactly as it ought. Cleopatra's scene in Act Two where she is supposed to appear enthroned with the muses really did feature the nine musicians on stage, which is something opera companies rarely attempt nowadays, and McVicar keeps largely to the work's dramaturgy so that exit arias were largely that.

Whilst McVicar does present Handel and his librettist Nicola Haym's drama pretty much as they intended, McVicar also takes the view that opera seria as a genre is something that needs help if it is to live theatrically. He does this by leavening the drama with humour, the use of the chorus and actors has a stylised sense of the comic to it and choreographer Andrew George's movement generally had a lightening, leavening effect. Also, in the moments of unfortunate coincidence or suspension of disbelief, to which opera seria is rather prone, if the production did not actually encourage a laugh, it was rather expected. That said, within this playfulness, the characters are taken seriously and their emotions are never lightened.

Expressionism and rigour: soprano Claire Booth on recording Pierrot Lunaire and the importance of exploring Schoenberg's songs

Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire - Claire Booth & Nash Ensemble at Aldeburgh Festival, 2024 (Photo: Marcus Roth (c) Britten Pears Arts)

Soprano Claire Booth and pianist Christopher Glynn have previous when it comes to focusing on composers whose songs deserve to be better known. Recent forays into this repertoire have led them to deep dives into songs by Percy Grainger, Folk Music, Edvard Grieg, Lyric Music, and Modest Mussorgsky, Unorthodox Music. Now they are repeating this with Expressionist Music on Orchid Classics, a disc that explores Schoenberg's songs beyond that handful that people feel obliged to perform.

Claire Booth (Photo: Sven Arnstein)

This year is, of course, the 150th anniversary of Arnold Schoenberg's birth, and Claire is devoting quite a bit of time to the composer. This is not new, she has performed Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire since taking part in a performance directed by Pierre Boulez shortly after she left college and Pierrot Lunaire features on another disc with Ensemble 360 that is being released on Onyx Classics in September, and she will be performing the work several times including at the Aldeburgh Festival [see Tony's review]. But her musical life extends beyond Schoenberg and this year she is also performing new works by Zoë Martlew and Helen Grime which Claire has commissioned.

Schoenberg's song-writing spans much of his career from the early 1890s to the 1930s, so they vary in style from his late romantic works to free atonality to twelve-tone. In Expressionist Music, Claire and Christopher Glynn perform songs from his Opus 2 (1899), Opus 3 (1899/1903), Brettl-Lieder (1901), Opus 6 (1903/1905), Opus 12 (1906), Opus 14 (1907/1908), Opus 48 (1933) as well as something from Gurrelieder (1901/1911).

As she points out, some of these songs are known and occasionally performed, but the name of the composer and his reputation seems to prevent performers and promoters from exploring further. With his 150th anniversary, it feels super-important to Claire to be performing his music and she confessed herself somewhat surprised that festivals have not been showcasing his music more.

Her and Christopher Glynn's booklet note explains their thinking, "the inescapable truth is that a century on, Schoenberg is still not box office. But for anyone who believes that Schoenberg is cold, cerebral and unapproachable, we can only say this: try the songs. Having explored every single one of them (as we did over a few intense days one summer), it’s impossible not to be struck by just how much magnificent music there is to discover, and that is what we have tried to celebrate in this recital."

The Northern Chamber Orchestra goes on tour with Mozart and much more besides in the new season in Macclesfield

Northern Chamber Orchestra (Photo: Sara Porter, 2022)

The theme of Mozart on Tour threads its way through the Northern Chamber Orchestra's 2024/25 season of concerts in Macclesfield (largely but not exclusively at The King's School). But it isn't just Mozart, with a season featuring works by Anna Thorvaldsdottir, John Adams, George Walker, Schnittke, and Judith Weir

The season opens with Mozart in Paris with Ellie Slorach conducting Symphony No.13 (Paris) and the Requiem with Manchester Chamber choir. Then in December focus moves to Linz for Mozart's Symphony No. 36 (Linz) directed by Katie Stillman in a concert that also includes Raphael Wallfisch in Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations and music by Anna Thorvaldsdottir. In Vienna, we get Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 with Benedict Holland directing with soloist Jeneba-Kanneh Mason plus Symphony No. 35 (Haffner) plus music by John Adams and George Walker. And the season ends in Prague with Zoe Beyers directing Mozart's Symphony No. 38 (Prague) plus Haydn's Symphony No.45 (‘Farewell’), Schnittke's Moz-Art a la Haydn and Judith Weir's Still, Glowing.

Other concerts feature Philip Herbert's Elegy (In Memoriam Stephen Lawrence), Jennifer Pike in Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, Caplet's Suite Persane, Shostakovich, Neilsen, Bruckner, Jessie Montgomery and much else besides.

Full details from the orchestra's website.

Something of a minor revelation: choral music by Giovanni Bononcini who was brought to England as Handel's operatic rival

How are the mighty fallen: Choral music by Giovanni Bononcini; Rowan Pierce, Esther Lay, Helen Charlston, Guy Cutting, Giles Underwood, Choir of Queen's College, Oxford, Academy of Ancient Music, Owen Rees; Signum Classics
25 June 2024

Known as a rival to Handel, Bononcini wrote far more than Italian opera and this disc of his choral music written in England is something of a minor revelation

Giovanni Bononcini is best known in the UK today as Handel's rival who finally retired the scene after plagiarism scandal, leaving the way open for Handel. Bononcini arrived in London in 1720 to join Handel in the Royal Academy of Music as part of a group of composers responsible for creating opera. Bononcini was around from 1720 until 1732 when, indeed, there was a plagiarism scandal. But he was already well known in the city.

His opera Camilla (based on his 1696 opera Il trionfio di Camilla) with a new English text was so popular that it had 111 or 112 performances from 1706 to 1728, making it the most popular and successful work of its period, after The Beggar's Opera.  Some of these were with adapted music but others were with Bononcini's original score. And when he finally arrived in London, his operas, including Griselda from 1722, often rivalled Handel's for popularity. Bononcini had a knack for creating graceful, elegant and appealing melodies. In the later 1720s his operatic output decreased following his appointment as director of the private concerts of the Duchess of Marlborough.

But this new disc from the Choir of The Queen's College, Oxford, the Academy of Ancient Music, conductor Owen Rees, with soloists Rowan Pierce, Esther Lay, Helen Charlston, Guy Cutting and Giles Underwood on Signum Classics invites us to explore a different side to Bononcini. Owen Rees presents a programme of the composer's sacred music, Ave maris stella, Te Deum, Laudate pueri and When Saul was King.

1-2-3 Mendelssohn: the Engegård Quartet and friends celebrate the music of Felix and Fanny at their festival in Oslo

If you fancy an Autumn weekend in Norway, then the Engegård Quartet is offering a deep dive into the chamber music and songs of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn.

The Engegård Quartet [whom we heard recently at Conway Hall, see my review] has a tradition of holding single-composer mini-festivals in its home town of Oslo in Norway and this year, the festival is devoted to the Mendelssohns, Felix and Fanny. 1-2-3 Mendelssohn takes place at Nynorskens hus in Oslo from 8 to 10 November. The Engegård Quartet will be joined by an array of friends including the Elias String Quartet, mezzo-soprano Marianne Beate Kielland, pianist Ariel Lanyi, film maker Sheila Hayman, The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation’s Boys Choir and Nordberg String Orchestra, for a weekend of events focusing on the music of the two composers.

The opening concert features chamber music and lieder, including Fanny's masterpiece, Piano Trio in D minor and Felix's String Quintet No. 1, plus a piano duet version of the famous Wedding March. Saturday begins with a cafe concert devoted to songs without words, then in the afternoon it is the music both wrote in childhood including a performance of one of Felix's early string symphonies performed by young people and both quartets in Felix's Octet. And youth has it in the evening as the boys choir is joined by young people from Barratt Due Junior Ensemble with works including Hear my prayer and the cantata Verleih uns frieden.

Sunday morning sees music by both siblings performed by young people and woven into a story about Felix and Fanny. There is an afternoon salon concert featuring chamber music and songs, then the Norwegian premiere of Sheila Hayman's film Fanny: The Other Mendlessohn, and the festival closes with another feast of chamber music and song, including Ariel Lanyi in Felix's Fantasie in F sharp minor and the event concludes with the audience being invited to join in Hark the Herald Angels Sing! which has music adapted from Mendelssohn's Gutenberg Cantata.

Full details from the festival website.

And looking further ahead, if you fancy a December trip to Oslo, then the Engegård Quartet is collaborating with actress Gjertrud Jynge and visual artist Marianne Heske for A Shining Darkness at Norwegian Opera. This is a stage adaptation, by Gjertrud Jynge, of Jon Fosse's novel Septology which will feature chamber music ranging from old to modern and from popular to sacred, and a video painting by visual artist Marianne Heske visually accompanies the performance.

Details from Norwegian Opera's website.

Help support Brixton Chamber Orchestra in offering communities living in Lambeth’s housing estates the opportunity to come together to enjoy an uplifting musical experience

Brixton Chamber Orchestra's Summer Estates Tour 2023

One of Brixton Chamber Orchestra's central tenets is a belief that that orchestral music should be at the centre of society, reaching people in their own community, and that everyone, regardless of circumstance, should have access. 

To this end, since December 2018, the orchestra has given regular Estates Tours around Lambeth, bringing a 30-piece orchestra to perform varied programmes free across estates in Lambeth with both a Christmas tour and a Summer Estates tour. 

This year's Summer Estates Tour takes place over two weekends - 19 - 28 July, with 11 estate shows and a workshop and performance at Jubilee Primary School, with 2000+ expected to attend! The project offers communities living in Lambeth’s housing estates the opportunity to come together to enjoy an uplifting musical experience free to all in the community. We bring shared community spaces to life with live music and offers regular exposure to live performances in many different genres with a variety of instruments. Many of the audiences have never been to an orchestral concert before.

Summer Tour performances take place outdoors, in grassy gardens or in the amphitheatre-like central spaces on estates surrounded by balconied tower blocks. Where possible, performances are integrated into residents’ existing events, with the whole community coming together in celebration. 

Brixton Chamber Orchestra's Summer Estates Tour 2023

The events are all free and the orchestra relies on external funding to help cover the costs. Unfortunately for this Summer Tour the orchestra did not receive the expected funding from one of the organisations that has supported these tours for the last 4 years, so despite best forward-planning and funding strategy, the tour is vulnerable to cancellation.

The orchestra has created a Go Fund Me page to help cover some of the costs, please do support.

The five BBC orchestras join up with Young Sounds UK for a national mentoring programme for 15-17 year-olds

BBC and Young Sounds UK Exchange programme in 2022 (Photo: BBC)

The five BBC orchestras - the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra - are joining up with Young Sounds UK (formerly Awards for Young Musicians) for a national mentoring programme for 15-17 year-olds across the UK. 

Beginning in September this year, the project will connect with the young people at pivotal points in their lives, preparing for music college or university or making decisions about career options. Twenty-four 15-17 year-olds, all of whom have won an award with Young Sounds UK, will be matched with a BBC musician for six mentoring sessions. They will gain access to music experiences across the BBC with their mentors acting as a role model, guide and advocate. Representatives from each of the BBC Orchestras will be taking part, ensuring young people across the UK have access to the programme.

The partnership builds on the success of the 2022 BBC and Young Sounds UK Exchange programme pilot, which brought young people together with musicians from the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Now the partnership includes all of the BBC orchestras and there will be opportunities to learn alongside the teams at Radio 3, BBC Audio and BBC Proms, highlighting careers and opportunities beyond the stage. 

Young Sounds UK has four main programmes aimed at removing the financial barriers and other obstacles that prevent young people getting into music, and helping realise their potential once they’re on their way. The charity began life as as The Musicas Fund in 1998, established from the sale proceeds of Robert Lewin’s collection of stringed instruments, bows and books. This would later become Awards for Young Musicians before becoming Young Sounds UK. 

Further details from the Young Sounds UK website.

The 75th edition of the Aldeburgh Festival rounded off with a rare visit to East Anglia of the celebrated Hallé Orchestra.

Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire - Claire Booth, the Nash Ensemble - Aldeburgh Festival (Photo: Marcus Roth, (c) Britten Pears Arts)

Schoenberg: Pierrot lunaire, Beethoven, Julian Anderson, Judith Weir, Mozart; Claire Booth, The Nash Ensemble, Martyn Brabbins; Aldeburgh Festival at Britten Studio
Britten: Curlew River; Ian Bostridge, Duncan Rock, Peter Brathwaite, Willard White, Matthew Jones, Deborah Warner, Audrey Hyland; Aldeburgh Festival at Blythburgh Church
Britten: Suite from Death in Venice, Mahler: Symphony No. 5; The Hallé, cond. Sir Mark Elder; Aldeburgh Festival
Reviewed by Tony Cooper (25 June 2024)

This year’s Aldeburgh Festival has reached new limits with a roster of excellent concerts and recitals not least by the tasteful musical feast served up for the last weekend. 

A cycle of 50 poems, Pierrot lunaire was published in 1884 by Belgian author, Albert Giraud (born Emile Albert Kayenbergh in Leuven in 1860) closely associated with the Symbolist Movement who wrote poems in French. The protagonist of the cycle, Pierrot - the moonstruck and fantastical clown who wears a mask to hide one’s true feelings - is the well-loved comic servant and ‘outsider’ of the Italian Commedia dell’Arte theatrical tradition. Early 19th century Romantics, such as Théophile Gautier, were drawn to him by his Chaplinesque pluckiness and pathos.  

Therefore, remarkable in many respects, Giraud’s collection is among the most densely and imaginatively sustained works in the ‘Pierrot’ canon which attracted the attention of an unusually high number of composers but it’s Schoenberg’s setting that’s the most renowned and widely considered one of the landmark masterpieces of 20th-century music. Although the composition is atonal, it’s not written in the twelve-tone technique that Schoenberg developed (and favoured) in his later years. 

The commission came from Albertine Zehme, a chanteuse married to a Leipzig lawyer, asking Schoenberg to set a lecture text to music. Completely free in the selection of poems, his choice was, of course, the French cycle of poems of Pierrot lunaire by Giraud translated by Otto Erich Hartleben. Selecting 21 poems from the cycle, Schoenberg duly divided them into three distinctive groups: in the first (Drunk on the Moon, Colombine, The Dandy, A Pale Washerwoman, Valse de Chopin, Madonna, The Sick Moon Pierrot) Pierrot sings of love, sex and religion; in the second (Night, Prayer to Pierrot, Robbery, Red Mass, Gallows Song, Beheading, The Crosses) he sings of violence, crime and blasphemy; in the third (Homesickness, Foul Play, Parody, The Spot on the Moon, Serenade, Journey Home, O Ancient Fragrance) Pierrot dreams of returning home to Bergamo with his past haunting him. 

At the work’s première in 1912, the ensemble comprised Albertine Zehme (voice) with Hans W. de Vries (flute), Karl Essberger (clarinet), Jakob Malinjak (violin), Hans Kindler (cello) and Eduard Steuermann (piano). According to Anton Webern, the première was a great success for performers and Schoenberg but received a bad press although most of the audience, fascinated by the new sounds, responded reasonably well to the performance overall.  

Britten: Curlew River - Aldeburgh Festival (Photo: Marcus Roth, (c) Britten Pears Arts)

But Pierrot lunaire at the Rudolfinum, Prague, on 24 February 1913, caused uproar and mayhem with the audience becoming one of Schoenberg’s most frightening and traumatic experiences which he remembered for the rest of his life, leading him to demand guarantees for trouble-free performances at further ‘Pierrot’ concerts. The première of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring performed by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at the Theatre du Champs-Élysées, Paris, appeared two months after Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire, widely considered the most notorious scandal in the history of music, mirrors the same scenario. 

Thankfully, no one had angst or anger etched into their faces at the Aldeburgh Festival in such a brilliant and effortless performance delivered by Claire Booth with the performance nicely sandwiched between Thursday’s Solstice (20 June) and Saturday’s Full Moon (22 June) and coinciding, too, with the anniversary of Peter Pears’ birthday. Heard in the intimacy and comfort of the Britten Studio (ideal for works such as Pierrot lunaire) the players of The Nash Ensemble - Philippa Davies (flute), Richard Hosford (clarinet), Benjamin Nabarro (violin), Lars Anders Tomter (viola), Adrian Brendel (cello) and Alasdair Beatson (piano) - were found on top form. Are they ever off it? 

Youthfully engaging: a visually stylish new Rake's Progress at the Grange Festival made us really care for about these characters

Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress - Adam Temple-Smith, Michael Mofidian - The Grange Festival (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress; Adam Temple-Smith, Alexandra Oomens, Michael Mofidian, Rosie Aldridge, director: Antony McDonald, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Tom Primrose; The Grange Festival
23 June 2024

A combination of moral directness and engagingly youthful character gave this performance of Stravinsky's opera a particular charm

After English Touring Opera's recent eclectic production of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress [see my review], I found myself in a lively discussion with friends over the importance of an 18th-century frame of reference for the opera; Stravinsky's music, though eclectic in its sources, includes an element of 18th-century classical style to it, so does this mean that we need to reference this in the visuals?

Acting both as designer and director, Antony McDonald seems to have answered a resounding 'Yes' to this question in his new production of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress which opened at The Grange Festival on Sunday 23 June 2024. Tom Primrose (the festival's former chorus master) conducted the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra with Adam Temple-Smith as Tom, Alexandra Oomens as Anne, Michael Mofidian as Nick, Rosie Aldridge as Baba, Darren Jeffery as Father Trulove, John Graham-Hall as Sellem, Catherine Wyn-Rogers as Mother Goose and Armand Rabot as the Keeper of the Madhouse. Lighting was by Peter Mumford and movement by Lucy Burge. 

Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress - Alexandra Oomens - The Grange Festival (Photo: Craig Fuller)

McDonald's costumes were firmly 18th century and that was the visual frame of reference for the sets, yet there was a pared-back elegance to the designs. Everything took place in a fixed box with tiled walls that we came to understand was going to be the set for the madhouse. Each scene had enough elements to develop character but not overwhelm. The first scene revealed Adam Temple-Smith and Alexandra Oomens sitting under a (painted) tree that evoked a Gainsborough portrait, yet with flying cattle. Mother Goose's featured two geese on the walls and Last Supper-like table, whilst Tom's residence had an elaborate bed and little else. The visuals were neither eclectic nor overwhelming, yet their expressive elegance told strongly. McDonald's handling of the chorus was highly visual to , with their scenes arranged into strikingly effective, stylised tableaux.

It’s important to acknowledge that Die Fledermaus is a fundamentally ‘sexy’ opera: Jonny Danciger on his new production for St Paul's Opera

Strauss's Die Fledermaus in rehearsal with Olivia Singleton (Adele), Ashley Mercer (Frank), Meliza Metzger (Ida) - St Paul's Opera

On 4 July 2024, my local opera company St Paul's Opera debuts their 2024 main production, Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus at St Paul's Church, Clapham. The opera is directed by Johnny Danciger with George Ireland conducting an instrumental ensemble with Dominic Westwood as Alfred, Olivia Singleton as Adele, Rusne Tuslaite as Rosalinde, Thomas Litchev as Eisenstein and Chris Murphy as Falke. And rather impressively, not only does the company field a full cast and chorus, but there is a cover cast too. 

Evening performances from 4 to 6 July offer the possibility of picnicking in the grounds of St Paul's Church beforehand, whilst there is a family matinee (given by the cover cast) on 6 July.

The operetta has been reimagined in a vintage movie studio, so expect references to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and other familiar characters in a new script by writer/director Jonny Danciger. The multi-talented Danciger is a stage director, designer and composer, having music at Oxford University, where he specialised in composition and music theatre, and then training in opera direction, taking placements at the Royal Opera House and British Youth Opera, where he assisted Keith Warner. From 2020 to 2022 he was Artistic Director of the OSO theatre in South-West London.

Strauss's Die Fledermaus in rehearsal - cast and ensemble with David Butt Philip (patron of St Paul's Opera)

Danciger comments that "it’s important to acknowledge that Die Fledermaus is a fundamentally ‘sexy’ opera. Nowadays it’s easy to misbrand the waltz as restrained, but it was viewed by many at the time to be obscene and hedonistic due to the proximity of the dancing couple. " He points out that the description 'The lead dresses up in disguise to seduce/manipulate/test their lover' could be applied to so many different operas. In Die Fledermaus, disguise and elaborate plots are essential to the opera, and he promises many playful cinematic references.

Full details from St Paul's Opera's website.

Sei gegrüßet, Jesu gütig: my chorale prelude at St Paul's Cathedral

I recently wrote an organ chorale prelude for William Whitehead's Orgelbüchlein Project which is completing Bach's Orgelbüchlein, a set of chorale preludes for the church's year which Bach planned out and started but never finished. You can read more about the project in my recent interview with William. 

My small contribution, the chorale prelude Sei gegrüßet, Jesu gütig is being premiered by organist Alexander Knight at St Paul's Cathedral on Sunday 30 June 2024, before the 3pm evensong. Alexander will be playing a sequence of organ pieces in the thirty minutes before Evensong and my choral prelude will be included.

Further information about the music at St Paul's Cathedral from their website.

A richly layered depiction of characters in all their fallibility: Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea at the Grange Festival

Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea - Vanessa Waldhart, Kitty Whately, Sam Furness - The Grange Festival (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Monteverdi: L';incoronazio di Poppea; Kitty Whately, Sam Furness, Christopher Lowrey, Anna Bonitatibus, Jonathan Lemalu, directed: Walter Sutcliffe, La Nuova Musica, David Bates; The Grange Festival
Reviewed 22 June 2024

A serious exploration of love triumphant amidst fallible characters in a production that focused on individuals and brought a rich depth of characterisation and refocusing to Monteverdi's opera

Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea exists in a state that gives directors and music directors great creative freedom. With no definitive composer's manuscript, scores surviving for later performances and an early libretto, none of which quite present the same version, and a score itself with a bare minimum of information, there are plenty of decisions to be made. 

The work was premiered in Venice in 1643 in a tiny theatre as part of Venice's burgeoning commercial theatre scene. Though the opera's only surviving scores date from the 1650s, that first performance seems to have had around a whopping 28 roles played by a cast of around 11 which entailed some pretty radical doubling; one putative cast list has the same singer doubling Virtu, Ottavia and Drusilla. This version alternates tragedy and comedy, teeming with life in a way that would typify the Venetian opera of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, written for the commercial opera house rather than an aristocratic or royal patron. I suspect that the work's extensive recitatives would have been delivered at a rattling rate, this would have been a terrific show.

At the Grange Festival on Saturday 22 June 2023 we caught the last night of Walter Sutcliffe's production of Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea [Sutcliffe, the former artistic director of Northern Ireland Opera, is artistic director of Halle Opera, and directed Handel's Agrippina at the Grange in 2018, see my review]. La nuova musica was in the pit, directed from the harpsichord by David Bates. Kitty Whately was Poppea, Sam Furness was Nerone, Christopher Lowrey was Ottone, Jonathan Lemalu was Seneca, Anna Bonitatibus was Ottavia, Vanessa Waldhart was Drusilla, Frances Gregory was Arnalta, with Gwilym Bowen, Jorge Navarro Colorado and Armand Rabot. Designs were by Jon Bausor.

Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea - Jonathan Lemalu, , Sam Furness - The Grange Festival (Photo: Craig Fuller)

The version used was one with the Prologue for Fortuna, Amore and Virtu (Kitty Whately, Vanessa Waldhart and Anna Bonitatibus) but without the interventions of the gods or all the extra servants, so no Valetto threatening to burn Seneca's beard. It was a very serious approach, so the comic elements on the scenes with the older women, Arnalta and Nutrice, was played down. As Arnalta, Frances Gregory's suave PA was a long was from Alexander Oliver's masterful balance of comedy and tragedy in the role.

The Sea and Ships: the London Song Festival celebrates the first Shipping Forecast to be broadcast on British radio

The Sea and Ships: a celebration of the first Shipping Forecast to be broadcast on British radio; Jess Dandy, Gareth Brynmor John, Nigel Foster, Simon Butteriss; London Song Festival at Hinde Street Methodist Church
Reviewed 21 June 2024

A delightfully diverse celebration both of the sea and of English and Irish composers' fascination with it with everything from Elgar to Noel Coward and Frederick Delius to contemporary composers Julian Philips and Martin Bussey.

Having celebrated bicentenary of the invention of the Mackintosh last year [see my review], Nigel Foster and the London Song Festival celebrated the centenary of the first Shipping Forecast to be broadcast on British radio with The Sea and Ships, a programme of English song performed by contralto Jess Dandy and baritone Gareth Brynmor John, with pianist Nigel Foster and speaker Simon Butteriss. The programme began with Ronald Binge's Sailing By and ended with Noel Coward's Sail Away and in between songs and arrangements by René Atkinson, Ivor Gurney, Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, Michael Head, Peter Warlock, John Ireland, Frederick Delius, Edward Elgar, Martin Bussey, Rebecca Clarke, John Glover-Kind, Julian Philips, Steven Mark Kohn, Gerald Moore, Charles Villiers Stanford, and Michael Tippett.

Much more than a piece of history: Roderick Cox conducts Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 at the Royal Academy of Music

Academy Symphony Orchestra in the Duke's Hall, Royal Academy of Music just before performing Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10; Academy Symphony Orchestra, Roderick Cox; Duke's Hall, Royal Academy of Music
Reviewed 21 June 2024

A performance of Shostakovich's first post-Stalin symphony, full of energy, vitality, power and surprising warmth, and also very loud

Stalin died in 1953 and by the end of the year Dmitri Shostakovich was releasing new works including his Symphony No. 10. A long work, without any explicit programme, yet the music surely arises from the political climate in some way. 

I am of the generation (born mid-1950s) for whom the 1950s was a living memory, the era that our parents talked about and whose events defined them. Also, I have been lucky enough to hear Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 conducted by men who had lived through the era.

At the Royal Academy of Music on Friday 21 June, the young American conductor Roderick Cox directed the Academy Symphony Orchestra in Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10. A work that for all concerned must now be an historical artefact, a work to be investigated, discovered and revealed. Perhaps what was most notable about the performance was the fact that the interpretation did not feel weighted down by its history. There seemed to be fresh ears investigating this music of genius. I have to admit that it is also a work that I have not heard recently, perhaps in decades, so the concert was one of exploration and revelation for all of us.

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 - Roderick Cox in rehearsal with Academy Symphony Orchestra in Duke's Hall, Royal Academy of Music (Photo: Charlotte Levy)

The platform was very full indeed, with an orchestra of triple woodwind, five horns, four trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, four percussion and a substantial body of strings. In the relatively compact Duke's Hall, there seemed hardly room for the audience at all and even the orchestra's warm-up was loud.

Congratulations to baritone, Julien Van Mellaerts who was presented with The Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation Laureate by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa at Opera Holland Park

Julien Van Mellaerts and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa at Opera Holland Park (Photo: Chris Christodoulou)

Congratulations to baritone Julien Van Mellaerts who was presented with The Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation Laureate by the Foundation’s Founder and Chair, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, at a gala concert to celebrate Dame Kiri’s 80th birthday at Opera Holland Park. 

The Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation was created by Dame Kiri in 2003 and is committed to assisting outstanding young New Zealand singers who have complete dedication to their art, with judicious mentoring, financial support and career assistance. In 2022 the trustees of the Foundation established The Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation Laureate to honour a New Zealand singer whom the Foundation has nurtured, has achieved sustained excellence and who will continue their career into the future. The Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation Laureate carries a value of $60,000.

Julien Van Mellaerts won first prize in both the Wigmore Hall International Song Competition and the Kathleen Ferrier Awards, and represented New Zealand at BBC Cardiff Singer of the World in 2019. He has had great success in recent role and house debuts at the Verbier Festival, Salzburg Mozartwoche, Opéra National de Lorraine, Opera Holland Park and New Zealand Opera.

With Chelsea Opera Group, we caught him as Frédéric in Delibes' Lakmé [see my review], and the Duke of Nottingham in Donizetti's Roberto Devereux [see my review]. At Opera Holland Park in 2021, he was a memorable Count in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro [see my review].

His disc, Songs of the Night, with soprano Rowan Pierce and pianist Lucy Colquhoun was released on Champs Hill Records in Autumn 2023 [see my review], and his debut recital on the same label, Songs of Travel and Home, with pianist James Baillieu, explored his own diverse origins and the meaning of home [see my review]. At Opera Holland Park, Julien Van Mellaerts, with pianist Dylan Perez, is co-curator and co-producer of the Opera in Song series and we caught him with pianist James Baillieu in Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin as part of the series in 2022 [see my review]

New music, traditional Scottish fiddle music, puppets and more: Scottish Ensemble's 2024/25 season

The Scottish Ensemble

Collaboration is at the heart of the Scottish Ensemble's recently announced 2024/25 season. A season that includes new work by Hannah Kendall, a new collaboration with fiddle player and violinist Donald Grant, concerts with Héloïse Werner as both composer and singers, a programme with puppeteer Mark Down and further performances of their collaboration with Mish-Mash Productions.

The season begins with Resound (September 2024 – Arran, Kirkcudbright, Perth, Mull, Seil, Glasgow), five centuries of mind-expanding music curated by the ensemble's violist, Andrew Berridge, intended to explore how music can transport and inspire, lifting spirits and strengthening connections. The ensembe will also be travelling down to London to feature in opening weekend of the Southbank Centre’s 2024-25 classical season, with a programme, that includes Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 3 and the ensemble's collaboration with Mish-Mash Productions, in Sync, will be popping up at the Southbank Centre and in Nottingham.

Their Concerts by Candlelight tour (December 2024 – Perth, Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dunblane) includes a new work by Hannah Kendall, the second composition supported by Scottish Ensemble’s Calder Commissioning Fund, created through a transformative donation, made in memory of Scottish Ensemble’s late founder John Calder.  The Law of Gravity (February 2025 – Edinburgh, Dundee, Glasgow) sees the ensemble collaborate with master puppeteer Mark Down and his team at Blind Summit to explore what puppetry can reveal about music, in a programme that features Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night and Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 3.

April 2025 finds them joining forces in Edinburgh, Inverness, Aberdeen, Findhorn with Donald Grant, with whom the ensemble collaborated at Celtic Connections 2024. Their new project features traditional and contemporary string music that bridges genres and tells of life in the Highlands, through Grant's new work Thuit an Oidhche Oirnn (The Night Overtook Us).  Then in Concerts for a Summer’s Night (June 2025 – Perthshire, Strathpeffer, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee),  singer and composer Héloïse Werner features as both soloist and composer.

The ensemble’s work with a new generation of musicians also continues with its Young Artists programme, in partnership with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. As well as supporting talented young string players through a week-long residency in January, selected Young Artists are offered the opportunity to join one of the ensemble’s Scottish tours as a performer in 2025.

Full details from the Scottish Ensemble's website.

Music like no other: Icelandic composer Gudmundur Steinn Gunnarsson's Stífluhringurinn

Gudmundur Steinn Gunnarsson: Stífluhringurinn; Caput Ensemble; Carrier Records
Reviewed 18 June 2024

Music like no other. The Icelandic composer returns with a long, single work for large ensemble that mines his fondness for contemplating timbres and rhythms, and for music that avoids conventional straight lines and grids, yet creates pure magic

The Icelandic composer Gudmundur Steinn Gunnarsson is one of those artists whose work retains an entrancing unpredictability to it. Having review one disc, you can never be quite sure what the next one will contain. His latest disc, Stífluhringurinn consists of a single, long two-movement work performed by the Caput Ensemble who first performed the work back in 2019. 

It is his fourth recording on the Carrier Records label. 

Steinn Gunnarsson describes the work as being inspired by a suburban path and landmark in Reykjavík that connects the two neighbourhoods where he grew up. The piece is dedicated to two priests who serve in each of these neighbourhoods. One is a Lutheran minister of Japanese descent who has worked extensively with refugees and regular immigrants for decades, regardless of their background or religion. The other is a Zen priest of Icelandic descent who has spent a lot of time in training monasteries in Japan and America.

Celebrating 20 years at The Glasshouse, Royal Northern Sinfonia launches a new season that also celebrates principal conductor Dinis Sousa's second three-year term

Maria Włoszczowska & Dinis Sousa - Royal Northern Sinfonia (Photo: Thomas Jackson / Tynesight Photograph)

This Autumn marks 20 years since the Royal Northern Sinfonia moved into its present home, at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music (formerly Sage Gateshead) and Autumn also marks the second three-year term of principal conductor Dinis Sousa, and a new position of artistic partner for violinist Maria Włoszczowska, and they will be joined by a new appointment, principal guest conductor Nil Venditti.

The sinfonia's new season, recently announced, features 50 concerts with classical series across the region – at their home at The Glasshouse, and in Carlisle, Kendal, Middlesbrough, and Sunderland. These five series have been grown substantially by Sousa and Włoszczowska, reaching thousands of new audience members.

This new season includes the second major participation project under the umbrella Share the Stage, an initiative led by Sousa offering people who love making music the opportunity to perform with the orchestra and chorus on the world-renowned stage of Sage One alongside some of the world’s greatest singers. This time around the focus is Tippett’s deeply moving A Child of Our Time with soloists Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, Sarah Connolly, Nicky Spence and Willard White.

Two major anniversaries are celebrated during the season, those of Ravel and Schoenberg. Ravel’s 150th is celebrated through his symphonic music with a concert by the BBC Philharmonic with pianist Bertrand Chamayou, his works for chamber forces including Mother Goose from Royal Northern Sinfonia and an ensemble concert led by artistic partner Maria Włoszczowska plus a new music and digital collaboration with the new media arts collective Mediale. Attention turns to Schoenberg for two concerts, including Pierrot Lunaire (with soprano Claire Booth) and Verklärte Nacht, both directed by Włoszczowska.

Dinis Sousa opens the season with pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21, plus Mendelssohn's complete music for A Midsummer Night's Dream. And there is more Mozart, along with Bach, when pianist David Fray directs the sinfonia from the keyboard.

Sousa's other concerts with the sinfonia during the season include Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 with Stephen Hough plus Unsuk Chin and Mozart, Handel's Messiah with Amanda Forsythe, Reginald Mobley, Guy Cutting and John Chest, Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2 with Víkingur Ólafsson plus Kajia Saariaho and Bartok, and Benjamin Grosvenor in Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 1 plus Grażyna Bacewicz and Tchaikovsky. And in the smaller Sage Two, Sousa directs a programme of John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Pierre Boulez and Ligeti's Chamber Concerto.

Other visitors during the season include John Wilson’s Sinfonia of London with Sheku Kanneh-Mason; singers Veronique Gens and Roderick Williams,  the BBC Philharmonic, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, The Hallé and The Philip Glass Ensemble, Opera North in a concert performance of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, and conductors Sofi Jeannin and Ricardo Minasi. Soprano / composer Heloise Werner will be directing and performing The Cuckoo's Hour, a programme that pairs her own music with that of Colin Alexander, Freya Waley-Cohen, John Lely, Oliver Leith and Nico Muhly.

In the coming weeks they will also announce a new series for young people and their families, alongside concerts of orchestral music from video games, soundtracks, films and tv.

Further details from the Royal Northern Sinfonia website.

New colours in old sound worlds: the Portuguese duo, Bruno Monteiro & João Paulo Santos in Elgar, Debussy, Ravel & more

Music for violin and piano: Elgar, Debussy, Luíz Barbosa, Ivan Moody, Ravel; Bruno Monteiro, João Paulo Santos; Etcetera
Reviewed 17 June 2024

Four early 20th-century works for violin and piano alongside a more recent one in a wonderfully wide-ranging recital from the Portuguese duo who find all sorts of new colours in Elgar and give a certain style to Ravel

The latest disc from Portuguese violinist Bruno Monteiro and pianist João Paulo Santos on Etcetera, brings together four works for violin and piano, all written in the first twenty-five years of the century, the violin sonatas by Elgar and Debussy, the Romance for Violin and Piano by Luíz Barbosa and Ravel's Tzigane, alongside these Monteiro has included Ascent for Violin and Piano by contemporary composer Ivan Moody.

Bruno Monteiro and João Paulo Santos have a fondness for both the highways and byways of the romantic repertoire. I last reviewed their recording of the piano trios of Ernest Chausson and Eugene Ysaÿe and they have also given us a disc of violin sonatas by Luís de Freitas Branco, Maurice Ravel, and Heitor Villa-Lobos [see my review].

Lost and Found: Samling Institute for Young Artists' Summer concert at the Glasshouse, Gateshead

The Samling Institute's Lost and Found at the Glasshouse, Gateshead on 12 July 2024, will provide an opportunity to hear the current crop of Samling Academy Singers in action, performing music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Roger Quilter, Gabriel Fauré, Leonard Bernstein and Flanders and Swann in a semi-staged evening of song, opera and poetry. We are promised exciting discoveries of new love, nostalgia for the places we can never return to and the everyday drama of misplaced objects.

Samling Artists soprano Miranda Wright and pianist Leo Nicholson will direct the programme and Leo will accompany the performance.

takes its name from an old Norse word meaning ‘gathering’ or ‘collective’. Since 1996 they have transformed the lives of hundreds of talented young musicians through coaching programmes, performance opportunities and ongoing support. From their home in the North East of England, they help young people who live or study in the region to find and develop their talent for classical singing through Samling Academy. Singers aged 14–21 explore all aspects of classical singing and develop wider performance skills, led by expert vocal coaches, song pianists, actors and movement specialists.

Full details from the Samling Institute's website.

Dunedin Consort 2024/25: Three premieres, Handel's Susanna, chamber-scale tours of Scotland, side-by-side with Royal Academy of Music & Royal Scottish National Orchestra

The Dunedin Consort has announced its 2024/25 season with concerts across Scotland, a continuation of its residency at Wigmore Hall as well as other London appearances. Contemporary music continues play an interesting role in the group's seasons. 2024/25 features the Scottish premiere of David Fennessy’s Bog Cantata in Edinburgh as part of a programme featuring music by Zelenka, Telemann and Bach with Fennessy using similar orchestration to the Baroque works, and An Italian Christmas at Wigmore Hall includes a second new commission from composer Caroline Shaw. 

Singers from the group join forces with the Hebrides Ensemble for James MacMillan's Since it was the day of Preparation, his extraordinary setting of the Resurrection story. Whilst players from the group join forces with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for a further collaboration, a world premiere from Edinburgh-based composer Neil Tòmas Smith [see my 2023 interview with Neil]. 

The season opens in September with countertenor Alexander Chance joining Matthew Truscott and the group in a programme of Vivaldi, Tuma and Zelenka in St Andrews and at the Lammermuir Festival. Then soprano Carolyn Sampson sings Bach with John Butt directing in a programme that includes Locatelli, Morlock and Handel in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Perth.

Christmas sees Messiah returning with Butt directing soloists Rachel Redmond, Helen Charlston, Samuel Boden and Matthew Brook, plus a BSL interpreter in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Antwerp. There is more Handel at St Martin in the Fields, London, and Vienna with Butt conducting Susanna with Anna Dennis in the title role, plus Alexander Chance, Matthew Brook and Joshua Ellicott. April 2025 sees John Butt directing Bach's St Matthew Passion with Hugo Hymas as the Evangelist.

Nicholas Mulroy directs a chamber tour of Purcell around Scotland visiting Cumbernauld, Musselburgh, Motherwell, and Greenock, and an a capella choral tour to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, and Aberdeen.

Butt will direct the group performing side by side with students from the Royal Academy of Music Baroque Soloists in Purcell's Hail, Bright Cecilia plus Sir John Clerk of Penicuik’s cantata, Leo Scotiae irritatus c.1700. This Cantata for solo soprano and orchestra depicts Scotland’s ambitious (and unsuccessful) venture to set up an empire in Panama! The group's Bridging the Gap programme also provides early career development opportunities for singers, whilst the Intrada programme provides opportunities for young instrumentalists.

The group's family-friendly concerts has expanded with Family Vivaldi, Enchanted Snake, and the popular Children’s Messiah in Glasgow and Edinburgh. There is also a wide-ranging Learning and Participation programme, encompassing instrumental and voice clinics for non-professional musicians, choral workshops, and choral weekend for all ages and abilities, open rehearsals, relaxed performances, and schools' workshops.

Full details from the Dunedin Consort's website.