If you go down to the woods: a gender-fluid witch & an oppressive religious sect in this gripping performance of Jack Furness' intriguing take on Hänsel und Gretel from Royal Academy Opera

Humperdinck: Hänsel und Gretel - Zahid Siddiqui (Witch) - Royal Academy Opera (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Humperdinck: Hänsel und Gretel; Clover Kayne, Erin O'Rourke, Alex Bower-Brown, Zixin Tang, Zahid Siddiqui, director: Jack Furness, conductor: Johann Stuckenbruck, Royal Academy Opera; Susie Sainsbury Theatre, Royal Academy of Music
Reviewed 19 November 2024

A thought-provoking take on the traditional tale made all the more gripping by terrific performances all-round in an evening that was vivid theatrically and strong musically

Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel is an opera ripe for mining for its inner meanings. A heart warning story that hides darker themes, with music that is full of singable tunes yet weaves this into a Wagnerian complexity. Influential productions by David Pountney (for ENO) and Richard Jones (for WNO) have mined different aspects of the stories psychological complexity. And for all the well-established urtext, directors bring a surprising freedom to the casting which can highlight this, doubling Mother and the Witch for instance, or having the Witch played by a tenor rather than a dramatic mezzo-soprano.

For Royal Academy Opera's Autumn production at the Royal Academy of Music's Susie Sainsbury Theatre, Jack Furness directed Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel with Johann Stuckenbruck conducting the Royal Academy Sinfonia in a slightly reduced orchestration by Derek Clark. The opera was double cast and on 19 November 2024 we saw Clover Kayne as Hansel, Erin O'Rourke as Gretel, Alex Bower-Brown as Father, Zixin Tang as Mother, Zahid Siddiqui as the Witch, Charlotte Clapperton as the Sand Man and Abigail Sinclair as the Dew Man.

Humperdinck: Hänsel und Gretel - Hansel & Gretel (Clover Kayne & Erin O'Rourke) in the forest - Royal Academy Opera (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Jack Furness and designer Alex Berry seem to have taken a thought-provoking view of the opera, fixing on the religious aspect to the music to set it in the context of a Puritan religious sect with everyone wearing sober black and white costumes, with bonnets for the women. During the overture we saw Gretel (Erin O'Rourke) alone in a small, sparse room, using a knife to cut paper chains of figures out of a book with a knife, lighting a candle almost as an offering, and a dark, hooded figure hints that the witch may not be quite what we expect.

Dame Evelyn Glennie and the City Lit Percussion Orchestra

 

Dame Evelyn Glennie at the City Lit Percussion Orchestra's workshop (Photo: Frances Marshall)

Solo percussionist and alumna of the Royal Academy of Music, Dame Evelyn Glennie has become Patron of the City Lit Percussion Orchestra (CLPO). The Percussion Orchestra is part of City Lit’s Centre for Learning Disability Education, in partnership with the Royal Academy of Music. Students with an ear for instruments can learn to play percussion and compose music as a group. 

To mark the occasion, Dame Evelyn visited a workshop at City Lit, where she is also a Fellow. She collaborated with the Percussion Orchestra, performing and improvising alongside the participants and passing on her expert insights. Current Academy percussion student Zach Mitchell, who has worked with the CLPO for over a year, took part in this session along with Academy harpist Bonnie Scott and Adam Collins, a recent graduate and tuba player, who is a long-standing volunteer musician with the orchestra.

The City Lit Percussion Orchestra's workshop (Photo: Frances Marshall)

The session began with the group's regular social circle where they discussed the nature of the class and meanings of interpretation. Together they performed a rendition of Terry Riley's In C, a work that Dame Evelyn had not played before. The students were then treated to a masterclass from Dame Evelyn, where she stressed the importance of 'finding your own sound story.' She also led an introduction to new percussion techniques and tools, demonstrating unique instruments, some of which she had made herself. These included homemade superball mallets and a set of Korean metal chopsticks. The session ended with a group improvisation led by Dame Evelyn and Zach Mitchell, and solo improvisations from Bonnie Scott and Adam Collins on harp and tuba which gradually opened to the group and led to a jam with all participants, encouraged by Dame Evelyn.

The City Lit Percussion Orchestra's workshop (Photo: Frances Marshall)

Further information from the Royal Academy of Music's website.

New appointments at Royal Liverpool Philharmonic & Royal Academy of Music

Nicholas Chalmers

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra has appointed a former Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Company musician as Principal Second Trumpet, whilst the Royal Academy of Music has appointed a new Fernside Chair of Choral Conducting, leading the Academy’s postgraduate Choral Conducting programme.

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra has announced the appointment of Hannah Mackenzie as Principal Second Trumpet. Her first performance in the role will be Thursday 30 November 2023. Hannah Mackenzie was raised on the Wirral and joined the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Company when she was 16. The Youth Company is the largest community of young musicians in the North West created to develop young musical talent. During her time in Youth Company, Hannah won the Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition and performed as a soloist.

Hannah Mackenzie

She graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music in 2016, where she studied for her Master’s Degree. She is also a passionate educator, teaching in several schools across Merseyside. She has recently set up a thriving youth group, Wirral Youth Brass, alongside Simon Cowen who is the Principal Trombone of the orchestra.
[further details]

The Royal Academy of Music has announced the appointment of Nicholas Chalmers as its new Fernside Chair of Choral Conducting. From September 2024, Nicholas will lead the Academy’s postgraduate Choral Conducting programme, the UK’s longest-established specialist course in conducting for choirs.

Nicholas Chalmers is Principal Conductor of the National Youth Choir 18-25 and Associate Conductor, Learning for the BBC Singers. He is also a Senior Associate Artist of the Royal Opera House, where he will make his conducting debut in A Quiet Place by Leonard Bernstein in October 2024. 

In 2012, Nicholas Chalmers founded Nevill Holt Opera and established an award-winning education and associate artists programme. I chatted to Nicholas about the company back in 2019 [see my interview]. The company has introduced countless young people to opera in the East Midlands and its year-round education programme works with schools across the region. With Nevill Holt Opera, operas he has conducted include A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cosí fan tutte [see my review] and La traviata [see my review].
[further details]

Taking its energy from the youth of the performers: Olivia Fuchs' new production of Handel's Ariodante at Royal Academy Opera

Handel: Ariodante - Angharad Rowlands - Royal Academy Opera (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Handel: Ariodante; Royal Academy Opera, director: Olivia Fuchs, conductor: David Bates; Royal Academy of Music
Reviewed 21 November 2023

Stylishly modern and exploring gender boundaries, this was a production that took its energy from the sheer youth of the performers

At the start of Olivia Fuchs' new production of Handel's Ariodante for Royal Academy Opera, the cast started writing The Rules on a large display board. The first one, 'The King rules by divine right', then continuing with affirmations of male succession, gender being binary, and so on. These neatly summarised that male-centric, patriarchal world of Handel's libretto, yet still they come over as somewhat shocking when seen all written down together.

Yet, part of the attraction of Ariodante is the immense sympathy Handel brings to the heroine Ginevra and her plight. Yes, the ending is the easy lieto fine that was expected but along the way, particularly at the end of Act Two, the composer really explores Ginevra's feelings. Add to this the complex layering of gender roles that a modern performance can bring (all Royal Academy Opera's performances feature women playing both Ariodante and Polinesso) and you have an intriguing set of challenges.

Handel: Ariodante - Charles Cunliffe, Clara Orif - Royal Academy Opera (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Fuchs' new production was in many ways playful, that is treating the piece with a light touch whilst taking the subject matter seriously, using an edition that was significantly cut yet the music treated with stylistic care, and the resulting version whilst being true to Handel's longer original also had a more democratic element. Handel's original aria distribution significantly favours the two leading players, but here the balance was shifted towards a more modern dramaturgical concept.

We caught the opening night of Olivia Fuchs' new production of Handel's Ariodanteat the Royal Academy of Music's Susie Sainsbury Theatre on Tuesday 21 November 2023. David Bates conducted the Royal Academy Sinfonia, with Angharad Rowlands as Ariodante, Clara Orif as Ginevra, Erin O'Rourke as Dalinda, Rebecca Hart as Polinesso, Henry Ross as Lurcanio, Charles Cunliffe as the King of Scotland and Samuel Stopford as Odoardo. Designs were by Yannis Thavoris with lighting by Jake Wiltshire and movement by Monica Nicolaides.

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.

   

Silence, texture and atmosphere: music by John Luther Adams, Kaija Saariaho, Judith Weir, and Gary Carpenter at Royal Academy of Music's Fragile Festival

Stones and Light: John Luther Adams, Kaija Saariaho, Judith Weir, Gary Carpenter; Bridget Yee, Tiago Soares Silva, Oona Lowther, Aisha Palmer; Angela Burgess Recital Hall at Royal Academy of Music
Reviewed 2 May 2023

Four contemporary chamber works inspired by the natural world, explorations of silence, texture and atmosphere in terrific performances

The Royal Academy of Music's Fragile Festival, created in association with The Listening Planet, is a week of events inspired by the natural world. Events opened with a lunchtime concert on 2 May 2023, Stones and Light in Angela Burgess Recital Hall when Bridget Yee (piano), Tiago Soares Silva (violin), Oona Lowther (cello) and Aisha Palmer (harp) played John Luther Adams' Tukiliit (The Stone People who Live in the Wind), Kaija Saariaho's Light and Matter, Judith Weir's Night and Gary Carpenter's Azaleas.

Barbara Hannigan conducts Stravinsky & Knussen as part of a collaborative project between the Royal Academy of Music and the Juilliard School

Alexandra Beason, Barbara Hannigan, Lisa Dafydd, Elizabeth Green at the Royal Academy of Music

Stravinsky, Delage, Knussen; students from Royal Academy of Music and the Juilliard School, Barbara Hannigan, Charlotte Corderoy; Duke's Hall, Royal Academy of Music
Reviewed 28 October 2022

Responsiveness and accuracy, poise and enjoyment, Barbara Hannigan directed students in a wonderfully intelligent and engaging lunchtime recital

For 20 years, the Royal Academy of Music and the Juilliard School have enjoyed a close relationship, collaborating on projects as diverse as co-commissioning Peter Maxwell Davies' opera Kommilitonen!, recording Gabrieli's brass music and performing with Elton John at Radio City Music Hall in New York. The latest such collaboration culminated in a concert in the Academy's Duke's Hall on Friday 29 October 2022, when Barbara Hannigan conducted an orchestra of musicians from the Academy and the Juilliard, Hannigan's first residency at the Academy. The programme consisted of Stravinsky's Concerto in E flat 'Dumbarton Oaks', Two Poems of Balmont, Three Japanese Lyrics and Octet, Maurice Delage's Quatre Poèmes Hindous, and Oliver Knussen's Requiem: Songs for Sue. The soprano soloists were Alexandra Beason (Stravinsky), Lisa Dafydd (Delage) and Elizabeth Green (Knussen). Assistant conductor Charlotte Corderoy conducted the Delage, and Barbara Hannigan also payed tribute to another assistant conductor (whose name I did not catch) who had done a lot of background work on the Knussen piece.

Royal Academy of Music celebrates its bicentenary with a year-long season of events from new opera to Purcell's Fairy Queen and Bach cantatas

Royal Academy of Music at night (photo Adam Scott)

The Royal Academy of Music was founded in 1822 by the soldier and diplomat, John Fane, Earl of Westmorland who was a good violinist and a prolific composer, along with the French harpist Nicholas Bochsa. And the Academy is celebrating its 200th birthday in fine style with a season of events running from January 2022 to 2023. Although there is not a single date when the Academy was founded, 21 July 1822 marks the announcement from the committee, and the Royal Charter was granted by King George IV in 1830. The first lesson took place on 14 March 1823. The Academy is the oldest UK conservatoire and the second oldest in the world after the Paris Conservatoire (founded in 1795 when the Royal School of Singing was combined with an institute responsible for training musicians for the National Guard bands)

There Academy's birthday season will include the world premiere of a new opera, WITCH from Freya Waley-Cohen, which was commissioned the Academy, Purcell's Fairy Queen will be performed using the autograph score from the Academy's collection, plus a new staged work, Daylighting, by Louise Drewett featuring local school children

There are concerts from the Academy Symphony Orchestra with conductors Semyon Bychkov, Christian Thielemann, Ludovic Morlot, Lorenza Borrani, John Wilson, Sir Mark Elder and Trevor Pinnock, and masterclasses from Dame Sarah Connolly, James Ehnes, Joyce DiDonato, Dave Holland, Angelika Kirchschlager, Igor Levit and Claude-Michel Schönberg , the Academy Song Circle will be performing works from 1822 and 1922 at the Wigmore Hall, and the Royal Academy Musical Theatre Company will be working with Claude-Michel Schönberg, Imelda Staunton, John Caird, Natalie Abrahami and Sandy Faison. The Academy's Bach cantata series continues with a new exploration, performing Bach's 1723 cantata cycle.

The ambitious 200 pieces project continues with new works written for solo instruments and voices, including by Hans Abrahamsen, Sir George Benjamin, Sally Beamish and Daniel Kidane.

Royal Academy of Music's Spring online series

Royal Academy of Music (Photo Adam Scott)

The Royal Academy of Music is ending its Spring term with a programme of 12 concerts live-streamed from the main building on the Marylebone Road and available free on YouTube and the Academy's website. The Academy's Autumn series of live-streamed concerts reached an on-line audience of over 170,000 people.

Things kick off tomorrow at 1pm on 9 March 2021 when the Hill Quartet performs Schubert's Death and the Maiden Quartet, and then concerts include chamber music fellows, Trio Mazzolini in Arensky and Tom Coult, a programme of 20th Century and contemporary works for organ and brass ensemble, the Kyan Quartet in Haydn and Mendelssohn, and the final concert sees Mozart’s Horn Quintet in E flat K 407 performed alongside contemporary music by Colin Matthews, Sun Keting and Piers Hellawell.

Royal Academy Opera will perform scenes from operas by Ravel, Handel and Mozart, and the Academy Song Circle perform art songs to celebrate the arrival of Spring.

Full details from the Royal Academy of Music's website.

An entirely delightful way to spend an evening, two hours away from the doom & gloom swirling around us - Massenet's 'Chérubin' at the Royal Academy of Music

Massenet: Chérubin - Niall Anderson, Clare Tunney - Royal Academy Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

Massenet Chérubin; Yuki Akimoto, Hazel Neighbour, Clare Tunney, Niall Anderson, dir: James Hurley, cond: Anthony Legge; Royal Academy Opera at the Susie Sainsbury Theatre, Royal Academy of Music
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 13 March 2020
Massanet's late comedy makes a delightful coming of age romp at the Royal Academy of Music

Massenet: Chérubin - Hazel Neighbour, Yuki Akimoto
Royal Academy Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

Massenet wrote over 30 operas over a period from 1867 to 1914, and these embrace a wide variety of styles. Of these, only a selection are ever done though I have never quite understood why some are favoured above others. Chérubin is one which pops up occasionally, it was performed at the Royal Opera House in the 1990s (with Susan Graham and Angela Gheorgiu) and has been seen at the London colleges (it was performed at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2010).

Massenet's Chérubin was Royal Academy Opera's choice for its Spring opera at the Susie Sainsbury Theatre at the Royal Academy of Music. The opera was fully double cast, and we saw the second performance by the first night cast, on Friday 13 March 2020, with Yuki Akimoto as Chérubin, Hazel Neighbour as L'Ensoleillad, Clare Tunney as Nina and Niall Anderson as Le Philosophe. The production was by James Hurley with design by April Dalton, lighting by Ben Pickersgill and movement by Victoria Newlyn. Anthony Legge conducted the Royal Academy Sinfonia.

The opera dates from 1905 and was one of a number which Massenet premiered at Monte Carlo's opera house, grand, glitzy, but quite small. Like many of Massenet's later pieces (he was 63 when it was premiered) it is quite lightly written, a long way from the large scale grand operas from his youth. The plot and the comedy are similarly light.

The libretto, by Francis de Croisset and Henri Cain, is based on de Croisset's play which details the later exploits of Cherubino! In the opera, it becomes a coming of age story as the 17-year old Chérubin explores the freedom of youth, gets his heart broken and, seemingly, settles for a young woman, Nina, who loves him. Though the last word goes to Le Philosophe, Chérubin's tutor who has supported him (and egged him on) during these exploits, and we are left in no doubt that Le Philosophe considers that Chérubin's philandering ways will continue.

It is slight, delightful, goes at quite a pace and is chock-full of smaller roles, the opera has under two hours of music and 12 named roles. Chérubin is a travesty role (there is very much an element of using the plot as an excuse to present an attractive woman in tights on stage). It was written for Massenet's then muse Mary Garden (she had premiered the role of Mélisande in Debussy's opera in 1902) and the character runs headlong, passionately through the opera. You either surrender to him or despair. Frankly in Chérubin (often thought have elements of a portrait of the young Massenet), the composer has created a character like his Manon, of whom you either fall in charmed love or sit stony faced and want to slap them.

This sort of conversational French in opera is a challenge for singers, and in deciding to perform the piece the language was clearly a factor.

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' Last Postcard from Sanday helps launch the Royal Academy of Music's ambitious 200 Pieces project

Royal Academy of Music's Angela Burgess Recital Hall

The Royal Academy of Music will be 200 in 2022, the world's second oldest conservatoire (the Paris Conservatoire is older). This week the Academy launched an ambitious new project, 200 pieces which will culminate in 2022. To celebrate the Bicentenary the Academy has asked 200 composers to write 200 new works for solo instrument or voice, the idea being that the project will celebrate the here and now.

Starting this year all the works will be premiered at the Academy by students and will be recorded by the in-house Audio-Visual team. From Summer 2020, the recordings will be available on the Academy's new website as will a selection of the scores, thus creating an on-line resource which will climax in 2022 with all 200 new pieces.

23 works will be premiered this season, with music by Diana Burrell, Luke Bedford, Philip Cashian, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, David Sawer, Robert Saxton and Mark Anthony Turnage. Many are RAM Alumni, students, staff and honorands but the range of composers involved is very broad, not just confined to the UK, and some will be collaborating directly with the instrumentalists playing the piece.

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies with Jane Glover and the cast of his opera
Kommilitonen! at the Royal Academy of Music in 2011

Alongside this a separate strand of the project will involve a further 200 pieces, created via Open Academy, the Academy's Learning, Participation and Community initiative. This will work with secondary school students in their classrooms to help them create their own compositions, leading to the creation 200 pieces by student composers. The school student composers will work intensively alongside Academy instrumentalists and composers, and a selection of the 200 student pieces will be performed at the Academy during the Bicentenary celebrations.

Open Academy's projects, of which they run up to 50 per year working with around 6000 people, all focus on music-making, the 200 Pieces initiative has been designed to support the student composers in creating their own pieces and thus intended to provide a way into music as an academic subject, reflecting the Academy's concern at the significant drop in the take-up of Arts subjects at GCSE and A-Level.

At the press launch for the project on Wednesday, in Angela Burgess Recital Hall, we were given a preview of the first of the 200 Pieces as violinist Aliayta Foon-Dancoes gave a private performance of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' Last Postcard from Sanday, which Foon-Dancoes will give the first public performance of at the Academy in March.

Late romantic journeys: opera by Ravel & Tchaikovsky in a highly satisfying double bill from Royal Academy Opera

The child and the dragonflies - Ravel: L'enfant et les sortileges - Olivia Warburton
Royal Academy Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

Tchaikovsky Iolanta, Ravel L'enfant et les sortileges;
Royal Academy Opera, dir: Oliver Platt, cond: Gareth Hancock; Royal Academy of Music
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 22 March 2019
A slightly unlikely but highly satisfying double bill, with superbly engaging performances

Whilst Ravel's opera L'enfant et les sortileges, with its libretto by Colette is not strictly a fairy tale it certainly has that combination of magic, morality and didacticism which is typical of a such tales. And, as such, it made quite a neat pairing with Tchaikovsky's problematical opera Iolanta at Royal Academy Opera's double bill. Both are 'not quite fairy-tales' (Iolanta is based on a Romantic Danish play), and in both the protagonist undergoes a metaphysical journey. And in each opera, the fairy-tale aspect of the piece puts the more disquieting elements of violence and control at one remove.

Tchaikovsky: Iolanta - Claire Tunney, Robert Forrest
Royal Academy Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

We caught the final performance of the run, on Friday 22 March 2019 in the Royal Academy of Music's Susie Sainsbury Theatre. Both operas in the double bill were directed by Oliver Platt and conducted by Gareth Hancock, with designs by Alyson Cummins, lighting by Jake Wiltshire, puppetry & movement by Emma Brunton. For Tchaikovsky's Iolanta we saw the alternate cast, with Clare Tunney as Iolanta, Robert Forrest as Vaudemont, Ossian Huskinson as King Rene, Paul Grant as Robert and Robert Garland as Ibn-Hakia, plus Hazel Neighbour, Frances Gregory, Stephanie Wake-Edwards and Connor Baiano. For Ravel's L'enfant et les sortileges, Olivia Warburton was the child, with Alexandra Oomens, Lina Dambrauskaite, Ryan Williams, Tabitha Reynolds, Hanna Poulsom, Aimee Fisk, Gabriele Kupsyte, James Geidt and Will Pate.

Tchaikovsky's opera is a strange piece, King Rene's urge for total control of his daughter is disturbing, yet the character is sympathetically depicted in his concern for his daughter. Vaudemont's sudden appearance and immediate falling in love with Iolanta lacks the psychological depth of Tchaikovsky's other operas and perhaps it is significant that the composer started Iolanta after the intense labours of The Queen of Spades. What makes the opera work is the way Tchaikovsky depicts his heroine and her spiritual journey, and here you wonder whether blindness was standing stead for a number of other complex concerns in Tchaikovsky's own life.

Clare Tunney, whose roles have already included Fiordiligi (Cosi fan tutte) and Lady Billows (Albert Herring), has a substantial voice and was well able to support the role's requirement to produce endless streams of richly lyrical music (the first Iolanta was also the first Lisa in The Queen of Spades). But she also has an interesting voice, and really made you care about the character. This is important, as it is sometimes difficult to feel that Iolanta matters very much, yet here Tunney gripped us and made us really care for her plight.

As Vaudemont, Robert Forrest did not have quite the lyrical expansiveness in his voice as Tunney and when matching her in Tchaikovsky's glorious duet (the part of the opera Tchaikovsky wrote first) I sometimes felt Forrest pushed a little too much. His is a lithe, rather high tension voice with a lot of potential and here he committed himself with great intensity to this slightly problematical role. The sheer intenseness which he brought to it made it work.

Tchaikovsky: Iolanta - Joseph Buckmaster, Paul Grant, Robert Forrest - Royal Academy Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

New music, new collaborations and a Stockhausen return - London Sinfonietta's 2018/19 season

Karlheinz Stockhausen's Donnerstag aus Licht at Covent Garden in 1985
(© www.karlheinzstockhausen.org)

The London Sinfonietta's 2018/19 season will feature collaborations with Music Theatre Wales, the National Dance Company Wales and EXAUDI, with Southbank Centre and the Royal Academy of Music’s Manson Ensemble, there will also be 13 new commissions from leading and emerging composers, 11 world premiere performances and three UK premieres, including works from composers on the ensemble's Writing the Future programme.

With Music Theatre Wales, the National Dance Company Wales and EXAUDI, the London Sinfonietta will be collaborating on a tour of a new dance opera by French composer Pascal Dusapin. With Southbank Centre and the Royal Academy of Music’s Manson Ensemble they will be collaborating on performances of Stockhausen's Donnerstag aus Licht, giving the work its first UK performances since 1985 when it was staged by Covent Garden.

Premieres include a new saxophone concerto from Mark Bowden [see my review of his disc Sudden Light], Sapiens, which is inspired by Yuval Noah Harari’s history of humankind and Colin Matthews’ As time returns, a new setting of poems by Ivan Blatný, a Czech poet whose works were nearly lost to obscurity after he was exiled to England in 1948.

The London premiere of James Dillon’s absurdist Tanz/haus: triptych 2017 will be given alongside world premieres by two of the ensemble’s Writing the Future composers, Oliver Leith and Josephine Stephenson [an excerpt from one of her new works featured at the recent SWAP'ra gala]. Works by the other composers on the scheme, Patrick Brennan and Edward Nesbit, feature in private performances this season but they get their time on the main stage in 2018/19.

Full details from the London Sinfonietta's website.

New Royal Academy of Music theatre wins RIBA award

Jonathan Dove's Flight opening the new Royal Academy of Music theatre (Photo Robert Workman)

The Royal Academy of Music's new performance spaces, the theatre and recital hall, have won the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) London Building of the Year, which means that the project is now considered for the RIBA National Awards, and the RIBA Stirling Prize, one of the foremost prizes for excellence in architecture. The Royal Academy of Music project shared top place in the London Building of the Year with the Victoria & Albert Museum Exhibition Road Quarter.

The Royal Academy of Music's Susie Sainsbury Theatre and Angela Burgess Recital Hall were designed by architect Ian Ritchie and transformed the college's facilities, not only providing a theatre and recital hall but practice and dressing rooms, and new percussion studios, a large refurbished jazz room and a new control suite for the Academy’s audiovisual Recordings Department. The project has also won the RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) Tourism & Leisure Award.

The theatre was opened in March 2018 with performances of Jonathan Dove's Flight (see my review)

Taking wing: Royal Academy Opera's Flight

Jonathan Dove: Flight - Leila Zanette, Alexandra Oomens, Alexander Simpson, Flora MacDonald, Frances Gregory, Aoife O'Connell - Royal Academy Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

Jonathan Dove Flight; dir: Martin Duncan, cond: Gareth Hancock; Royal Academy Opera
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 17 Mar 2018  
Lively and very funny, Jonathan Dove's opera opens the Royal Academy of Music's new theatre

Alexander Aldren, Flora MacDonald, Frances Gregory, Paul Grant,
Robert Garland, Leila Zanette, Alexandra Oomens
Royal Academy Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

The Royal Academy of Music's fine new theatre reopened with a production of Jonathan Dove's Flight directed by Martin Duncan. We caught the final performance on 17 March 2018 with the second of the two casts, Aoife O'Connell as the Controller, Alexander Simpson as the Refugee, Alexandra Oomens and Alexander Aldren as Tina and Bill, Flora MacDonald and Robert Garland as the Stewardess and the Steward, Frances Gregory and Paul Grant as Minskwoman and Minskman, Leila Zanette as the Older Woman and Darwin Prakash as the Immigration Officer. Designs were by Francis O'Connor with lighting by Jake Wiltshire, projections by Ruben Plaza Garcia and movement by Mandy Demetriou.

Jonathan Dove's 1998 opera Flight with a libretto by April de Angelis, commissioned by Glyndebourne Opera, remains one of Dove's most popular stage works. It is a very traditionally constructed piece, April de Angelis's witty libretto provides a closed room scenario and opportunities for each of the characters to reveal themselves to us. Part of the work's success is the way it combines humour with poignancy, the work is constantly balanced between the two.  At Opera Holland Park in 2015 with a cast varying from young artists to highly experienced, Stephen Barlow's production provided a poignant experience [see my review].

The Royal Academy of Music's new theatre takes flight

The new theatre at the Royal Academy of Music (photo Adam Scott)

With space in London at a premium, academic institutions have to be imaginative when it comes to the use of space and fitting theatres into existing 19th century conservatoires is a particular challenge. The Royal Academy of Music has just opened its new theatrical facilities at its Marylebone Road home following two years of re-building when the opera department became peripatetic.

The new recital room at the Royal
Academy of Music (photo Adam Scott)

The re-designed and re-built facilities include the 309-seat Susie Sainsbury Theatre and the new 100-seat rooftop Recital Hall, as well as 14 refurbished practice and dressing rooms, five new percussion studios, a large refurbished jazz room and a new control suite for the Academy’s audio-visual recordings department. The new theatre is built on the site of the Sir Jack Lyons Theatre which stood from 1976 to 2015. Designed by RIBA Award-winning Ian Ritchie Architects, the project has transformed the original theatre, including re-shaping the auditorium, adding a new balcony, increasing capacity by 40%, and improving sightlines dramatically. Plus a new fly tower and side wings in an adaptable theatre suitable for everything from opera to music theatre and beyond.

I have to confess that I found Royal Academy Opera's touring years rather fun, we caught Rimsky Korsakov's May Night at Ambika P3 [see my review] and Handel's Alcina at the Round Chapel in Hackney [see my review], but I can well understand the delight of staff and students to be back in a well-equipped permanent home.

Jonathan Dove's Flight opened the new theatre this week on 12 March 2018.

Welcome to club Amnesia: Handel's Alcina from Royal Academy Opera

Handel's Alcina - Royal Academy Opera - photo Robert Workman

Handel Alcina; Meinir Wyn Roberts, Hannah Poulsom, Richard Walshe, Lorena Paz Nieto, William Blake, Emma Stannard, dir: Olivia Fuchs, cond: Iain Ledingham; Royal Academy Opera at the Round Chapel, Hacknet
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Oct 24 2016
Star rating: 4.5
Handels'opera re-invented in a brilliantly engaging performance

Meinir Wyn Robert - Handel's Alcina - photo Robert Workman

Royal Academy Opera continues its peregrinations round London, whilst the Royal Academy of Music's theatre is rebuilt, presenting Handel's Alcina at the Round Chapel in Hackney on 24 October 2016. Directed by Olivia Fuchs, with designs by Yannis Thavoris, lighting by Jake Wiltshire and choreography by Victoria Newlyn; Iain Ledingham conducted the Royal Academy Sinfonia. The first night cast featured Meinir Wyn Roberts at Alcina, Hannah Poulsom as Bradamante, Richard Walshe as Melisso, Lorena Paz Nieto as Morgana, William Blake as Oronte and Emma Stannard as Ruggiero.

The Round Chapel, a former United Reformed Church, was built in 1871 and taken over in 1991 by Hackney Historic Buildings Trust which restored the building from derelict. It presents a large U-shaped space with balcony (including cast iron supports) and any theatrical production has to create its own theatre space.

Fuchs and Thavoris placed the audience up in the balcony, using the ground floor nave space as the playing area. Alcina's 'island' (here the club Amnesia) was placed in the centre, a large black platform with the orchestra on one side and the rest of the floor space filled with white balloons. Access to the 'island' was via a walkway, but there were also trapdoors providing access but also allowing a little bit of 'magic' as hands would mysteriously appear holding objects. The lighting rig (all created specially for the show) included an arch over the island which incorporated lighting, a neon 'Amnesia' sign, the screens for the surtitles and even an improvised drinks cabinet!

Teeming with life and joy: Rimsky-Korsakov's May Night from Royal Academy Opera

Mikhail Shepelenko - Rimsky Korsakov May Night - Royal Academy Opera - photo Robert Workman

Rimsky-Korsakov May Night; Mikhail Shepelenko, Emma Stannard, Phil Wilcox, Timothy Murpy, Claire-Barnett-Jones, Martins Smauktelis, Lorena Paz Nieto, Henry Neill, dir: Christopher Cowell, cond: Gareth Hancock
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Mar 11 2016
Star rating: 4.5
Delightful revival of one of Rimsky-Korsakov's rarely performed operas

Timothy Murphy, Emma Stannard - Rimsky Korsakov May Night
Royal Academy Opera - photo Robert Workman

We don't see enough Rimsky-Korsakov operas in the UK. He wrote fifteen of which only the last, The Golden Cockerel is anything approaching a regular if infrequent visitor (I have managed to accumulate a total of six of them in my forty year opera going career). It was welcome indeed to catch his second opera May Night (dating from 1880) performed by Royal Academy Opera at Ambika P3 on Friday 11 March 2016.  

We caught the alternative cast, with Mikhail Shepelenko as Levko, Emma Stannard as Ganna, Phil Wilcox as Kalenik, Timothy Murphy as the Headman, Claire Barnett-Jones as the Headman's sister-in-law, Martins Smaukstelis as the Distiller, Lorena Paz Nieto as Pannochka and Henry Neill as the Clerk. The production was directed by Christopher Cowell, choreographed by Mandy Demetriou, designed by Bridget Kimak, with lighting by Jake Wiltshire. Gareth Hancock, the new director of Royal Academy Opera, conducted the Royal Academy Sinfonia.

Martins Smaukstelis, Claire Barnett-Jones - Rimsky Korsakov May Night
Royal Academy Opera - photo Robert Workman

Ambika P3 is not a theatre, it is a huge semi-industrial space that was a former testing lab at the University of Westminster, and is now used as an arts venue. For the opera, Royal Academy Opera along with a team from Rose Bruford College had to build the whole technical infrastructure of a theatre. The space does not lend itself easily to such use, the flow of audience to and from the theatre and the toilets, got confused with performers moving from the theatre to their backstage areas. And performing such a large-scale piece with so many performers certainly put pressure on resources. But it was well worth it, the space is highly atmospheric and enabled Royal Academy Opera to perform a piece which would not fit into their existing opera theatre (which is currently being re-built). Over 40 singers were accompanied by an orchestra of 55 (including piano and two harps), and an off-stage band of 13.

Rimsky-Korsakov's opera is based on a tale by Gogol and set in a village in the Ukraine, far from authority, where the say of the Headman (Timothy Murphy) goes. In the original, the old manor house is to be pulled down and replaced by a distillery, hence the visit of the Distiller (Martins Smaukstelis). Christopher Cowell and Bridget Kimak updated the period to the 20th century, post-revolution and the setting was the old distillery which is to be pulled down and updated by the Distiller. This enabled the many large-scale village scenes to take place amongst the striking semi-industrial set (which matched the venue) and removed the cutesy element which can be fatal to Rimsky-Korsakov's operas.


He was fond of stories which put Russian life under the microscope. Often discursive in structure, and embedded in the semi-pagan rituals which were still common in the 19th century. May Night is centred on the fertility rituals associated with Rusalkas (spirits of unclean dead, unbaptised childen suicides, which live in water).