Bayreuth Festival: Thorliefur Örn Arnarsson’s interpretation of 'Tristan und Isolde' is a well-planned and thoughtful affair.

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (Act 1) - Ekaterina Gubanova (Brangäne), Andreas Schager (Tristan), Jordan Shanahan (Kurwenal), Camilla Nylund (Isolde), Günther Groissböck (Marke) - Bayreuth Festival, 2025 (Photo: Bayreuther Festspiele / Enrico Nawrath)

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde: Andreas Schager, Günther Groissböck, Camilla Nylund, Jordan Shanahan, Alexander Grassauer, Ekaterina Gubanova; dir: Thorliefur Örn Arnarsson, cond: Semyon Bychkov; Bayreuth Festival
Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 3 August 2025 

A fine deuce! Camilla Nylund and Andreas Schager shine in the roles of Tristan and Isolde at the Bayreuth Festival

Based largely on the 12th-century romance, Tristan and Iseult, by Gottfried von Strassburg, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde - widely regarded as the greatest paean to pure erotic love recalling the legendary days of King Arthur - is notable for the composer’s unprecedented use of chromaticism, tonal ambiguity, orchestral colour and harmonic suspension. Wagner’s inspiration for writing it was greatly influenced by the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer as well as by his love affair with Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of the successful silk merchant, Otto Wesendonck.

While Wagner was working on Der Ring des Nibelungen he was intrigued by the legend of Tristan and Isolde, a tragic tale of forbidden love between Tristan, a Cornish knight and sea captain, and Isolde, an Irish princess. The scenario follows Tristan’s voyage to Ireland returning with Isolde to marry his uncle King Marke of Cornwall against her will. On their journey, Tristan and Isolde consume a love potion - being a daughter of a witch, I guess Isolde was used to potions and suchlike - which ultimately leads to an uncontrollable and passionate love affair leading to tragedy.

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (Act 2) - Andreas Schager (Tristan), Camilla Nylund (Isolde) - Bayreuth Festival, 2025 (Photo: Bayreuther Festspiele / Enrico Nawrath)

The opera proved difficult to bring to the stage. Lots do, of course. Alois Ander, employed to sing Tristan, proved incapable of learning the part while parallel attempts to stage it in Dresden, Weimar and Prague came to nothing winning the opera a reputation as unperformable. Even the planned première on 15 May 1865 had to be postponed until Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld had recovered from a throat infection. The opera finally received it première on 10 June 1865 at the Königliches Hoftheater und Nationaltheater, Munich, with Hans von Bülow conducting and Malvina’s husband, Ludwig, partnering her as Tristan.

Having sung the role only four times, Ludwig died suddenly prompting speculation that the exertion involved in singing the part of Tristan had killed him. The stress of performing Tristan may have also claimed the lives of conductors Felix Mottl in 1911 and Joseph Keilberth in 1968. Both men died after collapsing while conducting the second act which, incidentally, Wagner finished at his home in Venice at Palazzo Giustinian overlooking the Grand Canal.

Eventually, Tristan found ground and was enormously influential to such distinguished composers as Alban Berg, Gustav Mahler, Arnold Schoenberg, Richard Strauss and, indeed, Benjamin Britten. In fact, during the playing of the Prelude, my thoughts wandered and caught up with the opening scene of Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier.

Enjoying 32 productions at Bayreuth between 1886 and 2022, this current production of Tristan, which first saw the light of day at last year’s festival thereby marking the 149th anniversary of its world première, fell to Icelandic-born director, Thorliefur Örn Arnarsson, making his début on the Green Hill.

So, too, is Lithuanian set designer and visual artist, Vytautas Narbutas, who created three impressive and imaginative sets fitting so well the overall scenario of such a fine and intriguing production. The conductor for this revival was Semyon Bychkov.

A quartet of concerts ended a marvellous, fulfilling and enjoyable Aldeburgh Festival

Daniel Kidane: Aloud - Nathan Amaral, Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra, Kirill Karabits - Aldeburgh Festival (Photo: Britten Pears Arts)

Thea Musgrave: Rorate coeli, Britten: A.M.D.G., Palestrina: Rorate coeli, Daniel Kidane: The Song Thrush and the Mountain Ash, Schoenberg: Friede auf Erden, Poulenc: Figure humaine; BBC Singers, Owain Park; Snape Maltings

Britten: Winter Words, Imogen Holst: Weathers, Little think’st at thou, poore flower, Four Songs, Daniel Kidane: Songs of Illumination; Britten: Folksong arrangements; Nick Pritchard, Ian Tindale; Jubilee Hall

Britten: Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Daniel Kidane: Aloud, Reinhold Glière: The Zaporozhy Cossacks, Shostakovich: Symphony No.9; Nathan Amaral, Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra, Kirill Karabits; Snape Maltings

Britten: Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge, Elgar: Quintet in A minor for piano and string quartet; Allan Clayton, Antonio Pappano, London Symphony Orchestra principals: Benjamin Gilmore /Julián Gil Rodríguez (violins), Elvind Ringstad (viola), David Cohen (cello); Snape Maltings

Berlioz: Overture to Le corsaire; Boulez: Mémoriale, Debussy: Images’, Book II, orch. Colin Matthews, Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique; London Symphony Orchestra, Antonio Pappano; Snape Maltings
Reviewed by Tony Cooper: 26-29 June 2025

From the BBC Singers in Britten & Schoenberg, to the RCM Symphony Orchestra on top form, a brace of terrific tenors, plus Berlioz & Boulez from the LSO

A marvellous person! A marvellous composer! When BBC’s Tom Service asked the revered Scottish composer, Thea Musgrave (now in her 97th year) her view of being a woman composer, she replied: ‘Yes, I am a woman; I am a composer, too. But rarely at the same time.’ She admits that pursuing music can be a difficult career and her advice to young composers: ‘Don't do it, unless you need to. And if you do, enjoy every minute of it.’ [see Robert's 90th birthday interview with her].

I think it’s fair to say that Musgrave has enjoyed every minute of her chosen profession and most probably influenced other composers along the way: Judith Weir, for one, who acknowledges Musgrave as a significant influence on her own compositional style while Musgrave, in turn, acknowledges the influence of such luminous composers as Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Berg in her early development.

I always enjoy Musgrave’s work and it was in 1964 when I first encountered her music when the 1964 Norfolk & Norwich Triennial Festival commissioned The Five Ages of Man, a cantata she wrote for soprano, chorus and orchestra, premièred by the Norwich Philharmonic Orchestra and the Norwich Philharmonic Chorus in St Andrew’s Hall, Norwich, conducted by Charles Mackerras. The text comes from Hesiod’s Works and Ways, a Greek version of the story of the decline and fall of man.

However, getting up to date, in January last year I enjoyed a rare and captivating production by Oper Leipzig of Mary, Queen of Scots [see Tony's review], the first of four operas Musgrave wrote focusing on historical figures - the others being Harriet, the Woman Called Moses (1985), Simón Bolívar (1995) and Pontalba (2003).

Thea Musgrave: Rorate Coeli - BBC Singers, Owain Park - Aldeburgh Festival (Photo: Britten Pears Arts)

Now reunited with Musgrave at Aldeburgh, I thoroughly enjoyed Rorate coeli, the opening work in the BBC Singers’ concert at Snape Maltings Concert Hall, conducted by Owain Park - Thursday 26 June. I was truly soaking up the atmosphere, intensity and poignancy of the piece as much as I did with Mary, Queen of Scots. Musgrave ended with an exultant, jubilant and dramatic setting of the ‘Gloria’ while Palestrina’s setting of the same work, heard in the same programme, was equally as dramatic offering an extended ‘Alleluia’ to bring the work to a thoughtful and dignified close.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The opening work of the Aldeburgh Festival’s 76th edition fell to Colin Matthews’ A Visit to Friends, the composer’s first foray into opera.

Colin Matthews: A Visit to Friends - Lotte Betts-Dean, Marcus Farnsworth - Aldeburgh Festival (Photo: Richard Hubert Smith)

Colin Matthews: A Visit to Friends; Lotte Betts-Dean, Susanna Hurrell, Marcus Farnsworth, Edward Hawkins, Gary Matthewman, director Rachael Hewer, Aurora Orchestra, conductor Jessica Cottis; Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Aldeburgh Festival
Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 14 June 2025

An ‘opera-within-an-opera’, Colin Matthews’ A Visit to Friends draws on Anton Chekhov’s intriguing short story of the same name published in 1898 and William Boyd’s Chekhovian play, Longing 

Over the past few years, the Aldeburgh Festival has ‘opened’ with a chamber opera and one that holds its memory for me is The Hunting Gun by Austrian composer, Thomas Larcher, seen in 2019 [see Tony's review]. His first foray into opera. Based on the novella of the same name by Japanese writer, Yasushi Inoue, the opera explores themes of love, betrayal and death telling the story of a secret love affair through the letters of three people. 

Opening Aldeburgh’s 76th edition, Colin Matthews’ new chamber opera, A Visit to Friends, Matthews’ first foray into opera, too, while the librettist novelist/playwright, William Boyd, follows suit delivering a striking and appealing libretto drawing on his Chekhovian play Longing but, more importantly, Chekhov’s short story, A Visit to Friends, written in 1898, almost as a study for The Cherry Orchard (Chekhov’s last play of 1903) which he was hesitant in publishing because its central character, he felt, was too autobiographical. [Read more in Robert's interview with Colin and William, 'A terrific sense of collaboration']

Colin Matthews: A Visit to Friends - Susanna Hurrell, Gary Matthewman - Aldeburgh Festival (Photo: Richard Hubert Smith)

Comprising four scenes from a lost ‘opera’ which has been rediscovered in a Moscow archive with no composer’s name attached, the rehearsals of A Visit to Friends involve three people - a couple of dreamy, determined and hopeful young women ‘head-over-heels’ in love with the same ‘dithering’ man who cannot commit himself. A Moscow lawyer, to boot, the girls dream and live in hope that he’ll help them resolve their financial troubles.  

The final concerts in this year’s Norfolk & Norwich Festival fell to the BBC Singers and the Britten Sinfonia - welcome visitors and, indeed, no strangers to the city.

Norwich Cathedral - Photo: JackPeasePhotography
CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia

Britten: Hymn to the Virgin, John Tavener: Hymn to the Mother of God, Judith Weir: Ave Regina Cælorum, James MacMillan: The Culham Motets, O Virgo Prudentissima, Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli; BBC Singers, cond. Sir James MacMillan, Roman Catholic Cathedral, Norwich.

Wagner: Siegfried Idyll; Hummel: Trumpet Concerto, Arvo Pärt: Fratres; Beethoven: Symphony No.1; Imogen Whitehead, trumpet; Britten Sinfonia, Clio Gould, violin/director, Norwich Cathedral
Reviewed by Tony Cooper: 23/24 May 2025  

The BBC Singers’ concert formed part of their centenary celebrations while the Britten Sinfonia saluted Estonian composer Arvo Pärt in his 90th year.

First mentioned in the Oxford Dictionary of Music in 1747, held on a triennial basis (originally with Birmingham and Leeds) from 1824 through to 1988 and then put on an annual footing thereafter, the Norfolk & Norwich Festival ended on a high with a couple of engaging and heartwarming concerts held across the city’s two cathedrals - the Roman Catholic Cathedral dedicated to St John the Baptist and Norwich Cathedral dedicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity, featuring the BBC Singers, conducted by Sir James MacMillan, and Britten Sinfonia, directed by Clio Gould.

It was heart-warming, too, having James MacMillan back in Norwich after a long absence conducting the BBC Singers, recently awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society’s prestigious Ensemble Award, proving a nice touch in their centenary year.

Norwich Roman Catholic Cathedral
Photo: Nigel Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia

They opened with a lovely and tender reading of Britten’s Hymn to the Virgin, an early example of Britten’s mastery of word setting which received its first performance on 5 January 1931 at St John’s Church, Lowestoft. He was 16 at the time, unwell and approaching his last days at Gresham’s School in north Norfolk confined to the school infirmary where he passed has time reading John Buchan (Prester John) and swotting Chaucer for his up-coming exams.

A fine bunch, the BBC Singers must have sung Hymn to the Virgin dozens of times but, nonetheless, their timing and freshness of the piece remains constant and was joyously heard in the expansive Gothic-style surroundings of Norwich’s Roman Catholic Cathedral grandly designed by the eldest son of George Gilbert Scott.

The text Britten used was by an anonymous poet, probably dating from about 1300, written in a macaronic verse where one language is introduced into the context of another. Therefore, the main body of the choir sings in Middle English while the semi-chorus supplies a refrain in Latin.

Music on a summer’s day. How lovely! Avid Prommer Tony Cooper explores the 2025 BBC Proms

Bliss' The Beatitudes performed in Coventry Cathedral for the first time, the building for which it was commissioned and written; Orla Boylan (soprano), Andrew Kennedy (tenor), Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, BBC Philharmonic, Paul Daniel (conductor) in 2012

The BBC Proms eight-week season features over 3000 artists and the first ‘all-night’ Prom in almost half a century. Avid Prommer, Tony Cooper, reports on the world’s largest classical-music festival that helps to make summer tick.

When the BBC Proms arrives, summer, in my humble opinion, arrives, too. A feast of music like no other, the Proms (running from Friday 18th July to Saturday 13th September) offers so much over its packed eight-week season with a total of 86 concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. 

This is the first complete Proms series that Sam Jackson, who took over the post of controller of BBC Radio 3 and director of the Proms from David Pickard a couple of years ago, is responsible for. He has most certainly come up with an interesting, varied and attractive programme that should find widespread appeal among hard-headed Prommers while helping to attract new audiences. 

Branching out, too, the Proms takes off to Bradford as part of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture as well as Sunderland while returning to Bristol and Gateshead for two three-day weekend residencies with a special Prom in Belfast to mark the centenary of Radio 4’s popular ‘Shipping Forecast’ focusing on music inspired by the sea. 

Britten Sinfonia, Sinfonia Smith Square and the Choir of Merton College, Oxford, unite for a thrilling and exhilarating concert concluding with Olivier Messiaen’s Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum.

Messiaen: Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum - Britten Sinfonia, Sinfonia Smith Square, Nicholas Daniel - St George's Cathedral, Southwark (Photo: Britten Sinfonia)

Stravinsky: Symphonies of wind instruments; Poulenc: Timor et tremor, Vinea mea electa, Tristis est anima mea; Duruflé: Ubi caritas et amor; Stravinsky: Mass; Messiaen: Vocalise-etude, O sacrum convivium, Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum. Choir of Merton College, Oxford, cond. Benjamin Nicholas; Britten Sinfonia, Sinfonia Smith Square, cond. Nicholas Daniel; St George’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, Southwark, London
Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 30 April 2025

This concert marked Nicholas Daniel’s final performance with the Britten Sinfonia as principal oboist, a post he has held since being one of the founding members of the orchestra in 1992. 

I think it’s fair to say that this concert featuring a performance of Olivier Messiaen’s monumental work Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum performed by the Britten Sinfonia, and Sinfonia Smith Square with music by Poulenc, Duruflé and Stravinsky with the Choir of Merton College, Oxford, could well be described as a ‘once-in-a-decade’ musical experience.  

For sure, a tremendous piece, Et exspecto is rarely performed nowadays because of the sheer scale of the musical forces required such as the huge sections of wind and brass (no strings) needed alongside an extraordinary range of percussion and ‘knocking’ instruments comprising three sets of cowbells, three tam-tams and six tuned gongs were part of the hardware as well as a set of tubular bells all safely in the strong and skilful hands of half-a-dozen percussionists aka the ‘Heavy Metal Boys’.  

Commissioned by the French Minister of Cultural Affairs, André Malraux, to honour the Fallen of the First and Second World Wars, Messiaen conceived the work to be performed in large spaces such as churches and cathedrals and, indeed, in open-air performances. He found inspiration in writing the piece by the countryside of the Hautes-Alpes (a department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region of south-eastern France) and by the imposing images of Gothic and Romanesque churches. 

‘I feel that Et exspecto presents a rare opportunity for an unforgettable musical journey for audience and performers alike,’ enthused Nicholas Daniel, who conducted the work while marking his final performance with the Britten Sinfonia as principal oboist, a post he has held since being one of the founding members of the orchestra in 1992. 

He further added: ‘The unique soundscape is immense and powerful and bringing Et exspecto to life in the stunning surroundings of Augustus Pugin’s St George’s Cathedral, Southwark, beautifully designed in the Gothic style, is a lifetime’s ambition for me. I’m tremendously excited to share this experience with some of the great musicians in the UK including the exceptional and gifted young artists of Sinfonia Smith Square.’ 

Richard Strauss in Berlin - Elektra & Intermezzo at the Deutsche Oper Berlin

Richard Strauss: Elektra - Deutsche Oper Berlin, 2015
(Photo: Bettina Stöß)

Richard Strauss: Elektra, Intermezzo; Doris Soffel, Elena Pankratova, Camilla Nylund, Philipp Jekal, Maria Bengtsson, Deutsche Oper Berlin, conductors: Thomas Søndergard, Donald Runnicles, directors: Tobias Kratzer, Kirsten Harms
Reviewed by Tony Cooper (22, 23 March 2025) 

For this second instalment of European travelling music man, Tony Cooper's Richard Strauss odyssey in Berlin he takes in  Elektra and Intermezzo at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. 

ELEKTRA 

A thrilling and adventurous piece of writing, Strauss’ one-act tragedy, Elektra, premièred on 25 January 1909 at the Schauspielhaus, Dresden, became the first of the composer’s collaborations with the librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal.  

Known for its abrasive music and flights into atonality, the opera’s an immensely difficult and musically complex piece to master and the role of Elektra (Agamemnon’s avenging daughter) requires a singer with grit, determination and stamina to pull it off.  

An emotionally-demanding role, it’s also an emotionally-charged one as well therefore I felt that Elena Pankratova delivered a fine, fiery and gutsy performance of power, substance and strength. On stage for the opera’s duration of about 145 minutes, she surely stamped her credentials on one of the great female operatic roles.  

More or less kept a prisoner in the courtyard of Agamemnon’s palace in Mycenae, looking in a rather poor and dilapidated state echoing, perhaps, the state of flux following her father’s killing, Ms Pankratova slowly and assuredly developed and moulded the strong-minded and determined character of Elektra tightly controlling her emotions and expressions while at the same time playing the waiting and psychological game for her moment - revenge. How sweet it is! 

Richard Strauss in Berlin: Arabella at the Deutsche Oper Berlin with Jennifer Davis & Heidi Stober

Richard Strauss: Arabella - Deutsche Oper Berlin, 2023 (Photo: Thomas Aurin)

Richard Strauss: Arabella; Jennifer Davis, Heidi Stober, Thomas Johannes Mayer, Hye-Young Moon, Doris Soffel, Deutsche Oper Berlin, conductor: Donald Runnicles, director: Tobias Kratzer
Reviewed by Tony Cooper (20 March 2025) 

European travelling music man, Tony Cooper was in Berlin for three wonderful operas by Richard Strauss, in this first instalment he takes in Arabella at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. 

Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, a lyrical comedy in three acts set to a text by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, was produced in 1911 when the composer was 47. Premièred at the Schauspielhaus, Dresden on 1 July 1933, the opera’s renowned for being his greatest achievement - popular the world over. In stark contrast, Arabella, composed 21 years later, is not nearly so popular but, nonetheless, I put it on a par with Der Rosenkavalier. Both operas are comedies set in Vienna; both are equally famous for including the waltz. 

When the show begins members of the audience find themselves sitting comfortably in an elegant and well-furnished suite of a luxury boutique hotel. Two compartmentalize sets, designed by Rainer Sellmaier, dominate the entire width of Deutsche Oper’s vast stage. 

Comprising a lounge and boudoir, adjacent to the hotel’s lobby, the occupant’s Graf Waldner and his impoverished family forced from their own home due to reduced circumstances mainly caused by Waldner’s gambling debts. At the hotel, he and his wife hope to find a man of stature, means and wealth to marry off his eldest daughter, Arabella, in hope of changing the family’s fortunes. 

Richard Strauss: Arabella - Jennifer Davis (Arabella), Heidi Stober (Zdenka) - Deutsche Oper Berlin, 2025 (Photo: Bettina Stöß)

The annual Swaledale Festival of Music and the Arts blazes a cultural trail for the North Yorkshire Dales

Bringing music and the arts to the three most northerly Yorkshire Dales notably Swaledale, Wensleydale and Arkengarthdale, the Swaledale Festival comes round in May.

Under the patronage of writer, lecturer and arts advocate Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason and antiques expert Ronnie Archer-Morgan, the Swaledale Festival is an annual festival of music and arts based in the three most northerly Yorkshire Dales - Swaledale, Wensleydale and Arkengarthdale - a large rural area of outstanding natural beauty. Founded in 1972, this year’s festival runs from Saturday 24 May to Saturday 7 June offering 60-plus music, arts and walking events to inspire, transport and exhilarate one in the spectacular northern Yorkshire Dales.

Fraser Wilson, appointed Artistic Director of Swaledale Festival in December 2024

A host of festival venues are used ranging from tiny chapels seating fewer than 90 people to halls seating several hundred. Many are charming village churches, too, but there are also heritage sites such as Richmond’s Georgian Theatre Royal while in the past few years the festival has utilised the 600-seater Tennant’s Garden Rooms in Leyburn as a new venue.

The programme includes a core of classical music concerts as well as folk, brass bands, jazz and world music while poetry, film, dance, drama, comedy, workshops, masterclasses, exhibitions, family events, talks and themed guided walks run in parallel to the main programme.

There are usually a few surprises too (think steam-train trips, bat watches, archaeology projects and astronomy sessions!). There’s also a focus on the extraordinary landscape, the history, the legends and the characters that shape the northern Yorkshire Dales.

New Year in Berlin: Tony Cooper's cultural break takes in a new Torsten Rasch piece, Beethoven's Choral Symphony, Mendelssohn's Paulus & artists of Circus Roncalli

Silvesterkonzert - Artists of Circus Roncalli, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by Paul Daniel - Tempodrom, Berlin (Photo: Peter Adamik)

Torsten Rasch: Pataphor; Beethoven: Symphony no.9 in D minor; Mirjam Mesak, Emily D’Angelo, Christopher Sokolowski, Christof Fischesser, Rundfunkchor Berlin, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Vladimir Jurowski; Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt, Berlin.
New Year’s Eve concert (Silvesterkonzert): Artists of Circus Roncalli, Stephan Mörth, Thomas Holzmann, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Paul Daniel; Tempodrom, Berlin.
New Year’s Day concert (Neujahrskonzert): Mendelssohn: Paulus; Johanna Winkel, Anke Vondung, Patrick Grahl, Samuel Hasselhorn; RIAS Kammerchor Berlin, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. Florian Helgath; Philharmonie Berlin.
Reviewed by Tony Cooper (30 & 31 December 2024, 1 January 2025)

Our roving European correspondent, Tony Cooper, travels to Berlin, a European capital he greatly favours, to see the Old Year out and ring in the New taking in a trio of concerts heard over consecutive days

My New Year’s cultural break in Berlin started in the historic Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt offering a delightful concert from Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin comprising Beethoven’s Choral Symphony heard against an illuminating new work by Torsten Rasch entitled Pataphor. And to punctuate New Year’s Eve, artists of Circus Roncalli joined forces with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin to produce a dazzling, fun and entertaining concert at the Tempodrom while New Year’s Day witnessed a powerful and rewarding performance of Mendelssohn’s oratorio, Paulus, at the Philharmonie, Berlin.

To ease me out of the Old Year and launch me into the New, a trio of concerts in Berlin proved just the ticket with the first call falling to a New Year’s Eve pre-concert held at the magnificent and historic Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt, Berlin, featuring Torsten Rasch’s Pataphor and Beethoven’s Symphony no.9 in D minor ‘Choral’ featuring soprano Mirjam Mesak, mezzo-soprano, Emily D’Angelo, tenor Christopher Sokolowski and bass Christof Fischesser with the Rundfunkchor Berlin and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Vladimir Jurowski.

The New Year’s Eve concert (Silvesterkonzert) at the Tempodrom, Berlin, witnessed artists of Circus Roncalli joining forces with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by Paul Daniel.

And on New Year’s Day, Mendelssohn’s Paulus, a work I’ve longed to hear for years and years, unexpectedly fell into my lap. A refreshing and beautiful oratorio, the performance featured soprano Johanna Winkel, mezzo-soprano Anke Vondung, tenor Patrick Grahl and baritone Samuel Hasselhorn with RIAS Kammerchor Berlin and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin conducted by Florian Helgath.

Beethoven: Symphony No.9 - Mirjam Mesak, Emily D’Angelo, Christopher Sokolowski, Christof Fischesser, Rundfunkchor Berlin, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Vladimir Jurowski - Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt, Berlin.

The Norfolk & Norwich Festival, which evolved from the old Norfolk & Norwich Triennial, blazes a cultural trail for the East Anglian region

The Norwich Nine - Bootworks Theatre Co. and a local group of nine-year-old children - Norfolk & Norwich Festival

By far the largest arts festival in the East of England and the fourth largest in the UK, the 2025 Norfolk & Norwich Festival (which has been held on an annual basis since 1988) runs from Friday 9 to Sunday 25 May offering a huge variety of work staged in and around the fine city of Norwich. 

To give one a glimpse of the programme and an idea of what’s to come, the festival’s energetic, appealing and hard-working artistic director, Daniel Brine, has just announced the first shows ahead of the full programme announcement due in February. They include opening concerts from each of this year’s artists-in-residence Sean Shibe and Lotte Betts-Dean while the Britten Sinfonia returns to the fold plus an exhilarating circus show débuts in Norwich at the Adnams Spiegeltent in Chapel Field Gardens. 

Who will be the new face of circus? That’s the question posed in the Adnams Spiegeltent headline show appropriately entitled Showdown. Part talent contest, part beauty pageant, this all-encompassing affair offers a little touch of The Hunger Games about it as the show witnesses half-a-dozen contestants battling it out to reach the top in a puzzling and mind-blowing show conjured up by the multi-award-winning, UK-based contemporary circus company, Upswing, founded by Vicki Dela Amedume in 2006. As the unwritten rules of the game emerge, the question arises: Who makes sure the winner is the right winner? 

Who, indeed! 

Adnams Spiegeltent - Norwich & Norfolk Festival (Photo: Chris Taylor)

Staged in the majestic surroundings of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, Mendelssohn’s Elijah provoked the inner senses

Birmingham Triennial Music Festival at the Town Hall

Mendelssohn: Elijah; Carolyn Sampson, Sarah Connolly, Andrew Staples, Simon Keenlyside, BBC Singers, BBC Concert Orchestra, Daniel Hyde; King's College Chapel, Cambridge at part of the Cambridge Music Festival
Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 1 November 2024

A comfortable and remarkable performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah, blessed by an extremely fine and stellar quartet of soloists

As part of the Cambridge Music Festival, Daniel Hyde, director of music at King’s College Chapel conducted Mendelssohn's Elijah in the chapel on 1 November 2024, with the BBC Singers and BBC Concert Orchestra. A comfortable and remarkable performance of Elijah was blessed by an extremely fine and stellar quartet of soloists admirably led by Sir Simon Keenlyside, a strong lyrical baritone who proved ideal for the part of Elijah while Carolyn Sampson’s clear and distinctive-sounding soprano voice projected round the vastness and majesty of King’s College Chapel with such consummate ease as did, too, the warm and rich-sounding mezzo voice of Dame Sarah Connolly with the tenor, Andrew Staples, adding so much pleasure to a brilliant and exhilarating performance that would be extremely hard to beat. 

An epic Old Testament oratorio on a grand scale, Mendelssohn’s two-part work Elijah (the culmination of his life’s work) was first performed in the newly-built Birmingham Town Hall to a 2,500-strong audience who regularly interrupted proceedings to offer a round of applause while eight numbers, a popular occurrence of the day, were encored. Thankfully, this would not happen nowadays but the half-hearted applause that often breaks out between movements in today’s world I find irritating to the extreme while the misuse of mobile phones in performance stirs my anger. 

Conducted by the composer, the performance (Wednesday 26 August 1846) was, by all accounts, triumphant and formed part of the 1846 Birmingham Triennial Festival who, incidentally, shared their festival with Leeds and Norwich while the other Triennial - the Three Choirs Festival - rotates to this very day with the cathedral towns of Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester.  [see Robert's article, In search of Elijah, exploring that first performance]

Specializing in the performance of Wagner operas, the London Opera Company forges ahead in a concert performance of Siegfried at Sinfonia Smith Square, London.

Jean de Reszke as Siegfried (c. 1896)

Wagner: Siegfried; Colin Judson, Brad Cooper, Simon Thorpe, Stephan Loges, Thomas D Hopkinson, Louise Fuller, Harriet Williams, Cara McHardy, conductor: Peter Selwyn; London Opera Company at Sinfonia Smith Square
Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 2 November 2024

London-born conductor, Peter Selwyn, conducted Wagner’s Siegfried in a performance dedicated to Ben Thapa who sang Siegmund in Die Walküre last year. He sadly passed away earlier this year. 

A strong and formidable cast witnessed Australian-born tenor, Brad Cooper, in the pivotal role of Siegfried (he’ll be reprising the role for Grange Park Opera’s upcoming new Ring cycle starting in 2026) while Cara McHardy and Simon Thorpe took the roles of Brünnhilde and Der Wanderer with Colin Judson (Mime), Stephan Loges (Alberich), Thomas D Hopkinson (Fafner), Louise Fuller (Der Waldvogel) and Harriet Williams (who sang Fricka in Die Walküre) Erda 

A ‘not-for-profit organization’ the London Opera Company (LOC), founded in 2020 to give opportunities to performers who lost work through the pandemic, goes from strength to strength. Therefore, in October of the same year of the company’s formation, LOC presented its inaugural performance: a sold-out and rapturously received chamber performance of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at The Warehouse in south-west London. Gaining confidence, momentum and strength, they carried on and performed a chamber version of Die Walküre in July 2021 to another delighted audience of Wagner aficionados who filled St John’s, Waterloo, for the performance.  

Success breeds success, of course, and come 2022, LOC moved onward and upwards delivering a critically-acclaimed account of Tristan und Isolde at Sinfonia Smith Square (the coming together of two much-loved London-based organizations: Southbank Sinfonia and St John’s Smith Square) featuring Neil Cooper (Tristan) and Cara McHardy (Isolde).  

And returning to the same venue in 2023, LOC produced a well-received semi-staged performance of Die Walküre featuring the much-celebrated mezzo-soprano, Sarah Pring (Roßweiße), vocal coach for Sky Arts’ ‘Anyone Can Sing’. She was joined by Ben Thapa as Siegmund and rising soprano, Philippa Boyle, as Sieglinde, conducted by LOC’s extremely talented and trusted music director, Peter Selwyn, who has a strong background in classical music and opera especially when it comes to Wagner.  [see Robert's review]

The pairing of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Actéon with Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Pygmalion proved a perfect double-bill for baroque aficionados offering a delightful, entertaining and pleasant evening

Page from the edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses published by Lucantonio Giunti in Venice, 1497

Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Actéon, Jean-Philippe Rameau:Pygmalion; Anna Dennis, Rachel Redmond, Katie Bray, Thomas Walker , Academy of Ancient Music, Laurence Cummings; Barbican
Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 9 October 2024

Rarities on the British stage such dramas of human emotion and divine power contained in Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Actéon and Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Pygmalion were penned by two of the most imaginative and well-respected composers of the French baroque era. 

The Academy of Ancient Music’s two mythological masterpieces of baroque opera, Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Actéon, and Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Pygmalion, sung in French at London’s Milton Court Concert Hall was blessed by an extremely fine and stellar quartet of soloists comprising Anna Dennis and Rachel Redmond (sopranos), Katie Bray (mezzo-soprano), Thomas Walker (tenor) and Laurence Cummings (director/harpsichord). 

Based upon the third book of Metamorphoses, written by the celebrated Roman poet Ovid between 1683 and 1685, the original title of Charpentier’s one-act opera is Actéon - Pastorale en musique; it received a private performance at the Hôtel de Guise, the house of the composer’s appreciative and wealthy patron, the Duchesse de Guise affectionately known as Mlle de Guise. The author of the libretto, however, is not known but is often thought as being Thomas Corneille. An associate of Jean-Baptiste Lully his adaptations of stories from the Metamorphoses bear a likeness to the libretto of Actéon. 

On tour from New York, the Philip Glass Ensemble at the Cambridge Music Festival

Philip Glass: Akhnaten - English National Opera, 2016 (Photo: © Richard Hubert Smith)

Philip Glass: Glassworks plus excerpts from Satyagraha, Akhnaten and The Photographer; Lisa Bielawa, Peter Hess. Mick Ross, Sam Sadigursky, Andrew Sterman, Philip Glass Ensemble, music director Michael Riesman, sound engineers Dan Bora, Ryan Kelly, production manager Michael Amacio; Cambridge Music Festival at Cambridge Corn Exchange
Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 1 October 2024

Philip Glass’ music is instantly recognisable with its pulsating rhythms, hypnotic repetition and slowly shifting patterns of notes. His music sits somewhere between classical music and rock, intricately constructed yet filled with familiar chords and clean-cut electronic sounds

Showing talent from a very early age, Philip Glass, born 31 January 1937 in Baltimore, Maryland, widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 21st century, developed his great love of music from his father who owned a record shop. He later discovered that many relations on his father’s side of the family had been musicians, too, including a cousin (pianist) as well as several vaudeville performers. His parents, Latvian and Russian-Jewish emigrants, helped Holocaust survivors at the end of the Second World War by welcoming them into their home to learn English, find a job and rebuild their lives in the United States.  

Employing short ideas which gradually change resulting in an exceptionally hypnotic-layered effect so associated with minimalism, Glass much prefers to describe his work as ‘music with repetitive structures’. Therefore, over the course of a long and distinguished career, he has evolved such repetitive structures to produce a style that is instantly recognisable as a piece of ‘Philip Glass music’. 

Originally a flautist, Glass eventually focused his musical education on the keyboard. By the age of 15, he was studying mathematics and philosophy at the University of Chicago followed by composition at New York’s Juilliard School where among his fellow students was Steve Reich, widely recognised as the ‘founding father’ of the ‘Minimalist movement’. Fellow Americans such as La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Moondog and, indeed, John Adams, were in the front line in developing compositional techniques exploiting a minimalistic approach to music. 

Discovering Imogen: A relatively underrated British composer, Imogen Holst is put centre stage in this brand-new recording on NMC

Discovering Imogen - Imogen Holst: Overture Persephone, Suite in F Allegro assai for strings, Suite for Strings, Variations on ‘Loth to Depart’, What Man is He?, Festival Anthem, On Westhall Hill; BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Singers, Alice Farnham; NMC Recordings
Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 19 August 2024

A relatively underrated British composer, Imogen Holst is put centre stage in this brand-new recording of her works on the NMC label, Discovering Imogen, by the BBC Concert Orchestra and the BBC Singers conducted by Alice Farnham

Of mixed Swedish, German and Latvian ancestry, Imogen Clare Holst (the only child of composer Gustav Theodore Holst and Isobel née Harrison) was born April 1907, Richmond-upon-Thames, Surrey; died March 1984, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, aged 76. Her family had resided in England since 1802 and musicians for several generations while her father followed the family tradition and studied at the Royal College of Music (Benjamin Britten’s alma mater) where he met Isobel Harrison, who was a member of one of the amateur choirs he conducted. Immediately attracted to her, they married on 22 July 1901. 

Although particularly known for her educational work at Dartington Hall in the 1940s, come the early 1950s Holst became Benjamin Britten’s musical assistant at Aldeburgh. She immediately got down to business helping to arrange the annual Aldeburgh Festival which this year celebrated its 75th edition. During her time at Aldeburgh (from 1956 to 1977) Holst helped to engineer the festival to a position of strength and pre-eminence in British musical life. 

Exquisite vocal lines & imaginative storytelling: Harry Christophers & The Sixteen focus on Stanford's secular choral music in Partsongs, Pastorals and Folksongs

Stanford: Partsongs, Pastorals and Folksongs; The Sixteen; Harry Christophers; CORO
Reviewed 22 July 2024 by Tony Coooper

Punctuating Sir Charles Villiers Stanford’s centenary, Harry Christophers and The Sixteen have just issued 17 première recordings of his works, Partsongs, Pastorals and Folksongs on their CORO label. 

As a composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (who received his knighthood on King Edward VII’s coronation) might not be a household name but he’s well remembered as a teacher of several generations of British composers and untiringly campaigned for a national opera company as he saw the genre of opera as a vital catalyst in Britain’s musical renaissance.  

Although highly lauded during his lifetime as an exceptional composer of large-scale works for chorus and orchestra, posterity, however, has been less kind to him. The musicologist, Robert Stove, wrote: ‘Sir Charles Villiers Stanford has not so much been neglected but posterity has derived malicious satisfaction from ostentatiously yawing in his face.’ A former pupil, Ralph Vaughan Williams, wrote: ‘In Stanford’s music the sense of style, the sense of beauty, the feeling of a great tradition is never absent. His music is in the best sense of the word Victorian, the musical counterpart of the art of Tennyson, Watts and Matthew Arnold.’ 

A busy man, Stanford composed roughly 200 works including seven symphonies, about 40 choral works, nine operas, 11 concertos and 28 chamber works in addition to songs, piano pieces, incidental music and organ works. Stanford’s technical competence was never in doubt as composer, Edgar Bainton, wrote: ‘Whatever opinions might be held upon Stanford’s music - and they’re many and various - it is always recognised that he was a master of means.’ 

From familiar works to brand-new pieces: Autumn at Snape Maltings

Barbara Hepworth: Family of Man - Snape Maltings, winter 2021 (Photo: Shoel Stadlen, courtesy Britten Pears Arts)

The Autumn season at Snape Maltings Concert Hall sees Britten Pears Arts presenting a wide and varied range of activity from familiar works to brand-new pieces with leading performers, orchestras and ensembles beating a path to coastal Suffolk.

Undoubtedly, a major event in the Snape Maltings Concert Hall calendar is the Britten Weekend (2nd/3rd November) which this year features brother-and-sister duo, Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason, seen as both soloists and chamber musicians. Their programme comprises Britten's Cello Sonata in C major paired with the Sonata in D minor by Shostakovich, a composer very close to Britten while the Britten Pears Chamber Choir (formerly Aldeburgh Voices) will sing three lovely contrasting choral mass settings by Britten, Kodály and Tavener from across five centuries in Orford Church thereby reimagining a choral concert from the Aldeburgh Festival’s early days.

Each year, too, the Viola Tunnard Artist award supports a talented collaborative pianist to develop their craft and skills and this year the accolade falls to French-born pianist, Juliette Journaux, who is addicted to Schubert, Beethoven, Mahler and the like. She will be joined by French-born mezzo-soprano, Mathilde Ortscheidt, performing a delectable programme of Mahler, Britten and Elgar while the Britten Weekend moves over to the Red House for a tour of the archive strongrooms (3rd November) while there will also be a celebration across the site of the people who had deep connections to the Red House, namely Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, who founded the Aldeburgh Festival in partnership with librettist/producer Eric Crozier in 1948.