A Life On-Line: New beginnings at the Academy of Ancient Music, the dying embers of Romanticism, fairytales in Scotland and a children's jukebox

Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel - Nadine Benjamin - Scottish Opera (Photo James Glossop)

This week there were a number of threads running through our watching and listening, there were beginnings and endings, with the Academy of Ancient Music looking forward to the start of Laurence Cummings' term as artistic director whilst the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightement were looking at the end of Romanticism and the composers who emerged from under Wagner's shadow. This carried over into Scottish Opera's film of another late Romantic masterpiece by Wagner's pupil Humperdinck. Dance was another theme, whether Baroque with the AAM or more modern with the lively young people of W11 Opera whose lockdown creation of Jukebox was full of verve.

W11 Opera's Jukebox was an imaginative solution to the problem of creating opera with young people during lockdown. By mining the company's back catalogue (it celebrates its 50th anniversary this year), artistic director Susan Moore [see my interview with Susan 'Children can do so much more than you think'] threaded together scenes from past shows, all written specially for the company, and linked them with a lively script. Rehearsals were via Zoom, and the 30 young performers all filmed themselves in their living rooms, their gardens and elsewhere, each in an imaginative costume. There was dialogue too, and here was the film's neatest trick, for each patch of dialogue we would briefly see the individual performers then their voices would continue and Chris Glyn's lovely hand-drawn animations would replace them.

The result was impressive and an entertaining delight. There were some strong individual performances and impressively coordinated ensembles. Some performers were clearly very aware of the camera, but others seemed to be naturals. It was refreshing and imaginative, definitely not a film of a stage performance but something that could only have been created on video. Whilst the young performers may have not got to perform together this year, they certainly created something distinctive. [W11 Opera]

On 19 December 2020, Scottish Opera was able to film a new production of Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, in the Theatre Royal, Glasgow. David Parry conducted the orchestra of Scottish Opera in a reduced orchestration by Derek Clark with the orchestra spread out on the stage, and Daisy Evans' production taking place on the fore-stage over the pit. Rhian Lois and Kitty Whately were the children, with Nadine Benjamin and Philip Rhodes as their parents, with Benjamin doubling as the Witch. Charlie Drummond was the Sandman and Dew Fairy. The production used a chorus of four women who took an active part in the whole production, with Evans using them imaginatively to create dynamic settings, particularly for the forest.

There is something innately silly about watching two grown women, both with children of their own, pretending to be children but Lois and Whately brought it off.

Anything but old and fusty: the young German baritone Samuel Hasselhorn talks about his recent Schumann disc, about lieder as an art-form and widening the audience

Samuel Hasselhorn

I was originally supposed to meet up with the young German baritone Samuel Hasselhorn, a former member of Vienna State Opera, when he was due to come to the UK in October 2020 for a recital with pianist Joseph Middleton at the Oxford Lieder Festival. Unfortunately, travel restrictions put paid to that, as they did to another planned visit to this country later in 2020. So finally, we managed to meet up virtually, thanks to the wonders of Zoom, to chat about his and Middleton's disc of Robert Schumann songs, 'Stille Liebe' released last year on Harmonia Mundi, as well as chatting about song recitals in general, about which Samuel had interesting and strong ideas, and about how to connect further with audiences.

'Stille Liebe' is Samuel's second disc of Schumann's music. In 2018 he and pianist Boris Kusnezow released a disc which paired Schumann's Dichterliebe, which sets poetry by Heinrich Heine, with other contemporary composers' settings of the poet's work. Samuel feels close to Schumann's music and finds that his voice fits it. He sees Schuman as being more Romantic than Schubert, but also the wider tessitura of Schumann's songs suits his voice too.;

Joseph Middleton and Samuel Hasselhorn

For the new disc, Samuel wanted to show the variety of Schumann's repertoire, the different colours in his music, and he wanted to include not just the super-well known songs. His and Middleton's selection on 'Stille Liebe' is centred on Schumann's Kerner Lieder from 1840 which sit alongside several ballads. On his 2018 disc, Samuel had shown himself sympathetic to Schumann's settings of Heine, and the new disc continues this with five Heine settings, Tragödie, Op.64 No.3, Belsatzar Op.57, Die beiden Grenadiere, Op.49 no.1, and Die feindlichen Brüder, Op.49 No.2 plus the Adalbert von Chamiso ballad Die Löwenbraut, Op.31 no.1, and Fünf Lieder Op.40 which includes the four settings of Chamiso's German versions of Hans Christian Anderson poems.

Chant, improvisation and traditional instruments: Schola Cantorum Riga give us a taste of sacred music in Medieval Riga on Vox Clara on the Skani label

Vox Clara - Late Medieval Chant from Riga, Hamburg, Lund, Limoges; Schola Cantorum Riga, Guntars Prānis, Ieva Nimane; SKANI
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 12 February 2021 Star rating: 3.5 (★★★½)
The Latvian group bringing elements of traditional music into the performance of Late Medieval chant to give a taste of how the music might have sounded in Medieval Riga

The Schola Cantorum Riga was founded over twenty year ago, exploring Gregorian chant and other early music repertoires from the oldest manuscripts as well as performing contemporary composers such as Rihards Dubra. The group was founded by Guntars Prānis, who is still artistic director, and Pranis' research interests include the sacred music tradition of Riga in the context of various local practices and this feeds into the group's latest disc. Vox Clara on the Skani label features Schola Cantorum Riga and Guntars Prānis in late medieval chant from Riga, Hamburg, Lund (in Southern Sweden) and Limoges. The group is joined by Ansis Klucis (percussion), Ieva Nimane (recorders, bagpipes, kokle - a Latvian plucked string instrument belonging to the box zither family) whilst Pranis plays the hurdy gurdy.

The music comes from a 5th century Liber Hymnarius, a 12th century antiphonary from the Monastery of St Maur-des-Fosses, the 12th century Codex Saint Martial de Limoges, the 13th century Fontevrault Gradual (Limoges), the 14th century Hamburg Antiphonary, 14th century Codex di Perugia, 14th century Codex Engelburg, the 15th century Missale Rigense, and the Liber Scole Virginis, a medieval collection of Marian music in Lund. A wide variety of sources, but the focus is on the Northern Medieval cities of Hamburg, Riga and Lund, interwoven with some of the rich tradition of early polyphony from Limoges.

An eclectic fusion of pop and classical: the Dallas String Quartet covers Dua Lipa's 'Love Again' for St. Valentine's Day

I have to confess that Dua Lipa is little more than a name to me, but the English Kosovan singer/songwriter's Love Again from her 2020 album, Future Nostalgia has been covered by the Dallas String Quartet and released in time for St. Valentine's Day! A fusion of pop and classical, the video is the latest in the quartet's series of eclectic releases, with anything from Guns N’ Roses' Sweet Child of Mine to Lady Gaga’s Rain On Me.

The Dallas String Quartet was founded by violist Ion Zanca in 2007.

A new German website, FOYER.DE is hoping to offer one answer as the site is offering a curated, searchable selection of videos from the internet

With the restrictions in live performance, artists and ensembles all over the world have been turning to online performances and what has been created has been imaginative and inventive. But how to find it!

A new German website, FOYER.DE is hoping to offer one answer as the site is offering a curated, searchable selection of videos from the internet, bringing together the best live streams, videos, and TV events from opera, concerts, dance, music documentaries, and much more. The website is the brainchild of Winfried Hanuschik, publisher of the classical music magazine Crescendo.

The interface is intended to be user-friendly, and currently there are more than 500 which can be played directly on FOYER.DE. In addition to free offerings, the site also includes paid ones (which are marked as such) and there is a search facility. At the moment the website seems to be just in German, but we can but hope.

Also, if you are an artist, then you can submit your video to FOYER.DE via its submissions page.

Dresden Philharmonic commemorates the anniversary of the destruction of Dresden with a live-streamed concert conducted by Marek Janowski

The Luther Monument in front of the ruins of the Frauenkirche, Dresden in 1958

13 February is the anniversary of the destruction of Dresden by Allied bombing on 13 February 1945. In 1946, the Dresden Philharmonic gave a commemorative of Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem with the Dresden Kreuzchor, conductor Rudolph Mauersberger, and since then the commemorative concert has become a regular feature of Dresden's musical culture of remembrance. 

This year, the Dresden Philharmonic will be conducted by its chief conductor, Marek Janowski, in Webern's version of Bach's 'Ricercar a 6' from Das Musikalische Opfer BWV 1079 (1747), Mozart's Symphony No. 25 in G minor KV 183 (1773) and Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen from 1945. 

Two of the works have tragic links to the year 1945. In September 1945, Webern was tragically killed by a US Army soldier, whilst Strauss' Metamorphosen was very much a memorial to the destruction of the Germany that Strauss knew, not just Dresden but Munich which had been similarly devstated. Mozart's symphony, written when he was 17, is one of only two he wrote in the key of G minor (the other is the large-scale Symphony No. 40). The scoring includes four horns, two each in two different keys in order to give the composer a wider range of notes available on the natural horn).

The concert will be performed at the Kulturpalast, Dresden and will be live on the Dresden Philharmonic's webpage and Facebook page at 6.30pm CET

Out of the archive: Songbird brings together a group of recordings Margaret Marshall made for German radio in the 1970s and barely heard since

Songbird - Purcell, Bach, Handel, Mozart, Finzi; Margaret Marshall;
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 9 February 2021 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
From various German radio archives, a lovely group of recordings which are testament to soprano Margaret Marshall in her glowing prime

The soprano Margaret Marshall is someone whose career I have enjoyed at various stages of my opera and concert going, having caught a number of her live performances both at Scottish Opera (Euridice to Janet Baker's Orfeo in Gluck's opera, and the Countess in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro) and at Covent Garden (in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte), but she was also part of my record collection, notably on the recording of Handel's Ariodante, with Janet Baker in the title role, conducted by Raymond Leppard. This new disc, Songbird features Marshall in a number of works all recorded for German radio during the 1970s. So we have Purcell's The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation, Bach's Cantata 'Non sa che sia dolore' BWV 209, the aria 'Guardian angels protect me' from Handel's The Triumph of Time and Truth, Mozart's concert aria Ah, lo previdi and Gerald Finzi's Dies Natalis.

On her website, Marshall describes how a chance encounter four or five years ago led her to a reacquaintance with a whole series of recordings she had made for German radio during the 1970s. They all date from 1974 to 1979, a period when Marshall feels that her voice was at its freshest, and indeed it is Marshall's appealing performances which link all these various recordings.

Willingdon House Music: Pandemonium

When lockdown started last year, four musicians who lived together started playing regular house concerts which were streamed live on Facebook. So Flavia Hirte (flute & traverso), Ellen Bundy (violin, viola & baroque violin), Max Mausen (clarinet & bass clarinet), and Nicola Barbagli (oboe, cor anglais, baroque oboe, recorders & accordion) became known as Willingdon House Music, playing a wide variety of repertoire from the 17th century through to contemporary, including a number of works written specially for the ensemble, from purely classical to folk and beyond.

Willingdon House Music is now releasing its first disc, Pandemonium, a two CD set which will be available on Bandcamp. The musicians have put together two programmes, a classical one with eight pieces from Purcell to Bartok, and a folk one with ten tracks. [Way back in 2015, I wrote about Max Mausen's debut CD, see my article, whilst Nicola Barbagli plays with Boxwood & Brass and was on their latest Beethoven Transformed disc, see my review]

The music is simply that which the group found to be its favourites during lockdown last year. These of lovely, imaginative versions of the classical pieces with a beautifully intimate and considered sound from the four instrumentalists. We have different line-ups in different pieces, and I enjoyed the way things change from work to work. The classical selection is imaginative, we begin with JC Bach and Philidor before moving to Bizet, Haydn, Mozart and Telemann, and finish with Purcell's Evening Hymn and Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances.

The early pieces have a finely classical feel, the arrangements live in the same world as the originals, whereas the more recent pieces have a greater sense of transcription. The 'Adagietto' from Bizet's L'Arlesienne is something of a surprise, and I am not sure I would have recognised the composer, whilst Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances take the music closer to their roots as the line-up here features Nicola Barbagli on accordion! I would not have thought of Purcell's Evening Hymn for this line-up, but it shows the lively imaginations behind the music on the disc.

The folk selection is varied and superb fun, with the selection including Eastern European, Balkan melodies, Klezmer, Scottish and English tunes as well as traditional Swedish and French pieces and even newer compositions by folk musician friends of the performers.

The double album is available from Bandcamp, so you know that proceeds are going where they are needed most, to the performers. Do give the group your support and enjoy this terrific recording. More information from Bandcamp.

Pandemonium
Willingdon House Music (Flavia Hirte, Ellen Bundy, Max Mausen, Nicola Barbagli)
Available from Bandcamp

A Celtic Prayer: an imaginative survey of late 20th century and contemporary Scottish sacred choral music from George McPhee and the choir of Paisley Abbey

A Celtic Prayer - George McPhee, Martin Dalby, James MacMillan, Thomas Wilson, Stuart MacRae, Cedric Thorpe Davie, Edward McGuire, Owen Swindale; Choir of Paisley Abbey, George McPhee; Priory
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 9 February 2021 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
An imaginative survey of 20th century and contemporary sacred choral music from Scottish composers

This disc from George McPhee and the choir of Paisley Abbey celebrates contemporary Scottish church music with a programme of choral and organ pieces by Scottish composers, many with links to the abbey, interleaved with works from the Scottish pre-Reformation period. For A Celtic Prayer on Priory Records, George McPhee conducts the choir of Paisley Abbey with organist David Gerrard and bass flute player Ewan Robertson in music by George McPhee, Martin Dalby, James MacMillan, Thomas Wilson, Stuart MacRae, Cedric Thorpe Davie, Edward McGuire, and Owen Swindale.

It is difficult not to apply the word indefatigable to George McPhee; born in 1937, he celebrated his 50th anniversary as director of music at Paisley in 2013. The disc features McPhee in three roles, as composer, as conductor and as organist, playing three of his own works on the abbey's organ (originally built in 1872 by Aristide Cavaillé -Coll).

The disc opens with McPhee's Benedictus es Domine, a vigorously attractive piece for choir and organ, which has a practical, hymn-like aspect to it. McPhee's A Celtic Prayer sets a modern translation of a Gaelic prayer, for choir and organ with a nicely sinuous melody and imaginative mix of choir and organ. McPhee is the soloist for three of his organ works, Prelude on 'Bunessan', using a hymn-tune based on a Scottish folk melody (best known as Morning has Broken), is lilting and gently melodic with a similar mood in Prelude on 'Quem Pastores' whilst the Trumpet March forms a suitably uplifting closing piece, the sort you can imagine being played at the end of a fine service.

The sounds and sights of the East Neuk: The Big Project at the East Neuk Festival

3 Amazing Minutes in St Monans from East Neuk Festival on Vimeo.

This year's East Neuk Festival in Fife is planned for 1 to 4 July 2021, and in the run up to the event the festival has created The Big Project to create a sound and picture map of the East Neuk. The idea is that members of the public record and share the sights and sounds of the gorgeous East Neuk coastline to create a sound and picture map, bringing together the tones and textures of the area. The final map will be revealed at the festival.

As a sampler, the above short film was created by the festival's Arts Activist, Pittenweem-based David Behrens, on his phone inspired by the old railway bridge in the village of St Monans.

Full details of The Big Project from the East Neuk Festival website.

The Opera Story's Beauty and the seven Beasts on this year's Fedora Opera Prize shortlist

Congratulations to the team at The Opera Story, their Beauty and the seven Beasts project is on the shortlist for this year's Fedora Opera Prize, the only British company on the list. Fedora aims to promote the future of opera and ballet and the Opera Prize is one of four prizes this year which will be awarded to promising teams who collaborate on new opera or ballet. The Opera Prize shortlist this year includes Steraymaker from Ireland, Opéra de Lille from France, Tones and the Stones from Italy, La Monnaie/De Munt from Belgium, Théâtre du Châtelet from France, Gran Teatre del Liceu from Spain, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence from France, LOD muziektheater from Belgium and The Opera Story from the UK.

Beauty and the seven Beasts, which is scheduled for premiere this Autumn, is a modern telling of the Beauty and the Beast story crossed with the Seven Deadly Sins, told in seven episodes. Each episode is being written by a different composer/librettist pairing. The composers are Vahan Salorian, Lewis Murphy, Alex Woolf, Lucie Treacher, Sasha Scott, Jude Obermuller, and James Garner, and the librettists are Dominic Kimberlin, Jennifer L. Williams, Louis Rembges, Anna Pool, Annie Jenkins, Tom Powell, and Ellie Taylor. The work will be directed by James Hurley and conducted by Berrak Dyer.

Voting for the Fedora Opera Prize is open until 26 February 2021, please do vote. 

Congratulations too, to Garsington Opera, their Dalia - A Community Opera (with words by Jessica Duchen and music by Roxanna Panufnik) is on the Fedora Education Prize Shortlist, to Birmingham Royal Ballet, their Hotel is on the Fedora Ballet Prize shortlist as is English National Ballet's Raymonda and Edinburgh International Festival's Coppelia in the Digital Age.

Exploring Antonio Salieri's early inspirations with Les Talens Lyriques' recording of his first opera seria, Armida

Salieri Armida; Lenneke Ruiten, Florie Valiquette, Teresa Iervolino, Ashley Riches, Les Talens Lyriques, Christophe Rousset; Aparté
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 5 February 2021 Star rating: 4.5 (★★★★½)
Christophe Rousset's exploration of Salieri's operas continues with his first opera seria, a work full of the influences of his patron, Gluck

Having explored Antonio Salieri's three operas for Paris, Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques continue their journey through Salieri's operas with the composer's first opera seria, Armida, written for Vienna in 1771. On the Aparté label, Christophe Rousset conducts Les Talens Lyriques in Salieri's Armida with Lenneke Ruiten (Armida), Florie Valiquette (Rinaldo), Teresa Iervolino (Ismene) and Ashley Riches (Ubaldo) with the Choeur de chambre de Namur.

At the age of 16, Salieri was taken under the wing of composer Florian Leopold Gassmann and moved from his native Italy to Vienna, which would be Salieri's base until his death. The dominant force in Viennese opera at this period became Christph Willibald Gluck, notably with his series of reform works the ballet Don Juan (1761), Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), Alceste (1767) and Paride ed Elena (1771). Through Gassmann, the young Salieri came into contact with both Metastasio and Gluck; the librettist gave Salieri informal instruction and Gluck became an informal advisor, friend and confidante.

The circumstances of Salieri's commission for Armida remain somewhat obscure and it is by no means obvious why the 21-year-old composer, with only one opera (a comic one) under his belt, should get such a high profile commission. Marina Mayrhofer in her booklet article unpicks things admirably, involving masonic links and probable background manoeuvring by Gluck. 

Another intriguing link is that in 1777, Gluck himself would turn to the subject of Armida and Rinaldo by setting Philippe Quinault's libretto (originally written for Lully) for his fourth opera for the Paris Opera. Whilst the importance of French opera to the Viennese opera scene is brought out by the fact that Quinault's libretto for Armide was the inspiration for the Italian text of a one-act opera written by Tommaso Traetta for an Imperial marriage in Vienna in 1762 (one of only three occasions when this French-inspired Reform-minded Italian composer worked in the city).

For Salieri's Armida, librettist Marco Coltellini (Imperial theatre's house poet) takes a somewhat different approach. The opera begins in media res, Armida has already beguiled Rinaldo and transported him to her island. Act One is focused on Rinaldo's comrade Ubaldo who has come to rescue Rinaldo. Act Two is on Armida's island as their idyll is interrupted by Ubaldo and his magic shield which awakens Rinaldo, Act Three sees Armida struggling with her magic and Rinaldo escaping her, though at the crucial moment she faints and he leaves, which is not a very heroic departure! The opera ends with Armida going off in her chariot drawn by winged dragons, swearing revenge.

Whilst there are other elements in the mix, at first listen you sense Salieri's debt to Gluck (I have to confess that I am entirely unfamiliar with Gassmann's music). Whilst Mozart would refer to Salieri as Italian, Salieri came to regard himself as Viennese and very much the heir to Gluck. One of the Gluckian elements in the opera is the way that, though there are moment of action, the principal content is the sense of people reacting to off-stage events. And the whole has the same classical feel, gone are the moments of contorted drama leading to a highly wrought aria which was key to opera seria earlier in the century. Here we have more of a classical sense of dialogue and long scenes. 

A Life On-Line: an operatic ghost story from OperaGlass Works, an urban fairytale from OperaUpClose, Francis Poulenc and rare Kurt Weill from the archives

Robin Norton-Hale & Rosabella Gregory: Sammy and the Beanstalk - Abigail Kelly, Tom Stoddart - OperaUp Close

This week we have a new film version of Britten's operatic ghost story from OperaGlass Works, a new opera for families based on a modern fairytale from OperaUpClose, Bryce Dessner's Concerto for Two Pianos live from Prague, and archive recordings of Kurt Weill's The Firebrand of Florence and Poulenc's The Carmelites/

Way back in February 2020, I interviewed Selina Cadell and Eliza Thompson from OperaGlass Works during a gap in rehearsals at Wilton's Music Hall in advance of their production of Britten's The Turn of the Screw. Days before the first night, the performances were postponed/cancelled, and ultimately the production was re-invented as a film which has debuted on Marquee TV. You can read my (slightly revised) interview article on the blog, Never say Never. 

The film, directed  by Cadell, Thompson and Dominic Best, uses the whole of the theatre space, not just the stage, and makes the presence of cameras clear. Tom Piper's set gives us only a glimpse of Bly on the stage; the auditorium is filled with grass and trees in a non-realistic fashion, whilst the evocative foyer spaces are used for some of the more intimate, claustrophobic scenes.

Costumes (by Rosalind Ebbut) are completely in period, but there is one significant but telling detail; as the Governess, Rhian Lois wears a very modern hair-style. Lois is poised and quite knowing, often addressing the camera in a telling and direct way. Yet this very confidence seems to come over almost as delusion, that she is in control.

The ghosts, Robert Murray as Peter Quint and Francesca Chiejina as Miss Jessel, are firmly ghosts with remarkably stagey makeup which we deliberately see in close-up; another example of the production's showcasing the theatrical mechanisms of the work. The directors seem to take the opera's stage directions literally, and we are never given a hint that the Governess might have conjured the ghosts from her own psyche. Murray and Chiejina make strong ghosts, wonderfully seductive in their scenes with the children.

Leo Jemison is an unnervingly self-possessed Miles, and Jemison manages to make the character remarkably creepy by apparently doing nothing. There is no sexual frisson between Miles and the Governess (a trope common in modern productions), but neither is the tension between Miles and Quint very explicit either. Alys Mererid Roberts makes an engaging and naturalistic Flora, rather touching at the end. Gweneth Ann Rand gives strong support as Mrs Grose, making the character's position in the hierarchy clear, characterful yet subservient.

John Wilson conducts his Sinfonia of London, and whilst the musicians were recorded at Cadogan Hall the film does feature occasional glimpses of them in a slightly arch way.

The film makes you wonder what the vanished stage production would have been like, but it showcases a group of terrific performances as well as making a virtue of filmic necessity and creating quite a traditional creepy The Turn of the Screw. [Marquee TV]

Britten: The Turn of the Screw - Rhian Lois, Alys Mererid Roberts, Gweneth Ann Rand - OperaGlass Works at Wilton's Music Hall

Watching the film of the Britten I started to think about the role of Miles, and wondered what would happen if the part was played by a counter-tenor as a slightly older teenager. It would change the dynamic, but think that it might be intriguing. Discuss!

This month on Planet Hugill

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Never say Never: back in February 2020 I chatted to Selina Cadell & Eliza Thompson of OperaGlass Works, now their production of Britten's The Turn of the Screw is released on film

Selina Cadell and Eliza Thompson (Photo Patrick Cadell)

When OperaGlass Works performed Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress at Wilton's Music Hall in 2017, the company seemed to have appeared from nowhere. But, founded by Selina Cadell and Eliza Thompson, OperaGlass Works has a significant background history. I met up with Selina and Eliza in a break from rehearsals at Wilton's back in February 2020, in anticipation of writing about their planned performances of Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw at Wilton's. Days away from the production's opening, performances were cancelled and it became clear that the production as planned would not happen. Having rehearsed for five weeks, Selina and Eliza were reluctant to let go.  A film director, Dominic Best, was recruited to direct with them, the orchestra was recorded at Cadogan Hall and the opera filmed at Wilton's. So the production has now come to fruition, albeit on film. [You can read more about the process of creating the film in an article from Corinthia]

Britten: The Turn of the Screw - Robert Murray - OperaGlass Works on Marquee TV
(Photo Laurie Sparham)

Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw has been released on Marquee TV, directed by Selina Cadell, Eliza Thompson and Dominic Best with Robert Murray, Rhian Lois, Gweneth Ann Rand, and Francesca Chiejina, conducted by John Wilson. During the interview last year, we chatted about The Turn of the Screw, hating opera, the importance of words and much more. 

 

Much has changed since we talked in February 2020, but a lot of what Eliza and Selina said in the interview is still interesting and pertinent.

Phaedra Ensemble - O Superman

O Superman is the debut EP release by London-based contemporary music ensemble Phaedra Ensemble, featuring vocals by Jamie Doe. The EP features Laurie Anderson's 1981 classic, O Superman in a new arrangement by Jamie Hamilton with video by Daisy Dickinson, and it marks the 40th anniversary of Anderson's iconic release.

 

The full EP, which is available from Bandcamp, features music by Hamilton and Leo Chadburn alongside the new version of Anderson's piece.

Beethoven • Wagner • Verdi - Lise Davidsen releases her second studio recording

Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen will be releasing her second studio recording, Beethoven • Wagner • Verdi, on Decca Classics on 26 March 2021, an eagerly awaited (in the hackneyed phrase, but very true) follow-up to her debut disc in 2019. 

We caught Davidsen in March 2020 as Leonore in Beethoven's Fidelio at Covent Garden, her role debut [see my review], and the year also saw her role debut as Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walküre at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin (a role she also sang at the Paris Opera). We also caught Davisden's 2020 Metropolitan Opera debut as part of the Met Stars Live in Concert series when she and James Baillieu gave a recital from Oscarshall Palace in Oslo [see my review].

For the new album, Davidsen is accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Sir Mark Elder. For the album she returns to the role of Leonore from Fidelio with 'Abscheulicher!' alongside Beethoven's concert aria Ah! Perfido. Davidsen also returns to the title role in Cherubini's Medea (which she sang in Wexford in 2017) with Medea's Act One aria 'Dei tuoi figli la madre'.

Alongside these will be arias from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, Verdi's La forza del destino and Otello, plus Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder, testifying to the young soprano's desire not yet to be pigeonholed.

Garsington Opera announces two new operas for community performance in 2021 and 2022

Garsington Opera has announced two major opera commissions for 2021 and 2022, both for community performance with professional soloists. John Barber's The Selfish Giant (with a libretto by Jessica Duchen) will be premeired by the Garsington Opera Youth Company in July 2021, and Roxanna Panufnik's Dalia (with a libretto by Jessica Duchen) will be premiered in Summer 2022 by a company consisting of local participants together with emerging artists. Both works will be directed by Karen Gillingham, Garsington Opera's creative director, learning & participation.

Garsington Opera Youth Company gives young people the opportunity to develop singing, creative skills, stage experience, experience backstage roles and theatre design. It is open to all; fully funded places are awarded to successful auditionees who don’t need any previous training or experience.

John Barber's The Selfish Giant is based on Oscar Wilde's story; the work is a co-commission with Opera North. Garsington's production will feature 90 members of the Youth Company aged 7-25, performing alongside young professional singers.

An excerpt of the music, Our Haven (see video above on YouTube), was recorded and performed by the Youth Company during the first lockdown in the summer of 2020. To produce the film, 93 young people worked with filmmaker Claudia Lee, director Karen Gillingham and vocal directors Suzi Zumpe & Lea Cornthwaite. They learnt songs from the piece and filmed themselves on their own devices and talked to camera about their ‘Haven’ during lockdown.

Roxanna Panufnik's Dalia centres on young girl of 12 who arrives in Britain as a refugee from Syria having lost her family in traumatic circumstances. The opera has been commissioned by Garsington Opera to engage local participants of of all ages from diverse backgrounds in community performance. The objective is to use music and drama as tools for social integration over three years (2021-2023) in our diverse local communities, uniting participants to work together across perceived boundaries of race, faith, age and rural locality. 

This builds on Garsington Opera's successful community performances of the last 10 years where it has built partnerships with 16 local state schools. Dalia follows Garsington Opera's highly successful community performance of Roxanna Panufnik and Jessica Duchen's Silver Birch in 2017.

Further details from the Garsington Opera website.

Brahms' Liebeslieder Waltzer for Valentine's Day

What better Valentine's Day gift than Brahms' Liebeslieder Waltzer? With concert halls closed, Blackheath Halls and Leeds Lieder have collaborated to bring Brahms' delightful waltzes direct to your home. The works will be live-streamed on 14 February 2020 and then available for two weeks. 

There will be an introduction from Natasha Loges (who is a professor at the Royal College of Music and who will familiar from her talks for Oxford Lieder), then pianist Joseph Middleton (artistic director of Leeds Lieder) will be joined by tenor Nicky Spence (patron of Blackheath Halls), soprano Mary Bevan and a group of young artists in association with Barbara Hannigan's Momentum project, which encourages cross-generational collaboration during the pandemic, mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron, baritone William Thomas and pianist Dylan Perez.

Brahms' Liebeslieder Waltzer were written in the late-1860s and premiered in 1870. Brahms took the texts from Georg Friedrich Daumer's Polydora, a collection of folk-songs and love poems. There is speculation that the works were at least partly inspired by Brahms' love for Clara Schumann (some 14 years his senior). Robert Schumann had died in 1856 and the young Brahms had been of great helpd and support to Clara during the crisis. As a result, he had become close to Clara but the relationship remained platonic. 

Another inspiration was Franz Schubert, notably his Ländler and Brahms' waltzes are influenced by Schubert's and Brahms' envisioned a similar sort of domestic setting. The music consists of four solo vocal parts and piano duet (two pianists at one piano, which was very much a domestic form), with the vocal parts sufficiently doubled in the music for Brahms to mark the voices ad libitum. The works were immediately successful and their publication (aimed at the very domestic market that Brahms' was concerned to recreate) brought the composer some significant income!

Tickets are £10 per household, further information from Blackheath Halls website, or Leeds Lieder website

Margaret Catchpole: Two Worlds Apart - Stephen Dodgson's final opera on disc at last and revealed as a work full of character and richly emotive music

Stephen Dodgson Margaret Catchpole: Two Worlds Apart; Kate Howden, William Wallace, Nicholas Morris, Alistair Ollerenshaw, Perpetuo, Julian Perkins; NAXOS
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 4 February 2021 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Stephen Dodgson's Suffolk opera is finally on disc in a performance which does the work full justice

Stephen Dodgson's final opera Margaret Catchpole was premiered in 1979 and performed again, in a revised version, some ten years later but since then seems to have languished. Thanks to the Stephen Dodgson Trust, the work was performed and recorded at Snape Maltings in July 2019 and the recording is now issued on disc. Stephen Dodgson's Margaret Catchpole: Two Worlds Apart is on Naxos. Julian Perkins conducts the ensemble Perpetuo with Kate Howden, William Wallace, Nicholas Morris, Alistair Ollerenshaw, Richard Edgar-Wilson, Diana Moore, Peter Willcock, Matthew Brook, Julia Sporsen, Robyn Allegra Parton, Michael Bundy, Leonora Dawson-Bowling, Jonathan Hanley, and Mark Saberton.

Dodgson (a distant cousin of Lewis Carroll) was the son of the Symbolist painter John Arthur Dodgson. After being conscripted into the Royal Navy during World War Two, Dodgson studied privately with Bernard Stephen and then with  R. O. Morris, Patrick Hadley and Antony Hopkins at the Royal Academy of Music. He won the Cobbett Memorial Prize for a Fantasy String Quartet in 1948, and two Royal Philharmonic Society prizes, in 1949 and 1953. He started teaching at the Royal College of Music in 1956, becoming professor of composition and music theory there in 1965 and remained in the post until he retired in 1982.

Margaret Catchpole was commissioned by The Brett Valley Society for the Arts and the first performance was in Hadleigh, Suffolk in June 1979. The librettist was Ronald Fletcher (1921-1992) who based on Richard Cobbold's 19th century novel about Margaret Catchpole. The opera  was revised ten years later for the Wangford Festival in Suffolk. The original commission determined the work's need for practicality (it uses an instrumental ensemble of 11 players and there is no chorus) as well as suggesting the Suffolk-based subject matter. Dodgson's wife, the harpsichordist Jane Clark, was a Suffolk woman and possessed a copy of Richard Cobbold's 1845 novel which vastly embroiders a true story. 

The basic facts are that Margaret Catchpole, a Suffolk servant girl, was obsessed by a smuggler, William Laud, and stole a horse to get to London to be with him. She was transported to Australia, and her chronicles of her time in Australia are an important documentation of the colony's early history.

The opera is less interested in Margaret the chronicler and more in Margaret's obsession. Act One introduces us to Margaret and her ne'er-do-well smuggler lover, as well as local farmer John Barry who is in love with her. At the end of Act One, Laud has refused to marry Margaret and has wounded Barry. By the end of Act Two, still obsessed by Laud, she is tricked into stealing the horse. Act Three features the court-room along with Margaret and Laud's attempt to escape which is foiled and Laud is killed. Act Four is more of an Epilogue in Australia, when Margaret is on her way to being pardoned and is re-united with John Barry.

For all the work's ostensible practicality, there is something wonderfully impractical about Dodgson and Fletcher's opera.