In this month's Opera magazine

Correspondance in the Letters page of Opera is continuing on the subject of surtitles at ENO. Frankly its a subject about which I find it difficult to get worked up, but perhaps I've been numbed into acceptance by the sheer weight of bad diction over the years. Mind you, the last few operas I've seen there have had some excellent communicators in the cast, which makes me wonder whether the dreaded surtitles have spurred people on somewhat.

Alan Blyth writes a lovely appreciation of Joan Sutherland on her 80th birthday. I first saw her as a student in Manchester in the 1970's when she did a recital at the Free Trade Hall dressed in what can only be described as a vast lime green dressing gown. Still, once she reached the lighter items such as arias from La Perichole she was wonderfully on form.n Blyth says that she sang Massenet's Esclarmonde at Covent Garden in 1974, but I'm sure I saw her there in that role in 1984 and I don't think the production was a revival, it had just been bought in. The performance we saw was marred by a bomb scare, but they did complete the performance though the heat had rather gone out of it.

Dennis Marks raises some interesting points about the management of the Gadaffi project at ENO, which makes you wonder about the health of any other new works that they might produce. That said, new opera has been thin on the ground there recently. Marks points out that they have commissioned virtually nothing in the last 9 years, with the exception of the recent Gerald Barry opera (which sort of existed anyway). Was David Sawyer's opera really commissioned over 9 years ago? My, how time flies.

An interesting brace of obituaries, John Drummond and Astrid Varnay - to which we must now add Anna Russell.

A review from Salzburg of Mozart's Idomeneo with Ramon Vargas in the title role. Its always heartening to find tenors moving out of their obvious Italianate fach and risking German opera. I equally admired Domingo's recording of the Emperor in Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten, which was not universally admired. Also at Salzburg, a rare outing for the Strauss re-working of Idomeneo, part of the Strauss canon that I am probably fated never to see.

Toronto has a new opera house, christened with Canadian Opera's new Ring cycle. Interestingly John Allison refers to the new theatre as intimate by North American standards - it seats a whopping 2043. But I suppose that's small when compared to the met.

A new production of Le nozze di Figaro in Finland has the plot re-written with the Count lusting after Figaro rather than Susanna - an interesting take on things but the music hardly supports it. Perhaps we should write a new opera on the subject.

Martin Bernheimer's helden-crooner Klaus Florian Vogt, crops up in Wagner again. This time Hugh Canning comments that he's never heard such a soft grained sound in a leading Wagner role - this time Lohengrin in Baden-Baden. Still, Vogt seems to have the stamina and technique to get through the evening OK. I suppose, with the dearth of helden-tenors, this is something we have to get used to.

A Max von Schillings opera Der Pfeifertag has cropped up in Zwickau. I reviewed a recording of Mona Lisa recently and was amazed at how few recordings of his work there were.

Hugh Canning again reporting from Turin on the jaw droppingly extravagant new Don Carlos (4 Act version). He was impressed, but I'm not convinced. he describes it as a sort of operatic Disneyland (though in better taste) with not very penetrating Personenregie. I think I'd rather go for Personenregie, but then I stand no chance of ever seeing the Turin production!

Thais has cropped up again, this time in Boston. Evidently the production, arising from St. Louis, has come in for criticism but George Loomis points out that you'd hardly want a naturalistic Thais.

The new production of Thomas Ades The Tempest from Santa Fe sounds very promising. John Allison feels that it fits the opera better than the ROH one. Again, I'm not likely to get the chance to compare them! Allison comments on Ades's vocal lines, which are actually vocal rather than the continuous parlando which is so beloved of so many contemporary composers.

Also at Santa Fe, Natalie Dessay playing Pamina (having done lots of stints elsewhere as the Queen of the Night). Hugh Canning (he's been getting around hasn't he!) points out how unnerving is must have been for Heather Buck to sing the Queen of the Night whilst one of the greatest current exponents of the role was playing her daughter. Also in this production, our very own Toby Spence.

The Santa Fe Salome had Ragnar Ulfung as Herod. He sang the role on the 1974 Caballe recording so I hesitate to think what he sounds like now. Canning comments on Anne Marie Owens as Herodiade surveying everything around her with imperious (and deserved) contempt.

Andrew Clark bemoans the fact that Scottish Opera's tour of Die Fledermaus contains no young Scottish singers (still it did contain Damian Thantrey!). Whereas, WNO's revival of La Boheme was cast with Welsh singers. I remember a friend talking about seeing an Aida given by WNO many, many years ago with a Welsh cast that included Gwynedd Jones and Stuart Burrowes (if I've got the anecdote right).

WNO's 'new' Il ritorno d'Ulisse is a co-production already seen in Copenhagen and Munich. It sounds as if David Alden's modish ideas have not travelled well. Rian Evans comments on Paul Nilon's wheelchair bound Ulysses needing to focus a large part of his energy on ensuring he didn't roll down into the orchestra pit. Sounds fun. Still, the wonderful Sarah Tynan was singing Melanto and even got to tap dance.

George Hall enjoyed La Juive, its always interesting to read opinions of operas that you have reviewed your self.

Rodney Milnes is positive about the new recording of The Carmelites in English, based on the ENO production. Other reviewers have been less than thrilled by Josephine Barstow's Mother Marie which makes me a bit worried; I was less than impressed in the theatre. But the text is so important in the opera, it would be lovely to have it in English.

There is an advert for my Christmas present (I hope Father Christmas is reading this). Winton Dean's second volume on Handel's operas, covering 1726 to 1741 has been announced for November by Boydell and Brewer (www.boydell.co.uk). An in a review of a book about Wagner operas in Finland, Mike Ashman points out Riga's first performance of Der fliegende Hollander, 5 months after the premiere, had an orchestra of 20, a ghost crew of 6 and a Norwegian crew of 13.

And finally We hear that.. Susan Bullock is recording Salome in English with Sir Charles Mackerras - I can't wait.

The back page is about Richard Lewis and even I can claim a participation in one footnote event. His final London appearance (at the age of seventy something, after a hip replacement) was in The Dream of Gerontius with Bernard Haitink conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus. I was in the chorus and it remains one of my most treasured experiences, hearing Lewis; he was truly magical.

Last seen in...

Its always interesting to read about people that you have worked with, seeing how their careers progressed. This is particularly true when it comes to working with young people at the start of their careers. This week, read notices about 2 people who were involved in the first performance of my opera Garrett at Hoxton Hall in 2001.

First off, baritone Damian Thantrey who sang the title role, has beentouring Scotland with Scottish Opera, performing in Die Fledermaus and received complimentary notices in the review in this month's Opera magazine.

Secondly, whilst writing a review of English Touring Opera's Orfeo I looked up the lighting designer, having been impressed with atmospheric lighting plot. And lo and behold it was Matt Haskins who did the lighting for Garrett, on virtually 0 budget.

Also in the Guardian

Whilst still on the subject of the Ring and the Guardian (isn't that an opera by Balfe?), there's an interesting article about Keith Warner taking time out from Covent Garden and Bayreuth to produced a new opera by Will Todd in Gateshead with a cast of locals. StreetWise Opera go from strength to strength. Alas, we won't be seeing the production in London, but they are doing something at the Almeida Opera Festival next year.

Anna Russell

Anna Russell has died, at the amazing age of 94. It was her recording of her introduction to the Ring that helped me learn the piece when I was first discovering it as a student. What was amazing about Russell's Ring lecture was that it was so amusing and so accurate, that bits of it stayed with you for ever, illuminated numerous productions of the Ring. Here Guardian obituary is here.

Review dissemination

My Review of La Traviata, is not posted on MyCulturalLife.co.uk, (here), a useful website of things cultural happening in London.

Watch the Music

This year's London Film Festival has a new publicity film, the amusing short which they play at the beginning of each showing. There have been some striking ones in the past, this new one re-interprets key moments from significant films in terms of everyday life in London - the film scenes being indicated by their background music. It is surprising how many scenes we can easily identify just from a few bars of their music. The result is strikingly amusing as the visuals contrast with our memory of the original films.

The only problem is that no-one seems to have listened to the final sound track - the succession of musical excerpts jar continually as they are intercut with each other. I wish that a way could have been found to have made the music flow a little better.

Review of Theodora

My review of Tuesday's performance of Handel's Theodora at the Barbican is here on Music and Vision.

Recent CD Review

May review of the Alliage Saxophone quartet's transcriptions of the Schumann piano quintet and Mendelssohn's incidental music to A Midsummer Night's Dream are here, on Music Web International.

Ultimately the Schumann transcription failed to convince. Interested in transcription as a modern art or fascinated by the saxophone, then this is
the disc for you. ...

Review of Dido and Aeneas

My review of the ETO double bill (Dido and Aeneas / Jephte) is here on Music and Vision.

That time of year

During October the text of the De Profundis crops up more than once in the propers of the mass. It did so on Sunday, so that at St. Mary's Cadogan Street we performed my setting of De Profundis as the offertory motet. We were missing a couple of choir members, but the performance came out pretty well - one of our better ones I think.

Hackney Bound..

On Saturday we ventured North to Hackney, to see English Touring Opera at the Hackney Empire (review will be posted in due course). Once we arrived in Hackney we attempted to park near the theatre, only to discover that all of the parking bays were controlled until 11pm, so that we had to pay (£2 per hour) - we managed to scrape together enough change, luckily the Carissimi/Purcell double bill is not long. Only when entering the theatre did I read the back of the tickets and learn that you can request a parking voucher from the box office and then park free in Tesco's car park.

I know that the theatre has be restored fabulously and that they are trying to attract personnel to performances, but the hassle of negotiating the parking in Hackney means that we will think twice before going again. Perhaps the box office could be persuaded to issue parking vouchers automatically with tickets. As it is, not being able to just turn up and park means that people will think twice.

Review of La Traviata

ENO’s new production of Verdi’s La Traviata is traditional, in the sense that it is set in a 19th century milieu, but for reasons best known to the ENO management the new production is set in 19th century Dublin. Conall Morrison’s production overlays Verdi’s story with an added gloss; Violetta is a Roman Catholic, the Germonts are Protestants. But before we get too worked up over this rather unnecessary addition to the plot, we had better see whether the production actually works. We saw the opera on Friday 13th October, the 6th performance in the run.

Francis O’Connor’s designs and Joan O’Clery’s costumes are undoubtedly handsome. The entire production takes place in a flexible fixed set which successfully transforms itself into the 4 locations need by the plot. Act 1 opens with the dying Violetta wandering round her empty drawing room as the Baron supervises furniture being brought in and the party starts. Violetta’s salon has huge windows which overlook an attractive skyline of Dublin.

The party itself is not a little raffish, but the costumes, with the bustles for women, make the effect rather blowsy and not a little bourgeious; it does not help that there is much swigging from bottles brought in crates (presumably Guinness). Morrison’s handling of the singers, particularly in the busy ensemble moments, is very confident and hardly betrays that this is his first opera production.

Emma Bell cut an attractive, if robust figure as Violetta. Bell’s stage demeanour meant that Violetta came across with a strong, no-nonsense streak. Bell did not look particularly ill, but then I have seen plenty of Violetta’s who did not look ill; the trick is to convey what is happening underneath. Unfortunately this robust, confidence imbued much of Bell’s musical performance, so that she failed to create the neurasthenic, nervous centre that is so necessary in this character. In Act 1, Violetta is not a little hysterical and but hysteria was a long way from Bell’s performance. I could not help comparing her to such singers as Ileana Cotrubas and Valerie Masterson, singers who were as musically capable as Bell but who created a creature of nerves under a steel exterior.

That said, Bell’s performance was a joy to listen to, she has the technique for the role. Perhaps her background in Handel and Mozart rather showed, but she is still growing into Italian opera and I look forward to hearing her develop in this role. Perhaps if Bell had had a less stolid Alfredo, sparks might have flown.

Though Dwayne Jones displayed a lovely lyric voice, he was the embodiment of a solid country boy and it was hard to believe the ardency of the sentiments that he was articulating. As with Bell, Jones did not manage to convey the strong feelings bubbling under the sensible exterior.

The smaller roles were well cast; for once Donald Maxwell did not over act and his Baron was not the pantomime villain that is often the case and Andrew Rees was an attractive Gaston.

Act 2 scene 1 took place in the conservatory of a dilapidated country house. James Westman’s Germont Pere sounded lovely, but Westman is a relatively young singer for such a role. Not only did he not really sound old enough, but also more importantly he failed to convey much of the depth that should come with age. As a result, his important scene with Bell sounded lovely and was well crafted but simply did not wring the heart.

The performance had 1 interval, which Morrison placed after Act 2, scene 1. A placing which worked well in terms of the balancing the length of the 2 halves of the performance, but there is a sense that Verdi’s drama is well served when the 2 scenes in Act 2 are played back to back, playing up the dramatic contrasts.

Flora’s party was as well staged as Violetta’s; 4 dancers mixed with the chorus to provide the visual stimulus of the entertainment. Morrison’s handling of the show down between the protagonists worked well and for once in this production I felt myself being carried away with the drama.

Morrison showed a nice sense of logical consistency when working out details. At the end of Act 1 Violetta responds formally to the Baron’s farewell greeting, giving a clear indication that they will not be sleeping together that evening (after all he is her protector). When Germont Pere arrives at Flora’s party he is properly dressed, whereas in other productions I have seen he arrives in his street clothes – something that the very correct M. Germont would never do.

But there was an area where Morrison failed in his dramatic consistency, the issue of Violetta’s Catholicism. This was hardly in evidence. Apart from one exclamation that she was a Catholic, religion was strangely absent. Even in Act 3, when the dying Violetta could reasonably be expected to have had a statue of the Virgin or a picture of the Sacred Heart by her bed, there was nothing to indicate her religion. This applied to the text as well, Stephen Clark’s new English version was heavily larded with references to God but never the Virgin, surely something a 19th century English speaking Catholic would be expected to do.

Clark’s new translation was unsatisfactory in other ways. It did not always lie easily with the music, leaving the singers with some odd underlays, and it was rather flowery at times. Also, where I knew the Italian and previous English translations, Clark did not always match them in meaning. Valerie Masterson and John Brecknock sang ‘cruel but blissful’ for ‘croce delizia’ whereas Clark gave Bell and Jones ‘Sadness and beauty’, which rather reduces the intensity of the expression.

The singers projected the translation admirably, we hardly needed the surtitles. So it was unfortunate that Clark’s text rather added to the under-boiled nature of the whole performance.

For Act 3, the set was got up as a tenement, complete with other inhabitants. But Bell died convincingly and movingly, this final scene went a long way to mollifying my concerns over the performance. It was not as searing as I would have liked, but I certainly wasn’t bored as can happen sometimes in this act when the performance goes awry.

Jonathan Darlington helped the ENO orchestra to accompany the action well, but perhaps he was a little to polite, a little too understanding and a bit more drive and passion in the pit would not have come a miss.

This was a beautifully musical performance, all the singers were a joy to listen to. I just wish they had captured more of the underlying passion and heart-wringing beauty of the opera; perhaps that will come with experience.

As for the Irish setting, well having had the ideal Morrison just did not follow it through. I am convinced that the production will become stronger in revivals if a staff producer can be persuaded to remove the Protestant/Catholic divide and stick to the basics in what is a very attractive production. It did not help that the programme book was full of information about the Irish relgious divide and life in Dublin, do we need to know this in a production of Traviata?

Stray CD Review

This CD review of Trinity College Choir's disc of Mendelssohn choral works seems to have slipped through the net! javascript:void(0)
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Plans

Yet more opera this weekend. Tomorrow we're off to see the new La Traviata at ENO, yes the one set in Ireland during the 19th century troubles. Quite frankly, we'd probably have given it a miss as the basic premise sounds a bit contrived, but its got the fabulous Emma Bell in the title role.

Then on Saturday we're off to the Hackney Empire to see English Touring Opera doing Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Carissimi's Jephtha. The venue is probably a little too big for the operas, but we enjoy seeing ETO and its a good excuse to go the restored Hackney Empire, we've not managed a visit yet. We see more of ETO the next weekend when we're catching their Orfeo in Cambridge at the Arts Theatre.

What's in a name

My motet Nunc Dimittis isn't strictly a Nunc Dimittis at all. It uses the words of the Nunc Dimittis alongside a text from Job. In fact in its original version (and its been through a few) it was called Job and Simeon and is a sort of dialogue between the 2, Job's depression ("My day's are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope") contrasted will Simeon's Godly acceptance.

The motet is known as Nunc Dimittis and in that form it has been performed (twice at the Chelsea Festival by FifteenB).

The problem is, now I'm writing a real Nunc Dimittis to complement my recently penned Magnificat. I'm hoping to include the original Nunc Dimittis and the new Magnificat on the planned new recording pencilled in for next spring. Are you now beginning to see the problem? Perhaps I should rename the original motet Nunc Dimittis - Job and Simeon but that's hardly a catchy title is it?

I've also discovered a bug in my classification system. My electronic music archive at home and the publishing website Spherical Editions> have sections for Latin Masses, English Masses, Latin Motets, English Motets; in the latter category I include anthems (I've never been sure of the difference). Of course, now I'm writing canticles for Evensong and have no idea where to file them. Calls for a revision to the classifications I think.

Recent CD Review

My review of Monteverdi's 5th Book of Madrigals on Naxos is here on MusicWeb International.

Plans

My current activities are rather revolving round plans to produce a recording next year. Various impetuses (sponsorship etc.) have come together and we are exploring the possibility of recording some of my choral music next year for commercial release on an independent label. I am hoping that the main piece to be recorded will be The Testament of Dr. Cranmer. More news when plans are firmer.

I have started work on a Nunc Dimittis to go with the new Magnificat, perhaps this will stretch to an entire set of canticles! We'll see.

Tonight I'm meeting up with a librettist as a result of my operatic Speed Dating activities last month. It will be our first chance to have a long-ish conversation about libretti, music etc.

Weekend Diary

We spent the weekend holidaying in Northern France. It was not predominantly a musical weekend, but the in-car CD player meant that we had ample chance to catch up on CD's which we had not listened to for ages (Wallace's Maritana, various Purcell Odes and Welcome Songs, Arvo Part's Passio, Rossini's Armida, Stanford's Piano Concerto) plus a new set, John Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer in the original recording.

We were familiar with the film of the opera, but have never listened to this recording before. What struck me was its toughness. At other times, the choruses have seemed the dominant element, but on first listening in the car (admittedly not ideal circumstances), it was the toughness of the more operatic bits which made an impact.

On Sunday we attended Mass at the Roman Catholic Church opposite our hotel. It was, of course, in the vernacular and the congregational singing was led and conducted from the chancel steps by an animateur. What struck me was how different the service was from the sort of service you might get in a provincial English town.

In England the major prayers are usually said, in fact it is perfectly possible for the entire service to be said, but the service is then punctuated by hymns. The standard English hymnals provide a wide variety of hymns suitable for all times of the church's year, paraphrases of psalms, office hymns etc.

The French model seems to have discounted hymns per se and instead set large chunks of the service itself to music, with the relevant Psalms replaced by responsorial psalms (in fact much of the music was responsorial). The result is a fascinating study in how singing was incorporated into a vernacular service in a tradition which did not include the strong hymn singing common in English services

Recent CD Review

My review of the Consort of Musick's disc of John Jenkins Fantasias and Fantasies is here on MusicWeb International.

This is seriously satisfying music. Fine musical performances in a recording which hardly shows its age. Recommended for those wanting to explore this fascinating composer ...

This month's Opera magazine

Some gleanings for the October issue of Opera magazine.

An interesting preview of Julian Grant's new opera Odysseus Unwound which manages to combine the Odysseus story with Shetland knitting (done live in the theatre!). Tete a tete are taking the opera on on tour.

An amazing array of obituaries; besides appreciations of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf by Christa Ludwig and Alan Blyth, there were obituaries of Charles Farncombe (beloved from Handel Opera Society) and Leopold Simoneau (the Canadian tenor whose recording of the tenor Gluck Orfeus has hardly been beaten).

Richard Fairman, in his review of Die Zauberflote from Salzburg notes that 15 minutes before the end of the performance the curtain came down for a scene change, prompting the doors to open and people to leave, as if they did not know the opera that well!

The Royal Danish Opera have just performed their new Ring in Copenhagen in the new opera house (I can't wait to see it). Evidently Queen Margarethe has attended the whole of the 2nd Ring cycle and parts of the first.

Strasbourg have done Verdi's Don Carlos in the original French (using the Modena version) with at least 2 French speaking principals, Rodney Milnes was impressed.

A production of Barber's Vanessa in the Teatro Massimo in Palermo; strange how many other countries can perform the work be it never gets staged in the UK by a major company.

Huhg Canning reviews the Glyndebourne revival of Giulio Cesare. Musically it sounds to have been superb with David Daniels in the title role. But I think that Canning is far too forgiving of the production. He describes it as essentially tongue in cheek. Would any of the major critics be happy to praise a tongue in cheek production of Mozart's Idomeneo or La Clemenza di Tito. Because opera seria is still perceived as possibly long and boring, critics seem to wink at productions which cheer things up, where they would be up in arms if such things were done on other composers. The problem with David MacVicar's way with Handel (this goes for the ENO Alcina as well) is that he chooses a group of characters to send up, but when these characters suffer we have no empathy with them as we don't see them as real people. This applies to Cleopatra and and to Morgana (in Alcina). I'll continue going to see MacVicar productions (ENO have Agrippina coming up), but only because it seems the only way to hear major companies do Handel. Would someone had the courage to do one of Handel's early opera seria properly seriously.

Opera Rara have just done a concert performance of Rossini's La Donna del Lago at the Edinburgh Festival. Andrew Clark liked it and I can't wait to get the CD, it includes the UK debut of a striking Neapolitan Soprano Carmn Giannattasio.

Everyone seems to agree that Stuart MacRae's new opera, The Assasin Tree was a promising, but not ideal debut. Worryingly, Andrew Clark suggests the work might be better heard as a voiceless symphony, implying that MacRae has yet to get to grips with operatic voices. This is, in fact, a common problem with contemporary operas. Clark describes MacRae's vocal lines as uninteresting, which is rather a fault in an opera.

A fabulous concert performance of Die Meistersinger from Edinburgh, with John Mitchinson (WNO Tristan in the Goodall Tristan), Jeffrey Lawton (Siegfried in WNO Ring), Phillip Joll (WNO Goodall Tristan) and John Shirley Quirk (too many memories to mention!) amongst the Meistersingers (an amazing line up). Plus Toby Spence as David.

Rodney Milnes reviews the Opera Rara Don Carlos a re-issue of the BBC performance of the original Paris version with all cuts opened up. He likes it, but talks about the choices to be made by anyone devising a sensible text. This implies the sort of mix and match attitude that I hate; when doing the opera producer s tend to choose bits from each opera. Surely, if you are doing it you should choose on of Verdi's versions. The 5-Act Modena version, done in French should surely be the prime versio and you should not then introduce bits of Paris into this. The only excuse for using any of the Paris material is if you want to hear the original Paris version. The only decisions that need to be made about Paris are the cuts (surely necessary in an ordinary opera house production). I certainly don't want to hear ensembles from Paris which were subsequently cut by Verdi, re-appearing in the later Modena version.

Rant over! On a lighter note, producer Otto Schenk in addition to producing 30 operatic stagings in Vienna, appeared in the role of Frosch (Die Fledermaus) some 54 times!

New Look

Blogger have upgraded their front-end and a number of new features will appear. Probably the most obvious one at the moment are the labels on the posts, with a list of labes to the right, enabling you to drill down through my opera reviews, cd reviews etc. I am gradually working my way through the back posts to get a decent number of them labelled as well.

Recent CD Review

My review of Durufle's Requiem from St. Ignatius Loyola Church is here.

A disappointing recording, far better to go for a recording of Duruflé's
original version with orchestra and organ. ...

Recent CD Review

My review of Boccherini's Stabat Mater is here on MusicWeb International.

If the performances don’t completely plumb the depths of the works, they
display a fine musicality and balance, which can’t be bad. ...

On Sunday we bid farewell to Canon Vincent Berry as incumbent of St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Cadogan Street, Chelsea. At Latin Mass we sang my motet Exaudi. The motet was written in 2002 and I don't think we've done it since. It was strange to re-visit something which was no longer current in my brain; you look at things and think how they could have been done differently (I appear to have had a down on altos when writing it!).

Ursi Carmina, the new piece written for London Concord Singers 40th Anniversary is now bedding down quite well in rehearsal. The programme has been finalised and will include Harris's Faire is the Heaven, Naylor's Vox dicentes: Clama besides the 2 pieces with orchestra - Handel's Birthday Ode for Queen Anne and Mozart's Sancta Maria Mater Dei.

We are singing the Handel in a German edition and it includes a German version of the words. They are hardly a translation as Queen Anne is not mentionned at all and her name repeatedly crops up in the English text.

Review of Handel's Rinaldo

My review of a chamber version of excerpts from Handel's Rinaldo is here on MusicWeb International.

La Juive - Opera Review

La Juive is a long opera and much of the music was written to accompany spectacular stage ceremonial. Recent productions of the opera have shown that it has the potential to work in a simpler setting. As performed in the Royal Opera House’s concert at the Barbican on Friday the work was substantially trimmed and revealed as quite a powerful drama.

The libretto is by Eugene Scribe, who wrote the librettos for many of the major French grand operas of the period. It uses his standard formula of contrasting major public spectacle with private torment. In this case the council of Konstanz forms the back drop for the more private dramas of the Jew Eleazar and his daughter Rachel. As in most Scribe librettos, a certain degree of unlikely co-incidence is included; Eleazar finds Cardinal Brogni’s daughter as an infant and adopts her. Years later Eleazar and Brogni clash and only after Rachel’s execution does Eleazar tell Brogni that she was his daughter. The opera pits the church’s persecution of Jews against Rachel’s illicit love for Christian Leopold. Eleazar is by no means a stereotypical character. He is by no means likeable and is bad tempered and rather grasping, but this is off-set by his love for his daughter.

The opera’s hit number is Eleazar’s Rachel, Quand O seigneur in which Eleazar sings of his love for his daughter whilst in prison. Eleazar was written for the Paris Opera’s star tenor, Nourrit. At the Barbican the role was taken by Dennis O’Neill; whilst O’Neill’s voice shows some signs of age his art is still impressive and in Rachel, Quand O seigneur he encompassed some fine mezza-voce singing. O’Neill’s Eleazar was a fully rounded character and O’Neill made his final moments profoundly moving.

As his daughter, Rachel, Marina Poplavskaya was stunning. She looks dramatic with her long hair and is able to spin a lovely fine line. The role of Rachel was created by Cornelie Falcon and it is modern in the way that the music eschew’s elaborate ornament and relies on the expressive line of the music. Poplavskaya gave no indication that she was singing a rarely performed role, her performance was dramatically fully rounded and not at all inhibited by the concert surroundings.

As Eleazar’s nemesis, Cardinal Brogni, Alastair Miles gave a thundering performance. But even here, the character is not all one-sided and Miles was able to display warmth and concern in the opening Act.

Dario Schmuck was Prince Leopold, Rachel’s love interest. Leopold is pretending to Rachel that he is a Jew called Samuel and it is Rachel’s unmasking of Leopold that leads her and Eleazar’s imprisonment. Schmuck made what he could of Leopold’s rather frivolous love interest and made a fine contribution to the dramatic ensemble with Rachel and Eleazar when Eleazar discovers the lovers trying to flee. Unfortunately, Leopold disappears entirely after Act 3 and has no involvement in the opera’s denouement.

His wife, Princess Eudoxie, has a small role to play dramatically but her musical role is to supply the elaborate roulades which are missing from Rachel’s music. Nicole Cabell tossed of Eudoxie’s elaborate arias with enviable charm and ability.

Halevy and Scribe alternate public and private acts and it is in the 2 private acts, Act2 and Act 4, that the nub of the drama occurs. Act 4 is set in prison and concludes with the aforementioned Rachel, Quand O seigneur. Act 2, set in Eleazar’s house, opens with a moving setting of the Passover meal, this is followed by the dramatic confrontation between Eleazar, Rachel and Leopold. All contributed to create strong, moving drama here.

The drama was a little slow to start, much of Act 1 seemed to be concerned with scene setting. But once Act 2 started, the drama took wing. Daniel Oren kept the proceedings moving and though the opera has quite a slow fuse there were few longeurs.

All of the singers were admirable in the way they presented the opera dramatically and their performances were most definitely not welded to their scores as can happen in this type of presentation.

It was admirable of the Royal Opera to present this piece and the concert performance was surprisingly involving. But I would still love to see it staged.

Review of Barber of Seville

My review of Pimlico Opera's Barber of Seville performed last Saturday at Grange Park is here on Music and Vision.

La Juive - Part 1 (the moans and groans)

We went to see the Royal Opera House's concert performance of Fromental Halevy's La Juive at the Barbican last night. A full review will appear in a subsquent post, but the performance, welcome though it was, revealed rather a number of niggles about the way it was mounted.

First on, it was at the Barbican rather than the Royal Opera House which meant that the stage was full to bursting with the huge chorus, orchestra and soloists. In fact the stage had beene extended forward, thus taking out 2 rows of seats and meaning that our seats, usually perfectly decent if not wonderful, gave us a side view of the soloists (someone commented that we got a good view of their shoes). The performance was so involving that this didn't matter.

The opera is notoriously long, all the French grands operas are long. In fact, on the first night it ran from 7pm to 12.30am, but was subsequently cut. The Paris Opera employed an interesting form of democracy when it came to cuts, the first night of operas was pretty uncut, then after that the least popular bits were cut!

The Royal Opera's production was advertised as starting at 6.30pm; so we assumed we were in for a long evening. Getting to the Barbican for 6.30pm can be tricky and D. did not manage it, which meant that at the end of Act 1, when he could reasonably be expected to be let in to his seat, he and the other late comers were coralled into the balcony instead. Annoying but not disastrous.

The performance was advertised as being in 2 halves, Acts 1 and 2 (running time 90 minutes), 25 minute interval, Acts 3, 4 and 5 (running time 85 minutes). In fact it went on a little longer but was finished by 10pm. So why on earth did they start the show at 6.30pm, 7.00pm would have been far better.

Someone in the management was obviously worried about what time the show finished. The show was cut; I could see the orchestral parts and there was barely a page without some pasting over. But they even dropped numbers which were mentionned in the programme (Princess Eudoxie and Rachel's Act 3 duet, the opening chorus and funeral march of Act 5). The programme also mentionned that there would have been a 2nd interval after Act 4.

By my calculations, they could quite easily have run the show exactly as it was performed but starting at 7.00pm and finishing at 10.30pm, surely kinder to the punters. Or, even better, start at 6.30pm , finish at 10.30pm, have 2 intervals (20 minute and 15 minutes) and open a few of the cuts.

The programme book was excellent but nowhere did we learn the rationale behind the version that we were hearing.

Oh and one more thing, for such a long opera, why not a Saturday performance.

Recent CD Reviews

My review of the Elora Festival Singers' disc of my by Healey Willan is here.

Willan’s music is not well represented in the catalogue and the Elora
Festival Singers enable us to listen to this music in clean, shapely,
musical performances. ...

And my review of Palestrina's Canticum Canticorum is here. Both reviews are on MusicWeb International.

The definitive recording of has yet to be made. Whilst this one has
attractive qualities, it is not really a recording that I would want to live with.
...

Recent Book review

My review of a new book about Monteverdi's dramatic works is here, on Music and Vision.

We've been making some changes to the Spherical Editions Web Site with the intention of making it easier to use. The site holds my complete catalogue with facility to buy all my music on line. There are numerous PDF and audio samples. The Music Page lists all the PDF samples available and the Audio Page lists all the audio samples, many of which are available on AudioBlog. I have just uploaded some new choral recordings from past Chelsea Festivals, so please do check out the page.

Book review

My review of Andrew Ashbee's The Harmonious Musick of John Jenkins is here on MusicWeb International.

Clear and lucid but not a light book. Fascinating biographical chapters.
If you have any interest in viol consorts then this is profoundly illuminating.
...

Recent CD Review

My review of Guerrero's Missa Surge Propera is here on MusicWeb International

Opera Review - Eugene Onegin

British Youth Opera is celebrating 20 years in the business of providing young opera singers with a training ground, between College and the opera house. Their summer season this year, at the Peacock Theatre with the Southbank Sinfonia in the pit, comprised performances of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. We saw the final performance of Eugene Onegin on 15th September.

Of course, young in opera terms is relative; most of the singers had complete post-graduate training and some had even had professional experience. But in an opera like Eugene Onegin, where many of the protagonists are young, it is of some advantage to have young singers cast in the roles.

For many sopranos playing Tatiana, the first 2 acts are tricky. They have to play young and it is only in the final act that they can relax into the role. For Katrina Broderick the opposite was rather true. In the first 2 acts she was wonderfully convincing as the shy, rather plump, dreamy Tatiana; profoundly embarrassed at having to entertain Onegin. In the Act 2 party, she was the shy wall flower, profoundly disliking the attention.

Broderick has a lovely, bright focussed voice with a clear sense of line. You can understand why she was asked to sing Tatiana, but I suspect that she will not be doing so in 10 years time – more dramatic roles surely beckon. Her letter scene was expressive and musical and in indicator of what she might do in the future.

As her Onegin, George von Bergen was nearly ideal. He had just that right combination of sneer and sexy swagger. You could understand why Tatiana fell for him even though you did not really like him. His voice was apt to go a little dry at the top but he sang the role with a good sense of line. I’m sure he will be singing this role in 10 years time and, as baritones tend to mature slowly, I look forward to hearing him sing it then. If he sings the role so well now, what will 10 years of experience do.

Neither Clara Mouritz nor Shaun Dixon were ideal for the roles of Olga or Lensky, their voices surely point in other directions. But Mouritz made a fine, perky Olga and in the Act 2 party scene mixed flirtiness, puzzlement and tragedy. Both Mouritz and Dixon were wonderfully convincing in their portrayal of the young lovers. All the scenes with the 4 young people in Acts 1 and 2 were infectiously engaging, you did not have to make any allowances at all.

When it came to tragedy, Dixon was dramatically very moving but his voice simply lacked the sense of line that I would like in the role. Dixon is fine, dramatic singer. In other roles he will shine, as Lensky he was never less than creditable.

The supporting roles were all very well taken. Catherine Hopper and Sigridur Osk Kristjansdottir were excellent as Madame Larina and Filipyevna, treading the fine line between convincingly playing old and caricature. In fact, neither resorted to caricature and this was the least hackneyed performance of Filipyevna that I have ever seen.

William Kerley’s production was generally traditional, which surely helped the singers to portray their characters. Tom Rogers’s set consisted simply of a series of flexible wooden screens with window and doors. Only in Prince Gremin’s palace did you regret the lack of a bigger production budget.

Madame Larina’s party was a triumph of stage work for director, singers and hard working chorus. On the Peacock’s small-ish stage, it really felt like a dance in a provincial house. I was less convinced by his staging of the duel; set in a barn the actual dual took place outside, beyond our field of vision, which was rather strange.

Another oddity, albeit a more understandable one, was that the opening polonaise of Act 3 was played as an entracte; we saw no dancing at Prince Gremin's which made his party an altogether sub-fusc affair.

When we get to Act 3, things get trickier for young singers. Time has passed, the characters are older and wiser. Director and Designer helped Broderick by replacing her rather unflattering earlier costumes with a fine, soignée dress which made you realise that the singer did actually have an attractively generous figure. Broderick combined this with a nobleness of bearing which caught Tatiana’s change of circumstance just right. Von Bergen, as Onegin, seemed to have matured less than Tatiana which is perfectly as it should be. Their final scene together was dramatically moving and very impressive, even if they did not quite wring every ounce of tragedy from the score.

As Prince Gremin, Vuyani Mlinde confirmed the good impression that he made at Grange Park Opera this year. He sang his solo with moving dignity and with a fine sense of line.

Conductor Peter Robinson kept everything moving in an admirable manner. The Southbank Sinfonia played well and successfully disguised the fact that they were probably rather too small in number to be ideal.

The opera was sung in David Lloyd-Jones’s English translation. Diction from all the singers (both native and non-native English speakers) was excellent which help to make the evening one of compelling drama as well as fine musicality.


The theatre seemed to be full of supporters of both the opera company and the singers. Unfortunately the audience was distinctly restless at times. That the management allowed people into the auditorium late meant that the opening of each act was accompanied by a sussuration of noise, and people round me tended to talk during the entractes. All very annoying, it was a good job the performance itself was so absorbing.

Recent CD Review

My review of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater with Jörg Waschinski singing the soprano line is here on MusicWeb International.

I wish I could recommend this disc more. An interesting concept, but
frankly not a disc that I could listen to regularly. ...

Speed Dating

Last night I went speed-dating, musical speed-dating; well operatic really. The event was organised by Bill Bankes-Jones and the enterprising Tete-a-tete opera company, who regularly produce new and exciting operas. The event was by way of an experiment as the company would like to launch a new space for people to come together to experiment with and create new opera. So, last night some 60 odd composers, librettists, designers, directors and musicians came together to meet each other. The speed-dating, rather complex to put together, enabled people to meet like minded souls for a brief chat. So I was able to spend time with a succession of librettists and directors, all very useful as I am hoping to find a new operatic project.

In the spare bits of time (!) various composers and librettists got together to create 2 scratch operas based on brief scenarios. Everyone writing 1 short scene. The results were sung at the end of the evening, the musicians and singers managing to brilliantly incarnate their roles based on minimal rehearsal and using sketchy photocopies of scrawled manuscript. It made an exciting and fun end to a profitable (and entertaining evening).

Cut down to size

Trevor Nunn is producing a new version of Gerswhin's Porgy and Bess with spoken dialogue and trimmed to a running time of two and a half hours (rather than the full 4 hours for the opera). Reactions seem to have been mixed, but it is an interesting concept. I have only seen Porgy and Bess once, when Trevor Nunn's Glyndebourne production was transferred to Covent Garden. As a production it could hardly be bettered, except that I kept feeling that there was just too much; that the music did not move fast enough for the plot. People talk about the opera as a work of genious, but for me it has always seemed like a group of superb songs and ensembles, in need of trimming. I await the reviews of Trevor Nunn's efforts with interest.

Sorry I missed you

I caught a brief article in the Gramophone about the soprano Linda Esther Gray. She was one of those singers who, for a period, seemed to be woven into the fabric of my opera going life. I saw her as the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro performed in Manchester by Glyndebourne Touring Opera whilst I was a student; the first professional opera production that I had seen. She then cropped up in various guises, notably as Eva in the Scottish Opera production of Die Meistersinger. I was due to see her in the Goodall Tristan with WNO at the Astra Theatre, Coventry (whilst their usual theatre in Birmingham was being re-built), but she was ill that night. The performance was stunning, despite this and certainly made you forget the glittery purple walls of the theatre foyer (it spent most of its life as a cinema). I also have vivid memories of a later Tosca with ENO (How much delivered in a devastating Scots accent). But there was also the Turandot with Scottish Opera which never happened (well the production did, but with Milla Andrew) and then the ENO Valyrie in the Pountney production with the Busby Berkeley spectacular for the opening scene of Act 3. I saw it with Gray's cover in the role of Brunnhilde, but I understand she did some performances.

It comes as some sort of relief to discover that these problems were not caused by stage fright or some such thing (as was rumoured), but physical illness; severe enough for her to have to stop talking at one point. Though she rebuilt her voice, things were never the same again but she has put her knowledge to good use and is a teacher.

Plans

This week is the last one of holiday freedom before the new season starts in earnest. On Monday my choir, London Concord Singers starts rehearsing for their 40th Anniversary concert on Nov. 18th. The programme includes a new work of mine, specially written for the occasion Ursi Carmina (Bear Songs). I've tried to circumvent the usual first night nerves which the first rehearsal of a piece engenders, by having a run through at my house in the summer; let's see if it works!

On Friday week we're off to British Youth Opera who are doing a short season of operas at the Peacock Theatre. We're seeing Eugene Onegin. Then on Saturday 16th September we're dashing down to Hampshire to see Pimlico Opera at Grange Park. Its the start of Pimlico's annual autumn tour when they take one of the Grange Park Opera productions on a tour of small scale venues. This time its The Barber of Seville; Ptolomy Christie's production debuted at Grange Park's offshoot at Nevill Holt in the Summer. It will be strange to be at Northington Grange out of season, but we are looking forward to the production immensely.

Then further into September comes the Royal Opera's concert performances of Halevy's La Juive at the Barbican (can't wait!). Plus Canon Vincent Berry's final service at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Cadogan Street, Chelsea, where I sing at the Latin Mass, when we will be singing my motet Exaudi which I wrote for the celebrations for the 40th anniversary of Canon Berry's ordination.

Carmen premiere

My article about the alarums and excursions in the run up to the premiere of Bizet's Carmen is here on Music and Vision.

Incidentally, if you want to hear the closest we'll ever get to the definitive score of Carmen then try the Chandos Opera in English recording. This uses a new edition by Richard Langham-Smith which is based on the vocal score which he had published after the world premiere. This is the only published score which Bizet himself edited and it was produced under his impetus rather than in association with the Opera Comique, so there is not reason to believe it does not represent the score as he intended.

Edington Diary - Friday

Friday was our last day at the Edington festival. The day started slightly later than usual as there was no 9.00am Matins service (the Schola got the morning off). Instead Choral Matins was celebrated at 11.30am.

The consort sang the lovely Venite from Orlando Gibbons's Short Service. The Te Deum and Jubilate were more contemporary; Britten's Festival Te Deum and Walton's Jubilate. The Britten was interesting, it eschewed the usual bombast that I associate with festal settings of this text; there were some good solos from the Nave choir. The Walton was given a brilliant, rhythmically exciting performance by the Nave choir. The consort sang Gibbons's I am the resurrection and the life, a beautiful setting of the Gospel reading for the day.

For me, the highlight of the week was the music at the Friday evening Solemn Eucharist. Throughout the week, by getting to the church early (to get good seats) we had overheard Robert Quinney rehearsing the Nave choir, so we had a good working knowledge of Friday's music by the time the service came along. The mass setting was the James MacMillan mass, written for Westminster Cathedral. The Nave choir sang the Kyrie, Alleluia and Agnus Dei. Both the piece and the performance were stunning; its a very tricky work and I can't wait to hear it in Westminster Cathedral. The Consort kept the contemporary theme by singing Tippett's Plebs Angelica, another stunning performance. The Organ prelude was MacMillan's Gaudeamus in loci paci and the Voluntary was Durufle's Fugue sur le nom d'Alain, one of my favourite organ pieces. All in all a profoundly moving service.

From this Month's Opera

In his editorial, John Allison comments on the rumours that ENO may be reducing their season at the Coliseum and taking on a smaller London theatre for Baroque and contemporary music. This would certainly be an improvement. Many years ago, when the David Freeman production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo was new, it was premiered in a smaller theatre, in Nottingham I believe. At the time this was planned as a new way forward for this type of work, but of course nothing further came of it. Lets hope that ENO manage to do something like this convincingly this time.

In the interview with Christine Brewer, I note that her BBC Tristan is due imminently on the Warner Classics label. I can’t wait. We missed the concerts, alas, where the 3 acts of Tristan were spread over 3 different evenings (well spaced apart). Another memorable Brewer evening was when I heard the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment doing Verdi’s Requiem with Brewer as a fantastic soprano soloist. I’ve been hoping that this might have presaged a recording, but no such luck.

Reading about the opera house on the Caribbean island of Martinique, in Saint-Pierre, it was interesting to read that it had been destroyed by the volcanic eruption in 1902, which devastated the town – the worst volcanic eruption of the 20th century. I wonder if this was what inspired Patrick Leigh-Fermor’s novel ‘The Violins of St. Jacques’, which in turn inspired Malcolm Williamson’s opera. Interestingly the plot has a number of elements in common with Ronald Firbank’s novel ‘Valmouth’ which in turn inspired Sandy Wilson’s musical Valmouth.

Eduardo Arnosi in his review of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea from Buenos Aires comments that he prefers a male Nerone (granted this was said in the context of great approbation for the convincingness of the female singer in the role, Evelyn Ramirez). He did not specify which octave the male singer would be singing at and left the impression that he’d be quite happy doing violence to Monteverdi’s score by using a tenor; I hope not.!

A new production of Dido and Aeneas in Vienna, directed by Deborah Warner; Christopher Norton-Welsh describes it as half-serious, half-guying. Sorry, but I’ve seen plenty of productions where the witches were serious and scary rather than funny and don’t see the need to introduce any more humour into the work.

Simon Rattle’s new Rheingold at the Aix en Provence festival is noted as running for 15 minutes under 3 hours. John Allison points out that Wagner noted that the opera lasted exactly 2 and a half hours; I wish more attention was paid to Wagner’s timings. He was often a careful noter of times; Roger Norrington used Wagner’s timings in his performances of the overtures to revelatory effect, notably Tristan and Die Meistersinger.

Jochen Kowalski cropped up as the Astrologer in Rimsky Korsakov’s Golden Cockerel in Berlin. Kowalski is a singer whose name seems to have dropped from the lime-light recently. But a long essay could be written about the voice type necessary for this role. I’ve heard both tenors and counter-tenors doing it (at Scottish Opera and with the Royal Opera) and it works far better with a tenor who is prepared to give us a head voice/falsetto extension. Most counter tenors seem to lack the incisiveness necessary for the lower register.

The cover photo was of the new Moses and Aaron in Munich. Produced by David Pountney, it was Peter Jonas’s swan song. What it swan song it seems to have been. John Allison liked the production and with John Daszak and John Tomlinson as the brothers, it had a strong cast. It is good to see Daszak finding international form in good roles.

A lovely comment from Rodney Milnes about an Athenian production of Don Carlos: He appeared to have brought his own flattering costumes and played the role mainly from the thighs


Minnesota seems to have been the place to be in America this year. Minnesota Opera offered Mercadante’s Orazi e Curiazi, enterprisingly moved to the American Civil War, as well as the first American performances of Laurent Petigirard’s Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. I reviewed a recording of this fascinating score and was not sure how well it would work on stage; I’d love to have seen the Minnesota performances.

Elsewhere in America, Francesca Zamballo is doing a Ring in Washington, mining American mythology for the iconography. Rhinemaidens in the underwear of disreputable salon ladies, Alberich panning for gold, gods dress as for a Scott Fitzgerald novel, Nibelheim full of slaves. It sounds fascinating and remarkably convincing. I’ll be interested to read about subsequent instalments in the cycle.

Ian Fox describes the Castleward Opera’s performances of Balfe’s The Bohemian Girl as probably the worst show ever presented here. They seem to have cut over an hour’s worth of music; this is a shame and makes nonsense of the piece, even though it is a long score. I thing a decent performance of the opera is long over due.

Patrick O’Connor’s review of the concert performance of Don Giovanni from the Mostly Mozart Festival at the Barbican includes the fascinating nugget of information that in the 19th century it was Zerlina that was considered to be the main role in the opera!

Iford Festival Opera produced Lucia di Lammermoor this year. Their venue is the Italianate cloister at Iford Manor, whose garden was laid out by the Edwardian garden designer Harold Peto. It sounds just the venue for the opera, even in a chamber version, especially as they managed to include a glass harmonica in the instrumental ensemble.

La Juive

Having investigated a later French rarity at Dorset Opera (Massenet's Herodiade), I'm looking forward to the forthcoming concert performance of Halevy's La Juive, a far earlier work. As anyone who reads this blog regularly will know, I keep hoping that someone will create the French equivalent of Opera Rara so that we can hear decent recordings of all the Grand Opera created for the Paris Opera in the 1820's, 1830's and 1840's. Still, this concert gives us the chance to hear Dennis O'Neil in the fabulous tenor role of Eleazar. Rachel is being played by one of the ROH's young artists, Marina Poplavskaya; I will be interested to hear her as Rachel is a Falcon role; Marie Cornelie Falcon created the role and her voice has given rise to a whole genre of dark soprano roles, betwixt and between mezzo and soprano. There is a good introduction to the opera here, in the Guardian

Leopold Simoneau

French-Canadian tenor Leopold Simoneau died recently, there is an obituary of him here, in the Guardian. Simoneau was posessed of a remarkably high, lyric tenor voice. It is a testament to his gifts that his recording of the French version of Gluck's Orfeo (Orphée et Euridice) has hardly been beaten by recent recordings, despite its age.

Edington Diary - Thursday

At Sung Eucharist on Thursday, the organ prelude and closing voluntary were 2 attractive pieces embarrassingly unknown to me, the Introit and Sortie from Malcolm Williamson’s Mass of a Medieval Saint. The mass setting was plainsong Mass I and the Nave choir performed For he shall give his angels from Mendelssohn’s Elijah. Quite apt for the theme of the service (I am the good shepherd) and the choir sang beautifully, but as ever I was not quite convinced by the organ replacing the originally orchestral accompaniment. The Nave choir also sang a lovely The Lord is my Shepherd by Sir Lennox Berkeley. The Consort sang a fabulous O Sacrum Convivium by Guerrero. They also did an amazing piece by Edward Naylor (1867 – 1934); he was evidently organist at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and studied at the Royal College of Music. His motet Vox dicentis: Clama was evidently written in 1911. (This information gleaned mainly from Wikipedia, apologies if its inaccurate). The motet is a setting of Isaiah chapter 40, it is a fascinating and it received a superb performance from the Consort, though I suspect it was written for a bigger choir. I can’t wait to get a recording!

Evening service was a sequence of music and readings given by the Schola and the Consort, the Nave choir had the evening off. Highlights included Sir John Tavener’s The Lamb and the Agnus Dei from Poulenc’s Mass. The plainchant hymn Congregati sunt was lovely, though the plainchant Ave Verum Corpus was taken so slowly, it was almost romantic (perhaps it is). After Compline the Festival said goodbye to Andrew Carwood, who had to dash off to another Festival and his place at the head of the Schola was taken by Matthew Martin who had been playing the Nave organ all week.

This was the last day at which we went to the 9.00am matins sung by the Schola as there was no service on Friday. This service took place in the chancel, the remainder of the services taking place in the Nave. We managed to have the same seats each time, in front of the screen next to the choir organ. This meant we had a good sight/sound of everything and even got to hear the clickety/clack of the organ mechanism – very authentic and atmospheric.

More displacement therapy

I took with me on holiday two books of poems (bought because I thought they might make interesting songs). One book is a group of translations of Japanese lyrics and the other is Tagore's Gitanjali newly translated into English poetry. I looked at neither.

I did manage to start re-re-reading Diarmaid Macculloch's biography of Cranmer with a view to creating a libretto for a full length oratorio, but quailed at the size of the task. Though I have made a list of around 50 quotes from Cranmer's own writings (and I'm not half way through yet).

I did though, make some sketches towards a Magnificat. No, I had no plans to write one, but hearing a sequence of such magnificent settings at Edington, gave me ideas.

So now I'm at home. Not writing songs, not putting the finishing touches to my setting of Isaiah 6 and not continuing with my new orchestral tone poem (which is rather languishing). I've started writing a Magnificat.

Ho hum, I'm sure there's a reason for all this skipping about that my unconscious does.

Edington Diary - Tuesday/Wednesday

Sung Eucharist on Wednesday included William Harris’s Holy is the true light; we’ve had Faire is the Heaven at previous festivals so it was good to hear one of Harris’s other works. The Consort did strong justice to Byrd’s lovely Nunc Dimittis from the Gradualia. In the evening Evensong was recorded by the BBC for broadcast on Dec 27th, this meant that we had to pretend it was Dec. 27th including singing vaguely Christmas themed hymns, besides putting up with the paraphenalia of recording. Still, the festival finds the BBC fees extremely useful in balancing the books, it receives no outside grants.

An interesting co-incidence was that the first reading was from Isaiah chapter 6; I’ve just finished my setting of the entire chapter (slightly edited) for unaccompanied chorus, so the reading somehow felt mine. The music was suitable impressive. Thomas Tomkins’s Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis from the Fifth Service received a fine performance from the Nave choir with some excellent soloists drawn from the choir. The Consort combined with the Schola to perform John Sheppard’s magnificent 6-part motet Verbum caro factum est. The setting alternates polyphony with a fabulous high soprano part with plainchant – quite magical.

The consort and the nave choir combined to give a lively, crisp and infectiously rhythmical accuunt of William Walton carol (I said we had to pretend is was December 27th) All this time. The closing voluntary was a rather fun organ duet by SS Wesley.

Wednesday morning’s Sung Eucharist used Giovanni Croce’s Missa secunda: tertii toni sung by the Consort. It is an attractive, practical mass and its on the list of my suggestions for my church choir. (St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, Cadogan St., Chelsea). The Nave choir sang Vittoria’s motet Lauda Sion with some excitingly rhythmic interplay between the two choirs. They also contributed Mozart’s Ave Verum.

The evening service was replaced by an afternoon one, broadcast live by Radio 3. This included the premiere of Antony Pitts’s Before Abraham was, I AM. Though we missed the service live, we did manage to catch up with it later thanks to the wonders of the BBC Radio 3 web-site.

Edington Diary - Sunday/Monday

We’ve just spent the last week at the Edington Festival of Music within the Liturgy. Held at the lovely 13th century priory church in Edington, Wiltshire, the Festival presents 4 services a day sung by 3 choirs. The day starts with the Schola Cantorum (director Andrew Carwood) singing plainchant Matins. Then at 11.30 the morning service (usually Sung Eucharist) is sung by the Schola Cantorum, the Nave Choir (men and boys directed by Robert Quinney) and the Consort (a mixed voice choir directed by Jeremy Summerley). Evening service is at 8.00pm (usually Evensong) again sung by all 3 choirs and then followed by the Schola doing Compline by candle light. This year we were staying in the next village to Edington so we were able to attend every service.

I kept a rough diary whilst at the festival, so am publishing it in instalments on the blog, there will probably be an entry each day for the next 5 days, covering the 6 days of the festival that we attended.

All the services were very popular and the church was full to bursting for the 2 main services each day. A surprising number of people came along at 9.00am for Matins.

Things started off on Sunday evening with Compline sung by all 3 choirs. The service included Tallis’s Te lucis ante terminum sung alternim with plainchant and John Sheppard’s In manus tuas which brought back memories of the eight:fifteen vocal ensemble performing the work at my birthday concert last year at the Barbican (co-incidentally 2 of the 8:15 singers were participating in the festival). The service finished with a lovely performance of Pierre Villette’s Hymne a la Vierge, closing with some fabulous bluesy chords.

At Sung Eucharist on Monday the mass setting was Vittoria’s Missa O Quam Gloriosum, with the boys of the nave choir producing a lovely line in the music. Juan Esquivel’s Ego sum panis vivus, beautifully sung by the Consort, was not known to me and I hope to encounter it again. The Hymn Thee we adore was sung to a new tune by John Barnard. The service concluded with a masterly performance of Bach’s Passacaglia in C minor; though it was perhaps slightly perverse to conclude a very long service with a 15 minute voluntary. The service was very, very popular partly because the preacher was Lord Carey.

Monday evening’s service was Evensong sung just by the Nave choir. Sydney Watson’s Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis were interesting and sounded very practical; Watson (1903 – 1991) is a name that is new to me. Finzi’s Welcome sweet and sacred feast was fabulous and it is now very high on my list of works that I’d like to sing.

The organ prelude at Monday’s Compline was the Sanctus and Benedictus from an organ mass published in 1531 by Pierre Attaignant; the same source that we mined for our organ Magnificat at the FifteenB concert at this years Chelsea Festival.

Review of Herodiade

The plot of Massenet’s Herodiade makes the Strauss/Wilde Salome seem a model of common sense and compression. It was Massenet’s 2nd full length opera, coming after Le Roi de Lahore. The subject matter, combining as it does overheated eroticism, sex and biblical characters, meant that the Paris Opera rejected it. It was premiered at the Monnaie in Brussels in 1881. Massenet revised it as there were complaints about the incoherence of the plot. The revised version was performed in Paris at the Theatre des Italiens in 1884. The Paris Opera did not perform it until 1921.

The plot concerns the familiar pseudo-Biblical characters, but not as we know them. To make the piece work it must be performed with the utmost commitment. The slightest hint of send-up would be fatal. Dorset Opera, performing at the Coade Hall at Bryanston School on Saturday August 20th, gave the piece wholeheartedly without the slightest trace of a knowing smile. Much to their credit.

Salome (Christine Arand, soprano) is virginal and naïve (emphasised by her 1950’s sub-Dior costume, complete with white gloves and hat). She has been abandoned as a child and was taken under the wing of Jean (Ian Storey, tenor) and his followers. For some reason that is unclear, Salome has come to Jerusalem looking for her mother. She spends the whole opera in love with Jean, in a simple pure way. They have a love scene, when Jean admits he loves her, just before Jean’s death.

Both Jean and Salome seem to be able to wander in and out of the royal palace at will. Jean’s principal function seems to be to make pronouncements which either annoy Herodiade or inflame the populace.

Herodiade (Rosalind Plowright, mezzo-soprano, in superb disdainful mode) abandoned child Salome and first husband so she could marry Herod (Franco Pomponi, baritone). Apart from one brief moment when she considers what she has lost by denying herself as a mother, Herodiade is a full on bitch.

Herod is weak. He’s infatuated with Salome despite the fact he’s only glimpsed her. When not salivating about her, he’s agitating against the Roman occupiers. This he does very incompetently and has to be rescued by Herodiade, who seems a better political operator and the dominant figure in the partnership.

The extra characters are Vitellius (Jeffrey Carl), the Roman commander, and Phanuel (Bernard Deletre, bass) a sage and philosopher whose role seems to be to fill in gaps and further the plot. He is the only person in whom Herodiade has confided the truth of Salome’s birth.

The production, by William Relton, designed by Cordelia Chisholm used a basic neoclassical set which could be dressed in various ways helped by Paul Need’s atmospheric lighting. Into this set, the production was firmly set in the 1950’s. The results were remarkably convincing, allowing for the faults of Massenet’s dramaturgy.

.
Herodiade is not the largest of roles in the opera, but Plowright dominated whenever she was on stage. She is a singer with the gift of being able to project a character even when not singing. The role sounds like one of those high mezzo/low soprano French roles, as such it was perhaps a tad her for her. But she sang superbly and was wonderfully dramatic, oozing disdain at every pore.

As Herod, Franco Pomponi gave a fine, musical performance with a lovely account of Visions Fugitive, the opera’s best known number. He could probably have made more of the more overheated sections; at one point he even dreams of Salome in a drug induced stupor.

Arand’s Salome was successfully virginal and suitably passionate in her love scenes with Jean. All in all it was an attractive account of the role, but without ever sending a tingle down your spine.

Jean was Ian Storey, an English tenor of whom I am woefully lacking in knowledge. He proved to have a fine, heroic tone. Like Salome, Jean is a character who barely develops, spending most of the opera thundering his message. Storey had his foot in plaster but managed to make his use of a crutch seem a part of his character. Neither he nor Salome quite let go enough in their love scene, but perhaps Massenet’s music is not quite dramatic enough either.

Bernard Deletre made much of a character who was essentially superfluous. The production fudged his role as sage and astrologer and simply had him wandering around in white linen suite with a stick.Jeffrey Carl was excellent as Vitellius and Jan Garritsen made his mark as the high priest. It was this latter who led the remarkable, unaccompanied Jewish prayer.

Massenet’s music for the opera was remarkably varied, encompassing not only this prayer but a drinking song for the Roman soldiery.

William Relton’s production was remarkably effective in the way it used the 1950’s setting to effect. Relton proved adept at manipulating the chorus in the big scenes, though some of the staging of the principals seemed a little stiff.

The chorus were remarkably convincing and enthusiastic. Only occasionally did weakness reveal that they were a purely amateur group who had first come together 2 weeks previously. It is one of Dorset Opera’s wonders, the way they mix amateur and professional to such creditable effect.

The orchestra, a professional group, coped very well with the unfamiliar music but did not quite do justice to the loveliness of Massenet’s orchestration. The strings, particularly, lacked the requisite sheen.

This year Dorset Opera lost their Arts Council grant. So, despite giving fine performances in which amateur singers and back stage crew are given the chance to perform in professional standard opera, they must now go it alone.

Next year its Turandot

Recent CD Reviews

Whilst I was away (of that more later), the wonderful web carried on working and a couple of my CD reviews appeared on MusicWeb International.

My review of Handel's Rinaldo on Naxos is here.

A performance that fails to live up to its promise; enthusiasts might want to have it, for completeness but if you are unfamiliar with Handel’s opera
seria, save up and get a better recording ...

My review of Naxos's portrait of Peter Maxwell Davies is here.

An excellent introduction to Maxwell Davies's music...

Plans

Tomorrow night we are in Blandford Forum (at Bryanston School) for Dorset Opera's 2nd (and final) performance of Massenet's Herodiade, with Rosalind Plowright. Then we are staying in Steeple Ashton for the week and attending the Edington Festival. Perhaps this year, being as we are staying in the next village, we might acutally get to Matins, sung to plainchant each morning by the Schola Cantorum, directed by Andrew Carwood. The complete Festival programme is here.

As usual, I won't be travelling with a PC or laptop, so postings to this site will probably only resume on our return.

Wanted - One Poet

As I am currently chugging to the end of the first draft of my current project (the choral setting of Isaiah chapte 6), I've made one of my periodic resolutions to write more songs. This, of course, requires poetry to set - always a bit of a problem. So this lunch-time I spend a happy half-hour in Waterstones, leafing through the poetry books. I found some Paul Celan, in translation, which was very tempting but Celan has been set by a number of well-known contemporary composers, so I don't think I will try and compete. But I did find a book of Japanese Ko-Uta, short and rather haunting - just the thing for my songs. AND, Rabrindranath Tagore's Gitanjali in a new poetic translation, rather than his own poetic prose. These look very tempting.

The problem with contemporary poetry is that before songs can be used or printed, you need to address the copyright issues. But I find that it is a certain type of contemporary voice to which I am attracted, I have great difficulties find much pre-1900 poetry which I feel I want to set. I'm not sure why. So I've decided to set the poems I fancy and worry about copyright later, if I can't get permission then they can sit in the draw with all the other unperformed songs!

I'm currently working on a setting of Isaiah Chapter 6, for unaccompanied chorus (mainly SATTBB). Even edited down slightly, there is quite a lot of text; but in in the King James Bible version, the words are completely wonderful. I heard the opening verses being read at church one morning, in a modern version, and remained struck how well they'd lend themselves to music.

I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said:

Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;

The whole earth is full of His glory!

And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. So I said:

Woe is me, for I am undone!

Because I am a man of unclean lips,

And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;

For my eyes have seen the King,

The LORD of hosts.

I've been successfully motoring through this but this week came to a grinding halt. This can often happen in long pieces, somehow my unconscious (or whatever comes up with the music in the first place) needs to catch up with itself. I messed about with it for a bit but could not get an further forward.

When this happens I can either wait, move to another section of the work or write any gibberish and keep going, knowing that I must come back to the relevant section. This latter is what I did here, this morning I wrote the 3 troublesome bars knowing that I must re-work them, but it got me going and I have now reached the last section, hurrah!

My new mass is finished and preview copies sent out to a few people. I decided to make the best of it not having a name and keep it as Missa Sine Nomine. I hope to have the opening of the Kyrie up on my web-site soon. Now that I can produce PDF's of piece, this makes life far easier, I've even been able to email PDF's of the Kyrie to people. The wonders of modern technology.

Classical Music, Contemporary Classical Music

Recent CD Review

My review of Meyerbeer's Semiramide is here here on MusicWeb International.

A creditable, dramatic live performance; if you are interested in early Meyerbeer or influences on Rossini, then buy it. ...

Technorati Tags: Classical Music, CD Review, Opera

Snetzler in Cobham

On Sunday afternoon we took a trip out to Kent to see Cobham Hall. The home of the Earls of Darnley up to 1957 and now a well known girls school. Out of term time they arrange tours of the historic parts of the house on Sundays. One of the major attractions is the late 17th century gilt hall in a wing attributed to Inigo Jones or John Webb. The hall was re-configured as a music room in the 18th century and acquired a Snetzler organ. This organ remains, sitting high up on a balcony and was restored in 2002.

Snetzler (born Johannes Schnetzler) was Swiss. He seems to have come to England in the 1730's; his first documented English organ dates from 1741 though there may be one from 1731. Initially he built organs for the immigrant community. But then built 27 stop organ with a Roccoco case for St. Margaret's Church, King's Lynn. This made his reputation. From then on he made chamber/house organs and church organs, becoming an English citizen in 1760 and retiring back to Switzerland in 1781.

Few of his church organs survive in anything like their original state. Whilst his chamber organs are rather better preserved, only 2 survive in their original location. That at Lodge Canongate, Edinburgh, which dates from 1756 and has been altered and that at Cobham Hall which is rather larger (its a house organ rather than a chamber organ) and is uniquely well preserved mechanically. A very similar organ is now owned by the National Museums of Wales having been commission by Sir Watkin Willams Wynn and having a case designed by Robert Adam. This organ, dating from 1774, was rebuilt in 1864 but has been put back to its original state.

The Cobham Hall organ is played occasionally. The Friends of Cobham Hall arrange Events which include organ recitals. Though I think it deserves to be better known. Can't someone organise a CD of a recital there please!

Handelcina

I was catching up with my reading at the weekend and so was reading the latest newsletter from the London Handel Society. This included a potted biography of one of Handel's female friends. She attended on of the early rehearsals for Alcina and wrote the following to a friend:-

"Yesterday morning I went to hear the first rehearsal of the new opera Alcina and, whilst Mr Handel was playing his part, I could not help thinking him a necromancer in the midst of his own enchantments."

It set me thinking about productions of the opera. At ENO their production, by David McVicar, uses references to the theatre and to music; Alcina's enchantment is the magic of the theatre. When her magic fails, we see her sitting despondently at a harpsichord and the glorious setting of Act 1 is revealed as being nothing more than a stage set.

But I wonder whether you could go further, setting the opera in the London of Handel's day and dressing Alcina as a man in a full bottom wig, a Handel clone. Thus Alcina's enchantment of young men would have interesting resonances with the suggestions about Handel's own sexuality. I'm not quite sure how this scenario would quite play out, I'm no producer. Certainly the dressing of Alcina as a man would raise whole issues as to whether the young men Alcina enchants see him/her as a man or as a woman. But it certainly sounds an interesting area to speculate on.

Technorati tags: Classical Music, Opera

Weekend Fun

Saturday morning was the annual mass in the Tridentine mass at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Cadogan Street, Chelsea. Father Peter Gee and 2 others celebrated a Solemn Mass in the Tridentine Rite. The choir came back from their holidays (no choral services on Sundays in August) and we had a good turn out, 12 people singing. Besides the extensive Gregorian chant needed, we sang Victoria's Missa Simile est Regnum Coelorum. The mass is basically in 4 parts but Agnus Dei 3 is a canon for 2 SATB choirs, which sounded lovely. For motets we did Palestrina's Ave Maria and Morales's Simile est Regnum Coelorum (not the motet on which the mass is based, but a lovely motet nonetheless.

It was a tiring morning as we rehearsed from 10am to 11.30pm or so and mass was from 12.00am to 1.15pm. Still there was a good congregational turnout including a number of people coming to St. Mary's especially for the mass.

Then in the evening, I had a group of singing friends round to try out one or two new pieces. I've just finished an unnamed 4-part mass and wanted to check it out before I print copies to send to people. Having canvassed the singers about a possible name, I think it will be Missa Sine Nomine, which just about says it all. I was very pleased with the sound of the mass, these things come over far better when sung than on the computer. I think the singers enjoyed it as well, which is a bonus.

We also tried through the new piece (3 movements) which I've written for London Concord Singers anniversary concert in November. Its for unaccompanied 8-part choir so we could only really try the piece out with piano, but it was useful to check what people thought of the pieces (tricky, but fun I'd like to think) and iron out any errors.

Recent CD Review

My review of the Avison Ensemble's disc of concerti grossi by Charles Avison is here, on MusicWeb International.

Stylish performances of some of Avison's lesser-known works ...

Evidently Craig Raine said that librettists are to opera what toilets are to theatres, at least according to Simon Armitage in his article in the Guardian about writing a libretto for Stuart MacRae (for the opera which became The Assassin Tree, and which opened to plaudits recently.

Armitage writes interestingly about his view of the librettists task and how the librettist can become disengaged from the project once the libretto is written, even though the text itself is a collaboration. I suppose this is inevitable. Most composers write opera by setting a text and once given the text, they set it alone. Though of course there are lots of tweaks along the way.

Amanda Holden wrote an article about her experiences writing the libretto for Turnage's Silver Tassie which included the composer turning up on her doorstep at odd hours with ideas for changes and new sections/arias.

It helps, I suppose, if the librettist has a clear idea of his/her position in the food chain. I once had tea with Alan Bush and his wife, Nancy, and conversation wandered from Hanns Eisler, the ostensible reason for the visit, to Bush's operas. These mainly had libretto's by his wife but Joe Hill, the man who never died had a libretto by American playwright Barry Stavis. Evidently, on first hearing the work Stavis moaned to Nancy Bush that you could not hear his words.

---

A post-script to the above is that whilst I was at Manchester University in the 1970's the Royal Northern College of Music put Bush's Watt Tyler on at Sadlers Wells Theatre (I presume there must have been performances in Manchester but if so, they were before I arrived). I missed it and have bemoaned the lack ever since. Interestingly the lead tenor role was played by Robin Leggate`

Tallinn diary

Finally, here's a summary of what London Concord Singers got up to on their recent trip to Tallinn, Estonia.

The advanced party from the choir arrived in Tallinn on Thursday 27th July to find the old town delightful but full of tourists (at least we’d have a potential audience). The scene of our Saturday evening concert, the Lutheran Cathedral on the top of Toompea hill, proved to be even more fascinating and delightful than appeared in the website. The walls are covered in the coats of arms of the German merchants for whom it was built, but the high boxed pews made us wonder whether we’d see anything of our audience apart from the tops of our heads.

More of the choir arrived on Friday, coming by various means. Whereas the Thursday crowd all came on the same Estonian Air plane, the Friday arrivals came by various means including bus from Riga, plane from Helsinki and ferry from Helsinki. One had even managed a quick trip to the Savolinna opera festival to see the Bologna opera company doing Donizetti’s ‘La Fille du Regiment’. Friday was free time and then in the evening we all went out for a communal meal. Wandering around town we were please to note that a number of our flyers were up in the churches and the tourist office.

Come Saturday afternoon we had to stop feeling like tourists and start being choristers again. Its always tricky getting back into rehearsal mode when away on these trips. Our rehearsal in the Lutheran Cathedral was enlivened by the presence of large numbers of tourists, but the building is big enough to accommodate both us and the sight-seers, we might even have got some extra audience.

As it turned out, we need not have worried, we got an excellent audience both in terms of attentiveness and size. The programme was a typical London Concord Singers one, motets by Parsons, Bassano, Merulo, Byrd plus Britten, Richard Rodney Bennett and Urmas Sisask. It lasted about an hour and was well received. Afterwards the organist of the church presented the choir with a commemoration plate.

Afterwards we retired to a neighbouring hostelry to celebrate; but not for tool long, because we had to be up and about next morning.

Sunday morning we sang at the huge Charles XI church. Built in the late 19th century it was the centre of the Estonian National Lutheran church. Impressive and classically plain inside with just a fresco over the alter, we sat in the balcony in front of the organ. Communication was tricky, as we had to speak German to the organist and the service sheets were only in Estonian. Still, we managed to fit 5 motets into the service and the church was most helpful arranging for us to fit in as much music as possible. We managed to join in the service with the help of hymn books, service sheets (both in Estonian) and a rudimentary knowledge of Estonian gained in order to sing Tormis’s ‘St. John’s Day Songs’ in our London concert.

Most of the choir were familiar with Anglican and Roman Catholic services, quite a number of us sing at them. But it was fascinating to participate in a Lutheran service; much of it similar in structure but much of it not. Not speaking the language, we missed out completely on the Sermon.

Service once over, the formal part of the weekend was over. We concluded with a group meal in the evening at a Russian restaurant and then went our various ways.

Recent CD Review

My review of Naxos's 2nd volume of Vivaldi Sacred Music is included here, along with a review of the same disc by a different reviewer.

Creditable performances but there are finer performances and I would
advise you to save up for one of these...

Country Life in the Barn

I've been catching up reading the copies of Country Life which arrived whilst we were away. In her column for 27th July, Carla Carlisle talks about her growing disenchantment with travelling far to listen to music (she lifes on a farming estate near Bury St. Edmunds and runs a restaurant there). Her column struck a chord with me, especially in the light of my posting on this site yesterday.

Interestingly, one of her solutions was the Summer Music festival in Blackthorpe Barn, which is close to her home. This is a festival which has been enjoyed by other friends who have a weekend place in Norfolk. They came back singing the praises of the concert which they attended at the Barn. The festivals are run, on a shoe string, by the Barn's owner, George Agnew. Evidently he eschews the red tape required to get a grant from the Arts Council, something that I can sympathise with (FifteenB haven't managed to get a grant since 1998).

So next year in July, perhaps we'll have to make room for a trip to Norfolk.

Money up front

There's a fascinating piece here about Fanfare Magazine allegedly telling someone that they'd review his CD if he bought advertising and the more he bought the better his coverage would be. The story has evidently got quite a bit of coverage in the blogosphere (inevitably), but it does make you think. Luckily I review for web-sites that are free (http://www.musicweb-international.com, and http://www.mvdaily.com)

Here's something we missed

The Julian Anderson Prom premiere WAS something I'd like to have heard, but unfortunately we were travelling back from Estonia at the time. Shame. It's nice to read in The Times article about Anderson joining the London Philharmonic Chorus before writing the choral piece. There are too many piece that I've done where the composer has patently never listened to how a chorus works. Obviously we can't all learn every instrument that we want to write for, but there should be the world of a difference between pushing boundaries and simply writing stuff that is unnecessarily difficult.

Gaps

I am rather aware that there are significant gaps in my summer concert going (what summer concert going you might ask?). Some how the Proms that I really want to hear are on days when we're unavailable or out of town on holiday, though we usually manage one or two. This year, I'm afraid that there was not very much on offer which really tempted me. The other problem with Proms is that unless you promenade (my knees won't cope with all the standing nowadays) or sit in the good seats, you can often come away feeling that you would have heard the concert better on the radio. But, of course, if you listen on the radio then other things get in the way. You start doing the dishes , the phone goes or your attention wanders (mind does all the time). Listening at home, you simply lack the enforced concentration that a concert environment brings, and I need this sort of confinement to force me to concentrate on the music at hand. So it comes back to money; picking the concerts that you feel are really worth paying top price for.

Perhaps its an age thing; now I'm in my 50's I feel less inclined to put up with discomfort and mid-week after a day at work I don't often feel so inclined to go to a concert. But its also a feature of the Albert Hall itself.

The thing that makes the concerts so accessible, the Hall's very size, means that it is one size fits none, really. Or is that me being a pessimist? Still, the Hall's owners have done a wonderful job of sprucing it up in the last few years. It makes the concert going experience a please (apart from the scarcity of mens loos).

Of course, the Proms is not the only thing going on at the moment. There are also visits from 2 great Russian opera companies. Now here I music exhibit one of my many achilles heels, I have a rather take-it-or-leave-it attitude to much Russian opera. I have a soft spot for the odd Rimsky-Korsakov extravaganza and Boris Goudonov is an opera that I have loved in the past. But the repertoire as a whole does not make me shout, Oh, Goody!. And, of course, the prices are greater than for our own opera companies.

So we come to money again, do I want to pay the prices necessary to see these pieces or not? This year the answer has been not, I'm afraid.

But there is one final issue. I rather like having a holiday from the regular round. The month of August is one where I have no regular evening choir rehearsals, no Sunday morning commitments at church choir and if there is little concert or opera going then it gives us a bit of space. Not a lot, we're away twice this summer and we are going to the Edington Festival for a week. But that is definitely outside the regular round of things.

So I'll happily browse the reviews of Proms and various visiting companies, but I rarely feel a twinge of regret. There'll always be another time!

Plans

Having managed to negotiate the all German language site of Dresden's Semper Oper we now have tickets to see their new (ish) production of Weber's Euryanthe in March next year. It premiered relatively recently and is not un-controversial (the director has Euryanthe and Adolar singing their roles from the pit in the final scene and gives the triumph to Eglantine and Lysiart). But the opera is one that I've always had a fascination with and have only seen it twice before. Once in concert with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, with Elizabeth Connell as a thrilling Eglantine. And at Glyndebourne with a fascinatingly spooky production by Richard Jones. I'm still waiting to acquire the old recording of the opera with Jessie Norman and Rita Hunter in the 2 main female roles. Last time I looked it was only available as an expensive import. But the cast sounds great and I've always had great fun imagining the pair of them on stage together!!!

Nearer in time, on Saturday 19th August we're off to see Dorset Opera's new production of Massenet's Herodiade with Rosalind Plowright. Bliss.

And I've bought the first tranche of tickets for English Touring Opera's Baroque Tour. We're seeing Dido and Aeneas and Carissimi's Jephte (not an opera and rather short to boot, but an interesting pairing nonetheless> at The Hackney Empire. Not an ideal venue for these operas but we have not been to the theatre since it was refurbished (shame!). The theatre's web site must win awards for being one of the most annoying and awkward to use.We hope to catch up with more of the ETO Baroque Tour and should be aiming to see Monteverdi's Orfeo in Cambridge.

PS. If you are wondering how we got on singing in Tallinn, a full report follows shortly.

MyCulturallife.co.uk

A new web-site has come on line, http://www.myculturallife.co.uk/, dedicated to London based arts. I've a couple of articles on the site and will be contributing more, do support it.

Recent CD Reviews

I've been away, but the web never stops, so a couple of my CD reviews appeared in my absence.

My review of Berlioz La Damnation de Faust from Naxos is here on MusicWeb International.

A creditable and convincing performance by predominantly French forces;
as such it is worth finding room for on the library shelves...

My review of the Tallis Scholars re-issue of early performances of Palestrina masses, is here, also on MusicWeb International.

Other, more intensely passionate styles might appeal, but if you want a
performance of Missa Benedicta es then you can’t go wrong with the
stylish perfection of The Tallis Scholars. ...