Theatre Royal Glasgow appeal

When I first visited the Theatre Royal Glasgow in 1976, the theatre was still a newly refurbished novelty. The auditorium was, and remains, a complete delight. But there was no disguising the fact that the foyer areas left something to be desired, despite being attractively designed.. Part of this stems from the fact that when the theatre was acquired originally by Scottish Opera, not all of the footprint of the original foyer space could be acquired. To a certain extent this has been remedied over the years, but the public spaces have remained rather resolutely cramped. Now this is seeking to be remedied.

Matthew Barley round Britten

Matthew Barley in workshop
(c) Marcus Tate

Matthew Barley's Around Britten 2013 tour kicks off on 15 January in Southampton. The tour sees cellist Barley performing in at least 100 venues in celebration of Britten's 100th anniversary. The tour will involve concerts plus workshops and special events, with Barley taking Britten's music to as wide an audience as possible using a variety of venues including cathedrals, concert halls and castles, a light house, a barn, a cave and a number of National Trust properties. On the day Britten died (4 December), Barley will perform at the Red House, and this will be webcast.

In Harmony news

In Harmony Lambeth's Winter concert takes place on Wednesday 12 December at 5pm at the Clore Ballroom on London's South Bank. The concert will feature the Stockwell Children's Orchestra with over 100 children from the Lansdowne Green estate in South London. And one of the new In Harmony projects, In Harmony Leeds, will be giving its inaugural concert on Friday 7 December at 11.15am . In Harmony Liverpool has its Christmas Concert on Friday 14 December at 5pm at St. Francis Xavier Church.

Buxton Festival dates

Janis Kelly in Intermezzo
Buxton Festival 2012

The dates for next year's Buxton Festival (the 34th) have come out. The double bill of Gounod's La Colombe and Saint-Saens' La Princesse Jaune opens the festival on 5 July 2013, with further performances on 8, 11, 14 (Matinee), 20 July. The other festival production is Mozart's La Finta Giardiniera which opens on 6 July, with further performances on 9, 12, 18 and 21 (Matinee). The two matinee performances mean that those wishing to travel up to Buxton for the day can see both festival productions.

Bach Christmas Oratorio

A chance to hear the complete Bach Christmas Oratorio on Saturday 24 November with not a carol in sight. The English Baroque Choir and Brandenburg Soloists perform the work at St. John's Smith Square with soloists Nathalie Chalkley, Anna Harvey, Bradley Smith, Nicholas Scott and Johnny Herford. Further information from the English Baroque Choir website.

Sadler's Wells bounces into Spring and Summer

Sadler's Wells Spring/Summer 2013 brochure popped through my letter box the other day (I'm an old fashioned boy and still prefer print to e-newsletters). It is cram full of dance events from children's ballet and the National Youth Dance Company to Pina Bausch and Hip Hop with Sylvie Guillem, Akram Khan and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui on the way.

Midsummer Opera - Fidelio

On Friday 23 November and Saturday 24 November Midsummer Opera will be giving concert performances of Beethoven's Fidelio at St. John's Church, Waterloo. A church which opened in 1824 to celebrate the victory of Napoleon, so a very apt venue for Beethoven's only opera.

Orchestra Musica Romantica debut

One of the first violins of the London Symphony Orchestra, Jörg Hammann, has formed a new orchestra, the Orchestra Musica Romantica. The orchestra makes its debut at London's Cadogan Hall on Saturday 1 December in a concert in support of ACTION medical research. With Hammann conducting, the orchestra will play The Moldau from Smetana's Ma Vlast and Grieg's Peer Gynt Suites. They will be joined by Hammann's colleague, Tomo Keller, assistant leader of the London Symphony Orchestra. Keller will play Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Major.

Ignatz Waghalter and his re-discovery

Waghalter at 18

When the Nazi's published their Index of forbidden Jewish musicians in 1943 there were six Waghalters listed, the composer Ignatz, his father Abraham, his brothers Henryk (a renowned cellist) and Wladyslaw (the violinist for whom Ignatz wrote his violin concerto), his daughter Beatrice and his niece Yolanda. By this time Waghalter had fled Germany to New York. The composer had already spent a short period in New York as conductor of the State Symphony Orchestra but ever since his training, his career had been based in Berlin. Whilst in America he tried to launch an orchestra of African Americans, but this failed after one concert because people just weren't ready for it. He died suddenly in 1949 at the age of 68, leaving a trunk of papers which was stored in the attic of his daughter's house. His music remained alive in the memory of his family and in the piano playing of his daughter Beatrice, but that is all.

Boost for Sistema Scotland

Sistema Scotland's new project, Big Noise Govanhill, has been awarded £1.325m by the Scottish government. The funds will enable Sistema Scotland to run the new project for four years, establishing a Big Noise orchestra in Govanhill one of the most deprived areas in Glasgow. The award funds come after a government commissioned report into Sistema Scotland's project in Raploch, Stirling expressed its approval. The Raploch project was started five years ago, and the new project will create a Big Noise orchestra in Govanhill aiming to 'to use music making to foster confidence, teamwork, pride and aspiration in the children taking part – and across the wider community. It is based on the methods of Venezuela’s El Sistema movement.' Further information from the Sistema Scotland website.

The Dream, The Hope - a concert

South African baritone Njabuo Madlala (recently seen as Aeneas to Susan Bickley's Dido at the Wimbledon Music Festival) is singing in a concert on Friday 23 November at St James's Church, Piccadilly. The concert is in aid of the Amazwi Omzansi Africa National Opera Singing Competition 2013.

Performers also include guitarist Ahmed Dickinson Cardonas, pianists William Vann, Ben Schoeman and Neal Thornton and band. The programme includes a South African Songbook, American Spirituals, Schubert, Schumann and Duparc. And if we are lucky, Madlala will throw in one of his entrancing performances of songs from his native country.

Edington Organ Project

Edington Priory

It is that time of year, organisations are gearing up for the BIG GIVE, donations made on-line between 10am on Thursday December 6 and 5pm on Saturday December 8 will be doubled by sponsorship raised by the Big Give. Edington Organ Project is aiming to raise £3000 for their new organ at Edington Priory in Wiltshire.

Currently they have £398, 771 of the £437, 041 needed. The new organ at Edington Priory will not only serve the parish but will transform the abilities of the Edington Music Festival to incorporate the organ into the music making.

CD Review - Coro Allegro - In Paradisum

Coro Allegro is a Boston-based chorus for members and friends of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community, singing a repertoire of classical music. The choir has developed a strong relationship with the composer Patricia Van Ness. She spent a year with them as composer in residence and the two pieces on this disc (on the Navona Records label) were both commissioned from her by Coro Allegro. The choir premiered The Voice of the Tenth Muse in 1998, repeating it in 2001, with the Requiem following in 2004. The recordings on this disc come from these live performances in 2001 and 2004.

Spend Easter Monday with Bach

On Easter Monday (1 April 2013), John Eliot Gardiner with lead a 12 hour marathon of performances of Bach's music at the Royal Albert Hall. The event comes a few weeks before Gardiner's 70th birthday, and will be the culmination of a series of Bach related activities including documentaries, a book, CD's and of course the marathon.

Gossip and Rebellion - the premiere of Carmen

Galli-Marie as Carmen
by Felix Nadar

In 1873, shortly before the end of the first run of Bizet's opera Djamileh at the Opéra Comique, the theatre's directors, Camille du Locle and Adolphe de Leuven asked him for a new opera. They wanted a light-hearted, three-act opera to a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, suppliers of librettos to Offenbach. No subject was specified so Bizet suggested Carmen, based on Prosper Mérimée's novel. This might seem a rather strange subject matter for a popular, family opera but the 19th century operatic world is littered with the corpses of operas made from sanitised librettos. Bizet seems to have had a significant hand in shaping parts of the libretto, Halevy’s original verses for the habanera are far milder than Merimee. And his reaction to their softenings was, in their own words, ferocious.

Mark Padmore at the Wimbledon Music Festival

photo by Marco Borggreve

This year's International Wimbledon Music Festival includes a number of celebrity recitals and on Thursday 15 November tenor Mark Padmore and pianist Simon Lepper gave a recital of Beethoven and Schubert songs at St John's Church, Spencer Hill, Wimbledon. It was a joy to be able to hear Padmore in the relatively intimate confines of the church, and its acoustic proved to be surprisingly welcoming for lieder. The main work in the first half was Beethoven's song cycle An die ferne Geliebte with Schubert's Schwanengesang in the second half. Padmore's own short spoken introductions indicated how the cycles were linked through the Romantic concept of Sehnsucht.

New year at St Johns Smith Square

The January to March concert season at St Johns Smith Square has an attractive mix of events, with the opportunity to hear some unusual repertoire and a variety of fine ensembles both professional, student and voluntary and even sung services. There is Messiaen, Khachaturian, a celebration of Stephen Montague's birthday and even a Stanford premiere. If you so desire, you even can start off the New Year with a New Year's Day Concert from the Chartwell Ensemble with soprano Elin Manahan Thomas.

Waghalter at the Cadogan Hall

Gregor Hartmann, Giacomo Puccini and
Ignatz Waghalter in Berlin, 1913

To say that composer Ignatz Waghalter was little known would be an understatement. There wasn't even an entry on him in Grove until the composer's grandson had contacted Stanley Sadie and demonstrated his grandfather's significance in Germany in the year's before 1933. Thanks to Polish violinist Irmina Trynkos and conductor Alexander Walker, Waghalter's two concertante works for violin and orchestra have been recorded and released on Naxos. On Wednesday 14 November, Irmina Trynkos played both Waghalter's Violin Concerto and his Rhapsody for Violin and Orchestra, with Alexander Walker conducting the English Chamber Orchestra at London's Cadogan Hall.

Hind brings the accordion into the spotlight

Rolf Hind

Rolf Hind's new work for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, The Tiniest House of Time is a concerto for accordion and orchestra. The work will be premiered on Saturday 24 November at the Barbican Centre, with Jakob Hursa conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra with James Crabb playing the accordion. A suite from Janacek's opera The Cunning Little Vixen and Rimsky Korsakov's Scheherezade complete the concert.

New artistic director for Garsington Opera

Garsington Opera have a appointed a new artistic director to replace Anthony Whitworth-Jones on his retirement. In an interesting move Garsington have appointed Douglas Boyd, currently chief conductor of the the Musikkollegium Winterthur in Switzerland; Boyd is also principal guest conductor of the City of London Sinfonia as well as having relationships with a number of American orchestras.  He was formerly head of the Manchester Camerata and as an oboist, was a founding member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He is by no means an opera specialist though, he has worked at Garsington (where he conducted Don Giovanni this year and returns for Fidelio in 2014) , Glyndebourne on Tour  and Zurich Opera (conducting Salieri) with Opera North to come (conducting La Clemenza di Tito). Perhaps to strengthen the operatic experience in the Garsington admin, Brian Dickie (former head of Chicago Lyric Opera) and Jonathan Freeman-Attwood (principal of the Royal Academy of Music) are joining Garsington's artistic committee. It will be interesting to see how his appointment affects the company's artistic direction and choice of repertoire.

Debussy's Vasnier Songbook

Sopranos Gillian Keith and Anna Devin, with Nigel Foster on piano, are performing Debussy's complete Vasnier Songbook at the London Song Festival tonight (14 November) at St Paul's Church, Covent Garden. The recital includes unpublished material from the Paris and Washington (so someone has clearly been busy!). Debussy wrote the songs for Marie-Blanche Vasnier, a married woman with whom he had an affair from 1880 to 1887. Looks like this might be the first time all the songs have been performed together. Sounds like a good reason for being there! Further information from the London Song Festival website.

L'Elisir d'Amore at Covent Garden (updated with full review)

Aleksandra Kursak as Adina in L'Elisir d'amore.
©ROH Catherine Ashmore 2007

I have to confess that, having heard Roberto Alagna singing at the recent Covent Garden Gala, I hadn't been much looking forward to hearing him as Nemorino in the latest revival of Laurent Pelly's production of L'Elisir d'Amore at Covent Garden. And when I arrived last night (13 November) my mood was not lightened by the fact that my press ticket was a seat in the Amphitheatre. As I was sitting next to a writer from another website, I could not help but get the impression that the web-hacks had been relegated to the cheap seats whilst those writing for papers were down stairs.

Coming up at the Barbican - Oz live, Berio/Verdi and Belshazzar

December at the Barbican Centre sees a clutch of rather interesting concerts. There is the opportunity to see the Judy Garland film The Wizard of Oz with a live orchestral accompaniment, there is also Berio's take on Verdi with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Handel's stunning dramatic oratorios Belshazzar with an outstanding cast.

LSO Chorus Director

Simon Halsey has been announced as the London Symphony Orchestra's new Choral Director. This role takes in the directorship of the London Symphony Chorus as well as having a role with the LSO as well, developing its choral activities including those involving the LSO Community Choir and the LSO's Singing Days. Halsey will be conducting the London Symphony Chorus at an inaugural concert at LSO St Lukes on Thursday 22 November in which they will be performing Jonathan Dove's The Passing of the Year (commissioned by the LSC in 2000), and Brahms's German Requiem, in the version with piano accompaniment (not an entirely satisfactory version despite having Brahms's apparent imprimatur, but it does enable smaller scale performances of the piece). Soloists are Sophie Klussmann and Konrad Jarnot, the pianists are Phillip Moll and Holger Groschopp.

New Lamps for Old (with Hugill deuxieme)

Alistair Dixon and Chapelle du Roi are making their annual Christmas appearance at St Johns Smith Square on Friday 7 December, with their programme New Lamps for Old, in which they are singing old and new settings of the same texts, pairing contemporary composers (including two world premieres)  with Tallis, Sheppard, Victoria, Guerrero and Palestrina. Amongst the contemporary composers featured will be Roxanna Panufnik, Antony Pitts, and your truly. The group will be performing my introit, Puer natus est nobis, which they premiered in 2009.

Rosenblatt Recitals - Dimitra Theodossiou

Dimitra Theodossiou
(c) New Press Photo, Firenze

I have to confess that the name Dimitra Theodossiou was new to me. The Greek soprano won a number of competitions including the Belvedere and Operalia and for the last dozen years or so has established herself as a Verdi soprano with a career mainly in Italy. She sang Odabella in Attila at Covent Garden in 2002. This along with a Verdi Requiem seem to be the extent of her London appearances, so her  recital in the Rosenblatt Recitals series at the Wigmore Hall on Monday 12 November represented a welcome opportunity to hear her. Accompanied by Elda Laro, the vocal coach at the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania, Theodossiou performed a selection of arias by Verdi, Puccini, Donizetti  and Mascagni.

Exit from the Labyrinth

The Royal Opera House has announced that Antonio Pappano has withdrawn from the forthcoming revival of Harrison Birtwistle's opera The Minotaur which Covent Garden is reviving next year with John Tomlinson and Christine Rice returning to their roles. appano developed acute tendonitis during the recenPt Ring cycles and has been advised to withdraw on the advice of his doctors. Let us hope that the perils of conducting four Ring cycles on the trot do not linger too long.

The good news is that Covent Garden has managed to engage the services of young composer/conductor Ryan Wigglesworth to replace Pappano. Wigglesworth conducted the UK premiere of Detlev Glanert's Caligula with English National Opera (and will be returning to the Coliseum for Carmen.) He opened this year's Aldeburgh Festival conducting a double bill of Oliver Knussen's two operas Higgledy Piggledy Pop and Where the Wild Things Are.

Recent CD review

My review of the re-issued boxed set of David Wulstan and the Clerkes of Oxenforde in Gibbons, Sheppard, Tallis and White is Recording of the Month at MusicWebInternational.com.

Astonishing …. Amazing.  

BREMF - Celebrating Coronations

St George's Church, Brighton

The final event of this year's Brighton Early Music Festival saw the BREMF Singers, director John Hancorn, and the International Baroque Players, leader Kati Debretzeni, joining together at St George's Church, Brighton on 11 November in a programme of music for Coronations, with pieces by Handel, Purcell, Charpentier, Zelenka and Boyce.

Support the complete Warlock song edition.

The baritone Mark Stone is hoping to record the complete songs of Peter Warlock on his record label, Stone Records. The label has already song editions for Delius, Butterworth, C.W.Orr  and Havergal Brian in  progress with Stone himself singing. The Warlock edition will be on three discs and will be the first complete edition of Warlock songs on CD (around 120 songs in all, arranged thematically). The first CD will contain 40 songs and Stone is looking for funding via Kickstarter, so there is the opportunity to get involved in a truly worthwhile event. Pledge £20 and you receive a free signed CD in advance, pledge £100 and you also get a credit in the CD booklet, pledge £500 and you also get a copy of each of the other CD's currently in Stone Records catalogue at the time. How could you go wrong!

Further information from the Kickstarter website.

Wimbledon Music Festival - Purcell Pageant

The Meeting of Dido and Aeneas
Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland

This year's International Wimbledon Music Festival has as its title A Music World Fair with the festival concerts and events celebrating music from all over the globe. For the opening concert, on Saturday 10 November at St. John's Church, Wimbledon, Festival Director Anthony Wilkinson had chosen to start firmly in England with an all Purcell programme. A concert performance of Dido and Aeneas concluded the programme with Susan Bickley and Njabulo Madlala in the title roles. The first half consisted of music from two of Purcell's odes, with one unexpectedly delightful extra.

Mozart: Requiem - John Adams: Wound Dresser

Mozart's manuscript

I have always been rather wary of large-scale symphonic performances of Mozart's Requiem. I first learned the work when I performed it in a chamber orchestra at university and have long preferred it on a smaller scale. (Though hearing Giulini conducting it on a huge scale at the Edinburgh Festival was the exception). For me, it comes down to balance. So, the performance from Polphyony and the City of London Sinfonia on Wednesday 14 November at St John's Smith Square is set to be a fine performance in this style.

They are conducted by Stephen Layton and have assembled a strong cast. The soloists are Elizabeth Watts, Clare Wilkinson, Jeremy Ovenden and Roderick Williams, a very fine group. But almost even more tempting is the fact that the Requiem is being paired with a performance of John Adams's profoundly elegiac The Wound Dresser, with Roderick Williams as the baritone soloist. This setting of Walt Whitman's poem was, amazingly, written in 1989.

Further information from the St. Johns Smith Square website.

The Pilgrim's Progress at the London Coliseum

Roland Wood (Pilgrim)
(c) Mike Hoban

I have known and loved Vaughan Williams' opera The Pilgrim's Progress since the late 1970's, when I first learned it from records in Sir Adrian Boult's recording with John Noble in the title role. I had no conception that I would ever hear it live, but have been lucky enough to see it three times all in very fine performances. First off at the Royal Northern College of Music, in Joseph Ward's staging (with Richard Whitehouse in the title role with Igor Kennaway conducting); a production that proved that the work was a viable opera (rather than an oratorio in disguise) and worked brilliantly on stage. Then I have seen two semi-stagings in London, both conducted by Richard Hickox. One, in 1997, at the Barbican and the other, in 2008, at the Sadlers Wells Theatre. The piece works quite well being semi-staged, especially as both performances had very strong casts. In 1997 Joseph Ward directed with Gerald Finley as Pilgrim, in 2008 Roderick Williams was Pilgrim with David Edwards conducting. (Incidentally Joseph Ward sang Lord Lechery in the operas performances in the 1950's). So it was with great interest and anticipation that I looked forward to ENO's new staging, the first professional full staging that the work has received in the UK since the 1950's. We saw the performance on 9 November (its second night).

New role for Liam Scarlett

25-year old dancer and choreographer Liam Scarlett has been appointed the Royal Ballet's first artist in residence. Scarlett will stop dancing with the company and concentrated on choreography. His first work for the Covent Garden main stage, Asphodel Meadows, won an Olivier Award in 2010. He choreographed a pas-de-deux for the recent Our Extraordinary World gala at Covent Garden and his ballet, Viscera, recently received its UK premiere at Covent Garden as part of a triple bill with ballets by Wayne McGregor and Christopher Wheeldon.

Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation invests in young artists training

The Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation has announced that it is giving £380,000 in grants to various organisations to help support their education programmes. The Royal Ballet School's Dance Partnership and Access programmes receive support with their programmes supporting young people with workshops and tuition. This funding is particularly valuable as the Department of Education has frozen their grant.

RPS 200

Ivory concert tickets belonging to
founder directors of the Philharmonic Society

1813 seems to have been quite an auspicious year. Both Wagner and Verdi were born (as were the explorer David Livingstone, the philosopher Kierkegaard and the composer Alkan). Also, the Royal Philharmonic Society was created. From the outset its aims were 'to promote the performance, in the most perfect manner possible, of the best and most approved instrumental music' and to 'encourage an appreciation by the public in the art of music'. Aims which are as relevant today as 200 years ago. From the outset the society was associated with contemporary music, giving the UK premieres of two Beethoven symphonies and three piano concertos as well as commissioning the ninth symphony, and supporting the composer when he was ill and in need of money. Wagner was the society's musical director for its 1855 season, he conducted eight concerts, was scathing about the press and hated the weather. The society's celebrations for its 200th birthday are threaded through with these aims, reflecting the continuing contemporary relevance that the society has.

The Opera Awards - nominations open

The Opera Awards are new; they seek to reward excellence in opera whether it be from performers, producers or the teams that work in opera. The awards are being produced in association with Opera magazine, and sponsored by the Opera Foundation. Nominations are now open, and anyone can nominate a person or a company or a production. So get your thinking caps on and come up with the outstanding events in your operatic year (the awards cover the whole of 2012). Closing date is 31 January 2013 and the awards will be presented at an awards ceremony on 22 April 2013 at the Hilton Hotel in Park Lane. So lets see if we can make the Opera Awards a serious celebration of the best in opera. Nominations are via an on-line form on their website.

Opera Holland Park Awards 2012

What was your favourite production at Opera Holland Park this year? The striking new Eugene Onegin with act 3 in Soviet Russia, the atmospheric Lucia di Lammermuir featuring Elvyra Fatykhova in her UK debut, Cosi with Julia Riley and Elizabeth Llewellyn, the rarity of Mascagni's Zanetto, the lively Gianni Schicchi or the 1950's period Falstaff. The Opera Holland Park Awards enable you to vote for your favourite production and your favourite artists. You can vote on-line at the Opera Holland Park 2012 Awards website. Voting closes Monday 26 November.

Life from Light - interview with Toni Castells

Toni Castells

If you have heard of Toni Castells new piece, Life from Light, it is probably because one section details with sexual intercourse and the composer has used a graphic text describing this, taken from Wikipedia. Castells is comfortable with the piece being seen as controversial, saying that 'controversy is good, as long as it makes people think about these important issues. The system needs numb people but the planets need them fully aware and awakened'. In fact Life from Light, which debuts on 15 November at the Union Chapel in Islington, deals with far wider issues than just sexual intercourse and can be seen as controversial in other ways.

Royal Philharmonic Society bicentenary

RPS Ticket from 1869

To the Argyll Arms pub off Regent Street to launch the celebrations for the Royal Philharmonic Society's 200th Birthday. There has been a pub on the site of the Argyll Arms since 1740, though the present interior is an amazing high Victorian one. In the early 19th century, the members of the Royal Philharmonic Society would repair to the pub after their concerts at the Argyll Rooms concert hall in Regent Street. Back in the present day we were welcomed by John Gilhooly, Chairman of the Royal Philharmonic Society.

Sicut Illium

St George's Cathedral, Southwark

Cantores Chamber Choir under their conductor David Allinson are giving a concert on 17 November at 3pm at St George's Cathedral, Southwark, entitled Sicut Lilium. Focussing on the Virgin Mary and featuring music by Taverner, Parsons, Josquin, Mouton, Guerrero, Victoria and Palestrina, the concert takes place in the Lady Chapel of the Cathedral. (Allinson and his other choir, Renaissance Singers, featured in Saturday's performance of the Florentine Intermedi at the Brighton Early Music Festival). More details on Sicut Lilium from the Cantores Chamber Choir website.

New President for British Youth Opera

British Youth Opera has announced that Dame Felicity Lott will be taking over from Sir Thomas Allen as President. Allen was appointed Chancellor of the University of Durham in 2012 and continues to work as a baritone and director. Lott's appointment comes in time for the celebrations of BYO's 25th anniversary. There is a celebratory concert on 18 November at Cadogan Hall, London, with 35 soloists, all BYO alumni including Rosemary Joshua who sang in the first BYO Season.

The BYO 2013 Summer season takes place at the Peacock Theatre in September. Possible repertoire includes Britten's Turn of the Screw, and Paul Bunyan, Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto and Mozart's La finta giardiniera.

Further information from the British Youth Opera website. Information on the Nov 18 concert from the Cadogan Hall websites.

Paul Hamyln Foundation 2012 Awards for Artists

The Paul Hamlyn Foundation has announced the recipients of its 2012 Awards for Artists.going to visual artists and musicians. The visual artists are Ed Atkins, Pavel Büchler, Andy Holden, Elizabeth Price and Lis Rhodes. The musicians are varied group: Steve Beresford, composer, arranger and free improviser extraordinaire, the English Folk musician Eliza Carthy and young composer Edmund Finnis. The grants are given with ‘no strings attached’, allowing each recipient ‘the freedom to develop their creative ideas and contributing to their personal and professional growth’.

Puppetry in Opera

There is a two day seminar, fascinatingly titled Puppetry in Opera being organised by the Puppet Centre. Taking place on 9 and 10 November at the Barbican and Central School of Speech and Drama. Day one includes a showing of work in progress at the Pit, plus speakers such as David Pountney, Daniel Snowman and Annabel Arden. Then day two has a series of workshops taking a forthcoming Opera Group/Opera North/ROH2 production as a case study with sessions including 'How to make a puppet sing'. Sounds completely fascinating. More details from the Puppet Centre website.

Too much to take in - Wigmore Hall's Spring season

By the time you read this, many of the concert in the Wigmore Hall's January to March 2013 Spring concerts season will be fully booked as public booking opened last week. This is not surprising because the season is, as usual, fully of goodies including some fascinating series such as Graham Johnson accompanying French Song, the Hugo Wolf songbooks, a celebration of Schubert and a residency from Bernada Fink.

Celebrating Gabrieli at Brighton Early Music Festival

Giovanni Gabrieli probably studied in his native Venice with his uncle Andrea Gabrieli. But his period in Munich, working with Lassus, must have had a profound effect on his musical style. When he returned to Venice, while still in his 20's, he started working at St. Mark's Venice and would continue there until his death. Gabrieli was important for the way he developed the poly-choral style into something which we think of as the epitome of Venice. In fact, encountering his music in the concert hall is a relatively rare experience, usually we hear Gabrieli's music on disc. So it was a real pleasure to listen to the BREMF Consort and the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble under the direction of Deborah Roberts perform a programme on Sunday 4 November celebrating the music of Gabrieli (for the 400^th anniversary of his death) as part of the Brighton Early Music Festival.

Florentine Intermedi of 1589 at BREMF

Original set design for the 3rd
Intermedio in 1589

In 16th century Italy, the arts were very much central to a ruler's image and rulers used the arts not just for enjoyment but to make political statements, sometimes grand ones. In 1589 when Ferdinando de'Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, married Christine of Lorriane, grand daughter of Catherine de'Medici, Queen Mother of France, a grand political statement was needed. Two years earlier Ferdinando's elder brother and his wife had died, rumoured to be poisoned by Ferdinando, who had promptly traded his cardinal's hat for the Grand Duchy. So measures needed to be taken to emphasise the grandeur and solidity of Ferdinando's rule; what was needed was a grand theatrical event. In the Uffizi Theatre (a grand hall designed specifically for theatrical entertainments), there was mounted a play, Girolamo Bargagli's La Pellegrina and in between each act of the play there was an intermezzo. These intermezzi (or Intermedi) were common at the time, lighter entertainment between the acts of theatrical drama, sometimes quite short, just a solo or two. Most were ephemeral and have been lost. But for Ferdinando and Catherine, no expense was spared. The talents of Florence were drawn together to create them. These Intermedi were not opera, and were not proto-opera but another form entirely. But what fascinates is us is that many of those involved went on to create the first operas. Rather enterprisingly, Brighton Early Music Festival decided to crown its own 10th anniversary celebrations with two staged performances of the Florentine Intermedi of 1589, one performance at 5pm and one at 9pm on Saturday 3 November. We were lucky enough to see the second performance.

Set design for 4th Intermedio from 1589

Handel's last castrato

Gaetano Guadagni

Handel’s early oratorios were cast from the singers he had around which meant that he used Italian opera singers (and got some pretty strange English as far as we can gather). In revivals he wasn’t above including Italian arias in an oratorio if the available Italian could not sing in English. But as oratorio took over as his prime musical offering, so the star Italian singers by and large disappeared. Instead Handel relied on singers with whom he worked regularly. In a sense he seems to have like training and coaching singers himself, prizing expressivity over virtuosity and star voices. For Samson Handel used Kitty Clive, a singing actress (a musical comedy star) for the role of Dalila.

The Rest is Noise at the Southbank

From January 2012, the Southbank centre starts its year-long festival, The Rest is Noise, which is themed on Alex Ross's book detailing the history of classical music in the 20th century. I have to confess that I have slight reservations about the festival, uncertain quite how a history book (albeit a popular one) can be used as basis for a festival. Part of me worries that its all a cynical ploy to cash in on the popularity of Ross's book.

Ross sets his book in chapters which try to capture a particular moment, well demonstrated by his brilliant opening which starts with the 1906 performance of Strauss's Salome which was attended by an amazing roster of composers. The festival seems to be doing the same, with each month themed. Some work better than others. But, when confronted with the programme I have to put aside my grouches, because in terms of simple concert going there are some superb things.

Handel and Maurice Greene

Maurice Greene

Maurice Green (1696 - 1755) is one of those contemporaries of Handel that the great composer rather eclipsed. He was appointed Master of King's Musick in 1735, but for most Royal events he was passed over in favour of Handel. Handel seems to have not liked Greene, but then Handel found it difficult to have other composers around him. When it came to composition, he was the least collegiate of me. On December 7 at St. George's Hanover Square, there is the chance to hear some Greene and some Handel in the same concert.

Utopia Ltd in Greenwich

Its not Gilbert and Sullivan's best operetta by any chalk, but Utopia Limited does have a certain resonance for today, with its government corruption, scandals, and privatisation. The libretto satirises limited liability companies, a bankrupt company could leave creditors unpaid without any liability on the part of its owners. But being Gilbert, there's a lot more besides, including the British Empire, imperialism and the idea of 'barbaric' nations. It was Gilbert and Sullivan's penultimate collaboration, their first after the infamous row over expenses for The Gondoliers. It is also expensive to mount. But the Centenary Company are performing it at the Greenwich Theatre from 7 to 10 November.

Robert Poulton

The baritone Robert Poulton was killed in a car crash on Tuesday. He was touring with Glyndebourne Opera on Tour and they cancelled Wednesday's performance of Rusalka in Norwich (in which he was playing the gamekeeper) out of respect. He trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and developed his career in the Glyndebourne chorus and remained a stalwart with that company. Other notable role included the acrobat and lion tamer in Lulu for ENO, the Postman in Buxton Festival's Kaschei the Immortal, Scarpia  Falstaff, and the Forester (Cunning Little Vixen) for Grange Park Opera,  Scarpa with Scottish Opera, La Traviata and Rigoletto with Opera Holland Park, and a memorable Marco in Gianni Schicchi with the Royal Opera. As a singer he had remarkable breadth and he will be sorely missed.

Triple Bill - GSMD - review

Guildhall School of Music and Drama (GSMD) assembled a varied trio of undervalued opera for presentation as their autumn opera offering on 1 November 2012 at their Silk Street Theatre. The GSMD has performed all three operas before, at various times, so someone is obviously keen. There were two by Massenet, both dating from roughly the same period in the mid 1890's, La Navarraise and Le portrait de Manon, one a dramatic piece of neo-verismo and the other a delicate whimsy based on his earlier success Manon. Finally a crazy comedy by Martinu, Comedy on the Bridge originally written as a radio play in 1937 and not performed on stage until 1951. It was a suitably varied mix, though perhaps not one as  contrasted and highly spiced as Puccini's Il Trittico. It did have the advantage of offering a bevy of variedly challenging roles to the GSMD singers.

Rite of Spring Centenary

Nikokai Roerich's design for
The Rite of Spring in 1913

Next year sees the centenary of the premiere of Stravinsky and Nijinsky's ballet, The Rite of Spring. Diaghilev's Ballets Russes gave the premiere at the Theatre des Champs Elysees on 29 May 1913. And naturally a number of organisations are celebrating the centenary in a variety of ways, with Sadlers Wells Theatre devoting a whole mini-season to it. The problem is that neither Stravinsky's music, nor Nijinsky's choreography shocks any more. And for the choreography we only have a pale simulacrum reconstructed from drawings and memories. So Sadler's Wells are programming Michael Keegan-Dolan's new version and have commissioned a new work entirely from Akhram Khan.

London Song Festival - Comedy Songs - review

Lighter, comic songs are frequently tricky for trained singers to bring off. Many were written for actors, rather than highly developed voices, and need quite careful and special handling. So Nigel Foster was giving his singers a challenge rather different do usual by launching this year's London Song Festival with a programme of English and American Comedy Songs. Soprano Laura Wolk-Lewanowicz and baritone Grant Doyle joined Foster at St Paul's Church Covent Garden on Wednesday 31 October. Foster's programme mixed English and American songs from the 20th and 21st centuries in thematic groups.

CD review - Viktor Bijelovic

Viktor Bijelovic is a young pianist, born in Serbia and resident in London since the age of 11. He already has prizes in quite a few competitions under his belt and having recorded this CD of Chopin and Liszt in 2011, he has plans for a new CD next year.

This disc was recorded in the Jacqueline du Pre Music Hall in Oxford. The programme combines Chopin with piano music by his contemporary, Liszt. The two had an awkward relationship. Chopin envied Liszt's technique but found him frankly rather vulgar, with his showing off and his big piano sound. Liszt on the other hand envied Chopin's far wider range of colours at the piano but found his technique lacking.