Edinburgh Festival 2013 preview

This year's Edinburgh Festival has its usual bewildering mix of events. Jonathan Mills's programme is intended to celebrate innovation, and there are some rather striking uses of technology in events, from Opera de Lyon setting Beethoven's Fidelio on a space station to Pierre-Laurent Aimard joining Marco Stoppa for a pair of concerts which combine the piano with cutting edge technology, to modern glass harmonica wizard, Thomas Bloch. There is a great theme of innovation in dance both with premieres and looking back on cutting edge pieces from the past, you can even see a film of the young Pina Bausch dancing. And of course, there are the high profile orchestra concerts, with conductors including Valery Gergiev, David Zinman, Michael Pletnev and Daniele Gatti with visting ensembles including the Royal Concert Gebouw Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Russian National Orchestra, the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra and the Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble.

Bryan Hymel's Arnold

Bryan Hymel, who has made such an impression in the early 19th century French grand opera repertoire with his Aeneas in Les Troyens (see my review) and Robert in Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable (see my review) is now moving on to the daddy of them all. He will be singing his first Arnold in Rossini's Guillaume Tell in July 2014 in a new production of the opera at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. The production opens the 2014 Munich Opera Festival conductor is Dan Ettinger, director is Antu Romero Nunes and the title role will be sung by Michael Volle with Marina Poplavskaya as Mathilde. You can hear Hymel singing Arnold's aria Asile hereditaire on Youtube

Hidden Handel - Ann Hallenberg - CD review

Handel's revivals of his own operas are generally not given as much attention as his premieres. Mainly this is the right attitude, as his response to a revival was very often slash and burn and the changes he made were not guaranteed to be improvements. Changes came about because differing casts required new music or alteration to existing music; all performances were tailored to the voices and skills of the performers. Sometimes these changes are interesting, throwing up arias or groups of arias worth considering. Handel's re-writing of the role of Sesto in Giulio Cesare for tenor is a case in point; despite some fine music this version is never performed. On this disc the Swedish mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg with Alan Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco perform a selection of arias written for performances of Rinaldo, Teseo, Amadigi Ottone, Admeto, Berenice, Alessandro and Pirro e Demetrio along with a selection of individual orchestral movements. Rather than an exercise in dry musicology, the results show Handel on strong form in sparkling performances from Hallenberg.

My Theatre Matters!

The Stage, Equity and the Theatrical Management Association have launched a campaign, My Theatre Matters! to galvanise support for theatres across the UK. They aim to help theatres mobilise their local audiences in support. The campaign will provide theatres with the tools to help inform their audiences about the importance of public funding for theatre and turn them into advocates to rally MPs and council leaders. They will be encouraged to send a postcard to their council, saying how much they value its investment in their local theatre, and to sign up to a nationwide campaign online so that they can be contacted in the future about funding threats in their own area or nationally. Further information, and sign up for the campaign, from the My Theatre Matters! website

Reprint of classic book on British Light Music

British Light Music is a genre which seems to be disappearing except in a few brave areas. Many of the composers involved are not dealt with well by standard reference works. Now, Philip L Scowcroft's book British Light Music, a personal gallery of 20th century composers is being reprinted by Dance Books in a completely re-set edition. It contains biographical and musical essays on 30 major composers and more than 300 shorter entries on other composers. With entries on Eric Coates, Haydn Wood, Albert Ketelby, Alfred Reynolds Hubert Bath, Billy Mayerl, Richard Addinsell and many more. Ernest Tomlinson, doyen of living light music composers, contributes a thoughtful and challenging Foreword. There is a special pre-publication offer on the book £10 before April 30, or £15 afterwards. See the Dance Books website for further details.

LPO - Live and Local and in space

The London Philharmonic Orchestra is taking itself out of London for a short UK tour, 'Live and Local' in May and June this year, visiting Bradford (7 May), Blackburn (8 May), Liverpool (23 June) and Manchester (26 June). Tickets for the concerts will be priced at just £15. In Bradford and Blackburn, Jaime Martin will conducts the orchestra in a programme which includes Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez and Fantasia para un Gentilhombre with Milos Karadaglic as the guitar soloist. Then in Liverpool and Manchester, Lawrences Renes conducts a space-themed programme with John Adams's Short Ride in a Fast Machine, Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra and Holst's The Planets accompanied by high-definition NASA film footage. 

The films, The Planets - An HD Odyssey and The Earth - An HD Odyssey  are productions of Houston Symphony, directed by Duncan Copp. The Earth - An HD Odyssey will be receiving its European premiere and it will be the first time that the two films have been shown together with live music. You can preview the films on the Opus 3 Artists website. Further information on the tour from the London Philharmonic Orchestra's website.

City of London Festival 2013 - programme details

City workers entertained at Devonshire Square
Credit: © City of London Festival / Robert Piwko

This year's City of London Festival is director Ian Ritche's eighth (and final) one, and builds on last year's 50th anniversary season. Running from 23 June to 26 July 2013, there is a fine mixture of classical music events, talks, walks and exhibitions with the emphasis on articulating and enlivening many of the historic spaces within the City of London. As ever, besides the great events there are many smaller ones, with lots of lunchtime concerts and organ recitals, including a series being given by students from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. There is also a strong vein of new music running throughout the festival. Other themes within the festival are conflict and resolution, trees and city walls. This latter with special emphasis on the connection with Derry-Londonderry, whose 400 year relationship with the City of London is celebrated. Other anniversaries are the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Utrecht and Britten's centenary.

Well I never - new Chief Executive for Royal Opera House

The Royal Opera House has announced that their new Chief Executive will be Alex Beard, currently Deputy Director of the Tate. He will be taking up his post 'in readiness for the 2013/14 season'. He has been at the Tate since 1994 and Deputy Director since 2002. He is described as having a life-long interest in music and has been on the board of Glyndebourne Productions Ltd since 2008. So it looks as if, as quite a few people projected, they have gone for a highly qualified arts chief executive figure rather than a mover and shaker from the arts world. Let us hope that Beard manages to repeat the success of Tony Hall in the post.

BREMF 2013

Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) has released details of their plans for 2013. There is music by Handel, Gesualdo, Byrd, Tallis, troubadors and trouveres.  Drama makes a feature with adaptations of a Sarah Dunnant novel, and Clare Norburn's new drama on Gesualdo. There are masterclasses before the main festival led by Emma Kirkby, Belinda Sykes and others, leading to performance in festival events. And, as ever, the singers of the BREMF Consort of Voices and the BREMF Singers are busy.

Strikingly dignified grave beauty - Tallis Scholar's recording of Eric Whitacre's Sainte-Chapelle

Eric Whitacre & Peter Phillips
Photo: ©2013 Clive Barda

Eric Whitacre's Sainte-Chapelle was commissioned by Peter Phillips and the Tallis Scholars to celebrate the group's 40th anniversary. Premiered on 7 March 2013 at St Paul's Cathedral (see my review of the concert), the group has recorded the piece in the chapel of Merton College, Oxford and released it as a digital download. The choir's first recording of a contemporary composer since 1984 and their first ever digital download.

For the text, Whitacre turned to long time collaborator Charles Antony Silvestri. Silvestri has produced a modern Latin text which, essentially secular, allows Whitacre to involve the various styles of music for which the Tallis Scholars is famous. The 'plot' involves a young girl going into the Sainte Chapelle in Paris and hearing the angels in the stained glass windows singing the Sanctus. The text is structured in a series of stanzas, each finishing with the Sanctus.

Linda Chatterton flute recital - music by Brian Ciach and Ailis Ni Riain

Linda Chatterton is an American flautist currently giving a series of concerts and master-classes in the UK and Ireland. She started the tour with a lunchtime recital at St. Martin in the Fields, London on Monday 18 March 2013, playing to a considerable audience. Accompanied by pianist Matthew McCright, Chatterton performed an enterprising programme which mixed new and old material with music by Bach, William Grant Still and Francois Borne plus a world premiere by American composer Brian Ciach and a piece by UK-based Irish Composer Ailis Ni Riain which had been commissioned by Chatterton.

Tallis Scholars release Whitacre commission as digital download

For their 40th anniversary concert on 7 March 2013 at St. Paul's Cathedral, London (see my review on this blog), the Tallis Scholars, director Peter Phillips, commissioned a new work from Eric Whitacre. Whitacre's atmospheric new work, Sainte-Chapelle, sets a modern Latin text by his regular collaborator Charles Antony Silvestri and to complement the premiere it has been recorded by the choir and issued as a digital download. It is the Tallis Scholars first recording of a living composer since their work with John Tavener in 1984. 

A delightful disc - Joby Talbot: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Joby Talbot and Christopher Wheeldon's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland represented a number of firsts; it was the first full length ballet and the first full-length narrative ballet score commissioned by the Royal Ballet in almost 20 years. It was also Talbot's first full length narrative ballet score, though he and Wheeldon had previous collaborated on the one act ballet Fool's Paradise. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was a great success, being a co-production with the Royal Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada. Wheeldon and Talbot are now collaborating on a new full length ballet based on Shakespeare's Winter's Tale. On this disc we have Talbot's Suite from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Fool's Paradise performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Christopher Austin. Austin is Talbot's long-term collaborator and assisted Talbot on the orchestrations for Alice.

Rosenblatt CD launch

Tonight, at the Rosenblatt Recital at Wigmore Hall (being given by baritone Damiano Salerno), the new Rosenblatt CD series will be launched. A partnership between Rosenblatt Recitals and Opus Arte, the first three CD's will be released in April. The CD's will mix studio recordings with live recordings taken from Rosenblatt Recitals. The first three albums will feature Ailyn Perez (arias from Massente's Manon plus Spanish songs), Lawrence Brownlee (songs by Ben Moore, plus arias by Donizetti and Rossini and Liszt's Petrarch Sonnets) and Anthony Michaels-Moore (Stanford's Songs of the Sea and Songs of the Fleet, RVW's Three Poems of Walt Whitman and Songs of Travel). Releases scheduled for the autumn will feature Ailish Tynan and Ekaterina Siurina.

Whitgift premiere

At the Whitgift School in Croydon on March 26, members of the Whitgift Chamber Orchestra will be playing alongside members of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert which includes Mahler's Fourth Symphony and the world premiere of Tarik O'Regan's Fragments from a Heart of Darkness. This is the fourth occasion on which members of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra have joined the Whitgift Chamber Orchestra, giving the pupils a chance to work with professional musicians.

Written on Skin at Covent Garden

Having interviewed George Benjamin and reviewed the CD of his opera Written on Skin it was with much anticipation that we went along to the opera's 3rd performance in London at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden on Saturday 16th March 2013. Katie Mitchell's production has already been seen in Aix-en-Provence, Toulouse and Amsterdam. The Covent Garden cast, Christopher Purves, Barbara Hannigan, Bejun Mehta, Allan Clayton and Victoria Simmonds, were all from the original Aix-en-Provence run and George Benjamin conducted.

My turn behind the footlights

For their Easter concert my choir, London Concord Singers, conductor Malcolm Cottle, will be performing Gabriel Jackson's Requiem. Written in 2009 for the Vasari Singers, the work combines settings of the traditional texts from the Latin mass with texts from other spiritual traditions including words by Kevin Gilbert, Hojo Ujimasa, Walt Whitman, Rabindranth Tagore and Chief Aupumut. The result combines great beauty with some passages of striking originality.

Covent Garden new season - some thoughts

The Royal Opera's 2013/14 season has much to recommend it with a much needed outing for Verdi's Les Vepres siciliennes and a new Parsifal (an opera which has not had that much success at Covent Garden in recent years). It is heartening that Parsifal is being entrusted to Stephen Langridge, as the roster of directors was starting to look a little too much like the standard modish Europeans plus David McVicar. Similarly, it is good to welcome Jonathan Kent back for Puccini's Manon Lescaut, though those with long memories will recall the debacle of the last new production of the opera at Covent Garden, when Piero Faggioni's set was rejected and the director walked off, leaving Covent Garden to find a production to borrow quickly so that the gala performance with Domingo and Te Kanawa could go ahead! Other new productions are Mozart's Don Giovanni, Donizetti's Maria Stuarda and Richard Strauss's Die Frau Ohne Schatten

Royal Ballet 2013/14 season

The Royal Ballet's 2013/14 season is their first one where there is a chance of the hand of new director Kevin O'Hare really has a chance to be felt. In what seems to be a sign of changes of emphasis, Christopher Wheeldon is doing a new full length production, and there is a new production of Don Quixote from Carlos Acosta. There are also new one-act ballets from David Dawson, Wayne McGregor and Alistair Marriott. Nothing unusual from the Ashton/Macmillan repertoire is being revived. In fact of Macmillan's full length ballets, Romeo and Juliet is the only one which makes an appearance and none of Ashton's full length ballets appear.

Extreme brilliance - Julia Lezhneva - CD Reviews

Russian soprano Julia Lezhneva, just 23 years old, has recorded a CD of baroque and classical motets, by Vivaldi, Handel, Porpora and Mozart, with Italian early music group Il Giardino Armonico under conductor Giovanni Antonini. Lezhneva has been making something of a name for herself and she does not disappoint on this new disc. The repertoire might be somewhat niche; the Porpora motet is a world premiere recording. But every lover of the voice will want to hear Lezhneva's stunning performances.

Classical Opera study day

Masterclass & Co. is an admirable scheme to provide further information about opera to people who would like to know more, but have had neither the time nor opportunity to study further. As part of their Divas and Scholars programme, last year in association with the Royal Northern College of Music they ran a three-day course on Renaissance and Baroque opera, and this week I went along to their study day on Classical opera. The day took the form of three lectures followed by a lecture recital by students from the Royal Northern College of music, with a chance to interact with students and lecturers over coffee. Illness had meant that two of the planned lecturers were unable to appear, we were still provided with a lively and stimulating programme.

Norbert Meyn is a singer and a Professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, his lecture was on Goethe and the German singspiel. First of all he placed the development of German opera in an international context, touching on Schutz, Keiser, Handel and Mattheson and the Hamburg opera house. Then he focused on the provincial court of Weimar, where Goethe was resident and where he experimented with the singspiel form. Meyn brought out the roles of Johann Adam Hiller and Johann Gottfried Herder in the story, with the Italian trained Hiller encouraging singing in German, and with Herder publishing influential volumes of folk-poetry which influence Goethe's singspiel lyrics.

Sarah Walker's 70th birthday

On Wednesday 13 March 2013, two days after mezzo-soprano Sarah Walker's 70th birthday, the Wigmore Hall hosted her 70th birthday concert. Organised by pianist Graham Johnson, with whom Sarah Walker has a long working friendship, the concert was entitled Let us Garlands Bring, based on Shakepeare settings. Joining the distinguished mezzo-soprano and Johnson on the platform were actress Eleanor Bron, soprano Laura Mitchell, mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately and baritone Stephan Loges.

Mitchell and Whately are currently playing the two sisters in English Touring Opera's production of  Cosi fan Tutte (see my review on this blog) which brought back memories of one of Graham Johnson's Songmaker's Almanac concerts at the Wigmore Hall, 'If Fiordiligi and Dorabella were opera singers'. In fact the programme very much reminded me of a Songmaker's Almanac one, with Johnson's familiar skill at pairing known and unknown songs.

CD review - Alexander Levine - Divine Liturgy

Alexander Levine's Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom was written in 2006, in memory of his friend Father Alexander Men, the Russian Orthodox priest who became an influential spiritual leader and architect of religious renewal in Russia at the end of the Soviet period. The work was premiered in Russia in 2008 ,but the Mariinsky Opera Choir at the Easter Festival in Moscow. The work received its UK premiere earlier this month at the launch of this CD, with Tenebrae directed by Nigel Short (see our review of the concert on this blog).

Alexander Levine (born 1955) studied at the Gnessin Music Academy in Russia, then moved to the UK in 1992 where he studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Gary Carpenter and Simon Bainbridge. The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom sets the Russian Orthodox liturgy familiar from the settings by Tchakovsky and Rachmaninov. Like them, Levine uses just an unaccompanied choir (instruments are forbidden in liturgical music in the Russian Orthodox Church), but he has given some of the deacons and the priests part to the choir itself.

Covent Garden's 2013/14 opera season.

Covent Garden's 2013/14 season has, of course, new productions of Verdi and Wagner, but we also get a new Richard Strauss and a new Donizetti. Francesca Zamballo's Don Giovanni is being replaced, and there is a new Manon Lescaut. There are strong casts, with Karita Mattila in two roles, Anna Netrebko making a return, Jonas Kaufmann (alas not in the new Parsifal) and Joyce DiDonato to name but a few. Pappano gets the lions share of new productions, but Mark Elder, John Eliot Gardiner, Colin Davis, Semyon Bychkov, Simon Rattle and Andris Nelsons are also in the pit. Some old warhorses do make an appearance, there are also some welcome revivals. There is the opportunity to see both the Puccini and the Massenet Manons in the same season, and there is also a mini-festival around Gounod's Faust. And over in the Linbury there is a strong programme of new opera.

The Firework-Maker's Daughter

Saturday 23 March at Hull Truck Theatre in Hull sees the premiere of David Bruce's new opera The Firework-Maker's Daughter. The opera is being produced by the Opera Group and Opera North, in associated with the Royal Opera House and the Watford Palace Theatre. After the premiere the production is being taken on tour to Huddersfield, London,  New York, Watford, Bury St. Edmunds, Buxton, Oxford and Newcastle. Described as a colourful new opera for children and families, Glyn Maxwell's libretto is based on the book by Philip Pullman.

Handel's Imeneo at the London Handel Festival

Luke D Williams as Imeneo
Photo credit Chris Christodoulou

Imeneo was Handel's penultimate Italian opera, and it has only been an infrequent visitor to the UK. This year's London Handel Festival opera staging at the Royal College of Music's Britten Theatre allowed us to see the work on stage, with a cast taken from the Royal College of Music's International Opera School. The opera was double cast and I saw the second performance, on 12 March, with the second cast. Paul Curran's production, in Gary McCann's designs, set the work in a modern spa hotel and encouraged a lively performance from the cast.

Hannah Sandison as Rosemene
Photo credit Chris Christodoulou

The plot is quite simple. Before the opera starts, an Athenian youth Imeneo is in love with Rosmene, she does not return his love. But, in order to spend more time with her, he dresses as woman. When a group of girls is kidnapped by pirates, Imeneo is amongst them. The opera opens with Rosmene's anxious father, Argenio, and lover, Tirinto. When the girls return with Imeneo, he having slain the pirates when they slept, he requests Rosmene's hand in marriage. The remainder of the opera is simply the working out of this plot, with the added sub-plot that Rosmene's sister, Clomiri, is in love with Imeneo but dare not tell him. Finally Rosemene fakes madness to allow her to decide and chooses Imeneo. 

LPO, Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet & Music Theatre Wales win South Bank Sky Arts Awards.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra has won a 2013 South Bank Sky Arts Award for Julian Anderson's The Discovery of Heaven, which was performed at the Royal Festival Hall in March 2012, conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth. Among the other winners were the Royal Court’s production of Jez Butterworth’s The River, and Complicite’s The Master and Margarita, Scottish Ballet’s A Streetcar Named Desire, and Scottish Opera and Music Theatre Wales’ Ghost Patrol.

Rough for Opera returns

Second Movement's Rough for Opera returns on 24 March at the Cockpit Theatre, Marylebone. Rough for Opera is an evening where the audience gets a chance to hear composers try out new operas or sketches for new operas, and then participate in a Q&A afterwards. This time Kate Whitley will be presenting Scars and Mike Christie will present The Millers Wife.

Whitley's Scars with a libretto by Stephanie Ndoungo is a new work for soprano and is developed from a recent collaboration involving the Human Rights Charity Freedom from Torture. Scars sounds to be quite a challenging work, the text is based on Ndoungo's account of her experience of having a medical examination of the scars on her body, which formed the basis for her case for asylum.

Visions and Revelations of the Miraculous

llumination showing Hildegard
receiving a vision and dictating
to her scribe and secretary

Following on from their Britten centenary concert (see my review), Londinium and their conductor Andrew Griffiths are exploring visions of the miraculous in a concert on Friday 22 March at St Mary at Hill, Eastcheap, London EC3R 8EE, with a varied collection of settings from the Book Revelation and other mystical texts. There's music by a wide collection of composers including Jonathan Harvey, Hildegard of Bingen, Messiaen, Stravinsky, Ned Rorem, James MacMillan, Peter Phillips, Tallis and Byrd. Plus the 'luscious Messiaen tinged' Hildegard Triptych from American composer Frank Ferko whose twin inspirations are Messiaen and Hildegard. Also, in what looks like a very full, action packed programme, there will be performances of a sequence of Lassus' Prophetiae Sibyllarum, his remarkable chromatic settings of 16th century prophecies. Further information from Londinium's website.

Not another string quartet!

Schubert Ensemble 30^th Anniversary Celebrations: 

(Looking to the Future 2) Schubert Ensemble commissions

The Schubert Ensemble has been performing for 30 years, the last 18 years with the current line up: William Howard (Piano), Simon Blendis  (violin), Jane Salmon  (cello), Douglas Paterson  (viola), and Peter Buckoke  (double bass). “String quartet plus piano...” you may say, “So what?” Well, they won the Royal Philharmonic Society Best Chamber Ensemble Award in 1998 (and were short-listed again 3 years ago). They have recorded over 30 CDs. They champion unknown works by composers and work with students at the Birmingham conservatoire. But more importantly to this evening’s performance(9 March 2013) at Kings Place they have commissioned over 80 compositions, over half of which were written for students and amateurs as part of their Chamber Music 2000 project.

Coming up at Cadogan Hall

April and May at the Cadogan Hall sees three further concerts in their excellent Choral at Cadogan series. Inevitably the music of Benjamin Britten gets significant outing from both the Orion Orchestra and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. There is also a fine array of new music by Tarik O'Regan, Stephen Goss and Sally Beamish, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orpheus Sinfonia and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

Choral at Cadogan continues with Tenebrae and the English Chamber Orchestra, directed by Nigel Short in Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and music by Will Todd (4 April). And Alamire, director David Skinner, performs a selection of Tudor polyphony including music by Lambe, Taverner, Sheppard, Tallis and Byrd including music from Tallis and Byrd's 1575 Cantiones Sacrae.(24 April). And the Tallis Scholars celebrated their 40th anniversary and Geusaldo's 400th on 29 May.

April at the Barbican

There is a lot to see and hear during April in the Barbican. The month sees residencies from English National Opera and Juan-Diego Florez, plus Sir Colin Davis conducting the LSO in Britten's Turn of the Screw. The LSO also celebrate their Panufnik Young Composers in LSO Futures Week. Whilst Sir John Eliot Gardiner celebrates his 70th birthday by conducting Stravinsky.

Final of the St. Martin's Chamber Music Competition

The final of the fourth annual St Martin's Chamber Music competition takes place on Tuesday 19 March at 7pm. The competition has had an unprecedented number of applications this year and the six semi-finalists have been competing in lunchtime recitals and the Palomino String Quartet (formed in 2011, the quartet comprises former members of Southbank Sinfonia from England, Ireland and New Zealand.), the Jubilee String Quartet (formed in 2006 at the Royal Academy of Music, London; quartet was named after the Jubilee Line on the London Underground, which all four members lived on when the quartet was formed.) and the A Piacere Piano Trio (established in 2010 at the Royal College of Music in London) are all through to the final. Further details from the competition website.

L'Assedio di Calais - English Touring Opera

Eddie Wade, Helen Sherman and ensemble in L'Assedio di Calais
English Touring Opera,  photography Richard Hubert Smith

Donizetti's L'Assedio di Calais was premiered in Naples in 1836, the year after Lucia di Lammermoor was performed there. The work ceased being performed after 1840. It was not revived again until 1990 at the Donizetti Festival in Bergamo, performances at the Wexford Festival followed in 1991. It has been staged twice by the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, but English Touring Opera's performance on Saturday 9 March 2013 represented the work's UK professional stage premiere. James Conway directed and Samal Blak designed with Jeremy Silver conducting a strong cast which included Cozmin Sime, Adam Tunnicliffe, Eddie Wade Helen Sherman, Paula Sides and Piotr Lempa.

Alexander Levine – The Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom CD Launch

Alexander Levine

Tonight’s performance (7 March 2013) of Alexander Levine’s (born 1955) The Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom by Tenebrae, directed by Nigel Short, celebrated the CD launch and publication of the vocal score (Edition Peters). The Liturgy was first performed in 2009 at the International Choral Festival in St. Petersburg by the Mariinsky Opera Choir, conducted by Andrei Petrenko, and the CD was recorded by Tenebrae last year (2012) on the Signum Classics label, SIGCD316. CD previewed by Robert Hugill here.

Much to savour - Madrigali dell'Estate - CD Review

2013 is the 150 anniversary of the birth of Gabriele D'Annunzio. Poet, Italian patriot, politician, war hero, bad boy, D'Annunzio has a huge linguistic and stylistic influence in Italy. So it is apt that this new disc from mezzo-soprano Clare McCaldin on the Champs Hill label showcases composer Stephen McNeff's D'Annunzio settings, Madrigali dell'Estate accompanied by pianist Andrew West. The remainder of the disc also features McCaldin in music by McNeff including further settings of D'Annunzio as well as the Shelley themed monodrama A Voice of One Delight, where McCaldin is accompanied by members of Orchestra Nova, conducted by George Vass.

Modified rapture - Lully's Phaeton at the Barbican

First off, I have to admit that seeing Phaeton was the first time that I'd ever seen a complete Lully opera live, so the experience was novel in many ways. Lully's music can often seem a little unimaginative when compared to Charpentier and Rameau, but he had a strong feeling for dramatic construction so that the long work (three hours of music) worked superbly as an entertainment, we were never bored. But I was left wondering whether the piece works as drama.

There was a large cast, Emiliano Gonzalez Toro as Phaeton, Ingrid Perruche as his mother Clymene, Isabelle Druet as Theone who loves him, Sophie Bevan as her friend Libye who is daughter of the King of Egypt, Andrew Foster-Williams as Epahus who loves Libye, Matthew Brook as Merops (and Automne and Jupiter) plus Benoit Arnould, Cyril Auvity and Virginie Thomas in a number of roles, plus the Namur Chamber Choir.

Old and New - Tallis Scholars Celebrate their 40th anniversary

The Tallis Scholars 40th Anniversary Concert 

in St Paul's Cathedral, March 7th, 2013.
photo (c) Clive Barda

Amazing, the Tallis Scholars are celebrating their 40th anniversary. It seems hard to believe. Peter Phillips and the group celebrated in fine style with a concert at St. Paul's Cathedral on 7 March which mixed the early music for which they are famous with world premieres of works by Gabriel Jackson and Eric Whitacre, and the London premiere of a piece by Robin Walker. All topped off with a performance of Tallis's 40-part motet, Spem in alium. St Paul's was, I hardly need to add, packed.

Phillips used a rather bigger ensemble than usual, generally 10 to 16 singers depending on the piece. But given St. Paul's rather lively acoustic, I did wonder what the audience far down the nave could actually see and hear. Still, we were lucky enough to be under the dome, in the fifth row where the sound was surprisingly clear and focussed, with a lot of detail audible despite the amazing acoustic backwash.

George Lloyd rareity comes to Croydon

Confirmation of another rare opera to look forward to in 2013, George Lloyd's Iernin. 2013 is Lloyd's centenary year so it is very appropriate that Surrey Opera are performing the piece this year, 21-27 October in Croydon. Iernin is his first opera, the piece was premiered in 1934 in Penzance and had a short season in London in 1935.  Surrey Opera's performances will be conducted by Jonathan Butcher and directed by Alexander Hargreaves. In case you are wondering about the title, the opera is set in the world of Celtic Faery (the opera was highly commended by Rutland Boughton). There is a recording, taken from BBC broadcast, on Albany Records with a strong cast. Further details of the performances from the Surrey Opera website.

Much to look forward to - Opera Holland Park's 2013 season

Ruins of Holland Park House, location of Opera Holland Park

Opera Holland Park (OHP) seems set for one of its strongest seasons yet with the combination of a fine line-up of operas and terrific casts for its 2013 season, which runs from 4 June to 3 August in Holland Park. Repertoire is very much the mixture as before, a mixture of classics, verismo and lesser known operas which has proved highly successful. One of the areas which Opera Holland Park has made its own is the exploration of rarer late 19th and 20th century Italian opera and this year we have Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's I gioielli della Madonna (The Jewels of the Madonna) to look forward to. Complementing this will be Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci in their traditional double bill, Madama Butterfly, Les pecheurs de perles and L'elisir d'amore. Plus a new children's opera/family opera commissioned from Will Todd, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In the pit for all the operas will be the City of London Sinfonia, their 10th year contributing to the success of OHP.

South Bank redevelopment - transformation or follie de grandeur?

So, the plans have been revealed for the re-vamp of the South Bank's Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery - now re-branded as the Festival Wing. There is not denying that the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Purcell Room front of house are in need of a spruce up and I gather that facilities back stage are similarly tired. The bad news is that, if it all goes ahead, they will be closed for two years. Work starting 2014 for a grand re-opening in 2017. That's a long time to be denied two busy and useful concert halls.

Eerie and mysterious - choral works of Haflidi Hallgrimsson - CD review

Haflidi  Hallgrimsson is an Icelandic composer who is now based in Scotland. He was principal cellist with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra before moving to composing full time, so  not surprisingly music for strings features strongly in his output. But this new disc from the Schola Cantorum Reykjavik, conductor Hordur Askelsson, on download only label Resonus Classics shows the growing importance of choral music in Hallgrimsson's output. Hallgrimsson trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London, studying composition privately with Elizabeth Lutyens, Alan Bush and Peter Maxwell Davies.

Stephen Montague Birthday Celebrations

Tuesday 12 March sees St John's Smith Square, London playing host to composer Stephen Montague's 70th birthday celebrations with events at 1.05pm and 7.30pm. Born in New York state, but resident in the UK for almost 40 years, Montague's music is transatlantic in flavour and the birthday concerts will illustrate both Montague's range, and the influences on him with references to Cage, Cowell and Ives. There is a 'happening' at lunchtime with music reflecting on Cage's 100 anniversary. Then in the evening a mammoth number of performers, including 30 triangles, gather to celebrate in style.

Popping up near you

L'elisir d'amore - Pop-Up Opera at Broome Cider Farm, Herefordshire (courtesy of Pop-Up Opera and Robert Anderson)

Pop-Up Opera are popping up again around the UK in their Spring tour, with revivals of their productions of Donizetti's comedies L'elisir d'amore and Don Pasquale. Founded in a Herefordshire barn in 2010 by Clementine Lovell, the company takes their intimate and lively productions around the UK performing in unusual venues. This year they will be performing in an underground shaft at the Brunel Museum in Rotherhithe and 100 foot underground in Clearwell Caves in the Forest of Dean.

Opera North Britten season

Dates have been announced for Opera North's Britten season this autumn when their new production of Death in Venice will be joined by revivals of Peter Grimes and Midsummer Nights Dream. Death in Venice, which is being performed by Opera North for the first time, will be seen in Yoshi Oida's production originally done at Aldeburgh. Alan Oke will sing Aschenbach with Peter Savidge in the baritone roles. Richard Farnes conducts. The opera opens at the Grand Theatre, Leeds on 17 October and then travels to Nottingham, Salford Quays, Newcastle and Snape Maltings.

JAM Yesterday - JAM Tomorrow

JAM's forthcoming concert in London on 21 March celebrates the composers with whom they have developed strong relationships and the composers with whom they are developing relationships. JAM Influences will see music by Jonathan Dove, Judith Bingham, Giles Swayne, Paul Patterson, Paul Mealor, Phillip Cook and Matthew Martin performed alongside works from JAM's recent Call for Music. The performers will be the Chapel Choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge, Daniel Cook (organ) and Nicholas Cleobury (conductor). The concert takes place at St. Brides Church, Fleet Street on 21 March 2012.

Lied in London - Louise Alder

To South Kensington last night (3 March) for one of Gary Matthewman's Lied in London recitals. This was an evening of songs by Debussy, Strauss, Liszt, Duparc, Poulenc, RVW and Roger Quilter sung by soprano Louise Alder with Gary Matthewman accompanying. Alder is the inaugural Kiri te Kanawa Scholar at the Royal College of Music International Opera School and she will be appearing as Clomiri in Handel's Imeneo at the London Handel Festival later this month at the Britten Theatre.

A masterwork - CD Review - Written on Skin

George Benjamin's second opera, Written on Skin, was premiered at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in July 2012 and this live recording made during the performances. The composer conducts the Mahler Chamber Orchestra with a cast of singers (Christopher Purves, Barbara Hannigan, Bejun Mehta, Allan Clayton and Rebecca Jo Loeb) for whose voices he explicitly wrote the vocal parts. The story is based on an old Provencal tale, the opera was a joint commission between Aix-en-Provence and Covent Garden and Aix requested a Provencal connection to the story. Benjamin and his librettist Martin Crimp have produced a distinctive take on a story which covers love, sex, passion, lack of communication, control and a woman being fed the cooked heart of her lover. In other words, all the elements you need in an opera.

ETO - Cosi fan Tutte - Hackney Empire

Staging Mozart and Da Ponte's Cosi fan Tutte can be a bit of a problem. If done exactly as written in the libretto, then the work can easily come over as cruel and misogynistic, but if you move too far away from Mozart and Da Ponte's concept, then the drama on stage is not supported by Mozart's music. The problem isn't just the lieto fine where the couples get back together, but threads its way through the whole opera. Paul Higgins solution, in his new production for English Touring Opera (ETO) which opened at the Hackney Empire on Saturday 2 March 2013, was to play by the book, but to set the action within the context of the youth of the protagonists and their lively hijinks. 

Last month on Planet Hugill - murdered babies, favourites and drama queens

What you might have missed. February on Planet Hugill started with Peter Konwtischny's striking new production of La Traviata at ENO, Joyce DiDonato was equally dramatic, complete with a Vivienne Westwood dress, in her Drama Queens concert at the Barbican. To get us in the mood we explored different setting of the Medea story, before seeing Charpentier's Medea at ENO with Sarah Connolly in the title role. Still a la Francaise, we travelled to Paris to see the new French language production of Donizetti's La Favouritewith Alice Coote in the title role. I interviewed composer George Benjamin to talk about his new operaWritten on Skin.

Masterclass and Co - Divas and Scholars

If you have ever thought that you don't really know enough about the operas that you are listening to, then Masterclass and Co give you the chance to find out more. On 14 March at the Cadogan Hall, they  are providing the opportunity to get closer to opera and performance in a one-day study day devoted to 18th century opera. There will be lectures on Gluck and on Mozart, as well as performances of arias and duets from opera by Gluck and by Mozart. The performances also feature a Q&A with singers, talking about vocal technique and approaching a role.

Its a chance for ordinary mortals to get close to opera and look at the  details of the music, performance and social context of a particular area with some distinguished people talking. Journalist, broadcaster and lecturer Mel Cooper will be lecturing on The Mannheim School and the pioneering work of Gluck. Jean-Philippe Calvin, a French composer who is Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music, will focus on the music from two of Mozart's operas. Then the pianist Harvey Davies will lecture on the wider musical and social contexts of Mozart's operas.  The programme includes a final 90 minutes listening to and talking to the singers from the Royal Northern College of Music.  Further information from the Masterclass and Co website.

CD review - Al Combate

You've probably heard not none of the composers on this new disc from the Chicago Arts Orchestra. Under their artistic director Javier Jose Mendoza they have recorded a selection of works written in the galant style by composers in Latin America. The composers on the disc, Igancio Jerusalem and Santiago Billoni, wrote music for the society surrounding the Spanish Vice-Regal court in New Spain (now Mexico) centred on Mexico City. Though it wasn't the court which was the main patron, but the church with music being created for the church's ritual needs. But works like Ignacio Jerusalem's ode Al Combate were the fruit of a collaboration between church and Mexico University.

In Harmony Liverpool and Sistema Scotland in Best Classical Music Education Initiative

Both In Harmony Liverpool and Sistema Scotland have been nominated for Classic FM's Best Classical Music Education Initiative. The award is intended to honour an education initiative which has used classical music in an innovative way, shown musical excellence and had a positive impact on a significant number of participants. You can vote for the nominees until March 8, and the awards will be announced at the Music Teacher Awards on the evening of March 20th at the Barbican. Vote at the Classic FM website.

Cd review - Jamie Walton - Dvorak and Schumann Cello concertos

Jamie Walton

Despite a great line of cello virtuosi in the 18th century, the cello as a concerto instrument wasn't terribly popular when it came to the late 18th and 19th centuries. Whereas nowadays, with our view from the Elgar Cello Concerto, we see the instrument as an arch-romantic one, to 19th century composers there was the issue of balance and projection, with worries over the instrument's carrying power in the lower register when playing with an orchestra. Mozart wrote nothing of interest for the solo cello, Beethoven wrote sonatas but only included the instrument in his triple concerto. It was Schumann who broke the mould with his cello concerto, though he was preceded by the cello virtuoso Bernhard Romberg (1767 - 1841) whose works are not so well known nowadays but were studied by Brahms. And of course, Brahms included the instrument in his double concerto. Tchaikovsky wrote the Rocco Variations for the instrument and, of course Dvorak wrote his Cello Concerto. The Schumann and Dvorak have been recorded by the young cellist Jamie Walton with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Le Nozze di Figaro at Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Hadleigh Adama & Anna Starushkevych
Marriage of Figaro c.Clive Barda

An opera like Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro needs experienced singers who can combine vocal technique with life-experience to create the complex roles in the piece. But young singers need to get experience of the opera somewhere, and inevitably the opera will be one which features strongly in the working lives many of the young singers currently studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (GSMD) as soon as they leave college. So GSMD's new production can be viewed as a training exercise and as a way of seeing young singers rising to the challenge of the complexities of Mozart's mature operatic roles. We attended the opening night of Martin Lloyd-Evan's production on 28 February, conducted by GSMD's Head of Opera Studies, Dominic Wheeler.

Khojaly – never forgotten

Organised by the European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS) last night’s performance (26 February 2013) at St John's Smith Square in commemoration of the 613 men women and children who died in the Khojaly massacre 21 years ago was a beautiful but sombre affair, with the UK premiere of Pierre Thilloy's Khojaly 613 and Fikret Amirov's Nizami Symphoni played by the Orion Orchestra, conducted by Laurent Petitgirard with Sabina Rakcheyeva (violin) and Shirzad Fataliyev (balaban). A backdrop to the performance was a series of photographs taken by Philipp Rathmer giving a face to some of the one million Azerbaijanis, displaced by the conflict. A stark reminder that despite the ceasefire Azerbaijan and Armenia are still at war, and that more than 1 in 10 Azerbaijanis cannot go home and are refugees in their own country.