Exploding with joy - Choir fo Gonville and Caius College in Romaria

The Choir of Gonville and Caius College
Cambridge

Romaria - Sounds of Brazil; Choir of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, Dr Geoffrey Webber; Kings Place Festival
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 12 Sep 2015
Star rating: 5.0
Contemporary music from Brazil in all its variety in an entrancing performance from this Cambridge choir

This last weekend (11-13 September 2015) Kings Place exploded with a whole variety of events for the annual Kings Place Festival, and event where many of the events are free. There was a very wide variety on offer from world music to classical, family events to spoken word. I went along on Saturday 12 September 2015 to an event which somewhat mixed contemporary classical with hints of world music when Dr Geoffrey Webber and the Choir of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge performed the programme of contemporary Brazilian choral music, Romaria which included music by Carlos A Pinto Fonseca, Almeido Prado, Nibaldo Araneda, Aylton Escobar, Osvaldo Lacerda, Ernst Mahle and Villa Lobos. Much of the repertoire from the concert is from the choir's recent CD (see my review), but this is the sort of repertoire which benefits immensely by being heard live.

In his spoken introduction Dr Geoffrey Webber explained that he had been interested in the lively 20th and 21st century choral scene in Brazil for some time, but the nature of the music publishing in the country meant that it was difficult to get copies of the music. A chance academic encounter led to contacts with the University of Sao Paolo and to tonight's concert.

The choir is a 24 strong mixed voice choir, with the singers being drawn from the student body. Their regular repertoire includes services in the chapel, but Dr Webber and the choir have something of  reputation for exploring unusual musical byways; another of their recent discs explored the music of the early Celtic church (see my review).

Wigmore Hall opener - Iestyn Davies, Harry Bicket and the English Concert in Handel and more

Iestyn Davies, Harry Bicket and the English Concert at the opening of the Wigmore Hall's 2015/16 season - ©Sisi_Burn

Handel, music from Partenope, Rinaldo, Rodelinda, Orlando, Radamisto, Veracini, Porpora
Iestyn Davies, the English Concert, Harry Bicket
The Wigmore Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Sep 12 2015
Star rating: 5.0
Iestyn Davies on strong form in this generous selection of Handel arias opening the Wigmore Hall new season

Last night (Saturday 12 September 2015), the Wigmore Hall's 2015/16 season opened with counter-tenor Iestyn Davies performing a generous selection of Handel arias accompanied by Harry Bicket and the English Concert (leader Nadia Ziener). There was an overture and arias from Handel's Partenope, arias from Rinaldo, Rodelinda and Orlando, with the Passacaille from Radamisto, plus Veracini's Overture No. 2 in F and Porpora's Sinfonia da camera in G Op.2 No. 1.

Iestyn Davies, Harry Bicket and the English Concert
©Sisi_Burn

In many ways, the concert was something of a retrospective of roles Iestyn Davies has performed recently in the UK with an anticipation of one to come, as Davies sang in the 2014 revival of Glyndebourne's production of Rinaldo (see my review), in ENO's 2014 production of Rodelinda (see my review) and will be singing the title role in Handel's Orlando at the Barbican.

We started with Handel's Partenope, a slightly satirical piece written in 1729 which mixed elements which approach comedy with a serious purpose. The English Concert under Harry Bicket made a surprisingly full sound with 17 players on stage. The opening of the overture had a nice bounce to the stately rhythms, whilst the perky triple time section was very toe-tapping. Iestyn Davies sang three of Arsace's arias, arranged not by where they come in the plot but simply to make a satisfying grouping.

In a hall the size of the Wigmore Hall and with such a sympathetically responsive acoustic, the was no need for Iestyn Davies to push his voice, and there were many moments where the simple beauty of the way the tone emerged and then floated over the orchestra was breathtaking. He sang everything from memory, and each aria in the programme was given a highly characterful delivery, involving the audience in the drama.

Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius with Simon Rattle and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Magdalena Kozena
credit BBC/Chris Christodoulou

Sir Edward Elgar The Dream of Gerontius; Toby Spence, Magdalena Kozena, Roderick Williams, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Proms Youth Choir, Sir Simon Rattle; BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Sep 12 2015
Star rating: 4.5
BBC Proms Youth Choir shines in a performance notable for its magical transparency

There was much anticipation in  packed Royal Albert Hall for the penultimate BBC Promenade Concert on Friday 11 September 2015, when Sir Simon Rattle would conduct Sir Edward Elgar's oratorio The Dream of Gerontius with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, soloists Toby Spence, Magdalena Kozena and Roderick Williams, and the BBC Proms Youth Choir. The Dream of Gerontius was a work which featured regularly on concert programmes in Birmingham during Rattle's period with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, but probably has not featured much in those of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

What we can easily forget, though, is that in the period up to the First World War, Elgar was highly regarded by his continental colleagues. The Dream of Gerontius was enthusiastically received in Germany when first performed there in 1901 and 1902, and Richard Strauss regarded Elgar as a fellow progressive composer.

Simon Rattle opened the prelude on just a thread, with the a lovely sense of the undulating line. Rather than giving us a richly cushioned string sound, we heard a magically transparent texture with extraordinary clarity. The sense of phrasing was very distinctive (something the mezzo Magdalena Kozena shared), and it is a long time since I have heard portamentos used in so frequently and so effectively in the work. But that said, Simon Rattle had a tendency to hold the music up rather then letting it flow on. This was a performance where we were encouraged to stop and admire the daisies rather than stride into the wider landscape. But though much was quiet, intensely contemplative there was drama too this was not a self-regarding account of the work, and the moments of drama in Elgar's score were stunningly realised, and all the more telling for being contrasted with such intense quiet.

The passions are the same, making French baroque music work today - An encounter with Christophe Rousset

Christophe Rousset & Les Talens Lyriques - copyright Jacques Verrees

It seemed rather appropriate that my meeting with Christophe Rousset be at the International Rameau Summer School, and that our interview took place with the sounds of Rameau floating in the background. Christophe was in London to give some master-classes at the summer school, as well as to promote his latest two recordings, a DVD of Rameau's Les Indes Galantes (on Alpha Classics) based on Laura Scozzi's stage production which was filmed live in Bordeaux, and a CD of Rameau's opera Zais (on Aparte), both with Les Talens Lyriques.

Christophe Rousset founded the vocal and instrumental ensemble Les Talens Lyriques in 1991, and since then has balanced a career which combines that of solo harpsichord work, directing Les Talens Lyriques, conducting other ensembles and doing research into French baroque music.

Laura Scozzi's production Rameau's Les Indes Galante
copyright Patrice Nin

Laura Scozzi's production of Les Indes Galantes was performed in Bordeaux and Toulouse, but when Christophe brought the performers to the UK we had to make do with a concert performance. Which means we missed out on a very lively and in some ways daring production. The production opens in the Garden of Eden and the subsequent acts each show how going away from the Eden leads to some sort of hell. That the dancers were nude for the Eden scenes caused some comment (notably in the UK), but Christophe felt that rather than being shocking, the scene was innocent and charming. And for him, the whole production was a strong, if not bitter look at the modern world from women's point of view with Laura Scozzi being particularly concerned about the rights of women.

'this worked well with Rameau's music',
as Christophe sees the libretto as being rather weak

For the Turkish act, passports are being organised for immigrants, a scene which has become even more relevant since the production premiered. Christophe says that this worked well with Rameau's music, especially as he sees the libretto as being rather weak and simply a frame for the divertissements (the issue of Rameau's librettos was a subject to which we would return in our interview). The Peru act was set around the drug system, highlighting the position of women in a macho world, whilst the Persian act was of course set in modern Iran with issues of women being veiled and finally the American act looked at the environmental disasters caused by man.

There have been productions where 'you know it will be crap from the beginning'

Alumni recitals at the Guildhall School

Sha Chen - photo credit Hong Wei

One of the delights of the Guildhall School of Music's Milton Court Concert Hall is that it has given them the ability to present recitals by distinguished formed pupils. Forthcoming recitals include soprano Sophie Karthäuser and pianist Eugene Asti, guitarists Jørgen Skogmo, Ahmed Dickinson Cárdenas and Maria Camahort, tenor Toby Spence and pianist Julian Milford and perhaps most intriguingly composer Debbie Wiseman. 

The season opens with a recital by pianist Sa Chen on Thursday 17 September 2015. Born in Chongqing, China, Sa Chen competed in the final of the Leeds Piano Competition in 1996 when she was just 16 and went on to study at the Guildhall School with Joan Havill. At her recital on 17 September, she plays a selection of Chopin's mazurkas and Liszt's Sonata in B minor. 

Further information from the Guildhall School website.

Handel in Italy, volume one

Handel in Italy; Mary Bevan, Sophie Bevan, Benjamin Bevan, London Early Opera, Bridget Cunningham; Signum Classics
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Aug 29 2015
Star rating: 4.0
Ambitious survey of Handel's music written in Italy

Having given us Handel in Ireland (see my review), harpsichordist Bridget Cunningham directs her group London Early Opera in the first of two discs on Signum Classics entitled Handel in Italy. Joined by sopranos Sophie Bevan and Mary Bevan, and baritone Benjamin Bevan (two sisters and an uncle), they present an overview of Handel's composing activities in Italy, sacred, secular, operatic and instrumental. It is a big subject and Cunningham can only give us a taster, but she manages to cover most of Handel's activities in Italy with the Gloria, music from Rodrigo, Agrippina and Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, the Sonata for a Harpsichord with double keys in G major and the cantata Cuopre tal volta il cielo.

Handel's stay in Italy from 1707 to 1710 was a remarkably fertile period for the young composer (aged 22 to 25 during the period, and moderately handsome if the surviving image is anything to go by). Rather than taking a musical position he was guest of aristocratic patrons and produced a remarkable variety of music which he would use as source material throughout his career. The disc includes an aria from his first oratorio Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (1707) which was re-written has his final English oratorio in the 1750's.

ForWard - celebrating Ward Swingle

Ward Swingle and Swingle Singers past and present

On 19 September 2015 at the Mermaid Theatre, Puddle Dock, Blackfriars London EC4V 3DB, Swingle Singers past and present will be celebrating the group's founder Ward Swingle who died earlier this year. All profits from the concert will go to Unicef, which was Ward Swingle's charity of choice.

The concert will also serve as the launch of the current line-up of The Swingle Singers' new album The Deep End, which includes a version of Debussy's La Cathedral Engloutie featuring Ward Swingle's speaking voice.

Tickets to the concert are available on-line.

Stowe Arts Autumn

The Marble Saloon
Stowe House

Besides being an important historic house and garden, as well as a public school, Stowe also has a lively arts programme. The programme begins on 9 September with a concert by Stowe School's new music scholars and exhibitions and there are further opportunities to hear accomplished Stoics in action during the term. The pianist Anthony Hewitt will be playing Scriabin's preludes alongside those of Debussy and Rachmaninov, whilst images of Klara Smith's cut out structures are projected. Other visitors include the flute duo Luminance, and the jazz-fusion group The Fresh Dixie Project. Other events include theatre from Kill the Beast and children's theatre.  The autumn season ends with the Christmas Tree Festival with a seasonal mixture of music, theatre and spoken work

Stowe House Preservation Trust has recently opened a discovery centre in the hither-to unseen wine-cellars of House and there is a chance to tour the house during school holidays, plus a programme of talks and twilight tours. And of course the gardens are cared for by the National Trust, which runs its own family-friendly events programme and for the Heritage Open Days this year on 12 September, both house and gardens are open free..

Frankenstein set loose on the world

Exciting times! My opera, The Genesis of Frankenstein will be premiered on October 28 and 29, conducted by Noah Mosley and directed by Ella Marchment, as part of the Helios Collective's Toi, Toi, Toi an evening of new music theatre at CLF Art Cafe, at wonderful arts space created from a 120 year old warehouse in Peckham (133 Rye Lane, SE15 5ST).

The opera is a chamber piece lasting 20 or so minutes, with a text which I have adapted from Mary Shelley's novel. Written for three singers and four instrumentalists it uses Frankenstein’s own words to examine the genesis of his obsession with creating a new human life and his subsequent revulsion from the monster. Opening with the dramatic moment when the monster comes alive, the work then traces the path of the obsession ending with the monster’s own poignant words. The three voices play different aspects of Frankenstein’s psyche and interact, coming together to narrate and to form the voice of the monster.

The full line up for the Toi, Toi, Toi evenings will include, Matt Huxley and Kieran Brunt as Strange Boy. Tomoya Forster and the General Skank Band will add a flavour of reggae, Florian Aikinmade singer-songwriter, Victoria Mulley performing Try Me Good King, Mimi Doulton performing King Harald's Saga, two new Helios Collective commissions including another scene from Noah Mosley's July 20th 1944 about an attempt to assassinate Hitler and my Genesis of Frankenstein.

There will be video screenings of Shadwell opera projects directed by Jack Furness, as well as Ergo Phizmiz' Vogel Europa a piece about travelling and difficult decisions for piano, voice and turntable, Finnish composer Miika's live composition project questioning how we react to space, The Hermes Experiment's Metropolis that is a new, semi-improvised piece that puts instruments in dialogue with the sounds of the city. Frederick Moehn and the Embaúba Ensemble will perform The voice in bossa nova, morna, fado incorporating Portuguese and Brazilian music into the mix. All this and more, including DJ-after party including Miles Russell and Thomas and Richard Jones.

Further details follow, but do save the date. Noah Mosley and my pieces will be performed each evening with a different line up round them.

Handel Siroe

Handel Siroe; Ann Hallenberg, Johanna Stojkovic, Sunhae Im, Cappella Coloniensis, Andreas Spering; Harmonia Mundi
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Aug 28 2015
Star rating: 4.0
Fine performance from Ann Hallenberg in the title role of this relatively unloved Handel opera

Handel's settings of librettos by Metastasio, the greatest opera librettist of his age, remain relatively unloved in the composer's oeuvre. This 2004 recording on Harmonia Mundi is a very fine account of Siroe, conducted by Andreas Spering and showcasing Ann Hallenberg as Siroe with a cast including Johanna Stojkovic, Sunhae Im, Gunther Schmid, Sebastian Noack and Tim de Jong, with the Cappella Coloniensis.

Handel wrote Siroe in 1728 at the height of the Royal academy's 'Rival Queens' period when the presence of sopranos Francesca Cuzzoni, Faustina Bordoni and castrato Senesino meant that any opera had to take account of all three, with two balanced soprano roles. Add to this that Metastasio's librettos are famously long and detailed with far more recitative than the UK audience would sit through. So Handel and Nicola Haym re-shaped Siroe so that Handel's opera is far shorter than the original. Whilst the plot might be rudimentary, Handel responded with some fine music.

The plot concerns dynastic conflict between Cosroe (Sebastian Noack) and his two sons, Siroe (Ann Hallenberg) and Medarse (Gunther Schmid), complicated by Emira (Johanna Stojkovic) who is secretly in love with Siroe but at court dressed as a man in order to revenge the death of her father, and Laodice (Sunhae Im) who is Cosroe's mistress, and an inveterate schemer.

Classic and modern - Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival 2015

Guy Johnston

Guy Johnston and the Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival are back for another long weekend of chamber music delights in and around Hatfield House. Running from 24 September to 27 September 2015 there are events in the Marble Hall of Hatfield House, the Old Palace and St Etheldreda's Church. The theme of the festival is Vienna, with music from both the first and second Viennese schools. The Navarra String Quintet open things with a concert of Haydn, Mozart and Schubert in which they are joined by Guy Johnston for Schubert's String Quintet in C major and by Matthew Hunt for Mozart's Clarinet Quintet. And things conclude in fine style on Sunday 27 September when Stephen Cleobury conducts the choir of Kings College Cambridge and the Haydn Chamber Orchestra in Mozart' Requiem and music from Charlotte Bray's Winter is Past and there is a pre-concert talk by Nicholas Kenyon on Mozart: Man, Myth and Music.

Between the two there is more classic chamber music by Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert alongside more recent examples of the genre including Webern and more from Charlotte Bray including a new commission. Nicolas Daniel will be the soloist in Mozart's Oboe Quartet, and Ruby Hughes will be singing Schubert and Mahler songs alongside Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht with pianist Tom Poster, the Navarra String Quartet, plus Guy Johnson and Rosalind Ventris. On the Sunday afternoon in the Riding School there is a youth concert with Gonzalo Acosta directing the Musicale Young Artists' Chamber Orchestra in Strauss waltzes.

Occupy the Pianos - from Queer Pitch, to pianos, metronomes and Steve Martland's Drill

Rolf Hind

Pianist and composer Rolf Hind is returning to St John's Smith Square for the second Occupy the Pianos, a three-day piano festival from 10 to 13 September 2015. An amazing total of eleven concerts will present music for pianos, prepared piano, voice and dancer from 20th and 21st centuries, from composers ranging from John Cage, Cowell, Copland, Feldman and Swedish poet and musician Tomas Transtroemer (1931-2015), Karl Aage Rasmussen, Jonathan Goddard, Per Nørgárd, György Kurtág, Ligeti and Rebecca Saunders, along with Per Nørgárd's Unendlicher Empfang for two pianos and four metronomes, Steve Martland's Drill for 2 pianos.

The Saturday night concert (12 September, 7pm) is Queer Pitch - described by Rolf Hind as "a gay cabaret", a chance to hear the music of various composers who might identify themselves in this way, though wildly differing in style, including readings and music by Michael Finnissy, Meredith Monk, Pauline Oliveiros, David Del Tredici, Claude Vivier as well as the extraordinary and rarely played Gay Guerrilla for 4 pianists by the tragically short-lived Julius Eastman. There will be a discussion beforehand, raising the question of this kind of programming and how meaningful it can be.

British Youth Opera - The Cunning Little Vixen

The Cunning Little Vixen – British Youth Opera at the Peacock Theatre.
Hazel McBain (Sharp Ears) and Katie Coventry (Golden Mane) with company. Photo: Bill Knight for BYO

Janacek The Cunning Little Vixen; Hazel McBain, Kieran Rayner, dir: Stuart Barker, cond: Lionel Friend; British Youth Opera at the Peacock Theatre
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Sep 06 2015
Star rating: 4.0
Puppets, personality, bags of charm and not a little edge - Janacek's opera brought to life by BYO's young singers

Having warned us last year that the financial situation was such that they might not be able to present their summer opera this year, it is satisfying to be able to report that British Youth Opera (BYO) is back at the Peacock Theatre (from 5 to 12 September 2015) with three operas. A double bill of RVW's Riders to the Sea and Holst's Savitri which premiered on 9 September, and Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen which premiered last night, 5 September 2015. Conducted by Lionel Friend and directed by Stuart Barker, The Cunning Little Vixen was designed by Simon Bejer with movement by Mandy Demetriou, lighting by David Howe and Darren East as the puppetry consultant. Hazel McBain was the vixen Sharp Ears, with Kieran Rayner as the Forester and a large cast which included Mria Hughes, Ailsa Mainwaring, Rebecca Silverman, Heulen Cynfal, Joanna Norman, Susanna Buckle, Ashley Mercer, William Wallace, Kenneth Read, Simon Tournier and Joanna Norman, with the South Bank Sinfonia in the pit. The opera was sung in Norman Tucker's translation.

  The Cunning Little Vixen – British Youth Opera at the Peacock Theatre.
Kieran Rayner (Forester) and Simon Tournier (Harašta).
Photo: Clive Barda/ArenaPAL

Simon Bejer's designs used virtually no set, just a lit backdrop against which chorus members in black would bring on portable items. The black figures were a big feature of the entire production, holding stylised trees, manipulating the puppets which represented the animals, wearing golden fox-masks to effect the transformation scenes for the moment when Sharp Ears dreams of the moon, and when she dies. Descendants of such figures as the stylised servants in Nicholas Hytner's ENO production of Handel's Serse, the black clad figures were not completely impassive. Their headgear reflected the season and the action, and they reacted to the action around them and even had their own choreographic moments.

Stuart Barker and Simon Bejer are founders of the puppet company Third Hand, whilst puppet consultant Darren East is a third generation puppeteer who was artistic associated for the Little Angel Theatre  in 2013. The same team was responsible for BYO's magical production of Jonathan Dove's The Little Green Swallow, and The Cunning Little Vixen had the same magical mix of live action and puppetry. We knew we were in for a treat when the opening action included the butterfly emerging from its pupa! The larger animals, badger, owl and the various chorus members, were simply represented by the singer suitably dressed, whilst the smaller insects were puppets manipulated by the singer (in black) often with another puppeteer (also in black).

LPO in Luke Styles 'Macbeth', and travels to Mexico, Italy and Frankfurt

Luke Style and Ted Huffman at Glyndebourne,
photo Sam Stephenson

The London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), conducted by Jeremy Bines, gives the London premiere of Luke Styles' opera Macbeth at the Linbury Studio Theatre at Covent Garden on Wednesday 9 September. The opera was written for Glyndebourne and premiered there earlier this year; Styles was Young Composer in Residence at Glyndebourne from 2011 to 2014. The opera is directed by the American director Ted Huffman who also adapted Shakespeare's text for the work (no mean feat as the opera lasts just 1 hour 10 minutes).

The LPO is having a busy time this month.This week they are in Italy where Vladimir Jurowski will be conducting the recently re-discovered 1879 version of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 with pianist Kirill Gerstein (who recorded it with the Deutsches-Symphonie Orchester Berlin and James Gaffigan, see my review). As a compare and contrast, the following evening they perform the traditional version with Daniil Trifonov at La Scala, Milan. The orchestra is also touring to Mexico with conductor Alondra de la Parra as part of the Year of Mexico in the United Kingdom 2015 where the programme includes RVW's Lark Ascending with Jennifer Pike along with music by Arnold, and Oliver Knussen, and Mahler's Resurrection Symphony. Later in September the orchestra will be touring to the Alte Opera, Frankfurt.

Further information from the London Philharmonic Orchestra's website.

Technology and class in the development of opera and concert going.

The Gods at Covent Garden in 1805, caricature
copyright Victoria and Albert Museum

Opera was invented in the 16th century, and both opera and concert-going seem to have reached a settled format in the 17th century. But though it might seem as if the format has been static since then, two things have in fact influenced concert and opera-going, technology and class, causing radical changes in the way we perceive and the way we go to concerts. Technology controls not only what it is possible to present, but how people learn about it,  and how they get there. And class controls who gets to go.

In late 17th century London public concerts developed because two technological improvements allowed them to. Pocket watches meant it was affordable to get somewhere at a particular specific time, and broadsheets gave organisers a way of informing people about concerts. Of course, affordable is a relative term, but concert goers would have been gentlemen and ladies, these concerts were public only in the most limited sense. Even in the 18th century the famous concerts at Hanover Square Rooms were for a limited range of people, there was a committee very much like clubs such as Almacks and attendees had to be someone.

But audience members would have had to have time and leisure to attend, concerts were often arranged so that they finished early because of the lack of much if any street lighting. Which also meant if they did finish late, you needed to be able to have access to transport (a carriage, a chair or a link-man) to get home.  (The scientific group, the Lunar Society, was so-called because it met at the time of the full moon so members could get home easier). Even in the 19th century Verdi's Don Carlos in Paris would have to be truncated because it over-ran and the audience would miss the last trains to the suburbs. and of course, most of these people would be middle class. The 19th century brought the rise of the middle classes - these were the audience for music, opera and theatre.

Hanover Square Rooms

Technology allowed for the building of bigger theatres, thus giving an economy of scale. Oil lamps were invented in 1780's with gas developing some 20 years with experiments in electric lighting not happening until the mid 19th century and later. These developments in lighting technology meant that venues could be lit better during the evening, providing improvements in access.

And venues would have a separate place, high at the top, The Gods, available for cheap seats. Such places allowed working men to visit the theatre and kept them well away from the main areas. Downstairs, theatres were still highly class ridden. Even in the 20th century between the wars people could be denied entry to Covent Garden because they were not appropriately dressed. And then Covent Garden opened after the Second World War, it as accepted that dress would be dinner suits, gowns and tiaras.

In the late 1940's when my parents visited Covent Garden they queued on the day to get a token which gave them access to the Gods. But this allowed a boiler-maker from Grimsby and his wife to see Moira Shearer dancing in Sleeping Beauty.

Perhaps the biggest single event at Covent Garden, in terms of attitudes to class, was the removal of the Gods in the 1960's. This was done for reasons of safety, but resulted in the  merging of the area with the rest of the theatre, though it would take until the 2000 re-build for everyone to have a common entrance. The story at the London Coliseum is similar, with a side entrance to the Gods only being replaced in their millennium re-build. A surprising fact, given that the company there English National Opera had its origins in providing entertainment for the working class at the Old Vic. So ENO's story is something of the reverse, entertainment for the working class working its way up to be part of the cultural establishment.

The Royal Festival Hall, built for the Festival of Britain, was revolutionary in that it imbued the new optimism of the times and the huge auditorium allowed all to enter by the same means with no areas separate from the others.

Nowadays having opened up performance spaces, in class terms, we find that though technology has altered what can be put on a stage, the essential nature of concerts and opera has not changed much. Where modern technology is changing things is in the ability to use cinema and the internet to provide high quality access to performances. The technology is there to make a genuinely interactive live theatrical experience though no mainstream company has made this leap (In 2013 I remember going to a contemporary fringe opera where the cast were using Twitter, complete with live Twitter accounts being run by the characters, but they did not take it further and invite the audience to interact with the Tweeting characters!)

Elsewhere on this blog:

• Missed opportunity: Prom 65, Alice Coote in Handel - concert review
• Colour and Drama: Mozart and more from Anneke Scott and Ironwood - CD review
• An Avila Diary: My adventures singing triple-choir music by Victoria and Vivanco under Peter Phillips in Spain - feature article
• Serious, independent, fascinating: Music by Edward McGuire from Red Note - CD review
• Charm: Wolf-Ferrari's Suite Veneziana - CD review
• Undeservedly forgotten: Music by Roger Sacheverell Coke - Cd review
• Wartime consolations: Linus Roth plays music by Weinberg and Hartmann which deserves to be heard
• Towering achievement: Beethoven's Diabelli Variations from Nick van Bloss - CD review
• Family connections: Alissa Firsova Russian Emigres - CD review
• Volume 5 of Malcolm Martineau's survey of Poulenc Songs - CD review
• Contemporary opera is alive and well and living in Kings Cross: Tete a Tete festival - opera review
• New voice from Iceland: Hugi Gudmundsson's Calm of the Deep - CD review
• More than frothy fun: Gluck's Il Parnaso confuso from Les Bougies Baroques - opera review
• Sparkling delight: Wolf Ferrari's Il Segreto di Susanna - CD review
• Of great beauty: Monteverdi's L'Orfeo at the Proms - Opera review

from Longborough's young artists - opera review

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Prom 65: Alice Coote's Being Both - a missed opportunity

Alice Coote

Being Both, music from Handel's Alcina, Ariodante, Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Hercules, Messiah, Semele, Theodora; Alice Coote, The English Concert, Harry Bicket; BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Sep 04 2015
Star rating: 3.5
Disappointing staging mars Alice Coote's vibrant if wayward musical performance
 
Alice Coote's late-night appearance at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall on Thursday 5 September 2015 was a version of her show Being Both with premiered at the Brighton Festival earlier this year (to mixed reviews, see Rupert Christiansen's review on the Telegraph website). Accompanied by Harry Bicket and the English Concert, Alice Coote sang arias from Handel's Alcina, Ariodante, Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Herculese, Messiah, Semele and Theodora, with a staging directed by Susannah Waters with choreography by Christopher Tudor. It was billed as an exploration of gender and sexuality, based on the fact that as a female singer Alice Coote is asked to incarnate both male and female characters when singing roles in Handel operas and oratorios.

This is a potentially fascinating subject, but I am not sure that Alice Coote and Susannah Waters show actually enlightened us in any way. The stage action seems to have been simplified somewhat from the full show, which may go some way to explaining my puzzlement with the concept. Dressed all in black, with jacket and trousers, but looking every inch female, Alice Coote opened by singing a few lines from Myself I shall adore from Handel's Semele, unaccompanied and transposed down somewhat. She followed this with an account of Sta nell'Ircana from Alcina performed stood on a box and accompanied by a gestural language which cropped up repeatedly in the show. These gestures seemed to be intended to be of significance, including as they did phallic gestures and whatever the opposite female gesture might be called. Frankly I found it puzzling and distracting.

The show continued in this vein, with a strong sense of a dramaturgical flow which I could not quite fathom, as if Alice Coote was telling a story which I could not grasp. Singing He was despised from Messiah whilst apparently lying in a bath, and playing with a razor seemed only one of the more puzzling elements. The result was a staging which seemed a little self-indulgent even if deeply felt, and this was not helped by the fact that Alice Coote's musical performance was similarly idiosyncratic.

Tempos were often a bit wayward, and she has a tendency to pull the music about in a way which can seem rather old-fashioned (or refreshingly non-historically informed, depending on one's point of view). There is no doubt of her strong technical command, but this is combined with a very idiosyncratic sense of style, so that some moments had me gasping with amazement whilst others induced profound annoyance. The audience, however, was clearly sympathetic in the main and the end of the 75 minute show was greeted with rapturous applause.

Sta nell'Ircana (Alcina) was beautifully, if lightly done with a lovely even tone even if some of the phrasing seemed slightly too 19th century in style for my taste and she was accompanied by some superb horn playing. Resign thy club (Hercules) was finely sung but as Alice Coote prowled around the stage her voice tended to come and go (always a problem in the Royal Albert Hall) and words disappeared, there was also a hint of unevenness in the passagework.

Scherza infida (Ariodante) was sung with a beautiful shape to the phrases and rich tone. It was deeply felt though this did mean that the tempo slowed somewhat. The bassoon obbligato was simply fabulous, with a lovely nutty tone. Oh, that I on wings could rise (Theodora) was sung with high bright tone, but the light intimate style of singing meant that it was not always well projected. This was one of a trio of soprano arias which Coote included in the show, demonstrating the wide range of her voice (though I have no knowledge of whether any transpositions were applied).

The orchestra got so show off their paces finely in the ballet music from Act 2 of Ariodante which concluded with Ginevra's short yet dramatic recit. This led into the performance of He was despised (Messiah) referred to above, which was musically strong with lovely straight tone and strongly felt meaning, allied to the sort of tempo which Kathleen Ferrier would have been used to.

Myself I shall adore, the solo soprano aria from Semele, was finally sung in full though Alice Coote started this unaccompanied and the instruments gradually joined her. Any joy in the musical performance however, was distracted by the rather over dramatic use of a torch. This was followed by another soprano aria, Se pieta  which is Cleopatra's aria from Giulio Cesare. Rather annoyingly the programme said little about the inclusion of these soprano arias,  though Cleopatra is a role that has been sung by Cecilia Bartoli.

Dopo notte from Ariodante was simply stunning in terms of the vocal control which Alice Coote showed, though starting the aria up-stage did mean that the opening was slightly rocky in terms of ensemble. Her performance was not the conventional bravura, even though all the notes were certainly there, but was quietly intense and internal. After all the virtuoso showing off, we finished with the quiet contemplation of There, in myrtle shades from Hercules with the solo cellist coming forward to sit next to Alice Coote on stage.

This show seemed rather like a missed opportunity; there is much to explore in the subject of gender, sexuality and Handel's characters, but it did not feel as if these interesting questions were really being addressed. However, Alice Coote is never a boring performer and there was much to enjoy in this show. But I am not sure that the stage action contributed to our enjoyment of the arias and Coote's personality is such that a simple concert performance would have been equally mesmerising, and possibly more vivid. She was accompanied throughout with discreet poise by Harry Bicket and the English Concert.

The Prom is available on the BBC iPlayer for 30 days. This review also appears in OperaToday.com.

Being Both: music from Handel's Alcina, Ariodante, Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Hercules, Messiah, Semele and Theodora
Alice Coote (mezzo-soprano)
The English Concert; Harry Bicket (conductor)
Susannah Waters (stage director); Christopher Tudor (movement director)
BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall; 3 September 2015

Elsewhere on this blog:

• Colour and Drama: Mozart and more from Anneke Scott and Ironwood - CD review
• An Avila Diary: My adventures singing triple-choir music by Victoria and Vivanco under Peter Phillips in Spain - feature article
• Serious, independent, fascinating: Music by Edward McGuire from Red Note - CD review
• Charm: Wolf-Ferrari's Suite Veneziana - CD review
• Undeservedly forgotten: Music by Roger Sacheverell Coke - Cd review
• Wartime consolations: Linus Roth plays music by Weinberg and Hartmann which deserves to be heard
• Towering achievement: Beethoven's Diabelli Variations from Nick van Bloss - CD review
• Family connections: Alissa Firsova Russian Emigres - CD review
• Volume 5 of Malcolm Martineau's survey of Poulenc Songs - CD review
• Contemporary opera is alive and well and living in Kings Cross: Tete a Tete festival - opera review
• New voice from Iceland: Hugi Gudmundsson's Calm of the Deep - CD review
• More than frothy fun: Gluck's Il Parnaso confuso from Les Bougies Baroques - opera review
• Sparkling delight: Wolf Ferrari's Il Segreto di Susanna - CD review
• Of great beauty: Monteverdi's L'Orfeo at the Proms - Opera review
• Dazzling technique, bags of charm: Gallay operatic fantasies from Anneke Scott - CD review

from Longborough's young artists - opera review

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Opera Acts: Singers and Performance in the Late Nineteeth Century

Karen Henson; Opera Acts: Singers and Performance in the Late Nineteeth Century; Cambridge University Press
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Aug 31 2015
Star rating: 4.0
Fascinating account of opera singing in the late 19th century, focussing on four key singers and the physicality of their performances

The late 19th century is often regarded as a low-point in operatic singing, the singers falling into a gap between the last generation to work collaboratively with composers (such as Giuditta Pasta with Bellini), and the 20th century singers whose career was defined by the recording process. But I have long been fascinated by such figures as Celestine Galli-Marie who created the role of Bizet's Carmen, about whom a great deal of myth and legend as accumulated, and Jean de Reske whose repertoire ranged from Gounod's Romeo and Wagner's Tristan (in the same season). So I was eager to see this new study in Cambridge University Press's series Cambridge Studies in Opera, Karen Henson's Opera Acts: Singers and Performance in the Late Nineteeth Century in which she explores opera singing in the 1880's and 1890's. 

Baritone Victor Maurel and Verdi

Starting from Verdi's phrase 'not singing' ('che ... non cantasse') which he used about Lady Macbeth, Henson looks at how singers were hemmed by a generation of composers who expected to have a greater degree of control over exactly what the singer did, and so the singers expressed themselves in other ways. By exploring in detail four singers of the period (along with eight 'supporting cast'). Karen Henson looks at how singers used physicality as a way of personal expression. This wasn't naturalism as we think of it, but an emphasis on physicality. The four singers in question each had a major relationship with a contemporary composer, though judging from contemporary reports none of the four had spectacular voices. It was in their physical acting, their presence (singing physignomically in Henson's phrase) that they expressed the drama of the music. The four singers are baritone Victor Maurel who created Iago in Verdi's Otello and the title role in Falstaff, mezzo-soprano Celestine Galli-Marie who created the title role in Bizet's Carmen, soprano Sybil Sanderson for whom Massenet wrote a number of roles including the title role in Thais and tenor Jean de Reske who played an important role in singing Wagner.

Sybil Sanderson
as Massenet's Esclarmonde

Writing about such singers is difficult, Karen Henson has had to do a great deal of archive digging, and has to rely on contemporary descriptions. For much of the time she is not addressing the subject directly but what she terms 'prowling around'. A case in point is Wagner tenor Jean de Reske who converted from a baritone, yet still sang Gounod's Romeo and Wagner's Tristan. Karen Henson has to rely on unsatisfactory descriptions and has to make an educated best guess as to what he sounded like.

This is very much an academic book (Karen Henson is Associate Professor at the Frost School of Music, University of Miami), and her writing style reflects this in not always being the easiest of reads, and to appreciate the arguments you have to read copious quotes from contemporary descriptions. But it is worth pursuing, the arguments and information are completely fascinating.

Celestine Galli-Marie as
Bizet's Carmen

Though Verdi denied Victor Maurel a part in creating the roles that he premiered, Maurel's profoundly actorly approach clearly had a strong influence on the composer. Karen Henson starts with Victor Maurel's assumption of a major French role, Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet, and then the first French performances of Aida to discover how Victor Maurel approached roles and comes to a strong conclusion about his importance to Verdi's later composing career.

Celestine Galli-Marie's role in creating Carmen in Bizet's opera is the stuff of legend, but Karen Henson argues that it was not naturalism/realism that the singer brought to the role but a sense of theatricality. This was based on her background in a performing family (her father was an opera singer, her sisters performed in operetta and cafe-concerts), and a history of intervening visually (costumes, gestures) in the way characters were performed on stage. Interestingly, Celestine Galli-Marie seems to have had quite a light voice, so by the time you have read Karen Henson's chapter on her the image of a Carmen with a rich dark voice and heavily realistic acting is well and truly scotched.

The soprano Sybil Sanderson had a long relationship with Massenet (he had a tendency to become enamoured of female singers and write roles for them). With Sybil Sanderson, Massenet not only wrote the music but seems to have influenced (controlled?) her visual image including numbers cartes de visites. Whilst it is easy to think of Sybil Sanderson as a purely passive receptacle, Karen Hansen argues for her far more active involvement in the visual presentation (of photographs and of the operas).

Jean de Reske as
Wagner's Siegfried

Polish tenor Jean de Reske came from a theatrical family, both his brother Edouard and sister Josephine were singers. He is the only one our quartet for whom an aural record exists, a distant shadow on a Mapleson cylinder from the New York Met. Jean de Reske started out as a lyric baritone and then retrained as a tenor. This re-training seems to have involved not developing power (as happened with heldentenor Lauritz Melchoir who started as a baritone), but in creating flexibility in the voice's upper register. He never seems to have had a superb voice, but he succeeded in being able to suggest the necessary lightness of Gounod's Romeo, whilst also singing Wagner. He brought seriousness to this, and it is in the actorly details, a sense of the words and declamation that he impressed. You sense that some passages were almost spoken and he certainly does not seem to have had a voice which could ride the greatest tide of the orchestra. Other commentators refer to being able to hear the pitch! Partly this is in response to the fact that in the 1890's, Wagner's operas were regarded as being forbidding and unperformable and Jean de Reske played an important role in internationalising performances, combining elements of both German and Italian traditions along with an emphasis on non-musical elements.

Karen Henson concludes the book with a short look at the careers of Emma Calve (the second Carmen), Victor Capoul Jean-Baptiste Faure, Marie Heilbron, Paul Lherie (the first Don Jose), Paole Marie (Celestine Galli-Marie's sister) and Jean de Reske's siblings, Edouard and Josephine. The result is to provide a fascinating patchwork of image of how singers of the period made their mark in both singing and 'not singing'.

I doubt that this book is the last word on the subject, but it is certainly a fascinating contribution to the debate about singers of the recent past. It is a wonderful corrective to the rose-tinted spectacle view of early performers. Reading Karen Henson really makes you think about what those audiences in the 1880's and 1890's actually heard and saw, and how much control the singer involved had.


Jean de Reske recorded at the Met in New York in 1901 on a Mapleson Cylinder.

Elsewhere on this blog:

• Colour and Drama: Mozart and more from Anneke Scott and Ironwood - CD review
• An Avila Diary: My adventures singing triple-choir music by Victoria and Vivanco under Peter Phillips in Spain - feature article
• Serious, independent, fascinating: Music by Edward McGuire from Red Note - CD review
• Charm: Wolf-Ferrari's Suite Veneziana - CD review
• Undeservedly forgotten: Music by Roger Sacheverell Coke - Cd review
• Wartime consolations: Linus Roth plays music by Weinberg and Hartmann which deserves to be heard
• Towering achievement: Beethoven's Diabelli Variations from Nick van Bloss - CD review
• Family connections: Alissa Firsova Russian Emigres - CD review
• Volume 5 of Malcolm Martineau's survey of Poulenc Songs - CD review
• Contemporary opera is alive and well and living in Kings Cross: Tete a Tete festival - opera review
• New voice from Iceland: Hugi Gudmundsson's Calm of the Deep - CD review
• More than frothy fun: Gluck's Il Parnaso confuso from Les Bougies Baroques - opera review
• Sparkling delight: Wolf Ferrari's Il Segreto di Susanna - CD review
• Of great beauty: Monteverdi's L'Orfeo at the Proms - Opera review
• Dazzling technique, bags of charm: Gallay operatic fantasies from Anneke Scott - CD review

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The byways of French Romantic music with the Palazzetto Bru Zane

The Palazzetto Bru Zane, Centre de musique romantique Francaise, has released its 2015/16 programme and for anyone interested in the forgotten byways of French 19th century music then the season is full of delights. Though to call the works in the programme byways is unfair, as much of the French music which Palazzetto Bru Zane champions was highly popular in its day. As ever, the organisation's live concerts are linked to recordings, so you can expect to see recordings. And as the release this year of a CD of Saint-Saens opera La Barbares showed us, there are plenty of hidden gems. The 2015/16 season examine the work of two composers, Edouard Lalo and Benjamin Godard, whose output particularly their operas enable us to examine the influence of Wagner on French opera. In addition there is a chance to hear an opera by one of the founders of the early 19th century French style, Gaspare Spontini.

The music of Edouard Lalo is hardly a forgotten byway, but whilst a handful of works get exposure his operas less so. Le Roi d'Ys does get the occasional outing, rather more in the French speaking world than in the UK, but his final opera La Jacquerie will be a new experience for most. Completed after Lalo's death, it was premiered in Monte Carlo in 1895. Patrick Devin conducts the Orchestre Philharmonique de France with Veronique Gens as Blanche, Charles Castronovo and Edgaras Montvidas sharing the role of Robert. The first concert performance was at Opera Berlioz Montpellier last month, and it is repeated in Paris, at the Auditorium of Radio France, on 11 March 2016. The opera is accompanied by a festival in Venice, a cycle of eight concerts from 26 September to 10 November 2015 encompassing Lalo's chamber music, the Violin Concerto gets a rare UK outing when Jeremie Rhorer conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra with James ehnes in the solo part, at the Royal Festival Hall on 10 December 2015. A recording of Lalo's complete melodies is being released on the Aparte label in Octobr, and the complete orchestral concertante works come out on disc, on Alpha Classics, with Jean-Jacques Kantorow conducting the Orchestra Philharmonique Royal de Liege, in February 2016.

Benjamin Godard

If the name Benjamin Godard means anything to you, it is for the Berceuse from his opera Jocelyn (1888). But he had an extensive career including six operas. His opera Dante, based on the life of the Renaissance poet, was premiered in 1890 at the Opera Comique in Paris. There are concert performances at the PrinzRegentenTheater in Munich (31 January 2016), and the Opera Royal de Versailles (2 February 2016) with Ulf Schirmer conducting the Munich Radio Orchestra and Bavarian Radio Chorus, with Edgaras Montvidas as Dante and Veronique Gens as Beatrice. For these performances a new edition of the opera has been made, base on the composer's autograph.  A varied selection of Godard's works will be presented at the Palazzetto Bru Zane's festival in Venice from 9 April to 15 May 2016. And there are excerpts from two of his symphonies in concert at Studio 1 im Funkhaus, Munich (20 September 2015).

The work of Gaspare Spontini was much admired by Berlioz, and Spontini's La Vestale has vestigial hold on the repertory (albeit often in the Italian translation). But his opera L'Olympie was premiered 1819 at the Academie Royale de Musique, Paris (the body which became the Paris Opera), though is is little known nowadays (Gerd Albrecht recorded it on the Orfeo label in 1984). There is a chance to catch up when Jeremie Rhorer conducts Le Cercle de l'Harmonie at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees on Friday 3 June 2016, with Karina Gauvin as Olympie and Charles Castronovo as Cassandre. The performance is part of a Palazzetto Bru Zane festival in Paris (3 June to 9 June 2016) which includes a lovely overview of French romantic music with performers including Marie-Nicole Lemieux in French song, and Quatuor Mosaique in quartets by Godard, Gounod and Debussy.

There is a lot more besides, and you can find full details on their website, bru-zane.com. The organisation is also highly active publishing, and they have now set up a website (bruznemediabase.com)combining articles, visual images and documents to make them more widely available. You can read more about the Palazzetto Bru Zane in my article about their programme of French piano music at the Institut Francais earlier this year.

A new world of colour and drama - Mozart: Stolen Beauties

Chamber music with French horn by Mozart, Michael Haydn and Punto; Anneke Scott, Ironwood, ABC Classics
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Aug 12 2015
Star rating: 4.0
Vivid colour and bravura technique

This new disc on the Australian label ABC Classics comes from horn player Anneke Scott and the Australian period instrument ensemble Ironwood, and it takes Mozart's Quintet in E flat major for horn, violin, two violas and cello, KV487/386c and pairs it with a group of works from the early 19th century showcasing the development of horn playing during this period, with the use of added valve blocks utilising a technique which mixes hand-horn and valve techniques. The other main items on the disc are nearly all in fact arrangements of Mozart with an anonymous Ari varie pour corno (sur 'La ci darem la mano') and Barham Livius's Concertante for pianoforte, horn, viola and violoncello arranged from a Sonata by Mozart (Trio in E flat marjo, KV498 Kegelstatt), plus Michael Haydn's Romance in A flat major for horn and string quartet MH806 which is a version of the slow movement of Mozart's Horn Concerto in E-flat major, KV447. Also on the disc are a group of duos by the 19th century horn virtuoso Giovanni Punto.

Anneke Scott - photo credit Sophie Raymond

Anneke Scott has recently spent some time exploring the early 19th century natural horn techniques used in Paris notably with music by Jacques-Francois Gallay (see my review of her most recent disc). Whilst the Parisian horn players eschewed valves in favour of entirely hand techniques, other countries adopted the new technology. On this disc Anneke Scott plays a natural horn made in Paris in 1835 to which has been added a sauterelle, a detachable block with two valves. So the player has the combination of hand stopping techniques and valves at their disposal. A key factor in the choosing of this horn was the existence of Barham Livius's own horn, now in the Horniman Collection in London, which has just such a sauterelle and his arrangement of the Mozart Kegestatt Trio uses both hand and valve techniques. For the remaining works on the disc, Anneke Scott played the horn with the sauterelle removed, using purely hand stopping techniques. There is a fascinating video on YouTube where she discusses this (see below).

The use of hand stopping techniques on a natural horn to produce the chromatic notes results in a lovely array of different sounds as the horn traverses the chromatic scale. This, combined with the very different sound world created by the fortepiano (a Viennese action one after Anton Walter, c 1790) and the use of late 18th century style bows which come between baroque and modern style, means that even the familiar music on the disc inhabits a pungent sound-world which we are not always used to.