Lully's Armide staged by Music at Woodhouse

Thalie Knights - Lully: Armide - Music at Woodhouse
Rob Tyson Knights Photography

Lully Armide; Thalie Knights, Kieran White, Gheorghe Palcu, Marcio da Silva, Stephanie Gurga; Music at Woodhouse
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb 21 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Lully's tragedie lyrique staged on a small scale with a sense style with a young cast.

Woodhouse Copse is an Arts and Crafts cottage orné in the Surrey Hills designed by Oliver Hill with a garden by Gertrude Jekyll, originally owned by the daughter of the playwright Brandon Thomas (who wrote Charley's Aunt). 

Woodhouse Copse is now the home to Music at Woodhouse, artistic director Monika Saunders, which puts on staged opera productions with young singers. On Sunday 21 February 2016 we caught the second of two performances of Lully's Armide performed as the culmination of a week long Baroque Academy. Under music director Marcio da Silva (who also staged the opera and sang) a small but hard-working cast performed Lully's 1686 tragedie lyrique, with the OrQuesta baroque ensemble directed from the harpsichord by Stephanie Gurga. Some roles were double cast, and we saw Thalie Knights as Armide with Kieran White as Renaud, Gheorghe Palcu as Hidraot and Ubalde, Marcio da Silva as Aronte and La Haine (Hatred), Emma Newman-Young as Siodonie, plus Hiroshi Kanazawa, Jessica Ng, and Helen May. Stacey Mastrian, who was due to sing the role of Phoenice was ill so she acted the role whilst Stephanie Gurga sang from the harpsichord.

Kieran White - Lully: Armide - Music at Woodhouse
Rob Tyson Knights Photography

Woodhouse Copse has two performing spaces, an outdoor theatre where large-scale opera is performed in the Summer (they present Puccini's La Boheme in September 2016) and an indoor Baroque theatre created out of an indoor swimming pool (the pool remains under the wooden floor thus giving the space a greater resonance than might first appear). In fact, the opera was rather bravely presented almost in the round with the audience on three sides of the acting area. This worked well because Armide is relatively unusual in tragedie lyrique in that it concentrates quite closely on the central relationship between Armide and Renaud with few of the side diversions and sub-plots that often occur in the genre.

The draw back, was of course, the difficulty of getting perfect ensemble. Logistically is made sense for the chorus (sung off stage by members of the cast) to be place away from the instrumental ensemble, but this did lead to moments of imperfect ensemble. But when just the soloists were singing they and the six instrumentalists seemed to have moments of almost telepathic agreement.

Marcio da Silva's production was simple and stylised, based around a central dais with much by-play with candles and some lovely rich costumes. There were some cuts, some of the smaller roles had been lost and we did not get all of the ballet but overall the production was remarkably true to the original's intentions and it helped that Da Silva had got a pair of extremely powerful performances from the lead roles, Thalie Knight and Kieran White, as Armide and Renaud with neither singer, apparently, being phased by the extreme closeness of the audience.

Getting closer to Art for Art's sake in Shoreditch with the City of London Sinfonia

CLoSer at the Village Underground
photo James Berry

Strauss Rosen Aus Dem Süden, 
Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565, 
Mahler Das Lied von der Erde; 
Gwilym Bowen, Anna Huntley, Michael Collins, 
City of London Sinfonia, Rachel Rose Reid; 
CLoSer at the Village Underground
Reviewed by Ruth Hansford on Feb 17 2016
Star rating: 4.0
The City of London Sinfonia evoking the 1920's Vienna of Schoenberg in a Shoreditch club

The City of London Sinfonia (CLS) puts on concerts that 'promise to surprise us'. The first surprise was how easy it is to get lost in Shoreditch in the dark and the rain. Village Underground, as most people probably know, is a 'found space' around an abandoned railway viaduct; this contributed to the secret, club-like character of the event, with its bouncers and CCTV at the door and, once inside, cushions on the floor and bar drinks in huge plastic cups.

The main space is a T-shape, the band positioned with a flat brick wall behind and audience seats (and cushions) on three sides. We were invited to leave our phones on, take photos, tweet, wander around, drink, chat, but not clap between the Mahler songs. It felt like a late-night Prom (including the whooping from the audience) – a classical concert minus the printed programme. Michael Collins & members of the City of London Sinfonia were joined by tenor Gwilym Bowen, mezzo-soprano Anna Huntley and story-teller Rachel Rose Reid for chamber versions of Strauss's Rosen Aus Dem Süden, Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565, and Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde.

The first and last pieces in the concert were arranged by Schoenberg for the Society for Private Musical Performances which, in post-First World War Austerity Vienna, brought salon-scale versions of larger works to an audience of enthusiasts, who were not allowed to clap (or whoop, presumably), or boo, and the press were banned. Art for art's sake. Something we forget to enjoy these days?

Johann Strauss' (yes, Johann's) Rosen aus dem Süden was given the Schoenberg treatment for string quartet, piano and harmonium, and wonderfully kitsch it sounded too, with its dirty low rumble and its full stops so that anyone trying to waltz to it would be guaranteed to trip over. Matthew Swann had introduced it as 'the equivalent of Quentin Tarantino sitting down with a tub of popcorn and a box set of Sex and the City'.

Overture transcriptions from Rochdale Town Hall

Nicolai, Spohr, Bach, Handel, Verdi, Weber, Tchaikovsky; Timothy Byram-Wigfield; Delphian
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb 13 2016
Star rating: 4.0
A delightful demonstration of capabilities of the Rochdale Town Hall organ in a range of symphonic organ transcriptions

In the late 1970's I often used to visit the Kelvingrove Gallery in Glasgow. One of the delights was if your visit coincided with a recital on the gallery's organ. This was an entirely different style of recital to one in a church; the organ was massive with a multicoloured array of stops and repertoire which veered towards transcriptions of popular classics. Timothy Byram-Wigfield recorded a recital on that organ for his first volume of his Overture Transcriptions series on Delphian, and this new disc, which is recorded on the organ of Rochdale Town Hall, he plays a second volume of Overture Transcriptions giving us a further glimpse into the half forgotten world of the symphonic organ.

Timothy Byram-Wigfield

The organ in Rochdale Town Hall is a magnificent beast, built originally in 1913 had restoration work done in 1979 and 2013. Timothy Byram-Wigfield showcases it with a sequence of overtures by Otto Nicolai, Louis Spohr, Handel, Verdi and Tchaikovsky, plus music by Bach, in arrangement from the great age of British symphonic organ music.

Timothy Byram-Wigfield explains in his note in the CD booklet that large scale metropolitan town halls developed partly as a result of the choral society movement, with choirs needing larger places to perform and as a result, larger organs to fill the new halls. Thus the development of the British symphonic organ tradition. And arrangers and composers developed a wide range of skills to show off the instruments in transcriptions of orchestral music. In an era without broadcasting this was a way of widening access to this type of music.

Varying editions, the importance of recitative and events beyond Mozart - the second part of my encounter with Ian Page from Classical Opera

Ian Page and Classical Opera

Ian Page and Classical Opera have just started their second year of their 27 year project, Mozart 250, exploring Mozart's life year by year, starting last year, with 1765 which was the year Mozart visited London. In the the first part of our interview we talked about plans for this year's festival along with exciting plans for future festivals, and in this second part of the interview we discuss Mozart's operas and the problems of which edition to record, the importance of recitative and devoting rehearsal time to it, as well as the company's continuing non-Mozart related activities.

Ian's instinct is to present the opera as it was originally performed 

Ian and Classical Opera will be performing all of Mozart's operas over the years as part of the festival, and all of the concert arias. He also hopes to perform most of the symphonies. Running in parallel to this is Classical Opera's project to record all of Mozart's operas. These are not being recorded in chronological order, partly because in order to tempt people some of the better known operas have to be included early on (La Clemenza di Tito will be recorded quite soon). But in 2018, Mozart's La Finta Semplice comes up in the festival and this has not been recorded by Classical Opera yet so in all probability performance and recording will be linked. But Ian sees this as a tricky issue, because it also makes sense to have their recording out in time for the performance.

Regarding the edition which they record, Ian's instinct is to present the opera as it was originally performed and add any extra music in appendices; this is what was done with Mitridate Re di Ponto where the extra material was particularly substantial (see my review). So for Don Giovanni they will perform and record the Prague version. This means that the Zerlina Leporello duet, written for Vienna, will be relegated to an appendix but unfortunately so will Mi Tradi and Dalla sua pace. With Idomeneo they will record the version Mozart seems to have intended in Munich, before the cuts applied simply because of its length. Ian does not think they will record the Vienna version (which uses a tenor Idamante rather than a mezzo-soprano), but the festival will enable them to perform both operas in the respective years 1781 (in 2031) and 1786 (in 2036), thus giving people the opportunity to compare and contrast.

He was extremely surprised at how little time was given to the recitative

Mahan Esfahani and Avi Avital at the Wigmore Hall

Avi Avital & Mahan Esfahani - photo Wigmore Hall/Simon Jay Price

Antonio Vivaldi, Domenico Scarlatti, Yasuo Kuwahara, JS Bach, Mel Powell, Paul Ben-Haim; Avi Avital, Mahan Esfahani, Sean Shibe; the Wigmore Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb 19 2016
Star rating: 5.0
From classical to neo-classical, a recital which spanned 18th and 20th centuries with vivid music making

Avi Avital and Mahan Esfahani's recital of music for mandolin and harpsichord at the Wigmore Hall on 18 February 2016 was remarkably wide ranging. Not only was there music by Vivaldi (his Trio Sonata in G minor RV85 and Esfahani's arrangement of the Concerto for two violins in A minor, Op3 No. 8 RV522) and Bach (Violin Sonata No. 6 in G BWV1019), but there was Domenico Scarlatti's Sonata in G K91, as well as the Improvised Poem for solo mandolin by the Japanese composer Yasu Kuwahara, Recitative and Toccata Percossa for solo harpsichord by the American composer Mel Powell, and Sonata a tre for mandolin, guitar and harpsichord by the Israeli composer Paul Ben-Haim, for which Avital and Esfahani were joined by the guitarist Sean Shibe.

Vivaldi's Trio Sonata in G minor RV85 was originally written for violin, lute and basso continuo, with the violin and lute parts shadowing each other an octave apart. Here the sonata was played by mandolin (Avi Avital) and harpsichord (Mahan Esfahani) demonstrating the interesting combinations of timbres and textures which the two instruments can create. The opening Andante molto was elegant yet vivacious, with some nifty finger-work from Avital. The lovely Larghetto surprised with the amount of lyricism achievable by two instruments without a natural legato. The two performers took the final Allegro at quite a lick, making it lively with some bravura mandolin playing from Avital.

Domenico Scarlatti's Sonata in G K91 was written for an instrument and basso continuo, and Avital feels that the instrumental writing suits the mandolin exactly. It is from a group of sonatas originally thought to be for solo harpsichord. The opening Grave was elegant with a rich harmonic texture, whilst the following Allegro was crisp and lively with some nice rhythmic pointing. The second Grave was a gentle piece, and the Allegro finale was very busy, with a strong sense of Spanish dance rhythms. A movement recognisable from its solo harpsichord incarnation, Avital and Esfahani made it great fun.

Reading the programme notes it came as a surprise that the mandolin was so popular in Japan. In the early 20th century a group of mandolin virtuosi from Italy travelled to Japan and the instrument really took off. There are now 150 mandolin orchestras in Tokyo (!), and a flourishing local tradition of composing fusing Western and Japanese ideas. Yasu Kuwahara (1946-2003) led a mandolin orchestra in Kobe, his Improvised poem really pushed the envelope with the instrument as it mixed jagged chords with fast repeated notes in a high energy mix which was non-Western in its tonality. Eventually the music calmed down, to create something evocative and rather intriguing. And Avital's playing was simply brilliant.

40 years young - Spitalfields Music Summer Festival 2016

The Spitalfields Music Summer Festival runs from 2 to 26 June 2016, and this year is the 40th festival. As ever, early music is an important strand and the festival opens with a performance of Byrd's Great Service by the Odyssean Ensemble, Also in the festival, the choir of Clare College, Cambridge perform music themed around Tallis's forty part motet alongside the Striggio motet which inspired it, and a motet for 40 voices and cello by Giles Swayne which premiered at the festival 20 years ago. The Early Opera Company and Christian Curnyn will be performing Luigi Rossi's Oratorio and there is a whole sequence of concerts of music by Vivaldi, including Harry Bicket directing the English Concert in Vivaldi's La Senna Festigiante.

The venues of the festival are always redolent, and Spitalfields itself plays a role in a sequence of recitals on 5 June covering a variety of locations in the area with performers from the Royal Academy of Music performing a number of new works commissioned to celebrate the festival's 40th anniversary. Period band L'Avventura London will join with the traditional Scottish music group The Old Blind Dogs. Also bridging old and new, a re-imagining of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons by Anna Meredith, directed by Jonathan Morton, the evening features projections by visual artist Eleanor Meredith. The Marian Consort joins the Berkeley Ensemble for a programme of music by Lennox and Michael Berkeley, plus Judith Weir, Matthew Martin and Hilary Campbell.

Choral groups appearing include the BBC Symphony Chorus, Women Sing East, Ex Cathedra and the Sixteen.

Another anniversary is the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London, which is marked with a new cantata from Iain Bell, London's Fatal Fire, alongside music by Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, Bo Holten and Sven-David Sandström, performed by the New London Chamber Choir conducted by Matthew Hamilton. Cheryl-Frances Hoad's Piano Quintet is premiered by the Schubert Ensemble, whilst the Langham Research Centre will use obsolete technology to make music at Barts Pathology Museum. And Club Inegales will be giving Purcell's King Arthur a radical make-over at Wilton's Music Hall. Christopher Stark will be conducting the Multi-Storey Orchestra in music by Caroline Shaw and Gavin Bryars.

Full details from the Spitalfields Music website.

The ‘Evangelists’ by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume to be offered for sale on 15 March, 2016

Matched quartets of historic stringed instruments (two violins, viola and cello) do not become available every day and in March there is the opportunity for some king philanthropist to acquire the a set called the Evangelists and enable them to be played. The Evangelists is quartet of stringed instruments made by one of the greatest luthiers of the 19th century, Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume. Made in Paris in 1863, the four instruments are each based on instruments by Stradivarius, and in fact Vuillaume owned a collection of historic instruments including 25 Stravariuses which he bought in 1855. 

Between 1863 and 1872, Vuillaume made around a dozen instruments dedicated to saints, of which nine survive (he also named instruments after birds). The four most important of the saints are those named after the four Evangelists, a quartet made from matching wood and each has a carved tailpiece depicting an Evangelist. The instruments are evidently in a good state of preservation, with little damage and much original varnish patina. The Evangelists is the only quartet by Vuillaume where the four instruments are still together today. You can hear the quartet being played By the Ruisi Quartet in the video:



This remarkable set of instruments is being offered for auction. The Ingles & Hayday auction takes place at Sotheby’s, London, on 15 March 2016 at 2pm and can be viewed online.

Nothing premieres at Glyndebourne this month

The team behind the opera, The Firework maker's Daughter, composer David Bruce and librettist Glyn Maxwell, have another opera premiered this month, on 25 February 2016 at Glyndebourne. Nothing is based on the award-winning novel for young-adults by Danish author Janne Teller and it tells of group of teenagers trying to convince their classmate that life has meaning. Things quickly escalate as the children go to ever more extreme lengths to try and persuade their friend that there are things worth caring about.

The opera is co-commissioned and co-produced by Glyndebourne and the Royal Opera House. The premiere performances take place 25, 26 and 27 February 2016 at Glyndebourne, directed by Bijan Sheibani, designed by Giles Cadle and conducted by Sian Edwards.50 members of Glyndebourne Youth Opera (aged 14-19) will perform the work alongside a small number of professional singers, and in the pit will be musicians from the Southbank Sinfonia performing alongside 20 young instrumentalists.

This year is the 30th anniversary of Glyndebourne's education programme.

Further information and tickets from the Glyndebourne website.

Strapless - Christopher Wheeldon triple bill at the Royal Ballet

Natalia Osipova in Strapless © ROH 2016.
Photo by Bill Cooper

Christoph Wheeldon Triple Bill Arvo Part, Ezio Bosso, Mark-Anthony Turnage; Marianela Nunez, Thiago Soares, Natalia Osipova, Edward Watson, Federico Bonelli, cond: Koen Kessels; Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb 16 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Triple bill of ballets by Christopher Wheeldon

The Royal Ballet’s new triple bill of works by choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, which we saw on its third outing on Tuesday 16 February 2016, includes one brand-new work and two further works which are new to the UK. Wheeldon’s Strapless is a new ballet to a specially commissioned score from Mark-Anthony Turnage with designs by Bob Crowley, it was teamed with the Royal Ballet’s new productions of Wheeldon’s After the Rain to music by Arvo Part (Tabula Rasa, and Spiegel im Spiegel) with costumes by Holly Hynes and lighting by 59 Productions, and Within the Golden Hour to music by Ezio Bosso, with costumes by Lynette Mauro based on the original designs by Martin Pakledinaz and lighting by 59 Productions.  

After the Rain featured Marianela Nunez and Thiago Soares, Strapless featured Natalia Osipova, Edward Watson and Federico Bonelli, Within the Golden Hour featured Sarah Lamb, Stephen McRae, Lauren Cuthertson, Matthew Golding, Beatriz Stix-Brunell, and Vadim Muntagirov. Koen Kessels conducted the orchestra of the Royal Opera House.

English National Opera's first Norma

ENO Norma - Marjorie Owens - (c) Alastair Muir.jpg

Bellini Norma; Marjorie Owens, Peter Auty, Jennifer Holloway, James Creswell, dir: Christopher Alden, cond: Stephen Lord; English National Opera at the London Coliseum
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb 17 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Notable first performance of Bellini's opera by ENO, with a striking assumption of the title role from the young American soprano

English National Opera's first ever production of Bellini's Norma opened at the London Coliseum on 17 February 2016 at a time when the company is particularly in the spotlight. Famously considered one of the peaks of the soprano repertoire, Bellini's opera has not been seen much on the stage in London recently. Covent Garden last staged it in the 1990's for Margaret Price, with only concert performances more recently and it has been left to Opera Holland Park to fly the flag (in 2004 with Nelly Miricioiu, and in 2015 with Yvonne Howard). 

ENO's new production was originally seen at Opera North in 2012. Christopher Alden directed, with set designs by Charles Edwards and costumes by Sue Willmington, lighting by Adam Silverman. The young American soprano Marjorie Owens sang Norma, with Peter Auty as Pollione, Jennifer Holloway as Adalgisa and James Creswell as Oroveso. Stephen Lord, the music director of Opera Theatre Saint Louis, conducted.

The challenge for any director is to find a setting for Bellini's opera which provides the right dramatic intensity of the struggle between Gauls and Romans (one that with the benefit of hindsight we know to be doomed), without the possibly risible elements that arise from doing it in togas. Ian Judge's 1990s production for Scottish Opera is possible the most successful I have seen, taking a slightly abstract view of the whole and clearly influenced visually by the painting The Druids: Bringing in the Mistletoe by Henry and Hornel. At Opera Holland Park in 2014, Olivia Fuchs chose to set the piece in a modern-day occupied country in a production full of contemporary resonances and a believable link between the 'Druid's religion and their resistance to the occupying power.

ENO Norma - Peter Auty
(c) Alastair Muir

Christopher Alden's production seemed to be based in a 19th century Amish-like sect of wood workers and foresters, with the 'Romans' marked out as capitalist exploiters; both Peter Auty's Pollione and Adrian Dwyer's Flavio were dressed in smart 19th century frock coats and top hats in marked contrast to the backwoods 'Gauls'. Charles Edwards set was an impressive yet simple wood clad box (admirably assisting the singers), with a huge tree trunk into which the 'Druids' carved runic like figures and which, thanks to a system of pulleys, was raised and lowered. This formed the centre-piece of the 'Gauls' cult which seemed to involve imbibing narcotic fumes to induce a trance. For my taste, Alden was a little too interested in the minutiae of the cult, with a great deal of business around the tree, the narcotics, a bible like book and a significant use of axes. And visually the beauties of the set did not carry over into the depressingly sludge coloured costuming.

I think the production would have been stronger if it had been more abstract, but Christopher Alden's productions are rarely discreet. This was full of his usual trademarks including extremes of behaviour, a mistrust of the stage directions which was almost wilful and a sense of expressionist drama which, at its best, can heighten the musical experience. At the London Coliseum we have recently seen and heard how Christopher Alden's approach can work wonders with composers like Janacek, but I was less convinced by his taking this approach to Bellini. Too often the stylised behaviour and intense violence on stage seemed at odds to the music in a way which was distracting rather than producing creative dialogue.

Pinks and Blues from Christina McMaster

Samuel Barber, György Ligeti, Bill Evans, Alasdair Nicholson, Richard Bullen, Frederic Rzewski, Oscar Peterson, Nina Simone, Freya Waley-Cohen, George Gershwin, Stephen Montague; Christina McMaster; McMaster Records
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb 13 2016
Star rating: 3.5
From high energy to late night, blues and jazz based pieces from pianist Christina McMaster

Pianist Christina McMaster's new disc on her own label is a striking mix of 20th century and contemporary works which move from the blues through more modern interpretations to occasional lighter moments, with music by Samuel Barber, György Ligeti, Bill Evans, Alasdair Nicholson, Richard Bullen, Frederic Rzewski, Oscar Peterson, Nina Simone, Freya Waley-Cohen, George Gershwin and Stephen Montague.

The disc opens with the first movement of Samuel Barber's Excursions, his first published solo piano piece which was written in 1942. It combines a rather Mozartian right hand melody with a boogie-woogie stride bass in a dark and intriguing manner. György Ligeti's Fem, on of a cycle of Etudes he composed between 1985 and 2001, starts out bright and fast with rather metallic feel (Fem means Metal in Hungarian) and develops into a complex, multi-textured work though I did slightly worry that the acoustic in the recording changed between the first and second tracks.

Rachmaninov's Vespers in Oxford

A view of Merton College from St Mary's in the North,
including the chapel - photo Ozeye, Wikimedia Commons

Rachmaninov's All Night Vigil (Vespers) was premiered in 1915 in Moscow, performed by the Moscow Synodal Choir. It represents one of the last major pieces of sacred music written in Russia before the Revolution put paid to this style of music. 

To celebrate the centenary, Stephen Layton and the Holst Singers gave a performance of Rachminov's All Night Vigil in St Sophia’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral, London in November 2015. The choir is repeating their performance on 20 February 2016 in the chapel of Merton College, Oxford. The chapel is a fine, largely 13th century building, it is large for a college chapel because until 1891 it was the local parish church as well.

Tickets are available from Tickets Oxford.

A chance to see your piano made before you buy it

Schimmel Pianos factory in Braunschweig, Germany

For anyone thinking of buying piano, Peregrine's Pianos in the Grays Inn Road, London is offering the intriguing prospect of being able to visit the factory where the piano is made. They are offering potential customers the chance to join a one-day visit to Schimmel Pianos in Braunschweig, Germany on 21 April 2016. Guests will be able to tour the factory and watch pianos being made, as well as hearing a short recital and try the full range of pianos in the company's 'selection room'.

There is a charge for the trip but Peregrine's Pianos will offset this against the cost of any piano which is bought. Places on this visit are limited and those interested in joining will need a valid passport and should contact Peregrine’s Pianos (info@peregrines-pianos.com) as soon as possible.

Schimmel Pianos is the largest volume German piano manufacturer, and the company was founded in Leipzig in 1885, and is fully owned by members of the Schimmel family.

Shakespeare & co - Welsh National Opera's 2016/17

Kiss Me Kate - photo Opera North

Welsh National Opera's 2016/17 season, which was recently announced, doesn't quite have the bel canto theme which has run through some of their recent seasons. Instead the Autumn season kicks off with Shakespeare, with a trilogy of pieces based on the bard - Verdi's Macbeth, the British premiere of Andre Tchaikovsky's Merchant of Venice and Cole Porter's Kiss me Kate. The Spring 2017 season, entitled Love's poisoned chalice features two popular classics, Puccini's La Boheme and Madama Butterfly alongside Frank Martin's Tristan and Isolde-based tale, Le vin herbé. Summer 2017 sees WNO in Vienna with Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus, Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. The season sees new music director Tomáš Hanus making his operatic debut with the company, and also features Rebecca Evans in her role debut as the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier.

Verdi's Macbeth is directed by Oliver Mears and designed by Annemarie Woods in a co-production with Opera Northern Ireland. Luis Cansino is Macbeth with Mary Elizabeth Williams has his lady, and Miklós Sebestyén as Banquo. Conductor is Andriy Yurkevych. André Tchaikowsky's The Merchant of Venice is receiving its UK premiere following performances at the Bregenz Festival. The opera intrigues partly because as a Polish-Jew who survived the Holocaust, Tchaikowsky's decision to set Shakespeare's play about a Jewish moneylender is full of resonance. The cast includes Miklos Sébestyén, Martin Wölfel, Mark Le Brocq, David Stout and Sarah Castle with Lester Lynch and Quentin Hayes sharing the role of Shylock. Keith Warner directs and Lionel Friend conducts. Jo Davies new production of Cole Porter's Kiss me Kate (a co-production with Opera North) will feature Quirijn de Lang and Jeni Bern.

The revival of Annabel Arden's production of Puccini's La Boheme includes Marina Costa-Jackson as Mimi, Dominick Chenes and Matteo Lippi as Rodolfo, plus Gary Griffiths, Lauren Fagan and Gareth Brynmor John. Meeta Raval and Linda Richardson share the title role in the revival of Joachim Herz's veteran production of Puccini's La Boheme with Jonathan Burton and Paul Charles Clarke as Pinkerton and David Kempster as Sharpless. Herz's production when new (in the early 1990's I think) was extremely pointed, including significant elements later cut by Puccini which emphasised the more nasty and racist elements of Pinkerton's character. The new production of Frank Martin's Le vin herbé is extremely welcome. This re-telling of the story of Tristan and Isolde was written by the Swiss composer in the 1930s & 1940s. In order to distance himself from Wagner's telling of the story (and thus dissociate himself from the Nazi appropriation of Wagner), Martin based the piece on Joseph Bédier's 1900 philological novel, The Romance of Tristan and Iseult. The piece remains rarely staged in the UK. Le vin herbé is the first main stage production by the Company’s former Genesis Assistant Director, Polly Graham.

Tomáš Hanus conducts the revival of John Copley's production of Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus with strong cast including Mary Elizabeth Williams, Mark Stone, Ben McAteer, Rhian Lois and Justina Gringyte. Tomáš Hanus also conducts Olivia Fuchs new production of Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier with Rebecca Evans as the Marschallin, Louise Alder as Sophie, Lucia Cervoni as Octavian and Brindley Sherratt as Ochs. This is Fuchs directorial debut with WNO and it will be fascinating to see what she brings to bear on Strauss's lovely, but potentially quite spiky opera.

Full details from the Welsh National Opera website

Fresh & Clean 3 - Bastard Assignments in Brixton

Sebastian Adams, Barry O’Halpin in
Timothy Cope's The very best days of your life
Bastard Assignments at Block 336

Fresh and Clean 3: Josh Spear, Jennifer Walshe, Timothy Cape, Ed Henderson, Barry O’Halpin, Kajsa Magnarsson, Caitlin Rowley; Bastard Assignments; Block 336 Gallery, Brixton
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb 13 2016
Star rating: 3.5
Eclectic mix of contemporary cross-arts events from this South London composers collective

For their third Fresh and Clean event Bastard Assignments were in the gallery Block 336 in Brixton. A white cube basement space which formed a neutral backdrop to the group's performances of pieces by Josh Spear, Jennifer Walshe, Timothy Cape, Ed Henderson, Barry O’Halpin, Kajsa Magnarsson, and Caitlin Rowley. As ever the composers collective, run by Ed Henderson and Timothy Cape, offered an eclectic mix of cross arts performance which mixed visual, theatre and music in varying degrees ranging from the re-interpretation of a Morrisey song through music theatre to lib-synch video and the making of bread & jam. Many of the artists performed their own work and they were joined by the trio of cello (Yseult Cooper Stockdale), viola (Sebastian Adams) and electric guitar (Barry O'Halpin).

The evening opened with Josh Spear's Planet is Dysphoria in which Spear lip-synched to a collaged sound-track with the visuals being a live video feed of Spear in white-face acting out the events depicted in sound. In purely technical terms this was a brilliant feat, with Spear providing not only impressive lip-synching skills but the ability flip from one interpretation to another in a split second. At first the collage seemed to be simply an amusingly camp, drag-queen-esque mix of films and quotes. But a greater picture appeared as the quotes developed political implications about second amendments rights (gun control) in the USA which were intercut with films depicting violence. A work which managed to be amusing and thought-provoking at the same time.

Next came Kajsa Magnarsson who did an improvisation on an electronic instrument that appeared all wires, with devices attached to a perspex sheet. It turns out that the devices were rape alarms, but the Improvisation for Rape Alarm evoked for us birdsong and the Brazilian rainforest. In fact, I found it remarkably similar to the reconstructed playback tape used in Henrique de Curitiba's Metaphors performed on the choir of Gonville & Caius College's disc Romaria (see my review). Perhaps the combination of Magnarsson's improvisation with live choral interpolations like the de Curitiba might be possible?

Yseult Cooper Stockdale, Sebastian Adams, Barry O’Halpin in Timothy Cope's The very best days of your life
Bastard Assignments at Block 336

Caitlin Rowley's Found in boxes was deceptively simple. It seemed like a theatre piece, with Rowley opening a cardboard box full of screwed up paper, and was inspired by her recent experiences in real-life packing. The piece is in fact the first movement, Opening, of a longer work, and it became apparent that Rowley's actions were extremely deliberate and the sounds that she made coalesced into a striking audio piece using the percussive qualities available, ranging from the sound of a hand running over corrugated paper, to cutting paper and screwing it up.

Sonic Visions from the Hermes Experiment

The Hermes Experiment

The Hermes Experiment presents a programme of new music inspired by visual stimuli at The Forge, in Camden on Tuesday 16 February 2016. The programme includes new commissions from Kate Whitley and from British-Iranian composer Soosan Lolavar which will respond to a visual element. There are graphic scores and a new animation by Izabela Barszcz using Black Sea by Ed Scolding, a Hermes Experiment commission premiered in 2014 which you can hear on Ed Scolding's SoundCloud page.

The Hermes Experiment is an ensemble of harp (Anne Denholm), clarinet (Oliver Pashley), soprano (Héloïse Werner) and double bass (Marianne Schofield) which makes contemporary music, new commissions and improvisation the focus of their programme. The group was founded in 2013 and since then they have commissioned works from 28 composers and will have a residency at Aldeburgh in Autumn 2016.

Further information and tickets from The Forge website.

Musica e poesia - Rosa Feola & Iain Burnside

Musica e Poesia Respighi, Martucci, Ponchielli Pinsuti, Liszt; Rosa Feola, Iain Burnside; Opus Arte
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb 11 2016
Star rating: 3.5
19th and 20th century Italian composers exploring settings of Italian texts

Italian soprano Rosa Feola (seen recently as Elvira in Welsh National Opera's production of Bellini's I Puritani, see my review) and pianist Iain Burnside have released a recital disc in the Rosenblatt Opera Opus Arte series, which explores Italian composers' interaction with Italian poetry. There are song cycles by Ottorino Respighi and Giuseppe Martucci, a pair of Dante settings by Amicare Ponchielli and by Ciro Pinsuti, and the recital ends with Franz Liszt's Tre sonetti di Petrarca.

The disc opens with a pair of composers, Respighi and Martucci, who both moved away from the Italian emphasis on opera. Perhaps this is why the composers wrote song cycles rather than collections of individual songs. The move is an indication of the influence of non-Italian composition styles, and a move towards the idea of an art song cycle rather than the idea of the song as something written for popular consumption by opera composers.

Classic Guitar - Andrew Keeping

Morel, Trenet, Dyens, Myers, Tarrega, Sor, Gershwin, Piazzolla, Kern Bach, Arlen; Andrew Keeping; KeepingMusic
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb 9 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Eclectic mix of popular guitar pieces and encore numbers.

This disc, Classic Guitar, is very much an individual project for guitarist Andrew Keeping. For personal reasons Keeping's performing career has had to take something of a back seat in the last 10 years, and this disc is by way of a labour of love. Recorded with his own production company and released under his own KeepingMusic imprint, the disc includes a selection of some of the most requested pieces in his repertoire. The eclectic mix of composers includes Jorge Morel, Charles Trenet, Roland Dyens, Stanley Myers, Francisco Tarrega, Fernando Sor, Piazzolla, Bach, Harold Arlen, Leonard Bernstein, plus John Duarte's arrangements of Gerwshin and Kern.

Argentinian guitarist Jorge Morel's Danza Brasileira proves to be a catchy number with lovely perky rhythms, and enables Keeping to display some fine guitar technique. The well known Spanish Romance, beloved of guitarists everywhere, shows Keeping combining a lovely singing tone in the melody with nicely even arpeggio figures underneath.

Beyond Teatro la Fenice - Venice’s Hidden Operatic Past

18th-century Venice conjures a world of carnivals and masked figures, but aristocratic visitors flooded there for another reason: an opportunity to see the latest novelty, the relatively new art-form of opera. Venice was a major operatic centre, with numerous opera houses presenting the latest music. The city pioneered another novelty too: the idea that going to a theatre might not be a private affair (done by invitation), but anyone who could rent a box could go. Modern day Venice has a number of theatres surviving from the 18^th century, but also some intriguing traces of lost ones too. A trip round them provides evocative traces of a lost, elegant way of life. Find out more on my article on TheCultureTrip.com website.

St John Passion from Eton College and Winchester College chapel choirs

Eton College Chapel Choir, Winchester College Chapel Choir, Academy of Ancient Music,
Stephen Layton, James Gilchrist, James Birchall, Ashley Riches, Clint van der Linde,
Andrew Staples, Gabriel Ali and Angus Benton at St John's Smith Square

Bach St John Passion; James Gilchrist, James Birchall, Gabriel Ali, Angus Benton, Clint van der Linde, Andrew Staples, Eton College Chapel Choir, Winchester College Chapel Choir, Academy of Ancient Music, Stephen Layton; St John's Smith Square
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb 12 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Visceral and involving performance of Bach's passion

Eton College Chapel Choir and Winchester College Chapel Choir came together with the Academy of Ancient Music, leader Bojan Cicic, and five alumni of the colleges under the baton of Stephen Layton to give a remarkable performance of Bach's St John Passion at St John's Smith Square on Friday 12 February 2016. James Gilchrist was the Evangelist with James Birchall as Jesus, Ashley Riches as Pilate, plus soloists Clint van der Linde, Andrew Staples, and the soprano solos shared between trebles Gabriel Ali and Angus Benton.

With over 80 singers on stage this was in no way a period performance; John Butt's programme note informed us that Bach probably never used more than eight singers. With the majority of singers being under twenty (there were a few older extras discernible in the ranks), the sound of the choir was very specific with a softer grain to the lower voices. They made a vigorous bright sound, with a lovely directness to it and great enthusiasm. This meant that the turbae were in particular extremely vivid, and Stephen Layton clearly relished the sheer violence that the singers could produce spitting out words like kreuziger (crucify); even the opening chorus's cries of Herr were visceral. This was not to imply that their performance was without subtlety, just that the young singers displayed greater enthusiasm and stronger involvement than older singers tend to. In the chorales this came over with a sense of the projection of the text. Inevitably the balance was not always perfect, economics and the size of the platform probably precluded the instrumental ensemble being scaled up to match the choir (as happened with Handel performances in the later 18th century). This meant that in the choruses some of the orchestral detail was lost, you could see the inner string players being busy, but hardly detect them.

James Gilchrist sang the role of the Evangelist in an impassioned and committed manner, making the performance dramatic and highly involving. He sang virtually off the book, and made the text the prime mover in his performance. Gilchrist sang on the edge of his voice, and every detail was geared to conveying the full range of the text. But there was no skimping on things, and the high-lying music was floated beautifully and, where necessary, extremely intensely. His interaction with the two major soloists, James Birchall as Jesus and Ashley Riches as Pilate was very strong.

Telling a story through programming, my encounter with Ian Page of Classical Opera

Ian Page and Classical Opera

Ian Page and Classical Opera have just started their second year of their 27 year project, Mozart 250, exploring Mozart's life year by year. The project started last year, with 1765 which was the year Mozart visited London. This year 1766 is explored and there has been a retrospective concert (see my review) with further performances to come including the British premiere of Niccolò Jommelli's opera Il Vologeso. I caught up with Ian to chat about the project and about Classical Opera; in this first part of our interview we talk about plans for this year's festival along with exciting plans for future festivals.

The idea of a Mozart festival lasting 25 years, exploring the composer's work year by year, arose out of Ian's love of contextualising things, of telling a story through programming. He is fascinated by the associations between works and feels that in the larger context of the festival with more works being performed, things really resonate. So when they performed JC Bach's Adriano in Siria last year (which premiered in London in 1765 whilst Mozart was there), or perform Jommelli's Il Vologeso (which premiered in 1766) then it enables Ian and his performers to look sideways at Mozart's own music, and he feels that it takes them on a journey. Not everything they perform will have been heard by Mozart (there is no record of him hearing Il Vologeso but he met Jommelli in 1763), but what the festival does is give listeners a taste of the music that was around, the sometimes surprising ideas that were in the air. Later on in our conversation we comment on the music of Franz Ignaz Beck whose symphony Ian and his ensemble performed at the Wigmore Hall in the 1766: A Retrospective concert, a work that was almost Beethovenian 34 years before Beethoven's first symphony.

'beautiful but old-fashioned'

JAM discovers new classics and revisits old favourites by Thea Musgrave & Judith Bingham

Thea Musgrave

JAM (The John Armitage Memorial) starts its 2016 season with a concert at St Bride's Church, Fleet Street, on 17 March 2016 which features new music by composers, Jonathan Woolgar, Mike Stubbs, Huw Morgan and Daniel Saleeb, along with works previous commissioned by JAM, Thea Musgrave's The Voices of our ancestors and Judith Bingham's My heart strangely warm'd. The performers are the the Chapel Choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge, Onyx Brass , Simon Hogan (organ), Stephanie Corley (soprano), Annie Gill (mezzo-soprano), Andrew Radley (countertenor), Ashley Catling (tenor) and Omar Ebrahim (bass) conducted by Michael Bawtree.

Jonathan Woolgar's Kiss the Sun is a duet for two  trumpets. Woolgar, who recently wrote music for a new solo show for soprano Heloise Werner, studies as the Royal Academy of Music and also studied with Giles Swayne in Cambridge. Today, Tonight and Forever for choir and organ by Mike Stubbs, Dance for organ by Huw Morgan and As de Canter for choir by Danny Saleeb were all submitted to JAM's annual call for pieces.

Thea Musgrave's Voices of our ancestors was premiered by JAM in 2015 and was Musgrave's first major work for chorus and ensemble since 1996. Now in her 80's, she was inspired by the chance finding of the Vedic Creation Hymn (circa 1500 BCE) and has written a work which juxtaposes fascinating poems from across the centuries, cultures and the globe. Judith Bingham's Heart Strangely Warm’d was premiered by JAM in 2006. The work depicts scenes of 18th century London, with Bingham imagining that William Blake might have passed John Wesley in the street or heard him preach, and their dialogue is interspersed with descriptions off the squalor, overcrowding and poverty of London.

Further information from the JAM website.

Le choeur chant du coeur - Tenebrae in French choral music

Tenebrae & Nigel Short

Perotin, Brumel, de Severac, Poulenc, Durufle; Tenebrae, Nigel Short; Cadogan Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb 11 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Shattering performance of Poulenc's Figure Humaine crowns fine programme of French choral music

French choral music was the theme of Tenebrae and Nigel Short's concert at the Cadogan Hall on 11 February 2016 as part of the Choral at Cadogan series. Le choeur chant du coeur focussed on unaccompanied French sacred music from the 12th to the 20th century, highlighting the disjoint that occurred because of the Revolution with the closing of choir schools. So the programme started with in the 13th century with Perotin's gradual Viderunt Omnes, moved to the 15th century with Antoine Brumel's Lamentations of Jeremiah, then stopped briefly in the 19th century for Deodat de Severac's Tantum Ergo before exploring the 20th century with Poulenc's Quatre motets pour un temps de penitence and Salve Regina, Durufle's Quatre motets sur des themes gregoriens and Messiaen's O sacrum convivium, before finishing with Poulenc's choral masterpiece, Figure humaine.

Perotin's gradual Viderunt omnes remains striking even after 800 years, testament to the liveliness of the musical tradition at Notre Dame in Paris around 1200. Sung by three tenors, Matthew Long, Ruairi Bowen and Ben Alden, with the drone bass part provided some of the other men from the choir, and the sopranos singing the chant sections from the gallery above the stage, the results were as astonishing as ever. The three solo tenors achieve a lovely balance between the voices in the complex vocal melismas thus giving us a fine even texture whilst keeping the vitality. Having the performance conducted, rather than being sung in conductorless ensemble, and with the piece not in the singers regular repertoire meant that there was a certain carefulness about the performance. Whilst it may have lacked an ideal sense of freedom, there was still a lovely fluidity about it and a highly engaging sense of the three solos acting as a group.

Season preview - Wigmore Hall 2016/17

Sarah Connolly who opens the
Wigmore Hall 2016/17 season

The Wigmore Hall announced its 2016/17 season (full information from their website) with its first ever live-streaming and the new season offers the promise of more to come. The season opens with Sarah Connolly and Malcolm Martineau in Schumann, Berlioz and Mahler. Other delights include the continuation of the series Schubert:The Complete Songs, and series featuring Igor Levitt, the Takacs Quartet, Angela Hewitt & Mahan Esfahani. Helen Grime is announced as the hall's new composer in residence (its first woman composer in the role). And the number of £5 tickets on-sale to the under 35s doubles

Mark Padmore and James Baillieu open the 2016/17 part of Schubert:The Complete Songs with a wide range of singers performing Schubert song throughout the season. Other series include ones focussing on Bach and Beethoven. There is the the eight concert Beethoven Cycle: Igor Levit, and the six-concert Takacs Quartet: Beethoven Cycle. Running over several seasons, Angela Hewitt: The Bach Odyssey will include a complete survey of the French Suites during 2016/17, whilst harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani will begin a long term survey of Bach's keyboard works, starting with the Goldberg Variations.

Helen Grime, the Wigmore Hall's 2016/17
Composer in Residence

Artist residencies include Janine Jansen Perspectives, a three-concert chamber music showcase for the Dutch violinist which will include rarely performed Korngold and Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time. The artist in residence will be the Moldovan-born Austrian violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, and other major names in the season include Sir Andras Schiff, Alison Balsom, Francesco Piemontesi. Another artist focus is Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo who are presenting four concerts

In addition to a focus on composer-in-residence Helen Grimes, there will be a day-long celebration of the chamber music of Thomas Ades, to coincide with the premiere of his new opera at Covent Garden, and there also will be contemporary music from the Arditti Quartet, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Exaudi, Eliot Fisk and the JACK Quartet.

The hall's figures for 2015/16 are quite impressive, 200,000 attendances, 2000+ artists performing, 488 concerts. The hall's 2016/17 launch included their annual appeal, which goes to the fund which helps support the hall's programming (of those 488 concerts, 384 were the hall's own promotions), not to mention the important education strand. 2015/16 included 489 learning events, with 23,000 visits to the learning programme.

You can support them via the Wigmore Hall website's appeal page.