Much to look forward too - the Royal Opera's new season

Jonas Kaufmann -  © Julian Hargreaves / Sony Classical

The Royal Opera House has announced its 2016/17 season and the opera programme is a canny mixture of staples and delights. Any major opera house has to try to achieve that awkward balance between the unusual and the usual. So 2016-17 sees Covent Garden presenting new productions of Bellini's Norma (with Anna Netrebko and Joseph Calleja making their role debuts), Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg (with Bryn Terfel as Sachs), Verdi's Otello (with Jonas Kaufmann making his role debut as Otello), Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier (with Renee Fleming making what is rumoured to be her last Covent Garden appearance), Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte, Shostakovich's The Nose and Thomas Ades' The Exterminating Angel. The first five are repertoire staples, but made all the more tempting by the high profile casting, whilst the last two are the sort of repertoire which keeps a bit of spice in the programme.

There are plenty of revivals, 14 performances of La Traviata, 11 performances of Madama Butterfly. eight of Turandot, nine of Il barbiere di Sivigla and nine of L'Elisir d'Amore. It is these which help to make the season pay, and it is almost a duty for an opera house of Covent Garden's stature to present core standards regularly for those who do not attend opera regularly. There are some interesting revivals too, Nicholas Hyntner's production of Verdi's Don Carlo returns, as does David McVicar's production of Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, Jonathan Kent's production of Puccini's Manon Lescaut, and the first revival of the new production of  Verdi's Il Trovatore. Graham Vick's production Mozart's Mitridate Re di Ponto makes a welcome return after a long gap as does Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann.

Joseph Calleja

Bellini's Norma will be directed by a team from the Catalan theatre group La Fura dels Baus, an intriguing choice indeed (either an inspiration or a disaster waiting to happen, we will see). Antonio Pappano conducts, with Anna Netrebko as Norma, Joseph Calleja as Pollione (both role debuts) and Sonia Ganassi as Adalgisa. The production fills a large gap in Covent Garden's repertoire as the opera has not been staged there since 1987 (the short-lived production created for Margaret Price). With Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, Kasper Holten will be directing his last piece before he leaves the Royal Opera, again Antonio Pappano conducts with Bryn Terfel as Sachs, Johannes Martin Kranzle as Beckmesser, Gwyn Hughes Jones as Walther and Rachel Willis-Sorensen as Eva. It will be interesting to see if Holten will be able to work the right sort of magic and keep the form he achieved with Szymanowski's King Roger, rather than the over-fussy style of the productions of Mozart's Don Giovanni and Tchaikovsky's Yevgeny Onegin.

Keith Warner, director of Covent Garden's Ring Cycle returns to direct Verdi's Otello, with Pappano conducting, Jonas Kaufmann making a much anticipated role debut as Otello, sharing the role with Gregory Kunde, with Maria Agresta and Dorothea Roschmann as Desdemona and Ludovic Tezier and Zeljko Lucic as Iago. The last new production of the opera was Elijah Moshinsky's in 1987 but I can still remember seeing Jon Vickers and Joanna Bruno in a revival of the 1950's era production. Thomas Ades' eagerly awaited new full-length opera The Exterminating Angel is based on the screenplay for a 1962 Luis Bunuel film, El agnel exterminador. The surreal scenario is described as a 'circular vision of hell' and the strong cast includes Charles Workman, Amanda Echalaz, John Tomlinson, Christin Rice, Sally Matthews, Anne Sofie von Otter, Frederic Antoun, Iesyn Davies, Ed Lyon and Sophie Bevan. Thomas Ades conducts and Tom Cairns directs, and the pair were responsible for the libretto.

Shostakovich's early comedy The Nose is being given at Covent Garden for the first time, with director Barrie Kosky (who directed Handel's Saul at Glyndebourne last year) making his Covent Garden debut. Ingo Metzmacher conducts with a cast including John Tomlinson, and Martin Winkler and the work will be sung in David Poutney's translation. German theatre director Jan Philipp Gloger makes is UK debut with a new production of Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, with a cast including Corinne Winters and Johannes Martin Kranzle, conducted by Semyon Bychkov. We are promised a production set in a theatre with Don Alfonso as a director. You have been warned!

Robert Carsen's new production of Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier will be set in Vienna just before WWI (a familiar trope nowadays). Andris Nelsons conducts, Renee Fleming and Rachel Willis-Sorensen share the Marschallin, Alice Coote and Anna Stephany (nice to see her making her Royal Opera debut) share Octvian whilst Sophie Bevan sings sophie and Matthew Rose is Ochs. The previous production, John Schlesinger's glamorous evocation, debuted in 1984 and lasted until 2009 but I can just about remember the production before that which has its last outing in the early 1980's with Gwynneth Jones as the Marschallin.


The casting of the revivals gives us much of interest.

Tête à Tête: 20 years of changing opera

Next year, amazingly, Tête à Tête will be 20 and will be celebrating 10 years of their opera festival. Before then, of course we have this year's festival to look forward to along with a number of other events. Tête à Tête has never just been about performing opera, they are equally concerned with facilitating the creation of it, and with the whole business of opera. This weekend, 9 & 10 April 2015 they are co-hosting Devoted and Disgruntled: How can we change opera for the better? Taking place at ENO's Lilian Baylis House, 165 Broadhurst Gardens, London NW6 3AX the event promises to be two days of discussions sessions as a large cross-section of our operatic community; movers, makers, shakers, consumers, activists, re-actionaries, revolutionaries, workers on the factory floor, creators on the edge, at the core, critics, newcomers, old hands, audiences and supporters across the board come together.

That the event is supported by ENO means that the discussions with come at a highly apposite time. The event is facilitated by Improbable, and uses Open Space Technology to allow the group itself to determine the topics and flow of the discussion, and to take action on the urgent issues. If you are interested in or worried about the state of opera today then you should think about going. There is an invitation from Cressida Pollock, chief executive of ENO, on the event website.

Further ahead, Tête à Tête are again collaborating with the Royal College of Music for Crime and Punishment, a portmanteau of six new pieces inspired by Dostoyevsky, and the event will be live streamed on RCM and Tête à Tête’s website. The event continues on from the Hogarth themed on, Hogarth's Stages which was presented in 2014 (see our review). Lionel Friends conducts, Bill Bankes-Jones directs with operas by Benjamien Lycke (music) & Mien Bogaert (words), Kenichi Ikuno Sekiguchi, Alex Paxton, Algirdas Kraunaitis (music) & Grace Lee-Khoo (words), Amy Bryce (music) & Roland Bryce (words), Sam Hall (music) & Darren Rapier (words). Full information from their website.

Premiere of Peter Seabourne's Piano Concerto No. 2 in Prague

Kristina Stepasjukova with the Academy Orchestra
of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Ondrej Vrabec
at the Martinu Hall in the Lichtenstein Palace, Prague

Amongst the YouTube links I receive by email as calling cards, one arrived the other day from a composer called Peter Seabourne who is now based in my home county of Lincolnshire. The video on YouTube is for the first performance of Seabourne's Piano Concerto No. 2 which was performed by the pianist Kristina Stepasjukova with the Academy Orchestra of the Czech Philharmonic, conducted by Ondrej Vrabec on 12 March 2016 at the Martinu Hall in the Liechtenstein Palace (now part for the Academy of Performing Arts) in Prague. Lasting some 30 minutes, the concerto is a striking work with a highly decorative and elaborate piano part and writing which hovers on the edge of tonality.

Peter Seabourne is an intriguing figure, born in 1960 he studied with Robin Holloway and David Blake, but took a 12 year hiatus from composing feeling dissociated from the contemporary music around him. He started writing again in the early years of this century and has had number of works, particularly for piano, released on disc. Judging by the piano concerto (which you can see after the break), he has a very distinct and intriguing voice.

Opera in a magical garden - West Green Opera.

West Green Opera - the garden at night

West Green House is a National Trust property in Hampshire which is lived in and run by Marylyn Abbott. She has created a magical garden there, and the garden is the venue for a summer season of opera. This year West Green Opera runs from 23 to 31 July 2016. The operas being performed are Verdi's La Traviata, Gounod's La Colombe and Mozart's Cosi fan tutte. There are two performing spaces, the Green Theatre which is an indoor theatre created in the walled garden and the Lakeside pavilion which also indoor but glass sided with great views. Performances give you the chance to have a wander round the gardens beforehand and perhaps even picnic in what is a magical location.

La Traviata is being performed in a 1920s setting, directed by William Relton, who is artistic director of the festival, and conducted by Oliver Gooch with Italian American soprano Jessica Rose Cambio and tenor Jung Soo Yun (who we saw as Lensky in Eugene Onegin at Grange Park Opera in 2015). Gounod's La Colombe is a co-production with Opera Danube and is directed Simon Butteriss (who has also translated the opera into English and sings the role of Maitre Jean). Aistair Digges conducts the Orpheus Sinfonia and the cast includes Katie Coventry (whom we caught in British Youth Opera's production of Janacek's Cunning Little Vixen and the Royal College of Music's production of Britten's Albert Herring), Adam Temple-Smith (who we caught in Garsington's production Britten's Death in Venice and in a recent concert of Louis Spohr's Last Judgement) and Elizabeth Cragg (who sang in Chelsea Opera Group's performance of Wagner's Das Liebesverbot).

Cosi fan tutte will be directed by Victoria Newlyn and the production is set in the 1940's. The cast includes Kiandra Howarth (whom we caught in Vivaldi's Griselda performed by Opera Settecento in 2014) and Martha Jones (who sang in English Touring Opera's production of Haydn's Life on the moon) as the sisters, with Ben McAteer (most recently seen in Stuart MacRae & Louise Walsh's The Devil Inside) and Richard Dowling (whom we heard in Mozart's Requiem at last year's Hatfield House Music Festival) as their lovers, plus Soraya Mafi (whom we heard in the London Handel Festival's 2014 production of Handel's Arianna in Creta) as Dorabella.

The season also includes other events, with an evening with Sir Thomas Allen, music by Richard Rogers, and mid-day music at the Lakeside pavilion on the two Sundays of the festival.

Full information from the West Green Opera website.

Pulling focus - Katie Mitchell's new production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor

Charles Castronovo, Diana Damrau - Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor - Royal Opera House
photo ROH/Stephen Cummiskey

Donizetti Lucia di Lammermoor; Peter Hoare, Ludovic Tezier, Diana Damrau, Rachael Lloyd, Charles Castronov, Kwangchould Youn, Taylor Stayton, dir: Katie Mitchell, cond: Daniel Oren; Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Apr 7 2016
Well sung but over-fussy and interventionist.

Charles Castronovo, Diana Damrau
photo ROH/Stephen Cummiskey

Franco Zeffirelli's production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor opened at Covent Garden in 1959 with Joan Sutherland in the title role and was revived regularly until its final outing in 1988. Since then Lucia has been a rarer visitor. Christoph Loy's 2003 production, imported from the Deutsche Opera am Rhein, seemed to bring an unwelcome sense of Germanic de-construction and even humour to the work and was not revived. Now Katie Mitchell has directed a new production which opened on 7 April 2016. Even before the opening there was controversy as a letter from Kasper Holten warned of the graphic violence. In the event we needn't have been worried, around us in the Amphitheatre the murder scene elicited not gasps of horror but titters of amused laughter.

Katie Mitchell directed with her regular partner Vicki Mortimer designing, and lighting by Jon Clark. Joseph Alford was movement director and associate director, with Rachel Bown-Williams and Ruth Cooper-Brown as fight directors. Daniel Oren conducted the Royal Opera Orchestra. Diana Damrau was Lucia with Charles Castronovo as Edgardo, Ludovic Tezier as Enrico, Peter Hoare as Normanno, Kwangchul Youn as Raimondo, Rachael Lloyd as Alisa and Taylor Stayton as Arturo.

Kwangchoul Youn, Diana Damrau - photo ROH/Stephen Cummiskey

The opera was set in the mid 19th century, in the era of crinolines and seemed to be intended to explore the piece from Lucia's point of view. The articles in the programme book included one on the emergence of feminism, and another entitled 'Gothic Histories and Gothic Heroines'. The Gothic was certainly there, the church yard (which was where Edgardo and Lucia met in the first scene) was a really 19th century Gothic horror, but Ravenswood itself was a well appointed 19th century mansion. We saw a lot of it because Mortimer's set divided the stage into two and each scene had two visions, for the opening scene it was the church-yard and Lucia's dressing room, then moving to Lucia's bedroom and her bathroom, then the drawing room and her dressing room and so on.

This enabled Mitchell to tell more of the story than is usual, so that she could focus on Lucia. Lucia (Diana Damrau) with the help of her companion Alisa (Rachael Lloyd), was a far more active heroine, dressing up in men's clothing to meet Edgardo (Charles Castronovo). And when meeting Edgardo, she throws herself at him and starts ripping his clothes off so that their love duet became a graphic sex scene. This gave the duet a rather jejeune aspect, I don't really want to watch a couple dry humping whilst singing Donizetti no matter how attractive Charles Castronovo looks semi-naked. But in the context of Mitchell's production this was not quite gratuitous because during the opening of Act Two (set three months later) we see Lucia suffering from morning sickness, the effects of her liaison with Edgardo beginning to tell.

Ludovic Tezier
photo ROH/Stephen Cummiskey

Up to the end of Act Two the production seemed over fussy but essentially unobjectionable, though I began to tire of Mortimer's desire to show us everything. During the crucial wedding scene, do we really need to see Edgardo climbing in through a window and sniffing around Lucia's dressing room?

But in Act Three, Mortimer's theatrical event and Donizetti's opera started to rather part company. During the Wolf's Crag scene we were treated to the sight of Lucia starting to seduce her new husband Arturo (Taylor Stayton) and then when his defences were down, trying to murder him with Alisa's help. This is where the laughter came in. The Wolf's Crag scene is a long one so Arturo took a lot of murdering and rather than shock or horror, the scene for me evoke Monty Python. This entirely upstaged the terrific duet for Edgardo (Charles Castronovo) and Enrico (Ludovic Tezier).

This continued into the next scene as Lucia proceeded to have a miscarriage, again upstaging Raimondo (Kwangchul Youn) and his announcement of Lucia's madness. For the final scene Edgardo's cavatina was paired with Lucia's preparations in the bathroom and her suicide in the bath (complete with running water). And the final cabaletta had Edgardo rushing to the dying Lucia and committing suicide himself (by now the bloody water overflowing the bath).

By the end of the opera I was wondering whether Mitchell really liked Donizetti's opera and she certainly did not seem to trust Donizetti's music. But I think the simple answer is that the opera does present the story she wanted to tell. She used this approach very creatively in George Benjamin's Written on Skin but here someone should have warned her that the scenes in the last act just pulled focus too much. I suspect that, given complete freedom, Mortimer would have preferred to create a far more interventionist approach.

Her obsession with naturalism and realism made me develop a certain pickiness and start to wonder about details of the production, did they have silent flushing toilets in the 1850's, shouldn't Edgardo have been wearing a vest, wasn't Arturo's underwear too 1930s, not to mention the fact that everyone had slip-on shoes.

But what of the music?

Stunning arias lift this rather telegraphic late Handel opera

Handel Arminio; Max Emanuel Cencic, Layla Claire, Ruxandra Donose, Vince Yi, Juan Sancho, Xavier Sabata, Petros Magoulas, George Petrou Armonia Atenea; DECCA
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on April 1 2016
Star rating: 4.0
A fine cast and some stunning arias make this neglected Handel opera worthwhile

Handel's Arminio has had something of a bad press. Dent referred to its 'deplorable feebleness... The music is for the most art quite unworthy of Handel, and it can only be passed over in silence'. But now that all of Handel's operas have made it to disc in one form or another, we are able to appreciate more the overlooked and unloved as artists rediscover and re-record.

This new disc from Max Emanuel Cencic on Decca showcases Handel's Arminio. Cencic leads a strong cast with Layla Claire, Ruxandra Donose, Vince Yi, Juan Sancho, Xavier Sabata, and Petros Magoulas with George Petrou conducting Armonia Atenea.

Arminio was first performed in 1737 during a season when, unusually, Handel presented three new operas (Arminio, Giustino and Berenice) in a season which included eight operas in all and four oratorios. The season failed and not surprisingly, given four years or so of difficult seasons with rivalry with the Opera of the Nobility, Handel's health failed with a 'paralytick disorder' in April 1737. But Arminio was never revived, despite esteem from Handel's supporters. Mary Pendarves wrote 'I think it as fine a one as any Handel has made'.

The libretto originates in one written by Antonio Salvi (source of Ariodante and Rodelinda) for Alessandro Scarlatti in 1703. The story, with its noble warring family and complex familial relationships reminds you of operas like Radamisto from Handel's Royal Academy period when the tortuous complexity of the plot was a showcase for scenes of patriotism, love, jealousy, revenge, rivalry and dynastic conflict with the put upon hero able to show nobility and moral rectitude.

But by 1737 Handel seems to have lost faith with his audience (and they with him, judging by the poor houses he was getting). He would only write four more Italian operas after 1737. The original libretto for Arminio written for Alessandro Scarlatti has 1300 lines of recitative, but Handel renders it down to just 300, making the plot telegraphic at best. Set against this the presence of seven characters, all of whom get arias, the whole lasts just 150 minutes.

Winton Dean describes it thus 'The libretto, as Handel set it, might almost be a send up of the heroic opera seria convention. The action proceeds in a series of ill-motivated jerks, with particularly ludicrous results in Act Three. The situations are not so different from those in earlier operas, but the transitions are awkward or non existent; even more than usual, the characters speak daggers but use none. Their threats and grandiose gestures repeat themselves and lead nowhere'.

The cast on this disc is very strong, and all the male characters are played by men. The original had two star castratos, Domenico Annibali as Arminio (the Cencic role) and Gioacchino Conti as Sigismondo (the Yi role). This latter was a soprano castrato with a top C, so it is rare to hear the role sung by a counter-tenor.

Centenary celebrations - Menuhin Competition

Yehudi Menuhin

The Menuhin Competition opens tonight (7 April 2016), adding to the celebrations for Yehudi Menuhin's centenary. The competition runs from 7 to 17 April 2016 and encompasses concerts and competition events. The opening concert sees four former winners of the competition, Tasmin Little, Jiafeng Chen, Rennosuke Fukuda and Ray Chen performing violin concertante works by Holst, Waxman and Brahms along with the premiere of Roxanna Panufnik's Hora Bessarabia for solo violin, with Kazuki Yamada and the Philharmonia at the Royal Festival Hall. Then on Friday 8 April it is the turn of another former Junior First Prize winner, Chad Hoopes who performs Michael Daugherty's Fire and Blood with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain conducted by Kristjan Järvi.

The events continue with a bewildering array of concerts and talks, with chances to hear former winners, concerts at the Menuhin School, tributes to Menuhin's teacher Enescu, masterclasses, and of course the competition itself with heats leading to the junior and senior finals. A concert on 14 April 2016 features the premiere of John Rutter's Visions for solo violin, choir and string orchestra performed by Kerson Leong (violin), Sainsbury Royal Academy Soloists, directed by Thomas Gould, violin.

The Junior finals are on Friday 15 April in the Dukes Hall at the Royal Academy of Music (where many of the earlier rounds are), whilst the senior finals are on Saturday 16 April at the Royal Festival Hall and then on Sunday 17 April there is the closing gala at the Royal Festival Hall with Diego Matheuz conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra, plus violinist Julia Fischer and the two competition winners.

Full information from the Menuhin Competition website.

Winner of the 2016 Handel Singing Competition

William Wallace © Chris Christodoulou

Tenor William Wallace was named the winner of this year's Handel Singing Competition, organised by the London Handel Festival. At the final on 4 April 2016 at St George's Church, Hanover Square, Wallace took home the Regina Etz Prize, having sung 'Hide thou thy hated beams, O sun ...' and 'Waft her angels through the skies' from Handel's Jephtha, 'Tis well, my friends ... Call Forth Thy Powers' from Judas Maccabaeus and 'Fatto inferno ... Pastorello d’un povero armento' from Rodelinda. 

Russian Soprano Galina Averina took the Michael Oliver Prize for second place, with Meili Li taking the Farinelli Prize for Counter-Tenors, and soprano Marie Lys winning the Michael Normington Audience Prize. The other finalists were sopranos Shaked Bar and Pavla Flámová. The adjudicators were Edward Blakeman, Catherine Denley, Michael George, Valerie Masterson and Ian Partridge, and the accompaniment was provided by Laurence Cummings and the London Handel Orchestra.

William Wallace is currently studying as a 2015/16 Young Artist at the National Opera Studio, and he is funded by the Nelly Groner Trust. In 2015, he graduated from the Royal College of Music where he studied with Tim Evans Jones.

In 2015 we saw William Wallace as Mr Upfold in the college's production of Britten's Albert Herring and also as the schoolmaster in British Youth Opera's production of Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen. We saw Marie Lys as Dalinda in the 2016 London Handel Festival/Royal College of Music production of Handel's Ariodante, and saw Meili Li as Artemis in Henze's Phaedra at the Guildhall School in 2015.

From Footy to Verdi

left to right Adam, Harry and Rob

Opera was, and to a certain extent still is, a spectator sport in Italy and one which everyone enjoys and takes part in. Though the opening night of the new season at La Scala in Milan is a glamorous occasion, there is far less a sense that opera is only for the upper classes and the glamorous. But in the UK opera going, as with many things, is still riddled with class prejudice.

It doesn't have to be like this, and now Michael Volpe, general director of Opera Holland Park, has made a charming film in which he challenges three Chelsea fans (Adam, Harry and Rob), men in their fifties, to learn more about opera. As well as being an opera nut, Volpe is himself a Chelsea fan and has detailed his own colourful beginnings on a council estate in his book Noisy at the Wrong Times. And Opera Holland Park makes admirable attempts to keep the doors wide open and encourage everyone to come, providing an operatic experience which aims to be affordable, approachable and high quality.

The new film is a lovely example of the delight which comes from finding opera is for you after all. The film shows the three men discovering opera, going to a rehearsal chorus at the Royal Opera House and seeing Verdi's La Traviata. One of them comments that he was shocked and surprised at how much he enjoyed it. It is a film full of character. You can watch the film on YouTube or see it after the break.

The Opera Holland Park season begins on 7 June 2016 with Mascagni's Iris directed by Olivia Fuchs.

Telemann really engages - Martin Feinstein ensemble at Kings Place Bach Weekend.

Martin Feinstein Ensemble

Bach, Handel, Telemann; Martin Feinstein Ensemble; Kings Place Bach Weekend
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Apr 03 2016
Star rating: 3.5
Suite by Bach's contemporary Telemann shines in this evocation of a concert by Bach's Collegium Musicum

For their last concert as part of the Kings Place Bach Weekend, Martin Feinstein and his ensemble performed a trio of orchestral pieces by Bach, Handel and Telemann evoking Bach's concerts with the Collegium Musicum at the Cafe Zimmermann in Leipzig. The repertoire for the concert included Bach's Orchestral Suite no. 2 in B minor BWV 1067, Handel's Water Music Suite no. 3 in G, HWV 350 and Telemann's Orchestral Suite in A minor. All were played by an ensemble of flute/recorder (Martin Feinstein), violins (Catherine Manson and Sarah Moffatt), viola (Jane Norman), cello (Christopher Suckling), double bass (Kate Aldridge) and harpsichord (Robin Bigwood). None of the works is a concerto as such, but Bach's suite has solo moments for the flute whilst Telemann's suite is an example of the hybrid suite/concerto with a substantial solo recorder part.

Bach's surviving orchestral suites are presumed to have been written during his period at the court in Cöthen but he re-used them with his Collegium Musicum in Leipzig and the suite no. 2 is the only one where parts survive in Bach's own hand. In his programme note Martin Feinstein explained that the work was by no means a flute concerto and except in a couple of movements, the flute simply colours the violin part. However, with the performers placed in a rough semi-circle with Feinstein on the end stage right so that the end of his flute pointed directly at us, the overall sound of the ensemble in the first two works (the suites by Bach and Handel) was flute led. In fact the dominant sound was that of the flute and the double bass, the violins and other inner parts were far too discreet in the texture.

Don Giovanni from Midsummer Opera

Having performed Verdi's Un ballo in maschera last November, Midsummer Opera turns its attention to something on a rather different scale for its final opera of the season (its 30th anniversary season). On 15 & 17 April 2016, the company will be performing Mozart's Don Giovanni at St John's Church, Waterloo. Artistic director David Roblou directs from the harpsichord, and the opera will be semi-staged (directed by Lynne McAdam). It should be a highly dramatic evening. The title role is sung by Andrew Mayor, Oskar McCarthy is Leporello, Emma Dogliani is Donna Anna, Nicola Ihnatowicz is Donna Elvira with John Upperton as Don Ottavio, all are singers whose repertoire encompasses both 18th century and larger scale 19th century works.

Menuhin 100 Festival at the Menuhin School

Geraldine van Heemstra
sketch made during rehearsals at Yehudi Menuhin School

Yehudi Menuhin would have been 100 this year, and not surprisingly the school which he founded, the Menuhin School, is having something of a celebration. From 1 to 10 July 2017 there are a wide range of events at the school. There is a gala fundraising concert with Nicola Benedetti & Alexei Grynuk with music by Elgar and Bartok, a series of concerts showcasing the talents of the current pupils of the school, an organ recital by James O'Donnell, concerts in the grotto at Painshill Park, Cobham, Bruno Monsaingeon's film of Yehudi Menuhin, and pupils of the school will be joined by Samuel West to present a Shakespeare and music programme.

During the festival, Geraldine van Heemstra's sketches and etchings of pupils of the school will be on display. These will also be exhibited at the A and D Gallery from 21 to 25 June 2016 when pupils from the school will give short performances.

In the run up to the main festival there are a number of other events taking place in the Menuhin Hall including violinist Joji Hattori performing Mozart, Elgar, Bach & Bartok with the Yehudi Menuhin School Orchestra (12 April), Alina Ibragimova and her Chiaroscuro Quartet performing Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven (15 May), guitarist John Williams with wind player Richard Harvey (14 June)/

Full information from the Menuhin School website.

Engaging storytelling: Robin Tritschler and Gary Matthewman at the Wigmore Hall

Robin Tritscher and Gary Matthewman in rehearsal at the Wigmore Hall
photo BBC

Britten, Berkeley, Tippett; Robin Tritschler, Gary Matthewman; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Apr 4 2016
Delightful recital of Britten & Berkeley settings of Auden, belying the last-minute nature of the programme

Performers standing in at short notice at concerts is a fairly common occurrence so it can become something a listener takes for granted. But the amount of work it takes to assemble a programme at short notice is significant, and a performance being broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 is hardly a low key event, so no pressure there!

Tenor Robin Tritschler stood in a the very last moment for the lunchtime recital at the Wigmore Hall on Monday 4 April 2016, being broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. The original recital had been scheduled to be John Mark Ainsley and Gary Matthewman performing a programme centred on Britten's early Auden cycle On This Island with further Britten and Lennox Berkeley settings of Auden and music by Huw Watkins. In the event we got Robin Tritschler and Gary Matthewman in On This Island plus a selection of Britten and Berkeley settings of Auden, Britten folk-song arrangements and Tippett's Songs for Ariel. Neither performer gave a hint that their partnership in this programme was a very recent one, and Tritschler displayed an impressive command of the vast quantity of words in the songs.

Auden's poetry makes rather wordy song lyrics and both the way Britten and Berkeley set the text emphasised this quality. After all, Britten in the 1930's wrote cabaret songs with Auden and his more serious songs from that period also have a sense of being words and music. I have to confess that I have not always 'got' Auden's poetry; I appreciate it for its sounds, the way he plays with assonance and consonance and makes imaginative combinations. But I worry about the sense underneath. For instance, on Monday neither my companion nor I were entirely certain what 'To lie flat on the back with the knees flexed' was actually about. The Hyperion recording describes the poem as satirical, but I could read it entirely seriously picturing two schoolboys, or young men with one far more sexually interested than the other intends. And perhaps it is the very uncertainly which attracts composers, you can read a lot into the lines and between the lines, allowing space for the music.

Eclectic and energetic: Bach's Mass in B minor at the Kings Place Bach Weekend

Bach Mass in B minor - Autograph of the 1st page of Symbolum Nicenum,
beginning with the Gregorian chant Credo in the tenor

Bach Mass in B Minor; Prof Timothy Jones, London Bach Singers, Feinstein Ensemble; Kings Place Bach Weekend
Reviewed by Ruth Hansford on Apr 2 2016
Star rating: 3.5
A fascinating lecture, and an energetic performance which struggled to find space on a crowded platform

Bach’s Mass in B minor was the centrepiece of the Kings Place Bach Weekend on Saturday 2 April 2016, curated by baroque flautist Martin Feinstein. Professor Timothy Jones from the Royal Academy of Music gave a fascinating lecture in the afternoon, and the performance by the London Bach Singers and the Feinstein Ensemble was in a packed Hall One in the evening.

The main question Jones asked was “Is the Mass in B minor ‘a work’?” He showed how Bach compiled the piece out of some of his earlier successes: the Kyrie and Gloria in 1733 and the Credo in 1748-49; the Sanctus was first performed in a church service but it was not intended for a liturgical context. It certainly explains why it never feels (to me anyway) as a unified work like the Passions, and why there are so many big finishes that invite applause in the middle of the piece – though it is often treated by today’s audiences as a proxy act of worship.

Bach had been the second choice for the post of Cantor at Leipzig, after Telemann. The job was one of teacher (not Bach’s forte) and arranger, but Bach got the job on the strength of his reputation as a court composer, which suited the aspirations of his employers at Leipzig for a while. By 1730 the local politics was beginning to work against him (this was a time when music mattered to politicians as something to be encouraged not bludgeoned to within an inch of its life…) and so Bach made discreet enquiries about Danzig and Dresden. To this end he got together a portfolio of his best instrumental and vocal work with the intention of presenting it to Dresden. He re-arranged material to suit the tastes of his prospective employers, Catholics with a taste for Neapolitan styles and operatic conventions and a roster of virtuoso instrumentalists and singers at their disposal.

How Fair Thou Art: Biblical Passions by Palestrina - The King's Singers

Palestrina Marian motets and Canticum Canticorum; The Kings Singers; Signum Classics
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Mar 24 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Palestrina's sacred madrigals in intimate performances

The King's Singers turn their attention again to early music for this new disc on Signum Classics, How Fair Thou Art: Biblical Passions by Palestrina where they perform a selection of Palestrina's sacred madrigals from Canticum Canticorum (Song of Songs) alongside Marian motets, Alma Redemptoris Mater, Regina Coeli, Ave regina coelorum, Salve Regina

How do you want your Palestrina to sound? Groups tend to recreate Palestrina’s music in their own image so the sound owes a lot to the group’s style, whether it be an all male cathedral choir, a mixed professional choir or a vocal ensemble. And whilst Palestrina wrote choral music for choirs such as that at the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, he also wrote music for the Sistine Chapel Choir where the music was performed just one to a part with an ensemble which included castrati on the upper lines. By the 19th century this tradition had grown into a rather soloistic style performance.

These questions are relevant because how Palestrina’s music sounds can vary significantly depending on the performers. On this disc the six men of the King’s Singers ( David Hurley (countertenor), Timothy Wayne-Wright (countertenor), Julian Gregory (tenor), Christopher Bruerton (baritone), Christopher Gabbitas (baritone), Jonathan Howard (bass)) perform a selection of Palestrina’s motets. They sing in a beautifully blended style with individual voices often subsumed into the overall sound image. These performances have a significant amount of surface polish, poise and style, technically they are very impressive. They are also recorded quite closely, and though the singers are clearly experienced in performing early music, the intimate acoustic rather links the pieces to the vocal ensemble’s other performances rather then those of contrasting ensembles such as the Sixteen or Westminster Cathedral Choir.

But the repertoire chosen for the disc does, indeed, have non-liturgical links so exploring a different is appropriate. The centre piece of the disc is 12 sacred madrigals from Palestrina’s settings of texts from the Song of Songs. The texts are explicitly erotic, though the Church interpreted them as referring to the relationship between Christ and his Church. Palestrina’s music style here is perhaps a little more unbuttoned but certainly a world away from some of his contemporaries' more erotic madrigals, and in his dedicatory preface Palestrina makes it clear that the settings were intended to have Christian if non-liturgical theme.

Choose your favourites - public vote for finalists in the Villiers Quartet's New Works Competition

The Villiers Quartet (James Dickenson – violin, Tamaki Higashi – violin, Carmen Flores – viola, Nick Stringfellow – cello), quartet in residence at the University of Oxford, is running its third VQ New Works Competition. The short-list of six composers has been selected and from 1 to 15 April 2016 there is the opportunity for the public to listen to selections from the works on the quartet's website and to vote. The three works which get the most votes will be announced on 16 April and the works will be performed by the quartet at the Jaqueline Du Pré Music Building at the University of Oxford. The shortlisted composers and works are

• Andrew Guo (USA) Fantasy 
• Anthony Iannaccone (USA) Memories for String Quartet 
• Ian Munro (AUSTRALIA) String Quartet No. 1 'from an exhibition of Australian woodcuts', 
• Teodor Nicolau (FINLAND/ROMANIA) Lontains Échos (Distant Echoes) for string quartet, Op. 24
• João Pedro Oliveira (PORTUGAL) Labirinto, for string quartet and tape
• Kristina Wolfe (USA/DENMARK) Planctus

 See the quartet's website for details of the works and how to vote.

Bach Collegium Japan

Bach Collegium Japan - photo Koichi Miura

Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan make a welcome return to the UK for a residency at the Barbican Centre on 8 & 9 April 2016. The group will be joined by sopranos Hana Blažíková and Joanne Lunn, countertenor Robin Blaze, tenor Colin Balzer and bass-baritone Dominik Wörner for performances of Bach's Mass in B Minor, Magnificat, Orchestra Suite No. 3, Concerto for Two Violins and the cantata Bekennen will ich seinen Namen BWV 200.

During the day on Saturday 9 April there will be an Exploring Bach day of talks, discussions, film and performances, with demonstrations from harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani, Bach's motets from Bach Collegium Japan (and people are able to join the choir for the chorales), and a screening of Simon Russell Beale's documentary Bach and the Lutheran Legacy.

Full information from the Barbican website. The concerts are part of a busy tour (12 concerts in 16 days) the ensemble is undertaking, taking them to Lyon, London, Saffron Walden, Dublin, Paris, Vienna, Eindhoven, Groningen, Amsterdam and St Petersburg.

Grounded Goldbergs - Steven Devine at Kings Place Bach Weekend

Steven Devine

Bach Goldberg Variations; Steven Devine; Kings Place Bach Weekend
Reviewed by Ruth Hansford on Apr 2 2016
Star rating: 4.0
An engaging and playful performance of Bach's seminal variations

Bach’s Goldberg Variations are the last set from his Clavier-Übung cycle and one of the few works published in his lifetime. Steven Devine played them in the afternoon performance at Kings Place on 3 April 2016 as part of the Bach Weekend. Th variations are the subject of much research, and much reverence, but Steven Devine’s concise spoken introduction on Saturday to a capacity Hall 2 audience provided an entry point for newcomers to the piece who may have been intimidated by the inevitable association with Glenn Gould – as well as providing food for thought for those more familiar with the work.

Devine described the structure of the piece, with its Aria that is not (as some would have us believe) by Anna Magdalena. He talked of the Aria and its da capo, with the ‘scaffolding’ of the canons after every third variation. He discussed the Quodlibet and its source material, for example the song ‘cabbages and beets my mother served to me; if she had served more meat I would have stayed’. He mentioned some of the technical aspects such as the recent innovation of pièces croisées where the hands crossed over, and described the set as a ‘catalogue of dance forms’. He also let us know that he would play all the repeats and may need to tune his harpsichord (which didn’t happen). He certainly made us feel we were in safe hands.

Swiss pianist Praxedis Genevieve Hug in Liszt rarities on Sony Classical

Liszt tra0nscriptions; Praxedis Genevive Hug; Sony Classical
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Mar 22 2016
Star rating: 3.5
Young Swiss pianist brings out the poetry in some of Liszt's lesser known transcriptions

In the late 1970's and 1980's I was lucky enough to catch the great Scots composer-pianist Ronald Stevenson in a number of lecture recitals (one I heard was his 1976 recital The Transcendental Tradition which is now available on disc). In one of them he commented that if the entire corpus of 19th century music was wiped out except that of Liszt, we would still have a great deal. Such was Liszt's compulsion to transcribe and arrange the great music of his day for his own solo piano.

There is a lot of it, as anyone who knows Leslie Howard's landmark 99 disc set on Hyperion will realise,  only a handful of Liszt's transcriptions are well known and this new three-disc set from the Swiss pianist Praxedis Genevieve Hug on RCA Red Seal gives us a generous selection of some of the lesser known transcriptions.

The discs are arranged thematically with one devoted to music inspired by Rossini including the Soirees Musicales de Rossini, the second disc is devoted to song transcriptions based on music by Liszt himself and Robert Schumann as well as lesser known names such as Leo Festetics, Josef Theodor Krov, Ernst von Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha (Prince Albert's brother), Joseph Dessauer, and Otto Lessmann. The final disc is devoted to Liszt's transcriptions of Wagner, covering the operas Tannhäuser, Der fliegende Holländer, Die Meistersinger, Tristan und Isolde, the Ring, Parsifal and Rienzi. The music on the disc covers a variety of genres ranging from a relatively straight forward transcription through to a fantasie or pot pourri based on themes from the work.

With the song transcriptions part of the reason for doing them was Liszt's challenge to himself to create the sense of legato from the vocal line with a more pianistic accompaniment. And in each of the song transcription we hear the composer move from a fairly straight transcription through to something more complex and free, as he repeats the material with that little bit of extra fantasy. Another reason for the transcriptions, particularly those using material from Wagner's operas, was to make the music more widely available in an age before recording or broadcasts.

 The problem with recording Liszt is that he wrote music for his own incredible technique. But for many of these pieces, the music is not actually about technique but about expressivity. The pianist needs to conquer the technical aspects and then get beyond them. There can be occasional showy flurries but the music is not always about show. That said, the performer has to have something of the showman about them too!

Hidden in plain sight - a brief survey of LGBT relationships in opera

Simon Keenlyside & Jonas Kaufmann in
Verdi's Don Carlo at Covent Garden in 2009
Photo by Caroline Ashmore/ROH

The first explicitly lesbian or gay character in opera seems to be the Countess Geschwitz in Berg's Lulu, but what about the first gay male relationship? A few weeks ago I asked all my musical contacts on Facebook for ideas about which opera contains the first depiction of a gay male relationship. The results were, generally, unsurprising and no-one really came up with a hidden gem. We have to wait for the mid-20th century before we get something made explicit, but along the way there are one or two intriguing depictions which make you wonder, operas by Kurt Weill, Szymanowski and Verdi, not to mention the lively double entendres in Cavalli's oeuvre.

Regarding the first open depiction, well it is clear that Claggart's obsession with Billy Budd in Britten's 1951 opera stems from homosexual desire but whether you could describe it as a relationship is very much a moot point. The first real gay relationship in a major opera seems to be in Tippett's The Knot Garden, which was produced at Covent Garden in 1970 (just three years after the 1967 act made homosexual acts between consenting adults legal). So Mel and Dov (originally Thomas Carey and Robert Tear) seem to be the first major gay male couple on the operatic stage. But there are men in previous operas where we can presume and assume.

The Felicja Blumental International Music Festival

The Polish pianist Felicja Blumental died whilst visiting Israel in 1991 and in 1999, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art named its International Music Festival after her. Blumental's daughter, soprano Annette Céline, serves as the Festival’s artistic director and this year they commemorate the festival's 18th birthday with a vibrant music programme celebrating all things Spanish. The festival runs from 4 - 9 April 2016. There are Spanish themed concerts from Dutch soprano Nora Fischer, and from trio Apassionata who are joined by the Kelipe Gypsy Flamenco Trio from Spain. There is a music theatre piece about Federico Garcia Lorca, and lectures on the Spanish artists whose work features in the museum.

Other highlights include Swiss composer and sound artist Katharina Rosenberger presenting her sound installation Exposed Concrete, the Portugese ensemble Ludovice Ensemble in Baroque music, the Koelner Akademie Orchestra in Mozart with pianist Ronald Brautigam, Nora Fischer, Moran Vocal Ensemble & the Israel Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ariel Zuckermann in Gilead Mishory and Osvaldo Golijov.

Felicja Blumental was a talented pianist who won a scholarship to study at the Warsaw Conservatory when she was two years younger than the minimum requirement. Her career was interrupted by war and she was forced to flee Europe for Brazil in 1940 where she became a vital part of Brazilian musical life and formed a close association with composer Heitor Villa-Lobos who wrote his Piano Concerto No. 5. Other composer with whom she worked included Penderecki wrote Partita for Harpsichord and Orchestra for her. Blumental's recordings are now available from Brana Records.

Full information from the Felicja Blumental International Music Festival website.

Barely an Anglophone singer in sight - Handel's Messiah from Prague

Collegium 1704, Vacslav Luks in Prague

It is not so long ago that non-Anglophone performers shied away from recording Handel's English oratorios, with the occasional exception of Scandinavian or German performers. Anniversaries would be celebrated with performances of the Italian oratorios. In this, as in many things, William Christie was something of a trailblazer with Les Arts Florissants, using a mixture of Anglophone and non-Anglophone singers, showing what could be done. And more recently, European choirs would perform Handel in English but often with Anglophone soloists.

But in the last few years, listening to performances at the music colleges in London I have been struck by how many young singers come out of their training singing creditable English, expressive English. I remember in 2013 hearing the young Catalan tenor Eduard Mas Bacardit giving a highly communicative account of English song in recital, I remember the Argentinian bass Lisandro Abadie winning the London Handel Singing Competition in 2008 and going on to perform in a number of Handel oratorios at the London Handel Festival, and in 2015 the Spanish baritone Josep-Ramon Olivé took the first prize in the competition.

So it is perhaps no surprise to find that I was sent a link to a performance of Handel's Messiah recorded in Prague with Collegium 1704, conducted by Václav Luks (the original appeared on FranceTvInfo's CultureBox). The soloists are Marie-Sophie Pollak (soprano), Raffaele Pe (alto), Krystian Adam (tenor), Krešimir Stražanac (bass). As you can see, not an Anglophone singer in sight, yet the whole is given in creditable and, most importantly, highly communicative English.You can judge for yourself as the whole video is available after the break.

A labour of love - the release of the Menuhin Century

This year is violinist Yehudi Menuhin's centenary and the event is being celebrated in a number of ways. There is an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Music's museum, Yehudi Menuhin: Journeys with a violin which displays varied highlights from Menuhin's huge personal archive which is held at the academy, giving us a glimpse of his remarkable career (he gave his first public performance in 1922 and last performance as a violinist in 1998). The museum was the venue for the official launch of another remarkable Menuhin commemoration, the release of the boxed set The Menuhin Century on Warner Classics. This is more than just a boxed set, it consists of 80 CDs, 11 DVDs and a book, giving a remarkable overview of Menuhin's career from his first European recording made at the age of 13.

The Menuhin Century was curated in close collaboration with the film maker Bruno Monsaingeon. Monsaingeon not only directed a number of films which appear on the DVDs in the box, but was a close friend of Menuhin's with an apparently encyclopaedic knowledge of all Menuhin's performances. This means that the set includes many recordings which lovers of Menuhin's art many not have or may not know of. The complete set is available from Amazon.co.uk and the individual boxes are available separately.

Journey, a 70th birthday retrospective - Trevor Pinnock looks back with infectious enthusiasm

Journey: Cabezon, Byrd, Tallis, Bull, Sweelinck, Bach, Frescobaldi, Handel, Scarlatti; Trevor Pinnock; Linn records
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Mar 13 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Highly personal and very engaging recital from the distinguished harpsichordist

On this new recital disc from Linn Records, Journey a 70th birthday retrospective, veteran harpsichord player Trevor Pinnock takes us on a journey through 200 years of harpsichord music from Antonio de Cabezon to Domenico Scarlatti with stops along the way for music by William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, John Bull, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, JS Bach, Girolamo Frescobaldi and George Frideric Handel. The whole is played, recital-like, on the same harpsichord (albeit with two different tunings), a 1982 model built by David Jacques Way of Stonington, Connecticut and modelled on a mid 18th century instrument by the French builder Henri Hemsch. It is an instrument that Pinnock has played for the last 40 years.

At first sight the programme seems a  trifle eclectic, but the booklet articles by John Butt and by Trevor Pinnock, reveal twin themes running through the recital.

National Youth Orchestra's Spring Tour

National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain

The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain begins its Spring tour at the Royal Festival Hall on 8 April 2016. The 164 teenagers will be conducted by Kristjan Järvi, in a concert which features Stravinsky’s Fireworks and the complete Firebird ballet, as well as Michael Daugherty’s concerto for violin and orchestra, Fire and Blood, with soloist Chad Hoopes. 

The concerto by American composer Michael Daugherty was commissioned in 2003 by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and premiered by them conducted by Neemi Järvi (Kristjan's father). Violinist , Chad Hoopes is a former Menuhin Competition Junior winner (Cardiff 2008) and the whole concert forms part of the 2016 Menuhin Competition which, in Menuhin's centenary year, takes place in London.

The tour continues to Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool (9 April), the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester (10 April) and will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 (11 April).