Striking a chord: Alison Bechdel's Fun Home as a musical at the Young Vic

Tesori, Kron & Bechdel: Fun Home - Kaisa Hammarlund - Young VIc (Photo Marc Brenner)

Jeanine Tesori, Lisa Kron, Alison Bechdel Fun Home; Kaisa Hammarlund, Eleanor Kane, Jenna Russell, Zubin Varla, dir: Sam Gold; Young Vic Theatre Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 6 July 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
The musical based on Alison Bechdel's graphic novel exploring her complex relationship with her father

Eleanor Kane, Cherelle Keete - Young VIc (Photo Marc Brenner)

I was a great devotee of Alison Bechdel's comic strip Dykes to watch out for, and so eagerly read her graphic novel Fun Home, which  she describes as a family tragiccomic. I was intrigued, to say the least, by the idea of turning Fun Home into a musical. Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron's musical Fun Home debuted in 2013 in a production by Sam Gold. And Gold's production has now come to the UK, at the Young Vic where we caught in on Friday 6 July 2018. Kaisa Hammarlund played Alison, with Eleanor Kane as Medium Alison, Harriet Turnbull (alternating with Brooke Haynes) as Small Alison, Jenna Russell as Helen, Cherrelle Skeete as Joan, Zubin Varla as Bruce, plus Ashley Samuels, Archie Smith and Eddie Martin. Design was by David Zinn with choreography by Danny Mefford and lighting by Ben Stanton. The instrumental ensemble was conducted by Nigel Lilley, and the orchestrations were by John Clancy.

Alison Bechdel's graphic novel explores her complex relationship with her father, with the Alison of the present looking back on the past with a distinct authorial voice. It is a story in which there were no easy answers, as Alison came to terms with her own sexuality and came out to her parents she learned that her father has had affairs with men throughout his marriage. Not long after Alison's coming out to her parents her father died, apparently committing suicide and the book is an exploration of Alison's relationship with her father in an attempt to make sense of all this.

A taster of things to come - Victoria's Vidi speciosam from The Chamber Choir of London

The Chamber Choir of London, artistic director and chief conductor Dominic Ellis-Peckham, is a new choir which launched last month, made up of 18 of London's finest young consort singers and intending to perform a wide repertoire. Plans in the pipeline include a disc of Alexander Campkin's choral music, but there is a chance to hear the choir on disc before then as they are releasing a series of singles every other month. 

Victoria's Vidi speciosam is out now, released 8 June 2018, and available from iTunes. In August the release will be Alexander Campkin's Sent from God as a taster for the new album, and then in October the 'Kyrie' from Sir James MacMillan's Missa Brevis with Kim Arnesen's Even when he is silent to come.

Vidi speciosam sets the text of the Responsory at Matins on the Feast of the Assumption (15th August), and the text itself derives from the Song of Songs, the elaborate imagery of the text being used to refer to the Virgin Mary rather than the beloved. The motet first appeared in Victoria's 1572 book of motets.

Listening to the new recording of Victoria's Vidi speciosam I was struck by the clarity of the performance. Ellis-Peckham takes quite a spacious view of the tempos, giving the piece a very architectural feel, and the singers perform with a very vibrant, focused sense of line. It is a very balanced, considered performance which brings out the clarity of Victoria's ideas. The recording itself is very present, and certainly makes me look forward to further releases.

Further information from the choir's website.

The City Choir of Washington makes its London debut

The City Choir of Washington

The City Choir of Washington and their conductor Robert Shafer are currently touring the UK for the first time. Having performed in Gloucester and Ely Cathedrals, and Keble College, Oxford, the choir will be giving a concert in Temple Church on Wednesday 11 July 2018.  

The choir's programme combines Gabriel Faure's Requiem with four contemporary pieces, Eric Whitacre's The Chelsea Carol, John Tavener's The Lamb and Tolstoy's Creed, and I will lift up mine eyes by the choir's conductor, Robert Shafer. John Tavener's Tolstoy's Creed was commissioned by The City Choir of Washington in 2012.

Robert Shafer celebrates 50 years as a choral conductor this year, and he has been artistic director of The City Choir of Washington since its inception in 2007.

Full details from the EventBrite website.

Romantic exploration: Rheinberger and Scholz piano concertos from Simon Callaghan

Josef Rheinberger, Bernhard Scholz Piano Concertos; Simon Callaghan, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Ben Gernon; Hyperion Records Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 4 July 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Two lesser known piano-concertos in the Austro-German tradition provide much of interest

The Austro-German symphonic canon goes something like Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssoh, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler. Yet if we consider the piano concerto we run out after Brahms, the later history of the piano concerto is with composers born outside this tradition and other Austro-German composers writing in the same tradition are virtually non-existent - at least that is what is implied by the repertoire performed in most concert halls.

This new disc from Hyperion's The Romantic Piano Concerto series (volume 76!) gives us a chance to move away from the canon and explore. It pairs late-Romantic piano concertos by two lesser known composers from the Austro-German tradition, Joseph Rheinberger and Bernhard Scholz, performed by pianist Simon Callaghan with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conductor Ben Gernon

Josef Rheinberger was something of a prodigy who went on to train in Munich and spent most of his life teaching there. Whilst he wrote music in a wide variety of genres, he is best known for his organ sonatas, though lovers of choral music hold his masses in some regard.

Inner demons - Mozart's Idomeneo at the Buxton Festival

Mozart Idomeneo - Paul Nilon, Heather Lowe, Madeleine Pierard - Buxton International Festival 2018
(Photo Richard Hubert Smith)

Mozart Idomeneo; Paul Nilon, Rebecca Bottone, Heather Lowe, Madeleine Pierard, Ben Thapa, dir: Stephen Medcalf, cond: Nicholas Kok, Northern Chamber Orchestra; Buxton International Festival at Buxton Opera House
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 8 July 2018 Star rating: 3.5
An Idomeneo riven by his own demons in this striking new production

Rebecca Bottone - (Photo Richard Hubert Smith)

Having explored early Mozart with last year's production of Lucio Silla, this year Buxton International Festival moved to the composer's first mature opera, Idomeneo. Opening at Buxton Opera House on Sunday 8 Juy 2018, the production was directed by Stephen Medcalf with designs by Isabella Bywater, and featured Paul Nilon as Idomeneo, Rebecca Bottone as Ilia, Heather Lowe as Idamante, Madeleine Pierard as Elettra and Ben Thapa as Arbace. Nicholas Kok conducted the Northern Chamber Orchestra.

Mozart's opera was premiered in Munich in 1781, though there were only three performances, and the only other performance in his lifetime was a concert performance given in Vienna in 1786 with an amateur cast. The work has a complex textual history, the composition process was somewhat fraught and Mozart had to make significant cuts before the premiere owing to the work's length. He never made planned revisions to the work (tenor Idamante, bass Idomeneo), though he did make some changes for the 1786 performance which had a tenor Idomeneo. For these performances Buxton used the 1781 version, but trimmed to bring the running time to three hours (a single interval in the middle of Act Two after 'Fuor del mar'), and Arbace lost all of his arias.

Madeleine Pierard - (Photo Richard Hubert Smith)

Isabella Bywater's striking set seems to have been partly inspired by Romain Veillon's photographs of the ghost town, Kolmanskop, in the Namibian desert which has been taken over by sand. So we had an austere classical structure with views of the sea, yet half taken over by sand. This formed the permanent set, and gave a series of striking locations for the action.

A key to understanding Stephen Medcalf's approach to the opera [see my interview with him] was perhaps that the men's costumes were all military of the World War One era. He suggests that Idomeneo's struggles are due to PTSD, and that the monster is within. Thus the work becomes about Idomeneo's struggle with the guilt he feels arising from the war, rather than an external struggle. This has the advantage that it does not require the depiction of a monster (something with which most directors and designers fail), but does place a lot of focus on Idomeneo.

Paul Nilon was superb at suggesting, from the first moment, a man wracked by guilt and each of his arias had a strong, inner intensity. This was a man struggling with demons from the first moment. That said, I am not sure the scene with the monster (depicted with Idomeneo ravening) quite worked and it left the dramaturgy of the last Act (with Idamante going off to fight the monster) a bit skew. But when Nilon was on stage he held us with the sheer power of his performance, and 'Fuor del mar' was rightly the centre-piece with a bravura yet vivid account of the aria.

Rip-roaring rarity: Verdi's Alzira in a rare outing at the Buxton International Festival

Verdi Alzira  - Luke Sinclair, Jung Soo Yun - Buxton International Festival 2018 (Photo Richard Hubert Smith)

Verdi Alzira; Kate Ladner, Jung Soo Yun, James Cleverton, Graeme Danby, dir: Elijah Moshinsky, cond: Stephen Barlow, Northern Chamber Orchestra; Buxton International Festival at Buxton Opera House
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 7 July 2018 Star rating: 4.0
Verdi's Alzira reveals itself as full of vigour, with some striking music and fine singing

Kate Ladner - (Photo Richard Hubert Smith)

Alzira is the third of the early Verdi operas to be performed at the Buxton International Festival directed by Elijah Moshinsky and conducted by Stephen Barlow [see my interview with Stephen], following on from Giovanna d'Arco (2015) and the original version of Macbeth (2017). Alzira is seriously rare, one of the most neglected operas in the Verdi canon and the Buxton production, which debuted on Saturday 7 July 2018 at the Buxton Opera House, was the UK's first full staging of the work.

Kate Ladner sang the title role, with Jung Soo Yun as Zamoro, James Cleverton as Gusmano, and Graeme Danby as Alvaro. Designs were by Russell Craig, lighting by Mark Jonathan, sound design by Mic Pool, video by Stanley Orwin Fraser, and movement by Terry John Bates. Stephen Barlow conducted the Northern Chamber Orchestra.

Written for Naples in 1845, Alzira was based on a play by Voltaire set in Spanish colonial Latin America, with Voltaire using the setting to examine philosophical questions regarding the colonisers behaving like savages yet calling the indigenous peoples savages. Librettist Salvatore Cammarano stripped out all the philosophy and left a piece which is highly compact (the Buxton production lasted two hours including the interval). We have little time for development, the characters are introduced and the plot hurtles towards its conclusion with remarkable vitality and dynamism.

The plot is a relatively straight-forward love triangle: Gusmano (James Cleverton) is Spanish governor of Peru, taking over from his father, Alvaro (Graeme Danby). Gusmano is hated by the Incas Peruvians, but he declares an amnesty and plans to seal it with marriage to Alzira (Kate Ladner), daughter of an Inca tribe leader, Atalba (Phl Wilcox). But Alzira is in love with an Inca, Zamoro (Jung Soo Yun), who died in an uprising. Complications arise, Alvaro is taken prisoner by the Incas yet freed on the orders of Zamoro (who is in fact not dead) to show the Spanish that the Incas are not savages. Zamoro's return to Alvira gives them a moment of joy, then sends Gusmano over the edge with jealousy and Act One ends with Zamoro's Inca troops fighting with the Spanish. In Act Two Gusmano forces Alzira to marry him by making it a condition for sparing Zamoro's life. In true tenor fashion, Zamoro leaps to the wrong conclusion and there is a violent denoument when he kills Gusmano at the wedding. On his deathbed, Gusmano has a remarkable conversion and wishes everyone to live in peace.

Changing the discourse, soprano Madeleine Pierard & director Sophie Gilpin talk about SWAP'ra

The five founders of SWAP'ra - Kitty Whately, Sophie Gilpin, Ella Marchment, Anna Patalong, Madeleine Pierara

SWAP'ra is a relatively new organisation, formed by five women working in opera to both help encourage change and to provide a supportive platform in the face of a collective frustration with the unconscious gender bias in the industry. Since its formation in March 2018, SWAP'ra has garnered a fair amount of press coverage, but inevitably this has rather focused on one issue, that of parenting and the problems those working in opera have when balancing work and children. 

Though the organisation's title, SWAP'ra, is in full 'Supporting Women and Parents in Opera', it is by no means a single-issue group and later this month it is presenting a gala performance at Opera Holland Park to help raise money to enable the organisation to move forward with a whole variety of plans for supporting women in opera as well as supporting parents. I met up with two of the founders, soprano Madeleine Pierard and director Sophie Gilpin, to find out more.

Whilst parenting is the most obviously problematic issue that the group seeks to address, its over-riding goal is to celebrate women in the opera industry. When you consider conductors, composers and librettists, women are poorly represented, and whilst there are more women working as directors many feel that they are not able to break out from the assistant director roles. SWAP'ra wants to create role models for women in the industry, and performance opportunities too; to create a platform for women to present themselves and their work, providing a supportive and mentoring role as well.

Opera Rara and Warner Classics

Aurelie Baujean (Opera Rara), Markus Petersen (Warner Classics),
Sir Mark Elder, Henry Little (Opera Rara), Susanne McBurney (Warner Classics),
Patrick Lemanski (Warner Classics) (Photo Russell Scott/Opera Rara)

Opera Rara and Warner Classics held a press conference yesterday (5 July 2018) to celebrate a number of things. Firstly, perhaps, the announcement of a new partnership between Opera Rara and Warner Classics, with Warner Classics assuming worldwide distribution for Opera Rara recordings. Further cause for celebration is the release of Sir Mark Elder's new recording of Rossini's Semiramide which will be issued on 7 September 2018. Sir Mark also introduced Opera Rara's plans for the forthcoming season, as well as noting that that afternoon he would be commencing orchestral rehearsals for Donizetti's L'Ange de Nisida which is the company's next project.

The agreement between Opera Rara and Warner Classics. includes all future recordings (starting with the forthcoming recording of Rossini's Semiramide), together with Opera Rara's most recent releases: International Opera Award-winning recordings of Offenbach’s Fantasio and Donizetti’s Les Martyrs, and selected recordings of the extensive back catalogue of more than 85 recordings.

Sir Mark Elder explained the he tried to make the music of early 19th century opera live anew; needing to be done with style, the music was vulnerable and easy to perform in a mediocre manner. When taking over as artistic director of Opera Rara, one of his dreams was to take a title which was very familiar, yet the piece was not, and make people listen to it anew. This became Semiramide, a work that existed for most people only as a title (or an overture), and Sir Mark pointed out that Dame Joan Sutherland's recording of the work was made 50 years ago, and lives in a very different sound world.

The forthcoming recording of Rossini's Semiramide features Albina Shagimuratova in the title role and Daniela Barcellona as Arsace with Sir Mark Elder conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. The work was recorded complete (with the first age lasting longer than the last act of Wagner's Die Meistersinger).

Sir Mark was just about to go into his first orchestral rehearsal for Donizetti's L'ange di Nisida which he conducts for two concert performances at Covent Garden later this month, with Joyce El-Khoury, David Junghoon Kim, Vito Priante , Laurent Naouri, and Evgeny Stavinsky. The work was written by Donizetti for Paris, but it was never performed and has been re-constructed for Opera Rara. 96% of the result is by Donizetti, with only a small amount of patching needed. Sir Mark emphasised that this was not a dusty work taken off the shelf, but a vivid and interesting piece whose quality is undeniable. Though the final act is tragic, there is also a comic element to the work.

Looking further ahead, in December 2018 Opera Rara will present the original version of Puccini’s first stage work, Le Villi, in concert at the Royal Festival Hall which will also be recorded. Le Villi stars Ermonela Jaho with Brian Mulligan, and Arsen Soghomonyan with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder. Then in Spring 2019 the company is returning to Donizetti for one of his earlier operas, one which Sir Mark described as a work no one knows but which is important. Il Paria, will be recorded in June 2019 with Albina Shagimuratova, and a new modern edition of the work is currently being prepared.

DONIZETTI: L'ANGE DE NISIDA
Royal Opera House, 18 & 21 July 2018
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Sir Mark Elder
Joyce El-Khoury ● David Junghoon Kim
Vito Priante ● Laurent Naouri ● Evgeny Stavinsky

Garsington premiere: David Sawer & Rory Mullarkey's The Skating Rink

David Sawer: The Skating Rink - Alice Poggio, Grant Doyle - Garsington Opera (Photo Johan Persson)

David Sawer & Rory Mullarkey The Skating Rink; Ben Edquist, Sam Furness, Grant Doyle, Susan Bickley, Claire Wild, Alan Oke, Lauren Zolezzi, Louise Winter, Alice Poggio, dir: Stewart Laing, cond: Garry Walker Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 5 July 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Strong performance of a new opera with a very striking voice, inspired by Roberto Bolano's novel

Ben Edquist, Lauren Zolezzi (Photo Johan Persson)

Having premiered Roxanna Panufnik's opera Silver Birch in 2017 as part of its work with local community groups, Garsington Opera's 2018 season included its first commission for the main opera season. David Sawer's opera The Skating Rink premiered at Garsington Opera on Thursday 5 July 2018; based on the novel by Chilean writer Roberto Bolano with a libretto by playwright Rory Mullarkey. 

The production was directed and designed by Stewart Laing, with costumes by Hyemi Shin, lighting by Malcolm Rippeth and movement by Sarah Fahie. The cast included Ben Edquist as Remo, Sam Furness as Gaspar, Susan Bickley as Carmen, Claire Wild as Caridad, Alan Oke as Rookie, Grant Doyle as Enric, Lauren Zolezzi as Nuria, Louise Winter as Pilar and skater Alice Poggio as the skating Nuria. Garry Walker conducted the Garsington Opera Orchestra.

This is Sawer's third opera. His first, From Morning Till Midnight, to his own libretto based on a Georg Kaiser play, was premiered with some success by English National Opera in 2001, though his second opera, in fact an operetta, Skin Deep with a libretto by Amando Iannucci, perhaps failed to quite find its mark when premiered by Opera North in 2009.  This new piece, The Skating Rink, seems something of a return to the darker, expressionist world of From Morning Till Midnight, though not without lighter moments.

Bolano's novel tells the same events from the points of view of three narrators, each of whom is involved in a different way in the events in a 1990s Spanish town on the Costa Brava, where love leads Enric (Grant Doyle) to build an illicit ice skating rink so that Nuria (Lauren Zolezzi and Alice Poggio) can train, but the murder of a former opera singer Carmen (Susan Bickley), now living on the streets, clouds issues.

Hear Her Voice: A millennium of music by female composers to celebrate the centenary of women's suffrage

For their Summer concert in the church of St Bartholomew the less, Giltspur St, London EC1A 7BE on Thursday 12 July 2018 at 7.30pm, London Concord Singers & conductor Jessica Norton are presenting a programme of music by female composers,  sacred music by Hildegard of Bingen from the 11th century, part-songs by Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel from the 19th century, and three works by significant British women composers of the 20th century, Grace Williams, Elizabeth Maconchy and Thea Musgrave, and contemporary pieces by Cecilia McDowall and Lucy Pankhurst's The Pankhurst Anthem commissioned by the BBC to celebrate the centenary of women's suffrage. Tickets are price £12.50 (including a glass of wine) with £5 for under 25s, and are available from EventBrite,

The centre piece of the programme will be the trio of 20th century works, with Grace Williams' Ave Maris Stella, a late and significant work from 1973 by this Welsh composer, Thea Musgrave's Four Madrigals, settings of Sir Thomas Wyatt and some of her earliest works, and Elizabeth Machonchy's delightful Creatures, an imaginative setting of animal poems written in 1979. Also in the programme is Cecilia McDowall's Regina Coeli, a work extremely popular with the choir.

The concert is being repeated on Saturday 14 July 2018, at 2.30pm, in the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral.

Further information from the London Concord Singers website:

New music for viola and cello

840 is a London-based concert series, curated by the composers Alex Nikiporenko and James Luff to provide a platform for new experimental and minimal music. Each concert focuses on a particular chamber instrumentation, showcasing works by living composers. For the concert on 7 July 2018 at the St James' Church, Islington, the focus is on duos for viola and cello, a surprisingly intimate and intriguing combination of instruments. The performers are Jennifer Ames Alexander and Colin Alexander.

The concert will feature new works from Colin Alexander, James Luff, Alex Nikiporenko and Garrett Sholdice, alongside music by Eva-Maria Houben, Marc Sabat, and Amanda Feery.

Full details from the 840 website.

Richly imaginative: Richard Blackford 's Niobe with Tamsin Waley-Cohen

Richard Blackford Niobe; Tamsin Waley-Cohen, The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Ben Gernon; Signum Classics Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 29 June 2018 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)
Inspired by the Greek legend, this richly romantic yet tough work showcases the superb musical talents of all concerned

Niobe is a work for solo violin and orchestra by Richard Blackford which was written for the violinist Tamsin Waley Cohen, who performs it on this new disc from Signum Classics with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Ben Gernon. The work is a single 23-minute span of symphonic music, which is here issued on disc on its own.

Blackford is inspired by the story of Niobe, who boasts that she is greater than the goddess of virtue, Leto, because Niobe has seven sons and seven daughters whereas Leto only has two. Leto sends Apollo and Artemis to kill all Niobe's children, Niobe's husband kills himself devastated, and Niobe is turned to stone and weeps ceaselessly.

The work was very much planned with Tamsin Waley-Cohen in mind and Blackford's discussions with her also touched on the way the story of Niobe relates to the plight of women unfairly treated in our own time, both those suffering under extreme religious laws and the double standard applied to Western women.

Described as a dramatic symphony for violin and orchestra, the work is not strictly a violin concerto in the 19th century sense.

Sublime Illusions - Noh Reimagined, a weekend of Noh performance & workshops at Kings Place

Noh Reimagined - Kings Place - mu:arts

Noh Reimagined; Kings Place
Reviewed by Hilary Glover on 29-30 June 2018
Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)
A weekend of performance & workshops exploring Noh theatre, focussing on the Mugen Noh play "Izutsu (The Well Curb)"

Izutsu Yoshimasa Kanze (Photo Shinji Aoki)

As part of their world music programme, Kings Place hosted a weekend of Noh theatre, No Reimagined, 29-30 June 2018 with concerts, talks, neuroscience and workshops. As a Noh novice I threw myself in to the experience. It became apparent that the audience was wide ranging, from those connecting with their cultural heritage (identifiable from their tabi socks in the workshop and kimonos at the concerts) to the curious but uninformed.

Like any classical art form, Noh is steeped in incomprehensibility for the uninformed. Imagine, if you have only listened to pop music, going to a foreign language opera for the first time without reading the synopsis and without surtitles. Only, at this opera there is no acting as you know it, instead there is a very minimal ballet going on, where the hand gestures have significance, but you do not know what they are. The main actor wears a mask and gorgeous oversized costume, which prevents ordinary body language from seeping through. On top of this add 650 years of refinement and stylisation to the music and you are there.

However, what this weekend did so well, with its gently enthusiastic explanations and the recurring common thread of the Mugen Noh play "Izutsu (The Well Curb)", was to bring the audience together - regardless of experience. Carrying everyone along to the splendid finale on Saturday night.

The weekend opened with a welcome from the Managing Director of Kings Place, Robert Reed who introduced the collaborators in the project curated by Akiko Yanagisawa (mu:arts). This was followed by a brief history of Noh by Professors Semir Zeki and Atsushi Iriki, and their interest in Noh from the perspective of neuroscience.

They explained that Noh theatre was developed by Kan'ami and his son Zeami in the 14th century, and that most of the 240 plays still performed have been preserved in their entirety. Noh encompasses ideas, such as beauty being half perceived, but totally felt; an altered perception of time; events happening out of sequence; the audience becoming the music; and ambiguity allowing for multiple/ individual interpretation. Overall this means that the audience is required to do some work and be engaged with the play rather than passively observing. The two professors touched on how a specific part of the brain is involved in understanding abstract ideas and how this is essential in Noh for perceiving yūgen, the invisible beauty that is felt not seen.

Consequently Noh is not simple to learn - children begin at the age of three and may become professionals by the age of thirty. It was also explained that new Noh tend to take on the form and spirit of classical Noh rather than be faithful reproductions.

Gemma Summerfield receives final Chilcott Award

Gemma Summerfield (photo Arno Photography)

Soprano Gemma Summerfield has been awarded the Chilcott Award for British Singers, the biennial prize given by the Susan Chilcott Scholarship, an independent charity set up in 2005 in memory of Susan Chilcott, one of the outstanding singers of her generation, who died from cancer in 2003 aged 40. This year's award is the final one to be awarded by the charity.

The biennial Chilcott Award is made to an opera singer who, like Susan Chilcott herself, has the potential to make an international impact within the world of opera. Previous winners have included Duncan Rock (2012), Clare Presland (2014) and Soraya Mafi (2016). The Award is specifically designed to enable advanced training or career development, from ongoing vocal tuition and accompanists, to practical help with some of the ‘hidden’ costs of the craft, including travel to auditions, purchasing scores and creating recordings and promotional material. This year's award to Gemma Summerfield was £10,000.

Gemma Summerfield was winner of the First Prize and the Song Prize at the 2015 Kathleen Ferrier Awards as well as the Jean Meikle Prize for a Duo at the 2017 Wigmore Hall International Song Competition. This autumn, she will make her house debut at Wexford Festival Opera as Paula Johnson in the European première of William Bolcom’s opera, Dinner at Eight (20 October – 4 November) and her debut with Scottish Opera as Pamina in The Magic Flute in Spring 2019.

Australian visitors: the choir of Trinity College, Melbourne on tour in the UK

Christopher Watson and the choir of Trinity College, Melbourne

The choir of Trinity College, Melbourne (Australia) is currently on a European tour and is visiting the UK. We were lucky enough to be able to catch the choir, conducted by its musical director Christopher Watson, at a short concert on Tuesday 3 July 2018 at the church of St Mary-le-Bow, when they performed music by Robert White, Ross Edwards, Percy Grainger and Eriks Essenwalds.


The choir, which numbers around 30, comprises of students studying a wide range of subjects, many of whom are residents at Trinity College, but with others drawn from Monash University, Swinburne University, the Victorian College of the Arts and RMIT University, and they sing two services per week. During the tour, Christopher Watson and the choir will also be doing a recording, the centrepiece of which is a mass by the contemporary Australian composer Ross Edwards (born 1943).

At St Mary-le-Bow, they opened with Robert White's Christe qui lux es IV, followed by the 'Kyrie' from Ross Edwards Mass of the Dreaming. The group made a lovely focussed, vibrant sound, very much its own. Edwards' mass, written in 2009 for a choir in Brisbane, makes interesting use of indigenous Australian elements (such as the low basses evoking the didgeridoo) within the context of modern polyphony.

Music by another Australian of an earlier generation followed, we heard Percy Grainger's Irish tune from County Derry, and Ye banks and ye braes. In fact, Grainger's museum is just 50 yards from the choir's historic chapel in Melbourne. Grainger's arrangements were wonderfully rich textured, and I was impressed that they added the whistling line in Ye banks and ye braes.

More contemporary music came next, Eriks Esenvalds' Only in sleep, a setting of the American poet Sara Teasdale. The event ended with the 'Gloria' from Ross Edwards' mass, a challenging but uplifting piece.

The name of the choir's musical director, Christopher Watson, may be familiar to readers of this blog. He was a tenor with the Tallis Scholars for a number of years, director of music at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and in fact was the tenor soloist on my CD, The Testament of Dr Cranmer.

The choir has already sung Evensong at St. Paul's Cathedral and giving a concert at St Clement Danes, as well as performing in Montpelier Cathedral, France. To come are services at St George's Chapel, Windsor, Great St Mary's, Cambridge, St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh and Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. See below for the full schedule.

Dates for the remainder of Trinity College's tour:

Wednesday 4 July – 5.15pm Evensong at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle
Friday 6 July – 12pm lunchtime concert in Canterbury Cathedral, Kent
Sunday 8 July – 5.30pm Evensong at Great St Mary's, Cambridge
Tuesday 10 July – 8pm concert at St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh
Wednesday 11 – Friday 13 July – 5.30pm services St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh
Saturday 14 – Sunday 15 July – Services in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford – Saturday 6pm, Sunday 11am + 6pm

Guildhall School of Music and Drama's inaugural Chamber Music Festival

The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is presenting its inaugural Chamber Music Festival this weekend. From 6 to 8 July 2018, there is a busy programme of concerts and masterclasses in Milton Court and Silk Street. The festival sees Guildhall School musicians collaborating with renowned performers from the chamber music faculty including Adrian Brendel, Levon Chilingirian, Nicholas Daniel, Endellion String Quartet, Joy Farrall, Alec Frank-Gemmill, and many more.

The opening concert features the Endellion Quartet, the Guildhall School's Visiting Quartet-in-Association, who will be joined by professors Graham Sheen, Alex Frank-Gemmill, Adrian Brendel and current Guildhall musicians to perform music by Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy and Guildhall Professor of Composition Matthew Kaner. On Saturday Hidden Gems of the Chamber Music Repertoire features works that are less frequently performed than they deserve, including Prokofiev’s Quintet in G minor, Op. 39 Fauré’s Piano Quartet No. 2 in G minor, Op. 45 and Taneyev’s Piano Trio in D major, Op. 22.. The festival closes with Guildhall faculty members and students playing a programme of Mozart’s Quintet for Piano and Winds, K. 452, Brahms’ Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8 and Mendelssohn’s Octet in Eb major, Op. 20.

Full details from the Guildhall School's website.

Handel & Vivaldi from Grace Davidson and the Academy of Ancient Music

Handel & Vivaldi motets; Grace Davidson, Academy of Ancient Music; Signum Classics Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 29 June 2018 Star rating: 3.5 (★★★½)
Performances of great purity and beauty from soprano Grace Davidson

This new disc from soprano Grace Davidson features three of Handel's major works for solo soprano and orchestra, the motet Silete venti HWV 242, the recently re-discovered Gloria and the Salve Regina HWV 241, alongside Vivaldi's motet Nulla in mundo pax sincera RV360. Davidson is accompanied by the Academy of Ancient Music, artistic leader Joseph Crouch, and the disc is issued on the Signum Records label.

Grace Davidson is perhaps best known as a consort singer, performing with ensembles directed by John Eliot Gardiner, Paul McCreesh and Philippe Herreweghe, with a large discography with Harry Christophers and the Sixteen, and these have featured her in solo roles too. More recently she has featured on a number of film sound-tracks and sang on Max Richter's Sleep, Woolf Works and Memoryhouse recordings.

Captured Light: Music of Lili Boulanger and Claude Debussy

2018 marks the centenaries of the deaths of both Lili Boulanger and Claude Debussy. The choir Londinium, conductor Andrew Griffiths, mark this with a concert which pairs Lili Boulanger's rarely performed music for choir and piano, with choral music by Debussy. The concert is at the church of St Sepulchre without Newgate, on Friday 6 July 2018.

Four Lili Boulanger works are there for our delectation, Renouveau, Hymne au soleil, Les Sirenes and Soir sur la plane, with the choir being joined by pianist Leanne Singh-Levett. In addition to Debussy's Trois chansons de Charles Orleans, the choir will also be singing a group of Clytus Gottwald's virtuosic choral transcriptions of Debussy's songs and piano music. If you have never heard any of Gottwald's choral transcriptions, then you are in for a treat. Also in the programme is music by Ravel, Durufle and Faure.

Full details from the Londinium website.

The good the bad and the ugly: Susan Froemke's The Opera House

Susan Froemke The Opera House at Barbican Cinema  
Reviewed by Anthony Evans on 1 July 2018 Star rating: 3.5 (★★★½)
Susan Froemke's film marking the 50th anniversary of the Metropolitan Opera at the Lincoln Center

This Sunday afternoon, 1 July 2018, Barbican Cinema 3 showed a new film by award winning documentary filmmaker Susan Froemke, The Opera House. The film marks the 50th anniversary of The Metropolitan Opera’s tenure at the Lincoln Centre in New York, and it’s well worth a couple of hours of any opera buffs time.

As it sashayed from one subject to another it sometimes felt a bit of a mish-mash, trying to be all things to all people. The ponderous examinations of the minutiae of the architecture palled, killing a perfectly good anecdote about the happenstance design of the stunning Austrian crystal chandelier. Notwithstanding, it managed to be an absorbing and illuminating dissection of an artistic vision and the renaissance of the Metropolitan Opera company.

Russian Romantics: music for violin & piano by Glinka, Glazunov, Cui, Rubenstein, & more

Glinka, Rubinstein, Glazunov, Kosenko Gliere, Cui; Hideko Udagawa, Alexander Panfilov; Northern Flowers  
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 5 June 2018 Star rating: 3.0 (★★★)
Music of great melodic charm, lesser known Russian works for violin and piano
Having recorded discs of Khachaturian and of Rachmaninov, violinst Hideko Udagawa returns to Russian repertoire with a recital with pianist Alexander Panfilov, on the Northern Flowers label, centred upon Glinka's sonata, originally for viola and piano and here given its premiere recording in the version for violin and piano, alongside music by Cesar Cui, Alexander Glazunov, Anton Rubinstein, and Viktor Kosenko.

Glinka's viola sonata dates from early in his career, 1825/26, in fact the viola was an instrument he played. For some reason the work is unfinished, the second movement was left incomplete and Glinka never seems to have written the final rondo. In 1932 the Russian viola player Vadim Beresovsky edited the two movements, providing a completion of the second. It is played here in a version for violin and piano, transposed up a fifth so that the instrument's open strings remain in the same relation to the music.

Powerful & emotional stuff: Peter Maxwell Davies' The Lighthouse at RCM Double Bill.

Huw Watkins, Peter Maxwell Davies; Royal College International Opera School, dir: Stephen Unwin, cond: Michael Rosewell; Britten Theatre, Royal College of Music Reviewed by Anthony Evans on 29 June 2018 Star rating: 2.5/3.5 (★★½)/(★★★½)
A contemporary double bill higlighting the destructive power of our minds

This Friday, 29 June 2018, at the Royal College Music's Britten Theatre, The Royal College International Opera School performed a double bill of work highlighting the destructive power of our minds the first of which was In the Locked Room by Huw Watkins and the second was Peter Maxwell Davies' The Lighthouse, both in productions by Stephen Unwin, conducted by Michael Rosewell.

In the Locked Room is Huw Watkin’s and David Harsent’s take on Thomas Hardy’s short story An Imaginative Woman. Ella, a poetry lover, becomes fascinated by the work of the poet Ben Pascoe. Although they never meet, Ella’s frenzied imaginings, whilst providing solace from her loveless marriage, finally propel her into a damaging life of self-delusion. Josephine Goddard sang Ella Foley, the imaginative woman. Rhys Batt was her disinterested husband Stephen. Christian Adolph played the troubled poet Ben Pascoe and Katy Thompson the landlady Susan Wheeler.

Discovering the music of Dorothy Howell

The composer Dorothy Howell is rather a forgotten name today, yet she had a long and distinguished career. Born in 1898 she died in 1982, trained at the Royal Academy of Music and spent 46 years as Professor of Harmony and Composition there. Here tone poem Lamia was premiered by Sir Henry Wood in 1919, he performed it five times at the Proms that year. She has quite an extensive list of compositions, orchestral, choral and song plus music for two plays. So why is she not better known?

The Rebecca Miller and the Southbank Sinfonia aim to change all that. They are holding a study day today (2 June 2018) at St John's Waterloo. First (at 2pm) there is a discussion between conductor Rebecca Miller and historian Dr Kate Kennedy on Dorothy Howell’s remarkable life and legacy, and then at 2.30pm Rebecca Miller and the orchestra will be exploring some of Dorothy Howell's scores.

You can read more about Dorothy Howell in the excellent biographical pages on the Birmingham City Council website (well worth exploring), and Rebecca Miller has created a blog about her discovery and exploration of Howell's music.  Miller has recorded Howell's Piano Concerto with Danny Driver and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra for Hyperion's Romantic Piano Concerto series [available from Amazon], on a disc with concertos by Amy Beach and Cecile Chaminade.

Further information about today's Study Day from the Southbank Sinfonia website.

What a delightful voice: getting to know Gasparini with Carlo Ipata & Auser Musici

Francesco Gasparini arias; Roberta Invernizzi, Auser Musici, Carlo Ipata; Glossa Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 5 June 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Engaging performances of arias ranging widely over the career of this undeservedly lesser known Baroque composer

Francesco Gasparini (1661-1727) is not, yet, a household name though we are already discovering what a big influence he had on later composers with his opera Il Bajazet being an important pre-cursor to Handel's Tamerlano, and Gasparini's Faramondo had a strong influence of Handel's opera of that name.

On this disc from soprano Roberta Invernizzi, Auser Musici and Carlo Ipata, on Glossa, we have a selection of arias from Gasparini's operas from Roderigo (1686) to Bajazette (1723), plus his cantata Andate o miei sospiri (1712) and his Concerto per flauto.

Born in Tuscany, Gasparini studied in Rome where his teachers probably included Corelli. He would develop into a fine teacher himself, numbering Marcello, Quantz and Domenico Scarlatti as pupils. His career would be spent mainly on an axis between Rome and Venice, with opera as his principal output, over 60 in all, plus oratorios and cantatas.

At the end of the 17th century he was in Rome in the orchestra of Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili [for whom Handel composed cantatas in 1707-1710], alongside Corelli and the Bononcini brothers [Giovanni Bononcini would be in London from 1720 to 1732 as a rival to Handel]. From 1701 to 1713, Gasparini was in Venice as choir master to the Ospedale della Pieta [where Vivaldi was also employed from 1703-1715], where he was responsible for the education of the daughters of the Ospedale. And the concerto on the disc is one of the many he wrote for them. Then in 1716 he returned to Rome, replacing Antonio Caldara [who went on to become Vize-Kapellemeister to the Imperial Court in Vienna] as chapel master to Prince Maria Ruspoli [another of Handel's Italian patrons], though by the 1720s his style was beginning to look somewhat old-fashioned compared to younger men like Porpora and Vinci.

Coming into focus: Kasper Holten's production of Don Giovanni returns to the Royal Opera

Mozart: Don Giovanni - Mariusz Kwiecien, Hrachuhi Bassenz - Royal Opera - (C) ROH. Photo by Bill Cooper

Mozart Don Giovanni; Mariusz Kwiecień, Rachel Willis-Sørensen, Hrachuhi Bassenz, Pavol Breslik, Chen Reiss, Anatoli Sivko; dir: Kasper Holten/Amy La e, cond: Marc Minkowski  
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 29 June 2018 
Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)
A vintage revival which brings Kasper Holten's 2014 production into focus

Mariusz Kwiecien, Rachel Willis-Sørensen, Pavol Breslik 
(C) ROH. Photo by Bill Cooper

Revivals of productions can have an interesting effect. Sometimes a stunning production can fail to catch fire second time round, whilst sometimes a rather ordinary production can come into real focus. I caught the first revival of Kasper Holten's production of Mozart's Don Giovanni (revived by Amy Lane) at the Royal Opera House in 2015 [see my review] and was rather disappointed. So I was fascinated to find my reaction to the latest revival (29 June 2018) rather different.

This time around, Mariusz Kwiecień returned to the title role, having sung it at the premiere of the production, and Ildebrando D'Arcangelo sang Leporello having sung the title role on tour with the Royal Opera in Japan in 2015. The remaining singers were all new to the production, Rachel Willis-Sørensen as Donna Anna, Hrachuhi Bassenz as Donna Elvira, Chen Reiss as Zerlina [making her stage debut in the role, see my recent interview with Chen], Pavol Breslik as Don Ottavio, Anatoli Sivko as Masetto and Willard W. White as the Commendatore. Marc Minkowski conducted the Royal Opera Orchestra, with fortepiano continuo from Christopher Willis.

Hrachuhi Bassenz, Mariusz Kwiecien,
Ildebrango D'Arcangelo
(C) ROH. Photo by Bill Cooper

The focus of the performance was striking from the first notes of the overture, the strong texture of the opening chords contrasted with scurrying notes which come after, fast yet crisp and tight. Marc Minkowski's performance was one which kept the music tight and impulsive without being over driven, he drew fine playing from the orchestra and had a period performance trained musician's ear for the delights of the different textures in Mozart's score. The overall running time was a little shorter than advertised, and this helped enormously to keep the drama moving. The recitatives were similarly impulsive, and I found overall the performance very gripping.

Sitting in the Stalls (previously I had seen the production from the  Amphitheatre) might have affected my ideas about Es Devlin's designs with Luke Halls videos. This time round I found the results far more absorbing, and much less restless than before, and I was far less troubled by the way the production has a tendency to tell us what to think. Perhaps because the central performances were so wonderfully engaged.

Mariusz Kwiecień made a charming and very sexy Don Giovanni, delighting in the mayhem he causes and careless in his approach. I loved the way that Kwiecień brought out the way Mozart's music makes the character, chameleon-like, change depending on who he is interacting with. Kwiecień's voice has a firm, dark quality which rendered the Champagne aria rather hard-edged and insistent, but overall gave a darkness, and intensity which counterpointed his devil-may-care attitude. The final scenes, where we become aware that Don Giovanni's way to hell is in his own head, was a stunning tour-de-force from Kwiecien, a riveting and mesmerising performance.