Shot through with sheer delight & joie de vivre: the sounds of 1840s Copenhagen from Concerto Copenhagen as the perform music by 'The Strauss of the North'

Champagne! The Sound of Lumbye and His Idols; Concerto Copenhagen, Lars Ulrik Mortensen; Da Capo Records

An academic project shot through with sheer delight and joie de vivre as the Danish period instrument ensemble recreates the sounds of H. C. Lumbye's orchestra from the 1840s Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen

Like many who work in the classical music industry, during lockdown Lars Ulrik Mortensen and Nikolaj de Fine Licht, respectively artistic director and managing director of Concerto Copenhagen, spent the time doing research. But not into further Baroque music, instead one of the areas they looked at was Hans Christian Lumbye (1810–1874) who gave concerts of his own and others’ music from the 1840s onwards at Hotel d’Angleterre and later in the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. The question they have tried to answer is what did Lumbye's orchestra actually sound like, back in the 1840s. Lumbye's main inspirations were Johann Strauss I (1804– 1849) and Joseph Lanner (1801–1843) and it is the music of these that features on Concerto Copenhagen and Lars Ulrik Mortensen disc Champagne! The Sound of Lumbye and His Idols from Da Capo Records [released 18 August 2023], a disc that eschews the modern, symphonic approach to this repertoire and returns it to its more vivid roots.

The concert hall in Tivoli as it appeared when The Tivoli Gardens opened in Copenhagen in 1843.

Lumbye was a huge star in 19th-century Copenhagen. He and his ensemble were very much associated with the concert hall at the Tivoli Gardens, and he quickly gained a reputation abroad, especially after a successful tour to Paris, Vienna and Berlin, earning the nickname "The Strauss of the North". With his compositions and their successful performances, he was both an artist and an entrepreneur. Inspired by the music of Johann Strauss I, he composed over 700 works, mainly galops, polkas, mazurkas and marches, but comparatively fewer waltzes.

A focus on Handel: the English Concert's 2023/24 season

The English Concert

The English Concert's 2023/24 season centres very firmly on the music of Handel. Kristian Bezuidenhout conducts a performance of Amadigi di Gaula at St Martin in the Fields on 21 September 2023, with Tim Mead in the title role, Hilary Cronin as Oriana, Mary Bevan as Melissa, and Hugh Cutting as Dardano. Then at Boughton House on 23 September, Harry Bicket directs a performance of Acis and Galatea with James Way, Hilary Cronin, Gwilym Bowen and Neal Davies. The performance is part of Handeliade: London & Boughton House – a gathering of performers and speakers hosted jointly by Handel & Hendrix House and Boughton House to celebrate Handel’s legacy and the cultural landscape of the 18th century.

At the Wigmore Hall on 18 October, Harry Bicket directs a performance of the cantata Clori, Tirsi and Fileno with Ailish Tynan, Joelle Harvey and Iestyn Davies. Having performed Handel's Rodelinda in 2020 in a socially distanced performance, and recorded the work [see my review], Harry Bicket and the English Concert are returning to the opera with Lucy Crowe and Iestyn Davies in an international tour to the USA, China and South Korea with a single UK performance at Saffron Hall on 2 December as part of the hall's 10th birthday celebrations.

Away from Handel, the ensemble performs Monteverdi's L’incoronazione di Poppea in Spain, and returns to Garsington in 2024 for performances of Rameau’s Platée conducted by Paul Agnew and directed by Louisa Muller. 

The ambitious Handel for All project continues and during 2023/24 films of Solomon, Amadigi, Italian duets and trios, Chandos Anthems, Organ Concertos, The Foundling Anthem and Music for the Royal Fireworks will be added to the archives. 

Full details from the English Concert's website.

Puccini centenary and a Handel first: Opera Holland Park's 2024 season

Puccini: Tosca - Amanda Echalaz
Opera Holland Park in 2008 (Photo Fritz Curzon)

Next year is the centenary of Puccini's death and Opera Holland Park is celebrating the event in style in its recently announced 2024 season. 

Stephen Barlow's striking 2008 production of Tosca, set in Rome in the 1960s, is set to return having last been seen in a revival at the Richmond Theatre in 2009, and alongside this there will be a semi-staging of Puccini's second opera Edgar. The plot, based on a play by Alfred de Musset, centres on medieval knights struggling with sensual indulgence and love, unsurprisingly influenced by Wagner's Tannhauser. Unsuccessful at its premiere in 1889, Puccini continued to tinker with the work until 1905. The work wasn't premiered in the UK until 1967 (by Hammersmith Municipal Opera) and its last major UK staging seems to have been by New Sussex Opera in 2012.

Alongside these two, the 2024 season also features a new production of Rossini's The Barber of Seville, which will also be the Opera Holland Park Young Artists production. A new production of Leoncavallo's Pagliacci will feature alongside a revival of John Wilkie's 2019 production of Wolf-Ferrari's comedy Il segreto di Susanna, [see my review] offering two contrasting takes on marital jealousy.

The season will also feature Opera Holland Park's first Handel production with a staging of his pastoral serenata, Acis and Galatea, originally written in a chamber version for performance at the Duke of Chandos' house, Cannons, where it was probably performed out of doors. Handel then later expanded and adapted the work for the London stage. The season at Opera Holland Park is completed with the company's fourth collaboration with Charles Court Opera when they will be staging Gilbert & Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard.

City of London Sinfonia returns in 2024 for its 20th anniversary as resident orchestra for all six productions. The Opera in Song recital series curated by Julien Van Mellaerts and Dylan Perez returns for its fourth year.

Full details from the Opera Holland Park website.

London, ca.1740: Handel's musicians: wonderfully engaged performances from La Rêveuse as they explore works by the musicians of Handel's orchestra

London, ca.1740: Handel's musicians:  Charles Weideman, Giuseppe Sammartini, Pietro Castrucci,  George Frideric Handel, James Oswald; La Rêveuse; Harmonia Mundi

A delightful disc showcasing the music of the composer/instrumentalists who worked with Handel

The ensemble La Rêveuse, directed by Florence Bolton and Benjamin Perrot, has returned to 18th century London for another disc exploring British music of the 18th century.

London, ca.1740: Handel's musicians on Harmonia Mundi features sonatas and concertos from the 1740s with an emphasis on musicians who worked with Handel including Charles Weideman, Giuseppe Sammartini, and Pietro Castrucci, plus the Scottish musician James Oswald.

Art:Song – Images, Words, Music: Oxford Song Festival 2023

The Oxford International Song Festival (formerly the Oxford Lieder Festival) opens on 13 October 2023  with over two weeks on song under the title, Art:Song – Images, Words, Music. With over 75 events in and around Oxford, the festival features the world premiere of The Glass Eye, a new song cycle by the festival's associate composer Alex Ho setting words by writer Elayce Ismail, to be premiered by countertenor Hugh Cutting and pianist Dylan Perez. 

A new song cycle, The Phoenix, by Iranian composer Mahdis Golzar Kashani brings together European and Iranian classical styles, setting poems by Rumi, Hafez and Saadi. It will be premiered by soprano Soraya Mafi, baritone James Atkinson, pianist Sholto Kyoch plus two performers on traditional instruments, Vahid Taremi, and Farshad Saremi.

Héloïse Werner’s new work, Knight’s Dream will be sung by mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston with Sholto Kynoch. Werner's piece has been commissioned by the BBC. Werner's new work is intended as a companion piece for Schumann's Dichterliebe, with texts inspired by Heine. Baritone Jacques Imbrailo and pianist Alisdair Hogarth will premiere Geoffrey Gordon’s At the round earth’s imagin’d corners and Roxanna Panufnik’s Gallery of Memories, with text by Jessica Duchen, will be performed by soprano Mary Bevan with pianist Anna Tilbrook.

The middle weekend of the Festival is dedicated to Franz Schubert. The Schubert weekend is an annual feature of the festival, tracing the composer’s life year by year until the Schubert bicentenary in 2028. The weekend’s centrepiece will be a lecture-recital led by Graham Johnson, giving his seminal survey of Schubert’s life, 200 years on. He will be joined by singers including the German baritone Stephan Loges and American soprano Martha Guth.

Other events include a celebration of the life and work of artist, musician and writer Tom Phillips RA; a focus on the Pre-Raphaelite artists, poets and composers in conjunction with the Ashmolean Museum’s Colour Revolution exhibition; a day of fashion and song including a homage to Yves Saint Laurent and a recital created around the scents of master Perfumer Christian Provenzano, an introduction to Max Klinger’s Brahmsphantasie by Natasha Loges; and talks on Picasso and Käthe Kollwitz.

Full details from the festival's website.

Still a classic after all these years: Peter Hall's production of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream at Glyndebourne is in strong hands in the latest revival, conducted by Dalia Stasevska

Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream - Oliver Barlow & fairies (Trinity Boys Choir) - Glyndebourne 2023 ( © Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photo: Tristram Kenton)

Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream; Tim Mead, Liv Redpath, Caspar Singh, Rachael Wilson, Samuel Dale Johnson, Lauren Fagan, Henry Waddington, James Way, Brandon Cedel, director: Peter Hall/Lynne Hockney, London Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Dalia Stasevska; Glyndebourne Festival Opera

A strongly musical and well-balanced revival shows Hall's classic production to be in strong health and provides a terrific evening in the theatre.

Some opera productions endure because they allow the work space to be reinvented each time, whereas other are long-running because they become classic, they encapsulate an approach to the work that comes to define it. Remarkably, Sir Peter Hall's production of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream for Glyndebourne debuted in 1981 and its regular revival has ensured that it has helped define a classic view of the opera.

We caught the 2023 revival of the production, now in the hands of revival director Lynne Hockney (the original choreographer) at the Glyndebourne Festival on Sunday 13 September. Dalia Stasevska conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra with Tim Mead as Oberon, Liv Redpath as Tytania, Caspar Singh as Lysander, Rachael Wilson as Hermia, Samuel Dale Johnson as Demetrius, Lauren Fagan as Helena, Henry Waddington as Quince, Patrick Guetti as Snug, Alex Otterburn as Starveling, James Way as Flute, Alasdair Elliott as Snout, Brandon Cedel as Bottom, Dingle Yandell as Theseus and Rosie Aldridge as Hippolyta. The fairies came from Trinity Boys Choir, with Oliver Barlow as Puck.

Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream - Tim Mead, Liv Redpath - Glyndebourne 2023 ( © Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photo: Tristram Kenton)

I have to confess that I had never seen the production live, though I was familiar with it from filmed performances, and on this showing the production remains in good health with few, if any, cracks showing. 

Tales of Love and Enchantment: exploring the songs of Isabelle Aboulker

Isabelle Aboulker

Tales of Love and Enchantment: The songs of Isabelle Aboulker; Julia Kogan, Nigel Foster; London Song Festival at Hinde Street Methodist Church

Virtually unknown in the UK, French contemporary composer Isabelle Albouker's delightful songs explored with a strong focus on her settings of La Fontaine's fables.

Nigel Foster's London Song Festival has begun a short Summer season which explores the music of three somewhat less-performed song composers with Max Reger and Granville Bantock both featuring. The opening concert of the season, on Friday 11 August 2023, featured the songs of contemporary French composer Isabelle Aboulker performed by soprano Julia Kogan with Nigel Foster at the piano.

Isabelle Aboulker (born 1938) is the daughter of Algerian-born film director and writer Marcel Aboulker and her maternal grandfather was the composer Henry Février (a pupil of Massenet, Fauré and Messager, the composer of operas and operettas, and father of the pianist Jacques Février). Aboulker studied with Maurice Duruflé at the Paris Conservatoire, and returned there as an accompanist and later vocal coach. Since 1981, her compositional output has focused on song and opera, and she has also made a name for herself as a composer of works for children or works in which children can participate. 

Whilst her output includes two operas based on plays by Eugène Ionesco, an oratorio, L'Homme qui titubait dans la guerre, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the ending of World War I and the comic opera Monsieur de Balzac fait son théâtre, the fables of La Fontaine seem to have remained a constant source of inspiration including La Fables Enchantées, settings of 15 of La Fontaine's fables for soloists and instrumental ensemble.

Small but fierce: I chat to Cameron Menzies, artistic director of Northern Ireland Opera

Verdi: La Traviata - Northern Ireland Opera in 2022 (Photo: Philip McGowan)

Cameron Menzies is the Australian-born artistic director and CEO of Northern Ireland Opera. Appointed in 2020, COVID travel restrictions meant that he did not arrive until March 2021, to take over a company whose Arts Council funding still remained at its 2013 level. Since then, Cameron has directed well-received productions of Puccini's La Boheme (at Belfast's Carlisle Memorial Church in 2021), Verdi's La Traviata (at Belfast's Grand Opera House in 2022) and Sondheim's Into the Woods (at Belfast's Lyric Theatre in 2022), along with creating a series of smaller-scale touring performances.

The company was founded in 2010 at the behest of Arts Council Northern Ireland, combining resources from two existing companies. Oliver Mears (now director of opera at the Royal Opera House) was artistic director from 2010 to 2017, followed by Walter Sutcliffe (now intendant at Oper Halle) with Cameron being appointed in 2020. The company's Glenarm Festival of Voice, launched in 2011, features recitals and events alongside a vocal competition for young singers across the island of Ireland.

Cameron describes the 2020/21 period as 'a challenging time to get on a plane', and taking over the company at that time was terrifying, but great. There was no way to produce live performances, which meant that he was able to take the necessary step back to look at what the company had. Yet COVID restrictions were also isolating, he was only able to meet in person with the development team and the rest of his relationships started out developing via virtual interactions. He describes the company as small but flexible, and referring to it 'small but fierce'.

Josephine Lang, Madeleine Dring, new works for piano trio and a Winterreise Weekend with Roger Vignoles: Conway Hall Sunday Concerts' Autumn Season

Simon Callaghan (artistic director of Conway Hall Sunday Concerts)
and the Piatti Quartet at Conway Hall

Conway Hall's Sunday Concerts series opens its Autumn season on 10 September with a programme from the Salomé Quartet which features music by Haydn and Mendelssohn, along with Franck's passionate Piano Quartet with pianist Jâms Coleman. The following week (17 September) it is the turn of the Piatti Quartet who play Mendelssohn and Vaughan Williams, along with Brahms' Clarinet Quintet with clarinettist Sacha Rattle.

Other highlights include an entire weekend (6-9 October) devoted to Schubert's Winterreise when Roger Vignoles gives masterclasses to four young duos and then at the end of the weekend the duos give a complete performance of Winterreise. More unusual repertoire features on 22 October, when there is a celebration of the art of English composer Madeleine Dring (1923-1977) when a group of performers including Nicholas Daniel (oboe) and Antonio Oyarzabal (piano) perform a programme of her chamber music. Another unjustly neglected composer from a previous generations features on 19 November, when Harriet Burns (soprano), Jess Dandy (contralto) and Ian Tindale (piano) explore the life and music of German composer Josephine Lang (1815-1880).

On 5 November, the hall's Clements Prize for Composers returns with the finale selecting a work for piano trio, the finalist's works all being performed by the Fidelio Trio, and there will be a public workshop on the afternoon of the concert. The chosen compositions and details of the judging panel will be announced in October 2023.  The prize is in memory of Alfred J. Clements (1858-1938), who was the organiser and secretary of the South Place Sunday Concerts (predecessor of Conway Hall Sunday Concerts) from their inception in 1887 until his death.

The hall has introduced a season ticket, which gets you 15% off admission to all the Sunday Concerts!

Full details from the Conway Hall website

Ruddigore: Gilbert & Sullivan's supernatural Gothic melodrama at Opera Holland Park

Gilbert & Sullivan: Ruddigore - Stephen Gadd & chorus - Opera Holland Park (Photo Craig Fuller)

Gilbert & Sullivan: Ruddigore; Matthew Kellett, David Webb, John Savournin, Stephen Gadd, Richard Suart, Llio Evans, Heather Lowe, Heather Shipp, Natasha Agarwal, Caroline Carragher, director: John Savournin, City of London Sinfonia, conductor David Eaton: Opera Holland Park with Charles Court Opera

Strong individual performances and a cast filling the stage with colour and movement lift this traditional and slightly too low-key production

Opera Holland Park (OHP) completed its 2023 season with a third collaboration with Charles Court Opera for Gilbert & Sullivan's Ruddigore which opened on Wednesday 9 August 2023. John Savournin directed and David Eaton conducted the City of London Sinfonia in a production designed by Madeleine Boyd with lighting by Mark Jonathan and choreography by Merry Holden. Matthew Kellett was Robin Oakapple, with David Webb as Richard Dauntless, John Savournin as Sir Despard Murgatroyd, Stephen Gadd as Sir Roderic Murgatroyd, Richard Suart as Old Adam, Llio Evans as Rose, Heather Lowe as Mad Margaret, Heather Shipp as Dame Hannah, plus Natasha Agarwal and Caroline Carragher.

Ruddigore features some of my favourite individual moments in any of G&S, but as an opera, it is tricky to bring off. Gilbert's librettos for Sullivan generally featured a diverse group of comic and satirical targets held together via a setting that provides a strong frame. The cod-Japanese setting in The Mikado and the fairy/house of Lords theme in Iolanthe are strong enough to provide a secure frame into which almost anything else will fit. Ruddigore, written in 1887 as a follow-up to The Mikado uses the idea of the Gothic melodrama so popular on the Victorian stage. Contemporary audiences would have had no problem identifying the references and it was a frame into which, as before, almost anything will fit - mock-Weber professional bridesmaids, mock-Donizetti mad scenes, jolly Jack Tars, a mysterious curse, books on etiquette. For a modern director, this remains something of a challenge as the Victorian melodrama has almost entirely fallen out of currency.

Gilbert & Sullivan: Ruddigore - chorus - Opera Holland Park (Photo Craig Fuller)

Rather bravely, John Savournin and Madeleine Boyd decided to run with it, so we had a setting true to the libretto's rubric. Boyd's sets were, it must be admitted, more functional than inspiring, a simple set of doors depicting the village, and they did not quite make sufficient impact on the wide OHP stage. Charles Court Opera is a touring company, working generally in small spaces and for all the wit and enjoyment of their OHP stagings, I feel that they have not quite got the hang of filling up the bigger (and rather challenging) space. 

Scottish International Piano Competition is returning to Glasgow for the first time since 2017

2017 Scottish International Piano Competition prize winner Can Çakmur with Royal Scottish National Orchestra & Thomas Søndergård (Photo Robin Mitchell)

The Scottish International Piano Competition is returning to Glasgow for the first time since 2017. From 1 to 10 September 2023, thirty musicians will be competing at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland with the finale at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.

Established in 1986 as a memorial to Scottish pianist Frederic Lamond (the second-last surviving pupil of Franz Liszt). It is open to pianists of any nationality, aged between 18 and 30, and recent prize winners, including Pavel Kolesnikov (who took third prize in 2010) and Tom Poster (who took first prize in 2007), have gone on to enjoy major international careers following their success in the competition. Running roughly triennially, the last competition was in 2017 when the winner was Turkish pianist, Can Çakmur.

Three solo recital stages, including the semi-final, take place at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, from 1-7 September. Three finalists will perform with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra on the afternoon of 10 September at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, conducted by David Niemann. Niemann was second prize winner of the 2015 Malko Conducting Competition, he was appointed Assistant Conductor at the Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier, where he worked alongside chief conductor Michael Schønwandt for the following three seasons.

All competitors will play in Stages 1 and 2. A maximum of ten competitors will be selected to play in Stage 3 (semi-final). Three competitors will be selected to play in Stage 4 (final). Top prize is £15,000, second prize is £10,000, third prize is £5,000 and best performance of the compulsory work is £500. A guest recital will kick off the competition on 31 August with soloist Tanya Gabrielian (who took first prize in 2004).

Full details from the competition website.

Handel's Attick: music for solo clavichord - A subtle and revelatory disc from Julian Perkins

Handel's Attick: Music for Clavichord; Julian Perkins; Deux Elle

A disc which explores the music Handel would have played as a student, recorded on the sort of clavichords he would have known and used at home

Considering its ubiquity in 17th and 18th century musical society, the absence of the clavichord from the recording catalogue is striking. Oh, there are clavichord discs but not in the numbers that reflect the instruments use during the 18th century. Part of this is its lack of suitability for the concert platform; the clavichord is a subtle, intimate instrument, one that composers' might use on their travels.

On his new disc, Handel's Attick on Deux-Elles, Julian Perkins presents a programme of music by Ebner, Frohberger, Weckmann, Kerll, Zachow, Handel, Domenico Scarlatti, and Arne. It is a programme that reflects the story, told in John Mainwaring's 1760 Memoirs of the Life of the Late George Frederic Handel, of the young Handel smuggling a clavichord into his father's attic so that he could play. Hence, the first half of the programme comprises pieces by some of those composers mentioned in a notebook of 1698, now lost, which Handel compiled when he was studying in Halle with Zachow, whilst the second half are pieces that the mature Handel might have played on a personal clavichord in London.

Providing a voice for composers whose careers were disrupted by anti-Semitism and bigotry: Royal Conservatory of Music's ARC Ensemble celebrates 20 years

ARC Ensemble

The ARC Ensemble of Canada's Royal Conservatory of Music is celebrating 20 years of music making. Comprised of the senior faculty of The Royal Conservatory's Glenn Gould School, with guests drawn from its alumni and students, the ARC Ensemble has become an influential cultural ambassador. Its concerts and recordings have gained multiple Grammy and JUNO nominations. ARC has released nine recordings (on RCA Red Seal and more recently on Chandos Records), including six in its illuminating Music in Exile series. 

The ensemble aims to provide a voice for the hundreds of superbly-trained and highly gifted composers—many graduates of Europe’s most prestigious conservatories—whose careers were disrupted by anti-Semitism and bigotry – who were forced into exile, almost every work in its discography is a new and historically significant addition to the catalogue. Thanks to the ARC Ensemble, masterworks not heard in decades have joined the musical canon. 

The ensemble's 2021 Music in Exile disc featured works by Ukrainian-Jewish composer Dmitri Klebanov (1907-1987), and the disc's release coincided with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Klebanov, an ardent nationalist, drew on several Ukrainian melodies for his Fourth Quartet, melodies that had been used by his older colleague Mykola Leontovych. In the context of Russia’s aggression, Leontovych was killed by the Soviet secret police in 1921. With the Klebanov release, artistic director Simon Wynberg has received requests for his scores from all over the world and Klebanov’s voice became one of protest.    

Whilst the ensemble's disc of chamber works by Walter Kaufmann (1907-1984) convinced the Austrian publisher Doblinger to publish first his chamber music and some of his orchestral works. These were taken up by the Berlin Radio Orchestra who is recording them as well as several regional American and European orchestras. Kaufmann's Indian Symphony will be performed at Carnegie Hall in 2024 conducted by Leon Botstein. 

The ARC Ensemble's recent discs in the Music in Exile series are on Chandos and you can read my in my 2021 interview with the ensemble's artistic director, Simon Wynberg.

Prom 31: Glyndebourne Opera's production of Poulenc's Carmelites, a gripping performance triumphs over unfair acoustic and theatrical compromises

Poulenc: Dialogues of the Carmelites - final scene - Glyndebourne Festival at BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/ Sisi Burn)

Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmelites; Sally Matthews, Katarina Dalayman, Golda Schultz, Karen Cargill, Florie Valiquette, Paul Gay, Valentin Thill, Vincent Ordonneau, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Robin Ticciati; Glyndebourne Festival at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall

Barrie Kosky's new production becomes a gripping exploration of character and emotion in this powerful semi-staged performance of Poulenc's mesmerising opera

Bringing a Glyndebourne Festival Opera production to the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms has become an annual ritual, and a welcome one. It provides a wider and more varied audience for the company's brand of thoughtful and musical opera production. Last year it was Ethel Smyth's The Wreckers, giving her unjustly ignored opera a far wider currency. This year it was the turn of another rarity, Poulenc's Carmelites. 

This is not an unknown opera, of course, but performances are still rare and it generates a fascinating traction, most stagings of the work that I have seen have been, in some way, a bit special. But there are compromises to be made, only the briefest semi-staging is possible given the space available at the Royal Albert Hall; after Poulenc's large orchestra is placed on stage there is room for little else. And the hall's acoustics are not exactly opera friendly, certainly they are a world away from the fine sound of Glyndebourne's current auditorium.

Last night, 7 August 2023, at the Royal Albert Hall, the BBC Proms performance of Glyndebourne Festival Opera's production of Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmelites featured Robin Ticciati conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with Sally Matthews as Blanche, Katarina Dalayman as Madame de Croissy (Old Prioress), Golda Schultz as Madame Lidoine (New Prioress), Karen Cargill as Mother Marie of the Incarnation, Florie Valiquette as Sister Constance of St Denis, Paul Gay as Marquis de la Force, Valentin Thill as Chevalier de la Force, and Vincent Ordonneau as Father Confessor. The production was directed by Donna Stirrup based on Barrie Kosky's production for Glyndebourne.

Poulenc: Dialogues of the Carmelites - Karen Cargill, Sally Matthews, Robin Ticciati, London Philharmonic Orchestra - Glyndebourne Festival at BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/ Sisi Burn)

Flowers of the Seasons: Politics, Power & Poverty

Eliza Flower

Eliza Flower (1803–1846) was a Humanist, she also stood for Women’s & Workers Rights. A pioneering feminist songwriter. A radical political activist. A ‘genius’ according to Mendelssohn. Writer of ‘the music we all waited for’ according to Robert Browning.  Personal scandal ruined her legacy in the censorious Victorian era, but after nearly 200 years, her remarkable music is being brought back to life at Conway Hall.

Electric Voice Theatre, with soprano Frances M Lynch and BBC New Generation Thinker and music historian Oskar Jensen, present an informal evening of songs, poetry and storytelling at Conway Hall’s historic Library, celebrating the music of Eliza Flower on 27 October 2023.

The evening will will introduce Flower’s fascinating life – her politics and her music – with some delightful songs for the seasons, dramatic hymns and powerful protest songs, alongside her interpretations of the works of contemporary writers like Sir Walter Scott, music by her contemporaries Franz Schubert and Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, and her frequent collaborations with radical feminist Harriet Martineau, and her sister, the poet Sarah Flower Adams.

Full details from the Electric Voice Theatre website and the Conway Hall website.

A statement of solidarity between Belarusians & Ukrainians: Belarus Free Theatre's King Stakh's Wild Hunt unites actors, opera singers & musicians at the Barbican

Belarus Free Theatre (BFT), co-founding artistic directors, Nicolai Khalezin and Natalia Kaliada, is known for its provocative physical theatre and it is the only theatre company in Europe banned by its government on political grounds.  On 14 September 2023 the company returns to the Barbican with the premiere of King Stakh's Wild Hunt, the most ambitious artistic venture BFT has ever undertaken as well as being a statement of solidarity between Belarusians and Ukrainians, united in total condemnation of the war in Ukraine. The production brings together actors, opera singers and musicians from Belarus and Ukraine, many of whom have been forced to flee their homelands due to war or dictatorship. The leading roles are performed by Ukrainian baritone, Andrei Bondarenko and Ukrainian soprano, Tamara Kalinkina, conducted by Vitali Alekseenok. 

Directed Nicolai Khalezin and Natalia Kaliada, King Stakh’s Wild Hunt is a conversation between art forms, interlacing opera, theatre, multimedia and live music to tell a story rooted in the history of Belarus with relevance to Europe today and our indifference to brutality. King Stakh's Wild Hunt is one of the most popular novels by the visionary Belarusian writer, Uladzimir Karatkievich (1930-1984). Published in 1964, it is inspired by Eastern European folklore and follows the ghostly hunt to free a young heiress from an evil curse.

This score is by composer, Olga Podgaiskaya (born in Kazakhstan, brought up and trained in Belarus, currently living in Poland), conducted by Vitali Alekseenok, artistic director of the annual Kharkiv Music Fest in Ukraine, and First Kapellmeister and Deputy Music Director, soon to be Principal Conductor, at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf/Duisburg. The production features seven actors from BFT’s permanent ensemble, all exiled from their Belarusian homeland and now living in Poland and the UK; seven on-stage classical musicians from Belarus and Ukraine, known collectively as the Five-Storey Ensemble; and five opera singers from Ukraine including Andrei Bondarenko (winner of the 2011 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition Song Prize) and Tamara Kalinkina.

Full details from the Barbican website.

Prom 27: eclectic mix - Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini & Walton's Belshazzar's Feast

Prom 27 -Walton's Belshazzar's Feast - Klaus Mäkelä, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Chorus - BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/Chris Christodoulou)

Jimmy López Bellido: Perú Negro, Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Walton: Belshazzar's Feast; Yuja Wang, Thomas Hampson, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Klaus Mäkelä, BBC Symphony Chorus; BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall

A vividly exciting and tightly controlled account of Walton's large-scale showpiece concludes a highly diverse Prom from Klaus Mäkelä and BBC forces

Friday night's BBC Prom (4 August 2023) at the Royal Albert Hall featured Klaus Mäkelä conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra in an eclectic programme, with pianist Yuja Wang, baritone Thomas Hampson and the BBC Symphony Chorus. The evening began with the UK premiere of Jimmy López Bellido's 2012 showpiece, Perú Negro, followed by Yuja Wang in Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini, then the evening closed with Walton's Belshazzar's Feast with Thomas Hampson.

It was one of those Proms programmes where each work was satisfactory in its own right but did not really speak to its neighbour. Perhaps the López Bellido and the Walton might have something to say to each other as both were works heavily invested in popular rhythms, albeit ones of different styles (López Bellido references the music of his Peruvian homeland whilst Walton is influenced by jazz). The Rachmaninoff and the Walton, at first sight, seem so distant from each other. Yet they were, amazingly, premiered within three years of each other. Rachmaninoff premiered Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini in 1934 whilst Walton's Belshazzar's Feast premiered at the 1931 Leeds Festival. And if we want to keep with the idea of surprising parallels, the Berg's Lyric Suite premiered just before, in 1927! 

Prom 27 - Klaus Mäkelä - BBC Proms (Photo BBC/Chris Christodoulou)

Perhaps my slightly disappointed reaction to the programme was also exacerbated by the fact that stage movements and such seemed to elongate what was a relatively compact first half into around an hour.

A framework for all young musicians in Scotland: I chat to conductor Catherine Larsen-Maguire, the music director of the National Youth Orchestras of Scotland

Catherine Larsen Maguire (Photo: Miguel Barreto)

The British conductor Catherine Larsen-Maguire was recently announced as the music director of the National Youth Orchestras of Scotland (NYOS), a new post that sees her leading the orchestras from 2024 for a three-year tenure. Born in Manchester and now based in Berlin, Catherine read music at Cambridge, followed by studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Karajan Academy in Berlin. She turned her focus exclusively to conducting in 2012 following a successful career as a bassoonist, which included 10 years as principal at the Komische Oper Berlin.

Catherine describes the role as a fantastic opportunity for her and hopefully for the organisation. NYOS has a relatively new CEO, Kirsteen Davidson Kelly who has been in post for around 18 months, and she has been restructuring the organisation. Catherine first conducted the senior orchestra in 2017 but plans to return had to be put on hold because of COVID, then in April this year she conducted the senior orchestra in a fantastic account of Mahler's Symphony No. 7. Following these performances, Kirsteen Davidson Kelly had the idea of having someone as music director who took an overview of the whole organisation.

NYOS involves training ensembles (short, non-auditioned, summer courses for young people aged 9 to 14), the NYOS Development Orchestra (for aspiring orchestral musicians aged 11-18), NYOS LAB (a new creative project designed to explore improvised and co-created approaches to ensemble music-making), NYOS Symphony Orchestra (the flagship ensemble, for performers age 14 to 22, Grade 8+ music or equivalent) and NYOS Camerata (the showcase pre-professional chamber ensemble).

Pegasus Opera Company announce eight singers taking part in mentoring programme in association with Glyndebourne Opera

Pegasus Opera Company's trailblazing 2023 mentoring programme offers aspiring and emerging artists of African and Asian heritage a bespoke programme of coaching and mentoring opportunities. It was set up in response to the underrepresentation of classical singers from diverse backgrounds on opera stages. Eight singers have been chosen for the 2023 programme, and they will receive individual coaching sessions with sopranos Patricia Rozario, Maureen Brathwaite, and Alison Buchanan; mezzo soprano Ruby Philogene; countertenor Michael Harper; baritone Roderick Williams; and bass/baritone Keel Watson

Taking part in 2023 are, 

• Jasmine Flicker, soprano -  a British classical singer and violinist, specialising in repertoire of the Baroque period. She has just completed her final year of undergraduate studies at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, under the teaching of Neil Baker and coaching of Panaretos Kyriatzidis.
  
• Neeharika Gollapalli, soprano -  from India, she started her musical journey as an Indian classical singer, before training in Western classical music at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, under Joan Rogers and Rinka Bouwemeester. She graduated in 2019 with a B.Mus in Performance. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Performance at the same institution.
  
• Moloko Letsoalo, soprano -  from South African, she obtained her Bachelor of Music from the University of Cape Town in 2019. She recently completed a Master of Performance degree specialising in opera at the Royal College of Music in London on scholarship, under the tutelage of Janis Kelly.
  
• Isabella Moore, soprano -  a New Zealand born Sāmoan soprano. She made her UK operatic debut and role debut singing Gutrune in the GAFA Arts Collective production of Wagner’s Götterdamerung.
  
• Roberta Philip, soprano - currently undertaking her postgraduate degree in Vocal Performance at Guildhall School of Music and Drama under the tutelage of John Evans and is a recipient of the Help Musicians Postgraduate Award.
  
• Aina Miyagi Magnell, mezzo-soprano - a master’s degree student at Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she studies with Marilyn Rees.
  
• Carlos Felipe Cerchiaro, baritone -  Colombian-Italian, a Master’s student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, he has soloist in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier with the Colombian National Opera
  
• Masimba Ushe, bass - holds a Masters’ degree in Vocal Studies from the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied under Mark Wildman and Ingrid Surgenor.
  

Glyndebourne Opera is Pegasus’ main partner in this programme and this is the second year that Glyndebourne has partnered with Pegasus Opera on its opera mentoring programme. Glyndebourne is providing mentorship to four singers on the programme, Jasmine Flicker, Moloko Letsoalo, Carlos Felip Cerchiaro and Masimba Ushe.

The participants mentored by Glyndebourne will be given opportunities to observe rehearsals and shadow established artists at the 2023 Glyndebourne Festival, as well as receiving opportunities to perform for key artistic staff and receive feedback to aid their development. They will also be introduced to other departments at Glyndebourne for insight into the full range of career opportunities in opera.

The other four singers will be mentored by Pegasus, and will be offered masterclasses with Alison Buchanan, as well as opportunities to attend opera productions and receive input and feedback from industry leaders, including agents, communication specialists and dramaturges.

Further information from Pegasus Opera's website.

In case you missed it - July on Planet Hugill

Massenet: Le roi de Lahore - Michael Anthony McGee, Amar Muchhala, Seljan Nasibli, Julian Close - Dorset Opera (Photo: Julian Guidera)

Our July newsletter is out, with coverage of Carmen in a Quarry, the Thaxted Festival, the Three Choirs Festival as well as coverage of the start of the BBC Proms and Opera Holland Park. Interviews include baritone Benjamin Appl and tenor Elgan Llyr Thomas.

Read July on Planet Hugill at MadMimi, or get the newsletter every month by signing up.

Gŵyl Machynlleth Festival

Machynlleth is an historic market town in Wales that was the seat of Owain Glyndŵr's Welsh Parliament in 1404, and as such can claim to be the "ancient capital of Wales".  Modern-day Machynlleth is also the home of the Machynlleth Festival which returns for its 36th edition, under co-artistic directors Julius Drake and Dennis Jones, from 20 to 27 August 2023. The festival’s home is The Tabernacle, a former Wesleyan Chapel now converted for use as an intimate concert hall, and the festival expands into the spaces of the attached gallery, MOMA Machynlleth, as well as the town itself.

Alongside art, talks and workshops the festival features a lively classical music programme. The centrepiece this year is Schubert Day which sees pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja returning to the festival after her triumphant performance last year. She will be playing Schubert’s Sonata in B flat for piano, D960, and with Julius Drake will play for works for four hands, baritone Konstantin Krimmel will be singing Schubert songs and Sir Thomas Allen will coach young singers in Schubert songs in an open masterclass followed by a special concert.

Other visitors this year include Australian composer and viola player, Brett Dean and his daughter, mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts Dean, in Brett Dean's new work I Starred Last Night I Shone for viola and mezzo soprano along with music by Vaughan Williams, Arthur Bliss, Michael Berkeley, Rhian Samuel, Edmund Rubbra and Brahms with pianist Jams Coleman.

Lotte Betts Dean will also join the Consone Quartet at the festival's final concert which features music by Mendelssohn, Schumann, Respighi and Mozart. Violinist Anthony Marwood, clarinettist Matthew Hunt and pianist Alasdair Beatson perform Bartók’s Contrasts, Rachel Podger and members of Brecon Baroque perform works by Handel, LeClair and Purcell and the Salieca Trio play Smetana’s Piano Trio in G minor.

Traditional Welsh music plays a strong role at the festival, and this year there is also an exploration of traditional Roma music.

Full details from the festival's website.

Ian Venables' Portraits of a Mind and Vaughan Williams' On Wenlock Edge on a disc that manages to be far more than a simple tribute

Ralph Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge, Four Hymns, Ian Venables: Portraits of a Mind; Alessandro Fisher, Navarra Quartet, William Vann; Albion Records

A first outing for Ian Venables' birthday companion piece to RVW's On Wenlock Edge in a disc that proves superbly musical, engaging and profoundly satisfying

It is a brave composer who writes a work as a companion for an established classic, but that is what Ian Venables has done. On this disc from Albion Records, Venables' Portraits of a Mind is paired with Vaughan Williams' On Wenlock Edge. Both are written for the same forces, here tenor Alessandro Fisher, the Navarra Quartet and pianist William Vann. And the third work on the disc is an imaginative new version of RVW's Four Hymns created by Iain Farrington.

The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society commissioned Ian Venables to write Portraits of a Mind for the 150th anniversary of RVW's birth on 12 October 2022. The work was premiered at the Oxford Lieder Festival that month.

About the journey not the starting point: in Transfigurations, pianist Duncan Honeybourne explores Phillip Cooke's recent works, creating little pieces of magic from base metal

Transfiguration: piano works by Phillip Cooke; Duncan Honeybourne; Prima Facie

Recent piano works from contemporary composer Philip Cooke where he transforms the every day into something completely magical, 35 generally short movements, each a gem

The works on this disc of composer Phillip Cooke's piano music from Duncan Honeybourne (on Prima Facie) came about because during 2020 Cooke, who is professor of composition at the University of Aberdeen, felt at something of a loss and writing a short piece for Honeybourne was one of the few times he had felt creative. That short piece was based on the folksong, The Turtle Dove and this led to Cooke's Folksongs, which he describes as reimaginings of folksongs and in turn led to other works where pre-existing material was transfigured, hence the recital's title, Transfigurations. The disc features a lot of Cooke's recent work, and most of the pieces explore the idea of transfiguring material from one state to another. 

Cooke describes transfiguration as 'a complete change of material from one form into a more beautiful or spiritual state' and that is what he is exploring on this disc. It is not so much the transformation of pre-existing musical material, which is after all something that happens a lot in music, but the idea that the transformed music is in a different state, and in many of these short pieces there is an element of the spiritual or perhaps the magical.

Rhapsody in राग जोग' (Raag Jog) by Drew Zaremba, featuring Anjan Shah

Rhapsody in राग जोग' (Raag Jog) by Drew Zaremba, featuring Anjan Shah from anjan shah on Vimeo.

Anjan Shah is an Indian American saxophonist and player of the bansur and as a performer he is interested in fusing Indian culture with Western sounds. Rhapsody in राग जोग (Raag Jog) is a 22-minute work commissioned by Anjan Shah from American saxophonist and composer Drew Zaremba that is rhapsodic in form and celebrates the fusion of diverse influences. This performance features Anjan Shah on bansuri flute/tenor saxophone, Jonathan Epley on guitar, Nabin Shrestha on tabla, Amy Shook on bass and Drew Zaremba conducting the Chicago Studio Orchestra. 

You can read more about Anjan Shah in a recent article on International Musician.

Opera Prelude's OperaWorks returns

Following the success of last year's inaugural event, Opera Prelude has announced the return of OperaWorks, an affordable professional development day for opera students and early career artists, to be held at the Chelsea Theatre on Tuesday 24 October 2023. 

Hosted by soprano, librettist and producer April Koyejo-Audiger, the event will feature a series of morning sessions for singers tackling everything from finance and audition success to mental health, whilst the afternoon will see a panel of influential figures from the opera and music world come together for a conference around the theme of New Directions: Making Opera Work for All. The day will culminate in a recital by some of the UK’s most exciting new opera talent, the Opera Prelude Young Artists, onstage at the Chelsea Theatre.

Opera Prelude, a charity whose mission is to increase opera’s accessibility and nurture new talents from all backgrounds, has a roster of industry figures – from singers and educators to artistic directors and company founders – who will be participating in a day of workshops, talks and panel discussions designed to help the opera stars of tomorrow navigate the evolving modern opera scene.

Full details from the Opera Prelude website.

The Opera Story: Dani Howard's The Yellow Wallpaper in Copenhagen and at Sadler's Wells

Dani Howard's first opera Robin Hood was premiered by The Opera Story in 2019 [see my review] and now she is back with another. The Opera Story will be performing Dani Howard's The Yellow Wallpaper at the Copenhagen Opera Festival (19 & 20 August 2023) and at Sadler's Well Lillian Baylis Studio (14 & 15 September 2023).

The Yellow Wallpaper, which has a libretto by Joseph Spence, is based on the story by feminist Victorian writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It tells of a woman subject to the “rest” treatment of solitary confinement prescribed at the time for women suffering postpartum depression, and its effects on her mental health. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 1892 semi-autobiographical short-story, The Yellow Wallpaper is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature for its illustration of the attitudes towards mental and physical health of women in the 19th century, as well as being an excellent work of horror fiction.

Dani Howard's opera is scored for mezzo-soprano, cello, piano, and dancer. The production will feature mezzo-soprano Clare Presland as a woman who secretly tries to write her way out of captivity. The opera will be directed by Amy Lane, who is director of the Copenhagen Opera Festival, and The Yellow Wallpaper will be The Opera Story's first production to tour.

Full details from The Opera Story's website.

Personal choice: accordion player Martynas Levickis' solo recital disc, Autograph

Autograph: Martynas Levickis, Bach, Glass, Franck Angelis, Milosz Magin; Martynas Levickis; Accentus Music

The Lithuanian accordion virtuoso chooses an eclectic and highly personal programme for his recital disc from surprisingly joyful Bach to Levickis' own highly contemporary folk song arrangements

Autograph on Accentus Music is a solo album from accordion player Martynas Levickis and the collection of music is a personal one, featuring favourites from his repertoire along with some of his own music. There is Bach's French Suite No. 5, four of Philip Glass' Etudes, plus two works specifically for the accordion, Franck Angelis' Impasse and Milosz Magin's Nostalgie du Pays along with Levickis' arrangements of Lithuanian folk songs.

Martynas Levickis has always included arrangements of Lithuanian folk songs in his repertoire, but on this disc he plays five in new arrangements for accordion and string ensemble, played here by eight members of his own ensemble, the Lithuanian chamber group Mikroorkestra. The results are way beyond simple folk-arrangements and we get five substantial works for accordion and strings (one is over seven minutes long). The sound world moves a long way from pure folk music Levickis is unashamed of borrowing, so there a moments that sound Piazzolla-esque. This is an appealing suite, elegantly played, and the strings are active participants in the music rather than simply providing support for the solo spot. Very much music for accordion with strings, this deserves a life beyond the disc.