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.

A great big present: Stephen Medcalf on returning to Buxton to direct his favourite piece, Idomeneo

Mozart: Idomeneo - rehearsals for Buxton Festival - the festival chorus (Photo Richard Hubert Smith)

With his production of Mozart's Idomeneo for the 2018 Buxton Festival (Idomeneo opens on 8 July 2018), director Stephen Medcalf is coming full circle in a number of ways. Whilst he has never directed the opera before he worked on it very early in his career, on Trevor Nunn's production of the opera at Glyndebourne in the 1980s (Nunn's first opera production) where Medcalf was a young assistant director. And Medcalf's first job as an assistant director was at Buxton, where he worked with director Malcolm Fraser (who co-founded the festival) on Kodaly's Hary Janos (with a cast which included Alan Opie, Cynthia Buchan and Linda Ormiston) and would go on to work on Cimarosa's Il Matrimonio Segreto the next year with Lesley Garrett. 

During rehearsal for Idomeneo, I recently met up with Stephen to learn more about this thoughts on directing Idomeneo.

Mozart: Idomeneo - Stephen Medcalf in rehearsal for Buxton Festival
(Photo Richard Hubert Smith)

After his early period at Buxton, Stephen returned to Buxton in the 2000s to direct a sequence of Donizetti operas with Andrew Greenwood conducting, and then for Stephen Barlow (artistic director of the festival since 2011) he has directed Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, Beethoven's Leonore [see my review] and now Idomeneo.

Idomeneo is an opera that Stephen has always wanted to direct, it is the only major Mozart opera which has so far escaped him. He is thrilled to be doing it at Buxton where the Opera House is a perfect size for performing Mozart. He calls Idomeneo opera seria but not as we know it. Despite the opera seria form, Mozart uses a lot of devices to make it flow, thus advancing the form and transforming opera seria considerably. Stephen sees the work as very forward-looking, anticipating Mozart's later operas, and he cites the way the storm in Elettra's heart becomes the storm of the shipwreck.


Having directed the Mozart/Da Ponte opera and The Magic Flute three or four times each, Stephen finds the seeds of all the later operas in Idomeneo, you keep hearing echoes of phrases from these later pieces in the opera. And Stephen finds it extraordinary that Idomeneo was written by one so young, given the endless links to the later operas and the real insight into the characters.

Truffles, fantasy and more: Alissa Firsova performances and recording

The composer Alissa Firsova has a lively diary over the coming months. In August, VIVAT will release a new CD of Firsova's music Fantasy - Music of Alissa Firsova, featuring the Tippett Quartet, clarinettist Mark van der Wiel, pianist Simon Mulligan, bass-baritone Nicholas Crawley, soprano Ellie Laugharne and herself on the piano. The programme includes her substantial 2016 string quartet, Tennyson Fantasy, commissioned by the Tippett Quartet, two works for clarinet and piano (both dedicated to clarinettist Mark van de Wiel), the clarinet quintet Loss, two vocal works on the theme of 'Paradise on Earth' and cellist Tim Hugh performing Fantasy of 2014.

There is also a chance to hear Firsova's Stabat Mater tomorrow (30 June 2018) when it is being performed by The Oriel Singers, the St Cecilia Singers, and the Gloucester Symphony Orchestra at Tewkesbury Abbey in a programme which also includes Jonathan Dove's For an Unknown Soldier, (further information).

Further ahead, the Arditti Quartet plays Firsova's String Quartet Paradiso in the Megève Savoy Truffle Festival on 24 August, and Firsova gives a solo piano recital for the Amsterdam Piano Series at the Concertgebouw on 27 October.

Update: I gather that Alissa will also playing with violinist, Ludmila Pavlová in Jičín castle on 21 July and with soprano, Alessia Schumacher and cellist Anatole Liebermann in the Luberon on 21 Aug and also writing a string quartet piece for Daniel Rowland’s Stift Festival at the end of August.

100 years on from the bill that brought votes for women - how far do we still have to go?

The Reckoning is a new show which has been created for The Art of Change, a new company which wants to bring life to the art song. The Reckoning mixes new drama (from writer Lila Palmer) with art songs from Beethoven to Bolcom and new songs by Ella Jarman-Pinto and Eve Harrison.

The show debuts tonight, 29 June 2018, at St James Church, Sussex Gardens, London, W2 3UD as part of the Voices of London Festival before touring to Liverpool, Leicester, Sheffield, Manchester, London and beyond later in the year.

The piece tells the story of four women across the ages who have fought for equality - from the petitions of Elizabeth Lilburne and the Levellers during the English Civil War to Emily Wilding Davison and the Suffragettes to the work of two fictional contemporary female MPs. It asks on the subject of equality: 100 years on from the bill that brought votes for women - how far do we still have to go?

The singers are Rhonda Browne, Christine Cunnold, Oliver Hunt, Grace Nyandoro and Louise Wayman, accompanied by pianist Maya Solton, with Fiona Williams as director.

Further information from the Art of Change website, and tickets from the Voices of London website.

Handel's finest arias for base voice - Christopher Purves, Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo

Handel arias from Siroe, Esther, Athalia, Belshazzar, Tolomeo, Joshua, Rinaldo; Christopher Purves, Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen; Hyperion
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 20 June 2018 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★)
Christopher Purves and Arcangelo in a vivid follow-up to their disc of Handel arias

The baritone Christopher Purves has returned to Handel's music for a second disc of arias with Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo on Hyperion Records. For the new disc we get an eclectic mix of opera and oratorio arias from Siroe, Esther, Athalia, Belshazzar, Tolomeo, Joshua, and Rinaldo plus the cantata Nell'africane selve and an aria from the pasticcio Catone which is actually by Porpora.

This disc is a follow up to Purves and Arcangelo's 2013 disc Handel's finest arias for base voice [see my review], we also caught them performing repertoire from both discs at the Barbican [see my review].

Handel wrote for particular singers and where he had a talented bass the result could often be a striking aria. So on this disc we encounter the unknown bass soloist, with a range from bottom C sharp to top A, for whom Handel wrote the cantata Nell'africane selve in Naples in 1708, and the bass Carlo Maria Broschi who featured in Handel's opera seasons in the 1720s and who specialised in tyrants so Handel wrote him such roles in Siroe and Tolomeo (1728). In the the 1730s Handel's line-up featured Antonio Montagnana, another bass with a wide range (for whom Handel would write the role of Zoroastro in Orlando) and who sang in the pasticcio Catone. In Handel's later oratorio period his bass soloists was often Henry Theodore Reinhold for whom Handel wrote roles in Belshazzar and Joshua (Reinhold also achieved success in the title role of Lampe's comedy The Dragon of Wantley).

Verdi's Un ballo in maschera at Grange Park Opera

Verdi: Un ballo in maschera - Claire Rutter, Vincenzo Costanzo - Grange Park Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

Verdi Un ballo in maschera; Claire Rutter, Vincenzo Costanzo, Roland Wood, Elisabetta Fiorillo, Tereza Gevorgyan, dir: Stephen Medcalf, orchestra of English National Opera, cond: Gianluca Marciano; Grange Park Opera Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 27 June 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Verdi's complex opera in its American setting with some strong individual performances

Elisabetta Fiorillo - Grange Park Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

With it's complex political background, Verdi's opera Un ballo in maschera provides the director with a variety of choices. Antonio Somma's libretto, based on the assassination of King Gustavo III of Sweden, was just too much for the King of Naples' censors, particularly in the light of assassination attempts on Napoleon III, so the opera was ultimately premiered in a version set in colonial-era Boston, well away from any Western European monarchy. It has become common in recent times for productions to revert to the original Swedish setting.

For his new production of Un ballo in maschera at Grange Park Opera, Stephen Medcalf opted for the American setting, with Jamie Vartan's sets and costumes firmly placing it in the mid-19th century (seen 27 June 2018). Vincenzo Costanzo was Riccardo, now a very presidential figure, with Claire Rutter as Amelia, Roland Wood as Renato, Elisabetta Fiorillo as Ulrica, Tereza Gevorgyan as Oscar, Matthew Buswell as Sam and Matthew Stiff as Tom. Gianluca Marciano conducted the orchestra of English National Opera.

Historical accuracy in Un ballo in maschera is an impossible thing as Verdi and Somma played so fast and loose with history. The real King Gustavo III certainly did not have an affair with his best friends wife, in fact he was probably homosexual, had trouble consummating his marriage and may well have not been the father of the royal princes. Also, the real fortune teller, Madame Arvidson (Ulrica), used coffee grounds for the purpose rather than communing with Satan.

Septura brings musical Kleptomania to life

The brass ensemble is a relatively modern concept and so the brass septet Septura has to be imaginative in their approach to repertoire. Their current concert series, Kleptomania, explores a variety of different borrowings, transferring repertoire from one place to another whether it be baroque music or classic songs.

The ensemble is performing its Borrowed Baroque programme at St Jude’s Proms on 27 June, at St Jude's, Church, Hampstead Garden Suburb. Here, the 18th-century orchestra of Handel’s Rinaldo and Rameau’s Dardanus is brought to life in borrowings for brass, whilst Septura’s Pergolesi, by contrast, is third-hand: Stravinsky got there first, and his neoclassical Pulcinella is re-imagined for brass, alongside some early neoclassical piano works by Prokofiev.

Their Song Swag programme is being presented at West Road Concert Hall (9 July) and St John's Smith Square (10 July). This programme moves from transcriptions of Fauré’s mélodies and Ravel’s Mother Goose, to Gershwin’s Songbook and iconic An American in Paris, especially arranged for brass and solo car-horns.

Septura's players hold principal positions in the London Symphony, Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony, Basel Symphony and Aurora orchestras. Between them, the players teach at the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music, in London, and the Birmingham Conservatoire.

Full details from the Septura website.

Each a world unto itself: Arvo Pärt The Symphonies

Arvo Pärt The Symphonies; NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic, Tonu Kaljuste; ECM New Series
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 19 June 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Spanning over 40 years, Arvo Pärt's symphonies enable us to explore the contexts of his better known music

The symphony is a not a form which one immediately associates with the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. Yet on this disc from Tonu Kaljuste and the NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic on ECM New Series we have Arvo Pärt's four symphonies which stretch across his entire output, Symphony No. 1 'Polyphonic' (1966), Symphony No. 2 (1966), Symphony No. 3 (1971) and Symphony No. 4 'Los Angeles' (2008). Wolfgang Sandner's booklet essay about the symphonies includes an illuminating post-script, 'Arvo Pärt maintains that each of his symphonies is a world unto itself and points in a different direction. A compass is necessary to determine that direction'.

Pärt's first symphony was written in 1963 and came at the end of his studies with Heino Eiler (to whom the symphony is dedicated) at the State Conservatory in Tallinn. It is a complex 12-tone work, in two movement which use forms which hark back, Canon, Prelude & Fugue. It is a striking and rather dense work which hints at roads not taken, full of influences on the young composer.  The second symphony came three years later, this time three short, concise movements. Here 12-tone techniques are combined with improvisation and aleatoric passages, to create a remarkably different sound world.

The third symphony comes at a fascinating period in Pärt's development.

Current gripes and current joys - Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival returns

Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival returns in 2018 to present another lively programme of opera from the cutting edge, reflecting current affairs, current gripes, and current joys. The festival runs from 26 July to 18 August 2018 in a variety of locations in the King's Cross area, from outdoors in Lewis Cubitt Square to RADA Studios, Kings Place and the Wellcome Collection.

Returning alumni of the festival include Errollyn Wallen, Juice Vocal Ensemble, Edward Lambert, and Tom Randle, and there are new collaborations with the Wellcome Collection and Mid Wales Music Trust with Sinfonia Cymru. The festival is welcoming its first artist in residence, with Li-E Chen's Proposition for a Silent Opera at an Invisible Museum – I am a museum that encompasses an art exhibition in the foyer of The Place from 16 to 18 August, plus performances throughout the week.

Free opera is served in the Cubitt Sessions in Lewis Cubitt Square, with work by BISHI, Errollyn Wallen, Juice Vocal Ensemble, and Aubergine from Muziektheater Transparent, and Tête à Tête’s very own operatic disaster, TOSCATASTROPHE.

McCaldin Arts are bringing Martin Bussey's Mary's Hand about Queen Mary I, Ergo Phizmiz returns with NIBIRU!, the Music Troupe bring Edward Lambert's The Cloak and Dagger Affair based on Lorca, Metta Theatre explore what it is to be aged two with Oliver Brignall's I Do Need Me, and Tom Randle's Love Me To Death features Gillian Keith as Ruth Ellis.

Early Bird tickets are on-sale until 10 July. Full details from the festival website.

Tchaikovsky, Spontini, Georgiana and a new artistic director - Buxton announces plans for 2019

Adrian Kelly

Earlier this year it was announced that the conductor Stephen Barlow was stepping down as artistic director of the Buxton Festival after this year's festival. The festival has wasted no time in appointing his successor, and conductor Adrian Kelly will take up the role of artistic director after the 2018 festival and will be responsible for the programming for the 2019 festival which will celebrate the  40th anniversary of the founding of the Buxton Festival. Already announced are the three main operas for next year, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Spontini's La vestale and a new pasticcio celebrating the life & times of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.

Adrian Kelly is something of an unknown quantity in the UK, despite his training as a choral scholar at King's College, Cambridge and the RNCM, and his participation in the Young Artists Programme at Covent Garden. He has worked at the Salzburg State Theatre since 2010 and has been music director there since 2017, and next season will be conducting Massenet's Manon and the three Mozart/Da Ponte operas in Salzburg. His work in Salzburg has included the Austrian premiere of Charles Wuorinen's opera Brokeback Mountain (based on the Annie Proulx novella which gave rise to the film).

Kelly's choice of festival operas for 2019 are an interesting mix. Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin has not been done at the festival since 1998, and the opera is an ideal size for the Buxton Opera House. Spontini's La vestale is more admired than performed, and has rarely been done in the UK. English National Opera's production in the 1990s with Jane Eaglen failed to ignite, and I look forward to hearing the work in the more intimate confines of the Buxton theatre. The third choice, the pasticcio, is an innovative way to celebrate the 40th anniversary by concentrating on the local area, and the success of the work will depend on the quality of the book and the appositeness of the selection of musical material. Also planned for 2019 is a New Voices Gala with young artists from the Royal Northern College of Music and from Cape Town Opera.

Further informatiion from the Buxton Festival website.

Re-creating the sights and sounds of Versailles - OAE's Dangerous Liaisons

The pasticcio was a standard form in Baroque opera, creating a new opera from elements of previous ones and allowing performers to re-visit their greatest hits. The same was true of French baroque opera, where the Paris Opera and the Versailles of Louis XIV re-worked existing pieces to create 'fragments', new operas with new plots based on existing material.

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is giving us a taste of these French Baroque mash-ups tonight, 26 June 2018, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall when John Butt will be conducting them in a programme entitled Dangerious Liaisons, with music by Lully, Rameau, Charpentier, Campra and forgotten composers Mouret, Corrette and Marais, Dangerous Liaisons provides a rare chance to experience the best of French baroque music and dance, spanning 70 years. Some of the nearly 50 pieces have had no known performances since the 17th and 18th centuries, or been seen in their proper context – as dances.

Co-curated by flautist Lisa Beznosiuk and choreographer Hubert Hazebrouq, the programme will feature an essential element of French Baroque opera, dancers. The dances have been researched and choreographed by Hubert Hazebroucq and his troupe Les Corps Eloquents using original dance plates from the period.

Full details from the OAE website.

Intimate, candid and completely fascinating: The Tchaikovsky Papers - unlocking the family archive

The Tchaikovsky Papers; edited by Marina Kostalevsky; Yale University Press 

Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 20 June 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Family letters from the Tchaikovsky archive, never published in English before and revealing illuminating intimate details about the composer's life

This volume, The Tchaikovsky Papers - unlocking the family archive from Yale University Press (edited by Marina Kostalevsky and translated by Stephen Pearl) contains a selection of letters which are published complete for the first time in English and which only appeared in Russian in 2009. It is strange to think that such a cache of letters could be sat in the archives at the Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky State House-Museum in Klin without being well known. But since Tchaikovsky's death, biographers have often taken a somewhat selective view of the composer, both Modest Tchaikovsky and Soviet biographers, in their different ways, were keen to promote their own image of the composer.  So, as Marina Kostalevsky explains in her introduction, various topics touched on in the letters have made biographers uncomfortable, such matters as Tchaikovsky's monarchism, his adherence to the Russian Orthodox tradition and most notably his homosexuality have caused the letters either to be ignored or to be published in distorted form. This new volume enables us to glimpse different aspects of the composer's intimate life.
 
There are three groups of letters published in the volume, correspondence between Tchaikovsky's parents from 1833 to 1851 (16 letters in all), letters from Tchaikovsky's former governess Fanny Durbach written after the two had got back into contact in 1892 (12 letters in all) and Tchaikovsky's letters mainly to his brothers Modest and Anatoly from 1869 to 1892, plus a single letter from 1851 (58 letters in all). There a selection of Tchaikovsky's musical jokes and souvenirs, plus key documents from Tchaikovsky's official record, from his birth certificate to his will and documents relating to his death. There is a wide variety of information in the letters, but what makes the volume the most intriguing is the freedom with which Tchaikovsky refers to his homosexuality, and his amorous adventures.

'I've always wanted to fart higher than my arse. I wanted to be the number one composer not only in Russia, but in the whole world'

Death Speaks

death speaks is a song cycle by the American composer David Lang which was premiered alongside Lang's well-known Little Match Girl Passion. death speaks will be performed as part of a City Music Foundation concert at the Pathology Museum at St Bartholomew's Hospital on Thursday 28 June 2018.  In death speaks Lang gives Death a human voice, using words drawn entirely from Schubert songs.

Lotte Betts-Dean (mezzo-soprano), Andrey Lebedev (guitar), Iona Allan (violin) and Joe Havlat (piano) will perform a programme which places death speaks alongside songs and instrumental numbers by Dowland, Schubert, Ravel, JS Bach, Kurtág and Jonny Greenwood. The event is part of a day of music at St Bart’s Hospital presented by City Music Foundation, which includes a lunchtime recital at the Church of St Bartholomew the Less by Abner Jairo Ortiz Garcia (cello) and Mihai Ritivoiu (piano), and free jazz in St Bart's Hospital Square in the afternoon.

The Pathology Museum, part of Queen Mary University of London, is a Grade II Listed Medical Museum situated at the top of St Bartholomew’s Hospital; it houses over 5000 medical specimens displayed over 3 mezzanine level.

Full details from the City Music Foundation website.

Notable debuts & a veteran director: Die Entführung aus dem Serail from the Grange Festival

Mozart: The Abduction from the Seraglio - Alexander Andreou -
The Grange Festival 2018 (Photo Simon Annand)

Mozart Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio); Kiandra Howarth, Ed Lyon, Daisy Brown, Paul Curievici, Jonathan Lemalu, dir: John Copley, cond: Jean-Luc Tingaud, Bournemout Symphony Orchestra; The Grange Festival Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 24 June 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Engaging and visually ravishing account of Mozart's first Singspiel

Kiandra Howarth, Ed Lyon
The Grange Festival 2018 (Photo Simon Annand)

For its final production this year, The Grange Festival invited veteran director John Copley to return [Copley directed last year's Albert Herring, see my review] for a production of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) in a new English translation by David Parry. The cast, all of whom were making their role debuts, featured Kiandra Howarth as Konstanze, Ed Lyon as Belmonte, Daisy Brown as Blonde, Paul Curievici as Pedrillo, Jonathan Lemalu as Osmin and Alexander Andreou as Pasha Selim. The designs were by Tim Reed with lighting by Kevin Treacy, and Jean-Luc Tingaud conducted the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

Tim Reed's picturesque set, based around a series of moving screens, provided attractive and varied settings for this traditional 18th century setting of the story. Within this Reed provided much visual interest with the costumes, particular the highly theatrical ones for the Pasha Selim's court. Copley's production told the story simply and directly without any modern glosses, which placed a lot of responsibility on the singers to fully inhabit their roles.

Diction was excellent and performing the work in English enabled a high degree of communication with the audience, the subtitles were hardly needed. David Parry's translation, with rhyming texts for the arias, was lively and engaging and avoided many of the politically incorrect attitudes of the original libretto.

Though the plot involves a number of Enlightenment pre-occupations, the libretto's lack of character development and the fact that crucial information about the back-story is held back until the final scene makes the piece quite light in texture despite some serious intensity in arias like 'Marten aller Arten'. Copley's production did not try to disguise this, but concentrated on telling a story in an engaging manner as possible, with some stunning visual moments.

Vivid drama: Handel's Agrippina at The Grange Festival

Handel: Agrippina - Raffaele Pe, James Hall, Alex Otterburn, Anna Bonitatibus
The Grange Festival (photo Robert Workman)

Handel Agrippina; Anna Bonitatibus, Raffaele Pe, Ashley Riches, Christopher Ainslie, Stefanie True, dir: Walter Sutcliffe, cond: Robert Howarth; The Grange Festival  
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 5 June 2018 
Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)
Strong personen regie heightens an intimate account of Handel's Venetian opera

Stefanie True, Raffaele Pe - The Grange Festival (photo Robert Workman)

Handel's Agrippina is one of his few operas not to be performed in England during his lifetime. Premiered in Venice in 1709, it has a libretto by Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani which is one of the best librettos that Handel set. Fast paced and far more explicitly comic than any of Handel's operas written for London, it is an idea choice for audiences for whom Handel's later large-scale serious operas might be a bit forbidding. So the work was just right for The Grange Festival, especially as the intimate theatre capitalises on the opera's lively plotting.

Directed by Walter Sutcliffe and designed by Jon Bausor with lighting by Wolfgang Goebbel, the production featured Ashley Riches as Claudio, Anna Bonitatibus as Agrippina, Raffaele Pe as Nerone, Stefanie True as Poppea, Christopher Ainslie as Ottone, Alex Otterburn as Pallante, James Hall as Narciso, and Jonathan Best as Lesbo. Robert Howarth conducted the Academy of Ancient Music leader Bojan Cicic, with Michael Chance responsible for the musical preparation.

Walter Sutcliffe's production set the piece in a theatre when the curtain rose we saw Anna Bonitatibus's Agrippina sitting in a mirror image of the Grange theatre's auditorium. Set in modern dress, Sutcliffe used the theatre as a metaphor for the dynastic struggles of the plot, with Claudio (Ashley Riches) as the ageing director with the plotting to succeed him. The first half (Act One and the opening scenes of Act Two), Agrippina's confidence in her plotting were indicated by the way that she re-worked the theatre's physical presence. Jon Bausor's set had two dramatic coups, first the seating area rotated in a spectacular manner, so that Claudio et al met Poppea (Stefanie True) in the space underneath the raked seating, and then at the opening of the second half, with the seats gone, we had a plainer more classical space with a door at the back open to reveal a vista of the Northington Grange gardens (in fact a large scale photo strategically placed outside the theatre building).

Rip-roaring fun: Elena Langer's Rhondda Rips It Up!

Elena Langer: Rhondda Rips It Up! - WNO Ladies Chorus - Welsh National Opera (Photo © Jane Hobson)

Elena Langer Rhondda Rips It Up!; Madeleine Shaw, Lesley Garrett, Welsh National Opera, dir: Caroline Clegg, cond: Nicola Rose; WNO at the Hackney Empire Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 5 June 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
A vaudeville style celebration of the life and achievments of the Welsh suffragette entertains and uplifts

Madeleine Shaw - Welsh National Opera
(Photo © Jane Hobson)

Elena Langer's follow-up to her 2016 opera for Welsh National Opera, Figaro gets a divorce couldn't be more different. Langer's Rhondda Rips It Up! is most definitely not an opera, it is an entertaining mix of cabaret, vaudeville and music hall, all celebrating the life of the Welsh suffragette, Margaret Mackworth, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda. Using an all female ensemble (singers, musicians, production team) with music by Elena Langer [read my interview with Elena] and words by Emma Jenkins, Welsh National Opera debuted the work on 7 June 2018 in Newport and is taking it on tour. We caught the performance on 22 June 2018 at the Hackney Empire.

Madeleine Shaw played Lady Rhondda with Lesley Garrett as Emcee and an ensemble of women from the WNO Chorus who played all the other roles (male and female). Nicola Rose conducted the instrumental ensemble, the director was Caroline Clegg and designer was Lara Booth.

Whilst the work is described as a cabaret opera, the references are as much to music hall and vaudeville. Emma Jenkins libretto uses individual numbers linked by dialogue whilst Elena Langer's score combines very definite point numbers, pastiche and musical references with an acute ear for timbre and colour which links everything together. Langer's instrumental ensemble consisted of ten players, piano, violin, cello, double bass/bass guitar, accordion, clarinet/saxophone, trumpet/cornet, trombone, tuba, and drumkit/percussion. With these she achieved a remarkable variety of colours, and influences ranged from the brass bands of South Wales to salon dance music, yet the whole was shot through with Langer's voice and the instrumental underscoring of the dialogue ensured a continuity. Langer's scoring was often spare, her use of strong instrumental colours acute.