Strasbourg diary

We were in Strasbourg for the weekend, mainly so that we could go to see Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini performed by L'Opera National du Rhin in Strasbourg's lovely 19th century opera house. A full review of the performance will appear in the next few days.

Strasbourg's opera house is a lovely little traditional 19th century one. The only drawback of the charming interior is the insufficiently raked stalls, so the view from your seat was a little variable.

It never fails to amaze me, when wandering around smaller French towns, that you so often come across branches of French Harmonia Mundi shops. They all stock a lovely mix of world music, jazz and classical music featuring the record labels own highly distinctive recordings. They provide a classical music browsing experience which has no parallels in England, where the record shop seems in terminal decline. How do they do it! We took advantage of an offer on their Musique d'Abord series and bought Charpentier's David and Jonathan in William Christie's recording (with Veronique Gens and Charles Daniel in the choir, Marc Minkowski playing bassoon, Christoph Rousset on harpsichord and Gerard Lesne a prime soloist).

We visited the lovely Palais de Rohan, opposite the Cathedral; this is a heartwarming success story as, despite many vicissitudes, the 18th century state appartments have much of their original decor and many of their original furnishing. In the annexe, nestling amongst the bewildering array of local ceramics, we were surprised to come across a portait of Silberman the organ builder. Quite why he was here, I do not know?

On leaving the Palace we were drawn across to the front of the Cathedral by the distant count of a haunting voice. This turned out to be a counter-tenor called Luc Arbogast, busking outside the cathedral, singing to his own lute accompaniment. In the cold, cold, cold weather his performance was to be applauded, especially with a voice as hauntingly meliflous as this. The songs seemed to be mid-way between folk and medieval troubadour songs; Arbogast's appearance reflected this with his tattoos, silver jewellery, striking shaved head. We bought one of his CD's but have not had a chance to listen to it yet, I'll report back.

This month's Opera magazine seems to be the beefcake issue. Not only do we have a full page colour picture of a shirtless Simon Keenlyside in ENO's new Billy Budd, but there is also shirtless Nathan Gunn in Tobias Picker's disappointing (I gather) new opera for the Met, American Tradgedy.

Whilst on the subject of Billy Budd, it was interesting to read in Rodney Milnes's review that ENO trashed the previous production by Tim Albery because it was prohibitively expensive both to stage and to store.

Max Loppert's obituary/appreciation of the late Ronal Crichton made a rather interesting point about the craft of reviewing, "He (Crichton) had few equals in the difficult art of finding the just reviewer's approach toward that tricky area of worthwhile concert-hall or opera-house event located in the middle ground - neither 'disastrous' nor 'great'". Something that I've not got quite sussed in my own reviews, I suspect.

This month's issue is also a rather fun on to play spot the significant other in interviews, profiles and obituaries. The lack of a mention of a significant other being an indication that there isn't one, the person likes to keep their personal life private or the significant other is a person of the same sex; its always rather fun to try and read between the lines even if you are completely wrong!

I was shocked to learn that Elizabeth Harwood was only 52 when she died 15 years ago. She was such a figure of my student-hood and later that I had always assumed that she was far older.

Opera that speaks your language?

Norman Lebrecht's recent article in the London Evening Standard was ostensibly about the Mozart Centenary, but referred to Chandos's folorn Opera in English series. This seems a rather an unfair description of a rather interesting project.

Granted the casting and the conducting of the operas in the set have sometimes had a rather one size fits all sort of feeling. This is particularly true, I'm afraid, of David Parry's conducting. But Parry is not the only conductor to be involved, Sir Charles Mackerras has contributed world class versions of The Magic Flute, The Bartered Bride, Jenufa and Osud plus his older recordings of La Traviata and Julius Caesar. These last 2 are part of a rather neat aspect of this series; besides the current phase of recording, a number of older operas have been included. This means that not only do we have Mackerras's contribution, but such delights as Janet Baker's Charlotte in Werther and the Goodall Ring.

The opera in English series has another interesting aspect, the ability to hear performances by a wide range of contemporary Anglophone singers. Recent recordings include such delights as Andrew Shore's Dulcanamara and Don Pasquale. Without these recordings, this fine singer would be woefully under recorded. The same goes for many of the other fine singers such as Anne Howells, Dennis O'Neill, Yvonne Kenny, Diana Montague.... These latter 3 have contributed not only fine opera recordings but recitals as well. This is one of the delights of the series, the ability to hear these singers in a wide variety of roles.

I come from a generation where the talented singers who performed with ENO were woefully underused by the recording industry. This means that we have precious few complete recordings from people like Valerie Masterson, Pauline Tinsley, Josephine Barstow, Kenneth Collins, the list is endless. So even if individual recordings are less than ideal, it is wonderful to think that so many talented people are being involved in the series.

So variable yes, but never less than interesting and certainly not forlorn

Salomon Concert Press Release

The press release for the Salomon Concert at St. James's Church, Piccadilly, has been published. It is here.

Recent CD Review

My review of the Hogwood/Hadyn and Handel Society recordings of Handel's concerti grossi is here, on MusicWeb.

I enjoyed these performances immensely ... they provide a nice contrast
to my existing favourites. It is enterprising of Avie to rescue them from
Decca’s vaults. ...

In Search of Mozart

I had not planned to watch or listen to any of the plethora of programmes which have been engendered by the Mozart Centenary. Mozart is a composer that I admire, but I love only a small handful of his works. Over-exposure to his piano concertos as a student seems to have had a disastrous effect on my view of the composer.

But three weeks ago, we happened to catch the first episode of Channel 5's programme In search of Mozart. Broadcast at the slightly odd time of 7.15pm on a Tuesday, it was just at the right time for us to watch whilst eating our tea!

All too often, Classical music on television tends to talk down to its audience. Programme makers seems to be so frightened of alienating their target audience that they make programmes which seem alarmingly simplistic to anyone with a little knowledge of classical music.This offering was remarkably free from this failing. We were so taken with the first episode that we made sure that we watched the suceeding two. Cramming Mozart's life into three 45 minute episodes it quite tricky but Channel 5 made a very good stab at it.

It helped that they eschewed dramatic reconstructions. Instead we were given extracts of Mozart's letters (and those of his father) read by actors with useful images on the screen (portraits, footage of the places referred to etc.) These were intercut with selections from the music he was composing at the time, some apparently in specially filmed studio performances; plus various historians and musicians talking about Mozart and about the music. All this was imaginatively intercut into a seamless collage that managed to allow artists like Imogen Cooper to talk about the piano music in a way which related to Mozart's life at the time.

From a historical point of view, the latest information that we have about Mozart was included. Episode one did not shy from the scatalogical issues, but made the point that it was common to families other than the Mozarts. In the discussions about his final years, the programme made some very useful points about Mozart's income. He died in the midst of a cash-flow crisis brought on partly by the war that the Austrians were conducting at the time; he was by no means a pauper.

This was a satisfy set of programmes and I do hope that their success emboldens Channel 5 to go on to make more such programmes.

Except for me

We we are now 2 weeks into the new term and London Concord Singers are busy rehearsing for their next concert. The programme is quite fund, Duarte Lobo's Requiem, Sven David Sandstrom's reworking of Purcell's Hear my Prayer in which the Purcell original is heard almost complete but evaporates just before the end, Sandstrom then re-works the material into new and magical forms; plus motets by the Roseingraves (a Father and Son who worked at both Cathedrals in Dublin in the 17th century) and Gabriel Jackson (a young English composer).

I am currently attending rehearsals, but will unfortunately have to fade out eventually as the concert (on Thursday April 6th at St. Michael's Church, Chester Square) clashes with the launch of the 2006 Chelsea Festival and I have some music being performed in the festival (on June 24th at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church). It is so frustrating when such events clash, but that's life I suppose.

We are busy trying to put together a summer trip for the choir. We hope to go to Tallinn and things are looking quite positive at the moment.

Singing cowboys

We went to see Brokeback Mountain yesterday and when conversation afterwards turned to the subject of opera, we considered whether the film would make a good subject for an opera. The answer was no, I could not imagine making the cowboy's sing convincingly and the others pointed out that the film was so dependent on the stunning scenery that we could not see it being confined to the stage.

Opera is on my mind at the moment as Coni has sent me a bunch of ideas which I need to read through and comment on. I've also got some other irons in the fire, so you never know what might happen!

Recent CD Review

My review of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin in the version conducted by Bychkov with Dmitri Hvorostovsky in the title role is here on MusicWeb.

The Curate's Egg

On Sunday we went to All Saints Church, Margaret Street for a concert by The Curate's Egg. They are an all female choral choral group directed by Adey Grummet. They sang a group of unaccompanied choral items including Gustav Holst's stunning Ave Maria and then, along with harpist Gabriella dall'Olio, they performed Britten's Ceremony of Carols. It was a stunning performance with some lovely solo contributions and fine harp playing from dall'Olio. It is many years since I have heard the work and it was good to make its acquaintance again. The concert was in aid of the All Saints restoration fund and I only wish that more people had been there.

Not the Mozart Festival

With emphasis switching to Mozart for his centenary this year, I thought it might be fun to organise a Not Mozart festival. You could include such work's as Gazzaniga's Don Giovanni, Gluck's La Clemenza di Tito and Rossini's Barber of Seville.

The Gazzaniga is a short 2 act opera, with a libretto by Da Ponte, which preceeded Mozart and Da Ponte's version. I saw it many years ago at Wexford in a double bill with Busoni's Turandot.

Gluck's opera is one of a few to set the same Metastasio libretto. Mozart's opera sets the same libretto, but it was extensively revised for Mozart. The revisions brought it closer to contemporary sensibilities about opera, but it is still recognisably an opera seria. Rossini's opera, of course, came after Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, a sort of later prequel, both being based on Beaumarchais plays.

Recent CD Review

My review of Naxos's Italian Dramatic Lament disc is here.

Press Release

The press release for the March 18th Cranmer in Oxford concert has now been released to an unsuspecting world. The full press release is on-line here and should be entirely self explanatory.

Recent CD Review

My review of John Mark Ainsley and Ian Burnside's disc of Tippett, Britten and Purcell (a must for all lovers of English song) is here on MusicWeb International.

Review of The Barber of Seville

My review of Saturday's performance of The Barber of Seville is now online here, at Music and Vision.

Ring feedback

A reader of Music and Vision, provided some feedback about my review of Barenboim's complete Ring and sent a link to a rather good summary of the plot. Its difficult to produce a plot summary of the Ring without it sounding stupid (just think of Anna Russell!), but Jonathan Eaton of Long Beach Opera has managed it here.

The Barber of Seville

We went to see the new production of Rossini's The Barber of Seville at the Royal Opera House on Saturday. A review will appear shortly, but it set me thinking of past productions of the opera that I've seen (not many in fact). The new ROH production is not naturalistic, but very stylised, which is a first for me; all previous productions I've seen have been securely in the 18th century.

I first saw the opera at the Edinburgh Festival in 1976 in a production from Germany, Cologne opera I think (I really must dig out my old programmes!). It must have been by Michael Hampe because many years later when the Royal Opera acquired a 'new' production, it was virtually the same as this German one. I also saw the old ENO production at the Coliseum when I was down in London on a course in the early 1980's. This production was notable for being from their Sadlers Wells days and the sets were not really big enough for the Coliseum stage. But the performance marked the debut of Anne Marie Owens in the role of Rosina and she was certainly not a Rosina to mess with! I think this was the performance that had John Brecknock in the role of Almaviva; unfortunately he was not really capable of singing the fioriture in Almaviva's first aria.

I caught up with the current ENO production only relatively recently and rather enjoyed it, but Barber is not an opera I feel the need to see regularly. Somehow it always overstays its welcome; for my taste the opera is just a little bit too long for the comedy.

I've returned to writing motets for my Tempus per Annum cycle for the church's year. I am way behind with these, but I enjoy returning to them and find writing the motets rather therapeutic. Perhaps they are a little like writing string quartets. Anyway, you have to find endless variations on the same themes to keep variety and I enjoy being inventive. In quick succession I have done the Latin version of the Maundy Thursday motet and produced both the Latin and English versions of the Good Friday motet (quite speed record). I am now about to embark on the motet for the Easter Saturday evening mass (in fact the Easter Sunday vigil mass). The first motet in this sequence of Lent and Passiontide motets which is actually joyful (it starts with the words Jubilate Deo).

One of the reasons for choosing the 4 Advent motets for performance in the Cranmer concert in July 2005 (to be repeated in Oxford in March 2006) was that the 4 motets form a neat group and are quite varied in their texts.

I am now starting the publicity machine for the March concerts (the Eight:Fifteen Vocal Ensemble doing their Cranmer concert in Oxford and the Salomon Orchestra, under Adrian Brown, doing a concert in St. James's Church, Piccadilly). This means producing leaflets, posters, press releases etc. The press release for Oxford goes out next week and I am currently working on the leaflets so they can go to the ticket agency we're using in Oxford (Tickets Oxford). The London concert is just using an on-line ticket agency (TicketWeb) so all I have had to supply them with is electronic marketing information, the leaflets can wait until I need to put them in the venue, which is a relief.

Recent CD Review

My review of Elgar's sacred music performed by the choir of St. Paul's Church, Rock Creek, is here on MusicWeb.

Groundhog Day goes to the opera

I am currently reviewing a recording of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin (review will appear on MusicWeb in due course) and that set me to thinking about the productions of the opera that I had seen.

We recently went to see a revival of Julia Hollander's ENO production, this was created to replace a previous production by, I think, Graham Vick, which was not particularly old. The same thing is happening at The Royal Opera House where the old production (designed by Julia Trevelyan Oman, so it was gloriously realistic in its detail) was replaced by a striking, stylish new one directed by John Cox. Now this production is in the wastebasket and being replaced by a new one, or at least that is what has been announced. The list could go on; the recent ENO Billy Budd replaced an existing one that seem, to some critics, perfectly satisfactory.

It is a curious fact of life that opera companies seem to constantly visit the same operas, re-doing productions when there are so many other operas crying out to be produced.Some of this, I suppose, is the desire to get things right and the constant feeling that the key parts of the repertoire could be done better. Another factor, which is often hidden from the public, is that some productions are not designed to last. I believe that this was the case with the John Cox Onegin at the Royal Opera.

This latter reflects a style of developing a production which came rather to prominence when Elijah Moshinsky did his productions of Peter Grimes and Lohengrin. Moshinsky started as a staff producer at the Royal Opera and the stripped down style of these 2 iconic productions reflects his attempt to develop new productions for the ROH at little more than the cost of re-furbishing and re-producing the existing ones. This of course is something that us ordinary punters forget, that bringing back a production can cost nearly as much as starting again from scratch.

The other area where companies develop disposable productions is in the co-production and borrowed production. This latter is a particular case in point where the company might rent an existing production from elsewhere and might never use it again. The advantage is cost-based; the disadvantages are that the borrower has little control over the production style and content. So something that works in one place, might not work in another. When the Royal Opera borrowed John Dew's production of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots there were howls from most of the critics, despite the fact that the production had been relatively well received in Germany. Some of this could be attributed to snobbery, but much can be related to differences in house style and the way opera is perceived in different countries.

The Royal Opera also came something of a cropper when it borrowed an Italian production of Rossini's Mose in Egitto. Though handsome and moderately well produced, it came in for some critical flack owing to the static handling of the chorus; a production style common in Italy but not in favour here where chorus are expected to be highly emotive and highly mobile.

So opera companies may have some excuse for their endless re-visiting of familiar opers, but I can't help wishing that they'd step off the tread-mill more often and give us some of the rarer items.