Mahler, The Met Orchestra. RAH BBC Proms 27/8/26

Saariaho Lumière et pesanteur; Mahler Rückert-Lieder; Mahler Symphony No. 4 in G major. Joyce DiDonato mezzo-soprano; The Met Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor

The main attractions here for me were the Saariaho piece and hearing Joyce di Donato sing the Rückert-Lieder. I have tried to ration my experiences live of Mahler symphonies since the Leipzig Mahler festival of 2023, and I haven’t heard Mahler 4 since then, either live or in a recording. I have no particular live golden memories of this work from the 60’s and 70’s – certainly I heard Haitink, and Boulez conducting it, but no particular occasion sticks out in my memory – I grew up with a beautiful recording conducted by Jascha Horenstein.

Rather to my surprise, the UK premiere of the 4th Symphony was in Mahler’s lifetime, in 1905 at the Proms. The almost inconceivably long programme of that concert took place on 25 October 1905 at the Queen’s Hall  – Programme: Tchaikovsky – Capriccio italien, Op 45; Suite No. 3 in G major, Op 55 – No. 4 Tema con variazioni; Gluck – Alceste – No. 3 Recitative & aria ‘Où suis-je?…Non! Ce n’est point un sacrifice!’ Act 1; MAHLER – SYMPHONY NO 4 IN G MAJOR – UK premiere; Henschel – 4 Sacred songs, Op 46 (arr. unknown for voice and orchestra) No. 4 Morning hymn; Tchaikovsky – Marche slave, Op 31. Interval. Schubert – Die Zauberharfe, D 644 – Overture; Tchaikovsky – 6 Romances, Op 6 – No. 6 Net, tol′ko tot, kto znal; 7 Romances, Op 47, No. 6 Den′ li tsarit? Proms premiere; Quilter – 3 Songs, Op 3 – No. 1 Love’s philosophy; Berlioz – The Damnation of Faust – Marche hongroise. All with Henry Wood, conductor, and the New Queen’s Hall Orchestra. Unbelievable……

Once again the hall was packed. On the Saariaho piece, (‘Light and Gravity’)  the composer has written “Lumière et pesanteur is a gift for Esa-Pekka Salonen, inspired by his performance of my La Passion de Simone in Los Angeles, January 2009. This piece is an arrangement based on the eighth station of the Passion, which I know that he especially likes”. The 8th station of the Stations of the Cross is where Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem. During this moment, Jesus sees a group of women lamenting His suffering and instructs them not to weep for Him but to weep for themselves and for their children. This station emphasizes themes of compassion, conversion, and the call to recognize the injustices of the world. As such the piece links quite well with the seriousness of the Mahler works and with what they are trying to express. It’s not an easy listen, but in its slow chords it does actually sound very Mahlerian – a logical extension from the language of the 10th Symphony, music Mahler might have written had he lived another 20 years,

The Ruckert Lieder introduced us to Joyce DiDonato, a Proms regular, though obviously also a regular colleague of Yannick’s. The gold singing standard for me in this music is set by Janet Baker, who I heard singing these songs several times. I thought Joyce DiDonato was almost at that level, which is a pretty considerable achievement – she sung some lines beautifully in a pared down legato tone (eg in the Lindenbaum song), her diction was very clear, and her natural singing voice always provided a distinctive and attractive sound. Maybe at the climax of Um Mitternacht she faltered slightly (was she having to force her voice overmuch at the top of the range)? She can still float notes beautifully – as in Liebst Du Um Schoenheit…….Altogether this was a very distinguished performance, sensitively accompanied by Yannick and the Met Orchestra.

Mahler 4, as I am sure I have said before in this blog, is a work I have known for very nearly 60 years. I think this is probably the best account I have heard of it live – perfectly played (apart from one small fluff from the horn), unfailingly thoughtful and musical, never crude on the one hand or on the other too self-consciously beautiful. Repeatedly I felt the balance of instrumental blocs was well-handled by Yannick – with again that deep bass under-pinning. Again the Met orchestra were adept at handing over a theme from one section to another sensitively. Nezet-Seguin’s instinct by no means was to wallow, and on the whole the tempi were quite brisk – but allowing the room needed for the expanding of the Trio in the 2nd movement, and the glorious slow start to the 3rd movement. Whatever the pace chosen, the orchestra had no problem playing it precisely and clearly with all the note values in place and no slurring. Dynamic levels too were clearly and well handled  – no full playing out until the end of the disturbed development section of the first movement, and the explosion of joy in the 3rd movement was as cataclysmic as it should be. Joyce DiDonato was unaffected and natural in her solo in the last movement (she was placed at the back of the orchestra – 2nd on the right of the harp in the photo below).  And above all, I felt that all these details I was noticing were serving Mahler’s intentions, not any other agenda. The final optimism of this radiant work  – despite the darkness along the way – must have seemed suspect at its first performance; now it is very hard indeed to accept the work’s generous positivity, but Mahler continues to appeal to the best in us, and that was reinforced by the excellence of this performance.

The encore, imaginatively, was Urlicht from the 2nd Symphony, with DiDonato, of course. It was beautifully done and in keeping with the mood of the 4th Symphony

Lunchtime Piano recital, St Pancras Church, Euston Rd., London 27/8/26

Callum McLachlan, piano:  Orlando Gibbons: Lord Salisbury’s Pavanne;  Beethoven: Piano Sonata in A op 101;  Ravel: Miroirs; Rachmaninov: Etude Tableau op 39/9

Callum McLachlan is 25 and a veteran of various music competitions – a finalist of the 18th International Robert Schumann Competition Zwickau among others. He was at Chetham’s School of Music, then Trinity College, and the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg. He’s clearly on the cusp of a busy career – but of course competition is tough and performance opportunities scarce – hence the value of the many churches and other buildings in London offering lunchtime concerts throughout the year

The last time I was in this church for a lunchtime concert it was winter or an early Spring day, and there were only about 20 people present, some of whom seemed to be there more for the relative warmth than the music. This time there must have been a diverse group of 100 who were much more appreciative. I thought the highlight of the concert was the Beethoven. It’s a work whose thematic material I recognised but I had no idea of how those themes were developed or the different movements. Mr McLachlan’s playing – clear, not over-virtuosic – enabled me to appreciate the contrasts of the different movements – the wistful first, the energetic dance-like second, the strange short adagio, which ends with the 1st movement theme, and the last movement, a bounding allegro with what I think is a development of that 1st movement theme. It looks towards late Beethoven in its quirkiness and I felt comfortable with Mr McLachlan as a guide to it. The Ravel Miroirs and the Rachmaninov I couldn’t warm to – my fault, not theirs – but I am glad he played the most famous of the Brahms late Intermezzos, as an encore, which strengthened my view of his competence, given the very many famous renditions there are of this piece. My only regret was that he didn’t say more about the pieces he was playing – he only got round to doing this for the encore, and the comments he made – was this Brahms mourning in a sort of lullaby for the children he never had, or was he thinking back to his own childhood? – were just the sort of pointers helpful to an audience in thinking about how to respond to a work. I am glad this was a successful concert for him

R.Strauss, The Met Orchestra. RAH BBC Proms 26/8/26

R. Strauss, arr. Attrib. A. Rodziński Der Rosenkavalier – suite; R. Strauss Salome – final scene’.R. Strauss Ein Heldenleben.  Elza van den Heever soprano, The Met Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor

I did ask myself why I was going to this concert? – I’ve heard the same Rosenkavalier Suite conducted by Nezet-Seguin before, with the BRSO at the Proms, 7 years ago ; Strauss’ Salome I have seen 3-4 times in recent years, and Ein Heldenleben, again, I have heard a lot, and enjoy less than I used to (there was an outing with Makela and the Oslo Phil at the Proms a few years ago which I went to, and my live experiences of the work go right back to Karajan and the Berlin Phil at the Royal Festival Hall in 1972)). Interestingly Ein Heldenleben has been featured no less than 43 times in the Proms, pretty regularly since 1903 – a very different trajectory to Mahler’s music at the Proms.

I suppose the answer as to why I was at this concert is I wanted to hear what the Met Orchestra sounded like in the flesh, having so often heard them on opera screenings at local cinemas, and Elza van der Heever is an up-and-coming singer I was interested to hear live – she was Sieglinde this summer in Bayreuth and will also be singing that role in November in the Paris Ring I am going to.

In the event I enjoyed this concert much more than I thought I would, though I still find Heldenleben tiresome at points. I asked myself – is there anything different in the way an opera orchestra plays this kind of music compared to an ‘ordinary’ concert hall orchestra. In one sense this is a nonsense question since many German and Austrian orchestras combine concert hall and opera house work. But there was something about the way the Met orchestra dealt with the surges of Straussian passion and lyricism that made me feel there was an invisible voice they were responding to in Heldenleben (which of course is literally the case with the Rosenkavalier Suite, and there is an actual voice in the Salome extract) taking the lead from that voice and responding to it. Nézet-Séguin was very good at the transition moments in Heldenleben, and crafted great arcs of emotion very clearly, with strong signals to different parts of the orchestra . And it seemed as though the orchestral sections were very good at listening to each other – particularly in the last 10 minutes or so of Heldenleben – and dovetailing their contributions carefully and gently. The principal horn was particularly impressive, as was the first oboe; there was a resplendent brass section which never sounded coarse or aggressive in the way some American orchestras – Chicago/Cleveland – used to sound, and a wonderful unanimity in the strings.   As an example of this orchestra’s playing (and Nezet-Seguin’s conducting it it) at its  best I’d cite the tightness and balance at the end of the Rosenkavalier suite with the reprise of the Ochs waltzes – there’s a bounce to the strings (right tempo), a kick from the horns and woodwind, tiny slowings down or speedings up to get the waltzes sounding idiomatic; this was brilliantly done. And another  – in the last reprise of the critics’ theme(s) there was wonderful colour and clarity from the woodwinds, perfect unanimity between solo horn, solo violin, clarinet, and, later, full strings at a very slow pace, and thoughtful phrasing and rubato – this was great playing, and with a wonderfully slow peroration at the end. !  I was thankful that in Heldenleben the leader of the orchestra kept the Hero’s lover’s coquette-ishness on a tight rein and a fairly brisk pace (those solos can seem interminable). The lay out of the orchestra was slightly unusual – facing the orchestra from the Arena, the violins were split, violas on the right, cellos in the middle, and double basses left and centre behind the other strings. I think this produced a strong yet lush sound, with more bass underpinning than I have heard in some performances of this music. Nézet-Séguin was very effective in the Heldenleben in bringing out voices you don’t normally hear – the Critics section was particularly transparent in texture.

In many ways the finest element of the evening was the Salome extract – from the point at which the guards go down to chop off Jokanaan’s head to the end of the opera. This is partly because I think Strauss is at his best in opera  – Heldenleben is not great art in the way a Mahler symphony is; it’s too much about Strauss, too external somehow and too difficult for us (well, me anyway) to respond to from our own experience and personalities, whereas Strauss (and his librettists) in opera after opera create stage characters we can relate to and empathise with. But it is also because I thought Elza van der Heever gave a sensational performance as Salome – powerfully voiced when needed, real acting with her voice, some beautifully floated notes, clear diction, great sense of stage presence (every movement of the arms meant something. She came on again after Heldenleben to do a Strauss encore (‘Zueignung’) and rather spoiled her good impression by launching into the orchestrated song and then forgetting the words half way through – an embarrassed grind to a halt, consultation with the score and then a re-run; the Prommers were very tolerant………….

Wagner, Rienzi: Bayreuth Festival, 17/8/26

Conductor: Nathalie Stutzmann; Director, Stage design and Costumes: Alexandra Szemerédy, Magdolna Parditka: Rienzi, Andreas Schager; Irene, Gabriela Scherer; Colonna: Andreas Bauer Kanabas; Adriano, Jennifer Holloway; Orsini: Michael Nagy; Cardinal Raimondo,  Vitalij Kowaljow; Baroncelli: Matthias Stier; Cecco del Vecchio: Michael Kupfer-Radecky

And so to Bayreuth, to Rienzi, the only performance I could get a ticket for this year (though not obtaining Ring tickets sounds to have been a merciful relief, given the extraordinary levels of condemnation and abuse given to the ‘AI’ Ring ‘curated’ ‘production’). And not without difficulties getting there – the DB rail replacement service from Nuremburg to Bayreuth proved astonishingly difficult to find outside Nuremburg station, but following the herd eventually bore fruit. After a nice Italian meal in the evening, and a ritual visit to Wahnfried the next morning (in pouring rain, after a dramatic thunderstorm the previous evening), I strolled up the ‘Gruene Huegel’ about 2,30pm for a 4pm start, It was great again to enjoy the very special atmosphere of the Festspielhaus, particularly in the 150th year of its operation, though it’s a pity the attendants have stopped closing all the doors theatrically with a resounding crash, to make you feel you’re locked in……

I was more impressed by ‘Rienzi’ than I thought I would be. The essential thing about it, I felt, is that it has huge energy and drive – very much a young man’s work (Wagner was in his late 20’s when he wrote it). It’s prodigious in every sense. Yes, some of it is repetitious, some is rather banal and four-square (those military march tunes), but somehow its enthusiasm wins through. The team responsible for the edition being used in this production stress that the “ten works of the so-called “Bayreuth canon” are not based on a will or authoritative formulations in the foundation deed of the Richard Wagner Foundation Bayreuth, but exclusively on passages from Wagner’s letters to King Ludwig II of Bavaria from 1882.” (quote from the Festspiele website) The team has attempted to uncover new sources and reconstruct parts of the score believed to be lost (the original manuscript was lost in Hitler’s bunker at the end of WW2); they believe that if there had been a definitive score, Rienzi – the Last of the Tribunes would have taken its place with the other 10. Wagner said in 1871, they report, that “they should see the fire in Rienzi; I was a music director and wrote a great opera; that this music director has given them such nuts to crack afterwards, that should surprise them” (the Bayreuth team doesn’t use the previous words in Cosima’s diary (‘Rienzi is repugnant to me, but……”) The team claim that “Even if Wagner had only written Rienzi, the opera is a unique masterpiece sui generis, which would have found its place in the genre history of European musical theatre even without the authorship of the later Bayreuth master.” And I would on the whole endorse that view. Nevertheless, the original length of Rienzi – 5 hours – has been reduced by an hour or so in this production, mainly through cutting the ballet and the recitative element. The other thing which surprised me is how many melodic links there are in relation to the Wagner ‘proper canon’, particularly the first three works, in Rienzi. There is the familiar Wagner turn coming again and again – which you get as late as Gotterdammerung – dah didi dah pause dah dah dah; there is a phrase that comes also at the end of Lohengrin Act 2, other phrases which occur in the Flying Dutchman, a softly sung female chorus that sounds like the bridal chorus in Lohengrin. Some of the choruses had a hint of ‘Fidelio’ about them. So – it’s not as though there is an unbridgeable stylistic gulf between Rienzi and the others – there are lots of similarities; it’s just that Rienzi is more sprawling, cruder, obviously has more in the way of identifiable arias and other operatic forms (there’s a trio, for instance) and is still, despite the cuts, very long – certainly as long as Tristan. We finished at 9.50pm after that 4pm start, with two one-hour intervals. The first two acts in the Bayreuth rendition, before the first interval, lasted about an astonishing hour and 45 minutes, which is as long as Parsifal Act 1 in most performances. But what I did feel is that I would much rather listen to Rienzi than Bellini or Donizetti, to the extent that I have heard them, or even the middle-period Verdi of the Sicilian Vespers and The Force of Destiny. I never lost focus in this long work, except right at the end when Rienzi, and Irene spent a ridiculous long time dying……

What of course you need, in seeing an opera as rare as this, is a directorial stance which isn’t too whacky, and which focuses on telling the story rather than a complex ‘take’ on the work, particularly when there are no surtitles. By and large the co-Directors and Designers Alexandra Szemerédy, and Magdolna Parditka achieved this. It’s true that there was a lot of ‘busy-ness’ on stage – flashing images of all sorts, a screening of Mathew 24 v1-33 at one point, people running around all the time – but the basic setting was clear: a contemporary or slightly-futuristic setting, with populist politicians bidding for the people’s support, and ‘the people’ being quite fickle about who was ‘up’ or ‘down’ in their estimation. There were placards like ‘make Rome great again’, and a 24-hour news cycle live streaming on all the screens around the stage with reports like ‘The Fight for Rome’. There were three elements to the stage design which were moved around and varied during the five Acts. The first was stacks of scaffolding and platforms, which formed houses, or rather flats, for people – Rienzi and Irene included, all with their individual TV screen; the second was a staggered amphitheatre with central steps (see photo below), and with a huge screen above it, to give close ups of speakers, voting projections and crowd responses; the third was a crudish theatre front, which served as a image for the Festspielhaus during the ballet (more of that below), and was brought down again for the ‘theatre’ of Irene and Rienzi’s deaths. In Acts 3 and 4 the staircase and the blocks of flats are combined to maximise space for the movement of rival troops and shootings. This wouldn’t have been the land of regie-theater if there weren’t a few oddities – principally in the overture a small boy dies. Is this a brother to Irene and Rienzi, or a child of their incestuous union? – it’s never clear. Nor is it clear whether Adriano is a trouser role having a heterosexual relationship with Irene, or whether ‘she’ is gay – again not clear and in both cases not important to the plot, The ballet was fun – quite a lot of the music was included but used for an amusing parodic run-through the major music dramas, using ‘traditional’ costumes, with winged helmets etc. My favourite image was that of Parsifal fiddling with the switch on his chalice unsuccessfully to make it glow; there were also interval scenes including the rush for the bratwurst stalls and the queues for the ladies’ loos in the ballet. I guess there were two oddities in the production – one specific to this production, the other generic to the place. Though the Pope, a Cardinal and the Church generally are referenced in the text there was no-one identifiable on stage as a Church person – which seemed strange. The other was the fact that this is obviously a grand opera with moments clearly meant for applause, after a big number. This being Bayreuth, of course, no-one did applaud, which seemed strange.

The principal singers were all excellent. Andreas Schager as usual flung himself into the action, with generous volume and at times engaging sensitivity. Hearing him from row 7 of the stalls, and viewing close-up his utter commitment was a real privilege. At times his voice frayed a bit, making one wonder how long he can carry on singing these heavy roles. But it was wonderful to hear him, and see him, so passionately engaged in the role. Jennifer Holloway, who has to emote probably the most of all the characters, flipping and flopping as she does between family loyalties and love for Irene, was equally passionate and convincing. Gabriela Scherer’s portrayal of Irene was a little hard to fathom – the sweet smile she gave Schager in the curtain calls made me realise her entire portrayal of Irene had been stony-faced, expressionless. Was she the power behind the throne? Was power what motivated her rather than the relationship with her brother/lover? It wasn’t clear……Vocally at times she seemed a bit underpowered but had a beautiful voice when you could hear it. The scheming politicians were all strongly sung.  I thought Natalie Stutzmann conducted a flaccid and underwhelming overture, but thereafter things improved and she moved everything along with energy. The Bayreuth Chorus was hard-worked and beyond praise in the strength and subtlety of their sound.

I shall probably never see this work live again – it was wonderful to hear it at Bayreuth. I am now looking forward to the new Parsifal (conducted by Thieleman) and the new Lohengrin, with revivals of Die Meistersinger and Tannhauser next year at Bayreuth, for which I already have booked tickets!!

Messiaen, Saint Francois d’ Assise. Felsenreitschule, Salzburg Festival, 15/8/26

Maxime Pascal Conductor; Romeo Castellucci Director / Sets / Costumes / Lighting. Lauranne Oliva L’Ange; Philippe Sly Saint François; Sean Panikkar Le Lépreux ; Russell Braun Frère Léon; Léo Vermot-Desroches Frère Massée; Aaron-Casey Gould, Frère Élie ; Willard White, Frère Bernard

This was the main reason for my wanting to spend a few days in Salzburg this summer – the lure of seeing Messiaen’s huge (over 4 hours), rarely performed, opera was considerable to someone like me, who counts themselves as a Messiaen fan and always enjoys his music – and I will almost certainly never get the chance to see this again. I do have a recording at home but I have never played it all the way through until the day of the performance (I did have a go once at doing so when my partner was off on holiday, but got stuck about 2/3rds of the way through – however I did put my recording on at 7.45am the morning of the performance and listened to it till nearly 12, all the way through, in preparation). There is a video on YouTube from 1983, conducted by Seiji Ozawa, also, which I have dipped in to, at points. So I knew something of what I was going to, but have never engaged with the work fully in the way one does with a live performance.

Messages seen from reviews seemed to be a bit disturbing – that the director, Romeo Castellucci, rather than reinforcing the glory and transcendence of Francis’ life and Messiaen’s music, actively tried to disrupt these elements in his staging of the opera. So, as with Ariadne the previous evening I arrived with a certain amount of trepidation as well as excitement at hearing this work live for the first time. It’s interesting that, given the degree of directorial meddling in both, I was so annoyed by the Ariadne and so little bothered by this production of St Francis. Perhaps it comes down to the fact that, however much Castellucci has meddled with Messiaen’s concept (and I’ll come on to that below), the pace of his production, its largeness of scope, its ritual qualities, were appropriate to the work, even if what was being conveyed wasn’t always in line with Messiaen’s text and stage directions (and music).

So…..the Felsenreitschule is of course a most peculiar stage, very high, and extremely wide. The production made use of several huge back drops  – one of a stone wall, another of what appeared to be a city scape. There was also a neutral back drop on which white, red, yellow and various shades of blue lights shone at various points  – very effectively in the Sermon to the Birds, and its predecessor, the Angel Musician.

The director’s approach seems almost to have been to undermine Messiaen’s vision of St Francis, as well as constructing a series of images that might have personal relevance to Castelluci but which were completely obscure to most of the audience. In terms of that process of undermining, the main issue for me was St Francis seemed to be portrayed as a neurotic, deliberately and perhaps with hubris pushing himself further than normal human bounds, to be deliberately self-abusive; he had a nervous tic (which seemed to disappear later on!) and seemed self-absorbed, not really relating to his brothers in any obvious way. But beyond that, why was there a separate white-gown-clad leper who did the singing alongside the skeletal figure whom Francis washed? Why were there two bread ovens brought in to bake bread (with the brothers putting the dough into the other (I suppose that has some sacramental relevance); why was Francis painting his legs blue (and the Angel, why was she painting her legs gold? Why were there dancers  doing a decorous courtly dance at various points to the side of the stage; why (in particular) were birds falling out of the sky towards the end of the Sermon to the Birds (and why did a solitary peahen wander across the stage through the dead birds at the end of that scene)? Why was the wolf of Gubbio making a quick appearance despite no such scene in the score? Why was there no cross as indicated for the Stigmata scene in the stage directions, and why was it lit so dimly – just darkness and earth, not really complementing the radiance and joy in Messiaen’s music. Why, bizarrely, after the glorious closing chorus, did the conductor stop the applause to allow the tolling of bells to be heard and a herd (literally – 6 or 7 of them anyway) of sheep appear momentarily, only to have the curtains close on them. Why – at a different level – given the probably few French speakers in the audience were the German and English surtitles so often obscured by the lighting and colours used  – I’d say for about 70% of the time.  Some answers, it’s true, do appear in the interview with Castellucci given in the programme booklet (but one shouldn’t need that to understand what’s happening on stage). Castellucci believes that the Church airbrushed Francis after death, that Messiaen is responding to the official fideistic view of Francis, whereas the director feels the real Francis was coarser, more extreme, more radical. And on the dying birds (as I rather thought) that is a comment on the climate and biodiversity crisis – that many of the birds who Messiaen transcribed singing for are now rare or extinct.

Perhaps the most important ‘why?’ of all is why, given all these sometimes obscure, sometimes annoying, elements will this undoubtedly be, when the reckoning comes, among my top 10 live performances of 2026. Principally, I think, because of the fascination, the beauty, the glory of Messiaen’s music, and the marvellous way it was rendered by the 120-strong Vienna Phil (pit crammed, and both side platforms packed with percussion instruments, including no less than 3 splendidly swirling ondes Martenot). Not only the orchestra – the augmented Staatsoper chorus (there must have been 100 of them) sounded glorious and indefatigable, always singing behind the backdrop. The way Maxime Pascal kept this altogether and everyone on their toes for 4 hours was beyond praise. And the music …….the joy at the end of the Leper Scene and his miraculous recovery, the beauty of the scene with the Angel where music is beatified as a way to God, the extraordinary ending – these are some of the greatest moments in opera, I think. I don’t think I ever lost focus once in the whole of the 4 hours, even when I had very little detailed sense of what people were actually singing (because of the lack of surtitles). Messiaen writes beautifully for the voice.

Few of the singers were names I had come across, apart from Sean Panikkar and of course Willard White. Were it not for the extensive resources (and presumably effective risk assessment processes) of the Festival there could have been a terminal disaster at the end of Act 1 – it was clear that Phillipe Sly, the Canadian baritone playing Francis, was having vocal problems in the first Act. At the beginning  of Act 2, it was announced that he couldn’t continue vocally, but would carry on acting, with an understudy singing from the side of the stage. Because of the width of the stage, and the ritual slowness of the action, one could almost entirely forget that Sly was only acting. He was utterly convincing in Catellucci’s vision of Francis, and his understudy sang at least as effectively and beautifully as his principal (I’m sorry I didn’t catch his name). Sean Panikkar was powerful and resonant as the Leper, and the Angel, the young singer Lauranne Oliva, was surely someone with a bright future – a really warm, beautiful voice absolutely suited to the role. All the brothers were very strongly voiced.

I don’t think the work really needed two one-hour intervals (although I suppose that’s how Bayreuth does it) but luckily as I was with some friends this time passed quickly enough.

When Francis sings, towards the end, “Seigneur, Seigneur! Musique et Poesie m’ont conduit vers Toi; par image, par symbole, et par defaut de verite’ , obviously what Messiaen himself felt, I was very moved – this is how I sometimes experience the music and stage images I see.

Here is a trailer which, if you scroll down, will give you a further sense of how Castellucci approached the opera – Saint François d’Assise • Salzburg Festival 2026

R.Strauss, Ariadne auf Naxos. Haus fur Mozart, Salzburg Festival, 14/8/26

Manfred Honeck Conductor, Ersan Mondtag Director / Sets / Costumes; Henning Streck Lighting; Luis August Krawen Video. Kate Lindsey The Composer ;Christina Nilsson (originally Elīna Garanča) The Prima Donna / Ariadne;  Eric Cutler The Tenor / Bacchus; Ziyi Dai Zerbinetta; Johannes Silberschneider The Major-Domo; Christoph Pohl The Music Master ; Jonas Hacker The Dancing Master ; Leon Košavić Harlequin ; Michael Porter Scaramuccio; Lukas Enoch Lemcke Truffaldino; Theodore Browne Brighella; Jasmin Delfs Naiad; Anja Mittermülle Dryad; Marlene Metzger Echo; Vienna Philharmonic

This was the first time I have ever seen Ariadne auf Naxos live on stage. It never appeared in the UK in my teens and 20’s except at Glyndebourne– so unaffordable at that time for me to visit – and it’s not on so often even now in the UK. I was due to go to an Opera North performance 3-4 years ago but wasn’t able to, owing to a general rail strike. I saw it a couple of years ago in a Met screening with Lise Davidsen as Ariadne and, I think, Kate Lindsey as the Composer (or Samantha Hankey)

You would have thought that Ariadne auf Naxos is one of those works – like the Marriage of Figaro – fairly immune to too much director-meddling (18th century very specific social context). Oh well, I suppose I might have guessed, this being in the regie-theater zone of Austria/Germany, that the setting of this production of Ariadne would be a dystopian Mars 100 – 200 years in the future, where a bunch of rich humans have set themselves up to escape the disaster that Earth has become, and to which they bring in occasionally groups of humans, still stuck on Earth, to recreate  the high culture for which they have built a Martian opera house. The director (apparently renowned for the political emphasis of his work) clearly intended, I assume, there to be some mirror here held to our present way of life –  a decadent society looking in on itself from space, some comment on artistic patronage…….I thought in advance – oh dear, and wondered whether Elena Garanca, who was going to be the Prima Donna/Ariadne and had then withdrawn, had done so because of her unease with the director’s plans (she said that, having thoroughly reviewed the score and libretto, she did not feel able to empathise with the part). But that’s idle speculation on my part. More on the director’s views here – https://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/en/p/ariadne-auf-naxos-2026#&gid=1&pid=1

Ariadne has a long history at Salzburg – from 1926, so a hundred years ago, when it was conducted by Clemens Krauss (for one performance by Strauss himself) and  Lotte Lehmann was Salzburg’s first Ariadne. But, given the director’s introduction, I approached this with some trepidation…………and as it happens, rightly so…..

The Haus fur Mozart is the last of the Salzburg opera venues I am visiting for the first time. It is much better than the Prinzregententeater in Munich, where I saw Capriccio 4 years ago, in terms of sound and sightlines, and has a warm generous feel to its acoustics, even sitting where I was at the back of the stalls with a balcony overhang. The chamber ensemble culled from the Vienna Phil played marvellously – particularly good solo horn, oboe and clarinet – and made a noise in the lush ending of the Opera that sounded more like a full orchestra than the quite small number of players actually involved. Manfred Honeck seemed to guide them effectively and keep things on track – it helps that he used to play in the VPO and his brother was in the orchestra as concert-master…..

As you can see from the photo below, there was a quite effective room-like set, which was used for the Prologue and the Opera, with different levels and entrances. It also has a port hole, at the back, which gives you a bleak perspective of Mars. Through the port hole we can see spaceships arriving, leaving and flying by – very much space ships as might have been envisaged for Dan Dare or whoever in comics 50 years ago. Occasionally the spaceships seem to develop faces, as though they are god-like……..When the space ships are not zooming across the port hole, then the landscape outside can shift in tone and colour to help support the lighting and atmosphere of the interior of the ‘house’ , from cold star-lit nights to bright sunshine.

The Prologue, apart from showing the arrival of the spaceships presumably carrying the company of singers and actors, is fairly straightforward in how it is presented, and much is as it would be in a more conventional production, despite the oddity of some of the clothes – the music master in a monk-like cloak, a bright ginger wig for the dance master; none of the Zerbinetta crew are in conventional commedia dell’arte costumes. It is not clear at this point whether the Composer is male or female (Strauss and Hofmannsthal of course intended it to be a ‘trouser’ role) though at this point ‘she’ looks more female than male.  However, I thought, at the interval, so far so good.

Things started to go badly wrong after the interval. While Naiad and Dryad were entirely conventionally dressed in long robes, Echo was in a ridiculous tubby furry costume and moving around on wires from the flies. Immediately 4 dancers emerge around the sleeping Ariadne, whose role seemed to be completely opaque to me – none of their movements seemed to have any clear relationship or commentary with what was going on on stage. The long scene with Zerbinetta centre-stage revealed that the Composer was indeed a woman – she shows her bra at one point – and Zerbinetta and she are clearly very attracted to each other. No problems with that, of course, but why – what’s it adding? Likewise, at one point in Zerbinetta’s song, a general orgiastic sex scene develops between everyone on stage – everyone in one form or another humping everyone else. Again, one’s seen it before, it can be effective, but in this case, why? When Bacchus appears, he does so in a space suit through the port hole and at the end he and Ariadne fly off in the space ship docked outside (and maybe – it’s unclear – get blown up…..).

I came away rather puzzled by what was happening here…….the Strauss/Hofmannsthal conception is obviously focused on how ‘high art’ makes it way in a context where patronage is provided in one way or another by people insensitive to its needs, and on what the relationship between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art is. The focus is more on the second than the first really, because, apart from the figure of the Major-Domo, there’s no one else on stage representing these rich, insensitive patrons. One could see ways of setting the opera in a contemporary context – budget-tightening cultural bureaucrats, plutocratic Salzburg audiences (given the number of large chauffeur driven black cars outside as I left) and so forth. But what the Martian setting adds is beyond me…….and what is meant when Bacchus and Ariadne fly off in the space ship is, again, completely obscure. I ended up completely confused as to what the director’s ‘message’ was. And – Heaven help us – I see Mr Mondtag is directing the new Parsifal at Bayreuth next year, for which I have a ticket……………..)

In terms of singing and acting this was generally strong. I was impressed by Christine Nilsson – a clear flexible ‘Strauss’ voice, some nice phrasing, good diction, power when needed, and an effective  stage presence. Eric Cutler as Bacchus did what he had to do – for the most part accurately and powerfully, with a few off moments on top notes. Ziyi Dai was excellent as Zerbinetta, with the ability to act well in addition to pinging out the coloratura. I was also impressed by Christoph Pohl as the Music Master. On Kate Lindsey as the Composer, I was a bit conflicted – hers was a very intense, high energy performance and at low and middle ranges she sang beautifully. On high registers and at high volume she sometimes produced a very piercing harsh ‘white’ sound that I found quite difficult to listen to.

I am usually tolerant and often, I tell myself, perceptive with a new look at a familiar work. But this production, for me, was just confused dramatically, though very good musically. At least though, no boos at the end, though a number of people noisily stomped out during the second half

A trailer, giving some sense of the design and approach can be found on the link below if you scroll down:

https://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/en/p/ariadne-auf-naxos-2026#&gid=1&pid=1

and also https://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/v/?video=SF26_trailer_ariadne_auf_naxos_16-9&controls=true&loop=false&muted=false&autoplay=true&sub_en=%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2026%2F08%2F26an_ariadne_auf_naxos_trailer_16-9_release.vtt&ct=YTo1OntzOjY6InNvdXJjZSI7YToyOntpOjA7czo1OiJlbWFpbCI7aToxO2k6NDA2O31zOjU6ImVtYWlsIjtpOjQwNjtzOjQ6InN0YXQiO3M6MjI6IjZhN2VlYzBmMWQwOTEyMTY0OTk3NDgiO3M6NDoibGVhZCI7czo1OiIxMzA1NCI7czo3OiJjaGFubmVsIjthOjE6e3M6NToiZW1haWwiO2k6NDA2O319&utm_source=preshow&utm_medium=mail&utm_campaign=nax&utm_content=2026

Andras Schiff, piano: Stiftung Mozarteum – Grosser Saal. Salzburg Festival. 13/8/26

Works by Bach and Mozart to be announced from the stage

I am staying slightly out of Salzburg city centre, towards the north east of the town and near the river. It’s about a 35 minute pleasant walk along the river (not too low, despite the drought), and I took this route before the concert – the Mozarteum is just off the river.

I can’t resist Andras Schiff’s ’announced from the stage’ performances – I went to one earlier in the year at the Wigmore Hall, and I’m going to another in December. As long as he doesn’t play too much Chopin and Liszt, to which I am allergic, I am content to be in (with?) his hands and to enjoy whatever he plays …..even when he plays for as long as he did in this concert, which was just about 3 hours including a 20 minute interval, an astonishingly generous concert (but I guess easier to do in a Festival when people on the whole probably don’t have to worry about last trains). The theme this time was ‘how Bach influenced Mozart’, and while Schiff played some works I knew and some I didn’t, some I enjoyed and some had me losing focus a bit, the other thing about this event is that I learned something as well, and had the chance to hear how close some of Mozart’s music is to Bach’s when you put works side by side. As usual (though not in the Wigmore Hall) Schiff brought his personal Boesendorfer piano, an early 19th century model made a few years after Schubert’s death.

The pieces played were as follows and as far as I can remember:

  1. A piece unknown to me which Schiff didn’t mention after he played it
  2. A coupling of the first number of the Bach Musical Offering – Ricercar a 3 – and the Mozart Fantasia – I think C Minor K475 – which uses as its main theme one almost the same as that given to Bach by Frederick the Great
  3. An extract (s) from what I noted as Bach’s ‘French suite’ (which I think must be Overture in the French Style BWV 831) and Mozart Gigue, possibly K580 but maybe something else as this seems too short to be how I remembered the piece
  4. Reflecting on the fact that B minor was traditionally the key of death, the B minor prelude and fugue from Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2 and the Mozart Adagio K540, Mozart’s sole B Minor piece of music
  5. Mozart’s K533 piano sonata but only the first two movements. Schiff said the Rondo was an add-on and not of the same standard
  6. A set of movements by Bach (I didn’t catch their precise name) ‘in the Italian style of Corelli, Vivaldi and others
  7. Mozart’s C Minor piano sonata K 457
  8. There were two generous encores. The first was a Mozart rondo, 3 / 4 waltz like in style, and followed by a piece of what could have been Schubert or Beethoven (it sounded quite familiar) to show how Mozart influenced others after him. The second was the very familiar opening movement of a Mozart piano sonata (I can’t remember what the Koechel number is)

Of all these (I knew the Mozart piano sonatas, the Bach pieces I didn’t recognise apart from the Musical Offering) I probably enjoyed the Mozart piano sonatas the most, as, knowing them well, I could appreciate the skill, the deftness and lightness of touch Schiff was displaying, and the way he could darken or lighten mood by very small changes of pressure on the keyboard or by subtle changes of tempi. Of those pieces I didn’t know well, I appreciated particularly the Mozart Adagio K540, a very profound and unsettling piece. When you put certain Mozart pieces side by side with Bach, you can immediately see the enormous acknowledgement to and use of Bach’s contrapuntal skills, particularly in the pairing at 3 above. No 1, the unknown item, was fascinating – I wish Schiff had said who wrote this. At first I thought this was someone mid-way between Bach and Mozart – perhaps one of Bach’s sons? It must have been JS Bach, I concluded in the end, but very far from how we would normally see the range of his music – much lighter and simpler in style

As ever Mr Schiff delivered his introductions and link explanations with humour and self-deprecation. A very fine concert!!

Bizet, Carmen: Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg Festival: 12/8/26

Teodor Currentzis Conductor; Gabriela Carrizo Director / Choreography; Christof Hetzer Sets / Costumes; Tom Visser Lighting. Asmik Grigorian Carmen; Jonathan Tetelman Don José; Kristina Mkhitaryan Micaëla; Davide Luciano Escamillo; Iveta Simonyan Frasquita; Anita Monserrat Mercédès; Matthias Winckhler Zuniga; Liviu Holender Moralès. Utopia Choir, Salzburg Bach Choir; Salzburger Festspiele und Theater Kinderchor , Utopia Orchestra

I had a – for once – smooth rail journey from London to Salzburg (nearly 14 hours from St Pancras). I’d forgotten that there was a UEFA Super Cup championship football match in Salzburg Wednesday evening between Paris St Germain and Aston Villa, so I found the Munich to Salzburg train full of (extremely well-behaved) Aston Villa fans on it, the group I talked to already convinced their team is going to lose……. (which in the event is what happened)

I wouldn’t normally go to a pricey performance of Carmen at Salzburg – but……it was on in the week I was due to go there; I haven’t heard the work live for about 7 years; I love hearing and seeing Asmik Grigorian perform, and I am always impressed by the work of Teodor Currentzis. I do though seem to have picked some controversial productions this year, operatically.  This Carmen has had both the original spoken dialogue and the non-Bizet orchestral recitatives removed, and replaced by choreographed sequences. The director, Gabriela Carrizo is in fact also a choreographer, who has run the Brussels-based ‘Peeping Tom’ company for 20 years, and the decision was made to offer a set of dance/drama intervals to explore the characters’ inner emotions and thoughts, with sound effects. 8 or so dancers therefore worked with the standard opera cast. This is apparently the first time Ms Carrizo has worked on an opera, I was told. There were also some musical changes too – the opening chorus in Act 4 in part disappeared, I think

What struck me most about this performance was the quality of the music-making. I’ve not been to a performance in the Grosses Festpielhaus before, and I was impressed – sitting in the 9th row of the Balcony – by the immediacy of the sound of the orchestra and singers, both seeming as though I was sitting in the stalls. The immediacy of the orchestra also had a lot to do with Currentzis and his particular band of players. This must be the best played and orchestrally most vivid Carmen I have ever heard.  Currentzis got into trouble in 2022 because of the Russian links of his previous band, Musica Aeterna, originally a period instrument group from the Urals (I heard him and them perform a phenomenal Beethoven 4 and 5 at the Proms about 8 years ago), but who by the beginning of this decade was performing all sorts of music – Tchaikovsky 6, Mahler 6. He’s now formed a new orchestra (described as an international orchestra with players from more than 30 countries) and he’s done enough in the way of anti-Russian positioning (not easy as he is half Russian) to bring him and them back into the Austro-German classical music sphere (though he and the orchestra have not appeared in Britain since that date in 2018. The orchestra was phenomenal – ultra-tight rhythms, rich, nutty string sound, rasping brass and extraordinarily violent timpani and percussion. The strings accompanying Micaela is her first arias as she sings to Don Jose about his mother were wonderfully sweet., As the old Musica Aeterna used to do, they stand up sometimes to deliver solos or to make even more noise!  There was also some very beautiful playing – the flute and the beginning of the third act for instance, the solo horn at various points.

Having read some quite negative reviews about this production, I was quite surprised by how positive I felt about it at the end – much better than the two ROHCG ones I have seen in recent year (the Kosky one with the gorilla, and last year’s one). If there are problems, the issue was less the comings and goings of the dance sequences than the dim lighting pervading the crowd scenes. There was one point in Lilia Pastias tavern where I quite failed to identify where Don Jose and Carmen were in the melee. The situation was better in the last two acts, primarily because the crowd and the main characters are more tightly kept apart, but in Act 2 I was quite failing to identify who was Escamilio and who was Zuniga; in the opening scene in Act 1, it took a while to register who was Carmen and who was Do Jose. The other problem is that not having the dialogue/recitatives brings with it two issues: one, it must have been difficult to follow the story for anyone not familiar with it (though of course surtitles help); and two, without the dialogue it is very difficult to work out who the minor characters are – who is Frasquita, who is Mercedes, who the smugglers are (and the lighting merely adds to the confusion). But against that there is:

  • a constant sense of menace and darkness. The set is something like a stone quarry, with a water basin, and steep platforms, and the texture of the way the rocks are lit conveys a dark stony colour, occasionally changed in part to brilliant reds -there’s no sense of a colourful Spanish town, just a sense of the bleakness of what lies between some of those Spanish towns, say near Toledo.  There is a sometimes brightly lit back drop which allows mysterious figures to appear and disappear in silhouette. There is much violence – someone – male or female, it’s not clear – is beaten up in the opening moments of Act 1, in Act 3 there is almost a fight between Tetelman’s Don Jose and Grigorian’s Carmen, Carmen is stabbed not once but repeatedly,
  • because of the absence of dialogue an increased emphasis on the relationship between Carmen and Don Jose, and the intensity of that was very powerful, added to of course by the mesmeric acting of the two fine singers in these roles. Somehow, having Don Jose’s mother on stage most of the time increases that intensity ………….

The dance scenes I did not find too disruptive as such – they seemed to feature tortured movements, violent encounters, which seemed to fit the mood of the overall staging. The sounds to accompany them were on the whole not a good idea – very jarring (but maybe that was the point) electronic sounds, a strange echoey sound of distant voices surrounding some sort of religious ritual (maybe) in Act 3. One more interesting sound was (in Act 2 and Act 3), having Amparo Cortés (a cante jondo performer from Seville) singing a traditional song – but again, this hardly fitted seamlessly into Bizet’s score.

There were three near ideal singers for the four main roles. Having not thought about it for 45 or more years, in the middle of this performance I suddenly remembered I had heard, at some point in the 70’s or 80’s, Jon Vickers singing the most tortured Don Jose I can recall (his Flower Song was intense to the point of madness). It was the intensity of Tetelman’s performance which brought that memory back – this was not only a finely sung performance but wildly felt performance, Don Jose literally becoming frenzied as we watched. The final scene was unbearably brutal. Tetelman, at 38, and with his tallness, has the ability to be absolutely convincing in this role. Asmik Gregorian too is every inch a singing actor, and she too was mesmerising (when you could spot her). Her Habanera, and the song with the castanets (here converted into flying plates) were utterly individual and extremely convincing. You felt every word she sang had been carefully thought through and balanced as to volume, tone and effect. The overall impact of her role was to be – it seemed – indifferent to the passions she roused, making the violence more shocking. Kristina Mkhitaryan I realise I had heard a couple of years ago as Tatiana at ROHCG, where she impressed, and she was beyond impressive here as Micaela. OK – Micaela is a wimpish character with little to do except sing sweetly, but she did this with immense colour and finesse – a truly beautiful performance. Only Escamilio was perhaps more ordinary as a performance, but this was still a very good account of the role. The Utopia and Salzburg Bach Chorus were as impressive (almost) as the orchestra, and the larger than usual children’s chorus very powerful and characterful

Here’s a trailer giving a sense of the design feel – if you scroll down to the videos

Carmen • Salzburg Festival 2026

I am very glad I went to this – it would have been very easy to give it a miss

Bartok, Stravinsky, Berg. RAH BBC Proms 10/8/26

Stravinsky Symphony in Three Movements; Berg Violin Concerto; Bartók Concerto for Orchestra. Vilde Frang violin; Juilliard Orchestra, Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen conductor

I caught this Prom concert en route from my home to Salzburg, with an evening to spare in London before an early Eurostar train. I remember Salonen conducting the Bartok work about 10 years ago with the Philharmonia, and enjoyed his reading of it. That would be an interesting contrast with this young group of players. The Berg Concerto I can never quite get my head around, but am always happy to have another go, and having the Stravinsky on the programme was an extra bonus. Apparently this concert comes about as a result of an extended yearly set of workshops between selected Julliard and RCM players, sponsored by Elton John, a former RCM alumnus!

Perhaps predictably – because it is such an enjoyable work – the Bartok was the performance I enjoyed most. Throughout the concert there was a real buzz about the orchestra, all players on the edge of their professional careers and clearly really loving being in the RAH, under the spotlights, with a packed out audience and a famous conductor. In the Bartok Salonen really put them through their paces , with some spectacularly fast speeds in the last two movements. But articulation from all sections, amidst the flurry of notes, remained absolutely precise and centred, and a particular shout to the trumpets and woodwind for their accuracy and clarity. The strings impressed earlier in the work with their richness and depth, and there was also some tremendously quiet violin playing, almost on the edge of silence. I wouldn’t say this was a better performance than the one I heard of this work last year with Hrusa and the Berlin Phil, but it had great spontaneity somehow, and one felt the performance was an act of exploration by both the conductor and orchestra. I felt I was hearing some of it for the first time. Apart from one small blip, where someone held on to a note a fraction too long, this band sounded up there with the best international orchestras – and indeed some of this group might be in one of them in a couple of years!

The Berg concerto for me remains a mystery – I once again found myself wrapped up in the sound world and only momentarily lost focus, but I never get a clear grip on the structure of the work except that it’s going to end up with an enormous climax and the quotation from the Bach cantata. After 6 or 7 different live hearings, I ought to do better than that, but I still find it opaque…..Vilde Frange was clearly an excellent soloist though to me (sitting near her in Row 1 of the Side Stalls) her ‘voice’ sounded quite small for the RAH and I wondered how she came across up in the Balcony. She was clearly enjoying playing with this young orchestra, and at one point, maybe two thirds of the way , through she actually turned her back on the audience and played with acute attention to the violin  section – I loved that sense of spontaneity and forgetting about the audience!

The Stravinsky work I’ve heard a number of times too – it never has much resonance with me. Oddly its opening sounds a bit like the first few chords of Vaughan Williams’ 4th Symphony . The latter was written in  the 30’s, the Stravinsky in the 40’s. Could there be any chance Stravinsky had come across VW 4 – ummm, no, probably not…………..As I listened to it I thought – bits of this sound like the Rite of Spring, and some like the Rake’s Progress, and sure enough, Wikipedia tells me Stravinsky was recording the Rite of Spring just before he worked on the Symphony, and of course the Rake’s Progress was written in the same decade ,

Very agreeably there was an encore, a Galop by Stravinsky, which was huge fun.

It’s such a tough time for young musicians at the moment. I hope all these excellent young players have great careers before them………

Weber, Oberon (semi-staged).  RAH BBC Proms 6/8/26

Nicky Spence, Oberon; Jennifer Davis, Reiza; John Findon, Sir Huon of Bordeaux; Yannick Debus, Sherasmin; Rachael Wilson, Fatima; J’Nai Bridges, Puck; Charlotte Bowden, Mermaid; Jessica Cale, Mermaid. Monteverdi Choir, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique; Sir Mark Elder, conductor

This was a great Prom in prospect – two strong tenors, a major soprano, Elder, and a brilliant period instrument orchestra, plus an opera I have never heard a note of before, apart from, of course, the overture. Oberon was Weber’s final work, and his third opera – written for Covent Garden 200 years ago. Oberon’s libretto was written by James Robinson Planché, a popular dramatist whose spoken text has not aged well (allegedly, since we didn’t hear it) involving fairyland, desert islands, Baghdad, pirates, and crusaders. Mark Elder wrote in the Guardian, in relation to this concert, that “to stage, or even semi-stage Oberon, its text needs to be rewritten, and for our Proms performance, author Timothy Knapman has created a new single narrative that respects the original but blows the dust off it. His witty version, narrated by Tamsin Greig, will entertain today’s audiences just as Londoners were entertained in 1826”. I assume here that Planche’s original text was retained for the sung element – certainly it sounded dire enough…The story is scarcely worth summarising but derives from a row between Oberon and Titania about who are more faithful – men or women. Oberon chooses Sir Huon and the Baghdad princess Reiza to fall in love with each other, and he then puts them in situations to test their love for each other.

This is a curious work. I am of course glad to have heard it for the bucket list but won’t be desperate if it never crosses my path again. If operas are declared to be masterpieces, but are hardly ever staged, this is usually because either they are too expensive to be put on very often or because, actually, the wider opera-going public has got the measure of the work and it isn’t all that it is cracked up to be. Oberon is a singspiel, like the Magic Flute and Fidelio, but with Planche at hand, there’s also an English pantomimic quality to it. Though the circumstances the characters find themselves in are certainly not funny, the reworked text (i.e. the story less the sung elements) read by a narrator as written up by Knapman often tended to be tongue-in-cheek, knowingly going for laughs through silly rhymes or the sudden juxtaposition of incongruous elements. The audience (quite a full one, though some empty seats in the Balcony) enjoyed this, but the spoken text made it harder for the singers to really shape their characters into flesh-and-blood creatures rather than cartoon-ish ciphers. The music, frankly, didn’t seem to be that distinguished, though it is always attractive to listen to and I was never bored (the best tunes are culled for the Overture). There are some interesting orchestral effects – rippling woodwind, ‘Turkish’ cymbals – and the numbers are very varied in pace and type. The music to me hovered between Donizetti (but without the energy and the lyrical grace) and the Mozart of the Magic Flute and Die Entfuhrung (but without the genius). There is in fact quite a lot of the Flute in the story – two couples, tests and trials for faithfulness and this must have been part of the attraction for Weber in setting this to music (incidentally, I hadn’t realised before reading the programme booklet that Weber’s father was the uncle of Constanze, Mozart’s wife, which must make Weber and Constanze cousins, I think). Wagner must have heard the work as a teenager, and was of course a considerable fan of Weber’s – it is possible that Reiza’s aria ‘Ocean Thou might monster’ with its declamatory style and absence of any standard aria format might have influenced him, and occasionally in some of the female vocal lines I thought I heard distant precursors of Lohengrin. Also. there are occasional brass passages associated with Oberon which reminded me of Telramund and King Henry in the same opera. The programme booklet asserts that the tune for Oberon’s magic horn is a sort of ur-leitmotif, akin say to the Ring sword motif – I am not sure about that……But the chorus of Tunisian dancing girls intent on carrying off Huon has some resonance with the Flowermaidens in Parsifal, I suppose

This was billed as a semi-staged performance, and there was a credited stage director – Emma Doherty – with very effective use of the whole stage and indeed wider Arena space (including Sir Huon and his sidekick Sherasmin going into the audience in their quest for Reiza). The area by the organ console, the back of the platform, the front, the sides of the platform – all were used and the singers and chorus were encouraged to respond to each other and act credibly. Dress was modern but credible. No noses in the scores here………Apart from the yearly Glyndebourne offerings, this was one of the most effective Proms concert stagings I have seen.

The standout singer for me was the young American singer Rachael Wilson, making her career in Europe, as Fatima (Sherasmin’s partner) who has a most beautiful voice and who thrillingly sung two of the most attractive arias in the work  – the Act 2 aria “A lonely Arab maid” and the Act 3 aria “O Araby!”. Jennifer Davis sung ‘Ocean, thou mighty monster’ with the power it needs, and was also moving in her other big aria, “Mourn thou, poor heart” (Act 3) – she has considerable gifts as an actor, and engages well with audiences, but I have to say I find her singing lacks colour somehow. It was good to see and hear John Findon, who I interviewed 3 years ago for the Manchester Wagner Society when he was playing Mime in the ENO Valkyrie – his career is developing (at least in the UK) well (he was singing in Gerontius last week at the 3 Choirs Festival) and he was appropriately heroic, actually quite a good actor in this impossible role, and handled the florid elements of his arias capably. At one or two moments where he was singing softly, his voice cracked a little, which I have heard happen to him before. Nicky Spence did all that was required of him as Oberon to sound noble and authoritative, though he couldn’t resist a few campy twirls in one or two places, and the narrator also contributed effectively to the evening – with a difficult job, where the surtitles covered her lines as well as the singers so all the jokes in the text were revealed to the audience before she spoke them. Given how clear she was, the stage team would have done better to just focus the surtitles on the words for the arias.  The Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique sounded fabulous and I enjoyed as usual in a period band the rasping trombones (there are 3 of them) and horns, the pungent woodwind and the acidity of the strings. The chorus were clearly having huge fun, and well into their acting roles, as well as singing tightly. Mark Elder was evidently enjoying himself and conveyed his love for the music to the players.

This was a Proms first and notable for what must have been the considerable expense in putting this on – using a stage team and a quite complex lighting plot, using an external orchestra rather than a BBC one, and some major singers. So, thank you BBC for giving this work its best chance, it was a thoroughly worthwhile evening and we can all now put it back safely to bed in the knowledge that this is not an undiscovered masterpiece………