Handel Sonata in G minor, HWV 580; Chaconne in G major, HWV 435; D Scarlatti Sonata in G minor, K 8; Sonata in E major, K 20; Sonata in A minor, K 54; Sonata in Minor, K 213; Sonata in D major, K 214; G.F. Handel Suite No 1 in B flat major, HWV 434; D Scarlatti Sonata in E minor, K 263; Sonata in E major, K 264; Handel Suite No 7 in G minor, HWV 432.
It was probably a mistake to go on to this recital about 50 minutes after the previous Handel opera. Maha Esfahani is a very fine harpsichordist indeed, and probably the best one regularly performing in the UK. However, after 45 minutes of music in the first half of this recital, I decided to give the second half a miss. The music is delightful, but a harpsichord sounds so small in a large church – you’re aware of a burbling buzzing noise but little else. The Handel and Scarlatti pieces were played with awesome virtuoso skill, but I found myself wishing for a set of transcriptions for the piano of this music, to be hammered out in this resonant acoustic
English Concert, Erin Helyard Conductor; Olivia Fuchs Director; Eleanor Bull Designer; Ben Pickersgill Lighting Designer. Tim Morgan Amadigi; Rowan Pierce, Oriana; Hilary Cronin, Melissa; James Hall ,Dardano
I saw this in concert form a couple of years ago at St Martins in the Fields in London, but have never been to a staged performance. I therefore came to this performance with some anticipation – plus the BIF operatic showings are usually great fun! I was also impressed, listening to Handel’s Partenope at ENO in December, by Jake Ingbar’s voice, who at the time of booking was scheduled to sing Amadigi. As it happens the title role had changed hands by the time of the first performance (which this was)…….
Amadigi di Gaula is one of those top-drawer Handel operas which has 6 or 7 attractive arias with tunes which buzz around your head afterwards – the Act 1 aria (Ah Spietato!), the aria in the fountain, the two concluding songs by Oriana and Amadigi (Destero dell’empia Dite), the lament by Dardano (Pena tiranna io sento al core), and the aria with recorders for Amadigi
The story is, for a Handel opera, refreshingly simple. Melissa fancies Amadigi, who fancies Oriana, who is also fancied by Dardano. In the end, Dardano is done away with, Melssa fails, and Oriana and Amadigi live happily ever after. The production concept here was of a Love Island set up -which makes a fair amount of sense. In design terms, following that concept, In the first act there’s a huge pink heart suspended above the stage saying ‘Melissa’s Island’, and the overture has a mimed sequence where Melissa is preparing for filming. There’s also a (very) large model of a pink flamjngo, large palm trees, an inflatable beach toy flamingo and an inflatable paddling pool (for the fountain) – you get the picture……… At the beginning, and to an extent throughout, there were also TV cameras. lighting stands and various crew members. In Act 2, the scene was darker -Melissa’s cavern I guess – with a lit up dressing table, costume rack and swivel chairs. The flamingo etc are there in the background though……..It has to be said that the Love Island concept is not followed through particularly rigorously – given that Melissa seems to be the TV host, how does she end up so humiliated? And the camera crew barely makes an appearance between the opening and the closing scene (though Orgando, uncle of Oriana and a sorcerer himself, who is supposed to descend from the sky in a chariot and bless the union of Amadigi and Oriana is a TV executive type, and Dardano, rather than being killed, goes off in a huff with his wheelie-suitcase. Dardano and Amadigi do a lot of posturing for the camera at first, but that then goes away. So I wasn’t totally convinced by the concept – but there again, I have never seen Love Island and nor I suspect had most of the predominantly elderly audience, so I may have missed connections and allusions. Costumes were appropriate – the men’s costumes were mainly beach wear, Melissa had a glittery trouser suit and an obvious red wig; Oriana had rather extraordinary piled-up blonde hair and a glamorous red dress and high heels. Melissa at the end gets rid of her red wig – so maybe she was meant to be part of the action, but now has reverted to her TV host persona…all a bit unclear.
In singing and acting terms, the two women were better than the men – Hilary Cronin had a large supple voice, managing well the coloratura elements of her role, and a brilliant slinky stage persona that was both funny and creepy – just as a sorceress should be. Rowan Pierce has a string of impressive ‘young artist’ credentials and, again, had a forward clear voice. She played the slightly dumb-blonde role to perfection. By contrast, Tim Morgan didn’t quite have the vocal power to project Amadigi’s emotions effectively and he also looked awkward on stage on occasion.James Hall, who I have heard singing Handel with ETO, was more forward in voice and his above-mentioned lament was very effective. But, again, at times he looked awkward, The English Concert gave a biting, sharp account of the orchestral music, with some beautiful woodwind playing.
Unusually for the sedate BIF audience there were a couple of boos when the director and team took a bow. I thought that was unfair. This was a good show, and Handel operas are tricky terrain
Veronika Rädler Violin; Tatu Kauppinen Cello; Francesco Maccarrone Piano. HaydnTrio in E flat major Hob. XV:29; Rebecca Clarke, Trio for violin, violoncello and piano; Bright ShengFour Movements for Piano Trio; Brahms, Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor op. 101
I decided to spend a day and two nights in Hamburg, coming back from my son’s wedding in Sweden. I had never visited the city and wanted particularly to see the Elbphilharmonie. Though there was nothing on in the Grosse Saal, the smaller hall had a chamber music concert, which I booked a ticket for. After a day wandering around Hamburg, with a pleasant time at the Art Gallery, I went on the U-bahn to as near as I could get to the Philharmonie and had a very windy walk through the spruced-up wharves – like Salford’s Media City but on a much larger scale. The Philharmonie is a massive building, boat-like in shape. I suspect you get the best view of it from a distance. The lower bits are I think a hotel and car park, so you have to go up a long escalator and several sets of stairs to get to the concert hall area. There are lots of viewing platforms and places to eat and drink at the top and crowds of Hamburg people and tourists just seemed to be there for the view.
Within the concert hall itself I couldn’t quite work out what was going on – despite its being not a big-name group of musicians, there were lots of young people, whoops for the performers, and, after the Haydn first movement, applause (how the Wigmore Hall audience would shudder). There was lots of general audience enthusiasm throughout. 6 young people presented flowers to the trio at the end. Anyway, whatever the occasion, it made for a good atmosphere.
This was an interestingly contrasted programme, with at least three pieces using some form pf ‘national’ musical inspiration. The Haydn piece sounded as though it was one of his works nearer to Beethoven than Rococo – and indeed, on looking it up, I found it was a late-ish one, published in 1797. Some early mysterious moments in the first movement, the enigmatic and brief slow movement, all contributed to this feeling, but then there was also a cheerful landler-based last movement. The Rebecca Clarke piece was an interesting choice for a German audience and non-British trio of musicians. Even for its time it’s a conservative piece (1923) . There are quite strong elements of Vaughan Williams in the piece – both the Tallis Fantasia of RVW and some of the more disturbing sounds from his works of the 1930s. But it has a lot of coherence on its own terms, some memorable melodies, and a sense of progression and narrative. The trio gave a deeply felt performance and in many ways this was the highlight of the concert. The Bright Sheng piece I didn’t really warm to – it used a mix of Chinese-sounding harmonies and sounds, and Western ones. The 4 movements seemed insufficiently varied.
The Brahms piece is a strange work – tense and with a sense of unease in nearly all its movements, and often compulsively rhythmically complex. Even the third, slow, movement, which sounds at its beginning as though it will turn into a classic melancholy wistful piece of Brahms, somehow becomes something darker and more intense. The first and last movements have those characteristic Brahmsian striding themes but, again, somehow, they seemed foreshortened, turned away from. So…..a complex work and I don’t really know how well the trio played it. The coda of the last movement sounded a bit soggy and lame in this reading. Anyway, much, slightly inexplicable, cheering st the end……
London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Antonio Pappano conductor; Clay Hilley Tristan; Sara Jakubiak Isolde; Marina Prudenskaya Brangaene; Franz-Josef Selig King Marke; Gyula Orendt Kurwenall Neal Cooper Melot; Michael Gibson Sailor/Shepherd; James Emerson Steersman; London Symphony Chorus
I got myself into a ridiculous situation over this concert. I bought the ticket over a year ago and had been much looking forward to it. I was very pleased when I worked out going to it was compatible with the travel arrangements for my son’s wedding in Sweden! About a week prior to the concert, without thinking, I signed myself up to be involved in a teacher recruitment exercise for one of the schools I am a governor for and then realised that the morning I’d agreed to do this would prevent me from getting to Act 1 of Tristan…..!! So I could only make the 2nd and 3rd Acts. I was very annoyed with myself but there was no way I could change this. I got to the venue about half way through the first Act and heard the loud bits sitting outside the Barbican Hall. Anyway, I still had about two and a half hours of music to go……………
My comments of a few weeks ago about Handel opera applies also to Tristan. This is again one of those operas which are fairly static, heavily focused on character, words and singing rather than action, and therefore well suited to concert performance. What then is important is that one feels and understands the nature of each character from the stance of the singer on the concert platform, and what they do with their face and hands. Scores and music stands can be an obstacle to this happening.
In this performance, or rather in the Acts 2 and 3 I heard, Pappano’s reading had the same passionate sweep which makes his Ring conducting attractive. I was particularly struck by the rhythmic pointedness of some of the cello and double bass playing in the third act, and the depth and intensity of the strings in the Act 3 Prelude. The mournful cor anglais playing was very fine, and throughout there were many instrumental voices Pappano revealed which had never struck me before . The pace was fastish throughout – for the most part this was a positive feature of the performance but for me, the Liebestod was simply too fast for the singer to craft the phrasing and pointing of words compellingly.
I found Clay Hilley even better than his performance with Lise Davidsen in January in Barcelona. Jon Vickers is the benchmark here in my experience of the work in the opera house. But Hilley not only had the heft Vickers possessed but also a poetic refinement with certain phrases which (dare I say it) Vickers never reached in this role. His 3rd act acting was tremendous – hanging from the rostrum, half lying on the floor, he was every inch the tortured hero. Sara Jakubiak in her role debut has the big-hitting voice for the part and was excellent in Act 2 in the love duet. She also seemed to be stirred by Hilley’s singing in Act 2 to more variation and colour as the act progressed. The Liebestod was a bit of a work in progress, rather unrelentingly loud – and I could still remember how Davidsen (in her role debut too) delivered some of the phrases. Jakubiak’s stage presence was inevitably not helped by her need to check in with score/music stand frequently and Hilley and she barely acknowledged each other’s presence in the love duet. Gyula Orendt was one of the finest Kurwenal’s I have heard, singing some of the more lyrical passages with great beauty of tone. Franz-Josef Selig as King Marke reinforced the positive impression I had of him from the April Vienna Parsifal, singing with impressive resonance and beautiful diction. As for Marina Prudenskaya as Brangaene I couldn’t give much of a judgement on her, as most of her role is in the 1st act. She sang the ‘Hab Acht’ passages from the back with great beauty but sometimes sounded squally earlier in the Act, and words were sometimes indistinct.
I felt overall this was a very good performance, but perhaps not one for the ages, apart from Hilley’s Tristan
Director, Richard Jones; Set Designer, Hyemi Shin; Costume Designer, Nicky Gillibrand; Lighting Designer, Adam Silverman; Movement Director, Sarah Fahie; Video Designer, Sasha Balmazi-Owen. Conductor, Riccardo Frizza; Lord Arturo Talbot, Francesco Demuro; Elvira, Lisette Oropesa; Sir Giorgio Valton, Ildebrando D’Arcangelo; Sir Riccardo Forth, Andrzej Filończyk; Enrichetta di Francia, Marcela Rahal; Lord Gualtiero Valton, Blaise Malaba; Sir Bruno Roberton, Giorgi Guliashvili
This work was a complete unknown to me – I decided to go to the dress rehearsal of this new production because I admire Oropesa as an artist (and hoped she would be singing and not marking in the role), and also because Bellini’s music was of interest to Wagner, so I wanted to further explore and listen to the connections. Indeed, at one point in his twenties, Wagner positively worshipped Bellini, and exalted Italian song above all other forms of operatic music. He had “Norma” performed for his benefit concert on Dec. 11, 1837 in Riga when he was GMD there. It was also at a performance of Bellini’s opera I Capuletti ed I Montecchi, in his early 20’s that he heard for the first time Wilhelmina Schroeder-Devrient, and saw/heard how powerful the combination of words and music could be in the hands of a gifted artist – as late as 1872 he said, “Whenever I conceived a character, I saw her.” I have seen commentators noting that the horn fanfares at the start of Act 1 of Puritani are a distant ancestor of Parsifal Act 1 and describing how Wagner developed Bellini’s approach of building long lines of musical tension in creating Act 2 of Tristan……
At any rate, apart from Maria Stuarda, this was the most enjoyable bel canto opera I have been to, and my attention was held throughout. The story is engaging if hardly historical – Elvira’s true love is a Cavalier but she is from a Puritan family. A Puritan Riccardo aims to marry Elvira. The Cavalier Arturo is suddenly given permission to marry by Elvira’s uncle and the marriage ceremony is about to take place. Arturo then realises that the mysterious prisoner in Elvira’s castle is actually Henrietta Maria, the widowed Queen, and she is about to be taken to London to be tried by Parliament. Arturo gives her Elvira’s wedding gear and escapes with the Queen in disguise as a bride to avoid certain death. Riccardo connives in this escape in order to remove Arturo from the scene. Elvira then goes mad (of course!) until the third Act, where Arturo returns, having delivered the Queen to safety. They are briefly united but then Arturo, who has a death sentence on his head, is captured, and is about to be executed – but suddenly a decree arrives saying Cromwell has issued an amnesty to all Royalists previously accused of anti-Parliament activity. End of Story (though not quite in this production, as we shall see).
I found the production peculiarly bitty – quite strangely so, really. I have normally been impressed by Richard Jones’s productions, but this for me didn’t quite work. The sets were simple and fine enough – a whole-stage castle stone-looking interior with several fireplaces on each side and heraldic signs at the back, with a small room setting that moved on and off downstage as and when needed. There was also a raised platform, cleverly appearing from nowhere, for Arturo’s presumed execution. Ribbons came down from on high for the wedding-ceremony-that-doesn’t-happen and there are strangely short flurries of confetti and snow in Acts 1 and 3.
This seems to me to be a work that needs a director’s hand not just to tell the story but also to offer some sense of relevance to our own lives. The libretto was written by an Italian count with marked liberal sympathies and is full of references to ‘freedom’, which would to contemporaries have related to Italian nationalism and freedom from Austria. Roundheads and Cavaliers are also of course opposed political forces – something in all this mix might have been used more creatively. As it was there was well-handled simple story telling, with sudden furiously busy quirky stage scenes – at the end of Act 2, and the choral singing about freedom, a whirling set of barrows and cannons suddenly appears and as quickly disappears; at the beginning of Act 3, as Arturo tries to evade the Parliamentary forces hunting him, a huge steel searchlight is brought on stage. Something of the set up in Act 1 reminded me of a 1950’s New Bayreuth Die Meistersinger, with a massed chorus in line on a series of raised steps, moving slowly in ritual formation. But nothing here seemed either to particularly enhance the story-telling or to be putting that story in a wider context. The chorus turns up in metal helmets in the search party for Arturo but nothing is really made of that, in terms of visual impact. The final moments of the third act give us another one of those ending quirks which have been a feature of several recent ROHCG productions (e.g. Theodora and Semele) – Riccardo suddenly furiously stabs Arturo as the curtain falls. All of these are sensible enough ideas but they don’t seem to be serving any wider vision of what the piece is about.
Happily, the singing and acting saved the day. Riccardo was excellently sung and acted by Andrzej Filończyk. He has a tall presence which he used in an effectively menacing and powerful way, and a warm expressive baritone voice, which could be both gentle (with Elvira) and demanding (with Arturo). I was also very taken by Ildebrando D’Arcangelo as Giorgio, Elvira’s uncle, who had the right note of authority, but also compassion as Elvira’s mental health collapses after Arturo’s disappearance. I can’t really comment on Francesco Demuro’s Arturo – as the performance went on, he seemed to be in some vocal difficulties, with his voice cracking under pressure frequently, though he managed some lovely legato singing, and some fiendishly high notes without any problems. It will be interesting to see whether he is well enough for the first night. Lisette Oropesa was an utter delight throughout. In this role she has a truly commanding and believable stage presence, and we fully understand the mental torment Elvira is going through – every movement serves a purpose and she is wholly invested in being Elvira on stage. Her very distinctive smoky voice with a quick vibrato was able both to handle some astonishing coloratura passages with clarity, some very high climatic notes, and convey Elvira’s passion without ever forcing her voice. I particularly remember her singing in the ‘mad scene (another one) in Act 2, and a form of lyrical folk song in the beginning of Act 3. One felt in the presence of greatness. I am looking forward to her singing Alcina again in September,
The chorus was both large (I counted 40 plus) and very, very good – powerful, tight, and justified the high-profile Jones’ production gave them. It’s in the nature of bel canto that orchestras accompany singers rather than being of equal worth with them, and some of the accompaniment is of the ‘oompah’ kind. But orchestral colour is needed at points and, in particular, the horns distinguished themselves. I have never heard of the conductor before but he moved the music along often with vivacity and bounce that kept your foot tapping even while one was asking oneself why such chirpy music was being written for such a sad set of emotions……
Academy of Ancient Music , Laurence Cummings director & harpsichord; Paula Murrihy, Serse; Louise Alder, Romilda; Rachel Redmond, Atalanta; Rebecca Leggett, Arsamene; Claudia Huckle, Amastre; Luca Tittoto, Ariodate; Thomas Chenhall, Elviro
I am pretty sure I saw Xerxes at ENO at some point in the last 20 years, maybe at the last ENO revival in 2014, but I have zero memory of it except for a very colourful first scene – with the plain tree – in ??yellows and blues. So going to this performance I was in essence listening to the piece as a whole for the first time.
It was fascinating to experience this as a concert performance. Unlike some operas, which really do need a stage – Mozart for instance – the focus in Handel usually on the inter-relationships between 5 or 6 key characters means that it is very easy to translate to a concert environment – the action and the emotions are in the arias, and with the singers who are singing to each other. The interior world of each of these characters is what is important, rather than their actions on stage. So here we had Serse, in love with Romilda, Arsamene (Serse’s brother) in love with Romilda, the scheming Atalanta, sister to Romilda, Amastre, Serse’s abandoned former love and a princess, with two minor characters Elviro (Arsamene’s servant) and Ariodate, father to Romilda and Atalanta. All that was needed was for the singers to react to each other, and to handle a modicum of character creation alongside the fiendishly difficult singing. It was lovely to be in the stalls and to be close enough to see these inter-reactions and facial expressions. Even the fact that there were three music stands and most of the singers were using, to a greater or lesser extent, scores, didn’t – as it does do in some other non-Handel concert versions of operas – really reduce their ability to be acting and responding to each other.
As Wikipedia points out – but I hope that I would have noticed this anyway – the work Serse is unusual in bringing together the opera seria and the comic modes of 18th century opera. It is often quite funny and the Barbican audience were moved increasingly to laughter as the evening went on – some of course generated by the daftness of the opera seria approach, but often the misunderstandings and mis-steps are genuinely funny. It was for this reason that the work was heavily criticised at its first run in 1738 – it was thought to be micing up that which should always be kept apart, and did not follow the path of decorum required by ‘proper’ opera seria. Charles Burney said “it is one of the worst Handel ever set to Music: for besides feeble writing, there is a mixture of tragic-comedy and buffoonery in it, which Apostolo Zeno and Metastasio had banished from serious opera” Wikipedia implies that Handel had recently seen the Beggar’s Opera, saw the good money it was making and decided to include something akin to it in Serse!
This is top drawer Handel musically. Maybe the famous ‘Largo’ which occurs as the first number in the opera is not replicated later on by arias of equal memorability, but there are a whole range of enjoyable pieces, fast and slow, for all the characters. The other comment about the music to make, which, had I not read the Wikipedia article, I would have assumed was the result of concert performance cuts, is that some – not all – of the arias don’t follow the a b a traditional da capo model but just have one melody, or have two, neither of which is replicated. This does give us more music in the time available (this performance, at 2 hours and 50 mis, was probably cut as well) and move the action along – again, maybe, the influence of John Gay.
The Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) had brought together a really first rate cast, with no weak links. For whatever reason a counter-tenors was not used for Serse in this performance. The male part of Arsamene has always been sung by women since the premiere. I’ve known Paula Murriyh was something of a Baroque specialist but have never heard her live in that repertory – she’s performed as Dido in Les Troyens and Countess of Essex in Gloriana in performances I’ve been to. Here she projected a remarkably effective regal presence, despite being smaller than Louise Alder, and she has both the ability for the pyrotechnics, spectacularly delivered, and some beautifully floated high notes; she could also use her voice expressively to demonstrate anger and affection with great credibility. Louise Alder, increasingly a UK stage favourite, is currently singing as Susanna in Figaro as well as performing this one-off Romilda, and I heard her not too long ago as Zdenka in Arabella, rather stealing the show in the latter – so a highly versatile singer. Romilda is a bit of a mopey role – she’s a somewhat passive character, pulled about by different men’s affections – but Alder sang it with distinction and variation in the various slow arias she has (and she could also do the coloratura bits with precision). Hers is a big voice, and a big presence, but one that’s totally under control and serving Handel’s intentions. Rachel Redmond, who I have come across at Irish Opera’s performances at the Linbury, was a spectacularly good Atalanta. This is a high soubrette -type role and her singing was in some ways the best conceived of the evening – she got across the comedy of her part and the flirty nature of the role superbly well, and her coloratura was glitteringly precise and bell-like. Rebecca Leggett had a slighter voice than some of the others on stage and very occasionally she had to push it a bit too in expressing emotion, but she got across the frustration and ardour of Arsamene’s character. Claudia Huckle, a young singer, had a remarkable contralto voice as Amastre – she is definitely someone to look out for. All the other characters were well taken and the AAM were the perfect accompaniers, never obscuring the singers’ voices, while Laurence Cummings bounced around in front of his harpsichord to encourage energy and life in the performance.
Martin Lloyd-Evans, Director; Matthew Kofi Waldren, Conductor; Anna Reid, Designer; Jamie Platt,Lighting Designer. Amanda Echalaz, Minnie; Robert Hayward, Jack Rance; Josè de Eça, Dick; Zwakele Tshabalala, Nick; Alaric Green, Ashby; Aidan Edwards; Sonora; Jamie Formoy, Trin
This is a work which has always been a favourite of mine but which I have only seen live in one production before, 49 years ago at ROHCG. This was the famous production which starred Placido Domingo, Sherrill Milnes and Carol Neblett, conducted by Zubin Mehta, which I must have been to three or four times. I just loved it…..I remember sitting in the Upper Slips and the whole row collectively leaned forward as we listened to Domingo singing at the moment when his wonderful act 1 aria broadens out.
I always enjoy visiting Opera Holland Park – the ticket prices are not unreasonable, you are very near the singers and can see close-up how they are reacting to each other. The atmosphere is cheerful with a certain element of making-do – warm clothing always trumps appearing in finery. And they have put on some very good performances, of which this Fanciulla was one of the best I have seen there.
I had completely forgotten most of the plot, apart from the card game in Act 2 and Minnie riding to the rescue in Act 3 – for instance I hadn’t remembered that ‘Dick Johnson’ is really Ramirez the robber, and also what a strong part the theme of ‘redemption’ plays in the work. This gave an extra excitement to my experience of this performance – it was almost a new start with the work for me.
Fanciulla is one of those works which directors mess with at their peril, although arguably the happy ending needs a bit of directorial oomph. Here the work was directed naturalistically and unobtrusively, to great effect. Characters moved naturally, the opportunity the Holland Park space offers for multiple exits and entrances was well used, and nothing felt, in a sense, ‘staged’ – one really lived with these characters and believed in them. The interaction of the three principals in particular was outstandingly well handled. The peculiarities of the OH stage set-up – the orchestra pit fits between an upper and a lower acting area – did not at all dimmish the impact of what we saw. The antics of the miners in the bar in Act 1 could easily seem twee, but felt natural here. One thing this unassuming realism made me think about is how modern some of the themes of the work are – loneliness, and also migration – people working in a foreign country for money. And although the ending is more than slightly unbelievable (Minnie facing down a lynch mob) what she sings – about the ability of every human being to be redeemed, to be forgiven, to be able to start anew – is a fundamental of a liberal (and Christian) society, and the music there is good enough to give it emotional punch, so it doesn’t just sound like a sermon learned by rote.
The design aspect was equally well suited to the work – brown colours, lots of wood and with a suggestion of mountains in the back drop. Pictures below show the bar in Act 1, and Minnie’s hut in Act 2. A shroud is placed over the top of Minjie’s hut in Act 3, with the first part of the act set downstairs; when Ramirez comes to be hung, the mob moves to the back, the shroud removed and the hut split up into house walls which provide a background to the hanging.
The three principals were wonderfully well-suited to their roles. In particular Amanda Echalaz, as Minnie, was very very effective. I’ve not come across her name before, though she has appeared all over the place for more than 20 years in the US and major European opera houses. She has a marvellously expressive face and her slightly sharp features, with appropriate costume and hair do, made her the perfect Minnie, and she was at all times attentive in gesture and movement to what she was singing and what was being sung around her. She managed very well the transition from prim bar owner to passionate woman desiring her man. In fact, I quite fell in love with her!! Her voice is big, with a good ability to be fined down for expressive moments. At the top and at full volume her voice had sometimes a rather raw sound, which felt appropriate to Puccini’s music. Robert Hayward as Jack Rance was also very fine – utterly ‘in’ the part and convincing, and with very good diction. His voice, matured through years of singing Wotan, sounded appropriately whisky-soaked and he was very good at conveying the sudden transitions of the character – eg when he takes on the bet in Act 2. Josè de Eça acting-wise was not in the same class as these two – he essentially looked a bit shifty throughout the evening, but he had the authentic Italianate sound, a big voice, and the ability to ping the top notes effectively. The other roles and the chorus were all very well realised and remarkably well-sung (I was amazed at how big the chorus was).
The City of London Sinfonia, scarcely 40 people, if that, sounded as though they were twice that number and made a real contribution to the evening – a particular shout to the power of the timpanist and the percussion, and the strings’ ability to project Puccini’s melodies with such richness and depth. And what a wonderful score it is – echoes of Wagner, R.Strauss and Debussy, maybe even Mahler, but all transfomed into Puccini’s very distinctive idiom. Matthew Kofi Waldren made everything sound as it should – moving, exciting, heart-breaking. At the end of it all I felt wholeheartedly that Puccini’s judgement was right – this is his finest work. How I would have loved to be taken in a time machine back to that opening night at the Met in 1910, with Toscanini conducting and Caruso and Destinn in the main roles…………..
Mahler, 6th Symphony, Kahchun Wong conductor, Halle Orchestra
I have been to many fine performances of this work over the years – conducted by Rattle, Haitink, Chailly, Bychkov, Boulez and others, the most recent Rattle and the BRSO at the Proms in September 2024, and I grew up with the Bernstein/NYPO CBS recording. I always remember reading in The Gramophone about 55 years ago that this was one of the three great A minor symphonies written in the decade before the First World War, each sharing the anxiety and doom-laded feeling of that period – the others being Elgar 1 and Sibelius 4. After these forces’ very fine Mahler 2 in January last year and at the Proms that summer, I was very much looking forward to this concert
My experience of this concert was rather overshadowed by a horrendous journey by rail from my home village to Manchester. In near 30 C heat I waited for nearly 2 hours for a train, delayed by a combination of lightning-damaged signalling and trespassers on the line. The train coming towards us stopped for half an hour to have its brakes checked. ….I was told at one point that there would be no train till 6.30pm , which would have been too late for the concert. In the end a train came about 5.40pm, just enough time for me to rush across town ,dump a heavy back pack at a hotel, and on, somewhat sweaty and frazzled, to the Bridgewater Hall.
I thought this was a very good performance, well played and structured, but maybe not the very best I have heard (that qualification as I say perhaps due to my journey.
The excellent bits were:
it was very pleasing tbat Mr Wong put the scherzo before the slow movement, which always makes more emotional sense to me;
some excellent playing by the Halle. There were beautiful solos by horn and oboe, superb high trumpets and most importantly the depth, the intensity of the strings. The percussion section working over time, were very good too. The great crash of (at least) 4 sets of cymbals was as overwhelming as it should be;
an interesting touch wad to have no less than 4 harps – I am sure i haven’t seen this many before. The harp group made a louder than usual effect – very positively so – on such moments as the rippling sounds and the off beat boinks in the fourth movement;
a shout out too to the hammer wielder – this is always a theatrical moment but the very large gentleman wielding mallet with an extra-long handle set a new high in showmanship.
Kahchun Wong set a quite slow and steady pace for the first movement – and offered the repeat of the exposition too. This I thought worked well . Mr Wong phrases the music in great arcs, often with quite expansive rallentandi and this in the first movement made sense. The thumping of the double basses playing the basic march music underneath much else was also brought out well. The basic pulse of the slow movement was surprisingly swift, which didn’t quite feel aligned well enough with the first two movements, but Mr Wong broadened the pace out wonderfully for the movement’s glorious climax. The way the final movement was structured by Mr Wong was also very finely done. The building up of layer on layer of tension, the three great climaxes, the relaxation of tension without losing onward momentum – all these were finally achieved. The final explosion was powerful enough to make some near me visibly jump in their seats.
Perhaps the two disappointments (one of which is scarcely fair) is that 1. the scherzo didn’t seem angry or bitter enough – perhaps too slow and pulled about a bit too much; 2. The Halle is not the Berlin Phil or the BRSO, and it would be unfair to expect it to be. It is a very fine orchestra, but occasionally you hear micro-wobbles, tiny hesitancies, which do not feature in the fierce virtuosity of their European cousins. Just occasionally these skewed my focus.
But this was in general a very fine ending to the Halle’s ‘season’ , enhanced by its MD saying there had been a 30% increase in attendance over the past few years (which I am sure is partly to do with Mr Wong – it’s therefore disappointing he’s only conducting 4 Halle concerts next year) , and also by meeting an old friend (and his old friend) unexpectedly afterwards and going for a drink with him.
Wagner Siegfried Idyll; Wagner Excerpts from Götterdämmerung. London Symphony Orchestra,Sir Simon Rattle conductor. Anja Kampe Brünnhilde. Elizabeth DeShong Waltraute
This concert was organised in probably the best way to arrange these ‘bleeding chunks’. Dawn and Siegfried’s Rhine Jourmey, plus Waltraute’s narration in the first half; Sigfried’s Idyll, leading to the Funeral March and the concluding Immolation Scene in the second. I have not, I think, heard either of the singers live before – Elizabeth DeShong’s name is new to me though she has a strong operatic CV and Anja Kampe is one of the go-to European Brunnhildes
My journey down to London was a bit arduous, going needlessly back to and onward from Stockport in completely crowded trains but I got the train I was booked on at Doncaster, only to be greeted, coming out of Kings Cross, not only by a blast wave of heat (we are now in the first heatwave of the year) but also crowds of very drunk, very noisy but good humoured Arsenal supporters, their club having just finished top of the Premier League. Anyway, I got to the Barbican without further ado, and in the course of the evening found myself sitting a row behind Michael Portillo, who I vaguely knew as a friend of friends at Cambridge (who was little changed except for his hair, which has become brown) and met quite by happy accident a work colleague I hadn’t seen for 9 years.
It is glorious listening to the LSO playing full-on Wagner – the sweetness and depth of the string playing, the power of the brass, the brilliance of timpani and percussion, the vigour and energy they give to the music they play – and the noise they made in the orchestral postlude to Gotterdammerung was quite something to experience……The maybe 15 players involved in the Siegfried Idyll operated at the other extreme, with chamber-music delicacy of expression and a real sense of players listening to each other and enjoying playing together (lots of smiles and nods).
Rattle’s conducting I found a little annoying at times – tempi were quite fast, but there were some fidgety gear shifts – eg in the funeral march. He did broaden out though mercifully for the very ending of the Immolation Scene – the final appearance of the ‘redemption’ or ‘Brunnhilde’s exaltation’ theme –and also slowed down at points where the Brunnhilde clearly wanted to maximise expression eg ‘alles, alles, alles Weiss ich’.
Anja Kampe I was very, very impressed by. I have never heard her live in this repertoire – or any other come to that – and of course I don’t know how she’d sound in an opera house, conserving her voice during a full performance. But, in this concert, she showed she had:
a strong, big, voice, with a resonant chest register. She has the power for the top notes, too, but they sound warm rather than steely
she has excellent diction and there were so many occasions when she was giving expressive poignance to phrases – words and music beautifully aligned
she had a knack of drawing you in to what she was singing, making it almost personal (difficult to describe, but that’s the effect it had on me). She was particularly affecting in singing of her love for Siegfried in her response to Waltraute’s narration.
I would love to hear her sing Brunnhilde in the opera house. She is in her late 50’s now, but there were no signs of her voice waning or under strain.
Elizabeth DeShong was perfectly acceptable as Waltraute but not really in the same league of awareness of text and character.
As I listened to Wagner’s 5 minute or so orchestral postlude to Gotterdammerung I reflected how ambiguous it is as an ending in Wagner’s text, and how directors can give thereby both a positive ora negative perspective to the ending (the previous ROHCG Warner Ring had a gleaming Ring with a beautiful androgynous figure on top of it, which gave a sense of new creation/new beginning; the Schwartz Bayreuth Ring had an empty swimming pool at the end). The detailed stage directions for the ending given in Deathridge’s Ring translation, which includes Heinrich Porges’ notes from Wagner’s rehearsals, mentions the Rhinemaidens happily swimming in the now calm Rhine with the Ring, the gods sitting in Valhalla with the flames surrounding them, and ‘men and women, extremely moved, watch the growing glow of fire in the sky’. If I were a director of this work, I would portray the people watching as bearing the hopes of a better way of living life on earth. What was clear about the rendition of the last 5 minutes or so in this performance is that – left to itself in the concert hall – the music has a sweeping power and beauty that can only be positive. I cannot see how you can listen to that final repeat of the ‘redemption’ theme and feel that Wagner intends anything other than a positive outcome to the whole story.
The other thought I had, listening to people around me and beforehand/during the interval, is that there were a number of audience members not really very knowledgeable about Wagner’s music present. It is a sad comment on the difference between now and 50 years ago in the UK that the only chance now most people will have to see this work in the theatre will be at ROHCG – which does its best, but which simply cannot offer the range and number of cheap tickets to people, particularly young people, exploring this work for the first time in the way ENO could back then. Moreover ENO was touring the regions with its Ring, performing in Manchester, Bristol and other places. This is part of a broader problem about the economics of putting on Wagner. A noted Wagner bass singer was telling the Manchester Wagner Society 2 months ago that in 2026 there was just one – one! – run of performances of The Mastersingers anywhere in the world. recorded on Operabase…………….
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, John Storgårds conductor, Simone Lamsma violin. Rautavaara, Cantus Arcticus; Sibelius, Violin Concerto; Nielsen, Symphony No. 5
This was an absorbing concert and one I enjoyed very much. It also had quite a full and very appreciative audience. The BBC Philharmonic sounded glorious – really at the top of their game, and this must have a lot to do with the leadership of John Storgards, who as chief conductor really does spend a lot of time with the orchestra giving concerts in Manchester and elsewhere in the UK. I made a note to myself that I really must check out their 26/27 season carefully when it is published. Because they don’t have quite as tight a commercial imperative as the Halle in constructing their programmes, they can often be more interesting. The Halle 26/27, though with some interesting programming of James MacmIllan works and Thomas Ades as conductor (Ades’ Elgar 1 sounds fascinating) on the whole is disappointingly unoriginal and features relatively few concerts conducted by their chief conductor Kahchun Wong.
The Cantus Arcticus I have a recording of but have never heard live before. It is a more substantial work than i remembered, and I particularly enjoyed the third movement, the calling of the wild swans, with the massed woodwind mirroring the cacophonous swans, and the movement resolving (I think) into the beautiful melody introduced in the Marshes first movement. Someone behind me was asking his companion whether concerts always used exactly the same recording of bird cries, given that the work was first performed in 1971. I don’t know the answer to that – nor did the companion! I have never really understood the Sibelius’ violin concerto. I have never got my head round the structure of the first movement, and the meanderings of the second. It came as no surprise in the programme booklet to read that Sibelius was almost permanently sozzled during the concerto’s composition, and wrote the 2nd movement during an almighty 3 day hangover. That would explain some of my feelings about the work. Anyway, Simone Lamsma gave it a virtuoso and dazzling performance which signalled her as a major upcoming star. Her encore was a beautifully played Bach Largo, which I found much more moving than the whole of the Sibelius concerto.
I wrote right at the beginning of this blog, back in 2019, reviewing a Halle performance, that I have always struggled a bit with the structure of Nielsen’s 5th Symphony – the first part sounds so magnificent that the second can seem less impressive, with not so memorable thematic material, and can sound as though it ends too abruptly. This was certainly a performance that made the best possible case for the work – I was gripped throughout, and somehow (maybe it was a specific emphasis the conductor gave to the sectional differences of voice, perhaps ensuring the cohesion between the different movements) the second half seemed to constantly increase in tension, broadening out in the closing moments to provide a very convincing ending – taut, but with a sense of finality and resolution. Throughout the work, Storgards helped the orchestra to balance itself effectively – you could always hear the woodwind chewing away at the thematic material below the heavy brass. I was intrigued by how much some of this symphony sounded like Shostakovich…..I’ve never heard of a connection between the two………..
John's musical journey 