Anna Dennis Bellezza (Beauty); Hilary Cronin Piacere (Pleasure); Hilary Summers Disinganno (Disillusion); Jorge Navarro Colorado Tempo (Time). Christian Curnyn Conductor; Jacopo Spirei Director; Anna Bonomelli Designer

This is a work I’ve never heard of before, let alone heard. Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (The Triumph of Time and Disillusion), is Handel’s first oratorio, a dramatic allegory, dating from 1707. As an oratorio, this would be a long evening – over 2 hours and 40 minutes of a static concert experience would be a bit dire. As a staged drama it seems much more absorbing – certainly my attention rarely flagged. Because of its oratorio form, as a drama it doesn’t have many long-drawn-out recitatives, and this in effect means value for money – you get far more ‘numbers’ for your 2 hours and 40 minutes than you would in an equivalent Handel opera.

The oratorio is a conversation between Beauty, Pleasure, Time, and Disillusion (various commentators advise there is no exact English equivalent of ‘disinganno’), where Beauty is over time persuaded to let go of her past and take a ‘heavenly path’ instead, repenting of her previous life and relinquishing Pleasure.  There are as you can see only 4 characters and by comparison with most of Handel’s operas the plot is blessedly uncomplicated.

The director’s clever idea is to frame the uncomplicated story within the setting of an almost contemporary family Christmas lunch – maybe early 1980s (with Morecambe and Wise Show in prospect), a time for tension and subterranean anxieties and annoyances to burst forth. The setting reflects this – there’s a family dining table, sofa and lampstands, and then, off to the right, a TV room where Dad sits while Mum makes the lunch – Dad of course does the carving. Beauty and Pleasure are unruly 20-something grown-up daughters with very different personalities, Time and Disillusion are Dad and Mum.  There is the Christmas tree, presents, turkey and Christmas pudding, with a gin and tonic for Mum. Pleasure produces some tablets at one point which causes everyone to freak out – Pleasure and Beauty dance to an aria while Mum does her own thing in the corner. As Time begins to win out in the argument with Beauty and Pleasure begins to withdraw to the sidelines, and things get more serious for Beauty, the scenery gradually changes from 1980’s family Christmas lunch to a funeral parlour, with Time and Disillusion dressed up as undertakers. A coffin is brought on and Beauty throws her jewellery, Christmas presents and wig into it – she puts on a hoody over her glittery ball dress but not before revealing her short grey hair. As the opera ends it seems as though having repented and removed her worldly goods, the shorn grey Beauty is regretting her actions, and sits alone in her armchair, while through the window the spectral Time, Disillusion and Pleasure peer through the glass. It’s a haunting and effective ending. All in all – though I’m glad the Christmas party idea gives way two thirds through the piece– it is a very effective and clever staging. The work would have to be cut radically to really be enjoyable in the concert hall.

The music, as ever with Handel, is always worth listening to – there are no really dull arias and several treasurable ones: the aria also used in Rinaldo, Lascia la spina, sung by Pleasure, and a most lovely final aria sung by Beauty are particularly memorable.  There is not very much in the way of exciting fast coloratura arias and quite a lot of slow ones, as perhaps befits the serious subject matter, but at least there are no hooting counter-tenors.

The singers were a uniformly strong group. Anna Dennis, not a name I’ve come across before, was outstanding as Beauty with a bright clear and unforced voice well able to deal with any coloratura moments that there were, and played the role as something of a dumb blond. Pleasure was dressed in Goth style and Hilary Cronin appropriately had a sweet agile voice for the role. Hilary Summers, wearing a large 70’s-80’s bow dress was a stunning deep contralto, while Jorge Navarro Colorado as Time was a steady and reliable light tenor. The period band were excellent

J S Bach Partita No. 6 in E minor, BWV 830; Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2 (“Moonlight”); D Scarlatti Three keyboard sonatas: sonata in D major Kk430, sonata in E major Kk380, sonata in C major Kk159; Brahms Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24

This is the first time I’ve seen Angela Hewitt play live. She spoke to the audience before the start of the concert – which is always a plus in my view – and briefly and lucidly gave her views on the essence of each piece. Her playing is muscular, tight and clear. The piano in the church seemed to be making a lot more noise and offering more depth than it did with Paul Lewis and this suited the works she was playing. Clearly  the programme was examining different forms of Baroque music and the Romantic period, I guess, though there were no obvious conclusions to be immediately drawn……

While the Scarlatti piece offered music that was concerned with ceremony and delicacy, polite pieces of music in an 18th century sense, if one can talk about such things (I really like Scarlatti -his sonatas are always tuneful and cheerful) the Brahms and Beethoven were to varying degrees unruly while the Bach piece (which I also love) is something else.

The Bach piece was introspective, particularly the fifth movement, which seems to be almost as though it is a sort of personal communion between Bach and his God, Hewitt said  – though there are some dance movements, the overall sombre tone reflects the overarching key of the pieces in E Minor.  Hewitt played the piece as far as I could tell very well indeed. It is extraordinary to reflect that there is less than 80 years between the creation of the Bach Partita and of the Moonlight sonata – they seem to come from utterly different sound worlds. Though the first movement of the Moonlight sonata is I guess introspective as well, it is so in a way that somehow it’s about Beethoven, his state of mind, his feelings, without any of that austere reaching-out for something beyond the self that I find so satisfying in Bach. The third movement  of the Beethoven puts him at the heart of emerging Romantic sensibilities in music  – Hewitt played, in particular, this superbly.

The Brahms piece I had not heard before and I am afraid I had problems with it – to me, the best variations are the ones with memorable tunes as opening themes; think Goldberg, or Britten/Purcell, Elgar/Enigma and Brahms himself/St Anthony’s Chorale. Rachmaninov/Paganini works in the same mode, and, by the same token, I’ve never really been able to get excited by Beethoven/Diabelli. The variations with great opening themes are able to take you on a journey which leads back to the return of the original theme eventually with a sense of completion or triumph. If the theme is nondescript – as the Handel one Brahms uses is –  you don’t really care about how or whether it comes back. The Brahms piece may have all sorts of merits – the skill in formulating the variations, the expertise in moving so far away from the sound world of the original theme, the excitement in the way it exploits the capability of the piano – and Angela Hewitt as far as I could tell played it extremely well, but much of it sounded like note-spinning for the sake of it. Sorry to be so dismissive – the fault is mine, I am sure……

Schubert: Piano Sonatas D958, 959, 960

This is the first time I have sat through a live programme of Schubert’s last 3 sonatas. It is quite an exhausting though also a fascinating and rewarding experience…..I felt drained by the end. Paul Lewis seemed as fresh at the end of the concert as at the beginning. He is rather a sphinx-like figure on stage – perhaps matter of fact in the way he shows no particular facial response to the audience as he comes on stage or in response to applause, but seemingly completely absorbed in the world of the composer he is interpreting. The most memorable D960 I’ve heard hitherto live was by Alfred Brendel during his farewell UK tour in something like 2012. The other two I’m not sure I’ve ever heard live before.

Another of Paul Lewis’ many gifts, following on from the previous day, is to make the piano ‘sing’ – a way of making the notes on this percussive instrument slide into one another as a human voice would.  And a further sign of his artistry is the ability to offer a wide range of dynamics – he can keep back the true fff sounds to the most climactic parts of each work. Sometimes the piano falls back to a whisper – but not affectedly. These features were abundantly present in these performances.

The first half of the concert in particular was a marathon – 1 hour, 10 minutes. I found the performances of the first two sonatas slightly more engaging, within a frame of very high standards indeed, than D960. I think this is to do more with the quality of my listening than the playing, but perhaps it was the case that at times D960 felt marginally too fast, particularly the third movement, which also sounded fractionally too heavy, , and the second theme of the finale, which I have always heard as consolatory but which here felt slightly edgy.

Highlights for me were:

• the finale of D958 – a mad tarantella-like piece, perhaps more like a Dance of Death than anything else, and with, like the finale of Schubert’s 9th symphony, around the corner a Don Giovanni/Commendatore knocking on the door. Lewis’ playing here was extraordinarily deft and delicate
• the remarkable central section of the slow movement of D959, harmonies and melody suddenly caught up in a whirlwind, notes flung around without connection in a vortex
• the lovely finale of D959 – I love the bit near the end where the main theme gets broken up (almost as if the composer is too weary and frail to carry on) butt then manages to regroup and carries on to the end; it’s a supremely moving moment
• the sombre slow movement of D960, taken at just the right speed by Lewis (I have heard it too slow and portentous -the recording I have of Mitsuko Uchida’s performance is a bit like that)

This will definitely be one of the concerts on my long list for the top ten performances of the year

Schubert: Piano Sonata No. 4 in A minor, D537; Piano Sonata No. 9 in B, D575[ Piano Sonata No. 18 in G, D894

5 July was of course the day after the General Election polling day and as I had been at the local count all night and didn’t get to bed till 6am I was not best prepared for this concert. The first two sonatas aren’t ones I know and I confess I dropped off at one or two points during them. I once again experienced the acoustics of the church as being harsh and clangourous, and not very flattering to Lewis’ playing. My ears pricked up in the middle movement of D537, which has exactly the same melody as the finale of D959, played at a slower pace. ! I enjoyed the clarity, the attack and precision of Lewis’ playing, as well as the impression he gives of thinking through each note afresh, through subtle changes of shading. More than that I can’t really remember 18 hours later, though I was aware of a general Beethovenian tinge to these sonatas (e.g. the 4th movement of D575).

Fortified by time in the churchyard during the interval and a strong coffee, D894 was a very different experience. Like the last three sonatas it feels death-haunted and melancholy – when the sun shines, as in the last movement, you sense the gathering clouds. Paul Lewis played this superbly – I was particularly struck by the measured pace in the first movement and the different weighting given to the repetitions of the opening theme. He also generously played the first movement repeat. The second movement was riveting, with its contrasts of wistful and passionate responses to oncoming death and to the extinction of such potential unfulfilled. The last two movements’ highlights were the peaceful trio of the third movement and a final movement where nothing was nonchalant but full of aching regret. I thought this was as gripping a rendition as the Brendel performance I heard some 17 years ago at the Bridgewater Hall – and of course Lewis is a pupil of Brendel’s.

Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Pekka Kuusisto director, violin

This was described on the South Bank website as ‘showcasing the
works of Shostakovich, DSCH is a musical experience fusing theatre, lighting
and visual elements to challenge the traditional concert form’.  Hmmm, I thought, but having heard and enjoyed broadcasts of some of Kuusisto ‘s Proms performances over the last few years I thought I’d go along to this…..

The performance was built around some if not all of the following works

Excerpt from Moderato from Sonata for viola & piano, Op.147

Romance from The Gadfly

Polka (Allegretto) from 3 Fantastic Dances, Op.5

Largo from String Quartet No.8 in C minor, Op.110

Waltz from 5 Pieces for 2 violins & piano

Allegretto from String Quartet No.7 inF sharp minor, Op.108

Allegretto from Cello Concerto No.2, Op.1 26

Excerpt from Allegretto from Sonata for viola & piano, Op.147

Intermezzo (Lento) from Piano Quintet in G minor, Op.57

Polka from 2 Pieces for string quartet

Waltz 2 from Suite No.2 for jazz orchestra

Excerpt from Allegretto from Cello Concerto No.1, Op.107

Andante from Piano Concerto No.2, Op.102

Excerpt from Adagio – Allegro non troppo from Symphony No.8 in C minor, Op.65

Excerpts from Andante & Allegretto from Piano Trio No.2 in E minor, Op.67″

Scherzo from 2 Pieces for string octet, Op.11

Romance from Dance of the dolls for piano

Chamber Symphony in C minor, Op.1 10a arr. Barshai from String Quartet No.8

Excerpt from Sonata for viola & piano, Op 147

The format was intriguing – one and a half hours (without interval)
of Shostakovich as a quasi- theatrical experience. The QEH concert platform
became a stage with various screens and drapes on which images were projected
consonant with the music being played. These were not as you might have
expected images of Stalinist Terror – marching troops, prisoners, the Lubyanka
– but natural phenomena: (water, trees waving in the wind, a bleak looking
moon) and abstract shapes – criss-cross grids, a web. There was one image that
could have been a bombed-out cityscape, but it had been made so fuzzy it looked
like a series of boxes. So certainly not Shostakovich and his times….the
orchestra was costumed and lit, moving eerily in and out of  the darkness in dress that looked partly Slavonic, partly clown-like. There was also an effective use of lighting to
create mysterious shadows. At points large images of the players marched
towards us on the screen. The overall impact was to emphasise the personal
trauma, the deep grief, in this music rather than anything that suggested the
political context. The orchestra was a fine band as well as being an intrinsic part
of the stage experience (occasionally with exaggerated coordinated movements).
Most of the music was in some way or other rearranged (string quartet extracts
often had 8-10 players). The most substantial piece, the Barshai arrangement of
parts of the 8th string quartet, was thrillingly played, particularly the
klezmer tune; as was the first 5 minutes of the 8th Symphony. Occasionally an
accordion player was introduced into the mix – eg I think covering the piano
part (or aspects of it) in the slow movement of the second piano concerto.The hall was packed, with, in term of age anyway, a diverse audience, including many primary age children. There were whoops and cheers at the end, a very positive audience response.I did wonder a bit what the point of the concert was. Clearly if you’re familiar with Shostakovich’ s music, you’ll be going straight to listen to a string quartet rather than the edited dramatised version presented here. If you’re not at all familiar with the music, would this lead you to want to explore Shostakovich’s music in more depth? Possibly – or you might just feel you had watched a great show, appreciated it and you’ll then move on to the next one.  So I am not sure this is the future of classic music. However the show is undoubtedly keeping a group of first-rate performers in paid employment, to much public satisfaction, and that must be a good thing!

Conductor Alexander Soddy; Fiordiligi, Golda Schultzr; Dorabella, Samantha Hankey; Ferrando, Daniel Behle; Guglielmo, Andrè Schuen; Don Alfonso, Gerald Finley; Despina, Jennifer France.  Director, Jan Philipp Gloger; Revival Director, Oliver Platt; Set Designer, Ben Baur; Costume Designer, Karin Jud, Lighting Designer, Bernd Purkrabek

I was not planning to go to this but then decided to campaign in Brighton for the Green Party for the upcoming elections on Saturday 29th. As I was seeing family the next day and staying overnight in London, I bought a £20 standing ticket for this performance. And having looked at the cast, I thought it rather a distinguished one, with three well known female singers, Gerald Finley no less as Don Alfonso, and conducted by Alexander Soddy, a young (in conducting terms – early 40’s)  Brit who’s spent his career to date in the old-fashioned way, building up experience with the smaller regional opera houses and orchestras in Germany, and of whom I have read good things (I see he is also conducting Fidelio at ROHCG in the Autumn).

I arrived at the theatre really exhausted after 6 hours of door knocking in Brighton and was feeling a bit concerned about standing for 3 hours, particularly when I’d not eaten that much – I was therefore extremely grateful to the lady who offered me a seat in the stalls circle (one member of her family group had cancelled)!

I saw this production in July 2022 and reviewed it then in this blog. Looking back I see I was more incensed by the eccentricities and waywardness of the production in 2022 than I was this time round. Perhaps it was where I was sitting yesterday – in the Stalls Circle very near the stage, rather than the Amphitheatre, so very much nearer the singers, and I was able to be gripped by the emotions, the facial expressions and movement of the two couples much more closely. Despite all the (for the most part needless) complexity, the basic story remains clear – two couples pushed into swapping partners by a cynical old man and, when the mists clear and the plot is revealed both partners feel uncomfortable with their original lovers, and the opera ends in some mystery and darkness. This time round, I was much more aware that in this production, the two women know from very near the first appearance of their men in disguise who these two are. I was also more aware they know that their male partners have swapped them as lovers. I should also say that, whatever the doubts about what they intend, the appearance of several of the sets are stunning- the tree with the serpent, the 18th century tapestry, the bar, the Brief Encounter rail station. In addition, though liberties I think have been taken, the translation of the text is clear, wry and made people laugh.

 Maybe I was more positive about the production because musically this was better than the 2022 performance. Things though didn’t get off to a very good start – Alexander Soddy set a ridiculously fast pace for the overture, as a result of which the timpani fell to pieces in the overture’s closing bars. After that though, things improved. Though without the gracious utterly captivating bounce that I remember when I heard Karl Bohm conduct the work at ROHCG 45 years ago, Soddy let the music expand once the singers appeared on stage, and tight rhythms supported the singers rather than sounding just hard driven. It was still fast, but crispness is sometimes better than sogginess…..

The female singers and Don Alfonso were the best elements among the singers. Golda Schultz has a lovely warm voice – she can, though, also hit the high notes and the vertiginous leaps of ‘Come scoglio’ with ease. Her predominantly slow quiet ‘Per Pieta’ in the second Act was beautifully done. She handled the coloratura well and also the deep notes given to the role didn’t cause any problems for her.  She’s not a stage natural but entered fully and energetically in what she was asked to do. Samantha Hankey doesn’t really have the big arias Fiordiligi has to show off in, but acted excellently and her voice was secure and flexible. Jennifer France was remarkably good as Despina – one of the best I’ve seen. She could ping out the top notes, had a great sense of comic timing, exuded manic energy racing around the stage and clearly relished the silly voices she puts on for Dr Mesmer and the Notary. Gerald Finley was another top-class performer. Some Don Alfonso’s quickly go over the top in this role and ham it up, but Finley remained downbeat but quietly malevolent under the guise of wisdom – a truly Satanic presence, but beautifully sung; his contribution to ‘Soave sia il vento’ was outstanding . The two male lovers were less memorable. Guglielmo had a very good voice and a strong stage presence but maybe didn’t make enough of the musical possibilities of the role. I was a bit put off Ferrando by his head notes which went a little too far into falsetto for my comfort.

All in all, the production didn’t affect the reception of the stunning music and the singing, and I really enjoyed the evening – as did the rest of the audience, who whooped and cheered at the end.

Britten: Curlew River – A Parable for Church Performance, Op.71. Ian Bostridge tenor, Willard White baritone, Duncan Rook bass-baritone; Marcus Farnsworth., baritone Chorus of Britten Pears Young Artists, Deborah Warner director; Audrey Hyland music director; Christof Heter, designer.

This was the first of two performances to mark the 60th birthday of the work, first seen in Orford Church in 1964. The wide space of Blythburgh church seemed equally suited to the work, and, in addition to its internal medieval features, particularly the carved angels, the fact that it is situated near a river and fens helps with the placing of the work in this church. The BBC was present at this performance to film it, hoping to show the work on TV in the Autumn.

The whole space of the church was used – singing actors entered by the south door and processed up the central aisle of the nave towards the chancel. There was a raised platform at the front of the chancel, facing towards the audience, but the aisle and indeed the western end of the nave near the font was also a performing area. In addition, a gradually ascending series of three rough planks started at the west end of the aisle, moving upwards to the chancel platform, and people acted and sang on this too.  There was a sail that could be raised, hitched to the rood screen,  a clever device.The music ensemble were over to the right as you looked at the stage, and from where I was sitting  you couldn’t see them

I realised I hadn’t been thinking straight about how this work would be performed at one of the Aldeburgh Festival churches – I had assumed a darkened space and spotlights, but of course that is impossible to achieve in the middle of a sunny summer evening in a light and airy church, and so the performance was mainly lit by natural light, possibly aided by some artificial spots streaming through the west windows through a large BBC gantry positioned outside. There was some additional lighting for the chancel platform at points, particularly as the sun began to set.

Again, I had no programme notes with me, and though I’m aware of the connections with Noh plays, it seemed to ne the connections were not that clearcut. The use of male performers only, I assume is part of that, and of course there is a Japanese tinge to some of the music. But there are no masks, and no stylised movements – though I suppose the positioning of the musicians, and the slow movement of the story might also be aspects relevant to Noh. It is more the English medieval mystery plays that to me formed the background to the work – ordinary people coming on stage at the beginning in ordinary modern clothes singing plainchant and gradually changing to a different ‘workers’ smock, and setting up the stage, surrounded by the audience.  The ferryman and traveller also looked vaguely medieval in their costume as did the Abbot and the monks/workers. The mad woman was more singularly dressed, coming on stage with a turned-inside-out umbrella and a yellow ball gown plus a man’s jacket, and clutching a thick quilt.

Deborah Warner has created a production that was entirely natural in movement, and there were no false steps. The coup de theatre of the clanging of the bell at the climax and the singing of the dead boy was beautifully realised and very moving. There was no imposition of a directorial vision at odds with the work. The only slightly controversial aspect of her direction was having one of the three boys involved in the singing walk down the central aisle after his voice has been heard because of the Mad Woman’s prayer, but that seemed to me perfectly legitimate .

I had been very much looking forward to going to see this, and I was not disappointed – this was a wonderful performance. There were, to my mind, several reasons for this:

• it’s more difficult to listen to this work just through an audio recording. Seeing as well as hearing it makes it come alive in an entirely new way. I heard music I had never really heard before – eg the swish of the oars, the bird song – because it is paralleled by actors’ movements and what’s happening on stage. I realised, listening to the Mad Woman, that the characteristic upward ending to her musical phrases is meant to echo the curlew’s song. Curiously diction on the whole was better in this live performance than on the Decca original recording.
• it was utterly riveting to be so close to great singers like Ian Bostridge and Willard White and see their consummate acting and see and hear their artistry – at times I was less than 5 feet away from them
• Ian Bostridge’s performance was quite remarkable. Obviously Pears has a unique status in this role, but it is difficult to imagine anyone else doing this better than Bostridge – he produced some beautiful singing that was very moving, and he acted with utter conviction, in a part which I can imagine others might exaggerate too much in. He did indeed throughout look haunted, with a distant look in his eyes.
• Hearing the work in this location was also important – you could feel, and almost see, the presence of the river and the fens beyond the stained glass windows
• Listening with concentration as you do in a live performance means you become immersed in the work’s sound world. It is utterly different to pieces written around the same time such as Midsummer Night’s Dream and the War Requiem, and yet you realise what a compelling and beautiful work it is. It makes me want to hear the other Church Parables, which I don’t know at all.

Unsuk Chin: Cello Concerto; Bruckner: Symphony No.7 in E . BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra: Alban Gerhardt cello, Ryan Wigglesworth conductor

I have never been to the Aldeburgh Festival before – ever – and the last time I went to Snape Maltings was late October 1990 for a chamber music concert. I don’t wear this as a badge of honour  – rather, Snape is just highly inconvenient to get to by public transport from where I live in the Peak District, and relatively expensive, in terms of pubs and B&B’s. I do have fond memories of the Maltings in the 1970’s – Reggie Goodall conducting Act 1 of Walkure with the ENO in 1974, and Peter Pears singing the Evangelist in the St Matthew Passion in 1975. Probably I might have gone on not going to the festival, but this year I saw a must-see item – Curlew River, performed as it was at its premiere in an Aldeburgh Festival Church. In order to make sense of an 8-hour trek across England, I also decided to go to this concert.

Bruckner 7 I have heard many fine performances over the years of – conducted by Jochum, Solti, Goodall, Kempe, Haitink and more recently Rattle come to mind. I did also almost hear Klemperer conduct it – but he fell ill (and subsequently died- a great might-have-been). In the normal run of things, I would probably have given this concert a miss, but decided to make it a package with Curlew River.

 The Unsuk Chin piece I approached without a programme note, so I was a bit unclear on its structure, though I think it was in four movements. I thought at first it might be a relatively dignified conversation between cello and orchestra, with a mournful, thoughtful contribution from the cello in the first movement. But the orchestral comments become increasingly violent – short stabbing surges by the 4th movement and in response to this the cello bristled with angry splashy runs. So more of a battle than a dialogue. There were some amazing orchestral sounds – wonderful combinations of bells and woodwind, and whizzing firework sounds! Such was the bristling nature of Gerhardt’s playing in the final movement that he broke a string, and had to grab an orchestral player’s cello to finish the work. All in all I found this heavy-going on a first listen, but would welcome an opportunity to hear it again.

Listening to Bruckner 7 in the Maltings is a curious experience. It is a building constructed for smaller forces and though a warm acoustic it is not particularly resonant, and it’s therefore not an ideal place for a spacious approach to Bruckner – the silences seem a little dead, and the climaxes can sound coarse. Whether because of the conductor’s approach or the acoustics (but certainly the splitting of the violins helped), one of the most enjoyable aspects of this performance was listening to the inner voices of the score, and the sometimes-extraordinary harmonies the woodwind and strings produce. This was a performance that by timing was brisk – certainly less than the advertised and standard 70 mins – but never seemed rushed. It was tightly controlled, but also with time for lyrical grace. Wigglesworth is clearly of the school that believes in speeding up rather than slowing down for Bruckner climaxes and so the big one in the slow movement was certainly exciting but not overwhelming – and, sadly, without a cymbal crash. On the other hand, the postlude to the slow movement, the scherzo and the finale were all extremely well done. Throughout there was some lithe sweet string playing and some excellent horns/Wagner tubas, and also occasions of extreme clarity – I’m not sure I’ve ever heard the final bars of the finale so clearly laid out. Maybe at the end of the day not one for the ages, but this was a very enjoyable performance.

The Aldeburgh audience was slightly curious – there were people who, I suppose, like me, go to lots of concerts like this, but there were also a number of people (maybe local to Ipswich and surrounding Suffolk towns) who clearly were hearing this work for the first time, and who sounded (in the snatches of conversation I heard afterwards) a bit non-plussed by the length of the work and the noise!!

Director, David Mcvicar; Set Designer, Robert Jones; Costume Designer, Jenny Tiramani; Lighting Designer, Adam Silverman.  Andrea Chénier, Jonas Kaufmann; Maddalena Di Coigny, Sondra Radvanovsky; Carlo Gérard, Amartuvshin Enkhbat; Bersi, Katia Ledoux; The Incredibile, Alexander Kravets; Roucher, Ashley Riches; Contessa Di Coigny, Rosalind Plowright; Pietro Fléville, William Dazeley; The Abbé, Aled Hall

Since my posting about seeing Salome in Paris, general pressures on other parts of my life, particularly the General Election, and also an unexpected family visit, have meant that several concerts I had planned to go to I couldn’t make – Mark Elder’s last concert in Manchester as Music Director of the Halle, a recital by Angela Hewitt on a fortepiano, and a performance of Shostakovich and Weinberg string quartets by the Quatuor Danel. Hopefully I’ll catch up with the Mahler 5 at the Proms.

Andrea Chenier is another opera which I have not heard a note of before and doubt if I will ever again. I gather from Wikipedia that it was premiered in 1896 and so contemporary with the earlier Puccini operas. Nicholas Kenyon in The Telegraph described it in his review of this set of performances as “ a feeble, creaky opera based on events around the French Revolution, with little to recommend it except opportunities for top singers to shine at top volume.”. So there…………….

I arrived at the cinema to find that in a screen room of 100 seats, I was the only person there. My sole interaction of the evening was with a double gin and tonic, and the girl who sold it to me. This did not set me in a good frame of mind for the evening…….it led me to reflect generally on the decline of audiences and funding for classical music and the collapse of that impulse so prominent in the post WW2 era to bring “high culture” to as many people as possible.  But then of course I wondered about the extent to which Andrea Chenier could be regarded as “high culture” anyway……I wonder what it’s equivalent would be today? I guess a kind of serious musical, but few would be as heart-on -sleeve as Italian verismo.

The work is about 2 hours 15 minutes long and in 4 acts. David MacVicar’s production unsurprisingly was utterly realistic in conception – specialist expertise had been hired to ensure that every detail seen on the stage – furniture, costumes, room design and props – was historically accurate. Not only the aristocratic house in Act 1 but also the various revolutionary interiors in the other acts were highly convincing.  I did wonder if there was any other way you could stage this work. Had the French Revolution been anything more than a frame to hang a very traditional opera story on – soprano and tenor get together, a baritone gets in the way, soprano and tenor die together – there could be some variant staging scenarios, but, as it is, being realistic is perhaps the only way that makes sense of it.

Dramatically it is hard not to agree with Nicholas Kenyon – there’s not much about the work that’s beyond a display vehicle for star singers. The French Revolutionary elements are, as I have intimated, merely a backdrop. It’s interesting that Illica wrote the libretto for Chenier and then Tosca a few years later. There are things in common – Gerard is Scarpia, tenor and soprano get killed at the end. But Tosca, however you view it, is more engaging than Chenier – that’s partly because the characters are more clearly drawn in Tosca and partly because Puccini’s music is just so much better. In fact though much of Giordano’s music sounds sub-Puccini, there are some passages that are quite different – some decidedly Tristan-esque passages in Act 4, for instance. It is strange though how unmemorable most of the music is – I had a higher opinion of Fedora in that respect – with very little striking melodic content at a first listen. Having said that, while Acts 1 and 2 had me squirming in my seat for anyone coming to an opera for the first time, Acts 3 and 4 have more coherence and they do grip you – the orchestral explosions as Chenier and Maddalena go to their deaths are thrilling. But even then a glance at this Youtube extract from a Munich performance, again with Kaufmann but with Harteros as Maddalena demonstrates a whole dimension of visceral impact which is simply missing from the ROHCG performance – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2Q4-_0ufaA

Almost everything seems to rest in this work on the relationship between Chenier and Maddalena and the chemistry in this performance just wasn’t right. Kaufmann is Kaufmann, looking much the same as he has for the last 15 years, and thoroughly credible in the role. But Sondra Radvanovsky, in the cruel close-up of film, is just NOT a teenage girl and looks faintly absurd – I am sure she would have come over better at a distance live in the theatre. But these two hardly looked at each other and both seemed unengaged.

In terms of singing and acting, the undoubted star of the performance was Amartuvshin Enkhbat as Gerard, who has a glorious voice and knows how to keep still and use his considerable presence sparingly. He was the best performer of the evening. It was wonderful too to hear Rosalind Plowright, in fantastic voice and acting with every ounce of her being, aged 75 – plus another veteran, Elena Zilio, as Madelon: equally impressive. Kaufmann was in good voice – only a bit of wavering on the ascent to top notes at time, but some lovely quiet singing with his glorious baritonal tenor. All his big arias came over well. Radvanovsky some critics were a bit sniffy about but I found her in good voice though she did less with it than Kaufmann does. The other person who was a stand-out was Ashley Riches as Roucher – I have only ever seen him in concert/oratorio-type roles, but he was very impressive here, with his deep rich bass and alert stage presence.

Of course, in many ways the hero of the evening was Pappano, and certainly the orchestra sounded glorious. What a pity I can’ t quite share his enthusiasm for this work

Mark Wigglesworth. Conductor; Lydia Steier, Director; Momme Hinrichs, Set design and video; Andy Besuch, Costume design; Olaf Freese, Lighting design. Lise Davidsen, Salome; Johan Reuter, Jochanaan; Gerhard Siegel, Herodes; Ekaterina Gubanova, Herodias; Pavol Breslik, Narraboth

I have never been to an opera in Paris before, and don’t have a clear idea of how the set-up of ‘The Paris Opera’ works. The Bastille building is new, massive and prominent in the life of the city – its steep steps outside seem to be a major hanging out space for Parisians, The auditorium is large, but the acoustics from where I was sitting were good (in the back of the stalls – however I did wonder how a Mozart opera would feel and sound here. Maybe they do them somewhere else). After an afternoon spent at the Pere Lachaise cemetery, saying hello to Oscar (appropriately given that his play is the basis for Salome), I did wonder how full the auditorium would be as I entered this large building. Absolutely packed is the answer!  Clearly Parisians saw this as a major event, and in addition around me I could hear English, Australian, US, Dutch and German voices – people from all over the place coming to hear Ms Davidsen in this new role – and the cast as you can see doesn’t only offer star quality in Lise Davidsen – Johann Reuter I saw singing Sachs in Berlin in November and Edita Guberova is singing Venus and Kundry this year in Bayreuth. Gerhard Siegel, too, is distinguished – a Bayreuth Mime but also with heldentenor roles in his repertoire. One newspaper article likened Lise Davidsen’s singing Salome in Paris to Taylor Swift singing in a Parisian stadium nearby in terns of both being mega-events!

I may have heard Salome at ROHCG with Grace Bumbry or Hildegard Behrens in the title role and Solti/Mehta and others conducting, in the 70’s. If so I have no memory of the performances. The Salome I remember from my youth is the ENO one, with Josephine Barstow and Mackerras, which I chiefly remember for Barstow’s acting. Many years then followed when I never saw a performance – until ?2018 when I saw a disastrous production at ENO (the one with the bloody headless pink pony – say no more) which I don’t want to recall, and now this…….. 

I thought this was a marvellous performance, dramatically as well as musically. The set was of a large stone-like wall with an upper room above it where some sort of orgiastic event is happening. Part of the wall moves away just before Salome’s dance and in its place there’s a series of steps down which Herod’s courtiers tumble to watch the fun. Costumes are basically fantastical with a mad Afro wig and short skirt for Herodias. Narraboth and other guards wear black special forces gear and have automatic weapons – and Narraboth and Herod both die by pistol. Dead bodies in body bags regularly appear hauled down the steps from the upper room steps and are carried off by 3 persons in Hazmat gear. Occasionally a skimpily clothed young woman is dragged up to the upper room. All in all an oppressive utterly amoral culture is being portrayed.  Salome in the earlier part of the opera is the fairly conventional difficult teenager. Her encounter with Jokanaan takes place with him in a cage that is lifted from the cistern. After their encounter Salome writhes on the ground in a fairly obviously sexual way. The point at which this production became very interesting was the Dance of the Seven Veils. I had been wondering how this would be done – Lise Davidsen is a fairly statuesque figure whom it would be difficult to envisage racing round the stage shedding veils. It may of course by now be a standard way of handling this sequence, but I found the approach in this production very convincing – essentially the Dance is turned into a slow motion sexual assault by Herod on Salome, slowly removing her clothing at first (pocketing her knickers) and as the music grows faster and louder the rest of the court join in, performing a choreographed orgasm – one critic suggests she ravishes Herod but I’m not sure that’s how it felt for me. It’s not clear what’s happening to Salome, but she emerges at the end with her dress blood-stained. The other interesting aspect of the production is the last 5 minutes or so: a second Salome is on the ground kissing the head and writhing; the ‘real’ Salome suddenly emerges from the ground in the cage with Jokanaan, in loving embrace. I am not quite sure what the director is intending to ‘say’ here, but it gives far more weight to what Salome is singing and is a far better ‘objective correlative’ to what is happening on stage than the normal way (albeit the ‘normal’ way is what’s outlined in the stage directions. To me the way this is handled (a) makes Salome more of a victim of a terrible culture and less a product of it; (b) gives Salome a stature she doesn’t have when she’s simply rolling around the stage with a bloody head. I’d not come across the director before – she’s an American who’s worked mainly in Germany, initially with the Komische Oper.

Lise Davidsen was quite remarkable as Salome. She has a natural stage presence, which she used very effectively as the grand but demanding princess. Her singing was extraordinary – sailing over the orchestra in the climatic moments, with also many beautifully and softly sung phrases. I really don’t think I’ve ever heard it better sung, not even by Nilsson. Johann Reuter sounded fuller and warmer than I remember from Berlin – a nuanced and utterly appropriate rendering. Edita Gubanova has a powerful voice and projected well into the auditorium, even in the loudest passages. Gerhard Siegel didn’t overdo it and absolutely came across as the slimy unpleasant individual Herod is, with a strong bright tone to his voice.

Mark Wigglesworth, now going to the Bournemouth Symphony as chief conductor, was an excellent conductor of this work – not a Solti reading, but grand, loud and frenetic where it needed to be and while maybe a bit on the slow side never lost focus. He had an excellent orchestra too

I would be very surprised if this did not feature as one of my top ten performances of the year….The audience went bonkers at the end……

Very generously, Paris Opera have put these trailer videos up on YouTube. They do give a very good flavour of the excellence of singing and acting

[EXTRAIT] SALOME by Richard Strauss (Lise Davidsen – “Dein lieb war eine Elfenbeinsanle”) (youtube.com)

[EXTRAIT] SALOME by Richard Strauss (Lise Davidsen, Johann Reuter – “Wer ist dies weib”) – YouTube

Note the guys in the HazMat suits in the second video, resting from picking up the dead bodies in Herod’s court

[EXTRAIT] SALOMÉ by Richard Strauss (youtube.com)

[EXTRAIT] SALOME by Richard Strauss (Lise Davidsen – “Es ist kein laut zu vernehmen”) – YouTube