Galina Averina, Magda; Claire Lees, Lisette; Sébastien Guèze, Ruggero; Elgan Llŷr Thomas,
Prunier; Philip Smith, Rambaldo; Pasquale Orchard, Yvette; Kathryn Sharpe, Bianca; Laura Kelly-Mcinroy, Suzy; Ross Mcinroy, Périchaud; Satriya Krisna, Gobin; Paul Gibson, Crébillon;
Andrew Randall, Rabonnier. Kerem Hasan, Conductor; James Hurley, Director; Leslie Travers, Set Designer; Gabrielle Dalton, Costume Designer

It’s a strange experience going to listen to and see what was for me a completely unknown work by a famous composer in his prime – and be gradually introduced in the course of the evening to some wonderful music that I’d not known about. How could it have taken this long? For this was a first for me – indeed I am not sure how aware I was of this work until I knew that Opera North were putting it on. It’s not as though it’s from Puccini’s early years – it’s from the latter half of his working life, yet it never seems to have had great critical acclaim. Extraordinary when it’s such a popular composer (whose orchestration is always fascinating, despite some of the soppiness of his operas’ plots)…….This one seems to be loosely based on scenarios from Die Fledermaus and La Traviata, and, I believe, was originally conceived as an operetta with spoken dialogue – this then changed to being a through-composed work. It was originally to be premiered in Vienna but then got moved to France (1917) when, during the First World War, Italy and Austria found themselves on opposing sides.

This was in the event a big, very pleasant surprise for me. Puccini thought his brief was to get one over on Strauss and Rosenkavalier, according to one account I’ve read. Rosenkavalier is a very great work and I wouldn’t put the two at all on the same level but I enjoyed La Rondine enormously. It’s not a big hitter in the way Tosca or Turandot are, but, in its quieter way, has lots to offer. It has some really very fine Puccini big tunes (many of them with a waltz-like rhythm). It has a story that is realistic, properly verismo – most people can relate to it (high class courtesan and her maid go out on the town, the heroine Magda meets a great guy, she renounces her ‘protector’ and goes off with the newcomer. They live happily together in straitened circumstances but when Magda hears her bloke has got his parents’ permission to marry she feels she cannot present herself to them and her lover without telling all – she feels she isn’t worthy of him and them and finally goes off into some sort of new life – at least in this version; Puccini never completed it to his satisfaction and there are various nastier endings). There’s luscious Puccini scoring – not as complex as Turandot, but very redolent of La Fanciulla del West, perhaps, with some extraordinary sounds – rumbling double basses accompanying Magda at one point, for instance. It’s also a work that is less objectifying of women than some of Puccini’s operas – Magda has her point of view and remains herself throughout – she’s not really a victim. The big ‘club’ scene is lively and without cliches. “Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso” in Act 2 is a real ear-worming number….It’s a work I feel I immediately want to hear again and I am going to get a recording a.s.a.p. I cannot understand why this work remains in the doldrums while fairly dire operas like Manon and Werther get constant showings………..not to mention the lesser Verdi…….

The Opera North production was really very fine, and I felt director and designer did the best job possible for this work. The production was part of Opera North’s Green Season – ie recycling sets from old productions to save money! – and the first two acts used various moveable rectangular blocks and sets of steps to create a drawing room and a club. The blocks were pushed to the side for Act 3 to create a bedroom. Costumes were vaguely 1920’s (not sure why, really, but it didn’t matter) . What was most impressive about the production was the director’s handling of the interplay between the different characters – this was utterly believable, be it between the principals or among chorus members; one was utterly sucked into their world and made to believe it to be credible and real.

For this to happen of course, you need to have first class singing actors as principals. With one partial exception they were present. Galina Averina, a new name to me, was, I thought, wholly believable and she sang beautifully. The arrogant poet Prunier was very well charatcterised by Elgan Llŷr Thomas, and Claire Rees was an appropriately slightly dotty Lisette, Mada’s maid. Philip Smith, a lowering presence on stage, was very good as Rambaldo. I found Sébastien Guèze, who is clearly a very experienced singer from the programme notes about him, a bit unfocused at times in his acting as Ruggero, and his voice was sometimes quite ugly – relatively little of the legato and bel canto we might expect from a tenor singing this sort of repetoire. As a nice bonus a contemporary of my son and younger daughter at secondary school was in the supporting cast, singing a minor role as a member of Opera North chorus. The orchestral accompaniment under Kerem Hassan sounded totally idiomatic and coordination with the stage was handled well – I noted some beautiful oboe playing at one point

So…..a very good evening…….Was it just my imagination or was it the case that when one of the characters refers to various famous women of the past – Salome, Berenice – there’s one of the motifs from R.Strauss’ Salome suddenly quoted…… ?

Being a numbers person, to the point of tedium, I calculated that this was the 154th opera I’d been to see live. I have a list of about 130 I’d still like to see before I depart – top of the bucket list are Pfitzner’s Palestrina, R.Strauss’ Die ägyptische Helena, Monteverdi’s Coronation of Poppaea, Rienzi and Tippett’s King Priam! (another one, Strauss’ Daphne is coming up, and I am also seeing my first Rimsky-Korsakov opera, both in December)

Director, Oliver Mears; Set Designer, Simon Lima Holdsworth; Costume Designer, Ilona Karas; Lighting Designer, Fabiana Piccioli; Movement Director, Anna Morrissey; Conductor,  Laurence Cummings. Cast – Jephtha, Allan Clayton; Iphis, Jennifer France; Storgè, Alice Coote; Hamor, Cameron Shahbazi; Zebul, Brindley Sherratt

Jephtha is Handel’s last oratorio (1751). Whilst writing Jephtha, Handel was increasingly troubled by his gradual loss of sight, and in the autograph score, at the end of the chorus “How dark, O Lord, are thy decrees” in Act 2 he wrote “Reached here on 13 February 1751, unable to go on owing to weakening of the sight of my left eye”, Wikipedia tells us. The work was first performed appropriately enough at the Covent Garden Theatre on 26 February 1752, with the composer conducting, and with a cast that included John Beard as Jephtha and a diva of the opera stage, Giulia Frasi (see pictures below).

I had intended to go to a later performance but for various reasons couldn’t then make the booked date – luckily ROHCG has a relaxed approach to ticket exchange (at least for Friends) and so I swapped my original ticket for a dress rehearsal one mid-way back in the Amphitheatre – less of a drag for Baroque opera than it would be for Wagner or R.Strauss.

First, the positives. There was outstanding singing from Allan Clayton, Alice Coote and Jennifer France – although the announcement was unclear, Brindley Sherratt, singing Zebus, I think, was unwell and walked the role, with somebody singing from the wings. The knock-out number in this work is ‘Waft her, angels, to the skies’  an aria for Jephtha, which Clayton sang most beautifully and with almost no need for a ‘head voice.’ At the same time, he has a powerful voice too, able to go at full throttle but flexible enough to do the needed runs and grace notes, so his arias of victory and intention were also very impressive. Alice Coote was able to offer the arias of rage with impressive attack – you really felt quite scared for Jephtha as she spat out the notes – but she could also sing sweetly and softly in some of her earlier arias. Jennifer France had a lighter flexible voice seemingly ideally suited to Iphis, tightly controlled but warm as well as clear. The ineffectual Hamor was decently enough sung by Cameron Shahbazi, but there was not the same individuality there as with the two women and Jephtha (though maybe that’s just my prejudice against countertenors). There was also an impressive boy soprano as the Angel – this presumably is a nod to 18th century practice, but boy sopranos make me nervous – you always feel for them and are worried something will go wrong. I would be happier with a grown-up soprano, or countertenor.

The chorus – perhaps smaller than is ideal, presumably for reasons of economy– have a lot to do and sounded wonderful throughout, but particularly in their two big numbers at the end of the first and third acts. The orchestra too sounded idiomatic and lively – a tribute to the ROHCG’s band’s flexibility – it can’t be easy for the core players doing this one night and Rigoletto the next (I’d find it positively schizoid)

So – to the production. This was a production that’s difficult to summarise. In many ways one of the issues hovering around is that the work was never conceived as an operatic drama for the stage, and many of the scenes are quite static, made more so by the da capo arias, though there is more use of dramatic recitative here. Essentially there is a pretty simple plot for this opera, rather more drawn-out than it might have been – man invited to rescue his people from oppressors having been previously rejected y them; man succeeds but vows rashly to sacrifice to God the first living things he sees if he succeed;  man does succeed and then his daughter is the first person he sees; his wife is understandably very angry with him; he is upset, his daughter is sweetly resigned and then an angel comes and sorts the situation out so that the daughter is allowed to live but has to be ‘dedicated to God’. It all makes for a long evening. Interestingly that last bit is not in the Bible – in ‘Judges 11’ she is allowed to wander for two months with her friends and then is executed – clearly too downbeat an ending for 18th century London, Handel and his collaborators thought

The basic set was a set of flexible tall blocks, black, grey, and white in colour, that moved around throughout the three acts and were generally serviceable and effective. When appropriately lit they could also be seen to have extracts of particularly ferocious Old Testament text on them – ‘Thus did he smite 20,000 Ammonites’, that kind of thing. A basic distinction was drawn at the beginning between the Israelites – dressed in dark clothes, vaguely Handmaidens’ Tale bonnets for the women – while their enslavers, the Ammonites, wore gaudy red and yellow colours and were seen dancing in the beginning of the first act. I thought immediately of 18^th century non-conformists and London ‘society’. The Israelites continue in this dress throughout the work, while the Ammonites (having been duly smitten) disappear. There’s a clever use of the back stage screen in the chorus “How dark, O Lord, are thy decrees” when what is clearly some sort of picture of an eye is gradually eaten away from the centre by a black hole that gradually fills the whole screen, a reference to Handel’s incipient blindness as well as to the dark situation of the plot at that point. There was also a good and effective use of backlit shadows at certain points. I suppose the director’s big idea was to provide a commentary on the kind of religious psychosis that gets prophets vowing to sacrifice living things and puts Jephtha in the situation he gets into. The direction is relatively straightforward and credible / non-jarring, if static, until the last 5 minutes when Iphis, after her supposedly farewell scene with her lover, suddenly decides to break free from her imposed vows to religious isolation, and helped by three of the severe Israelite women undresses to a shift and runs off with her lover. In the final chorus the angel tears up a paper -? the Bible, 10 Commandments? – and at the same time Jephtha is seen under harsh lighting surrounded by walls, bound forever in religious orthodoxy and, indeed fanaticism and in agony. As the curtain falls, paper flutters down onto the stage and indeed from the top of the auditorium, again presumably symbolic of a new freedom found. I guess the director sees these last 5 minutes as a coup de theatre!

The problem with this is that there has been very little in what we have seen on stage hitherto that presages this final spurt to freedom. Up until this point, everything has been played straight, apart from one scene where Hamor is clearly frightened after the battle, but then launches into a confident aria. Not only are these last 5 minutes discordant with what has gone before, but they also don’t really fit Handel’s very fine last chorus, which is entirely positive in spirit, praising God for his mercies. It could only be heard as ironic if there had been a much greater build-up of the discordant elements. I don’t have any problem with the overall concept the director was trying to put across and I think it is a legitimate theme – it just hasn’t been done very well, i m h o. It would have worked better if for instance if the Ammonites had been nicer and the Israelites more obviously horrible to them (but that would have raised all sorts of issues in the current political context). It would be interesting to know if the events of the last month have had any effect on the production…..Or, again, when the chorus were singing the quote from Alexander Pope, ‘Whatever is IS RIGHT’, the chorus could have pointed towards the audience, with searchlights on them, or be ritually slaughtering some poor old Ammonites.

There is one oddity in the director’s conception I can’t explain – in fact Jephtha sees several Israelite women before meeting Iphis after his victory. Did I get that right….? It seems odd………..

So a great evening musically, not so great production-wise…….

Kerem Hasan conductor; Francesca Chiejina soprano: Wagner the Flying Dutchman – overture; Strauss Orchestral Songs (selection); Mozart Symphony No. 35 in D major, K385 ‘Haffner’; Strauss Munich: A Memorial Waltz ; Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten – Symphonic Fantasy

I have seen Die Frau ohne Schatten twice – maybe in 1975/76 – at Covent Garden conducted by Solti, and have never been to a live performance again since that time, which is a great pity because it is a wonderful work. I have missed the various outings at ROHCG over the years and I kicked myself two times recently – once for missing the work in Munich last year and, possibly even more egregiously, in Vienna last month, the latter conducted by Thielemann and with an all-star cast. I. am continuing to look out for performances. So I seized on this concert as an option to hear at least some of the musical highlights live. ADDITION – In fact, having written this on the way home from the concert on Saturday I realised that the amazing website Opera Base could tell me if Die Frau ohne Schatten was on anywhere in Europe over the next year. And  – praise be! – it’s on in Dresden with Thielemann in late March, I discovered the following day. I’ve booked my ticket!!!

The programming for this concert was odd – I guess Strauss and Mozart are linked (at least Strauss thought so) and I suppose Strauss was an early developer among 19^th century composers, though not in the Mozart class. Wagner by contrast was self-taught and his progression towards greatness was relatively slow. The programming was also inefficient, requiring a huge orchestra for the second half Strauss, a small one for Mozart and a middling for Wagner, so lots of shuffling on and off stage

Kerem Hasan is a youngish conductor making a name for himself in Europe and the UK. I heard him conducting the Glyndebourne Touring Opera’s production of The Rake’s Progress very effectively a couple of years ago, and I see he is conducting Puccini’s ‘La Rondine’ I am going to on Friday.

This was in some ways quite an odd concert. Probably the most fully rounded performance of the evening was the Flying Dutchman overture. This took advantage of all the extra brass knocking around for the Frau one Schatten Symphonic Fantasy to have 6 horns and extra trumpets and trombones for the overture. They made a splendid sound and Hasan’s conception of the work was well shaped, with thrillingly climaxes. There were one or two small glitches in the orchestra but that just comes with live music

I realise I have seen Francesca Chiejina before, singing Freia in the Birmingham Opera Rhinegold (where she was very good). I’m really not very knowledgeable about Strauss songs and  the 4 she sang weren’t known to me. I particularly enjoyed the last two – Ruhe Meine Seele and Befreit. The orchestral accompaniment sounded well-handled and not overpowering Ms Chiejina   and there was some beautiful playing by horns and woodwind. Ms Chiejina’s  voice isn’t huge and her handling of the words in each song was a bit generalised – as was her diction – but she floated some beautiful notes and I thought hers was a sound performance.

Things were a bit less clear after the interval…….I wasn’t too keen on the Mozart. Although the strings had been reduced the general sound was bottom-heavy and not ideally transparent – the details of harmonies didn’t come through. The fast movements were fierce and energetic but not poised, vivacious or elegant – really a bit clod-hopping at times. It’s strange the 1^st and 2^nd violins weren’t split.

The Strauss waltz was an occasional piece, written in 1939 for a film about Munich which was then scrapped – sounding much like Rosenkavalier but less tuneful.

The Symphonic Fantasy is a curiosity. Strauss wrote to a grandson in 1946 -“In the meantime, at the request of my new, very capable London publisher Boosey & Hawkes, I have put together an orchestral fantasia from the best parts of Die Frau ohne Schatten, which should make the work somewhat more popular in concert, since opera performances will probably remain impossible for some time to come. You see, one can still accomplish something worthwhile before one’s 82nd birthday if one has been diligent beforehand.” . The orchestra on stage at the BH was enormous, Wagnerian in size, and probably the size it would be in say Vienna for an opera performance – Straauss originally wrote it for a smaller orchestra more likely to be able to be got together in the immediate post war world. There was also an organ!!  I enjoyed hugely the rendition of the interlude from Act 1 – one of the most gorgeous moments in all music – and the last 5 minutes of the opera belted out fff fff , as well as the beautiful trombone solo representing Barak’s Act 3 aria. But there were also a lot of wonderful moments in the opera which got left out – eg the lovely moment when the fountain starts to flow, and there wasn’t much of Keikobad. The piece is only 21 minutes long, so I wondered what anyone would make of the piece who didn’t know the opera – it didn’t seem to have a clear structure or flow. But, anyway – lovely to hear it, and the orchestra, again with some wobbles, sounded as though they were enjoying Strauss’ challenging writing

Bach: Goldberg Variations

I have only heard this work once before live – with Andras Schiff about 6 years ago in Manchester – which was a very fine performance, though a long evening (he played Bach and Haydn in the first half, and the Goldberg Variations was the second half!). I know the work mainly through the 2^nd Glenn Gould recording of it.

It is a curious fact that in North West England, there were no less than two appearances by classical music rock-stars this week, both playing the same work- the Goldberg Variations. Lang Lang was playing at the Bridgewater Hall on Monday 30^th October; Vikingur Olafsson was playing the same piece in Liverpool two days later. I opted for Olafsson because I love some of the recordings he has made – the Bach transcriptions (which were a constant source of hope, consolation and enrichment during Covid lockdowns), the Rameau/Debussy disc and others, but I would like to have heard Lang Lang as well. Olafsson, like Lang Lang, has a definite brand, assiduously promoted by DG, for whom he records – the cool geeky presence, smart suits and blues and greys were all present at this performance. But none of that really mattered, when set alongside the combination of his technical brilliance and his insight into this music.

It struck me that, as a Christian, Bach would have believed that one of the properties of God would be His infinite creativity and abundance. He would also have believed that ‘The Kingdom of God is within you’ (Luke 17: 21 King James version). It’s therefore no surprise that in writing one of his longest and finest works, invention and abundance should be at the heart of what he has to say in his exploration. From the simple quiet statement  – the still small voice of the Psalms , as it were – to the raging torrent of notes in some variations, this is Bach finding the infinite abundance of God within himself.

But there is also a journey here. The point at which this performance became truly special was in Variation 25, where the full horror of a fallen world seemed manifest in every disjointed and fractured note Olafsson wrung out of the piano. All the terrible things happening in Isael/Palestine and Ukraine/Russia at present seemed to hang over the music and the totally silent, seemingly mesmerised, audience. And then when Olafsson barnstormed into Variation 26 – and indeed onward to the ‘Quodlibet’ (Variation 30) –    it sounded like the great chorus ‘Et Resurrexit’ from Bach’s B Minor Mass after the Crucifixus. The final articulation of the Goldberg aria, as Variation 30 slowed down gradually into it, was the achievement of a beautifully conveyed sense of final rest and repose. In fact there are two other variations (15 and 21, both in the minor key, ), and an introspective Variation 13 where there is this same sense of desolation, albeit not so sustained and countered in each case by a following variation of energy and brilliance, well-conveyed by Olafsson. There were many other fine moments though – beautiful phrasing of line throughout, crystal clear articulation (as in the rhythmically complex Variation 20) and a lovely way of giving the dance variations an extra spring. I was also impressed by his pacing of that introspective Variation 13. Speeds sometimes seemed quite fast – eg the ‘Quodlibet’ (faster than in his recording) – but always made sense in context

I was totally gripped for the whole 80 minutes or so – and I’ve bought the recording, as DG would want me to, that has come out alongside this year-long global tour of Olafsson’s where he is only playing the Goldbergs. There was huge enthusiasm from the audience and Olafsson clearly likes being in Liverpool – he said he was coming back next season, to much whooping and applause..

John Storgårds conductor; Tobias Feldmann violin: Sibelius Pohjola’s Daughter; Sofia Gubaidulina  ‘In Tempus Praesens’ for violin and orchestra; Einojuhani Rautavaara Symphony No. 7, ‘Angel of Light’

This was a very stimulating and worthwhile evening. It was entitled ‘an evening of Finnish wonder’, which is a bit dismissive of the Gubaidulina piece, which comes from a very different tradition.

In a sense this was a traditional overture, concerto and symphony concert, with the Gubaidulina piece as the concerto, and with elements of spirituality connected with the second and third pieces.

It’s some time since I’ve been in the Bridgewater Hall (probably not since the Elgar oratorios in June) and after doses of the RAH and the Barbican, plus cavernous churches, it was wonderful to hear the clarity and warmth of the orchestral sound in the Bridgewater Hall. And the BBC Philharmonic sounded in very good form, particularly in the only work here I know at all well, the Sibelius. I thought the orchestra and Storgårds did wonderfully well in projecting the colours and drama of this music, with some very fine woodwind and horn playing and quite lush sounding strings.

The Gubaidulina piece is challenging but not inaccessible. I enjoyed it rather more than Offertorium which I heard a few years ago, another solo violin pitted against a big orchestra, as I recall. In this case it was a big orchestra without violins, with the other strings in full complement and a large brass and heavy percussion section, emphasising therefore the contrast between the sweetness and lightness of the solo violin and the darkness of the orchestra. The starkness and slowness of the piece sounded to me grounded in Russian Orthodoxy. The piece is about half an hour long and in an unbroken succession of contrasting episodes, the soloist and orchestra being pitted against one another – almost like an individual soul against some external force. The violin seems to lead at first with the full orchestra responding, successive climaxes being rounded off with a great gong crash, but about two thirds of the way through the violin sounds as though it is struggling against violence and there are some loud drum rhythms.  There’s then an extended violin solo and you feel the orchestral response changing, culminating in an enormous major chord, sounding like some resolution of differences. The music then dies away. I found this to be an absorbing piece and I will try to listen to it again on I-Player – it’s not easy but I did find my attention held. Tobias Feldmann played I thought sensationally well.

I felt less positive about the Rautavaara piece, though I am a bit more familiar with it. If you were being cynical – perish the thought! – you could describe it as taking a dash of Sibelius, mixing in Mahler and Bruckner and ‘holy minimalism’ plus a bit of Hollywood film music, and coming up with something that is easy enough to listen to, but not gripping in the same way as the Gubaidulina piece. It is more static, less of a journey and too often the mood is a bit unvaried, though the 2^nd movement has, as Rautavaara himself puts it in the programme notes, a “violent force”. Rautavaara clearly feels from his notes that this piece does represent a journey, but I have to say I didn’t feel it was a terribly gripping one.

Both works were well-received by a surprisingly full Bridgewater Hall, and excellently played by the BBC Phil (odd though that Storgårds didn’t split 1^st and 2^nd violins across the stage in the Rautavaara piece).

As an added bonus, there was a pre-performance half hour or so of songs given by the RNCM Songsters, a specially selected group of students at the RNCM – singers and pianists – who are passionate about, and excel in the performance of art song. This was in the foyer area. The songs were by Sibelius, Grieg, Delius, R.Strauss, Elgar and Quilter. I particularly enjoyed the performance by Siân Davies, a mezzo

Gemma Rosefield, cello: Bach, Cello Suite No.5 and Cello Suite No.6

I had been to one of the other two concerts covering the Bach Cello Suites but missed two of the suites out – probably 3 and 4. It was good to hear this performance of the 5^th and 6^th suites. Though I have a recording of them I wouldn’t say I play it that often, so it was a pleasure to hear these, not exactly as though they were new (I recognised some of the movements, particularly the Gavotte, from the 6^th) but because I was never sure what was coming next……so one of the enjoyments in my listening to this performance was just of the fertility of invention of these works. They are very distinct in terms of their colours and feel: the 5^th in C minor is dark and brooding, melancholy, abrupt and harsh on occasion, particularly in the Allemande, while the Sarabande is full of aching pain; the 6^th is in D major, full of Bach’s dance tunes, and with a beautiful Sarabande as the 4^th movement that is reflective, certainly, but with the contentment of things achieved rather than pain and losses felt, and things left undone.  The soloist repeated it as an encore.

Ms Rosefield’s playing was always compelling, though occasionally sounding a bit scratchy and in need of maybe slower, more shaped, playing at times– certainly by comparison with the recording I’ve got, [played by someone I’ve never heard of, Victor Yoran]. The echo effects in the Prelude to the 6th suite were not very contrasted with the first articulations, I felt, for instance. But live performances are always preferable and I thoroughly enjoyed the hour spent in the Upper Chapel. The melody in the Prelude to the 6th suite will be ear-worming me all week………….

Lise Davidsen soprano; James Baillieu piano, Songs by Grieg, Schubert, Berg and Sibelius

This was a hugely enjoyable recital. This was because:

1. Ms Davidsen is an engaging presenter of songs. She’s willing to talk to the audience to give her perspective on some of the composers. She is also not just confident on the concert platform but good at acting out with her face and hands the story of each song (without going over the top)

2. Apart from some of the Schubert songs (e.g. An die Musik) this was unknown territory for me and I particularly enjoyed the Grieg songs (for instance ‘To my Son‘ and the song about the snail!). The Berg songs were typically angst- ridden and after a distance of 12 hours become somewhat indistinguishable but I think I recall enjoying Traumgekront the most. The Sibelius songs were very varied and I particularly enjoyed Little Lasse. In fact not all the Schubert songs I knew well – Am Tage alle Seelen I am sure I’ve never heard before, a beautiful song.

3. The quality of Ms Davidsen’s singing. She has extraordinary control over her voice so that she can both ping out top notes at full volume without any sort of wobble and sing softly and beautifully with absolute security. Hers is a wonderful voice…. We are very lucky to have the opportunity to hear her so often in London.

In a song recital I suppose every singer is stretched to their limits – the sole focus of everyone in the audience, having to sing more in a  evening than a major role in a Wagner opera, and having often  to deal with a mass of disparate material demanding very different approaches. Ms Davidsen was unfailingly musically sensitive and varied in how she sang, but I think it’s fair to say that her diction was sometimes less than crystal clear, and also that in the narrative well known songs such as Erlkonig one sometimes missed the clarity of story-telling that you’d get in the greatest lieder singers. But still – a wonderful evening…I’ve just picked up that Lise Davidsen is singing Salome for the first time in Paris next May. I must get a ticket for that…….

Catriona Morison, mezzo & Malcolm Martineau, piano: German romantic songs by Brahms, Strauss, Mahler and Berg:

I had various lunch time music options today when in London but I decided to go for the LSO St Lukes Radio 3 lunchtime concert, which was part of a series focusing on R. Strauss’ chamber music, and therefore in this recital included some of his songs.

I had not come across Catriona Morison before. She’s clearly making a name for herself and, in her mid 30’s, has various European engagements in recitals and operas, including Fricka in Die Walkure. Her voice seemed very well-controlled, very flexible, and she offered some sensitive phrasing – nothing felt uncomfortable about what she sang, and also she gave a  good projection of the dramas of each poem, and her German sounded pretty good too…….She was also on top of the issue of how to stand in front of a piano without looking awkward for an hour and a quarter

It is surprising to me just how much more attractive the Mahler songs compared to anyone else’s in this programme, and Ms Morison probably gave her best performance in these songs  – a lovely and passionate ‘Urlicht’, a bright-eyed ‘Wer hat dies liedlein erdacht’, and a ‘Rheinlegendchen’ sung with a beautiful lilt. I liked the last of the 4 Brahms songs she sung – ‘Auf dem Kirchhofe’, which ends with a beautiful chorale-like melody. The R Strauss songs – very early ones – were frankly a bit dull but I liked the Berg Op 2 songs, the last one, ‘Warm die Lufte’ drifting off into atonality.

The veteran accompanist Malcolm Martineau again had particular fun with the Mahler, I felt………….

Bartok, Divertimento for Strings; Adès, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra; Beethoven, Symphony No 7. London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Antonio Pappano conductor, Kirill Gerstein piano

This was interestingly programmed – a polite way of saying that it seemed an unusual juxtaposition. My take on it is that both the Bartok and Ades pieces, while ‘modern’ in their different ways, used elements of past musical practice – the 18^th century concerto grosso in the case of Bartok, the 19^th century (plus Rachmaninov) piano concerto in Ades – while the Beethoven uses the symphonic format created by Haydn to produce something revolutionary and new (thus the process in reverse). Apparently, I later discovered, this concert was part of a sequence of LSO concerts all related to dance but the relationship of certainly the Bartok work to that theme seemed a bit tenuous.

This was a very enjoyable evening. I was sitting more or less in the front row and therefore able to hear and see at very close quarters the stunning, pin-point accuracy (but also warmth) of the LSO strings, the brilliance of the playing in the Ades, and the rhythmic accuracy in the Beethoven. Apart from a Mahler 1 at the Proms a few years ago with his St Cecilia orchestra, I have only seen Pappano conduct from the distance of an Amphitheatre seat at Covent Garden. He’s a very energetic conductor (banging and stamping on the podium), very intense in his focus on the players and obviously gets great playing from them.

The Bartok piece I have never heard before though I discovered afterwards I have a recording of it by Solti in my collection. Its three movements obviously mirror some of the musical practices of the Baroque – the soloist leaders of the different sections against the massed strings – and are quite different in character-  the first is quite light-hearted, the second tragic in feeling, the third much more obviously folk-tune based. It reminded me in a way of Tippett’s two big string pieces – the Corelli variations and the Double Orchestra piece

It’s a pity that this performance of the Ades came so soon after the one at the Proms by Gerstein (not brilliant scheduling)  – a few people might not have come to this concert who otherwise would have done, as a result. I have heard the Ades concerto a number of times, and enjoy it more as I listen to it more. I feel I am fully on top of the first two movements, but still getting there a bit with the third, though I love the ending – a wonky bonkers version of the conclusion of something like the Rachmaninov 2^nd concerto . There’s a dark and mysterious passage in the middle of the movement I can’t quite relate to what has gone before and what comes after.  But it’s all enormous fun to listen to. Quite what it amounts to I’m not sure, and I am sure there are lots of jokes within the piece that I don’t get, but it makes me smile! And I shall carry on listening to it and enjoying it and exploring it further. The composer came on at the end to considerable applause, and Gerstein played a beautiful piece by Ligeti – something about raindrops?

I am reading at present a great – and apparently a surprisingly very successful – book called “Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self ” by Andrea Wulf. In the UK we tend to think of the great outburst of energy and new thinking about the world in the early Romantics through the constellation of the great poets emerging at the same time and influenced by the French Revolution and the need to escape the tyranny of rationalism – Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron. But there was something similar going on in Germany – in poetry but also philosophy and scientific thinking – focused on Jena and the university there Through its very accessible pages the book introduces readers to the Schlegel brothers, Fichte, Schiller, Caroline Schlegel and her lover Schelling, Hegel, the Humboldt brothers, Novalis, and hovering in the background the older Goethe – all of whom knew each other. You can see a very similar eruption of new energy and innovation in Beethoven, albeit with no other artists really able or trying to do what he did, and the Beethoven after the interval of this concert was quite something…….it was a fast, compelling reading, made more urgent by not having any pause between the 1^st and 2^nd movements, and the 3^rd and 4^th. Played with quite large forces, though with what sounded like hard timpani sticks, this was a life-enhancing performance – not really very subtle, perhaps, and with little opportunity for the woodwind to caress phrases in the 2^nd movement, but just so energetic and joyful, so propulsive, that you did indeed want to get up and dance, as Wagner long ago described. The audience rightly gave the performance a considerable ovation at the end. It sounds as though the LSO have made a great choice in their new chief conductor

John Findon, Peter Grimes; Elizabeth Llewellyn, Ellen Orford; Simon Bailey, Balstrode; Christine Rice, Auntie; Clive Bayley, Swallow; Alex Otterburn, Ned Keene; ??, Bob Boles; Anne-Marie Owens, Mrs Sedley; David Soar, Hobson; Ronald Samm, Reverend Horace Adams; Cleo Lee-McGowan, First Niece; Ava Dodd, Second Niece. Conductor, Martyn Brabbins

I missed the raved-about production of Peter Grimes at Covent Garden last year because of Covid. I saw a good Stefan Herheim production last summer in Munich and now, more than a year later, another well reviewed production. Somehow I was much more affected by the music this time round than I had been in Munich- this might have something to do with the fact that I’d brought the wrong pair of glasses and so I couldn’t always follow the surtitles…..! It seems remarkable to me now that when I first heard the Four Sea Interludes, it would only have been 24 years after the work’s first performance – it’s like looking back to the year 2000 today. It is a remarkably haunting and affecting work.

Gwynn Hughes Jones has been much praised by the critics for his portrayal of Peter Grimes in this run of performance and so it was with disappointment that I saw an announcement that he was off sick. However I was fascinated by the choice of the understudy to replace him – this was John Findon. John was Mime in the recent ENO Rhinegold but also we had had an evening with him at the Manchester Wagner Society, where he spoke about his career and hopes for the future. This was a big moment for him and I was certainly rooting for him as he came on stage. Thus, what follows may not be as objective as it might otherwise be…..I thought John was a very fine Grimes – not the equal of Vickers, but certainly less anxiety-inducing than Stuart Skelton in Munich (see review on this blog). First of all, his voice has heft and power, the top notes at full intensity ringing out thrillingly. Goodness, I thought, this man is a future Tristan or a Siegmund. Secondly his quiet singing was (with a couple of exceptions) well grounded and often beautiful – ‘Now the Great Bear’ moved me to tears, as well sung as I have ever heard it live – and this was far removed from Skelton’s occasional falsetto. He’s also a big man and so could move convincingly and was utterly credible as Grimes. My only criticism would be that on a couple of occasions his voice wavered in dealing with very high notes sung quietly – but this was preferable to being nervous all the time about whether Skelton’s top notes would crack…..John had been scheduled to play Bob Boles and whoever replaced him also sung very well.

The other distinctive singer I really appreciated was Elizabeth Llewellyn. I have only heard her (I think) as a (very fine) recitalist and concert soloist. I realised that she actually has a real stage presence and her Ellen was a very compelling reading. Hers is a voice that’s clear and bright, not warm and sumptuous exactly, and that somehow felt just right for the dutiful Ellen, keeping her spirits up despite all the evidence. Again, I was moved to tears by some of her reflective solos. I’d love to hear her in Strauss or Mozart.

Simon Bailey as Bulstrode was very good – clear diction, solid voice, sensitive singing – he reminded me of Norman Bailey, which is the highest compliment I can offer. There were no weak links in the rest of the cast. 

About the Alden production I was less keen than some of the newspaper reviews. There was nothing so distracting that it impacted on the power of the drama and music, but Peter Grimes is one of those works directors should be careful about meddling with too much. There were, for me, several issues:

I. Sets. These were big and clunky, necessitating two intervals which to my mind dissipates the drama needlessly. There was a rather effective cloud backdrop with a platform stage in various forms for outside scenes, and then for indoor scenes oppressive walls. There seemed to be some fiddly tables/platforms being shifted around in Act 1, and I found the way the pub scene worked – cosy lamplit snug, and then the back wall lifting to show the threatening crowd beyond at intervals – distracting. What was effective about the sets and the costumes was the feeling of greyness and drabness of the post war 1940s Britain Alden clearly sets the opera in (and indeed I still remember Mrs Sedley look-alikes when being taken by a great-aunt to church in Enfield in the very early 1960’s). The lighting is harsh and effective – whites and yellows, not much in the way of warmer colours – there’s little sense of the sea . The lighting also cleverly enables shadows on the outside backdrops – so that for instance when Grimes came on stage for the last scene he appeared to be communing with a larger doppelganger (a stunning stage picture though what it added to the drama I’m not sure)

2. The direction. The intention was clearly to emphasise the threat of the Borough mob, and some of the strangeness, the frustrations underlying ‘ordinary’ people’s lives, denied, and projected onto Grimes. What this for the most part, other than a dominatrix Auntie, and various escapades going on at the Act 3 party, meant was a lot of coordinated movement e.g for the lynch mob in Act 2, giving the Borough crowd a robotic or puppet -like appearance, more akin to a musical. Fair enough, in one sense but it tended to look simply and only mechanical and to undermine the concept that these are ordinary people, caring and considerate to their own, who can nevertheless be manipulated and whipped up into a frenzy of hatred against the outsider. It seems to me pretty obvious that the opera is as much about what had happened over the previous 12 years in Germany before its first performance as anything about a gay man’s reaction to public dislike of his sexuality,. While mass manipulation was obviously part of what happened in Nazi Germany, in this case the more powerful way I think for the director to handle Peter Grimes is for the Borough people to seem and act like normal individuals while behaving like a brutal mob. I thought Herheim was much better at conveying this.

In many ways the best of the evening was the chorus and orchestra. You somehow know when an orchestra is on fire, and it undoubtedly was at this performance – the strings really digging in, the brass crisp, the climaxes overwhelming – I heard details you don’t normally come across, such was the clarity of the sound the orchestra produced.  The chorus, I assume augmented, was excellent, with a direct attack, rhythmically incisive in what sounds like the very tricky sea shanty in the pub, “‘old Joe has gone fishing” and simply very loud when needed. 

Although I thought the Herheim production in Munich was bettter this was an exciting and moving performance with the audience showing their full throated and warm support in the curtain calls for ENO’s continued presence on the national musical scene