Director, Tim Albery; Choreography, Venusberg Scene, Jasmin Vardimon; Set Designer. Michael Levine; Costume Designer, Jon Morrell; Lighting Designer, David Finn. Conductor, Sebastian Weigle; Tannhäuser, Stefan Vinke; Elisabeth, Lise Davidsen; Wolfram Von Eschinbach, Gerald Finley; Venus, Ekaterina Gubanova; Hermann, Mika Kares; Biterolf, Michael Kraus; Walther Von Der Vogelweide, Egor Zhuravskii

I have not seen this work live many times. I went to a performance in the first run of the Goetz Friedrich Tannhauser at Bayreuth in 1972 with Gwyneth Jones, and saw a 1974 performance of the same production there. I think I also saw another Covent Garden production in the 70’s conducted by Colin Davis, also with Gwyneth Jones.  But since then the only performance I’ve been to was one of this production in 2016, when I got to see two acts of it, and then had to leave to catch a late night flight from Heathrow to Bangladesh. I have seen many more productions of, for instance the Flying Dutchman. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that modern Europe finds it quite difficult to know what to make of Tannhäuser. This is not to say it can’t work in a modern production – the Goetz Friedrich one was a brilliant example of what might be possible. But it is more difficult.

This production – by director Tim Albery – didn’t get in the way, particularly, but also wasn’t very helpful in interpreting what was happening on stage and what was being said and sung. The focus seemed to be on Tannhauser as creative artist and how we turn ‘life’ into art. The set of the Venusberg was a replica of the Covent Garden proscenium arch and curtain (in all its plushness and E11R insignia – which needs unstitching). The ballet begins with a sequence of men sitting on a chair looking at the replica stage, and then being drawn into the action of the female dancers. The end of Act 1 sees Elizabeth, who hasn’t formally entered the action yet, coming on stage and settling down in a seat to watch the action. Act 2 has the Wartburg Hall as the same proscenium arch, now collapsed and in ruins, though at points stage footlights come on, and the real proscenium arch is illuminated. The last act seems to be set on a high snowy pass but with, arguably, some of the very last remnants of the proscenium arch still visible. At the end of the opera, again a spectator comes on stage to face the chorus. There are various bits of ‘stagey’ props – a tree at the end of Act 1 and the sprouting Pope’s staff at the end of Act 3. The minnesingers all wear dinner jackets in Acts 1 and 2, while the residents of the Wartburg seem rather poverty-stricken and possibly Slavonic in clothing . Quite what this is telling us about the work I am not sure. Undoubtedly the Landgrave has a high view of art and its power to heal; undoubtedly art can also – particularly in relation to Wagner – be a drug that deflects people from attending to their real needs and those of others. And also artists can – again, Wagner particularly – create great art but treat people appallingly, as Tannhauser does Elizabeth. But this theme doesn’t seem particularly pursued after the Venusberg and seems to become increasingly irrelevant. More to the point, it doesn’t really grapple with the heart of the work, which, like other Wagner operas, is essentially about using the combined power of music, words and design to give people an experience which would be something like a substitute for the declining power of organised religion in the minds of contemporary audiences, using myths as a powerful reminder of what matters most to human beings and exploring the recurring themes of redemption, atonement and salvation – how people are ‘saved’ to be the best they can be. A production that simply ignores God, salvation, redemption, or at any rate doesn’t seek to reinterpret these concepts for a modern audience, is not really going to work in this opera, I think, particularly since it is much more obviously Christian in language than, say, Parsifal. I was struck by how many of the themes and language of Parsifal and Tristan appear in the work – for instance Elizabeth is described as having, as a result of Tannhauser’s rejection, a ‘wound which will never heal’, like Amfortas. So all in all, not a very satisfactory production. I also felt in this revival it seemed a bit under-directed, in terms of a certain aimlessness in movement on stage, particularly in Act 3. I could see this work being performed in various ways – the Wartburg as oppressive, as a saga of Wagner’s  life; as a dream of a crazed Elizabeth…etc – but Tim Alberys way really didn’t work.

Musically, thankfully, things were a lot better. Reviews of the conducting were mixed – some felt there was insufficient energy and drive, some much more positive. I thought Sebastian Weigle’s handling of the orchestra was very good – he went for musicality over hyper-emotion, and there was a lovely lilt to much of the playing, bringing out details you don’t always hear and allowing the music to flow. It’s true maybe some of the Venusberg music in Act 1 could have done with a bit more bite and thrust, but on the whole I liked his conducting.  

There were actually many stars in this production, not just the obvious one. Among them: 

• The chorus and the Tiffin School boys choir, who sounded magnificent throughout 
• The dancers in the Venusberg – the choreography was excellent and the dancers spectacularly skillful, somersaulting across the extended table used as the basis for the dance sequences 
• The Finnish bass  Mika Kares  as the Landgrave had a beautiful voice and excellent diction 
•  Gerald Finley sang wonderfully well as Wolfram, colouring sensitively every word he sang, and creating some of those operatic moments in Act 3, where time seems to stop, as a singer draws out a lyrical line  
•  Ekaterina Gubanova as Venus was apologised for at the beginning, but to me sounded in powerful voice and was very effective 

But, of course, there has to be a particular emphasis on the performance of Lise Davidsen, who is just very special indeed. A commanding presence, a powerful voice totally under control, beautiful shading of words, a real ability to not ‘just’ sing but really inhabit a role – hers was a wonderful performance. 

Tannhauser was having the same vocal health problems as he has been in other performances in this run. As in the first performance, Stefan Vinke was out of voice and acted the role while Norbert Ernst sung from the side of the stage. Given the routineness of the stage direction, it was difficult to see why Mr Ernst wasn’t just asked to take over – maybe a contractual thing? Mr Ernst I thought did quite well – his voice is not over-powering in volume, and maybe has a lack of variation of tone at times, but it is a tough role and he got through it without bellowing and with some nice lyrical moments. I would have been perfectly happy to see him fully in the role (I understand that in at least one of the later performances that is exactly what happened!). 

All in all it was lovely to hear this work live, and particularly Act 3 live for the first time in 50 years!  

Schumann Genoveva: Overture; Schumann Piano Concerto; Caroline Shaw Music in Common Time; Mozart Symphony No.36 in C major ‘Linz’. Gábor Takács-Nagy, conductor; Klara Min, piano

This was not my first choice for a musical outing. I had originally intended to go to a Stoller Hall concert with Ensemble 360 – some Vaughan Williams, Stainer and Schumann. However a quick check revealed that the last train home wasn’t running……This Sheffield concert seemed to be the best alternative so I quickly booked for it on the morning it was happening. It was actually quite a pleasant surprise.  I decided to sit in the front stalls very near the orchestra and actually thoroughly enjoyed that position – the sound is less dead close up and things like the thwack of double bass pizzicatos are enjoyable when experienced a couple of metres away. I’ll try the same position when listening to a bigger orchestra. The audience wasn’t massive but sufficient to give atmosphere and response for the performers

The Manchester Camerata sounded tight, together, and with some excellent wind soloists. They are chamber orchestra sized, not using period instruments, but with some period informed practice (like hard drum sticks for the Mozart. I hadn’t appreciated that Gábor Takács-Nagy was the first violin of and one of the founders of the Takács string quartet – so a very distinguished musician, clearly enjoying himself hugely as a conductor and getting sharp clear performances from the orchestra. Both he and the first horn introduced works from the concert – always a good thing in my view, and indeed (not having read the programme notes carefully for the concerto),  it wasn’t until Mr Takács-Nagy mentioned it that I realised that the concerto’s first movement was originally a Fantasia, and the other two movements added to make a concerto some years later.

I used to groan a bit when I saw the Schumann concerto in my early concert-going days – it seemed to get programmed an awful lot – but it’s a while since I’ve heard it and I enjoyed the performance. Ms Lim is one of those performers with a clear, crystalline tone – no romantic sponginess here – and I thought that her approach worked quite well. It still allowed for poetry, for responsive rubato, but pushed the music forward so that it didn’t sag. It was a bright-eyed fresh approach without some of the Victorian mustiness I sense in some performances.

The new piece by Caroline Shaw I’d need to listen to again to form a clearer judgement – it was certainly approachable; a bit like a constant procession of the dawn part of Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe, but tailing off at the end into something wispy and intangible (which was a bit odd, since it was supposed to be about time past and time future being the same). The choral sound added a lot to the work – mainly wordless but with a short poem by the composer as well.

The Mozart was hugely enjoyable – energetic, propulsive in the first and last movements, but not overly fast and (my usual comment) with a ‘bounce’ that lets all notes be heard. The analogy with Mozart’s operas brought out by the first horn’s introduction was helpful, as different sections of the orchestra responded and called to each other. I’ve not heard the Manchester Camerata live before – I must do so again before not too long

Stravinsky Three Pieces for String Quartet;  Shostakovich String Quartet No.3 Op.73; Beethoven String Quartet Op.135, performed by Ensemble 360

This was a very good concert. When I arrived at the Upper Chapel, rather early at 6.30pm, I was amazed to see a queue forming outside the chapel. The house was completely full – this really was  back to the pre-pandemic days for an audience that could be forgiven for being still wary of large crowded gatherings.

The Stravinsky piece was almost defiantly a not-string-quartet – three contrasting pieces, without dialogue or much in the way of subtle harmonic blends – each instrument does its own thing. The  work dates from 1915  – the first movement is in Rite of Spring mode, the second more Petrushka, and the third is grey, mysterious and troubled

The Shostakovich piece was apparently one of his favourites, and was composed around the same time as the 9^th Symphony. It begins with a similar almost Haydn-esque tune. The first movement is jaunty, the second bitingly sarcastic, the third sounding somewhat similar to the scherzo of the 10^th symphony. The last two movements are a bleak slow piece and a final grey 10 minutes or so that possibly shines a little light on the way forward (it reminded me a bit of the last movement of the 8^th Symphony). The work was well received at first but then fell foul of Zhdanov in 1948 – ‘modernist and false music.’ This performance seemed to me to be good, though sometimes it felt that the 1^st first violin had a lighter quieter tone that didn’t quite gel with his colleagues – however that could just be an issue of where I was sitting (or could be that his colleagues were too loud!). The handling of the final few bars I thought was very well done – maybe the mordant bits were a bit lacking in character earlier, I’m not sure.

The Beethoven quartet was prefaced by an excellent introduction to the work by Rachel Roberts, the viola player, in simple plain language, giving us some sense of the emotional trajectory of the work and how that might relate to Beethoven’s life at the time. I wish more artists would do this – it does help in engaging the audience. I felt I was listening more intensely as a result and because that was so I found this more enjoyable than other live performances of this work I’ve heard over the years. There was a bounce and a lightness to the playing that was appropriate for the work, but also heft and strength in the opening to the finale. A fine performance. Coincidentally I was reading on the day of the concert a book by Arnold Steinhardt about his time with the Guarneri string quartet. He quotes a conversation in the book with a doctor talking about Op 135 – it’s like the Kubler-Ross definition of the progress the terminally ill make, the doctor said. First movement and part of the second movement, – questioning; the violent middle part of the 2nd movement, anger; the third, mourning; the fourth, final acceptance. That seems right to me……..

Sonya Yoncheva, Fedora; Piotr Beczała, Count Loris; Rosa Feola, Countess Olga;  Lucas Meachem, De Siriex. Conductor,  Marco Armiliato; Director,  David McVicar; Set Designer, Charles Edwards; Costume Designer,  Brigitte Reiffenstuel; Lighting Designer, Adam Silverman.

Rather to my surprise, I enjoyed this more than I was expecting. The reviews I saw were for the most part tepid about the work , and there are indeed some oddities – the aria about the bicycle, for instance. The plot is confused – it’s never quite clear what the motivation is for Fedora getting together with Loris in Paris. She could have shopped him to the police at any time for her husband-to-be’s murder, and with the St Petersburg police chief wanting to avenge the death of his son there’d be enough of a case against Loris not to worry about a confession. Anyway – to use an annoying phrase – it is what it is, and the cast gave ‘it’ to us at full throttle. 

There are enough big tunes to make it musically interesting, as well as the famous if brief tenor aria that Jonas Kaufmann had sung at the Berlin Phil New Year’s Eve concert 2 weeks ago (“Amor ti vieta”). Some of the musical doodling at the less inspired moments could have got moved on faster by the conductor, but on the whole  Marco Armiliato got the orchestra playing with passion and accuracy, sweeping the singers up in the orchestral surges and climaxes.

Sony Yoncheva was the reason for this new production. The role is a very demanding one – quite a lot of low notes and phrases for a big soprano role and at the same time a lot of singing at the top of the range and Yoncheva was brilliant in tackling the demands of the role, bashing out the top C’s. Maybe there was quite a lot of vibrato at points but this didn’t bother me though it might others. She acted well enough too, particularly demanding and important since this was being filmed.  If I were to have any criticism it would be that there wasn’t much variation of tone – but, on the other hand, it is such a gutsy powerful role – subtlety isn’t needed. Similarly, Piotr Beczała gave his all and seemed in very good voice. He’s more of a stolid actor than Yoncheva but he gave an absorbing performance. Rosa Feola made as much as she could of the Musetta-like Countess Olga.   . 

The set and direction were certainly not likely to get in the way of appreciating the work regie-theater style. Arguably they didn’t illuminate the work particularly but it would be very difficult to do anything very different from what McVicar and Edwards provided, apart from providing less over-the-top sets and costumes. McVicar talked during the interval about what it must have felt like to be present at the first performance – modern clothes, new inventions, current political issues (Russian anarchists). But to try to mimic that sense of shock – modern clothes, an Extinction Rebellion protest that goes wrong – would just be daft…The directorial innovation was to have the ghost of Fedora’s husband to be appear at intervals but that confused things at one appearance – why was Fedora dancing with someone she’d just learned to be unpleasant and mercenary?

Probably I will probably never see the work again in my lifetime but it was a good evening out

Respighi, Fountains of Rome, Szymanowski Violin Concerto No.2, Brahms Symphony No.2. Sir Mark Elder conductor, Nicola Benedetti violin.

This was my first time in the Sheffield City Hall since a rather dispiriting concert in June. That had been a rather dismal occasion – the audience only just more in number than the assembled musicians and choirs for Belshazzar’s Feast and lots of grumbles from the audience as to how various ticketing problems had been handled by the management.  It seemed as though the Halle might have better things to do than visit Sheffield 5 or 6 times a year, I thought

 But less than a year later there we were at the same hall with a 90% full attendance and an enthusiastic reception. Part of that might have been Nicola Benedetti, who’s clearly something of a role model and heroine for all the young violinists of Sheffield – there were lots of young people with their parents, and Sheffield Music Academy and Music Hub tee shirts. Part of it might have been Mark Elders presence, who the audience had told the City Hall management last year they never saw when the Halle visited.  Whatever – it was a very welcome transformation.

And it was a very good concert! I suppose I must have heard The Fountains of Rome before, though I can’t remember doing so. Its thematic material is a bit bland, but it is undeniably well scored and all the water music is fun. It sounded very well played, though with that degree of orchestral complexity it’s difficult to be sure. The Szymanowski was not quite what I was expecting – I had assumed something like Bartok but it sounded more like Bax, and had the same sort of rather dense grinding harmonies. There was a big tune though! I got a bit lost in the structure but undoubtedly, to the extent I could tell, Nicola B played it very well, with lots of variation of tone and colour.

The Brahms 2 I really enjoyed. It sounded a bit akin to someone opening up a beautifully coloured illustrated child’s story book and reading through it at not too fast a pace, but not too slow either, turning the pages at just the right pace to be absorbed by the beauty of the illustrations but not lose the momentum of the plot! Partly perhaps Elder’s doing, partly the unlovely acoustics of the City Hall, I heard far more of the inner parts than I normally do – as a footnote a reviewer of the Manchester performance of the same works with the same team suggested that Elder had slimmed down the basses and the violins as in his performances with the Britten Sinfonia, which would explain the greater clarity of the inner parts. The first movement seemed strangely long, not because the repeat was taken but because I was listening far more than usual to the harmonies and the shifts of key. It also sounded much darker, in the first and second movements, than I normally am aware of (the word ‘sunny’ is often used about this work, but what I heard yesterday was far from sunny, some towering and grim climaxes, an oppressive sense of angst. The Halle played beautifully, particularly the first horn, Laurence Rogers. One extraordinary thing – somehow I have listened to this piece for at least 55 years without realising that the lower strings subject in the first movement is a minor version of the famous ‘Brahms Lullaby’ – this was in a programme note and I had never realised before……….

A really absorbing and enjoyable evening!!

London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle conductor; Amanda Majeski  Katya; Simon O’Neill  Boris; Katarina Dalayman  Kabanicha; Andrew Staples  Tichon; Ladislav Elgr  Kudrjas; Magdalena Kožená  Varvara; Pavlo Hunka, Dikoj; Claire Barnett-Jones, Glasha & Feklusha; Lukáš Zeman, Kuligin; London Symphony Chorus

I’ve not seen many productions of this work. I got to know it through multiple visits to the production on at ENO in the 70s, conducted by Mackerras. It wasn’t then until 2018 or 19 that I saw it again in an Opera North production. Going to that performance I found the work a little difficult to ‘believe’ in – the action seemed too quick and the work too short to make the characters entirely credible. This by contrast, a concert performance, seemed much more satisfying. With no pauses, the action seemed unrelenting and fateful – it was entirely believable.  

It helped of course to have first class actors in two of the main roles. Katarina Dalayman, who I have heard previously as Brunnhilde and Kundry in memorable performances with the Halle/Elder 10 -15 years ago, is now focusing on mezzo roles and wonderfully portrayed the Kabanicha as both stern, inflexible, mocking but also at times vulnerable. She was in wonderful voice……Amanda Majeski, a US singer, not a name I’ve come across before, was a remarkable Katya. I was near the stage in the stalls and could see, in terms of her movements, her facial expressions and her general demeanour, how fully she was invested in the role. But more than that, her voice was beautiful – floating top notes, a purity of sound, the colouring she gave her voice, all was deeply moving and involving. She has sung the Mozart Countess Almaviva at the Met, and is debuting in Salome soon – clearly someone to look out for. 

The other person on stage who was impressive was Magdalena Kozena, from Janacek’s Brno, of course, who offered us some beautiful singing in the garden scene, and was always a vivacious and engaging presence on stage. Simon O’Neill as Boris was in strong voice but had his head in the score more than the three ladies and was a less sympathetic presence – but then I suppose it was a concert performance and Boris must be a rather stolid role to sing….All the smaller roles were well sung, many of them by Czech singers. I thought Andrew Staples in particular was very good in portraying the ineffectiveness of Tichon in dealing with his wife and his mother

The LSO and Rattle sounded glorious. To my ears, though I could be wrong, there were some slight hesitancies and some lack of coordination at a few points – I am sure there were only a few rehearsals for a piece which must be unknown to a large part of the orchestra – but this counted for very little when put against the urgency and passion these forces gave to the music. The concert performance made clearer the tautness of the score – eg the way the 4 repeated notes on the timpani become the sleigh bell melody, which is both joyful and menacing, and perhaps also is the basis for the folk song Varvara and her lover sing in the garden.

Someone incidentally should take credit for the movements on stage – it’s a large cast and they can’t all be on stage all the time – the business of people sitting on the side-lines, exits and entrances were very well handled, particularly given all the music stands and mikes strewn across the front of the stage. It is interesting how much we rely on surtitles now. In the anticipation of them I had scarcely bothered to read the programme, and when, for the first 5 mins, the surtitles weren’t functioning properly, I was quite thrown off balance, wondering who these people were….

Goodness, only 11 days into January, and I already have a candidate for one of my 2023 top ten! It’s being shown on Marquee TV on 2 February. As I am a subscriber, I must look out for it…

Kirill Petrenko conductor, Jonas Kaufmann tenor. Giuseppe Verdi La forza del destino: Overture; Sergei Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet (excerpt); Nino Rota La strada, Orchestral Suite (excerpts); Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Capriccio italien, op. 45 and arias by Verdi, Mascagni, Zandonai and Giordano
This was a very enjoyable concert. Beforehand, members of the BPO had formed themselves into musical quiz teams – the woodwind team won……Obviously this was not an evening of profound works but the following factors made for an intensely pleasurable evening:
• The way Petrenko gets his players to think through afresh some very familiar music – for instance the Force of Destiny overture had several examples of sculpted phrases which sounded newly thought through, and, as with the Mahler 7 performance in September, you heard inner voices you don’t normally hear, in a natural and unselfconscious way.
• The energy radiating from Petrenko was extraordinary, and galvanised the BPO in the Death of Tybalt, in particular, into quite dynamically dramatic and forceful playing, propulsive and tight – am intensely powerful miniature. This was also true of the Tchaikovsky
• Having Jonas Kaufman of course helps in giving class to the evening – sometimes in the past I have sensed some strain on his voice in the higher register, but here, even with some drop-outs due to ill-health in Germany and Austria in recent weeks, he sounded in good voice and in particular the Mascagni aria was very well sung indeed
• The BPO were also able to let their hair down in the Nino Rota pieces (film music, I presume – he wrote masses of film scores alongside 10 operas, 5 ballets and lots of other orchestral and chamber musi)c. These were riotously danceable-to, and Petrenko and the orchestra swung together through the syncopations and the beat

The encores were from The Godfather score (tenor aria – by Nino Rota) and some film music from the Gadfly (No 16, The Market Place) by Shostakovitch – a reminder (Tchaikovsky and Shostakovitch) that Russian music is not to be cancelled because of current circumstances. The roving camera sought out at one point what was surely a masked Angela Merkel, who I hope would agree with that sentiment. I found it very interesting to compare my memory of this performance of the Shostakovitch with the recording I have from Chailly and the Philadelphia Orchestra. The latter team of course are very good but BPO/Petrenko win hands-down on edginess, on pushing the speed boundaries, and in general creating a more exciting experience.

These were (not in any particular order):

2022

Vivaldi: Bajazet – ROHCG; Linbury

Richard Strauss: Ein Heldenleben – Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Barbican

Wagner: Lohengrin – ROHCG

Wagner : Parsifal – Opera North

Janacek: Cunning Little Vixen – Bayern Staatsoper

Handel: Alcina – ROHCG

Wagner: Siegfried – Bayreuth Festival

Mahler: Symphony No 7 – Berlin Philharmonic, RAH

Handel: Theodora – ROHCG

Mahler: Symphony No 3 – Halle, Bridgewater Hall

2021

Mozart: Clemenza da Tito – ROHCG

Wagner: The Valkyrie – ENO

Tippett: Midsummer Marriage – LPO, RFH

Wagner: The Rhinegold – Birmingham OC

Bach/Shostakovich: Olafsson, Jarvi, Philharmonia, Proms RAH

Stravinsky: The Rake’s Progress – Glyndebourne Touring, Milton Keynes

Verdi: Rigoletto – ROHCG

Janacek: Cunning Little Vixen – Opera Holland Park

Macagni: L’Amico Fritz – Opera Holland Park

Hindemith, Walton, Stravinsky – LPO, Jurowski, Proms RAH

Martyn Brabbins, conductor; Ruth Knight, director; Ian Jackson-French, lighting designer. Cast – Christine Rice, Queen Elizabeth I; Robert Murray, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex; Paula Murrihy, Frances, Countess of Essex; Duncan Rock, Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy; Eleanor Dennis, Penelope (Lady Rich); Charles Rice, Sir Robert Cecil; David Soar, Sir Walter Raleigh; Claire Barnett-Jones,  a housewife; Innocent Masuku, The Spirit of the Masque; Willard White, a blind ballad singer / The Recorder of Norwich

This work has seen remarkably few performances. There was a concert performance in 1963, which was the opera’s first performance in any form since its inaugural production in 1953; the second re-staging of Gloriana was undertaken by Sadler’s Wells Opera in 1966, with a concert version at the Proms under conductor Charles Mackerras performed and recorded in 1973. There was a revival of the 1966 SW/ENO production in 1984 under Mark Elder and other performances in productions by Welsh National Opera in 1992 and by Opera North in 1994. Apart from a production in Colorado, and a one off production by Richard Jones at ROHCG for the Britten centenary, that’s it!! So it’s a rare work to get to see and I am not at all sure I will see it again in my lifetime. I was fascinated in advance to see how I would react to this work, the music of which I knew nothing about except for the Courtly Dances compilation. It’s not often you hear a known major work by a major composer for the first time.

Although billed as a ‘concert performance’, and despite being a one-off, this was a staged performance with costumes – who knows from where and what production the three ladies’ splendid Elizabethan costumes came from – as well as movement, a tiered stage for the chorus (who however were in modern dress with their scores) and strongly directed interactions between the characters. There were also some effective video projections, sometimes suggesting a commentary on the characters’ words – leaves falling from a tree, for example. and sometimes illustrative, such as a picture of Ireland. The staging overall was much more than i was expecting and felt like a real labour of love. The auditorium was gratifying full, though not completely sold out, with a strong sense of empathy for the Company in their current predicament.

These then were my thoughts on the work:

1. As in some other Britten operas the language of the libretto often jarred and sounded clunky. Sometimes it sounded twee; sometimes there was an odd mix of modern and vaguely 16th century cod-Shakespeare, with no consistency on the use of the two. Odd words cropped up that sounded misspelled or misunderstood – kern (kerl?), ‘ obstrude’ etc. 

2. Much of the music was wonderful – full of invention, memorable melodies, and carefully crafted. Very little sounded routine and all felt as though shaped for voices to enable them to be at their best. The choral masques I’ve sometimes seen flagged as a low point – and maybe, had there been dancers, this might have been the case. Somehow though the stage focus on the chorus alone left me impressed by the beauty and skill of the choral writing. The Elizabethan musical pastiches were very cleverly woven into the texture of the work. 

3. The problem for me in the first half was that, unlike most of the other Britten operas, which have a passionate core to them about the outsider, the destruction of innocence, and the workings of evil, which grip you in seeing the works on stage, in Gloriana we somehow never engage with the characters before us – they are remote figures from a well known historical past. Only the Queen is treated in a way that gives her character depth and the rest seem one dimensional. Perhaps the second half is slightly better handled – two more female figures are introduced that make the plot and what’s happening more complex, and the Queen’s undecidedness about what to do with Essex is something that I sympathised with. But at the end of the day this is about a man who’s a bit of an idiot and a queen who has, as rulers do, to make tough decisions. It doesn’t make for compelling drama.

4. Whatever Britten’s and Plomer’s thinking, I found the spoken words at the end disruptive – somehow in their bare intensity they made speech more dramatically profound than the music, and that can’t be right; Britten’s score became akin to film music.

Christine Rice was very fine as Queen Elizabeth though without really moving me with her voice. Robert Murray didn’t have a particularly sympathetic presence but that goes with the role, I suppose (and had a voice that sounded extraordinarily like Pears). It was great to hear Willard White in fine voice in two small roles.

I did wonder on the tube back to my hotel why this was ever conceived to be an appropriate work for the Coronation in 1953 or why in the final analysis Britten felt compelled to write it. Somehow there is something about it that’s dutiful rather than blazingly inventive, even if there’s much that’s enjoyable musically. It’s essentially about the familiar, in operatic terms, clash of love and duty, keeping up appearances and suffering as individuals, which is the making of some of Verdi’s great operas but here there doesn’t seem to be a subtle sense of characterisation that would really bring the major characters to life, I’m afraid.

Winterreise is yet another work I am not sure I have ever heard live in the concert hall (though I am pretty sure I have heard at various times Die Schone Mullerin and Schwanengesang). I got to know Winterreise as a student through the Britten / Pears recording so I always have a tenor in my head singing this, rather than a baritone or bass. I have only heard Allan Clayton once before – he sung On Wenlock Edge at the Wigmore Hall about 9 years ago – but he had rave reviews singing Peter Grimes at ROHCG earlier in the year (which I missed through Covid), and, all in all, I was very much looking forward to hearing this.

And my expectations were more than fulfilled. Clayton is a singer, from the evidence of this performance, of an extraordinarily large range of vocal timbres and shades. Sone of his soft singing in songs like the final Organ-Grinder, the Linden Tree, Last Hope and the Phantom Suns was not only beautiful but, like all great singers, brought you intimately into his world, into his head. His soft singing was technically impressive too – no head notes/falsetto. At other times he could deaden the sound of his voice, as in The Crow. And yet, again, he could also sing in a strong declamatory style. He made you believe that there was one tortured character behind all these songs, not a string of mediocre poems in early Romantic mode set to often beautiful music being sung in a polite concert hall with beauty but little emotion. Some of the songs felt quite fast, some felt slow, but altogether the performance of the song cycle seemed to have a unified feel. The final song, The Organ Grinder, was as bleak or bleaker than I have ever heard it.

The concept behind this particular presentation of the work was two-fold:

• It was acted. Clayton ranged the stage, fell to the floor, huddled under the piano, glowered in the background, loomed in the shadows, leant against the walls. This felt absolutely right and helpful in bringing the audience into the world of the singer and manifesting his increasing madness.  Clayton was very good at suggesting the different moods of the character – sometimes fearful, melancholy, stubborn, even at times self-mocking
• It also had scenery. This was less helpful –  a series of impressive-in-their-own-right images picked by Paul Kildea, the creative director, pairing Schubert’s songs with hand-picked images of 20th-century Australian artist Fred Williams’ paintings and prints. The images were brilliantly colourful, clearly indicating the sun and natural life of Australia, but seemed to have only a tangential relationship with the Northern forests Schubert’s songs seem to be describing. Some of the images were apposite – e.g. the dark jewelled images for the graveyard song, or the dense yellow-reddishness of the Phantom suns. But often they seemed a distraction. It would have been better, I felt, to have had an acting platform for Clayton, a spotlight, white and black screens – this would have given more focus on Clayton’s performance without the distracting images.

I haven’t mentioned the pianist – I felt sometimes her phrasing at points was a little under-pointed, but that’s a taste thing, and she certainly didn’t distract from Clayton’s performance, and accompanied in a way that supported his singing. I did at the end wonder whether in an alternative staged version of the work directed by yours truly, the singer could actually treat the pianist as the loved one………

As a whole this was a tremendously impressive performance. There was an apology at the beginning for a throat infection the singer had, but there was no evidence of this