During December I shall be working in Vienna, for just over a fortnight at the Arnold Schoenberg Center, looking at Schoenberg's library, in particular his marginal annotations. (It excites me anyway...!) There is much of interest in terms of musical performance during my stay, though alas it seems a rather fallow period so far as the State Opera is concerned. (One cannot win everything...) Here, by way of a trailer, is a list of the performances I have arranged to attend so far. They may be added to.
4th - Formenti, Widmann, Minguet Quartet: Rihm
5th - Sokolov (hooray, since British government policies mean we are unable to hear him in London): Rameau, Mozart, Beethoven
7th - ORF
SO/Metzmacher: Schreker, Mahler, Pfitzner, Berg
8th - Hänsel und Gretel (Volksoper)
9th - Deutsche
Kammerphilharmonie Bremen/Järvi: Schumann
11th - Aimard: Debussy
12th - Rotterdam
PO/Nézet-Séguin: Beethoven and Mahler
13th - Kulman/Kutrowatz: Schumann
15th - Tonkünstler Orchestra, Lower
Austria/Orozsco-Estrado: Mahler
16th - Mathis der Maler (Theater an der Wien)
Friday 30 November 2012
Thursday 29 November 2012
LPO/Jurowski - Beethoven, Schoenberg, and Nono, 28 November 2012
Royal Festival Hall
Beethoven – Overture: Fidelio, op.72c
Schoenberg – Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, op.41Schoenberg – A Survivor from Warsaw, op.46
Nono – Julius Fučik (United Kingdom premiere)
Beethoven – Symphony no.5 in C minor, op.67
Robert Hayward (narrator)
Omar Ebrahim (Fučik)
Malcom Sinclair (Voice in Julius Fučik)
Annabel Arden (director)
John B. Read (lighting)Pieter Hugo (protographer)
Annalisa Terranova (video)
Gentlemen of the London
Philharmonic Choir (chorus master: Neville Creed)
London Philharmonic OrchestraVladimir Jurowski (conductor)
... the
musical-æsthetic manifesto of our era. What Jean-Paul Sartre says in his essay,
What is Literature?, about the
problem ‘why write?’, is witnessed in utterly authentic fashion in Schoenberg’s
creative necessity:
‘And if
I am presented with this world and its injustices, then I should not look at it
coldly, but ... with indignation, that I might expose it and create it in its
nature as injustice and abuse.’
...
And
further, should someone refuse to recognise Schoenberg’s [here Nono makes
reference to a previous quotation from Arnold Schmitz on Bach] docere and movere, above all in his A
Survivor from Warsaw, he should know that the words which the
nineteen-year-old student, Giacomo Levi, wrote in his last letter before
execution by the Fascists in Modena in 1942, are also addressed to him: ‘Do not
say that you no longer wish to know anything about it. Consider this, that all
that has happened is because you no longer wished to know anything more about
it.’
L'incoronazione di Poppea, 27 November 2012, Royal College of Music,
Ottone (Bradley Travis) |
Britten Theatre, Royal College of Music
Poppea
– Katherine Crompton
Nerone
– Annie FredrikssonOttavia – Fiona Mackenzie
Drusilla – Hanna Sandison
Seneca – David Hansford
Arnalta – Matthew Ward
Ottone, First Kinsman – Bradley Travis
Lucano, Second Kinsman – Peter Kirk
Nutrice – Angela Simkin
Liberto, Littore, Third Kinsman – Luke Williams
Fortune – Filipa Van Eck
Virtù – Soraya Mafi
Amore – Joanna Songi
First Soldier – Vasili Karpiak
Second Soldier – Michael Butchard
James Conway (director)
Oliver Platt, Sandra Martinovic (assistant directors)Samal Blak (designs)
Ace McCarron (lighting)
Ottavia (Fiona Mackenzie) |
James Conway’s new production of what is surely one of the three greatest operas of the seventeenth century, and perhaps the greatest of all, L’incoronazione di Poppea, is a splendid affair: intelligent conceived , tightly directed, and resourcefully designed by Samal Blak. Conway’s words in the programme should be drilled into anyone who opines on staging, whether in print, on the Internet, or in the theatre: ‘The question of what “period” to set it all in is not the beginning or the end of the process, but an historically informed decision somewhere in the middle. Sadly, this is certainly the decision that seems to exercise people most.’ There is no reasoning with those who scream ‘why is not set in x at the time y?’ as soon as anything is depicted that does not conform to their unimaginative, unhistorical and generally quite vulgar sense of hyper-realism. If only we had pictures, or other evidence, of the costumes and backdrops employed in Venice’s Teatro SS Giovanni e Paulo, I am sure they would find themselves in an irresolvable quandary. Should those be replicated, or should we have something recognisably of Rome in AD 65? I doubt very much that any set of designs would be able to accomplish both. Conway’s setting was imaginative and worked in theatrical terms. Apologising ‘to those who anticipated togas, or 17th century Venice,’ and we should note the operative or, he says that he considered ‘Tudor Terror, but too much reading about the revolutionary ego and Stalin’s bruising reign convinced me that this was a place ... from which Ottone, Dusilla, Ottavia and Seneca might suddenly disappear, and in which all might live cheek by jowl in a sort of family nightmare, persisting in belief in family (or some related ideal) even as it devours them.’ And so it came to pass, a fine young cast conveying its conviction in the concept.
Katherine Crompton (Poppea) and Annie Frederiksson (Nerone) |
Hannah Sandison (Drusilla) |
From where I was seated I could not see the pit, so am not entirely
certain whether the instruments were ‘old’ (which, in our Alice in Wonderland
world generally seems to mean new, but alleged replicas). The strings, a small
band, certainly did not sound modern, but they had more than a hint of the ‘modern,
but played in “period” style’ to them: more Harnoncourt than the extremist
fringe. That is of course as much a matter of performance as of hardware, and
Michael Rosewell’s direction tended to steer a not entirely convincing ‘third
way’. There was certainly none of Leppard’s – let alone Karajan’s – tonal refulgence;
indeed, string sonority was often unpleasantly thin. But nor was there the
lightness, after a fashion, of Renaissance, as opposed to later Baroque,
instruments. Continuo playing picked up after the interval; the first act
alternated a little too often between heavy harpsichords and hesitant theorbo.
Recorders were occasionally employed, to good effect. But the singing and
production were the thing – and they were in most respects impressive indeed.
Those unable to make these RCM performances may be interested to know that the
production will be revived for English Touring Opera in autumn 2013.
Matthew Ward (Arnalta) |
Performances continue on 28 and 30 November, and 1 December, the second
and fourth performances offering partly different casts.
Monday 26 November 2012
Kavakos/LSO/Bychkov - Berg and Mahler, 25 November 2012
Barbican Hall
Berg – Violin Concerto
Mahler – Symphony no.1 in D
major
Leonidas Kavakos (violin)
London Symphony OrchestraSemyon Bychkov (conductor)
Sunday 25 November 2012
LPO/Nézet-Séguin - Haydn and Strauss, 24 November 2012
Royal Festival Hall
Haydn – Missa in Angustiis, ‘Nelson Mass’, Hob. XXII:11
Strauss – Ein Heldenleben, op.40
Sarah-Jane Brandon (soprano)
Sarah Connolly
(mezzo-soprano)Robin Tritschler (tenor)
Luca Pisaroni (bass-baritone)
London Philharmonic Choir (chorus master: Neville Creed)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor)
Haydn’s settings of the Mass
ought to be heard incessantly, in churches and in the concert hall. For reasons
that elude me, they are not, even this, the so-called Nelson Mass, arguably the most celebrated of all, if only on
account of his nickname. Indeed classical sacred music in general, Mozart’s
included, with a very few obvious exceptions, is unaccountably neglected by
most concert programmers. (When did you last hear Beethoven’s Mass in C major,
op.86, any of Gluck’s sacred music, anything that was not a Mass setting from
the Salzburg Mozart, or indeed any of the shorter liturgical works by
Schubert?) Perhaps performers, audiences, bureaucrats alike still have the
Whiggish canard that the Enlightenment was somehow concerned with
secularisation seared into their incurious minds; if so, send them away with a
copy of Ernst Cassirer’s venerable Philosophy
of the Enlightenment in one hand and a good few scores or recordings in the
other. In any case, let us hope that the London Philharmonic will programme
more of this wonderful repertoire, especially if performed with such success as
it was here, under Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Friday 23 November 2012
Coote/Britten Sinfonia - Purcell, Tippett, Handel, and Britten, 22 November 2012
Wigmore Hall
Purcell – Abdelazer, Z570: ‘Rondeau’
Purcell-Muhly – Let the night perish (Job’s Curse), Z191Purcell-Stokowski – Dido’s Lament
Tippett – A Lament from Divertimento on ‘Sellinger’s Round’
Handel – Alcina: arias
Britten – Prelude and Fugue for eighteen-part string orchestra, op.29
Purcell-Britten – Chacony in G minor
Tippett – Little Music for Strings
Britten – Phaedra, op.93
I was a little puzzled to
start with when I noticed that this concert was announced as celebrating
Britten’s ninety-ninth birthday. Any excuse for a party, I supposed, but it
might not have made sense to wait a year? Then I read a little further, to discover
that it was launching a year’s events at the Wigmore Hall, to culminate in the
centenary itself – also St Cecilia’s Day, by the way. As something less than a paid-up
Brittenophile – some works I respond to far more readily than others: The Turn of the Screw I find a
masterpiece, whereas Peter Grimes I obstinately
continue to find grossly overrated – I suspect that I shall be more selective
than some. Next year, after all, is Wagner’s, for better or worse, though in
many respects I fear the worst. However, if any of the Britten performances I
hear next year are at this level of distinction, I shall be fortunate indeed. (The Turn of the Screw from Sir Colin
Davis and the LSO looks a good bet already...)
This programme played into an
aspect of Britten’s career for which I have almost unbounded admiration, namely
Britten as performer. Though I certainly do not share his antipathies – Brahms most
notoriously, Beethoven too – I cannot help but admire so ardent a Purcellian,
especially when his conducted performances of Purcell were, without exception
in my experience, outstanding. The Rondeau from Abdelazar, famously chosen by Britten as the theme for the Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra,
set the tone impeccably. Spirited, robust even, without a hint of carping,
inhumane ‘authenticity’, this performance from the Britten Sinfonia, led by
Jacqueline Shave, managed also to convey a hint of melancholy that stands at
the heart of so much great English music from Byrd to Birtwistle.
Thursday 22 November 2012
Carmen, English National Opera, 21 November 2012
(sung in English)
Escamillo – Leigh Melrose
Micaëla – Elizabeth Llewellyn
Zuniga – Graeme Danby
Moralès – Duncan Rock
Frasquita – Rhian Loise
Mercédès – Madeleine Shaw
Dancairo – Geoffrey Dolton
Remendado – Alan Rhys-Jenkins
Lillas Pastia – Dean Street
Girl – Anya Truman
Mercè Paloma (costumes)
Bruno Poet (lighting)
Ryan Wigglesworth (conductor)
A triumph for ENO! I
suspected that Carmen would prove
eminently suited to Calixto Bieito’s talents, and so it proved. Shorn of any ‘picturesque’
pandering – remember Francesco Zambello and her donkey? – what we saw here is perfectly attuned to Bizet’s
resolutely unsentimental score. Spanish heat is for once no cliché; instead, we
feel that heat almost unmediated, its oppression, its sexiness, its glory, its
desperation. This is a more unsparing depiction of 1970s Spain than anything
one would see in Almodóvar. Life is brutal: Carmen seems much more a product of
her society, defiant and yet unable to transcend it, than we tend to imagine.
The tawdry car-park world of gypsy trading is not romanticised; it does not
necessarily appear better – or for that matter, worse – than that of the army.
The figure of the abused girl is all the more disturbing for the lack of exaggeration. Ruthless realism, as in the opera, is the order of the day. We always think of Don
José as a mummy’s boy; here his most erotic moment is the lingering, passionate
kiss with Micaëla – a far more rounded, credible character than a mere angel of
goodness – when she passes on the kiss from his mother. Escamillo is no deus ex machina; he is cut down to size as twentieth-century ‘heroes’
tend to be. The marking of the bullring in the fourth act circumscribes the
boundaries for the action in a fashion more chilling than I have ever
experienced. The crowd has turned to us, has made its own entertainment – shaping
of bull and toreadors from the men available is a masterstroke – and has
disappeared. Now we – or they – are alone. Fate, as foretold in the cards, is
played out. Hesitance prolongs the agony, yet the desert bleakness – social,
scenic, existential – of the drama is in a sense the true protagonist here.
Franco or his successors? Is there that much of a difference, especially under
the present regime?
Ryan Wigglesworth conducted
as fine an account of the score as I can recall hearing in the theatre,
infinitely more subtle than the bandmaster performance of Antonio Pappano at
Covent Garden, let alone the perverse manufactured intimacy of Simon
Rattle in Salzburg. Rhythms were precise yet never – save, perhaps at the
very opening – did the score seem harried. Colour was painted vividly; at
times, this might almost have been Ravel. And Wigglesworth knew when to hang
back, especially during the opening of the fourth act. There was nothing
arbitrary to this; the score was not pulled around. Rather, dramatic tension
was screwed up in tandem with the action on stage. Throughout the ENO Orchestra
played magnificently, the performance from the chorus – and children’s chorus –
equally faultless.
Ruxandra Donose made an
excellent Carmen: vulnerable but not too vulnerable, strong, but not too
strong, complex, conflicted, and at times devastatingly alluring. Grame Danby
and Duncan Rock made great impressions as Zuniga and Moralès respectively; it
would be well-nigh impossible to distinguish between the distinction of their
vocal and acting performances. Elizabeth Llewellyn was a touching Micaëla,
though here at least as much as anywhere else, one regretted the lack of the
original French (not that there was anything intrinsically wrong with
Christopher Cowell’s valiant translation). Leigh Melrose sang well enough as Escamillo,
but his portrayal lacked the requisite virility – even given the concerns of
Bieito’s staging. He seemed somewhat miscast. The only real fly in the
ointment, however, was Adam Diegel’s Don José. Uncertain of intonation, whether
through excess vibrato or simple poor tuning, this was a performance whose
stiffness seemed anything but dramatically motivated; stylistically it hovered
at its best between Puccini and musical theatre. Such, however, was the power
of the ensemble performance that it was difficult to mind too much.
(Pictures shoud follow when available: later today, I hope.)
Carmen – Ruxandra Donose
Don José – Adam DiegelEscamillo – Leigh Melrose
Micaëla – Elizabeth Llewellyn
Zuniga – Graeme Danby
Moralès – Duncan Rock
Frasquita – Rhian Loise
Mercédès – Madeleine Shaw
Dancairo – Geoffrey Dolton
Remendado – Alan Rhys-Jenkins
Lillas Pastia – Dean Street
Girl – Anya Truman
Calixto Bieito (director)
Joan Antonio Recchi (assistant director)
Alfons Flores (set designs)Mercè Paloma (costumes)
Bruno Poet (lighting)
Chorus of the English
National Opera (chorus master: Martin Fitzpatrick)
Orchestra of the English
National OperaRyan Wigglesworth (conductor)
This was the best performance
I have seen at ENO for quite some time – and the best performance of Carmen I have ever seen. More Bieito and
more Wigglesworth, please!
(Pictures shoud follow when available: later today, I hope.)
Tuesday 20 November 2012
La vera costanza, Royal Academy of Music, 19 November 2012
Helen Bailey (Rosina) Images: Hana Zushi, Royal Academy of Music |
Sir Jack Lyons Theatre
La Baronessa Irene – Rosalind
Coad
Il Marchese Ernesto – Thomas ElwinLisetta – Sónia Grané
Villotto – Nicholas Crawley
Rosina – Helen Bailey
Masino _ Samuel Pantcheff
Il Conte Errico – Stuart Jackson
Rosina’s son – Jude Chandler
Jamie Hayes (director)
Tim Reed (designs)Jake Wiltshire (lighting)
Royal Academy Sinfonia
Trevor Pinnock (conductor)Nicholas Crawley (Villotto), Il Conte Erico (Stuart Jackson) |
Il Marchese Ernesto (Thomas Elwin), La Baronessa Irene (Rosalind Coad), and Lisetta (Sónia Grané) |
Samuel Pantcheff (Masino) and Lisetta |
Jude Chandler (Rosina's son) |
Performances will continue on 22, 23, and 26 November, a second cast alternating with this one.
Thursday 15 November 2012
LPO/Eschenbach - Schumann and Beethoven, 14 November 2012
Royal Festival Hall
Schumann – Overture: Der Braut von Messina, op.100
Beethoven – Concerto for piano, violin, and cello in C major, op.56
Schumann – Symphony no.2 in C major, op.61
Baiba Skride (violin)
Daniel Müller-Schott (cello)
Lars Vogt (piano)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Christoph Eschenbach (conductor)
The opening of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto nevertheless registered
an increase in voltage. What a joy it was to hear the LPO sounding so darkly
German in tone, miles away from the quasi-‘authentic’ experiments of its music
director. Romantic warmth from the cello, cultivation from the violin,
obstinate ruggedness from the piano: those were the initial impressions gleaned
from the solo instruments’ first entries. Character, then, was portrayed,
though it was amenable to transformation according to Beethoven’s demands.
Sometimes I felt that Lars Vogt’s piano playing was ingratiating, and could
also be rather neutral in tone, but at least it was not sentimentalised. Though
he did nothing to upstage his colleagues, Daniel Müller-Schott’s performance of
the cello part was the star turn for me. Eschenbach’s handling of the orchestra
was equally important though, drive coming from within, or better from below
(the bass line). The slow movement opened with a sweetly intense solo from
Müller-Schott. The trio, including Baiba Skride’s violin thereafter blended
uncommonly well in an ideally posed account that gave Beethoven all the time he
needed, without ever coming close to dragging. Orchestral depth was present
where it mattered. Müller-Schott’s transition to the finale was finely judged.
The movement fairly danced, lacking nothing to start with in Beethovenian
vigour, but fading of the latter made it overstay its welcome. There should not
be a suspicion of note-spinning; here there was, if only slightly.
Schumann’s Second Symphony
received a memorable account, revealing Eschenbach and the LPO at their finest.
I was very much in two minds for the first half of the first movement – but that
intrigued me. At first, I wondered whether Eschenbach’s direction was two
four-square, playing to the score’s potential weaknesses; however, Eschenbach
took the high road of making a virtue out of them. If his reading lacked the
easy flow of, say, Wolfgang Sawallisch, then rhythmic and motivic insistence
told their own story, even when underlined to an extent I should have thought
undesirable in theory. That was all the more the case when themes were tossed
between parts, Eschenbach’s division of the violins paying off handsomely,
though the woodwind proved equally distinguished in that respect. This movement
often sounded like an uphill struggle, even swimming against the tide, yet it
held the attention and, more than that, compelled. And there was a truly
Beethovenian spirit of triumph to the recapitulation.
The scherzo was taken at
quite a lick, almost insanely so, but Eschenbach’s tempo held no fears for the
LPO. The disturbing hesitance of the trios – a matter of interpretative
strategy – painted the outer sections in greater relief. Even when Schumann
sang, it was disquieting. A long-breathed account of a true slow movement
banished any thoughts of the mere intermezzo one sometimes hears. The LPO’s
playing was darkly beautiful, benefiting from the surest of foundations in
Eschenbach’s understanding of harmonic rhythm. There was, for once, not the
slightest hint of ‘chamber orchestra’ condescension; this was truly symphonic,
and all the better for it. A martial opening announced a finale that was
anything but carefree; there was symphonic battle yet to be done. And it was
won with gloriously rich string tone. Expertly shaped, this was as resounding a
rejoinder to the clarions of ‘authenticity’ as one could have hoped for,
arguably more so. Amongst present conductors, Eschenbach gave Barenboim a run
for his money: quite an achievement.
Beethoven – Concerto for piano, violin, and cello in C major, op.56
Schumann – Symphony no.2 in C major, op.61
Baiba Skride (violin)
Daniel Müller-Schott (cello)
Lars Vogt (piano)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Christoph Eschenbach (conductor)
Christoph Eschenbach is a
regular visitor to the London Philharmonic, but I think this was the first time
I caught them together. I certainly hope that it will not be the last, for it
is quite a while since I have heard the LPO on such good form. There was no nonsense
about scaling the orchestra down (fifteen firsts down to eight double basses
for the Schumann works); that cannot but have helped. But the dark,
convincingly German tone Eschenbach drew from the orchestra was just as
important, probably more so. Schumann’s Bride
of Messina Overture made for an excellent opening, its introduction full of
tension, slow but quite the opposite of staid, as if on a coiled spring. The main
Allegro was properly tormented, the
prominent piccolo part reminiscent of Beethoven’s use of the instrument. A
warmly lyrical clarinet second subject offered balm to the soul, though it was
soon undercut. This is the sort of piece – and performance – for which the word
‘Romanticism’ might have been intended, and it is a piece we should hear more
often.
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