It is not enough, not nearly enough, but I do not know what to say. Other than: a world that allows such barbarism is quite beyond redemption. In his particular way, perhaps Strauss, deeply flawed human that he was, knew that too.
Tuesday 29 November 2016
Friday 25 November 2016
Storm Large/Hudson Shad/BBC SO/Gaffigan - Korngold, Weill, et al., 23 November 2016
Barbican Hall
Korngold – Symphony in F-sharp
Walter Jurmann – Veronika, der Lenz ist da
Dimitri Tiomkin – High Noon: ‘Do not forsake me, O my darlin’’
Weill – A Touch of Venus: ‘Speak Low’
Weill – Klopslied
Jurmann/Bronisław Kaper – A Day at the Races: ‘All God’s Children Got Rhythm’
Weill – The Seven Deadly Sins
Korngold – Symphony in F-sharp
Walter Jurmann – Veronika, der Lenz ist da
Dimitri Tiomkin – High Noon: ‘Do not forsake me, O my darlin’’
Weill – A Touch of Venus: ‘Speak Low’
Weill – Klopslied
Jurmann/Bronisław Kaper – A Day at the Races: ‘All God’s Children Got Rhythm’
Weill – The Seven Deadly Sins
Storm Large (singer)
Hudson Shad
BBC Symphony Orchestra
James Gaffigan (conductor)
In the world’s present parlous
state, Brecht (Weill too, perhaps) speaks to us more clearly, more sharply than
most. Donald Trump could pretty much have sprung from the pages of Mahagonny, or indeed The Seven Deadly Sins. The fine
performance of that masterly ballet
chanté which was the necessary performance in this BBC Symphony Orchestra
performance. The rest I could pretty much take or leave, although there were
clearly admirers in the audience.
When first hearing Korngold’s
Symphony in F-sharp (in the BBC Philharmonic recording with Edward Downes), I
rather liked it. It must have been years since I had last heard the piece; I
cannot say that I had missed it greatly, and indeed found it something of a
bore on this occasion. It was a well-enough upholstered bore, yet I did not
find the material justified the length. In the first movement, it took a while
for the orchestra to achieve a good balance, although the Barbican acoustic
should probably take some blame for that. (Thanks to the Government, by the
way, for scuppering the plan for a decent concert hall in London!) James
Gaffigan went to considerable extremes of tempo, but held the movement together
pretty well. A certain cinematic quality to its progress was not inappropriate,
nor was a certain sonic similarity to the ‘heroic’ Prokofiev of the Fifth
Symphony. Transitions were well handled in the scherzo, though ensemble was not
always so precise as it might have been. I liked the languorous quality to its
trio; Gaffigan’s tempo, however, sometimes brought the music to
near-standstill. A Brucknerian quality was apparent in the slow movement, which
received a warmly neo-Romantic reading, not lacking in necessary malice. The
finale proved colourful, but a well-paced performance could not disguise its
excess of repetitions.
The second half opened with a
number of close-harmony pieces from the American group, Hudson Shad. I am not
convinced that concert-hall listening is really quite right for such music:
perhaps they would be better off in a bar, with drinks and chatter. (But then, I
was never able to understand Cambridge choirs’ enthusiasm for them; I longed to
hear more Byrd instead…) My patience for Kurt Jurmann’s hit Veronika, der Lenz its da was limited
indeed, but others seemed to enjoy its ever-so-mild camp. Likewise the other
Jurmann song, and the two contributions from Dimitri Tiomkin. ‘Speak Low’ from A Touch of Venus served to reinforce my
prejudice that Weill’s music lost almost all interest upon emigration across
the Atlantic. The short Klopslied,
however, was recognisably the work of Busoni’s pupil, albeit with a healthy
dose of surrealism thrown in. The gentlemen did not overplay it, thereby
letting its anarchic wit speak for itself. It was a real find (for me, that
is).
For The Seven Deadly Sins, Gaffigan and the orchestra returned, joined
by Storm Large, a singer with real presence, indeed real star quality. For a
performance in English (the translation by Auden and Kallman), one is better
putting out of one’s mind the world of Lotte Lenya. That was surprisingly easy,
for Large, ably accompanied, made the work very much her own, in a subtle,
sharply observed, finely enunciated performance. She could act, but did not
need to draw attention to the fact, just as she could sing and dance, again without
any need for underlining. The shedding of her overcoat spoke volumes; so did
the chill of those spoken Anna II statements: ‘Right, Anna’. With a wind-heavy
band that sounded just right, with Gaffigan unfailingly adopting tempi that
sounded equally right, and with just the proper sense, from time to time, of a
little rhythmic drag, Weill permitted Brecht to speak. Dance rhythms pointed to
Weill as ironic heir to Mahler. Much orchestral material reminded us that this
was the composer of that magnificent Second Symphony. (What a pity we had not
heard that in the first half instead! Or indeed the Violin Concerto.) Hudson
Shad were on excellent form too, their ‘Family’ often sounding very much of a Neue Sachlichkeit world, the bite of
Brecht’s text – ‘Shameless hoarders earn themselves a bad name’ – drawing blood.
The exploration of sins had a properly cumulative effect as far as ‘Envy’,
after which the Epilogue proved a further study in alienation. They were going
home to Louisana, to that little home beside the Mississippi. ‘Right, Anna!’
Sunday 20 November 2016
Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Royal Opera (cinema broadcast), 15 November 2016
Royal Opera House (viewed at Curzon Mayfair)
Hoffmann – Vittorio Grigòlo
Four Villains – Thomas HampsonOlympia – Sofia Fomina
Giulietta – Christine Rice
Antonia – Sonya Yoncheva
Nicklausse – Kate Lindsey
Spalanzani – Christophe Montagne
Crespel – Eric Halfvarson
Four Servants – Vincent Ordonneau
Spirit of Antonia’s Mother – Catherine Carby
Nathanael – David Junghoon Kim
Hermann – Charles Rice
Schlemil – Yuriy Yurchuk
Luther – Jeremy White
Stella – Olga Sabadoch
John Schlesinger (director)
Daniel Dooner (revival director)
William Dudley (set designs)
David Hersey (lighting)
Maria Björnson (costumes)
Eleanor Fazan (choreography)
Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: William Spaulding)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera, Evelino Pidò (conductor)
Oh dear! One might travel far
before seeing so dramatically inert a production of anything. ‘Revived’ –
hardly the mot juste here – by Daniel
Dooner, pretty much the only saving grace accompanying this ancient staging by
John Schlesinger was the news that it will be its last. In vain did one seek
for irony. Offenbach’s taste and wit, it seemed, had been paid off, with a
generous settlement. Indeed, one sensed that one Manhattan-based master of ‘settlements’
and theatrical criticism would have approved, together with his chums in the
bizarre ‘Against Modern Opera Productions’ group. As for the edition used, the
less said the better, but imagine the outcry if Bruckner performances were
still being given in the Schalk ‘versions’, perhaps with a few odds and ends
thrown in for the hell of it. This, as Mahler would have put it, was tradition
as Schlamperei.
For the designs – there is
nothing more to the production, certainly no hint of a critical stance, let
alone a Konzept – speak of vulgar
ostentation. Although ostensibly set when it ‘should’ be, earlier in the
nineteenth century, this looked more like a Second Empire recreation, albeit
one that had seen better days. The Palais Garnier is a thing of wonder; if you
are going to do ‘style of Napoleon III’, then go all out for it. This, however,
is not; it is merely tedious. If the æsthetic aspired to Donald Trump, it ended
up being more minor West End musical. If ‘lavish’, for some unfathomable
reason, is the first word that comes to mind when you think of Offenbach, then
I suppose you might have liked this, but surely anyone would have baulked at
the bizarre, am-dram over-acting of some members of the chorus. Perhaps that was
a matter of cinematic close-up, but it was at best an occasion, well-taken
(unfortunately) for laughter. At any rate, for an evening that dragged so, I
was grateful to be seated in the comfort of the Curzon Mayfair rather than
squeezed into the Royal Opera House’s Amphitheatre.
That it dragged was also the
fault of Evelino Pidò’s leaden conducting. There was no lightness, no air, no
direction, just endless plodding through. Offenbach’s musical drama – and I am
far from convinced he is at his most successful in this work – is a delicate
flower. The score simply sounded suffocated.
At least the singing was
better. Vittorio Grigòlo’s untiring commitment put me in mind of Roberto
Alagna, although vocally, Grigòlo was certainly more secure than his mercurial
counterpart can sometimes be. Stylistically, his voice and manner are perhaps
not ideal, but there was much to be enjoy. (As you will have guessed, I took
what I could.) Kate Lindsey impressed greatly as Nicklausse, in a stylish,
equally committed performance. She can act too, and did. Christine Rice’s Giulietta
brought a touch of vocal opulence. It was neither unwelcome nor inappropriate,
tempered as it was with taste, quite unlike its scenic equivalent (For her act,
Schlesinger seemed to have in mind, quite without irony, or indeed without
eroticism, the world of ‘vintage’ soft porn. Again, laughter ensued.) Sofia
Fomina handled the challenges of Olympia’s coloratura with ease, and portrayed
the very particular acting challenges of her doll’s role convincingly. Sonya Yoncheva’s
Antonia was sincere enough, but it sounded as if she would have been happier
singing Verdi. Catherine Carby’s brief appearance as her mother brought much
needed relief. Thomas Hampson’s performances suggested that his voice is now
seriously beyond repair. Not only, as one might have suspected, did the lower
notes lie awkwardly for him; so did many at the top too. Smaller roles were
taken well; David Junghoon Kim’s Nathanael caught my ear.
As theatre, though, this was strictly for those who like to applaud scenery. And even they might have preferred to check into a certain Washington hotel for the real thing.
Thursday 17 November 2016
London Sinfonietta/Furrer - Furrer, FAMA, 11 November 2016
St John’s, Smith Square
Isabelle Munke (actress)
Eva Furrer (contrabass flute)
EXAUDI (chorus master: James Weeks)
Sophie Motley (staging advisor)
London Sinfonietta
Beat Furrer (conductor)
Premiered in 2005 at
Donaueschingen – how reassuringly modernist that sounds! – Beat Furrer’s sound
theatre piece has now, finally, reached London. First performed in a large ‘box’,
in which about 300 audience members were seated, the musicians outside, the
speaker/actress moving within and without, it must have sounded – and indeed
looked – very different from its incarnation at St John’s, Smith Square. There
was here, of course, no question of opening and closing the walls and celings,
but instruments and choir still moved around the audience, making use of the
balcony too. If a work is not to remain entirely site-specific – in any case,
the box apparently no longer exists – then it will need to take on new life.
That goes for Parsifal
as much as for the Monteverdi Vespers, for FAMA
as much as for Nono’s
Promoteo.
Besides, one can imagine; as Wagner, Nono, and doubtless Monteverdi would tell us, imaginary theatre is
often most powerful of all, or at least differently powerful. A young woman, her
roots in Arthur Schnitzler’s Fräulein
Else, will adapt in the theatre of our imagination, but will and should
remain a stranger to herself, looking in dramatically as well as physically.
She will still find herself eventually in the house of Ovid’s Fama, ‘entirely
of sounding ore, resonating ubiquitously it hurls back in imitation what it
hears,’ but it will always be for us to construct that house, as well as to
make it resonate, perhaps visually as well as aurally. Whether I quite managed
to do so on first acquaintance, I am less than sure, but deepening
acquaintance, in something worth acquainting oneself with, will always be a
Beckettian case of failing better. I should certainly like the opportunity to
do so again.
One of the most arresting, even
fantastical, passages for me came with the opening Latin ensemble. The sense of
fantasy – not in the debased, modern usage – was as much instrumental as it was
vocal, and in any case the border, in the best music-theatre tradition, was far
from clear. Highly rhythmical, colourful exuberance played intriguingly with
this particular acoustic. The London Sinfonietta and EXAUDI, both on typically
outstanding form, were certainly not especially large of number, the latter
only eight, but the ‘scale’ of work and performance sounded much larger. At
times, one might have been forgiven for hearing a full-scale orchestra rather
than ensemble, even if one should accept that distinction. A sense of falling
away, of dissolution, more than once put me in mind of Wozzeck; but that was perhaps just my finding my bearings. Swimming against the tide as the instrumental
music sometimes seemed to be, Isabelle Menke’s role as speaker took different
routes, sometimes connecting, sometimes at odds. At any rate, and not only
because it opens with ‘ich höre das Feuer,’ it proved equally incendiary,
paving the way for further musico-dramatic development – if I may borrow so Classical
a term – in the wordless second scene.
An intriguing reinvention of
recitative as well as Sprechstimme
was suggested in the third scene, a pulsating instrumental tapestry both
backcloth and participant. Instruments came close to speech, and vice versa. A quite different
sound-world and sensibility were experienced in the short fourth scene. I do
not think it was just the Italian language that made me think of Nono and
Sciarrino, although that doubtless did no harm. A whistling riot of sound
seemed to encapsulate the concept both of scene and work. Oh! Vi doveva pur essere, sulla terra di tutti i dolori, un giardino
profondo, lontano, silente… One found the silence of that garden in sound,
in music, not in silence: a liminality, perhaps, one might compare to Fama’s
house. That sense of the numinous could be traced, albeit in different form,
into the fifth scene. It was almost pictorial, at times, but the ‘almost’ was
as important as the ‘pictorial’. Post-Romantic? Doubtless; for we all are, are
we not? The experience remained fresh, though.
In the sixth scene, interaction
between actress and contrabass flute solo (the excellent Eva Furrer) stood on
the boundary between an acting ‘two hander’ and a post-operatic duet. Are not
such confrontations, reinventions, always at the heart of music theatre?
Ominous, antiphonal trombones inevitably brought resonances from the past in
the seventh, before the final, eighth scene for ensemble, in which the music,
the drama seemed to subside, open-ended. It struck a note that came close to,
without ever quite ‘being’, or being capable of reduction to, tragedy.
The performance was recorded by
BBC Radio 3 for subsequent radio broadcast (date as yet unknown).
Wednesday 16 November 2016
Lulu, English National Opera, 9 November 2016
Coliseum
Dresser, Schoolboy Waiter – Clare Presland
Painter, Second Client – Michael Colvin
Dr Schön, Jack the Ripper – James Morris
Alwa – Nicky Spence
Schigolch – Willard White
Animal Tamer, Athlete – David Soar
Prince, Manservant, Marquis – Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts
Theatre Director, Banker – Graeme Danby
Fifteen-year old girl – Sarah Labiner
Girl’s Mother – Rebecca de Pont Davies
Artist – Sarah Champion
Journalist – Geoffrey Dolton
Dr Goll, Police Commissioner, First Client – Rolf Higgins
Servant – Paul Sheehan
Solo performers – Joanna Dudley, Andrea Fabi
Sabine Theunissen (set designs)
Greta Goiris (costumes)
Urs Schönebaum (lighting)
Catherine Meyburgh, Kim Gunning (video)
Lulu (Brenda Rae) and Dr Schön (James Morris) Images: Catherine Ashmore |
(sung in English)
Lulu – Brenda Rae
Countess Geschwitz – Sarah
ConnollyDresser, Schoolboy Waiter – Clare Presland
Painter, Second Client – Michael Colvin
Dr Schön, Jack the Ripper – James Morris
Alwa – Nicky Spence
Schigolch – Willard White
Animal Tamer, Athlete – David Soar
Prince, Manservant, Marquis – Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts
Theatre Director, Banker – Graeme Danby
Fifteen-year old girl – Sarah Labiner
Girl’s Mother – Rebecca de Pont Davies
Artist – Sarah Champion
Journalist – Geoffrey Dolton
Dr Goll, Police Commissioner, First Client – Rolf Higgins
Servant – Paul Sheehan
Solo performers – Joanna Dudley, Andrea Fabi
William Kentridge (director)
Luc de Wit (associate director)Sabine Theunissen (set designs)
Greta Goiris (costumes)
Urs Schönebaum (lighting)
Catherine Meyburgh, Kim Gunning (video)
ENO’s new Lulu proved another triumph for the company: just what ENO should
be doing; just, indeed, what ENO is for. Will the cabal of management
consultants and the Arts Council – or, as it insists on calling itself, sans
article, ‘Arts Council England’ – listen? No, of course not. Their priorities,
as they have shown time and time again, and with increasing vindictiveness, are
quite different. Whoever met a neo-liberal artist or, indeed a neo-liberal art
lover? (How I wish the translation had not left ‘Jungfrau’, or ‘Virgin’,
tactfully in the German original…) One might, I suppose, quibble, whether ENO
needed a new production; Richard Jones’s excellent staging might well have
received another outing. (It should certainly have been staged more regularly
than it was, but that, I suspect is more a comment on opera audiences than on
artistic design.) But ENO did not mount this by itself; it performed us ‘citizens
of the world’ a signal service by granting us the opportunity to see this
much-discussed William Kentridge production, already seen in New York and
Amsterdam. To say we should only have one, is akin to saying that because we
have heard Daniel Barenboim play Beethoven, we have no need to hear Maurizio
Pollini. It is the language of enemies of art, of accountancy; worse still, it
is the language of those journalists determined never to miss an opportunity to
find fault.
Joanna Dudley, Lulu, and Schigolch (Willard White) |
I shall admit to having been
puzzled by some of the discussion I overheard. More than once I heard people
complaining about there having been too much going on, even ‘sensory overload’.
Have such people, I wonder, ever seen a Stefan Herheim production? More to the
point, did they not think of how visual layering, the interaction between
layers, between the visual and the aural, might actually be the point, a point
very much in keeping with the work? What I saw was actually a relatively
conventional, but highly theatrical telling of the story, enhanced, questioned,
developed by an extension of its painterly imagery both in expressionistic
drawings and film – an exhibition of Kentridge’s art may be seen presently at
Whitechapel – and in the alluring yet sometimes ironic commentary, still very
much in allusive ‘period’ style, by the silent artists, Joanna Dudley and
Andrea Fabi. It was not remotely too much; indeed, like Berg’s score, it left
me wanting more. This blackest of comedies gained in darkness – this was the
night following the US election, something readily observable on almost every
face in the house – and in sophistication of comedic response. I began to think
of Berg’s musico-dramatic roots in Mozart and Wagner, in particular, and also
of what he had in common with Strauss, another heir to that exalted pair, yet
one far too little thought of has having much in common with the more overtly ‘progressive’,
yet perhaps equally ‘nostalgic’, Berg.
Mark Wigglesworth’s conducting
of the score, superlatively played by the ENO Orchestra was, of course, crucial
in that respect. As Boulez, at work on the three-act premiere, once observed, ‘It
is not so much the use of symmetry as the exploiting of multiple musical forms
that is one of the most complex and attractive features’ of the music. Rather
it in the confrontation between what Boulez broadly considered to be
characteristic Mozartian number opera and the continuous – to which, I might
add, increasingly symphonic – forms of Wagner that Lulu, in a different, or at least more complicated, less overt, way
than Wozzeck will best find its
performative voice. For Boulez, ‘The great advance from Wozzeck to Lulu lies in
the fact that, although the scenes are still separated by interludes, there is
now no “passage” between them.’ He found himself, unsurprisingly, especially
attracted by the ‘fusion between continuity and formal separateness’. That, I
think, was very much what we heard, and perhaps also what we saw, or at least
what was suggested by what we saw, here. An especially fine woodwind section
could not help but bring Mozart to mind: not just the Mozart of Così fan tutte but the composer of the
wind serenades too. It was not for nothing that, in one of his final recordings,
Boulez returned to Berg’s Chamber Concerto, coupling it with the Gran partita, KV 361. Melodies,
harmonies, audibly generated before our ears by Berg’s endlessly fascinating
compositional processes, and yet audibly as ‘free’ as they were ‘determined’, tantalised,
instructed, informed, criticised, rather as the drawings, films, words, actions
did before our eyes. This was no mere mirroring; it was mutual enhancement and
elucidation, a new path through the Bergian labyrinth.
An excellent cast was necessary
too, of course, and an excellent cast we had. Brenda Rae, who so greatly
impressed me in the Bavarian
State Opera’s Schweigsame Frau –
now there is an interesting Strauss-Berg comparison to consider – shone at
least as brightly as Lulu. The canvas on which we more or less uneasily project
our fantasies of Lulu was no more empty than the changing visual decoration of
the set, but, amidst, or perhaps beneath, the despatch of the coloratura and
the seduction of the more conventional melodic line, there was a fine balance struck
between nihilism and defiant character. Sarah Connolly’s Geschwitz certainly
had the latter in spades; if I have seen and heard a stronger, more compassionate
performance from her, I cannot recall it (which seems unlikely). If James
Morris’s Dr Schön was at times a little stiff, there was certainly authority to
be felt there, and his way with the words was especially admirable. Nicky
Spence’s Alva struck another fine balance, in this case between the ardent and
the cowardly; again, an admirable way with words and music projected ambiguity
without easy, or perhaps any, answers. Willard White’s Schigolch was less
caricatured, less repellent than one often experiences; such ambiguity was also
decidedly a gain. There were no weak links, and a host of splendid character
performances, artists such as Michael Colvin and Sarah Labiner particularly
catching my ear. At least as impressive, though, was the ensemble work. In the Paris
Scene, one might almost have thought this a crack new music ensemble, such was
the clarity and confidence with which the lines were projected and with which
they were interacted. It might almost have been a rehearsal for, or a response
to, Strauss’s homage to his adored Così
in Capriccio.
Monday 14 November 2016
Samling 20th Anniversary Concert, 8 November 2016
Wigmore Hall
Britten – A
Charm of Lullabies, op.41: ‘A Cradle Song’; ‘The Nurse’s Song’
Warlock – My
Sweet Little DarlingSchubert – Wiegenlied, D 498
Ives – The Children’s Hour
Schumann – Lieder-Album für die Jugend, op.79: ‘Marienwürmchen’
Poulenc – La Courte Paille; nos.4-7
Schubert – Licht und Liebe, D 352
Liszt – Tre sonetti di Petrarca, S 270/1: Sonnets nos 104, 47
Quilter – Five Shakespeare Songs (set 2): ‘It was a lover and his lass’
Britten – The Foggy, Foggy Dew; Soldier, won’t you marry me?
Schubert – Schwanengesang, D 957: ‘Kriegers Ahnung’
Schumann – Der Soldat, op.40 no.3
Wolf – Der Soldat I and II
Fauré – Les Berceaux, op.23 no.1
Poulenc – Bleuet
Barber – I hear an army, op.10 no.3
Liza Lehmann – Nonsense Songs from ‘Alice in Wonderland’: ‘Fury said to a Mouse’
Bolcom – Twelve Cabaret Songs: ‘Amor’
Brahms – O wüsst ich doch den Weg zurück, op.63 no.8; Alte Liebe, op.72 no.1
Barber – The Secrets of the Old, op.13 no.2
Copland – Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson: ‘Going to Heaven!’
Schubert – Nachstück, D 672; Der Tages Weihe, D 763
Kiandra Howarth (soprano)
Kathryn Rudge (mezzo-soprano)
David Butt Philip (tenor)
Benjamin Appl (baritone)
Andrew Foster-Williams (baritone)
James Baillieu (piano)
Ian Tindale (piano)
Malcolm Martineau (piano)
James Garnon (actor)
The Samling Artist Programme
has nurtured the careers of many a young artist, both singers and pianists (or,
if you will, accompanists), gathering them together (apparently, gathering,
collective, even assembly are possible translations of the Norse ‘Samling’)
with an array of senior artists. Part of that programme is an annual showcase
at the Wigmore Hall. For its twentieth anniversary, Samling Artists from 2000
(Andrew Foster-Williams) to 2016 (Kiandra Howarth) took the stage, joined by
Malcolm Martineau (one of those senior artists or ‘Leaders’) and the actor,
James Garnon. Thomas Allen, Samling’s Patron was to have joined the assembled
company, but flu put paid to that, and thus to an ensemble from Sullivan’s Trial by Jury. I cannot comment on every
single song, but hope to give a flavour of what was on offer in this particular
showcase.
The programme traced the ‘seven
ages of man’, prefaced by Garnon’s engaging reading from As you like it’s ‘strange eventful history’. Two songs from Britten’s
A Charm of Lullabies (Kathryn Rudge
and James Baillieu) opened ‘Infancy’, Baillieu’s piano making much of the
harmonic affinity of the Blake ‘Cradle Song’ with the world of The Rape of Lucretia, Rudge captivating
in the a cappella opening of ‘The
Nurse’s Song’. Her mezzo-soprano voice here and elsewhere proved both rich and
variegated of tone. The post-Mozartian simplicity of Schubert’s Wiegenlied was well captured by Kiandra
Howarth and Malcolm Martineau, paving the way for ‘Childhood’. Benjamin Appl
seemed not to come truly into his own until later in the recital. Although Ives’s
The Children’s Hour was beautifully
sung, he missed a certain lightness of touch. Four songs from Poulenc’s La Courte paille were more successful.
They were shared between Howarth and Rudge, the former seemingly relishing a
more absurdist side, the latter more seductive.
When we reached the stage of ‘The
Lover’, David Butt Philip joined Howarth and Ian Tindale for Schubert’s Licht und Liebe. Tindale proved equally
alert rhythmically and harmonically. The ardent quality of Butt Philip’s
singing carried into an unapologetically Italianate rendition of Liszt’s first
Petrarch Sonnet. Vocal passion was matched in Baillieu’s piano playing of that
and the second, for which Howarth returned, to give a similarly dramatic
performance. I cannot claim to care much for the music of Roger Quilter, but
Rudge and Appl gave a charming performance.
A welcome change of mood –
Britten folksongs are really not for me – came after the interval with ‘The
Soldier’. Following a reading from Henry
IV, Part I, Andrew Foster-Williams was heard for the first time, with
Baillieu, in Kriegers Ahnung. A
greater depth was immediately announced, carried into an especially commanding
performance (now with Tindale) of Schumann’s Der Soldat, sadness and anger in compelling balance. Appl seemed
much more at home in two soldier songs from Wolf’s Eichendorff-Lieder, using the words to excellent effect. Another
highlight, not just of this section, but of the concert as a whole, came with
the Rudge-Martineau performance of Fauré’s Les
Berceaux, its sadness deeply felt. Honesty and integrity of feeling were
equally apparent in Butt Philip’s Poulenc Bieuet.
Stylish, never mawkish, he impressed just as much as he had in the very
different music of Liszt. Much the same might be said of Foster-Williams, in
Samuel Barber’s Joyce setting, I hear an
army.
‘The Justice’ was missing the aforementioned
Sullivan number, so was confined to a charmingly despatched Liza Lehmann song
(Butt Philip/Tindale) and a cabaret song by William Bolcom: not my thing, I am
afraid, although Howarth was very much in her element. Lugubrious Teutonophile
that I am, I responded more warmly to ‘Old Age’ and Brahms. Foster-Williams and
Bailliue gave an unexaggerated, deceptively straightforward performance of O wüßt ich doch den Weg zurück, Rudge
and Martineau displaying depth to match that of the Fauré song in Alte Liebe. Rudge’s Barber song, The Secrets of the Old, captured the
idiom perfectly: an equally fine performance, again well supported by Martineau.
Much the same might be said of Howarth and Tindale’s sincere, aware Going to Heaven!
Our revels now were ended, as
the final Shakespeare reading reminded us. ‘Oblivion/Second Infancy’ opened
with a fine performance of Schubert’s Nachtstück
from Appl and Martineau. With beautiful vocal shading, Appl offered ample
consolation for the misery of dotage. A heartfelt consecration of the day (Des Tages Weihes) concluded proceedings,
with a well-matched performance form Howarth, Rudge, Butt Philip,
Foster-Williams, and Baillieu. It seemed fitting to leave to the echoing
strains of a Schubertiade.
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Andrew Foster-Williams,
Barber,
Benjamin Appl,
Brahms,
Britten,
Copland,
David Butt Philip,
Fauré,
Ives,
James Baillieu,
Kathryn Rudge,
Kiandra Howarth,
Liszt,
Malcolm Martineau,
Poulenc,
Samling,
Wigmore Hall
Tuesday 8 November 2016
Igor Levit - Beethoven, 7 November 2016
Wigmore Hall
Piano Sonata no.5 in C minor,
op.10 no.1
Piano Sonata no.19 in G minor,
op.49 no.1Piano Sonata no.20 in G major, op.49 no.2
Piano Sonata no.22 in F major, op.54
Piano Sonata no.23 in F minor, op.57, ‘Appassionata’
With this, the third instalment
of his Beethoven series, Igor Levit showed no sign whatsoever of running out of
steam. How could so thoughtful a musician, when such riches remain in store? Instead,
the experience proves a cumulative privilege.
With the C minor Sonata, op.10
no.1, Levit – and Beethoven, or should that be the other way around? –
immediately impressed in differentiating from the obvious Mozartian model (KV
457); likewise with the unity of melody, harmony, and rhythm (in no particular
order, that being the point). As a Schoenberg scholar, I found my thoughts
directed to this as an instantiation of what Schoenberg might have called the
Idea; as a Wagner scholar, I thought of the melos;
I thought, above all, though, of Beethoven. That concision which so often,
although certainly not in the Third Piano Concerto, seems to accompany
Beethoven in C minor was as striking as ever in this first movement exposition,
and indeed in the movement as a whole. The ambiguous shock of the chord
opening, or rather unleashing, the development seemed to ask, at so fraught a
time for our world, whether Beethoven offered hope or damnation. (He will
always ultimately offer the former, but we must listen, not always our
strongest suit.) Mozart hovered more clearly over the return to the minor mode
as the recapitulation drew to a close, but those final two chords could only
have been Beethoven, richly, dramatically played as they were here.
It was that heart-rendingly post-Mozartian
Beethoven who spoke first of all in the Adagio
molto. Levit transformed what we might think of
instrumental-turned-vocal-turned-instrumental rhetoric into something of rare
magic indeed, ever founded upon harmony. The movement’s luxuriant, even
ecstatic unfolding was perfectly voiced; one might have wished it would go on
for ever, therein lying much of its poignancy. A will-o’-the-wisp quality to the
finale almost suggested Schumann, but the goal orientation was clearly that of
Beethoven, born of Haydn. It was furious, and yes, Prestissimo: rightly unsettling, and yet not without humour.
The first of the op.49 sonatas
opened with a statement again post-Mozartian in character. Poised, dignified,
this first movement put me in mind of Pamina. (Perhaps it was the key, that of ‘Ach,
ich fühl’s’, but I do not think it was only that.) I even fancied I heard a nod
or two to imaginary Bach Inventions. The second of the work’s two movements
brought Beethoven as heir to Haydn once again to the fore, not least, within a
few bars, the heir who simply would not wait his turn. There was an exquisite,
loving boisterousness to Levit’s performance here, its ‘character’ spot on,
gruff humour and all.
The G major successor piece,
op.49 no.2, also opened in post-Mozartian mode, initial assumptions treated
similarly here. This first movement’s particular character and affinities shone
through without exaggeration, teasing rubato to the point, touch to die for.
Repeated notes were merely one case in point. The second movement’s lilt, which
both is and is not that of the Septet’s Minuet, was unerringly judged. Again,
at least for me, it was the pain of both proximity to and distance from Mozart
that sang most movingly of all, even when the method owed more to Haydn.
Tightness of rhythm struck me
at the opening of the F major Sonata, op. 54. Not because it was exaggerated or
even underlined, but because it is so often underplayed. Again, the movement’s
very particular character came to the fore. It is perhaps too easy to call it ‘quirky’,
although there is surely an element of that. Those syncopations, however, could not help but make me smile. Moreover,
a tendency towards proliferation even suggested a touch of Boulez. I am not
sure I have ever heard so clear a connection, as well as contrast, between the
sonata’s two movements. It was almost as if tendencies within the first
movement had received a shake of the kaleidoscope – and, voilà! Sui generis this
extraordinary second movement rightly remained, a lance thrown far into the
Schummanesque, even Lisztian future.
Finally, we heard the Appassionata. The expository function of
the opening materials was clear, yet also generative. (Liszt’s B minor Sonata
seemed not so very far away.) The welding together, or rather communication of
a Beethovenian unity always present, is where artistry comes in; so it did
here, as mysterious as it was undeniable. Progress through the first movement proved,
rightly, both straightforward and complex, Levit’s variety of the tragic
impulse reminiscent of the younger Pollini. The slow movement flowed almost
unassumingly, although never without gravity. Profundity was revealed, so it
seemed, through the material, not imposed upon it. Variation form made its own
nature and impetus felt, the proliferating spirit of the first movement
reinvented before our ears. Precision and tragic impulse were very clearly two
sides to the same coin in the finale. Even here, the spirit of Mozart, the
Mozart of the Fortieth Symphony, was far from vanquished. Command of line and projection
of character proved equally remarkable, likewise voicing, limpidity, and depth
of tone. Passagework, if one may use so apparently banal a term for this music,
sounded as if it were both at the service of the work and yet also liberated by
it, Beethoven’s genius bursting at the seams. This was a great performance of a
great work.
Monday 7 November 2016
A Warning against Fascism: Henze's 'In memoriam: The White Rose'
As the xenophobic fascism of Theresa May, Nigel
Farage, and the Daily Mail, amongst
others, cements its icy, murderous grip upon the
United Kingdom, as the world looks on in terror at the prospect of the United
States electing Donald Trump as President, here is a moving, seven-minute musical tribute to
earlier victims of fascism. 'Lest we forget' is now monstrously insufficient, for we forget daily in the very act of intoning a trite phrase that now means less than nothing. Let us stop forgetting right now; more to the point, let us act decisively against this drift further and further into barbarism. Herewith, Hans Werner Henze’s written introduction to
this fascinating, moving piece, and his own recording with the London
Sinfonietta:
Winter 1964-65, while at work with the composition of The Bassarids, I wrote this work as a contribution to the Congress of the European Antifascist Resistance, held in Bologna in March 1965. I chose the occasion to remind audiences of one of the groups who attempted open resistance to the Nazi regime inside Germany. This movement was called 'The White Rose' and the same name appeared on the numerous antifascist leaflets composed by their founders, the students Hans and Sophie Scholl, Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, Willy Graf, and the Munich University Professor, Kurt Huber. The movement began its activities in 1942 in Munich, but quickly spread to other important cities and gained a membership number of more than a hundred. A year later the founders were arrested, tried, condemned, executed. They defended themselves with great courage and died proudly for their ideas.
My work in their honour is a double fugue, and obviously inspired by and composed in the sense of Bach's Musical Offering structures.
Friday 4 November 2016
Mavra and Iolanta, Guildhall, 2 November 2016
Silk Street Theatre, Guildhall
Ibn-Hakia (Joseph Padfield), Iolanta (Elizabeth Skinner), and King René (David Ireland) Images: Clive Barda |
Mavra
Parasha – Anna SiderisVassili – Dominick Felix
Mother – Jade Moffat
Neighbour – Bianca Andrew
Iolanta
Iolanta – Elizabeth SkinnerKing René – David Ireland
Marta – Jade Moffat
Brigitta – Marho Arsane
Laura – Chloë Treharne
Bertrand – Bertie Watson
Alméric – Eduard Mas Bacardit
Ibn-Hakia – Joseph Padfield
Vaudémont – John Findon
Robert – Daniel Shelvey
Kelly Robinson (director)
Bridget Kimak (designs)Declan Randall (lighting)
K. Yoland (video designs)
Chorus and Orchestra of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Dominic Wheeler (conductor)
The Guildhall has shown typical
enterprise in programming: two very rarely staged one-act operas in an
intriguing double-bill. As I never tire of pointing out, much of the best
London opera is to be found in our conservatoires. This term, we have already
had an outstanding Royal Academy Alcina;
later this month, we shall hear La finta
giardiniera at the Royal College.
Any mild disappointment here was
occasioned only by Stravinsky’s Mavra
itself. I do not begrudge, indeed I wholeheartedly welcome, its staging.
Although the Philharmonia recently performed it, I was unable to attend, and I
have never previously had the opportunity. If there is a weaker work by the
composer in his maturity, I am delighted to say that I have forgotten it. (I
might dislike Orpheus, but I
recognise its craft. Even Jeu de cartes
has a good deal more going for it.) Describing it, as a short buffa work at the cusp of his Ballet
russes and neo-Classical tendencies, makes it sound more interesting than it
is. It does not overstay its welcome, perhaps, being so short, but the motoric
elements here really do sound as if the composer is on auto-pilot. At best, one
might find a passing correspondence with L’Histoire
du soldat, even Petrushka, but it
is trivial stuff really, with a trivial story, concerning a pair of lovers who
trick the girl’s mother into accepting her hussar into the house as a new
domestic servant.
Here, it was given, as the composer
preferred, in the vernacular. Vocal performances were all spirited, well
attuned to the trickiness – here, somewhat pointless trickiness, I tend to
think – of Stravinsky’s writing. Anna Sideris and Dominick Felix proved agile
of voice and on their feet. Jade Moffat and Bianca Andrew offered fine ‘character’
support as Mother and Neighbour. Solo and ensemble demands were navigated
readily, in lively combination to the considerable amount of stage action
required of them by Kelly Robinson’s updated (1960s?), production. Bridget
Kimak’s colourful designs engaged the eye, and if there was not a great deal to
the staging beyond what one saw, it is not clear that there could have been.
There were a few occasions on which orchestral rhythms and ensembles might have
been tighter still, but under Dominic Wheeler, the uneasy marriage of clockwork
and Russian colour in its last, equivocal hurrah generally came across well. I
shall leave the final word with Stravinsky, writing to his publisher in 1969,
imploring him to publish the work: ‘Of course the music is not and will never
be a success and there may be no demand or justification for printing it; and
if I say that worse music than Mavra is performed
you may say that better music is also not performed. Still, I would like to see
the work in print.’
Neighbour (Bianca Andrew) and Mother (Jade Moffat) |
Iolanta, by contrast,
has great music indeed, fully worthy, at its best, of the composer of Eugene Onegin. I noticed far less the
run-of-the-mill quality of some exchanges than I had in such exalted
surroundings as the Paris
Opéra earlier this year, which is surely tribute to impressive performances
indeed. There, in Dmitri Tcherniakov’s searching staging – somewhat slow-burn
in Iolanta itself, but cleverly
paving the way – the opera had been paired with The Nutcracker, as indeed had been the case at the latter’s
premiere in 1892. In a programme note, Robinson noted that both plots are – I should,
more cautiously say, might be considered – ‘variants of the Sleeping Beauty
fairy tale’. I wish, then, that the two stagings were more obviously connected,
drawing out connections rather than leaving it at that. That said, there was
much to admire in Iolanta in itself,
updated to a modern hospital ward, the princess awaiting her awakening under
the watchful – and not-so-watchful – eyes of her nurses and some
impressive-looking medical equipment. As in the opera itself, it is not
entirely clear to what extent, if any, the Moorish doctor, Ibn-Hakia, plies anything other than the
psychological tools of his trade, although an operation certainly takes place
here at the right time. Video projections and lighting work powerfully later
on, both to illustrate, simply yet unforgettably, the blinding first light and
the all-important presence of the eye. Iolanta’s? God’s? We seem free to
choose.
Vaudémont (John Findon) |
Most importantly, space is
permitted for an excellent cast to work Tchaikovsky’s wonders. The central pair
of lovers both proved impressive indeed. Elizabeth Skinner faltered on one
occasion, yet otherwise proved moving and generous of spirit. Her portrayal of
the princess’s blindness was unerring; no one could have failed to be on her
side. John Findon, as Vaudémont, was, quite simply, outstanding. His ardent tenor
was just the thing, rising thrillingly above the orchestra – remember how young
these singers are! – and yet capable of considerable subtlety. Their Russian,
like that of the rest of the cast, seemed to me excellent too: I certainly
managed to follow its meaning (without, alas, any real knowledge of the language)
when the surtitles failed. David Ireland’s King René was another generous,
keenly observed portrayal; there was no doubting his love for his daughter and
consequently his plight. All of the singers acted well as a company, listening
to each other and responding in kind. Eduard Mas Bacardit, Bertie Watson, and
Daniel Shelvey offered, to my ear, particularly fine performances, but there
was not a weak link in the cast.
Robert (Daniel Shelvey) |
I occasionally wondered whether
the orchestra might be too small, but it rose to the occasion at the great
climaxes, showing instead that Wheeler, ever attentive to the score’s ebb and
flow, had been keeping it down, emphasising, perfectly reasonably, chamber
tendencies, or at least possibilities, within.
Labels:
Anna Sideris,
Bianca Andrew,
Daniel Shelvey,
David Ireland,
Dominic Wheeler,
Dominick Felix,
Elizabeth Skinner,
Guildhall,
Iolanta,
Jade Moffat,
John Findon,
Kelly Robinson,
Mavra,
Stravinsky,
Tchaikovsky
Rusalka, Komische Oper, 30 October 2016
Komische Oper, Berlin
Vodník – Jens-Erik Aasbø
Foreign Princess – Karolina Gumos
Gamekeeper – Ivan Turšić
Kitchen Boy – Christiane Oertel
First Wood Nymph – Annika Gerhards
Second Wood Nymph – Maria Fiselier
Third Wood Nymph – Katarzyna Włodarczyk
Huntsman –Johannes Dunz
Ježibaba’s Son – Marcus Wagner
Klaus Grünberg (set designs, lighting)
Klaus Bruns (costumes)
Bettina Auer (dramaturgy)
Images: Monika Rittershaus Rusalka (Nadja Mchantaf), Ježibaba (Nadine Weissmann), and her son (Marcus Wagner) |
(sung in German)
Rusalka – Nadja Mchantaf
Prince – Timothy Richards
Ježibaba – Nadine WeissmannVodník – Jens-Erik Aasbø
Foreign Princess – Karolina Gumos
Gamekeeper – Ivan Turšić
Kitchen Boy – Christiane Oertel
First Wood Nymph – Annika Gerhards
Second Wood Nymph – Maria Fiselier
Third Wood Nymph – Katarzyna Włodarczyk
Huntsman –Johannes Dunz
Ježibaba’s Son – Marcus Wagner
Barrie Kosky (director)
Anisha Bondy (revival director)Klaus Grünberg (set designs, lighting)
Klaus Bruns (costumes)
Bettina Auer (dramaturgy)
Chorus of the Komische Oper, Berlin (chorus master: David Cavelius)
Orchestra of the Komische Oper, Berlin
Henrik Nánási (conductor)
Prince (Timothy Richards), Rusalka, and Foreign Princess (Karolina Gumos) |
I shall not beat about the
bush: this was just what opera should be. It convinced this sceptic that a
repertoire system can not only work, but work uncommonly well. Barrie Kosky’s
intelligent, thoughtful production, Henrik Nánási’s similarly intelligent
conducting of the excellent Komische Oper orchestra, and a splendid cast (with
a true star, in the best rather than the ‘celebrity’ sense, in the title role)
combined to enchant, to challenge, and to move. There is an openness to the
production and performance typical of so much of the best opera at the moment
It is only a certain class of
reactionary adults who will refer to something as ‘just’ being a fairy tale.
Children and thoughtful adults know that the world of the fairy tale is dark
indeed. (And yet, the number of anodyne productions of Hänsel und Gretel the world must suffer continues to grow! Thank
goodness for bold exceptions, such as that
of Liam Steel earlier this year, for the Royal College of Music.) Look
closely, or even just permit yourself to be receptive, and you will find that
it is all there: sex, violence, sorrow, tragedy. The Grimm Brothers and other
collectors were not interested in an adult’s sentimental creation of ‘childhood’.
Nor, however, were they out to shock. They did their collecting, their editing;
they certainly were not passive. But they wanted to let the tales speak in some
sense – however illusory this idea may be as an ‘absolute’ – ‘for themselves’.
So, I think, does Kosky here, mediated, as it most likely must be, via the
nineteenth century, in which the opera was (just!) written, and of course by
what has happened since. Indeed, an interview with Kosky and Patrick Lange –
the conductor, I presume, when the production was new, in 2012 – opens with
Kosky declaring: ‘Rusalka muss ein
Märchen sein!’ (‘Rusalka must be a
fairy tale.’)
And so, without danger of prettification
or ‘mere’ folklore or folklorism, the story is, with great strength, quite
without varnish, placed centre stage, literally and figuratively. Klaus
Grünberg’s set design unfussily suggests the Komische Oper’s interior itself;
we are all staging, after all, not least those of us in the audience. The cold
elegance, moreover, of the late Victorian wall and, crucially, door – that is
where, even how, things change, the action moves on – is all the framing we
really need. We concentrate on the wood nymph herself and her plight. Above
all, her mermaid’s tail, with which she struggles in such heart-rending fashion,
leaving her desperate to become ‘human’, only for matters to become worse when
she does, sears itself into the memory, as does the fish skeleton that emerges
from within following the shocking butchery of the witch, Ježibaba. A (Danse) macabre
convention of skeletons, spirits of death, and so on we see in the third act (of
the opera ‘itself’, for here, we have only one interval) chills without undue
grotesquerie; all is very much in the spirit of a fairy tale that is anything
but ‘mere’. (There is no literalist river by the meadow here, but there is
water, which, when we see, even feel, it, thereby makes its point all the more
clearly.) The subconscious is clearly at work, but never in laboured, didactic
fashion. That, after all, is not the way of the subconscious. And we make what
we will of it; that, after all, is its way.
At the heart, in more ways than
one, of the performance was Nadja Mchantaf’s superlative performance as Rusalka.
She captured, in gorgeous, never self-regarding, vocal tone, the longing, the
dreaming, the sadness, the heartbreak. Her stage presence, again entirely at
the service of the drama, was second to none. One could read into her
frustration as much – or as little – more as one wished, or rather as one’s
subconscious wished. Mchantaf’s ability to capture ‘girlish’ sweetness, not
necessarily unalloyed, and desire, indeed desperation, for something more will
linger long in my memory. Rusalka’s unknowing imitation of the Foreign Princess’s
knowing sexual advances upon the Prince were perhaps saddest of all. Karolina
Gumos herself brought old-style glamour to a stage-stopping performance as the
Princess, seductive in voice as well as in her shameless yet never inelegant display.
Timothy Richards’s honestly perplexed performance as the Prince occasionally
edged towards vocal strain, but never excessively so. Jens-Erik Aasbø brought a
sense of the deeply, sternly primæval to Vodník, the Water Goblin, lamenting
Rusalka’s fate, refusing to grant her false hope. Nadine Weissmann, Frank
Castorf’s Erda, was perhaps always going to court that comparison,
especially when singing this opera in German, but I was just as interested to
hear how the role differed; her malevolence and yet also her personal,
hinted-at tragedy shone through with what was, I think, the blackest of humour.
Kosky’s conception of both goblin and witch as mediators between two
irreconcilable (dream?) worlds was in excellent hands – and voices. There were
no weak links, and a true sense of old-fashioned – in the best sense – company
lifted every contribution. One final mention should go to the splendid trio of
Wood Nymphs, Rhinemaidens in the making – or is it the other way around?
Nánási’s conducting traced the
ebb and flow of Dvořak’s score very well. Opening in perhaps more formalistic
fashion – not at all inappropriately so – this reading acquired impetus, even aqueous
dissolution, of its own, rather as if the composer were ‘progressing’ from
something more Schumannesque to the world of Tristan. In a sense he is, and one can certainly here proximity in
some of the later harmonies. The orchestra and chorus glistened and glowered,
equal partners – at least – in a drama more compelling still than most of Dvořak’s
symphonies. Lange, in that interview, actually drew comparisons with Mahler,
and compared the opera to ‘eine gensungene Sinfonie’. Nánási seemed very much
to follow in his footsteps, St Anthony’s preaching to the Mahlerian fishes as
ever going (tragically) unheeded.
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