La Cenerentola, English National Opera, 27 September 2025

Coliseum

Images copyright: Mark Douet

Angelina – Deepa Johnny
Don Ramiro – Aaron Godfrey-Mays
Dandini – Charles Rice
Don Magnifico – Simon Bailey
Alidoro – David Ireland
Clorinda – Isabelle Peters
Tisbe – Grace Durham

Director – Julia Burbach
Set designs – Herbert Murauer
Costumes – Sussie Juhlin-Wallén
Lighting – Malcolm Rippeth
Video – Hayley Egan
Choreography – Cameron McMillan

Dancers

Chorus of the English National Opera (chorus director: Matthew Quinn)

Orchestra of the English National Opera

Yi-Chen Lin (conductor)

Cinderella (Deepa Johnny), Don Ramiro (Aaron Godfrey-Mayes)

For the more Teutonically inclined of us, Rossini is an interesting case. He would doubtless have scoffed at the very idea, itself deeply German, of offering a ‘case’ at all: surely more the province of Wagner and his endless stream of interpreters. Interpreting Rossini might even seem beside the point; as Carl Dahlhaus put it, setting up his guiding twin style and culture contrast between Beethoven and Rossini, for him ‘a far-reaching rift in the concept of music’, there was ‘nothing to “understand” about the magic that emanated from Rossini’s music’. That is far from straightforwardly a pejorative observation, though it is difficult to avoid the implication of lesser, secondary status vis-à-vis Beethoven (and his successors). It might even be made to stand with Nietzsche’s celebrated elevation of Carmen over Wagner, though that even more so is ‘really’ about Wagner, not Bizet. At some level, though, one knows what Dahlhaus means, irrespective of one’s own particular stance or preference. There is something immediate, even unreflective to much of this music; one does not engage in a search for music, or if one does, one is readily confounded, given the way the same music can be made to suffer quite different purposes, brazenly un-textbound, attesting to the truth, if not the whole truth, in Wagner’s oft-misunderstood observation of ‘absolute melody’. 

There needs, though, to be magic (as doubtless there does, in a very different way, in Wagner). It will suspend disbelief, transform the at-times disturbingly formulaic into an intriguing formalism, and among other things, simply delight. That was not absent on the first night of ENO’s new Cenerentola, but nor was it as present as it might have been. Yi-Chen Lin’s stewardship of the score proved surprisingly tentative, highlighting rather than transmuting potential longueurs, too often feeling and sometimes being oddly slow. I suspect that was partly to be attributed to the requirements of singing in English – a very wordy English at that – but it was not only that. The Overture, for instance, came across as a random assemblage of unconnected musical ideas, with little attempt to weld them into something that was more than the sum of its parts. Too often, the music, some splendid playing from the ENO Orchestra notwithstanding, lacked contrast, be it dynamic or of tempo; all was too much of a muchness. There were a few too many cases of discrepancy between pit and stage – one in particular lasting several bars – but such things tend to iron themselves out during a run. 

In that context, the singers could only be expected to shine intermittently, which they did. Deepa Johnny’s Angelina/Cinderella was in general beautifully sung, with an accurate if not necessarily expressive line in coloratura. She did much to fashion an attractive character of sincerity; if there were no hidden depths, that might be said of everyone else and is more a reflection of the work than anything else. Her accent sometimes veered awkwardly between different sides of the Atlantic: one of several reasons why Italian will generally prove the better choice for such repertoire. Aaron Godfrey-Mayers offered a Ramiro, tender and ardent by turn, who again had one long to hear what he might have done in Italian, without in this case feeling unduly shortchanged: a significant achievement. Charles Rice’s Dandini was similarly well sung and acted, alive in the moment in a properly Rossinian sense, and fearless in his trickier vocal moments. David Ireland and Simon Bailey gave the strongest sense of commitment to the translation, the former as Alidoro almost giving one the impression it might have been written that way, the latter as Don Magnifico spinning and relishing a fine, old-school ENO line in patter. As the sisters Clorinda and Tisbe, Isabelle Peters and Grace Durham steered a judicious line between opera and pantomime, though could often have projected and enunciated more strongly in the cavernous Coliseum. Chorus and dancers offered variety, scenic diversion, and a welcome degree of greater framing. 

That might have been developed further had Julia Burbach’s production not felt quite so caught between two (or more) stools. A few doses of more detailed as opposed to surface realism, be it grimy or ‘traditional’, and/or of glitter, magic, and, dare I say, of spectacle might have helped. Herbert Murauer’s set could not have been cheap, yet a central lift that did not go up or down served little purpose; if two levels were desirable, a staircase might have done a better job of linking them. Burbach’s staging also imparted a sense of having failed to establish – in reality, probably having failed to communicate – quite what its guiding principles were and how they played out in the drama, which came across as less than it does on the page, though Christoper Cowell’s relentlessly self-regarding translation – often more a paraphrase – did not help. Many in the audience, though, seemed to find the startlingly novel concept of rhyme hilarious, especially when mixed with increasingly tedious demotic anachronism. 

Cinderella, Dandini (Charles Rice)

If, despite the shortcomings, this made for an enjoyable enough evening, it could readily have offered more. The opera’s general trajectory and Rossini’s musical formalism could and surely should have been conveyed more consistently, with both greater polish and a stronger sense of what ‘it’, be it the opera ‘itself’ or its staging, was actually about. Children dressed as miniature versions of Don Magnifico (in his case, with beard) and his daughters, appeared on stage for a while, eliciting mirth and bewilderment. Alas, I cannot tell you why. A woman who often, though not always, accompanied Simon Bailey turned out, according to the programme, to be Angelina’s mother. It is a reasonable enough idea, but needed greater attention to communication and implication. Mice ran around for a while, without really doing anything beyond that. Even a promising sense of literal framing, members of the chorus stepping out of the prince’s ancestral pictures, led nowhere in particular. That seemed in retrospect, alas, a little too accurate a snapshot of the action as a whole.

 

La locandiera, Bampton Classical Opera, 16 September 2025

St John’s, Smith Square

Mirandolina – Siân Dicker
Fabrizio – Samuel Pantcheff
Lena – Rosalind Dobson
Baron Ripafratta – Osian Wyn Bowen
Count of Albafiorita – David Horton
Marquis of Forlimpopoli – Aidan Edwards

Director, designer – Jeremy Gray
Assistant director – Harriet Cameron
Movement – Karen Halliday
Costumes – Pauline Smith, Anne Baldwin
Lighting – Ian Chandler

CHROMA

Andrew Griffiths (conductor)

Images: Bampton Classical Opera
Baron Ripafratta (Osian Wyn Bowen) and Mirandolina (Siân Dicker)

My second Salieri opera of the year: it is not so often one has opportunity to say that, although (depending how one counts) it is arguably not my first time either. At any rate, the bicentenary of the composer’s death has afforded opportunities one can only hope will lead to others after this year. Bampton Classical Opera has long been an advocate for Salieri, this its fifth production of one of his operas. This spring, the Salzburg Landestheater’s revival of the 1795 Il mondo alla rovescia proved a revelation. Now BCO has turned to a considerably earlier dramma giocoso, the 1773 La locandiera, written with Domenico Poggi, after Goldoni, when the composer was but a Mozartian 22. (I know I should try to avoid mentioning him in this context, but it rarely proves possible.) Truth be told, this early work is far from a masterpiece, nor do I think it compares with any of his operas, however early, though it may simply be that I know them better and/or am reflecting mere personal preference. La locandiera is, however, competently written, was more than competently performed, and, with what I presume to have been judicious cuts, certainly did not outstay its welcome, affording a cold September London evening a reminder of the departed Cotswold summer in which Jeremy Gray’s production would have seen the light of day at the Bampton Deanery. 

Moreover, musical comparisons with Bohuslav Martinů’s frankly trivial Mirandolina, based on the same play and seen at Garsington in 2009, stand very much in Salieri’s favour. I shall admit to having wondered to begin with, both with respect to work and orchestral sound. Whether it was my ears adjusting or something akin to an objective improvement, I am not entirely sure; perhaps it was a little of both. At any rate, it would be churlish to harrumph unduly at the small number of CHROMA players, since the alternative would likewise have been not to hear the opera at all. For the most part, Andrew Griffiths set reasonable and varied tempi, proved supportive to the singers, and vigorous playing imparted a keen sense of drama and onward motion. At least as important, a sense of increasing musico-dramatic involvement, as we got to ‘know’ the characters and their predicament, that sense doubtless born of a duly operatic combination of virtues: work, singing, staging, and orchestral/overall direction.  

Count of Albafiorita (David Horton), Marquis of Forlimpopoli (Aidan Edwards)

Gray’s production stood in a recognisably Bampton line, without in any way seeming off-the-shelf. I suspect the English country environment helps suggest something of its own ilk: the world of Agatha Christie, blazers, tennis, and witty one-liners (rather, in Gray and Gilly French’s translation, rhyming couplets). The transposition fitted well the noble-and-servant world of Goldoni; it enabled plentiful colour, action – never a dull moment – and reference in a nicely resourceful staging. A momentary visitation from the future, ‘Se vuol ballare, signor barone’, rightly raised a few chortles and reminded us how many opere buffe sprang ultimately from similar soil. That ‘other’ composer probably came closest, if with considerably greater musical sophistication, in La finta giardiniera, and the dramatic situation itself probably stands closest there too. I could not help but think a little more might have been done with gender and sexuality, as was certainly the case in the Salzburg Mondo alla rovescia. Baron Ripafratta, suspicious to an absurd degree of women, might have been ‘unpacked’ a little, as we now like to say. Perhaps, though, there is something to be said for treating a little-known work more or less straight, as it were. 

Lena (Rosalind Dobson), Fabrizio (Samuel Pantcheff)

I have stressed ‘situation’, because that felt like the beating heart of the evening’s entertainment: not entirely unlike a ‘situation comedy’, albeit without the reruns. From that, though, stock characters could not only step forth, which in able vocal performances they certainly did; they could also perhaps shed a little of their stock nature in the specific magic of actual performance. At the hub was the landlady herself, Mirandolina, in a spirited, properly knowing portrayal by Siân Dicker, well matched in every respect by Samuel Pantcheff’s Fabrizio. Our not-quite, not-yet Susanna and Figaro – ok, I give up for now; teleology wins – displayed excellent chemistry, born equally of stage encounter and lyricism, as well as duly outwitting a trio of male aristocratic buffoons. In their vocalism, though, Osian Wyn Bowen, David Horton, and Aidan Edwards all hinted – without over-egging their respective puddings – at greater frames of reference, not least through excellent line and phrasing. Only on one occasion did one of them sound parted, and that was soon forgotten. Rosalind Dobson’s Lena offered a fine animating presence too; my only regret was that she did not have more to sing. Here, then, on the cusp of autumnal blues, was served a landlady’s lyrical tonic—and far from only that.

BBC SSO/Volkov - Gabrieli, Stravinsky, and Brahms, 11 September 2025

Royal Albert Hall

Gabrieli, arr. Maderna: In ecclesiis
Stravinsky: Requiem Canticles
Gabrieli, arr. Maderna: Canzone a tre cori
Brahms: Symphony no.2 in D major, op.73

Jess Dandy (contralto)

Ashley Riches (bass-baritone)

National Youth Choir

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Ilan Volkov (conductor)

Images: BBC / Andy Paradise

A splendid Prom, whose programming was not only fascinating on paper, but grew in fascination, connection, and meaning as the evening progressed, aided no end by fine performances from soloists, the National Youth Choir, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and Ilan Volkov. Both halves opened with Bruno Maderna orchestral arrangements of works by Giovanni Gabrieli. First was the polychoral motet In ecclesiis, published posthumously in 1615, and arranged by Maderna in 1966. The variety yet consequential nature of Maderna’s choices concerning antiphonal responses shone through in ravishing performance. A Monteverdian sultriness to chamber passages, the grandeur of a fuller orchestra, adept handling and communication of metrical changes, and the sheer wonder of hearing this music – at long last – on modern instruments made for a wonderful curtain-opener resounding in Venetian splendour. Less ‘faithful’ passages with woodwind, harp, and eventually tubular bells brought similar joy to the ears. It built magnificently and subsided with discernment. Those sectional and consequential qualities were also to be heard in Maderna’s 1972 revisiting of the Conzon XVI à 12. Warm, lively, and highly rhythmical, it was again full of colour, not in an over-the-top Respighi-like way, which has its place, but in an unquestionable effort to communicate the essential qualities of the music to a modern audience. The intrinsic qualities of Gabrielian brass, married to warm, incisive strings and unfailingly well-chosen tempi, would have given pleasure to all but the most narrow-minded of authenticists. 

In between came one of the greatest jewels not only of Stravinsky’s late, serial period, but of his career, the Requiem Canticles heard at the composer’s Venetian funeral in 1971: of the same time, then, as Maderna’s arrangements and hailing from a less dissimilar musical world than some might suspect, old and new similarly united and inseparable. Intensity of drama and excellence of playing marked the opening Prelude: a clear indication of ‘serialism, Jim, but not as we know it’. It could only ever be Stravinsky, of course, and so it sounded, with fresh energy and commitment. The ‘Exaudi’ came to our ears as the Symphony of Psalms heard through a prism of Webern. There was something also of a musical object, even of a religious icon, to it: fitting in so many ways. The National Youth Choir’s warmth, diction, and intonation here and elsewhere were striking, as for instance in the distilled, almost homeopathic power of the following ‘Dies irae’. Ashley Riches joined trumpets and bassoons for an implacable yet human ‘Tuba mirum’, bassoon duetting continuing, amongst a quartet of flutes, and others in a duly hieratic ‘Interlude’ that unmistakeably echoed the music of Gabrieli (at least in this context). The ‘Rex tremendae’ said or sang all that need be said or sung, serial process joyously apparent. Was that Mother Goose putting in a guest appearance, courtesy of a rich-toned Jess Dandy, in the ‘Lacrimosa’? The composer’s direct Verdian homage in the ‘Libera me’, partly fragmented through unforgettable chatter of choral souls, brought us to a world of crystalline, celestial perfection in the ‘Postlude’, Messiaen a closer kindred spirit than I had ever previously imagined. 

The final work on the programme was Brahms’s Second Symphony, here given a thoughtful, striking, never less than coherent reconsideration by Volkov. It was fascinating to hear the lines of its opening texture after – in more than one sense – Gabrieli, whose music Brahms programmed amongst much alte Musik in his Wiener Singakademie concerts. The first movement unfolded relatively swiftly, though never unreasonably so; indeed, the composer’s marking ‘Allegro non troppo’ would be a pretty good summary of what we heard. Volkov handled the many tempo changes convincingly, likewise other, related changes of mood. Here, quite rightly, was a world of perpetual motivic transformation, always ‘becoming’ in developing variation: Schoenberg rather than Schenker, one might say. This was not an especially autumnal Brahms, but rather vernal music – horn calls and all – with decidedly darker undercurrents. It surprised, though never for the sake of surprise – telling phrasing here, a sudden diminuendo there – and cohered throughout, the BBC SSO’s multifaceted strings an ever-shifting backbone, if such a thing can be imagined. 

An involved (emotionally, intellectually, and texturally) second movement again brought the quality of Brahms’s counterpoint to the fore, the composer moving closer still to Schoenberg, yet also to Mozart. I am not sure I have heard this music sound more volatile, ever threatening to bubble over, its deep melancholy and Innigkeit part and parcel of a greater humanism. The third movement’s inheritance from Mendelssohn and Schumann was beautifully clear, though the other side of the coin was a tale of twists and turns, of continued suppression of darker truths. Its darkness was quite different, say, from Furtwängler’s, yet I could not help but think the older conductor might have appreciated it and nodded approvingly. And for all its ambiguity and complexity, there was a not entirely dissimilar overall clarity, even simplicity, to it. When the final movement erupted, hard driven at times yet always flexible, it proved thrilling and satisfying in equal measure, conceived both dramatically and symphonically, yet perhaps closer in scale and even temperament to a homage to Haydn rather than to Beethoven. It made, at any rate, for a winning, boisterous way to close a concert full of treasure.

And yet, meaning no disrespect to this excellent concert, the most electrifying and necessary item was yet to come: not an encore, though a return to the podium by Volkov, in which, visibly and audibly anxious, he, as an Israeli, addressed the audience in heartrending fashion concerning the genocide in Gaza. He gave those who did not wish to hear opportunity to leave, even in the face of abuse from malcontents. It would be remiss of me not to report this, though the BBC, it seems, has declined to do so. (The broadcast had by that time finished, it seems, although footage is widely available from elsewhere.) By the same token, I do not think this is quite the place to enter into any discussion of his words, other than to say I marvelled at and was inspired by his courage and stand in solidarity with him. His words (I hope I have transcribed them correctly) should now speak for themselves: 

In my heart there is great pain now, every day for months. I come from Israel and live there. I love it: it’s my home. But what’s happening is atrocious and horrific on a scale that’s unimaginable. I know that many of us feel completely helpless in front of it. Innocent Palestinians being killed in thousands, displaced again and again, without hospitals and schools, not knowing when's the next meal. Israeli hostages are kept in terrible conditions for almost two years and political prisoners are languishing in Israeli jails. Israelis – Jews and Palestinians – won’t be able to stop this alone. I ask you, I beg you all, to do whatever is in your power to stop this madness. Every little action counts while governments hesitate and wait. We cannot let this go on any longer; every moment that passes puts the safety of millions in risk. Thank you.

Thank you, Ilan (if I may). The conductor has since announced that he will no longer work in Israel.

VPO/Welser-Möst - Berg and Bruckner, 8 September 2025

Royal Albert Hall

Berg: Lulu-Suite (extracts)
Bruckner: Symphony no.9 in D minor

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Franz Welser-Möst (conductor)

Images: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou

Returning to the ‘cavernous’ (typical euphemism) acoustic of the Royal Albert Hall from the better suited venues of the Salzburg Festival takes some getting used to: for the listener and doubtless for the Vienna Philharmonic too. Still, it was heartening to be part of what approached a capacity audience despite severe transport disruption owed to Tube workers’ industrial action, and the ears – expectations, at least – adjusted as I was drawn in to fine performances of Berg and Bruckner, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst. 

It was perhaps a little odd only to hear three Lulu movements (without soloist): the Rondo, Variations, and Adagio. If the music felt slightly listless to begin with – Boulez, for instance, would have imparted a greater sense of forward impetus – Welser-Möst’s paths through the VPO’s silken-smooth Rondo-labyrinth contributed in its different way to a sense of connection throughout the work as a whole and indeed with Bruckner’s writing too. It flowed at first almost imperceptibly but with increasing inexorability. Darker undercurrents occasionally flowed over, but solo instruments in particular proved the principal voices of different threads in quasi-chamber music that highlighted points in common with, say, the Lyric Suite and indeed with Mozart and Schubert, a duly post-Mahlerian close to the movement notwithstanding. A new burst of energy heralded the Variations, well balanced and directed in a more obviously urban soundscape: both more overtly of the interwar years, of ‘Weimar culture’ broadly construed, and also more overtly Classical-Romantic in form and expression. The final movement brought greater and more tragic malevolence from the off, already offering presentiments of the darkness at the heart of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony (and the path Europe would take following Berg’s death). Open, serial lines pointed to the musical future, but also to a close that, not unlike Wozzeck, stops rather than concludes. ‘Lulu! Mein Engel!’ could only be voiced by strings, yet was no less moving for that, as if the epilogue to the hopes and possibilities not only of a woman, but of an age grimly consonant with our own. 

Following music from Lulu, another celebrated unfinished work—although, likewise, important attempts have been made at completion (not heard here). If Berg and Webern – perhaps Friedrich Cerha, should one venture into the postwar world – sound as some of the last, epilogic gasps of the Austrian Catholic Baroque in music, Bruckner perhaps offers the final full instalment, if not so unmediated as some might have one believe. At any rate, Berg and Webern – their great Jewish-Lutheran teacher too – were present as ghosts, as immanent as those of earlier Austro-German Romanticism. Sonic combination of translucency and depth brought the Vienna Philharmonic’s character, and that of a Bruckner inclined to modernity, even modernism, to the fore. Was it in the shadows, though, and in other liminal passages, that the truest ‘meaning’ lay, here in the first movement and beyond? Poisonous offshoots from the Ring suggested Bruckner’s own response to his touchingly naïve Bayreuth question: why does Brünnhilde burn? Or was it in the unisons, in the approach to the dedicatee of the symphony, Bruckner’s ‘dear God’? In the wayward yet consequential melodic and harmonic twists and turns, or in the orchestral colours that at times seemed to pre-empt Schoenberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces? There was no definitive answer: far from a bad thing. Yes, of course even this music, Bruckner at its greatest, does not develop like Brahms or Beethoven. It takes its own path(s), though; here they sounded unerring, unlike the sometimes unfortunate attempts of his earlier symphonies. Welser-Möst may not have been so ferociously possessed as Furtwängler – who is? – but this performance had its own dramatic trajectory, at times fragile, even threatening to fragment, yet never doing so and quite clear after the event. The movement’s close was hair-raising, without the slightest over-egging. 

The Scherzo sounded as if Schubert, even Bruckner himself, were celebrating a black mass. It was not all malevolence, but, as if in anticipation of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder confrontation with the Almighty, the standpoint was clear in a drama of belief. The Trio offered, beautifully, nervily, and not a little frighteningly keen contrast in some of the most outstanding orchestral playing London will hear this year.  And the Scherzo’s reprise was heard through that contrast in greater ambiguity and sheer terror, an Upper Austrian Devil stomping his foot to create before our ears an Oberammergau passion within a passion. When sunshine emerged from behind the clouds, one could not but ask, without ready answer, how and why. If the close slightly disappointed, that was because convincing tonal conclusion no longer seemed possible; the world of Lulu and others now seemed inevitable. 

That slightly forced conclusion was nonetheless offset by the coming of the ‘final’ Adagio in all its Wagnerian richness, eloquence, and grandeur. For whilst this was unquestionably a symphonic performance of what is unquestionably a symphony, it was informed by the deepest immersion in music drama too, above all that of Parsifal; how could it not be, given the orchestra? That was combined with a world that lay eerily ‘beyond’, historically and metaphysically, less unlike that of Mahler than we might often think, although the nature of its subjectivity remained close to diametrically opposed. Welser-Möst built the movement patiently, without evident moulding. What a welcome contrast with the flailing incomprehension of a Klaus Mäkelä in his recent Mahler Fifth. And it was striking how many presentiments of Mahler, from Das klagende Lied to his incomplete Tenth, were to be heard. The realm into which we were led disoriented and disconcerted, irrespective of how much one might ‘know’ the work. There was a sense of having attempted to reach something we could – and should – not, Wagner’s Grail meeting something more traditionally transcendental, before a necessary turn aside so as, if not to conclude, then to end.