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 Christopher 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.

 

Il barbiere di Siviglia, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, 16 February 2024

Count Almaviva – Siyabonga Maqungo
Doctor Bartolo – Renato Girolami
Rosina – Marina Viotti
Don Basilio – Grigory Shkarupa
Berta – Adriane Queiroz
Figaro – Samuel Hasselhorn
Fiorillo – Dionysios Averginos
Ambrosio, Notary – Florian Eckhardt
Officer – Wolfgang Biebuyck

Director – Ruth Berghaus
Designs – Achim Freyer
Revival director – Katharina Lang

Staatsopernchor Berlin (chorus director: Dani Juris)

Staatskapelle Berlin

Ido Arad (conductor)

Images (from 2010): Monika Rittershaus

I see that, in London, Jonathan Miller’s 1987 ENO production of The Barber of Seville is receiving another outing. It seems positively modern, though, at least when it comes to years and performances on the clock, when compared with Ruth Berghaus’s 1968 staging for the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, first seen a little less than midway between the declaration of the German Democratic Republic and the fall of the Berlin Wall and now past 350 outings. In one of these near-miracles impossible fully to explain, though, Berghaus’s production seems more of our time – I cannot quite bring myself to describe anything, anti-historically, as ‘timeless’ – than many a staging receiving its premiere. It is probably the oldest I have ever seen in the theatre, yet it does not seem like it. Doubtless it has changed over the years; the director who dared to make changes at the Berliner Ensemble, would hardly have wished it otherwise. Some gestures struck me as highly unlikely to have been hers. Still more than usually, then, to speak of ‘Berghaus’s production’ will be a short-hand for a collaborative, changing effort. By the same token, it is difficult to believe that, at its heart, this is not something true, through fidelity and infidelity alike, to her conception. Above all, it provided the foundation on which a delightful evening of Rossini’s comedy unfolded. 

At that heart, I think, is a crucial insight not only into the artificiality of theatre – though that is certainly present – but into the very particular artifice involved in that arch-formalist Rossini. In a passage extracted in the programme, Berghaus exclaims (my translation): ‘Reality! Theatre is not reality and does not mirror reality. Theatre asserts a lfe that is taken from reality. But it is not reality. One must accept theatre as an addition to reality. It is a stage that does not mean the world. … The theatre is an institution that makes it possible to come to terms with reality.’ That is what we see here, not only in outcome but in construction too. Returning, via Brecht yet only in part, to the commedia dell’arte, beautifully evoked by the young Achim Freyer – then in his mid-thirties, this year celebrating his ninetieth birthday – the production simply builds its sets before our eyes and ears. Curtains, a few props, and an eye for design are all that is needed for a ‘Seville’ that is neither a naturalistic presentation nor a provocative anti-Seville to arise as the necessary backdrop for singers to act, to make comedy.

Very well they did so too. Samuel Hasselhorn, as Figaro, emerged as first among equals, unfailingly musical, clean and meaningful in coloratura, and with the timing of a seasoned actor. Marina Viotti’s Rosina similarly excelled, with Sitabonga Maqungo a likeable if,  occasionally, a less theatrically tight Almaviva. Grigory Shkarupa constructed a splendidly real-yet-not-real Don Basilio. A sparkling performance from Adriane Queiroz left one wishing Berta had more to sing. What Renato Girolami sometimes lacked in vocal presence, he made up for in theatrical commitment as Doctor Bartolo. The Staatskapelle Berlin, keenly directed throughout by Ido Arad, did not put a foot wrong, evoking, somewhat to my surprise, a sound not so distant from that of Neville Marriner’s vintage Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Bright, precise, and likewise with pinpoint timing, here was another crucial dimension never to be reduced to anything else, yet likewise never approaching abstraction. The aesthetics, then, were as ‘right’ as the execution. 

‘The picture,’ Berghaus explained, ‘really only has to enable the singer to act. I am very dependent on good singers, and sometimes I am of the opinion that singers are greater comedians than actors.’ They sing and take their bows, then, neither to depict ‘reality’ nor simply to present a ‘plot’. The relationship is complex, yet it does not feel as though it is. There does not feel as though there is anything to be ‘interpreted’ at all, though that is surely to conceal much work. That, in any case, can be considered afterwards, or before. A world of enjoyment is created, yet one which permits something deeper to speak, to sing, to be felt. By never forgetting that it is theatre, its success continues.

La cambiale di matrimonio, Royal Academy of Music, 16 May 2023

Susie Sainsbury Theatre

Tobias Mill – Charles Cunliffe
Fanny – Luiza Willert
Edward Millfort – George Curnow
Joseph Slook – Johannes Moore
Norton – Duncan Stenhouse
Clarina – Chloe Harris

Sam Brown (director)
Joshua Gadsby (lighting)
Teresa Poças (costumes)

Royal Academy Sinfonia

Johann Stuckenbruck (conductor)

Images: Craig Fuller

Rossini’s second opera and his first to be staged, the one-act La cambiale di matrimonio has been given a sparky, polished revival by Royal Academy Opera in the UK premiere of Eleonora di Cintio’s new critical edition. (The world premiere took place last November at the Royal Opera House in Muscat.) A fine team of young performers, ably directed by Sam Brown, made a good case for the piece without (wisely, I think) trying to turn it into something that it is not. Carl Dahlhaus’s far from pejorative claim that there was ‘nothing to understand’ about Rossini’s music, as opposed to Beethoven’s, has come in for a great deal of criticism: much of it seemingly failing to understand the admittedly over-binary opposition Dahlhaus drew. Whatever the truth of that, this farsa comica, to a libretto by Gaetano Rossi, is not the sort of thing one goes to for hidden depths or really for interpretation at all. It is less a case, in that irritating contemporary formulation, of ‘it is what it is’ than, as Dahlhaus pointed out, of being a ‘recipe for a performance’. That is what it received here—and a very good one too. 

Bright designs and zany, sharply executed antics tend to work well in Rossini’s comedies. Here, an initial preponderance of yellow, later joined by other primary colours, set the scene or rather continued it from a similarly perky account of the overture, a vivid curtain-raiser in the hands of Johann Stuckenbruck and the Royal Academy Sinfonia. Indeed, orchestra and singers, conductor and director were splendidly in sync throughout, lightly suggesting that Wagner’s should never be considered the only aesthetic. (For what it is worth, Wagner’s portrayal of Rossini as a purveyor of ‘absolute music’, whilst undoubtedly pejorative in some ways was also admiring, both consciously and unconsciously. It is perhaps better considered as pointing to a fork in the aesthetic road not entirely unlike Dahlhaus’s.) Enough, anyway, of Teutonic musings. The attempt of an English merchant, Tobias Mill, to sell his daughter Fanny to a Canadian businessman Joseph Slook was clearly mapped, with keen eyes and ears for a musical as well as dramaturgical structure and trajectory already prophetic of later Rossini. In a comedy of manners as well as action, English snobbery is mocked, whilst stereotypical portrayals of the foreigner (Canadian rather than ‘American’, as the cast’s spoken cries persisted in reminding the libretto as well as us) are subverted, Slook so appalled by Mill’s actions that he helps unite Fanny and her lover, the bookmaker Edward Millfort and names Millfort his heir. Slook may look brash and act strangely (initially) but his sympathetic character as well as young love win out over old and frankly mercenary ways. The music does not quite all ‘sound the same’, though one can hear why some might say so. The point is surely more that it enables and propels the action in words and gesture; this is not a Gesamtkunstwerk, but nor is it trying to be. 

Charles Cunliffe’s Mill used words (and music) skilfully to create his own predicament. Commanding stage presence did not detract from vulnerability and wounded pride as the story progressed. Luiza Willert’s Fanny was quite outstanding, alert to the tricks of the trade Rossini had already picked up (arguably in some cases created) and how to use them. This is clearly repertoire for which she has a gift. So too does George Curnow, often perplexed (in a good way) yet ultimately victorious as Edward Millfort. Johannes Moore’s Slook truly held the stage, again through a fine blend of words, music, and acting. His journey from larger-than-life foreigner to kindly benefactor was keenly observed and portrayed throughout. Chloe Harris and Duncan Stenhouse similarly both impressed as Clarina, Fanny’s maid, and Norton, Mill’s clerk. Their contribution to ensembles as well as their solo moments underlined that, for all the coloratura, this is an ensemble piece. And that, precisely, is what we saw and heard.

Scott Brothers Duo - Rossini, Guilmant, Debussy, Franck, Saint-Saëns, Gounod, Scott, and Dukas, 26 November 2019

Apollo Saal, Staatsoper Unter den Linden

Rossini, arr. Jonathan Scott: Il barbiere di Siviglia: Overture

Debussy, arr. J Scott: Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune

Alexandre Guilmant: Scherzo in D minor, op.31

Franck: Prélude, Fugue et Variation, op.16

Saint-Saëns, arr. J Scott: Danse macabre

Saint-Saëns: Six Duos, op.8: ‘Fantasia e fuga’

Gounod, arr. J Scott: Méditation – Ave Maria

Tom Scott: Dances for harmonium and piano

Guilmant: Ariane, op.53: ‘Adagio’ and ‘Danse des songes’

Dukas, arr. J Scott: L’Apprenti sorcier

Jonathan Scott (harmonium)

Tom Scott (piano)

It is not every day one hears a recital for piano and harmonium duo; still less often, I suspect, might one hear such a recital in which novelty of combination and sonority takes second place to captivating quality of performance. Here with arrangements and no fewer than four pieces written originally for the combination were the Scott Brothers Duo, Tom on piano and Jonathan on harmonium, the latter a new Mustel instrument acquired by the Staatsoper Unter den Linden.

A Rossini overture will always prove, performance permitting, a sparkling way to open a concert. Performance here permitted—and it proved an excellent choice in accustoming our ears and, more generally, expectations. The introduction alternated between piano and harmonium playing in concert, sometimes doubled and sometimes complementary, and antiphonal writing, Jonathan Scott’s arrangement here as elsewhere skilful, catching, indeed beguiling. His registration choices proved imaginative without eccentricity and balance never proved a problem in the slightest. Rossini’s music put a smile on one’s face, as it should. Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune is a different kettle of fish, to put it mildly, but Scott’s arrangement proved just as adept. The opening flute solo swelled on his instrument, answered with piano arpeggios. Taken through various, often magical transformations, this was quite an ear-opener, again for the quality of the performances more than the novel instrumentation.

A piece for harmonium solo followed, Alexandre Guilmant’s post-Mendelssohnian Scherzo in D minor, op.31. As fleet as imaginable in performance, Mendelssohn soon took second place to something not unlike Rossini and, less surprisingly, the world of the nineteenth-century French organ. Music by Guilmant for piano and harmonium would appear during the second half. I cannot say that the ‘Adagio’ and ‘Danse des songes’ made me long to hear the rest of his ‘symphony-cantata’, Ariane, but it was pleasant enough for a while, if not without sentimentality. Still, one item to which I struggled to respond in a programme of this kind was pretty good going. Speaking of sentimentality, the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria preceding it was beautifully shaped, both as arrangement and performance; I am not sure I did not prefer it to the vocal ‘original’.

Returning to the first half, Franck’s Prélude, Fugue et Variation, op.18, was the real thing, written with the surest command of the unusual combination of instruments, and performed with flair and security. It had impetus; it grew; and ultimately, there was a fine sense of cyclical return. Perhaps the highpoint for me, though, was Saint-Saëns’s ‘Fantasia e Fuga’ from his Six Duos, op.6, which opened the second half. Opening piano cascades set against harmonium chordal progression? The more one truly listened, the less simple such generalisations were. How, moreover, could one fail to listen in so inviting a performance? Not all fugues are fun—it would be a peculiar, embarrassing description for those in late Beethoven—but this most certainly was. I should have loved to hear more from this collection; leaving an audience wanting more is, however, not an unsound tactic. The remaining piece written expressly for this combination of instruments was Tom Scott’s own Dances for Harmonium and Piano: unapologetically tonal and even, for want of a better word, ‘popular’ in style, a waltz, sarabande, and minimalist (!) gigue were written and performed with typical ease and panache.

Two tone poems completed the two halves: Saint-Saëns’s Danse macabre and Dukas’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Both offered clarity and imagination in arrangement and performance. In the former, one probably heard more strongly than ever the composer’s debt to Liszt. There was a nice death rattle too. In the latter, equally full of rhythmic impetus, one perhaps listened more clearly to Dukas’s often extraordinary harmonies; I was reasonably sure that I heard things I had not noticed before. Not, of course, that registration failed to ring the colouristic changes. Along with winning introductions and commentary throughout—all in German—we were treated to two encores: a virtuosic account of Vittorio Monti’s Csárdás and an intimately expressive Fauré Après un rêve. A lovely evening, then, to which the Apollo Saal audience responded with great enthusiasm.

Il barbiere di Siviglia, Pop-up Opera, 21 June 2016

Images: Richard Lakos



 

Thames Tunnel Shaft, Brunel Museum, Rotherhithe

Rosina – Katie Slater

Count Almaviva – Ciarán O’Leary, Joseph Doody
Figaro – Leif Jone Ølberg
Bartolo – James Schouten
Basilio, Fiorello – Tom Asher
Berta – Emily Blanch

James Hurley (director)

Fiona Johnston, Kate McStraw, Clementine Lovell (producers)

Berrak Dyer (musical director, piano)
 

Having been ground down almost beyond endurance by the referendum ‘debate’, I was surprised and delighted to be picked up so splendidly by Pop-Up Opera’s Barber of Seville. The Thames Tunnel Shaft might not, on the face of it, have seemed an obvious venue for Rossini, but neither I, nor, I suspect, anyone else had any doubts, let alone complaints, once down the steps. The intimacy of the occasion more than compensated for any acoustical issues; my ears soon adjusted, and all that remained was to sit back and enjoy.

 

The performance was sung in Italian, with silent film-style titles projected on the wall (sometimes text and translation, sometimes translation, sometimes commentary, sometimes wittily and only vaguely ‘after’ the original). Soloists and piano (with a mercifully brief outing for deliberately-inappropriate synthesiser as Figaro’s guitar) well-nigh perfectly captured the often elusive essence of Rossini’s opera. In all but the best performances, it can readily seem over-extended, even tedious, the composer’s clever formulae all too quickly losing their sparkle. Not here; indeed, I am not sure I have witnessed a more committed performance. Berrak Dyer’s sterling work on the piano was such that I never missed the orchestra; indeed, in conjunction with those titles, the sound of the piano seemed especially apt. James Hurley’s stage direction and the work of a fine team of producers (see above) left nothing to be desired. Disguises were donned, simple props telling employed, but above all, it was the characters who came so vividly to life – both as opera buffa types, which is surely crucial here, but also with a degree of humanity that yet did not sentimentalise.

 

For that, of course, we have primarily to thank a highly talented cast of young sisters, all of whom I should more than happily see and hear again. Rossini’s technical demands held no fears for any of them, nor did the quicksilver stage action that must accompany, indeed incite, it. Katie Slater’s coloratura impressed greatly as Rosina; so did her knowing glances. Ciarán O’Leary, suffering from an allergy, nevertheless made the most of the first act as Almaviva, revealing a lovely tenor voice, and technique to match; having had to withdraw, he was ably succeeded by the similarly accomplished, eminently likeable Joseph Doody. James Schouten’s handsome baritone proved another joy to hear as Bartolo. Tom Asher – who, I have just noticed from the programme, hails from my home town of Rotherham, and is therefore necessarily a good thing – revealed excellent comic and musical talent as Basilio and Fiorello. Emily Blanch, long relegated to the sidelines in her role as Berta, nevertheless made the most of her aria, warmly received.



Figaro (Leif Jone Ølberg)

 

 

If I had to choose, though, my first prize would go to the outstanding Leif Jone Ølberg as Figaro. Ølberg inhabited the role at least as completely as any artist I have seen. His baritone voice is darkly attractive, seemingly effortlessly agile, capable of all manner of subtlety – and he can act. Such an energising presence would have melted even the sternest of hearts. If he were first among equals, though, that achievement would never have registered without so fine a sense of company from all concerned: on and off stage. The most heartening opera performances often to be found where you least expect them, even at the foot of a tunnel shaft.

For details of Pop-Up Opera’s nationwide tour, please visit their website here.

La Gazzetta, Royal College of Music, 24 June 2014

Chorus
Images: Chris Christodoulou

Britten Theatre

Lisetta – Filipa van Eck

Doralice – Hannah Sandison

Madama la Rose – Angela Simkin

Filippo – Luke D Williams

Alberto – Gyula Rab

Don Pomponio – Timothy Nelson

Anselmo – Matus Tomko

Monsù Traversen – Julien van Mellaerts

Donald Maxwell, Linda Ormiston (directors)

Nigel Hook (designs)

John Bishop (lighting)

Louisa McAlpine (choreography)

 

Chorus
Royal College of Music Opera Orchestra
Michael Rosewell (conductor)

Don Pomponio (Timothy Nelson)

With but one exception, I am delighted to report with great enthusiasm on the Royal College of Music International Opera School’s summer show, Rossini’s La Gazzetta, performances and staging alike at least the equal of last year’s sparkling Offenbach production, La Vie parisienne. Donald Maxwell and Linda Ormiston update the action, such as it is, to the 1990s, though I cannot help but think that their synopsis overplays the idea of ‘the power and reach of newspapers’, in the opera at least, if not necessarily in Goldoni’s original play. At any rate, we have an array of madcap antics, colourfully designed by Nigel Hook, brilliantly lit and choreographed by John Bishop and Louisa McAlpine choreographed. The Neapolitan figure of fun, Don Pomponio, has his erstwhile assistant turn glamorous female (and thus now Tomassina); vividly portrayed by Kelly Mathieson, despite her total lack of words and music, this is intended as a ‘tribute to Italy’s most famous care home assistant’, the attitude and words of other characters reflecting that Berlusonci-like turn. And so, from the opening hotel lobby sequence, in which hotel guests (a Welsh male-voice choir!) sing something inconsequential, until the ‘Turkish’ disguises and inevitable, unsurprising ‘revelations’ of the finale, in which again something inconsequential is sung, visual spectacle is impeccable.

 

Lisetta (Filipa van Eck)

Vocal performances were splendid too. This is not easy music to sing, but bar the odd intonational slip here and there, every member of the cast offered something promising indeed. Timothy Nelson’s Don Pomponio succeeded – a tricky task, with an English audience – in conveying the ‘peculiarity’ of the character’s Neapolitan dialogue. Filipa van Eck stole the show more than once as his daughter, Lisetta; there is quite a range here, and estimable accuracy to boot. She clearly also relished the stage opportunities –wonderfully tasteless costumes included – her nouveau riche character offered. Gyula Rab had an excellent line in the imploring, lovelorn tenor, generally singing as handsomely as his unmistakeably Italianate costuming suggested. Hannah Sandison’s tone hardened at times, but was for the most part focused, strong and yet, when required, touchingly vulnerable. Luke D Williams proved himself once again an excellent baritone with real stage presence. Angela Simkin’s Madama la Rose proved far more than the mere foil to which the plot more or less reduces her, possessing genuinely ear-catching moments of her own. The roles of Anselmo and Monsù Traversen are smaller, yet there could be no complaints concerning the contributions of Matus Tomo and Julien van Mellaerts, likewise from the chorus of soloists who completed the action. Though small in size, the orchestra conjured up a truly Rossini-like sound under Michael Rosewell. If Rosewell had the overture stop and start a bit too often – largely Rossini’s fault, but such faults can be mitigated – then precision, colour, and vivacity were very much to the fore later on. Wind solos in particular were highly distinguished.

 

Alberto (Gyula Rab)

That sole reservation? The opera itself, I am afraid. I shall not dwell on the matter, especially since such performances are intended at least as much as a showcase for highly talented young singers as anything else. (In that respect, I should not be surprised to hear more from all of them over the coming years.) It is difficult, ultimately, to imagine, however, why anyone should care about these characters, and the ‘fizz’ soon wears off. La Gazzetta is not a short work, and such slight material – someone placing an advertisement in a newspaper for a potential husband for his daughter and the all-too-typical disguiges, misunderstandings, etc. – can hardly support the considerable length of such a work. As so often with Rossini, the music is curiously interchangeable; would it really matter if any of it were moved anywhere else, or indeed to a different opera? Such ‘æsthetics’ have their apologists, of course; tedium sets in quickly for the rest of us. Parsifal seems far shorter by comparison.

 

Nevertheless, many congratulations to the cast and production team for displaying such commitment to an opera whose merits remain dubious. If you are a Rossini enthusiast, you certainly should not hesitate; likewise if you simply wish to hear some fine singing.

Il barbiere di Siviglia, English National Opera, 25 February 2013

(sung in English as The Barber of Seville)

The Coliseum

Fiorello – Alexander Robin Baker

Count Almaviva – Andrew Kennedy
Figaro – Benedict Nelson
Rosina – Lucy Crowe
Doctor Bartolo – Andrew Shore
Don Basilio – David Soar
Berta – Katherine Broderick
Ambrogio – Geraint Hylton
An Official – Roger Begley
A Notary – Allan Adams

Jonathan Miller (director)

Peter Relton (revival director)
Tanya McCallin (designs)

Chorus of the English National Opera (chorus master: Genevieve Ellis)

Orchestra of the English National Opera
Jaime Martin (conductor)

 

ENO’s advertising emphasises the ‘25^th anniversary year’ of Jonathan Miller’s staging of The Barber of Seville. It holds the stage well enough without offering any especial insight – at least by now. The programme book mentioned commedia dell’arte: Tanya McCallin’s designs are of that world, certainly, even if there does not seem to be a great deal in Miller’s production that goes beyond the general ‘look’ of that tradition. Unlike many endlessly revived productions, this, then, is not in itself particularly tired, and one can readily imagine it offering the opportunity for new casts to come in and assume their roles without a great deal of stage rehearsal. By the same token, when compared with, for instance, John Copley’s considerably more venerable Royal Opera La bohème, which I happened to see earlier in the month, the staging does not especially sparkle, enlighten, or indeed charm either. It would do no harm to have a little Regietheater cast Rossini’s way. Either that, or assemble a cast whose sparkle would lift the work above the merely quotidian.

 

I say ‘the work’, but this performance, unfortunately, put me in mind of Carl Dahlhaus’s ‘twin musical cultures’ of the nineteenth century: too clear a distinction, no doubt, but nevertheless heuristically useful. On the one hand, one has the culture of the musical work, as understood in an emphatic sense, that of Beethoven and his successors; on the other, one has ‘a Rossini score ... a mere recipe for performance, and it is the performance which forms the crucial aesthetic arbiter as the realisation of a draft rather than an exegesis of a text’. The problem was that this performance, taken as a whole, simply did not sparkle as Rossini must. One therefore became of the score as a decidedly inferior, indeed well-nigh interminable work. Repetitions grated and a good part of the audience was espied, furtively or less furtively, glancing at wristwatches. If Rossini’s ‘musical thought hinged on the performance as an event,’ then this was an unhinged performance – and not, alas, in the expressionistic sense.

 

Jaime Martin’s conducting started well enough. There was throughout a welcome clarity in the score; this was not, at least, Rossini attempting and failing to be Mozart or Beethoven. Give or take the odd orchestral slip, there might have been much to enjoy in the contribution of the ENO Orchestra, considered in itself.  However, impetus was soon lost, and any ‘purely musical’ tension soon sagged. Whether the first act were actually as long as it felt, I am not sure, but many during the interval opined that it seemed as though it was never going to end. If Rossini’s repetitions as opposed to development serve a dramatic purpose, one can readily forget them; here they were apparent in unfortunately lonely fashion. I could not help but mentally contrast the extraordinary use to which Beethoven, for instance in the Waldstein Sonata, puts simple tonic and dominant harmony, to the tedium induced on this occasion. For some reason, the fortepiano was employed as a continuo instrument: a strange fashion, which has enslaved musicians who would never think of using it in solo repertoire. Performance, then, failed to elevate the ‘work’. At least the English translation, by Amanda and Anthony Holden was a cut above the average.

 

The greater fault in any case lay elsewhere, above all in Andrew Kennedy’s Almaviva. His casting seemed simply inexplicable. Almost entirely lacking in coloratura, let alone Florez-like facility therewith, he resorted to mere crooning, a state of affairs worsened by the application at seemingly random intervals of unnervingly thick vibrato. His stage presence was of a part with his vocal performance. Benedict Nelson’s Figaro started off in reasonably convincing fashion, but by the end was somewhat hoarse and throughout lacked the pinpoint precision that might have lifted the performance. By contrast, Lucy Crowe was an excellent Rosina. Her coloratura was impeccable, her gracious stage presence no less so. Andrew Shore reminded us of his skills as a comic actor in the role of Doctor Bartolo, and Katherine Broderick also took the opportunity to shine as Berta. Sadly, the increasingly lacklustre conducting and the embarrassing performance of Kennedy conspired to negate those positive aspects of the performance, rendering one tired with the ‘work’, however it were considered.

Wishing Riccardo Muti a Happy 70th Birthday...

... and hoping that he will reconsider his inclination no longer to conduct opera in Salzburg. (With apologies for the bizarre opening to the Handel clip...)

Prom 2: Santa Cecilia Chorus and Orchestra/Pappano - Rossini, Guillaume Tell

Royal Albert Hall

William Tell – Michele Pertusi
Arnold Melchthal – John Osborn
Walter Furst – Matthew Rose
Melchthal – Frédéric Caton
Jemmy – Elena Xanthoudakis
Gessler – Nicolas Courjal
Rodolphe – Carlo Bosi
Ruodi – Celso Albelo
Leuthold – Mark Stone
Mathilde – Malin Byström
Hedwige – Patricia Bardon
Huntsman – Davide Malvestio

Chorus and Academy of the Academy of Santa Cecilia, Rome (chorus master: Ciro Visco)
Antonio Pappano (conductor)


Operatic fashions are fickle and, more to the point, often plain wrong. We all have our grievance lists of works that are ‘scandalously neglected’. No one would claim that, Riccardo Muti notwithstanding, ‘serious’ Rossini was in fashion. On the basis of this Proms concert performance of Guillaume Tell, I cannot say that I feel deprived. Indeed I should express unalloyed relief, were it not for the fact that its place tends to be assumed by less rather than more interesting works. Schiller’s wonderful play, Wilhelm Tell, becomes something tedious and uninvolving – and, moreover, tedious and uninvolving at very great length. One gains no real sense of the characters as characters, of why one should or even might care about them. Now it might well be that individual psychology is not the point; it certainly is not in, say, Fidelio. Yet there one has a noble, overwhelming instantiation of the bourgeois idea of freedom at its greatest. Here one has interminable exchanges between men from different Swiss cantons ramble on uninspiringly about a Swiss fatherland, but never with fervour, lest Rossini’s monarchist protectors become alarmed. The nationalism – or, perhaps better, caricatured anti-German sentiment – is so preposterous that one can only hope nobody took it seriously even at the time. Certainly if this were a German work and the boot were on the other foot, we should expect howls of protest. The romantic element, between the Habsburg princess Mathilde, who rejects the wicked governor Gessler, and Arnold Meuchtal, a Swiss conspirator, is implausible – and implausible at great length. And how much lolling about in the sun by peasants can anyone reasonably be expected to take? Music can express languor very well; think of Debussy. Here, however, it less expresses boredom than becomes lamentably nondescript – at, you guessed it, inordinate length. Indeed, the entire first act could be cut without the slightest harm to the plot; on this occasion, it was the fourth that suffered, being cut down to twenty minutes, creating the rather odd impression of a rush to the finishing line far too late. I have never attended an operatic performance at which so many in the audience were constantly checking their watches, nor, indeed, in which so many leaped to their feet and departed, as soon as the performance was over, not even waiting to engage in the most desultory applause.

So much for the work: I was genuinely interested to have the rare opportunity to hear it, but now do not feel the need to do so again. What of the performances? Well, Antonio Pappano has his cheerleaders and he had his moments, perhaps more so in the crowd control of the choral exchanges and some of the recitative passages. Yet I could not help but wonder what a conductor such as Muti would have brought to the work; perhaps his iron grip might have had one believe in something as implausible as this. Even the overture failed to impress. It is sectional, of course, but surely a conductor ought to try to mask that just a little; there was no discernible attempt at transition whatsoever. The storm section was absurdly hard-driven, and the whole quite lacked charm, despite some fine woodwind playing from the Santa Cecilia orchestra. Though the strings on occasion sounded a little feeble here, they were on good form for most of what was to come. To have members of the orchestra take solo bows following the overture was straightforwardly bizarre.

Vocal performance remained. The choral singing was generally very good indeed, and improved as the night went on: Ciro Visco is clearly an excellent choral trainer. Michele Pertusi, sad to say, made a dull Tell. Someone charismatic in this role might have pulled off a miracle, but that was not to be. Most of the rest of the cast outshone him, not least John Osborn’s outstanding Arnold, his fourth-cast aria, ‘Asile héréditaire’, proving the evening’s high-point: sweetly and elegantly sung. (Pappano should not, however, have allowed the prolonged intrusion of applause thereafter.) Elena Zanthoudakis sang well as Jemmy, Tell’s son, though her French vowels often left a good deal to be desired. The wideness of Patricia Bardon’s vibrato as Hedwige, Tell’s wife, would not have been to all tastes, and was certainly not to mine. Bar the odd unfortunate moment, such as a culiminating shriek in her Act II Scene 3 exchange with Arnold, Malin Byström proved impressive as Mathilde, her coloratura almost always precise and tasteful, though the end of the third act brought some notably flat singing. Nicolas Courjal’s Gessler in many ways came the closest to a convincing portrayal of character, certainly as close as one could imagine, suavity of line and demeanour suggesting a more sophisticated malevolence than one might have expected.

The singing, then, or rather some of the singing, was the only real point of interest. I can imagine that a staged performance with an outstanding conductor – a Muti or an Abbado – and an interesting, properly deconstructive production – from, say, a Stefan Herheim or a Peter Konwitschny – might work wonders, though I suspect one would tend to think that such talents might be better employed elsewhere. At least the celebrated scene with the apple, for which everyone not unreasonably appeared to be waiting, might elicit some sort of impact, whereas in concert, one merely notes the lack thereof. I am far from a Rossini devotee, but give me the sparkle of Il barbiere di Siviglia any day over this, and if it must be grand opéra, then Rienzi, which boasts some truly extraordinary music, let alone the masterpieces of Berlioz. Even Meyerbeer if necessary… I could not help but think of Wagner’s Opera and Drama, in which he portrays nineteenth-century opera as having degenerated into a chaotic farrago of different elements, randomly mixed and presented, permitting each spectator choosing whatever took his fancy: ‘Here the dainty leap of a ballerina, there the singer’s daring passage-work, here the set-painter’s brilliant effect, there the amazing eruption of an orchestral volcano.’ In this way, Wagner, claimed, composers such as Rossini had become the toast of the ‘entire civilised world’, and acquired the protection of Prince Metternich (the Austrian Prince Metternich, be it noted) and his European System, reinforcing rather than questioning the social order. Such a work, then, is undoubtedly of historical importance; its modern-day interest, however, largely escaped me.

Pisaroni/Rieger - Schubert, Rossini, and Liszt, 6 March 2011

Wigmore Hall

Schubert – Il modo di prender moglie, D902/3
L’incanto degli occhi, D902/1
Il traditor deluso D902/2
Rossini – La promessa
L’esule
L’orgia
Liszt – Im Rhein, im schönen Strome, S.272 (second version)
Vergiftet sind meine Lieder, S.289
O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst, S.298
Die Vätergruft
Tre sonetti de Petrarca, S.270 (first version)

Luca Pisaroni (baritone)
Wolfram Rieger (piano)

(Image: Marco Borggreve)

I was surprised to discover that this was Luca Pisaroni’s Wigmore Hall debut. On the basis of this splendidly planned recital, he should return very soon indeed. I admired him enormously as Salzburg’s 2007 Figaro and he has recently been garnering plaudits in the same role in Vienna’s somewhat more ‘traditional’ production. It is therefore a delight to report that Pisaroni is just as much at home in the recital room, and every bit as comfortable with German as Italian song.

Schubert opened the recital, but in the guise of his three Metastasio songs, D 902, dedicated to the Italian bass, Luigi Lablache. (They were also published with a German translation.) Pisaroni made something very particular out of them, turning their mixed German-Italian nature into a point of interest rather than a mere compromise. The opening Il modo di render moglie, in which the narrator asks why he might not choose a wife for money, had something of the opera too it: Mozart in the third stanza, moving to Rossini at climax, but Pisaroni was always careful to present these songs as songs; they never overstepped the boundary into aspirant opera, despite the tumult one could only really describe as ‘operatic’ in the recitative of Il traditor deluso and the subsequent portrayal of Metastasian furies. The central L’incanto degli occhi sounded closer to German Romanticism, and were blessed by a beautiful richness of tone especially apparent upon the deeper bass notes. It was a pity that pianist Wolfram Rieger could sometimes, especially in the outer pair, prove a little plodding, but that did not detract from Pisaroni’s artistry.

Schubert, as we hear in his Sixth Symphony, was far from immune to the Rossini craze that swept Vienna, even though he would always remain much closer to Beethoven. It was time to hear from Rossini himself: again, not in aria, but in song, and Pisaroni was every bit as successful in ensuring that the three Rossini songs were heard just as that. One could certainly hear that he would make a fine Rossini singer in the theatre, not least from his beautifully sustained line, but that was not the point on the present occasion. Indeed, we heard, especially in La promessa (Metastasio again), a more Romantic and songlike Rossini than would generally be the case, without stepping too far from the classical poise of the text. Rieger imparted a nice, if slightly Germanic, spring to the piano part for L’orgia, but it was Pisaroni who stole the show, his naughtily confiding ‘Gulliva ravviva / Rinnova ogni cor’ an especial joy, on account of a subtlety one does not necessarily expect to hear applied to Rossini.

Then, a true mark of intelligent programming, we moved to Liszt: German, but not quite, closer to Italian music than, say, Wagner or Brahms. Pisaroni’s diction and sense of style had been predictably yet still creditably fine in the Italian songs; they were no less so when it came to Heine, Freiligrath, and Uhland. Im Rhein, im schönen Strome, announces the first song (‘In the Rhine, the beautiful river’), and that is very much what we heard, but beauty heightened the rapt response to Heine’s verse rather than drawing attention from the words. Rieger seemed more at home in Liszt than during the Italian songs, though it took him a couple of songs or so to get going here. The second Heine setting, Vergiftet sind meine Lieder, was more impassioned than the first, yet stood some way from abandon. One was doubly thankful, then, for the Romantically ardent baritone whose songs, were they poisoned (vergiftet), could not but tempt one to taste of his poison. O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst! would become the celebrated Liebesträume no.3. In Pisaroni’s rendition, its Italianate vocal line blended perfectly with German verse and harmonic direction: Lisztian alchemy indeed. Die Vätergruft emerged in ghostly fashion: an old man, clad in armour, entered an ancient chapel, and, floored by a song of exhortation, fell to his final rest. Midway between Schubert and Wagner (perhaps even Mahler’s Das klagende Lied), it retained the twin Italian and German virtues of the previous Liszt songs. I can honestly say that, had I not known the nationality of the singer, I should never have guessed from his German that he was not a native speaker. Matched with rare beauty of tone and unerring control of line, this made for something special indeed.

Finally came the Petrarch Sonnets. Those very virtues of tone and line, married once again to fine diction, permitted the beauty of Petrarch’s verse to emerge afresh. Expectation upon no.104’s ‘E temo e spero, ed ardo e son un ghiaccio’ (‘I fear, yet hope; I burn, yet am turned to ice’) turned dramatically yet naturally to soaring in the heavens for ‘E volo sopra ‘l cielo’. No.47 was perhaps a little less impressive, opening in comparatively casual fashion; there were, moreover, a few moments when intonation wavered, though when it did not, which was most of the time, there was much to savour. Such was the clarity of diction that one readily detected typographical errors in the printed text, such as ‘primo’ for ‘promo’. And when Pisaroni concluded Sonnet no.123 with the words ‘Tanta dolcezza avea pien l’aere e l’vento’ (‘Such sweetness had filled the air and winds’), one could only concur. If one is to hear a lower voice rather than a tenor in these songs, I cannot think of anyone I should rather hear. Rieger too had seemed incited by the poetry and produced some magically Lisztian beauty, not least in the final postlude. As an encore, we were treated to Es muss ein wunderbares sein, S.314, Pisaroni’s treatment as rapt as the Heine setting with which the Liszt selection had opened. One Thomas Hampson, seated with his partner immediately behind me, apparently unbeknown to his son-in-law on stage, was impressed too...

Il barbiere di Siviglia, Royal Opera, 4 July 2009

Royal Opera House

Figaro – Pietro Spagnoli
Rosina – Joyce DiDonato
Count Almaviva – Juan Diego Flórez
Doctor Bartolo – Alessandro Corbelli
Don Basilio – Ferruccio Furlanetto
Fiorello – Changhan Lim
Berta – Jennifer Rhys-Davies
Officer – Christopher Lackner
Ambrogio – Bryan Secombe
Notary – Andrew Macnair

Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser (directors)
Christian Fenouillat (designs)
Agostino Cavalca (costumes)
Christophe Forey (lighting)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)
Antonio Pappano (conductor)

This was the best performance I have heard from Antonio Pappano at the Royal Opera House, or indeed anywhere else. I cannot bring myself to be wildly excited by nineteenth-century Italian opera – clearly unlike most of the audience – but this is clearly his thing and he would be well advised to concentrate upon this repertoire. Wagner, Beethoven, and Berg are avowedly not and he would be equally well advised to steer clear of them. The orchestra was on colourful, sprightly form, right from the beginning of the overture, and there was a clear sense of structure throughout. (How very unlike this conductor’s Wagner!) Whatever Rossini’s musical and dramatic limitations, his command of musical form, albeit in a somewhat old-fashioned way, is always apparent, a clear contrast with, for instance, Verdi. There are no depths to be plumbed here but there is a musical story to be old – and told it was.

Moreover, Pappano was extremely fortunate in his cast, which could scarcely have been bettered. Joyce DiDonato proved a heroine in more than one sense. Injuring her leg at some point during the first act, she insisted upon carrying on, despite her pain – and her crutches. Singing of cramp in her foot caused much amusement all round. None of this, however, affected her pinpoint coloratura accuracy, nor as expressive a delivery as Rossini’s style allows: far better to be slightly distanced, which she was not, than to approach the mawkishness of the composer’s dubious successors. Juan Diego Flórez was equally astonishing in his despatch of the technically fiendish demands his part presents. He also showed himself to be a fine comic actor, never seeking the limelight, in spite of a disruptive audience reaction that owed more to the football stadium than to dramatic appreciation. Florez’s voice is not large but he marshals it extraordinarily well. I fell to wondering whether it might be heard to advantage in more satisfying repertoire. Perhaps certain, but only certain, Mozart roles? In any case, the question would appear redundant, since he seems quite happy to devote himself to Rossini and Donizetti.

Pietro Spagnoli substituted for Simon Keenlyside. This Figaro had plenty of stage presence and a good command of musical character too. If not so dominant as might sometimes be the case, this was owed to the strength of ensemble rather than to any deficiency on Spagnoli’s part. Speaking of ensemble, there was at least as much joy to be had from Alessandro Corbelli’s Bartolo and Ferruccio Furlanetto’s Basilio as anyone else. Their native command of Italian paid great dividends, in terms of the natural, unaffected quality of their comedy and verbal response. Jennifer Rhys-Davies proved an equally characterful, indeed rather lovable, Berta, although it seemed a pity that she was made to play her aria for laughs, when a degree of poignancy would have seemed more fitting. The Royal Opera Chorus was on excellent form too.

I could not warm to Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s production, any more than I had the first time around. This, I suspect, is largely because it tries so very hard to be ‘heartwarming’, rather like those dreadful ‘romantic comedies’ that so plague modern British cinema, or, perhaps worse still, the Roberto Benigni film, La vita è bella. The latter’s treatment of its subject matter seems to me to border on the offensive. There is nothing by which to be offended here, but the bright, primary colours, the designs that resemble boxes of sweets and their contents, and the general tone of whimsy: for some of us grumpier souls, it is perhaps all a bit much. More seriously, Rossini’s formalism, the alienating quality his characters might be persuaded to take on, is shunned in favour of crowd-pleasing sentimentalism. Still, the musical performances were without exception of a very high standard.

Prom 4, Berio Sinfonia and Rossini Stabat Mater, 16 July 2007

Prom no.4, Monday 16 July 2007

Luciano Berio, Sinfonia

Gioachino Rossini, Stabat Mater

Janice Watson (soprano)
Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano)
Colin Lee (tenor)
Ildar Abdrazakov (bass)
Swingle Singers
Chorus and Orchestra of the Academy of Santa Cecilia, Rome
Antonio Pappano (conductor)

The obvious connection one might make between these two works, or perhaps better between their composers, is their Italian nationality. This might well have been a ploy on the part of the Proms, or indeed Antonio Pappano, to lure a greater audience for the Berio Sinfonia by presenting Rossini's Stabat mater. If so, all power to whomever one should credit. It is sad that one of the defining works, indeed classics, of post-war music should require such sugaring of the pill, but such is the harsh reality. (Is it not also sad that we should still find ourselves employing the catch-all title 'post-war' more than sixty years after the fabled 'year zero' of the avant-garde, as though nothing has changed then since then? So much has; yet has Berio, let alone Stockhausen, become any more 'popular' than he was in the 1950s and '60s?) However, there exists perhaps a more interesting, even if unconscious, kinship between these two pieces. Both subvert expectations of what should be entailed by their respective or apparent genres.

In Sinfonia, Berio employed an Italian title to alert us, as if we needed such assistance, to the distancing from the great German symphonic tradition. In the infomative programme note, Paul Griffiths pointed to the way in which the work's five movements 'differ not so much in their speed through time as in the kind of time they uncover.' Moreover, 'Sinfonia speaks not with the persuasive individuality of a symphony by Beethoven but as a crowd, clamorous and multifarious.' At the same time, both Beethoven and Berio drew inspiration from and confronted the world in which they lived, and emphatically not just the world of music. One of the most obvious ways in which Berio does this is through the words presented by the amplified voices (here the excellent Swingle Singers, who, in an earlier incarnation, gave both the work's first performance and its British premiere, the latter at the Proms).

Claude Lévi-Strauss's analyses of Amazonian myths (from Le Cru et le Cuit) define the realm of pre-history, identified by Griffiths as the first of his 'kinds of time'. The performers worked well together to impart a real sense of beginnings, of distant rumblings and imaginings, whilst ensuring that we were never quite sure what was what: part of Berio's conception, as he himself put it, of 'the experience of "not quite hearing" ... as essential to the nature of the work'. Another quality I should identify would be the element of meta-commentary: Sinfonia is, amongst many other things, music about music, and music about musical history (or pre-history). There is a definite kinship not only between this movement and the openings of Das Rheingold and Berg's Op.6 Orchestral Pieces, but also with what we might imagine to be the mythical first musical calls from within the rain-forest. (The very different forest of Siegfried and its primæaval murmurs also sprang to mind.) My hearing initially desired greater orchestral definition, but it soon settled down, and I am now inclined to think that the partial inchoateness was deliberate. Intentional or otherwise, it worked.

There was an appropriately luminous quality to the second movement, O King. The pianist and other percussion shone here especially. Griffiths's reference to 'a remembered moment' seemed particularly apt, given the associations with Stockhausen's 'moment form' and beyond him, Webern, evoked by a more pointillistic approach. I have always thought of the third movement, in which Berio famously overlays the scherzo from Mahler's second symphony, as like the flow of a river. Here, Griffiths described 'the swirl of impressions and memories as events pass by'. The river, like the first movement's forest, provides an appropriatly primæval foundation for a super-structure of musical allusions (Bach, Ravel, and Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier amongst them) and Beckett (The Unnamable). Delivery of the text from the Swingle Singers was once again unimpeachable, and a welcome element of humour was injected by references to 'Rossini's Stabat Mater' and 'Mr Antonio Pappano'. The waltzing interjections were particularly well-handled, as was the wonderful transition into the fourth movement, which one could well believe was about to become Mahler's 'O Röschen rot'. Berio assists the process, by replacing Mahler's words with 'rose de sang', but Pappano and his players somehow conveyed the 'alternative' path that might have been taken. This intermezzo-like movement ('the process of reawkening' (Griffiths)) and the synthetic, open-ended final movement ('all these times together') brought this most Joycean of works to a satisfyingly open-ended conclusion. The latter two movements sounded at times a little less engaged, but this was but a matter of degree. If the Swingle Singers can fairly be said to 'own' Sinfonia, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra and Pappano are not artists one might immediately associate with Berio, his own association with the orchestra notwithstanding. In bringing it once again to the Proms audience – including a trio of Chelsea Pensioners – they provided an estimable service.

Rossini would have seemed more obviously home territory to them, not least given the avowedly 'operatic' nature of his Stabat Mater; that this was not altogether borne out was somewhat surprising. I had the impression for a little more than half of the work, Pappano was trying to play down operatic associations. For me, however, the glory, dubious or otherwise, of the work is its at times almost surreal approach to setting the 13th-century Franciscan text. The opening, the finale, and a little of what comes in between are tailored, at least to some extent, towards the prayer to Mary at the foot of the Cross. On the other hand, and this is but one example, the sprightly and disturbingly catchy quartet setting of 'Sancta mater, istud agas/Crucifixi fige plagas/Cordi meo valide' (Holy Mother, do this for me,/stamp the wounds of thy crucified Son/firmly in my heart) is irremediably bizarre. The writer of the programme notes, whose very defensiveness draws undue attention to the 'problem' without ever quite calling it by its name, issued the following apologia: 'Composers, whether Mozart, Berlioz, or Schoenberg, do not alter their musical language when moving between one musical language and another. It is hardly surprising, then, that Rossini's Stabat Mater sounds like Rossini.' It is not, but it would be profoundly surprising were the Dies irae to sound, when set by Mozart and Berlioz, like 'Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen' or 'Le spectre de la rose'.

I mention this at some length because I wonder whether the first part of the performance was an attempt, even if unconscious, to issue a similar musical apologia. If so, the attempt was misguided. Even the dramatic (melodramatic?) 'Introduzione' sounded underpowered. It is true that much, though by no means all, of the orchestral writing is 'accompaniment', yet it has interest of its own, and deserves to be heard fully. On the occasions when the strings played with greater richness, one longed for more; the exception lay with the 'cellos, who exhibited a beautiful, rich tone throughout. Then, at a point which, accidentally or not, coincided with the cavatina from the finest of the soloists, there was a sea-change, with the orchestra finally given its head: not simply, or even primarily, a matter of volume, but more of expressivity. The subsequent direction may sometimes have been a little too hard-driven, especially in the finale, where the problem was compounded by seemingly unmotivated tempo changes. Nevertheless, the improvement was manifest. It was more akin to what I imagined Toscanini would have done, with little of the profound wisdom of a Giulini, but I was unquestionably grateful for the introduction of greater colour into proceedings.

The chorus sang well, without making an indelible impression. The soloists were a mixed bunch. Colin Lee failed to project his opening line adequately, and never quite seemed to recover. Ildar Abdrazakov exhibited a pleasing tone, though was not especially memorable. Janice Watson, replacing Emma Bell, evinced a greater range of tone, and became more 'operatic' as time went on. Unsurprisingly, however, Joyce DiDonato outshone them all; not for nothing was she given the Beverly Sills award. With an absolute command of style, she showed attentiveness to the shaping of the words (and to their meaning when the music allowed...). Moreover, her tuning remained utterly secure in a performance in which this was far from a given. A low point in that respect was the unaccompanied quartet, 'Quando corpus moriertur'. This is sometimes given to the chorus, and would certainly have been better thus performed on this occasion: some of the tuning was painfully approximate, if that. After that, the frenetic finale was bound to sound better than it might otherwise have done. However, should one, not entirely without justification, consider this to have been a performance centred upon DiDonato rather than, in the case of Sinfonia, upon the work itself, then a greater parity might emerge between these performances.