Salzburg Festival (2) - Aida, 12 August 2017

Grosses Festspielhaus



Images: Salzburger Festspiele / Monika Rittershaus

King – Roberto Tagliavini

Amneris – Ekaterina Semenchuk
Aida – Anna Netrebko
Radamès – Francesco Meli
Ramfis – Dmitry Belosselskiy
Amonasro – Luca Salsi
Messenger – Bror Magnus Tødenes
High Priestess – Benedetta Torre

Shirin Neshat (director)
Christian Schmidt (set designs)
Tatyana van Walsum (costumes)
Reinhrad Traub (lighting)
Martin Gschlacht (photography)
Thomas Wilhelm (choreograpy)
Bettina Auer (dramaturgy)

Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus (chorus master: Ernst Raffelsberger)

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Riccardo Muti (conductor)

It is a good thing to put even one’s most settled judgements to the test from time to time. Seven years had passed since my most recent encounter with Verdi in the opera house: seven years of (relative) good luck since. If the nauseating La traviata remains a nadir in the benighted ‘repertoire’ – better or worse than Donizetti, or about the same? who cares really? – then the mindboggling tedium of Aida anoints it a serious contender for any such reckoning. However fine the performances, and they were generally excellent here, any revival of so unremittingly banal a work will prove, at best, an absurd misallocation of resources. There is infinitely greater interest in any randomly selected note of Webern. As Boulez memorably put it, ‘Verdi is stupid, stupid, stupid!’ Quite why anyone would claim to know better remains a mystery.

Aida apologists seem to like to laud it essentially as a chamber opera, scenes of intimacy at its heart, contrasting with the pomp and ceremonial of grand opera. Fine, but that is hardly enough. It matters whether such scenes are any good, of any interest. All we have here is a ‘bog standard’ – with apologies, for the first and last time in my life, to Alastair Campbell – clash between public and private, generalised in the extreme, with ‘characters’ so thinly drawn, if indeed they be drawn at all, that a non-partisan listener cannot even begin to care. They all sing the same sort of stuff, about the same sort of stuff, at interminable length – it may be a relatively short opera, but it certainly did not feel like it – to a plot whose implausibility is so contrived as not even to amuse. (Maybe onstage elephants would have helped in that respect, if no other.) La clemenza di Tito, Mozart’s or anyone else’s, this is not; indeed, it is difficult to imagine a greater vulgarisation of the classical AMOR/ROMA dilemma. Of all the tragedies of occupation and war, why would the weird self-obsession of a woman who, rather than try to rescue her lover, elects instead to enter a tomb in order that they be buried alive, even register? She deserves no better, but what about poor Radamès? It would be nice to be able to care, but if somehow one manages to do so, it will be on account of a performance, not the work.

Frankly, their sentimental festival of smothering – would they at least not have sex for the first and last time? – cannot come quickly enough, even though it does not. Meyerbeer is more dramatically interesting, certainly more historically important. Perhaps this might work very occasionally as the exhumation of historical curiosity, the recipient of due criticism, but to place such drivel at the heart of the repertoire is too silly even to qualify as ‘edgy’ or critical performance art. If Aida is actually a satire on a well-heeled, self-regarding audience’s willingness to sit through anything, however dull, provided that its abject lack of taste and judgement be flattered, then is it not about time that someone finally explained the joke to that audience?

All that said, there is doubtless something for an interesting director to say; there always will be, even if the work does not deserve it. What one hears about Hans Neuenfels’s Frankfurt Aida sounds fascinating, all the more so for 1981: the slave girl an Ethopian cleaner and a typical Verdi audience screaming blue murder. Likewise Peter Konwitschny for Graz the following decade. Shirin Neshat is certainly not one to join their number; instead, alas, she joins the number of film artists who have nothing much to say about opera, or at least cannot say it. Her production is as dull as the work itself, creditably – I think, but now begin to wonder – shorn of the traditional vulgar trappings, but with nothing to put in their place. There are some half-hearted video (of course) images of refugees, but that is about it, other than a ‘stylish’ look and a vast revolving set which sometimes does not quite revolve as it should. (The second interval seems to have been mightily prolonged on that account.) Could we not at least have had the death-wish slave girl as a suicide bomber or something? Weirdly, she seemed to dress very much as Amneris; perhaps that is what happens when you have Anna Netrebko in the title role. The priests’ slightly strange look initially suggests parody; alas, nothing else does. There is nothing much else to it apart from the designs, at least nothing I could discern.

Aida (Anna Netrebko), Radamès (Francesco Meli), Amneris (Ekaterina Semenchuk)

Netrebko, perhaps needless to say, offered vocalism of a quality that would be spellbinding, were it expended on more interesting material. No degree of vocal shading seemed beyond her, the trademark richness of tone ever present yet variegated; if only the bizarre Orientalist shading of her make-up had shown a sensitivity that came anywhere close... Francesco Meli’s Radamès was every bit as impressive, perhaps still more so, as handsome and noble of tone as of aspect. Ekaterina Semenchuk was every inch the fiery mezzo, again completely in command of her instrument and, insofar as the non-staging permitted, her dramatic performance; I should love to hear (and to see) her as, say, Ortrud. Roberto Tagliavini sounded a bit wooden as the King, but that permitted some degree of contrast with Luca Salsi’s animated Amonasro. Choral singing was excellent throughout, indeed outstanding, as was the playing of the Vienna Philharmonic under Riccardo Muti, its shading every bit as exquisite as Netrebko’s, the sweetness of string tone very much of old. Muti clearly cherishes the score almost beyond price, however incapable I may be of understanding why. His partnership with this orchestra rarely disappoints; here he showed himself once again to play it as if it were a piano under his fingers. If I found the pace rather slow at times, that was doubtless a consequence of my feelings towards the work; enthusiasts, I am sure, would have loved it.

I doubt there can have been many superior performances of the opera throughout its history; I equally doubt that I shall persuade myself to hear another. As for Verdi, see you in another seven years’ time? Perhaps.

A brace of concerts, not reviewed

Alas, I shall not be able to review these concerts. That happens from time to time; I am sure the world will survive, somehow. However, I wanted to add them here as a personal diary item.

 

Prom 70 – Mozart/Bruckner, 6 September 2016 (Royal Albert Hall)
Mozart – Piano Concerto no.26 in D major, KV 537, ‘Coronation’
Bruckner – Symphony no.6 in A major

Staatskapelle Berlin

Daniel Barenboim (conductor)
 

LSO/Noseda – Verdi, 18 September 2016 (Barbican Hall)

Requiem Mass

Erika Grimaldi (soprano)

Daniela Barcellona (mezzo-soprano)
Francesco Meli (tenor)
Michele Pertusi (baritone)
London Symphony Chorus (chorus master: Simon Halsey)

London Symphony Orchestra

Gianandrea Noseda (conductor)

The Observer excels itself

Whatever is this? I may, to put it mildly, be no fan of Verdi, yet I should hesitate to say that he, let alone Wagner, deserves the eccentric coverage served up by one Vanessa Thorpe. She is a writer - well, of sorts - who, we are told, 'became Arts Correspondent for The Observer in 1999 and went on to write on media news too. She has covered the changing world of culture and entertainment under New Labour and anticipates a fresh phase of debate and adjustment ahead across the arts.' Should the future of arts reporting lie in the hands of the likes of Ms Thorpe, the nature of such 'adjustment' may prove more radical than any of us can yet imagine.

The Royal Opera is staging something called Ring Cycle, or perhaps even Covent Garden's Ring Cycle; the article's text remains slightly ambiguous. At any rate, Ring Cycle is a 'roof-raising, four-part masterpiece'.

A Verdi gala in Munich will 'kick off on Boxing Day'. A little further north, Bayreuth is the 'German home of the annual festival established by Wagner himself'. Where, I wonder, is the festival's Italian home?

Wagner, we learn, 'is known for themes [?] such as The Ride of the Valkyries and his stirring bridal
march'. He also 'created a mythology that drew on his own turbulent personal life.' Ms Thorpe declines - I can hardly imagine why - to expand upon her claim.

As for what 'the wider BBC' might be or constitute, I cannot quite bring myself to ask. Its 'significant contributions' to the anniversary year of 2013 will surely be dwarfed by further 'phase[s] of debate and adjustment' from our intrepid 'Arts Correspondent'.

Book Review: Peter Conrad, 'Verdi and/or Wagner'

This review originally appeared here for Times Higher Education.

Verdi and/or Wagner: Two Men, Two Worlds, Two Centuries

By Peter Conrad
Thames Hudson, 384 pp., £24.95
ISBN 978 0 500 515938
Published 24 October 2011


“Fafner und Siegfried, Siegfried und Fafner,” sings Mime in Siegfried, gleefully anticipating the deaths of both. Perhaps there are a few (Baroque- and/or contemporary-inclined?) opera-lovers who long for the twilight of “Verdi und Wagner”; many more, however, would elevate one composer born in 1813 above the other. Peter Conrad addresses that constituency on behalf of those adapting the “und” from Tristan und Isolde to unite twin peaks of nineteenth-century opera.

Conrad opens with an arresting image of two, separated busts in Venice’s Giardini Pubblici. However, the anticipated union never quite materialises, though we take in amusing vignettes such as George Bernard Shaw suggesting that Henri Bergson, champion of instinct over intelligence, direct Il trovatore. Indeed, tales of reception often prove more illuminating than treatment of life and work. Conrad barely addresses the music beyond descriptions such as “a yelping exchange of high notes, including two high Cs from Isolde”: a serious drawback when discussing men who were first and foremost composers. It is notoriously difficult to write about music, its structure, and its meaning for non-musicians; it remains necessary to try.

Sometimes the comparative framework drives Conrad too hard to discern discrepancy, agreement concerning a sunken orchestral pit coming to indicate a practical-mystical distinction. Verdi’s description of “musicians in tailcoats and white ties […] jumbled in the sightline with the Egyptians, Assyrians or Druids onstage,” as “absurd,” actually complements utterances from Wagner, who, steeped in German idealism, unsurprisingly cast his argument in more metaphysical terms. Farther-flung comparisons seem strained: “Siegfried imitates … [the Woodbird’s] song, like Rameau who mimicked a hen’s pecking …, or Messiaen … in his Catalogue d’oiseaux.” What to conclude, beyond the likelihood that the writer also knows two French composers? More seriously, there is misrepresentation in an unspecified connection posited between the necessity of fundraising and Conrad’s claim that “Wagner was no anarchist”. For a crucial period of his life, “anarchist” justly describes this reader of Proudhon and comrade-in-arms of Bakunin. Verdi’s counterpointed, reluctant participation in Italian civic life has no bearing on that either way.

Listing substitutes for true analysis and argument. Comparisons come thick and fast, often arbitrary, even somewhat homespun: “Verdi’s longing was for rootedness, stability, not the heaving Wagnerian flux that gave [Eduard] Hanslick qualms.” For all Conrad’s undeniable richness of reference, we expect more than a final acknowledgement that the Venetian statues will never quite exchange glances.

The scales, moreover, are persistently tilted towards “humanist” Verdi: “Wagner was a drug, … Verdi … a tonic.” Verdi’s music “is good for us”; Wagner’s is, contra Nietzsche, simply not harmful. Whereas Verdi addresses love, Wagner trades in (mere) eroticism, though Tristan surely stands after Così fan tutte as the most devastating indictment of Romantic love. Even Verdi’s viewing opera as the means to transform self-styled peasant – his father was an innkeeper – into millionaire is preferred to Wagner’s revolutionary-socialist opposition to capitalism. Moreover, Wagner “had no shame” in asking others for money, yet Verdi’s “respect for avarice in others” was “healthy”.

Pretence at balance vanishes with generalisations such as: “Germans are troubled by Wagner because they feel disgraced by him. Italians are troubled by Verdi for a different reason: they feel unworthy of him.” Clearly Conrad and I know different Germans. Often “troubled”, certainly “problematised”, but “disgraced”? Even smaller German companies are moved to stage Wagner more regularly than our British houses, so in thrall to Verdi and Italian opera.

Conrad is entitled to weigh Wagner in the balance and find him wanting. Impartiality may prove not only impossible but undesirable – or worse, uninteresting. Doubting Thomases from either camp remain unlikely to be convinced.

Maltman/Martineau recital, Wigmore Hall, 11 April 2011

Wigmore Hall

Fauré – Cinq mélodies ‘de Venise’, op.58
Schumann – Zwei Venetianische Lieder, op.25/17 and 18
Schubert – Gondelfahrer, D 808
Mendelssohn – Venetianisches Gondellied, op.57 no.5
Hahn – Venezia: Chansons en dialecte vénetien
Schubert – L’incanto degli occhi, D 902/1
Il traditor deluso, D 902/2
Il modo di prender moglie, S 902/3
Du bist die Ruh, D 776
Lachen und Weinen, D 777
Sei mir gegrüßt, D 741
Mahler – Rückert Lieder

Christopher Maltman (baritone)
Malcolm Martineau (piano)

This recital, I am afraid, turned out to be rather less than the sum of its parts, lesser parts somewhat dragging down the rest. Malcolm Martineau proved a dependable pianist, often more than that. Christopher Maltman was generally an engaging soloist, though there were a few too many intonational problems to be able to disregard them as occasional slips. Nevertheless, the programme was the greater problem, not least in that we appeared to have two smaller recitals joined together; one pertained to impressions of Venice, the other to songs with texts by Friedrich Rückert, with Schubert’s Italian Metastasio settings offering a not entirely convincing bridge. Luca Pisaroni had recently employed those very same Schubert songs in a Wigmore Hall recital that was far more coherent as a programme – and often better sung too.

Fauré opened the recital with his five Verlaine settings, ‘de Venise’. Much of this composer’s output I stubbornly fail to ‘get’; others talk of his subtlety where I tend to find blandness. Popular favourites such as the Requiem and the incidental music to Pelléas et Mélisande continue to offer greater interest; perhaps I am destined forever, or at least for a while longer, to remain uninitiated. To be fair, not everything sounded bland here: the fourth song, ‘A Clymène’ certainly offered stranger harmonies, though I could not really understand them or where they were going, and they sounded a good deal stranger when Maltman’s tuning slipped. Moreover, Martineau’s evocation of the mandolin in the opening song that bears the instruments name was quite magical in its way; he also captured very well the (slightly) fragrant nonchalance of 'C’est l’éxtase', though Fauré seems to have a different understanding of ecstasy from mine. Maltman’s French was better than that of many, though word endings were not always perfectly sounded: what a difficult language this is for singers! The baritone also brought a fine sustained line to these mélodies, especially to 'En sourdine', whose closing nightingale song benefited from a touching use of head voice (an effect that was perhaps employed a little too readily in many of the songs to come).

Four gondoliers’ songs followed: two from Schumann, one from Schubert, and one from Mendelssohn. The Schumann songs proved a highlight to the recital, Maltman immediately sounding more at home with the Lieder-style, and not just in terms of language. From the first setting (both texts are by Thomas Moore, translated by Ferdinand Freiligrath), the beautifully shaded repetitions of ‘Leis’’ in the first stanza and ‘sacht!’ in the second could hardly have been better accomplished. Martineau’s command of rhythm securely underpinned the first, whilst the charming, almost Schubertian – in Taubenpost mode – manner of the second delighted. Mendelssohn’s Venetianisches Gondellied (again Moore-Freiligrath) bewitched with its barcarolle rhythm and evocative minor-mode harmonies whose implications extend further beyond the merely pictorial than one might expect. The better of Mendelssohn’s songs are better than many realise.

Reynaldo Hahn’s six songs in Venetian dialect were frankly tedious. Again, the subtleties of which some speak quite passed me by – and whilst I suspect that with Fauré, a lack of receptiveness on my part is a factor, I simply cannot imagine what might be of interest here to anyone. Gerald Larner’s programme note comparison with Poulenc seemed to me wide of the mark, to say the least. The opening ‘Sopra l’acqua indormenzada’ brought from Maltman a more operatic delivery, akin to a gondolier regaling his tourists. At least ‘La Biondina in gondoleta’ and ‘Che pecà!’ are less emoting, though the former seems merely bland – and prolonged. The latter has a jaunty rhythm in the piano interludes, of which Martineau made the most, and benefited from Maltman’s forthright, highly masculine tone, though he missed his first entry and had to re-start the song. A ringing final ‘ciel’ in the final song, ‘La primavera’, might have delighted devotees, but I was ready for the interval bar.

Schubert’s Metastasio settings opened the second half. ‘L’incanto degli occhi’ benefited from lightness of touch on the part of both artists, though the contrasting section was perhaps taken a little too operatically by Maltman. Certainly Pisaroni in the aforementioned recital had offered something more suggestive, less blatant. Richly-coloured accompagnato was evoked in the recitative section of ‘Il traditor deluso’; Martineau even managed to make the piano part to the aria sound as if it were a piano reduction from an orchestral original. High (melo-)drama marked Maltman’s once again operatic delivery. If not Mozart, then at least Rossini was pleasingly evoked in the buffo tone of ‘Il modo di prender moglie’.

Du bist die Ruh, the first of the three Schubert Rückert settings selected, received a rapt performance, along with the Schumann songs, perhaps the finest of the evening, Martineau’s piano part heart-rendingly limpid, Maltman using words as well as notes to touch. That magical final-stanza modulation truly opened up new vistas, setting an apt precedent for Mahler. The account of Sei mir gegrüßt was to be commended for not playing to the gallery, but I wondered if it was just a little too low-key.

If Maltman had arguably used the head voice to touch a little too much, it sounded apt indeed in Mahler’s ‘Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft,’ the first of his Rückert-Lieder. It finely matched the weaving of harmonic magic in the piano, though later on insecurities of tuning slightly marred the performance: I wondered whether the tessitura was less than ideal for Maltman’s voice. There was nevertheless just the right sense of wonder to be heard: I was put in mind of the ‘Forest Murmurs’ from Siegfried. Intonation again proved variable in ‘Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder!’ but there was a proper sense of something darker than a mere time of day being at stake in ‘Um Mitternacht’: a true midnight desolation of the soul. Here, though, whilst I had tried my best not to do so, I could not help but miss Mahler’s orchestra. Maltman showed a creditable willingness to harshen his tone where necessary, for instance when speaking of man’s afflictions, forsaking mere beauty. ‘Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen’ again made one realise what one was missing in orchestral terms: not Martineau’s fault, but in what might seem the quintessence in miniature of Mahler’s variegated orchestral writing, the piano inevitably seems second choice. However, the stillness of the final stanza was judged finely indeed. To offer arias from Verdi’s I due Foscari and Amilcare Ponchielli’s La Gioconda might have fitted the ‘Venetian’ theme but seemed jarring at best after Mahler.

La traviata, Royal Opera, 8 July 2010

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Violetta Valéry – Angela Gheorghiu
Alfredo Germont – James Valenti
Giorgio Germont – Željko Lučič
Baron Douphol – Eddie Wade
Doctor Grenvil – Richard Wiegold
Flora Bervoix – Kai Rüütel
Marquis d’Obigny – Changhan Lim
Gastone de Letorières – Ji-Min Park
Annina – Sarah Pring
Giuseppe – Neil Gillespie
Messenger – Charbel Mattar
Servant – Jonathan Coad
Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends of Violetta and Flora, Guests, Servants

Sir Richard Eyre (director)
Bob Crowley (designs)
Jane Gibson (movement)
Jean Kalman (lighting)

Royal Opera Chorus and extra chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Yves Abel (conductor)

This was my first Verdi performance in the theatre for thirteen years or so: I must have been the least jaded of critics for the opening night of the revival of Sir Richard Eyre’s La Traviata. Benjamin Britten was said to listen to the music of Brahms once a year, to remind him why he loathed it. (Oddly, however, there is a recording of the op.52 Liebeslieder Waltzes from Aldeburgh.) In a similar spirit, although on a considerably broader timescale, I considered that it would do me no harm to put my prejudices or judgements to the test.

There would be many worse ways of doing so than seeing Angela Gheorghiu as Violetta. I had not actually heard her in the flesh before and was a little surprised as to how small her voice is. She made it work though, so that it could be heard perfectly well even when singing pianissimo. Her coloratura was, so far as I discerned, flawless, no mean feat. I recall watching this production on the television as a schoolboy, the first run under Solti which really made Gheorghiu’s name. She obviously does not look – or sound – so young now, but this remains still a fine vocal performance. In terms of playing herself on stage she is also clearly without peer; Angela Gheorghiu is a role one is tempted to think she was born to play. Certainly one had the impression, rightly or wrongly, that her movements, her expressions, pretty much everything she is doing – all these are very much her own thing.

Given the conservatism of Eyre’s production, and especially of Bob Crowley’s designs, that is not necessarily so bad thing. Zeffirelli with a slightly lower calorie count doubtless appeals to some even on this side of the Atlantic, but there is suspension of disbelief and then there is the size of Violetta’s bedroom in act three of this production. Otherwise, the costumes look beautiful and so forth, but it is really only the presence of the soprano that grants any sense of theatre at all: ironic, since that then reinforces the idea that opera should be about star singers and therefore about works like this, and a vicious, doubtless highly commercial circle ensues. I can only assume, moreover, that some deal had been struck with the Association of Consumptives, for the state of the audience made poor Violetta seem hale and healthy.

James Valenti looked good as Alfredo and sang ardently, but often wavered in intonation. There was strength in the singing of Željko Lučič as Germont père, though his stage presence was somewhat wooden (how much is the production at fault here?) and his style sounded just a touch incongruously Slavic. The choral singing was excellent, for which thanks must once again go to Renato Balsadonna and of course the Royal Opera Chorus itself. And the orchestra played beautifully, Yves Abel directing unobtrusively but not without character.

There remains the work itself. I tried, but the esteem in which it and Verdi’s œuvre in general are held continues to baffle me. Puccini can be mawkish, Rossini can be shallow, but there is a degree of craftsmanship to be heard and admired there. Verdi seems to combine the worst aspects of both, standing perhaps slightly above Donizetti, but that is all. The orchestration is often rudimentary – though, as I said, the orchestra made the most of what it had. Harmony is uninteresting and the accompaniments – the word for once is apt – are often so derisory. And then there is the ‘tart with a heart, transfigured’ tale: does it go beyond the level of a women’s magazine story? I fail to see how – and it now seems utterly dated, not least in its attitude towards gender. Just when one thinks there might be some psychological insight, the music of the pizza parlour returns. The ‘tunes’, memorable because one hears them so often, are rarely integrated into the musical texture, such as it is, let alone into the drama, such as it is. Given the lack of musical interest, surely a more adventurous production might alleviate the ennui. Regietheater seems a necessity here. Were this a neglected work, one could understand someone thinking it worth a try, but a staple of the repertoire? Some people might, for a variety of reasons, dislike Wagner; but being something other than Wagner is not in itself a guarantee of anything. As Pierre Boulez once put it, Verdi is ‘picture-postcard music’. He said that he would prefer to see a whole landscape; the same goes for me.

CSO/Muti: Prokofiev, Falla, and Ravel, 6 October 2007

Royal Festival Hall

Prokofiev: Symphony no.3 in C minor, Op.44
Falla: The Three-cornered Hat, Suite no.2
Ravel: Rapsodie espagnole
Ravel: Boléro

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti (conductor)

This was a splendid concert, full of orchestral colour, which acted as a showcase for numerous strengths of both orchestra and conductor. That the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is one of the world's greatest orchestras can hardly have been in doubt even before, but there could be no doubt having heard it at the Royal Festival Hall. It is in many respects a very American sound, with gleaming strings, great precision of attack, and of course its celebrated brass section, but it never sounded anonymously 'international' as some bands of that ilk can. Muti is of course a brilliant conductor, 'old school' and all the better for it. I was put in mind more than once of the orchestral command exercised by two former music directors in Chicago, Fritz Reiner and Sir Georg Solti. Yet there was none of the brashness that could sometimes characterise Solti's work.

Prokofiev's Third Symphony packed quite a punch from the very outset. Those thumping initial chords made a duly screaming impact, not only with their volume, not only with their dissonance, but also with the supremely judged balance, which allowed more colours to emerge than has often been the case in performances of this work. This was achieved without any lessening of the impact of brass and percussion. If the opening overshadowed the rest of the first movement, this is attributable to Prokofiev rather than to the performance, which did everything he could conceivably have asked. It does seem to me that there is something of a mismatch between the musical material, initially conceived for the masterly Fiery Angel, and symphonic form, but probably the best course of action is to consider a surreal succession of often garish images, rather than to worry too much about formal shortcomings. The repose of the slow movement was certainly welcome. Muti's command of the long, almost vocal lines impressed, as did the varied solo contributions. The violin glissandi and other ghostly aspects of the scherzo came across with unusual vividness, and never at the expense of the clearer form of that movement. Much the same could be said of the well-nigh faultless finale, whose marriage of grotesquerie and harmonic side-slipping lyricism was portrayed with both a keen ear for colour and balance and an impressive sense of theatrical effect. This symphony is not often performed, but I can safely say that I have not heard a superior performance.

In the second half, we moved to Spain. The second suite from Falla's ballet, The Three-cornered Hat, received an equally committed reading. Rhythms were acutely pointed, as was their marriage to harmonic progression. The array of colours on offer was kaleidoscopic, with warm and sultry moments caught in vivid relief against the backdrop of the dance. As with every section of the evening's programme, there was never the slightest doubt that the musicians knew precisely where they were going; they acted as perfect hosts during our colourful tour.

The Ravel items were, if anything, more impressive still, partly, I suspect, on account of their being whole works, and partly on account of the still greater scope they offered for colouristic differentiation. In this respect, orchestra and conductor wanted nothing. The emphasis may have been more brazenly 'Spanish' than French performances of the old school might have offered, but there is nothing wrong with that. There was certainly none of that wateriness in the strings that has often characterised readings of that school. Precision was at the very core, as it should be, since Ravel has none of Debussy's ambiguity; not for nothing did Stravinsky dub him a Swiss watchmaker. The ostinato rhythm of the Rapsodie's 'Prélude à la nuit' pulsated with a winning combination of persistence and languor, whilst Ravel weaved his colouristic and harmonic magic above. And the cumulative effect of Boléro can rarely have been better achieved - even if that very success did point to the undoubted monotony of the work. Thank goodness for that final harmonic wrench to E major, without which I might have been driven mad.

As an encore, Muti and the CSO offered a blistering account of the Overture to Verdi's La forza del destino. It exhibited all the virtues outlined above, and moreover boasted a flexibility born of the conductor's immersion in Verdi's music. To return to the beginning, its opening evocation of fate packed just as much a punch as had the barbarism of the Prokofiev symphony, yet the celebrated melody that followed (forever associated in my mind with the films Jean de Florette and Manon des sources) was as tender as one could imagine. Even for a Verdi sceptic such as myself, this provided a worthy culmination to the evening. The repertoire exhibited not a trace of Teutonic profundity, but our musical heritage possesses other aspects demanding attention, attention which paid off handsomely in this case.