Pires/LSO/Haitink: Britten, Mozart, and Beethoven, 12 February 2013

Barbican Hall

Britten – Four Sea Interludes from ‘Peter Grimes’, op.33a

Mozart – Piano Concerto no.17 in G major, KV 453
Beethoven – Symphony no.7 in A major, op.92

Maria João Pires (piano)

London Symphony Orchestra

Bernard Haitink (conductor).

There is not a great deal of Britten orchestral music, so this anniversary year will doubtless hear a good few outings for the Four Sea Interludes. I doubt that any will come better than this scorching – drenching? – account from Bernard Haitink and the London Symphony Orchestra. The opening strings of ‘Dawn’ managed to sound both translucent and brilliant, answered by woodwind marine fantasy and grave foreboding from the brass. The movement was as dramatically pregnant as I have heard, perhaps still more so: what we have lost in Haitink’s continued absence from the Royal Opera House, and what, during that period, the LSO has gained! Britten is at his best when his music is evidently ‘constructed’ – think of The Turn of the Screw, surely his masterpiece – and constructed is just how ‘Sunday Morning’ sounded here. Its building-up of fourths put me distantly in mind of Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony and of Bartók. Again, Britten is at his best when rescued from parochialism, likewise the festival he founded at Aldeburgh. Even if some of the movement and much of the ensuing ‘Moonlight’ sounds uncomfortably close to the banalities of Shostakovich, Haitink shaped them very well indeed. The conductor unsurprisingly schewed easy histrionics in the ‘Storm’ in favour of structural integrity, always a Haitink watchword. The LSO brass were in fantastic form, but so, to be fair, was the entire orchestra. It was then a pity, to put it mildly, that a man seated across the aisle from me started to snore loudly; it was also astonishing, given the decibel and voltage levels. Would that his neighbour had taken the trouble to awaken him, both here and in the Mozart concerto that followed.

 

The G major Piano Concerto, KV 453, opened with a well articulated, resolutely unsentimentalised tutti. Perhaps, though, Haitink might have allowed the music to smile a little more; Sir Colin Davis would have done. Nevertheless, Haitink’s command of structure remained something for which to be grateful. Maria João Pires’s playing was immaculately turned, her ear for phrasing unerring. Ultimately, though, this first movement never quite displayed the ravishing Mozartian pleasure that it ought. Matters improved in the slow movement: Haitink did not prove too brisk, as he has sometimes done recently. The piano part was poised throughout, Pires exhibiting a touch to die for. Strings were beautifully veiled for the minor mode section, the interplay between them and Pires beyond reproach. Whatever had been missing in the first movement was now certainly present. This was serious, as it should be, but never ponderous. Haitink hit upon just the right Papageno-tempo for the finale; far too often one hears it taken as an Allegro rather than Allegretto, having the late change of tempo result in a mere scramble. Again, Pires’s phrases were exquisitely shaped, though no more so than those of the LSO woodwind. The fathomless profundity of Mozart’s chromaticism effortlessly registered, as did the operatic joy of diatonic release.

 

The last time before this I had heard Haitink conduct Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, it had been in the very same hall, though with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. In many respects this LSO account proved very similar – sadly, including the problematic nature of the finale. That said, there was much to enjoy earlier on. The introduction to the first movement demonstrated that precision and weight were anything but antithetical. There was a profound sense of inevitability, of something set in motion that would take some time to resolve. A Vivace of almost Brahmsian satisfaction ensued. No ‘points’ were being made; Beethoven’s melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic invention seemed simply to speak for themselves, art concealing art both in composition and performance. How refreshing for an age in which the more extreme the perversity inflicted on Beethoven – it did not start with Harnoncourt, and he is not the worst offender, yet he remains emblematic – the more loudly it will be hailed in fashionable circles. If much of Haitink’s recent Beethoven has proved oddly driven, here at least he seemed to have taken a step back, and attained the sort of implacability one associates with Klemperer. There were incidental pleasures, for instance the backward recapitulatory glance towards the Pastoral offered by the LSO woodwind, but structural integrity was again the overall determinant. A grinding coda bass line was a case in point, never exaggerated, and thus all the more telling.

 

The slow movement – and yes, I know describing it as such is a red rag to certain bulls – was not undersold; well, not grievously, anyway. It retained considerable darkness of tone and the sense of a processional despite the swift tempo chosen by Haitink. After recent lamentable Beethoven performances in London from the likes of Esa-Pekka Salonen and Vladimir Jurowski, this came as a considerable relief, perhaps particularly given the quibbles one might have had with the performance if considered in the abstract. This flowed in the best sense, even if it remained somewhat earthbound when considered in the light of Daniel Barenboim’s astounding Proms performance last summer. The scherzo veered towards the unduly driven, but for the most part retained a degree of freshness. Haitink permitted a slight relaxation for the trio, though, Romantic that I remain, I could not help but wish for a little more. The LSO woodwind managed nevertheless not to sacrifice all sense of the Mozartian serenade: impressive indeed, at such a tempo! However, the finale, as in Haitink’s Concertgebouw performance, proved relentless, the drive imparted antithetical to Beethoven’s humanity. Orchestral weight remained, but this was a hectoring account: clearly Haitink’s present conception, but one which, despite a breakneck tempo, lumbered rather than danced.

 

Eugene Onegin, Royal Opera, 11 February 2013

Eugene Onegin (Simon Keenlyside)
Images: Bill Cooper

Royal Opera House

 

Tatyana – Krassimira Stoyanova

Eugene Onegin – Simon Keenlyside
Young Tatyana – Vigdis Hentze Olsen
Mme Larina – Diana Montague
Filipyevna – Kathleen Wilkinson
Olga – Elena Maximova
Peasant Singer – Elliot Goldie
Young Onegin – Thom Rackett
Lensky – Pavol Breslik
Monsieur Triquet – Christophe Mortagne
Captain – Michel de Souza
Zaletsky – Jihoon Kim
Guillot – Luke Price
Prince Gremin – Peter Rose

Kasper Holten (director)
Mia Stensgaard (set designs)
Katrina Lindsay (costumes)
Wolfgang Göbbel (lighting)
Leo Warner (video)
Lawrence Watson (animation)
Signe Fabricius (choreography)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Robin Ticciati (conductor)

Kasper Holten’s new production of Eugene Onegin, his first staging for the Royal Opera House, was in many ways excellent, an auspicious debut indeed. Unfortunately, it was truly let down by some of the most lacklustre conducting I have heard at Covent Garden. Whilst an interesting, intriguing evening was still to be pieced together from production and singing, it would be idle to pretend that Robin Ticciati’s jejune performance did not detract significantly from the experience. To start with, it seemed as though Ticciati’s reading might prove interestingly different. The balletic side to Tchaikovsky seemed on the verge of shining through, the woodwind section of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House offering sparkling playing, and what a nice change it made for once to hear the harp! Alas, it soon emerged that those advantages had been achieved largely by default. It became impossible to ignore the thinness of the string sound, despite a sizeable number of strings in the pit. That was not on account of any ineptitude of execution by the players, who remained polished throughout, but because Ticciati seemingly wished to elicit the sound of a middle-ranking chamber orchestra from one of the best opera house bands in the world. Fair enough if you simply have to put up with a small number of strings, or even if you are playing in a small house, but such was not of course the case here. More damagingly still, the performance dragged, at times interminably so. Without any sense of life – not to be confused with alleged ‘airiness’ – and without any sense of Tchaikovsky’s tormented soul, the only signs of anything dramatic being at stake had to be gleaned elsewhere: a great pity. Let me be clear. This was not about ‘intimacy’, about approaching Tchaikovsky’s ‘scenes’ in the manner in which they were first performed at the Moscow Conservatoire – although the perversity did have something in common, albeit significantly magnified, with the attempt by Ticciati’s mentor, Sir Simon  Rattle, to present an ‘intimate’ Carmen upon the vast stage of Salzburg’s Grosses Festspielhaus. Nor was it about actual speed; I genuinely have no idea whether the performance was fast, slow, or middling, by the clock. What I do know is that it dragged, despite sometimes being unduly driven, because Ticciati proved hopelessly incapable of finding a pulse, variable or otherwise. Instead of intimacy and interesting if unusual tempi, we had mere thinness and tedium.

 

Tatyana (Krassimira Stoyanova)

Holten’s production, on the other hand, offered what was often a searching exploration of memory. Inscribed into the score, its visual manifestation was effected by a number of means. Most obvious, but far from the only example, was the use of doubles, a young Tatyana and a young Onegin, to observe, to remind, to haunt. Mirroring the structure – some might say the lopsidedness – of Tchaikovsky’s drama, the young Tatyana is often seen during the first four scenes, whereas her counterpart does not emerge until the older, wiser Onegin appears in St Petersburg. The two young figures meet only in the final scene, offering a glimpse of what might have been, but what is now cruelly denied. Or should that read, 'wisely denied'? For in a fascinating gloss, Prince Gremin appears in that scene too: no longer a mere doddery if noble old fool, he too will have to learn to live with the truth. I can imagine that some might have found the histrionic display of the young Tatyana during the Letter Scene a little much, but by the same token, it seems a valid response to one side at least of the music – and Tchaikovsky’s character. It does not last very long, moreover, and more important seems to be the slippage between the two Tatyanas: who is writing? Who is truly affected? Is this for once an attempt to construct, with all the potential for failure that might entail, a character who is more than Tchaikovsky’s self-projection?

 

Colour is used to great effect: an especially telling moment is the infection through lighting and film of the outside world – or is it again a projection, this time from Tatyana herself? – with Tatyana’s scarlet, following the Letter Scene? Has she been rash, to put it mildly? Is this foreboding? Does her uneasy relationship to the outside world doom her to an unhappy, unsociable life? Is this where it all goes wrong, the moment to which her elder self will perforce return, time and time again? The relationship between books and memory is of course not a new concept in Onegin productions, but it is a good one, and their presence at Mme Larina’s house, not least in Tatyana’s hands, makes its point well. As time went on, above all in St Petersburg, it was as if Tchaikovsky’s and Pushkin’s reminiscences were straining towards Wagnerian leitmotif. They did not and could not reach it; technique and indeed aspiration are quite different. But I could not help but wonder if Holten’s Wagnerian experience played a role here. If only there could have been some counterpart to that in the conducting, which continued signally to fail to join up the dots. Let us hope that the production will be revived with someone else in the pit. A conductor with whom the Royal Opera House has a strong relationship, such as Semyon Bychkov, who has a fine Onegin recording to his name already? That might really be something.

 

Lensky (Pavol Breslik)

The cast was for the most part excellent too. Krassimira Stoyanova’s Tatyana was beautifully sung, no mere cipher, but a strong, flawed character, uncertain of where she was heading and all the more credible for that. I was a little disconcerted by Simon Keenlyside’s Onegin during the first act; it seemed coarser than I recalled from a few years ago. But dramatic truth gained over ‘mere’ beauty, for this Onegin gained in insight as the work progressed, quite in tandem with the production. As ever, Keenlyside’s way with words, just like Stoyanova’s, was pretty much beyond reproach. Beauty there was aplenty in the honeyed tones of Pavol Breslik, every inch the Romantic poet; his verbal acuity was no less impressive. Holten had elected to downplay, even to ignore, the homoeroticism of the relationship between Onegin and Lensky: a pity, since it so permeates the score, but of course the director had other ideas to explore. Instead we witnessed two young, quite immature men as genuine rivals for the affections or at least the attentions of their women. Olga was finely and richly sung by Elena Maximova, whilst Diana Montague and Kathleen Wilkinson almost stole the show with their equally fine portrayals of Mme Larina and Filipyevna. The only disappointments were an unidiomatic Zaretsky from Jihoon Kim and an intonationally-challenged Triquet from Christophe Mortagne. Peter Rose’s Gremin did everything it should – and more. Likewise the Royal Opera Chorus was on splendid form, for which Renato Balsadonna should once again receive considerable credit.

 

London Sinfonietta/Hannigan - Satie and Stravinsky, 10 February 2013

Queen Elizabeth Hall

Satie – Socrate

Stravinsky – Three Pieces for string quartet
Three Pieces for clarinet
Concertino
Renard

Barbara Hannigan (soprano/director)

Daniel Norman (tenor)
Edgaras Montvidas (tenor)
Roderick Williams (bass)
John Molloy (bass)
Reinbert de Leeuw (piano)
Timothy Lines (clarinet)
Harriet Walter (narrator)
Timberlake Wertenbaker (script writer)
London Sinfonietta

 

This concert was part of a greater weekend of concerts at the Southbank Centre looking at Paris during the second and third decades of the twentieth century, the weekend itself part of the year-long Rest is Noise season. An arresting opening – which I initially feared would irritate, but which actually worked very well – was provided by Harriet Walter’s narration, replete with East Coast accent, presenting a first-person sketch, written by Timberlake Wertenbaker, of the life of Winnaretta Singer. Daughter of the inventor of the sewing machine, Isaac Singer, Winnaretta went on to become the celebrated musical patroness, Princess Edmund de Polignac, commissioning both Socrate and Renard, though Diaghilev’s machinations and Stravinsky’s duplicity – at least according to this account – meant that her salon would not host the latter work’s premiere. Walter’s delivery of the script was just as excellent as one would expect from this fine actress: never overdone, effortlessly convincing.  I wondered a little about the Princess’s, or rather Wertenbaker’s, claim that patrons go unsung. Not in my lectures they do not; indeed, I sometimes wonder whether I over-emphasise their role. I also wondered whether a male patron would have received quite so sympathetic a treatment: might we not at least have been led to think, ‘why should someone inherit all that money in the first place?’ But those are quibbles, and the narration, heard before Socrate and before Renard seemed to go down well with the audience.

 

Satie’s Socrate: oh dear. I tried; I really did. Doubtless some will say that was the problem. But for me, its sole redeeming feature was the excellence of the performances from Barbara Hannigan and Reinbert de Leeuw. Cool, white, monotonous, with the occasional subtle colouring of the vocal line: soprano and pianist were really beyond reproach. However, a work, like so much of Satie, which seems set up to forestall criticism – whatever you say against it, someone will respone, ‘well that is the point’ – had better be of Stravinskian quality if, as, for instance The Rake’s Progress does, it attempts that disabling tactic. Frankly, it makes one long even for the dullest of Stravinsky: Apollo, or Orpheus, say. Its lengthy ‘setting’ of Plato – is it really a ‘setting’ at all, when it seems to respond no more to the text than Rossini does in much of his Stabat Mater? – drones on and on, until, by the time the third part, ‘La Mort de Socrate’ opens, one feels as if one has been suffering the same composer’s Vexations. What a strange conception of ancient Greece this is; it almost makes one sympathise with Nietzsche’s venom against Socrates. The artists, admirably controlled throughout, made the most of the slight suggestion of drama as we heard of the poison’s arrival, but if the best one can say about something is that it is somewhat less tedious than the music of Philip Glass, perhaps it is time to wonder whether Satie has an Emperor, let alone clothes.

 

Stravinsky’s invention thus struck the hall like a thunderbolt. It always does, at least in good performances, and these performances were certainly that. A string quartet (Jonathan Morton, Joan Atherton, Paul Silverthorne, Tim Gill, all standing save for the cellist) drawn from the London Sinfonietta brought us the composer’s astonishing Three Pieces. The work’s strangeness, its utter dissociation from anything one might consider to constitute a string quartet repertoire and tradition still shocks – and certainly did so here. Defiantly post-Rite of Spring, this is in many senses a far more radical break with ‘tradition’, as unique as Le Roi des étoiles. Tightly focused rhythms and – as soon as one bothered to listen – a profusion of melody were hallmarks of this account. The final piece brought a sense of the hieratic, but what a contrast it made with the mere tedium of Satie. Here was music. Timothy Lines offered strong performances of the Three Pieces for clarinet, written five years later in 1919. If the first offered a gentler, one is almost tempted to say pastoral, sound-world, it remained utterly Stravinskian in its evident ‘construction’. And in any case, there was nothing remotely gentle about its joyous successor, nor to the third, which seemed to anticipate the world of Renard. The performance was rich in tonal and dynamic differentiation, rhythm propelling the notes and their ‘meaning’. The 1920 Concertino for string quartet followed, though oddly the programme had no notes on it. Again, the utterly individual approach of the composer not only to the medium of the string quartet but to stringed instruments themselves was immediately announced. A kaleidoscope of what Stravinsky would have hated one to call ‘moods’ – unless, of course, he arbitrarily decided to use the word, as in his Norwegian Moods – revealed itself during the work’s brief span. Here was concision to rival Webern, yet long before Stravinsky’s serialist turn. It sounded almost akin to a mechanised Beethoven Bagatelle.

 

Hannigan turned director for the wonderful burlesque, Renard, given in concert performance, Colour and rhythm were very much to the fore in a performance for which she seemed to act more as enabler than dictator. Old Stravinsky hands that the London Sinfonietta are, that is doubtless the right way around. Thematic consistency during and after the opening March was especially noteworthy; this was no mere collection of episodes. Even when the Cock turned languid, ‘Sizhu na dubu...’ (‘I’m on my perch...’), rhythmic underpinning remained tight. There was room for seduction too, from the Fox with his cake. But above all what struck was the visceral nature of Stravinsky’s score, so truthful a representation of the or at least a childhood imagination. The London Sinfonietta’s performance could not be faulted; the four vocal soloists proved fine advocates too. If the tenors perhaps captured greater attention, that is probably more a reflection of score than performance. Why do we not hear this work more often?

Iain Burnside, Jouneying Boys, Royal College of Music Vocal Faculty, 8 February 2013

Britten Theatre, Royal College of Music

Arthur Rimbaud – Peter Kirk

Djami, Sanjit – Oscar Castellino
Gaubert, Milo – Nicholas Pritchard
Paul Verlaine – Matthew Buswell
Ernest Cabaner, Fletcher – Paul McKenzie
Beauchene, Trevor – Simon Gilkes
Florence, A, Caroline – Elizabeth Holmes
Mathilde Maute, Alex – Rowan Pierce
Mme Maute, Daisy, I – Rachel Bowden
E, Lavinia – Jennifer Carter
O, Imogen – Anna Anandarajah
U, Cheryl – Soraya Mafi
Benjamin Britten – Matthew Ward
W H Auden – Jerome Knox
Christopher Isherwood, Gus – Nicholas Morton
Lavinia – Jennifer Carter

Rimbaud (Peter Kirk), Djami (Oscar Castellino), Gaubert (Nicholas Pritchard)

Iain Burnside (director)

Giuseppe Belli (set designs)
Stephen Pelton (director)
Jools Osborns (costumes)
Paul Tucker (lighting)

 

Iain Burnside’s new play, apparently ‘conceived over a club sandwich’ taken with Nick Sears, Head of Vocal Studies at the Royal College of Music, is focused upon Britten’s Les Illuminations, though with a stronger emphasis on the poet Arthur Rimbaud than upon the composer himself. In fact, it darts around quite a bit, between a performance class for young singers, thus very much ‘at home’ in the RCM, snippets from Rimbaud’s life, and a few from Britten’s. Correspondence and history are mined without any sense of pedantry. Quite what it all adds up to remained a little unclear to me; the effect was in a sense determinedly, if un-theoretically, post-modern. But the business of artistic creation and re-creation is rarely linear, so the fragments of history and interpretative wisdom we hear in the singing class suffer little and arguably gain a form of truth from their interspersal with scenes from Rimbaud’s ultra-bohemian existence, scenes that take us to Marseilles, Harar in Abyssinnia, Aden, Mons, London, and Paris. Verlaine comes and foes, even having a short family scene to himself, with his long-suffering wife, her mother, and a non-speaking part for the young Achille(-Claude) Debussy at the piano. Rimbaud’s defiant, excessive non-metropolitan personality – his northern-ness much commented upon here – contrasts with the diffident young Britten we glimpse from time to time, Auden and Isherwood attempting to bring him out of himself. Much is made of poet’s and composer’s sexuality, both in their scenes and in the class discussion, a running joke provided by one female student whose comment upon every aspect of the work is that it shows how ‘queer’ the text is. As a banal coda, she persuades a fellow female student to join her for a Marks and Spencer ready meal after the class: knowing banality, perhaps, but I am not sure what it added. Nor was I really convinced that we needed a spoken chorus of vowels, A, E, I, O, and U during a few of Rimbaud’s scenes; we gained a commendable sense of his linguistic interests in any case. Nevertheless, at seventy-five minutes, the play was enjoyable and certainly did not overstay its welcome.

Students in the performance class

 

Performances were assured, both in terms of acting and singing. Indeed for a group of young singers who are not primarily actors their stage presence was most impressive. (The 'movement' seemed largely unnecessary, though.) Peter Kirk threw himself wholeheartedly into the role of Rimbaud; Matthew Ward, Jerome Knox, and Nicholas Morton, all proved convincing in their snatches of Britten, Auden, and Isherwood. And so it went on: the students offered strong characterisation as well as some fine singing. Indeed, I could not name a weak link in the cast. As well as Les Illuminations, extracts performed here in Britten’s own piano reduction, we also heard from four Verlaine settings, Debussy’s Chevaux de bois, Vaughan Williams’s The Sky above the Roof, Fauré’s Spleen and Une Sainte en son aureole, and Britten’s The Journeying Boy (Hardy), from which the play takes its name. The single performance sold out, but the play will be performed again later in the year at the Guildhall School of Music. A visit is heartily recommended, save to the readily-shockable Daily Mail brigade, for whom ‘language’ and tone might prove a little much.

LPO/Elder - Elgar, The Dream of Gerontius, 26 January 2013

Royal Festival Hall

The Dream of Gerontius, op.38

 

Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano)

Paul Groves (tenor)

James Rutherford (bass-baritone)

Choir of Clare College, Cambridge

London Philharmonic Choir

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Sir Mark Elder (conductor)

This performance of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius had a great deal to recommend it. However, rather to my surprise, Mark Elder exhibited something of a tendency, especially later on, to sacrifice drama to beauty. Memories of Britten’s incendiary LSO recording continued to linger. The Prelude, like so much else of this account, clearly took after Parsifal. After a slightly bland opening, it blossomed richly, not least thanks to an excellent LPO viola section. (Violas, always at the very heart of the harmony, are far more crucial to the success of a performance than many realise, not least when it comes to Wagnerian and post-Wagnerian repertoire.) Splendidly implacable brass also gave a foretaste of travails to come.

 

Most of the first part proceeded splendidly thereafter. For instance, he chorus, ‘Be merciful,’ had a well-judged cumulative power, though I felt that there were times during Gerontius’s subsequent solo when Elder drove too hard, ringing the soul closer to Verdi than to Wagner. Amends were certainly made at the end of this part, however, when a slight tendency to linger proved entirely apt to the text. There were many details throughout to admire, not least excellent playing, again redolent of Parsifal, from the LPO woodwind. Elgar’s contrapuntal mastery told in Elder’s direction of the Demons’ Chorus; here drive was not at all out of place. The emergence of the ‘great tune’ was carefully prepared in the best sense.

 

Paul Groves proved a fine Gerontius, more at home than he had been in Das Lied von der Erde a few nights earlier. He offered sincerity, intelligence, and an excellent way with words. Perhaps it was too much to hope for the ringing tones of a classic Heldentenor on top of that; perhaps it was inappropriate even. After all, he had a good few ‘heroic’ moments, individually considered, and a degree of strain might well be argued to fit the text well. Sparing use of the head voice proved moving too. Initially I wondered whether something a little ‘more’, however indefinably so, might have been desirable from Sarah Connolly. However, it soon became apparent that consolation was developmental; the arc of her performance was fully considered and all the more powerful for it. ‘Yes – for one moment thou shalt see thy Lord,’ offered perhaps the most radiant singing of the evening, though I might equally have said that of her final solo, ‘Softly and gently, dearly-ransomed soul’. It set me thinking, not for the first time, how much Janet Baker’s repertoire seems to suit Connolly; one would never mistake the voices, but the Fach is clearly similar. (I should love to hear her as the Wood Dove in Gurrelieder.) Moreover, Connolly’s duetting with Groves relatively early on in the second part sounded as close to opera as Elgar would venture, The Spanish Lady notwithstanding. James Rutherford was a very late substitute for Brindley Sherratt, and brought off his parts with great aplomb, rich toned and full of presence. After the words, ‘To that glorious Home, where they shall ever gaze on Thee,’ I almost expected to hear a tenor respond, ‘Amfortas! Die Wunde!’

 

The London Philharmonic Choir and the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge were also on excellent form. At the first entry of the Assistants, they sounded very much as the best of the English choral tradition. Evensong did not sound so very far away, though writ large of course. They managed lightness equally well, clearly encouraged by Elder, for instance in parts of the first ‘Praise to the Holiest’, in which elements of earlier Romanticism, Mendelssohn and perhaps Schumann, came winningly to light. A truly ringing conclusion to its successor, with the words ‘Most sure in all His ways!’ was a tribute to conductor, orchestra, and chorus. It was something of a pity that Elder’s caressing way with what followed made it seem a little too much of an anti-climax, but I should not exaggerate, for there was seraphic beauty to be experienced – ironically – from Clare’s Voices on Earth. As I said, there was a great deal to admire. And if Newman’s text may be difficult for some to take, ultimately it was redeemed by Elgar’s music – and by the performers.

Hannigan/de Leeuw/Quatuor Diotima - Schoenberg, Alma Mahler, and Berg, 24 January 2013

Queen Elizabeth Hall

Schoenberg – Four Songs, op.2

Alma Mahler – Four Songs
Berg – Seven Early Songs
Schoenberg – String Quartet no.2, op.10

Barbara Hannigan (soprano)

Reinbert de Leeuw (piano)

Yunpeng Zhao, Guillaume Latour (violins)

Franck Chevalier (viola)

Pierre Morlet (cello)

 

 

Has Barbara Hannigan ever given a performance that did not stand at the highest level, technically, musically, and with the most exquisite taste in repertoire? I am sure she must have done at some point, but I am equally sure that I have never heard it. From what I think was the first time I heard her, singing ‘Djamila Boupacha’, from Nono’s Canti di vita e d’amore, to a 2011 Pli selon pli under Boulez himself, I have been spellbound. This was not the first time I had heard as the soprano for Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet; a rugged EdinburghF estival performance with the Arditti Quartet provided an interesting comparison with the present performance. Nor was it the first time I had heard her sing Berg’s Seven Early Songs, this concert having been preceded by a Berlin outing for Reinbert de Leeuw’s chamber arrangement, again conducted by Boulez. But which other sopranos would one be likely to hear not once but twice in this repertoire, let alone in the gorgeous unfolding of Boulez’s masterpiece?

 

We began with Schoenberg’s op.2 songs: a rare opportunity, though I really cannot understand why. De Leeuw featured in this first half as pianist, offering a highly intelligent ear – and equally intelligent fingers – to proceedings, Schoenberg’s harmonies in the opening ‘Erwartung’ already full of unexpected twists, never underlined but permitted ‘simply’ to speak for themselves. Echoes of the Cabaret Songs, in harmony if not in verse, also manifested themselves, seemingly without intervention, though we know how much art will often be involved in art’s concealment. Coolness and Romantic warmth were heard not to be mutually opposed, but in what, almost paradoxically, one might call a gentle dialectic. Hannigan’s diction and general way with Richard Dehmel’s words were irreproachable, the musical world created in response very much post-Tristan. It was Parsifal, and Kundry, Schoenberg seemed to be answering in ‘Schenk mir deinen goldenen Kamm’. Delicious near-blasphemies sounded, in work and performance, very much as if part of Klingsor’s armoury. ‘Oh, Maria!’ indeed. Somehow Hannigan managed to combine purity and eroticism on the final ‘Magdalena’. One needed a cold shower afterwards. The closing ‘Waldsonne’, the only one of the four songs not to a text by Dehmel, sounded almost pastoral, with a musically undulating quality set up in the piano and responded to in the vocal line. Longing and ecstasy were yet never far behind.

 

I wish I could enthuse about Alma Mahler’s music. Well, perhaps I do not, since I find her difficult to warm to as a person, but anyway, it is always a pleasure to make interesting discoveries of the unjustly neglected. However, I have never heard a work by Alma that has not suggested that, questionable though Gustav’s discouragement of her as a composer may have been in moral terms, it was no disaster for the history of music. No matter: doubtless Alma has her fans, and we are not exactly deluged with performances of her music. It is worthwhile hearing such pieces from time to time in order to remind ourselves that we do not need to hear from again for a while. Alas, the performance was not helped by a programme that referred to and printed the texts for the wrong songs. Much of the first song, Die stille Stadt was therefore spent, not unreasonably, by the audience trying to work out what was going on. We then heard, I later discovered, Laue Sommernacht, Ich wandle unter Blumen, and Licht in der Nacht, the only song actually present in the programme booklet, although there it was claimed we should hear it first. To be fair to Alma, the harmonies and range of expression were greater than I recalled; perhaps this was a mark of superior performance too. Certainly Hanningan’s contribution was committed, sensual, highly evocative. The music sounds more ‘late Romantic’, even decadent, than that of Gustav, perhaps closer to the world of Schoenberg’s op.2. If ultimately one can hardly claim the songs to be more than accomplished, there is a place sometimes for accomplishment too.

 

For all that, the gulf between talent and genius was immediately apparent upon hearing the piano introduction to ‘Nacht’, the first of Berg’s Seven Early Songs. Hallucinatory harmonies worked their way up through the piano, joined by a vocal line that, unlike those of Alma, is simply unforgettable. Hannigan’s performance combined beauty, danger, and sexiness. Musical form was expertly shaped by both musicians, ‘Und aus tiefen Grundes Düsterheit’ offering a proper sense of return. The final ‘Acht!’ was as much breathed as sung: dangerous stuff! De Leeuw brought to our attention the ‘involved’ Brahmsian quality of Berg’s piano writing in ‘Schilflied’, harmony and counterpoint already peering into the twelve-note future. A glorious, radiant account of ‘Die Nachtigall’ prepared the way for the central ‘Traumgekrönt, Hannigan’s nocturnal soaring, half-dream and half-nightmare, offering a presentiment of Lulu. Eroticism far surpassing that of Schoenberg: this could only be Berg. ‘Im Zimmer’ offered a glance back to a more innocent early Romanticism; well, perhaps. De Leeuw’s vast experience showed in the masterly building towards climax of ‘Liebesode’. Finally, in ‘Sommertage’, whilst still very much in the world of the Lied, we again seemed to be on the verge of the operatic stage, Berg’s destiny already manifest.

 

The intimacy of the opening to Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet took me rather by surprise, the tone adopted by the Quatuor Diotima far removed from the rich, heated late Romanticism more commonly adopted in this repertoire. It was not chilly modernism, either, but something more refined, even Gallic. Harmonics offered a portent of things to come, not just in Schoenberg’s music but even in the post-war avant garde. Great clarity permitted the counterpoint truly to be heard; there was not the slightest sense of congestion. If understated, the performance remained febrile. Crucially, the extraordinary concision of Schoenberg’s writing told; this might have been the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The stuttering hesitancy of the second movement’s opening seemed both to hail from late Beethoven and to denote something entirely new: rather like late Beethoven itself, one might say. Seemingly infinite rhythmic flexibility was a hallmark of the Diotima’s performance. Motivic construction was lain bare, though not drily; it truly involved. ‘Litanei’ opened with warm, yet anything but un-variegated, string consolation, offering a sense that this was indeed uncharted territory, the voice anticipated. When it joined the performance, it was not as interloper but almost as if another instrument, heightening and furthering a drama it was increasingly difficult not to consider ‘expressionist’. That is not to say that earlier sublety was lost, far from it. Stefan Georg’s words took on new meaning after having heard Schoenberg’s op.2, an interesting quirk, perhaps intended, of this performance. Kundry again seemed to be invoked in words and music: ‘Töte das sehnen, schliesse die wunde!’ Even before the voice entered in the final movement, there was a true sense of liberation, of that celebrated air of another planet. (The programme translation rather unfortunately had it, ‘I feel wind from other planets.’) Was tonality suspended or had it been truly escaped from? It seemed, as a sports commentator might have it, that there was everything to play for. Yet this new harmonic world did not detract from tightness of motivic working, either in work or performance; rather it was set in new relief. Hannigan’s delivery of that line was simply ravishing. Indeed throughout, Georg’s verse and Schoenberg’s notes were equally relished. ‘Ich lose mich in tönen, kreisend, webend...’ We certainly did lose ourselves in those tones. As ever, one wished that this would prove a world in which one might stay forever, yet equally one knew that that could no more be the case for Mozart’s world, or that of Tristan. There was a true sense of the Liebestod to Hannigan’s final lines, after which the quartet proper re-emerged, though it had always been there, not unlike Mahler’s music in Berio’s Sinfonia. This performance, quite rightly, looked ahead as much as back.

 

Hannigan will next be heard in London in February for Stravinsky’s Renard and Satie’s Socrate at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, again part of the Southbank Centre’s festival, ‘The Rest is Noise’. March will bring the British premiere of George Benjamin’s Written on Skin. Again, they are performances to which discerning listeners would likely gravitate on repertoire grounds alone, but Hannigan’s presence will do them no harm at all.

'Mozart Pictures - Pictures of Mozart', including two newly authenticated pictures

The following has just been sent to me by the Stiftung Mozarteum. Please accept my apologies for more or less copying a press release rather than sifting, editing, etc.; I am rather pressed for time but thought this would nevertheless be of interest.

Image: Wolfgang Lienbacher

MOZART PICTURES – PICTURES OF MOZART

Portrayals between wishful thinking and reality
Exhibition in the Mozart Residence, Makartplatz 8, 26 January – 14 April 2013
The exhibition is on display in all rooms of the museum and can be visited with the regular entrance ticket (admission: € 10; concessions: € 8.50, children € 3.50).

The Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation owns the largest collection of original Mozart portraits and for the duration of this exhibition they are complemented now by many valuable loans from all over Europe thus presenting a unique display of the familiar and also unknown images of Mozart. About 80 exhibits, half of them loans, are on display.

On show are portraits from the time of Mozart as well as types of pictures that evolved later. The present-day image of Mozart has very little to do with the portraits created during his lifetime. Nowadays we have an idealized image in mind which is often reduced to a white wig and red jacket.
For the first time almost all the authentic portraits of Mozart can be seen in the exhibition Mozart Pictures – Pictures of Mozart. Of 14 portraits created during his lifetime 12 are on show; 9 of these are owned by the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation.

Two new authentic portraits of Mozart are included. As a result of sifting through all the documents and sources, a miniature that was previously more or less disregarded has now been clearly identified as a portrait of Mozart dating from 1783. This is sensational because until now no portraits of Mozart from the last ten years of his life were known that show him en face (in full face). In addition a silhouette from the collection of graphic work owned by the Mozarteum Foundation has also been pre-dated to 1784 and is thus also one of the authentic Mozart portraits.

New information has also been gained concerning the famous “unfinished” Mozart portrait by Joseph Lange. Radiological studies made by the Doerner Institute in Munich early in December 2012 have shown that the famous “unfinished portrait” of Mozart was very probably “finished” during his lifetime. It comprised merely the head and shoulders, the unfinished parts were added later.
An exhibition catalogue has been published by the Anton Pustet Verlag Salzburg containing illustrations of all the pictures shown in the exhibition and a collection of essays reflecting the current state of research on the subject of Mozart portraits. Audio guides in German and in English assist visitors as they go round the exhibition.

The presentation by the Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery Salzburg makes reference to the present. Two pictures by Marc Brandenburg and Bernhard Martin are to be seen.
In the vaults of the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation a small exhibition on the theme Mozart Portraits can also be seen. This exclusive exhibition is open once a week for one hour to the public: on Thursdays at midday (for a maximum of 25 persons).

The exhibition team of the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation:
Dr. Gabriele Ramsauer, Dr. Sabine Greger-Amanshauser, Dr. Christoph Großpietsch, Linus Klumpner Bakk.phil. Exhibition design: Thomas Wizany

Paasikivi/Groves/LPO/Elder - Webern, Schoenberg, and Mahler, 23 January 2013

 
Royal Festival Hall

Webern – Im Sommerwind

Schoenberg – Five Orchestral Pieces, op.16
Mahler – Das Lied von der Erde (with first movement re-orchestrated by Colin Matthews)

Lilli Paasikivi (mezzo-soprano)

Paul Groves (tenor)

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Sir Mark Elder (conductor)

 

 

The opening to Webern’s Das Sommerwind sounded ‘harmonious’ in more than one sense, seemingly as much Webern’s answer to the Das Rheingold Prelude, an evocation of the most fundamental nature of tonal harmony itself, as something more programmatic, though that would come. Perhaps the Wagnerian antecedent lay in Sir Mark Elder’s emphasis; perhaps it has been there all along, and it had simply not registered so strongly in my experience before. At any rate, it intrigued, invited. Sweet-toned reminiscences of Mahler and Strauss, the latter in Till Eulenspiegel-like good humour, followed, the LPO woodwind principals gratefully taking their opportunity to shine. One would hardly have guessed the composer; indeed, one never would during the course of this piece preceding Webern’s life-changing, history-changing meeting with Schoenberg. Whilst some of the orchestration is already approaching the level of masterly, some is perhaps a little gauche, the instrumentation standing out a little too obviously. (But then, if we are comparing someone to Mahler and Strauss, or indeed the later Webern, the standards are stratospheric.) It was, however, a wonderful opportunity to hear the piece loving performed, with an apt summer glow most welcome in freezing London. This strange, quite uncharacteristic beginning to Webern’s extraordinary orchestral career has received tighter performances – inevitably, for instance, from Boulez – but a more rhapsodic approach does it no real harm. If it lingers, perhaps being the only piece by Webern that outstays its welcome, it nevertheless does not deserve a mobile telephone contribution during its closing bars. Shame upon the perpetrator!

 

The move to Schoenberg’s op.16 Pieces underlined the gulf between a fascinating early work and a towering masterpiece. Elder presented ‘Vorgefühle’ with commendable clarity, even if it emerged a little four-square. It gathered momentum nicely, however, and soon turned magnificently monstrous. Mahler on acid, haunted by ghosts of Brahms: what could be more Viennese than that? ‘Vergangenes’ was languorous, in a state of seemingly perpetual dissolution, yet nevertheless continuing. It seemed at times to prefigure the Klangfarbenmelodie of its successor – a cunningly highlighted link here in performance – and yet the background of a piece such as the First Chamber Symphony, op.9, with its tight-knit motivic writing, was equally apparent. Halluncinatory celesta tones (Catherine Edwards) almost stole the show, but in reality that instrument was only first amongst equals in a London Philharmonic Orchestra on fine form. And my goodness, what an astounding score this is! ‘Farben’ was mysterious, reticent, innig, to employ an indispensable, untranslatable German word. This performance sounded as if it were a laudable attempt to regain something of the piece’s initial revolutionary quality, not through aggression but through a subtler resolution to make us truly listen; Nono, Schoenberg’s posthumous son-in-law, would have understood. There was a true sense of loss when its brief stay was over. ‘Peripetie’ emerged very much in the mould of the first piece, ominously dramatic. Developing variation proved key to our aural understanding of ‘Das obligate Rezitativ’. Occasionally one might have wished for heightened colouristic awareness, especially earlier on, and a richer string tone after the fashion of that great Schoenbergian, Daniel Barenboim, but narration was as clear as in any conventional recitative. Again, we were compelled to listen. We emerged as if from a dream, shaken and uncertain.

 

I wish I had not read the programme first. That is not intended as a criticism of Gavin Plumley’s note, but rather because I wonder how I should have reacted to the first movement, had I not been aware that Colin Matthews had been commissioned by Elder to re-orchestrate it. Would I have noticed? I should like to think so, and am pretty sure that I should have realised that something was awry, or at least different. The difficulties tenors have this with this movement are notorious, and Matthews is quite right to point to Mahler’s tinkering both with other composers’ scores and his own. It sometimes sounded thinner, even shriller, though I think at times that might have been a matter also of Elder’s conducting; it also sometimes sounded restrained, even constrained, as if the fuller scoring were attempting to burst through its reduction. Without hearing Matthews’s work again, or better still seeing the score, I shall leave the matter by saying that I could not help but long for what Mahler wrote, not out of any fundamentalist Werktreue but simply because, vocal difficulties notwithstanding, it simply sounds more ‘finished’ – to me. As it was, the movement remained something of a shout for Paul Groves, though there could be no gainsaying his audible and visible commitment. I wished that Elder would relax a little at times, but that was a matter of degree.

 

‘Der Einsame im Herbst’ revealed first an excellent oboe solo (Ian Hardwick), suffused with melancholic longing, soon joined by equally splendid woodwind colleagues, and then by Lilli Paasikivi, her voice deeper than one often hears today, even in this repertoire. There was more than a touch of the earth-mother to her performance: rather wonderful, I thought. Elder paced the movement well and maintained its flow. Although there were a few instances of instrumental smudging, there was nothing too serious. The final stanza brought true passion, almost operatic, or at least a symphonic-song-shadow – I realise I am in danger here of succumbing to the Wagnerian selige Morgentraum-Deutweise disease – of Mahler’s work in the opera house. Groves contributed a winning, appropriate earnestness to the third movement, almost as if revisiting the Wunderhorn songs of Mahler’s (relative) youth, now invigoratingly set against orchestral chinoiserie and the LPO’s buoyantly sprung rhythms. Both orchestra and Elder were really at their best here, lilt and colour equally impressive.

 

‘Von der Schönheit’, by contrast, suffered from a curious tendency towards the rhythmically distended, making it difficult to discern Mahler’s guiding thread, undeniably incidental beauties notwithstanding. Paasikivi, however, was never less than engaging as a narrative and dramatic guide. Orchestral brashness and Elder’s driven conducting in the middle of the movement had it veer uncomfortably close to Shostakovich. Mahler should sound so much more interesting, so much more variegated, than that. Groves struggled with Mahler’s admittedly strenuous demands in ‘Der Trunkene im Frühling’, though again he threw himself headlong into the great challenge. Elder shaped the structure far more keenly than he had that of its predecessor. Pieter Schoeman’s sweet-toned violin solo was especially worthy of note.

 

The ominous tread to the dark orchestral opening of ‘Der Abschied’ said it all. Mahler’s sparing orchestration sounded close to the ‘real’ Webern’ – as of course it is. The warmth of Paasiviki’s tone would have melted the stoniest of hearts. An unmistakeable echo, both in vocal line and orchestra, of the Third Symphony’s Nietzschean ‘deepness’ of the world was to be heard as the world fell asleep: ‘Die Welt schläft ein!’ If only that had not occasioned a barrage of coughing from certain sections of the audience. Elder exhibited a commendable command of line, though there were times when I wished again that he would relax a little more. As the breeze ran through the shadow of the pines, we heard, however, a truly terrifying stillness, flute set against double basses, as the soloist implored: the pain of harren, of waiting. That line, ‘O Schönheit! O ewigen Liebens-Lebenstrunk’ne Welt!’ came forth with what I can only call exhilarating sadness, poised between the block rejoicing of the Second Symphony – a memory, though perhaps no longer attainable – and Webern’s Klee-like pointillism. The great orchestral interlude that followed was shaped by Elder with great understanding of Mahler the musical dramatist, thereby rendering all the more desolate what was to come. And yet, consolation, when it came, was properly, wondrously earned, not least by Paasikivi. It was Mahlers Verklärung; it was our transfiguration too.

The Minotaur, Royal Opera, 17 January 2013

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Ariadne – Christine Rice

Theseus – Johan Reuter
The Minotaur – Sir John Tomlinson
Ker – Elisabeth Meister
Snake Priestess – Andrew Watts
Hiereus – Alan Oke
First Innocent/Young Woman – Susana Gaspar
Second Innocent – Nadine Livingston
Third Innocent – Justina Gringyte
Fourth Innocent – James Laing
Fifth Innocent – William Towers

Stephen Langridge (director)

Alison Chitty (designs)
Paul Pyant (lighting)
Philippe Giraudeau (choreography)
59 Productions (video)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master/second conductor: Renato Balsadonna)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Ryan Wigglesworth (conductor)

Hiereus (Alan Oke), Snake Priestess (Andrew
Watts), Ariadne (Christine Rice)
Image: Bill Cooper

If, first time around, in 2008, The Minotaur offered the obvious excitement of the premiere, it was now noteworthy how quickly it had settled into repertory status. Not that it has yet been performed elsewhere than Covent Garden, though it should be as a matter of urgency, but that its 2013 outing proceeded with the apparent ease one might expect of, say, The Magic Flute or Carmen. That is surely testament both to the excellence of the performances we heard as well as to the stature of Birtwistle’s opera itself.

 

Though it packs an undoubted musico-dramatic punch, The Minotaur is not perhaps the overwhelming experience, the assault upon one’s faculties, offered by The Mask of Orpheus. It arguably stands a ‘late’ or at least ‘later’ work, somewhat simpler – these things are relative, of course – and more direct (ditto). The unbroken thread of the score, a metaphor for Ariadne’s own thread, brings the work closer to conventionally understood operatic tradition. This is a more linear work than many, for though Birtwistle and his librettist, David Harsent, also play once again with ritual and repetition, re-telling is incorporated, expressed, almost Wagner-like, within an essentially linear narrative. The labyrinth, then, has order, clearly discernible, beyond the apparently senseless chaos of human-bestial existence, as symbolised in the person of the ‘half and half,’ Asterios the Minotaur. Whether to start here, with The Mask of Orpheus, with Gawain, with Punch and Judy, or elsewhere is not something about which to become unduly worked up; the choice would be akin to deciding or falling upon a Wagnerian baptism  of fire with Tristan or the Shakespeare-like entrée of Die Meistersinger, and so on. It is difficult to imagine, however, that anyone with ears to hear and with the slightest curiosity would not be hooked; my immediate response upon emerging from the theatre was to hope that I should be able to find a ticket for a subsequent performance.

 

Reworkings of myth proceed in typical Birtwistle fashion, though here of course the credit is at least as much Harsent’s. An especially interesting idea is the presentation of the bull who mounted Pasiphae as Poseideon; the Minotaur is therefore perhaps Theseus’s half-brother. (We still do not know, nor does he, whether Theseus be the son of Poseidon or the son of Aegeus.) It is, moreover, an excellent touch to tantalise us with Theseus’s future abandonment of Ariadne; it is stressed that they will board the ship together, but it is equally noteworthy that no one foresees her reaching Athens. The orchestra, meanwhile, acts very much in neo-Wagnerian style as Chorus, shadowing, intensifying, commenting upon the action. Perhaps there is something of Bach in the well-nigh obbligato quality of the alto saxophone identified with Ariadne – who in this retelling becomes perhaps a more compromised, even ambiguous character. She is not always ‘straight’ with Theseus; she even attempts to trick Fate, both by moving a pebble from one hand to hand. It takes a second try, moreover, before she acts truthfully towards the Snake Priestess. Things could readily have turned out otherwise, then, or maybe not, if one believes in Fate. At any rate, thinking about such matters, experiencing them through the drama, is unavoidable.

 

Ryan Wigglesworth’s conducting proved almost Classical, again contributing very much to the suspicion that this opera has already attained ‘classic’ status.  With an orchestra and chorus on top form, the musical drama, incisive, ominous, gripping, beautifully melancholic, spoke, as the cliché would have it, for itself. There was no need for any extraneous ‘excitement’ to be applied from without; this was a far more fulfilling, musically-involving approach. The battery of percussion spoke, of course, but so did the steely yet malleable tones of orchestral woodwind, and not just the saxophone. Choral baiting of the Minotaur truly chilled our blood, just as others’ blood will be spilled on stage.

 

Christine Rice offered a heartfelt, conflicted Ariadne, Johan Reuter a stolid – but deliberately so – Theseus, his heroism thoughtfully questioned. John Tomlinson, celebrating an extraordinary thirty-five years on the Covent Garden stage, seems to have made the role of the Minotaur just as much as his own as he did the Green Knight in Gawain. (Salzburg’s new production this summer will almost inevitably feature him.) It is a part well suited to his advancing years. Vocal perfection is not required; it might even be out of place. But dramatic presence and integrity most definitely are; the tragic plight of a creature created and rejected so cruelly by ‘humanity’ was searingly portrayed. Andrew Watts again caused consternation with the mysterious archaic babble of the Snake Priestess, tellingly translated by another old Birtwistle hand, Alan Oke. Elisabeth Meister made an equally fantastic impression as the chilling Ker, feasting on the innocents’ blood; it is a screaming harpy-like role, but a musically screaming one, especially in this assumption. There was, in short, no weak link in the cast, and it is a very strong cast indeed.

 

Stephen Langridge’s staging tells the story with clarity, aided by Alison Chitty’s straightforward yet imaginative designs. I cannot help but retain a niggling doubt that a more adventurous production might have brought out a good number more dramatic strands than we see here. Something more Mask of Orpheus-like or indeed Soldaten-like might have alerted the audience to dramatic layers that went unseen, if certainly not unheard. By the same token, however, there is nothing wrong with expecting and/or permitting the audience to do some ‘aural thinking’ for itself. Let us hope, in any case, that before long there will be alternatives, which will expand our imaginative understanding of the work.

 

Programme essays were for the most part particularly informative, pieces by Rhian Samuel and David Beard especially so, though it is slightly odd to read Samuel referring to The Mask of Orpheus as ‘Birtwistle’s early opera’; ‘earlier’ perhaps? Moreover, Ruth Padel’s piece is simply incorrect to claim that ‘Monteverdi’s first opera was Arianna’; it was of course Orfeo. Nevertheless, I learned a great deal from the contributions taken as a whole. How splendid, then, to experience the Royal Opera House very much back on form – and on form in so many ways.

What in Wotan's name is this?!

The Guardian appears to be offering an A-Z of Wagner during 2013. Fair enough: it is unlikely to be of great interest to those of us who are truly obsessed; it may, however, plausibly pique the interest of others. Yet the quality of entry 'A' for 'Alberich' does not bode well. Once again we hear about a work called the 'Ring Cycle'. Should not the newspaper's much-vaunted style guide inform its writers as to a correct form here? There are a few, but the 'Ring Cycle' is certainly not one of them. More to the point, should someone writing about Wagner not know at least the name of his magnum opus?

Wagner 'mainly' wrote the work 'backwards'? Oh no he didn't. I assume the claim that Alberich is (apparently) left standing at the end because Wagner forgot about him is intended to be amusing; there is, I suppose, no accounting for taste in humour. It surely cannot be intended seriously, given that Alberich in any case appears in Götterdämmerung.

However, most bewildering is this:

He [Alberich] has a brother called Mime, who is easily the most boring character in the Ring Cycle (Das Rheingold is followed in the sequence by Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung). Whenever Mime appears, take a toilet break.
 

Leave aside the inelegant language; leave aside the lack of italics, etc. Mime is 'easily the most boring character' in the Ring cycle? The character whose little, almost Schubert-like paean to old Nibelheim makes us realise what has been lost through Alberich's capitalisation? The character through whom Wagner's dramatic genius makes us feel the great misery of something akin to quotidian existence? The character who thereby actually becomes a credible focus for our sympathy, despite the very real evil of his proto-Nietzschean will to power? I can just about understand almost any reaction to Mime, but 'boring'? Surely one would simply have to hate Wagner to think so; in which case, might it not be better to desist from writing a Wagner A-Z? Perhaps once again, this is meant somehow to be amusing and/or ironic; I cannot imagine how or why.