Monday 11 June 2012

Review - Pires casts her spell with Haitink's LSO

Purcell Chacony in G minor (arr. Britten)
Mozart Piano Concerto No 20, K466 in D Minor
Schubert Symphony No 9 in C (‘The Great’)

Bernard Haitink, conductor
Maria João Pires, piano
London Symphony Orchestra  

10 June 2012, Barbican Hall, London 
******************

Maria João Pires
Bernard Haitink directing this vastly enjoyable concert with his usual clarity and insight.  A short, sober Chaconny from Purcell via Benjamin Britten opened proceedings before the piano took centre-stage and with it the evening’s highlight: Maria João Pires.  In today’s age of over-hyped piano youths, Pires is a beacon of true musicianship.  Hers is an unflashy, quiet and calm genius.  She makes no attention grabbing gestures.  It is as if she is playing for the private pleasure of herself and her orchestral collaborators, and yet for the listener what she does is rich and deeply moving. 

Her style was all the more striking in a performance of perhaps Mozart’s most dramatic piano concerto - K466.  The orchestra’s opening is a masterpiece of minor-key unease, more lyrical moments interrupted by stormy clouds. Then the piano enters with disarming, plaintive phrases.  Pires took her cue from this poignant moment, never seeking to generate storms of her own, but drawing out the tensions in the interplay between the orchestra and the piano's lyricism. 
Throughout, the LSO woodwind provided some beautiful interplay with the soloist.

Pires never turned Mozart into a proto-Beethoven as some do and it was only in the notes that Beethoven did write – his cadenzas for this concerto – that her playing displayed some more pungent accents and flourishes.  Was it under-projected?  Definitely not.  It was entirely cogent and effective on its own terms.  The slow movement beautifully poised, and the Rondo finale brisk and dramatic.  Pires has achieved that consummation of artistry that replaces "art", in an artificial sense, with naturalness of expression.   She is perhaps an ideal Mozart pianist.  Haitink and the LSO certainly think so.  They play Mozart’s K488 concerto on Thursday and then play another two over a few days next February. 

After the interval, more delight came in the form of Schubert’s last symphony – Number 9 “The Great”.  This was vintage music-making from the Haitink-LSO team. Haitink emphasised the driven, military undertones of this piece, giving the timpani and brass some licence.   Occasionally there were enormous pauses.  Were we listening to Bruckner?  It was a nice effect, and Haitink is between Bruckner evenings in London (a 5th with the Concertgebouw Orchestra recently and the 7th on Thursday with the LSO).   At times, a little more space and Viennese charm would have been nice.  It is the central episode of the Scherzo that most calls for this, which with a Furtwangler becomes a golden moment.  I didn’t quite feel like getting up and dancing here.  But Haitink’s approach delivered its pay-off at the end of the last movement where the great pounding unison chords carried an extra charge of menace.  It was classic Haitink: the fruit of experience and a deep understanding of the work as a whole.   



Peter O'Byrne

Tuesday 5 June 2012

Horse lost at Covent Garden

Verdi: Falstaff
Daniele Gatti, conductor
Ambrogio Maestri, Sir John Falstaff
Robert Carsen, director 
Royal Opera House Orchestra & Chorus

25 May 2012, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London
*************

As Act 3 of Verdi's late comic masterpiece Falstaff begins, a horse looks onto a corpulent knight lying in hay outside an inn.   Slumped in the corner, Falstaff sings despondently about the state of the world and seeks solace from feeding the animal some hay.  In Robert Carsen's new production of the opera for Covent Garden it is an actual horse - credited as "Rupert" in the programme - that looks onto the scene.  Not quite elephants in Aida, but it produced a reaction from the audience.

Are such staging stunts worthwhile?  While the solid, nuanced Ambrogio Maestri as Falstaff delivered one of his big solo moments in a work dominated by ensemble, it was hard not to be distracted by the animal and whether it was going to fluff its stage directions.  At least here the observer from the animal kingdom helped to deepen the pathos of Falstaff's fall from grace (in this case literally - having been thrown into the street from the window above at the end of Act 2).

For Verdi's opera, Boito conflated Shakespeare's plays of The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV, centring around the merry Knight's pursuit of two wealthy married women which results in much mockery.  Later on in the same Act, Falstaff enters singing while seated on the same horse.  Here the animal is entirely superfluous, a mere platform led on gingerly by 3 attendants and then led off never to be seen again.  Horses in various forms make other appearances in this production set in the 1950s, replete with wood-panelled rooms and formica kitchens.   George Stubbs' masterpiece Whistlejacket hangs on a wall amongst an otherwise lacklustre set of horse paintings.  Falstaff looks set for a fox hunt at various points of the evening.  However Rupert the horse looks merely lost, his involvement seemingly bolted on, rather than an integrated element in a new production.

But there was great pleasure to be had from the evening.  If it was not for Verdi (and Rameau) the summit of opera writing would be entirely Germanic.  But Verdi's orchestration in Falstaff was a surprise, not least in some quasi-Wagnerian brass writing.  The singers were strong and even, and the big comic moments delightful, led by the quartet of lunching ladies with their "Desperate Housewives" formica kitchens. And amongst it all Maestri was a majestic physical presence, bringing out the nobility of Falstaff underlying his comical excesses.

Peter O'Byrne