Dvorak and Beethoven from the Hungarians

Dvořák Legends, Op 59 No 5; Ukolebavka (lullaby) from Four Choruses, Op 29 No 2; Slavonic Dance, Op 72 No 8 

Beethoven Piano Concerto No 5

Dvořák Symphony No 8

Budapest Festival Orchestra

Iván Fischer, conductor

Sir András Schiff, piano

Barbican Hall, London, 30 November 2019

*************

The Budapest Festival Orchestra never fail to delight, and under the inspired directorship of Ivan Fischer, this proved the case again.  With 6 double bases arrayed at the back, the string sound gleamed supported by rich tonal depth during the opening Dvorak Legend. 

There is nothing this orchestra can't do, so they then stood and delivered an excellent a capella rendition of a Dvorak lullaby for chorus.  Sensitive, balanced and a perfect contrast, and yet another example of the Budapest players' capacity to deftly enliven the traditional classical concert.

Joined by the ultra authoritative musicianship of András Schiff, the Beethoven Emperor Piano Concerto sounded as fresh as the day it was written.  The orchestra continued it's plush sound while Schiff consistently brought out the harmonic writing to surprise the ear.  How simple Schiff made other soloists sound with only eyes for the right hand melody.  The outer movements were thrilling in their structural command and the clarity of his vision.  Although no single approach can encompass this work, and perhaps in the slow movement Schiff's more prosaic approach missed that last ounce of poetry.

Schiff has become more of a cult figure with every year, and he treated us to an extended encore - the first movement of Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata no less - with the repeats.  Rhythmically electrifying and a little showy in its "look at me" internal highlighting.  But it was an encore after all.

Finally the sunny Dvorak 8th Symphony.  It is an episodic work compared to the 7th or 9th, but what episodes.  The Budapest orchestra savoured every one with great care and the flute and oboe contributions were particularly delicious.  The brass get their way at the end but this orchestra always plays with exemplary balance, so it was a triumph with their fellow players.  Long may this orchestra continue.

Janine Jansen scales the heights

Brahms: Violin Concerto
Bruckner: Symphony No.3 (vers. 1877) 
London Philharmonic Orchestra

Vladimir Jurowski conductor
Janine Jansen violin

Royal Festival Hall, London, 3 May 2019
**********************
The concert was billed as "Alpine Journeys", but inevitably the Festival Hall allowed not a bit of mist to develop around all those Brucknerian ostinati.  Jurowski's Bruckner was controlled, sculpted and with that acoustic, not a bit abrupt. Some of this effect may have come from the 1877 version of the symphony presented here by Jurowski.  The last movement in particular had more flow in the later 1889 revision. 

The frenzies were quite ferocious in the Scherzo and Finale but the polkas and landlers had no spring to them, and overall the effect was a little too literal, if thrillingly exact.

The real vistas of the evening came from Janine Jansen's Brahms.  The Brahms Violin Concerto, in a neat bit of programming, was premiered in 1879 and so nearly contemporaneous with the Bruckner.  Jansen plays with real muscle but is distinguished by her responsiveness to the music her fellow musicians, and her ability to inflect rhythm and tone from note to note.  Her high lines are clear but delicate and the lightness of tone brought to mind Ravel in the midst of Brahms.  Now that marks out a master violinist.

Janine Jansen

Arcadi Volodos plays it quiet

Schubert Piano Sonata in E major, D157
Schubert Six moments musicaux, D780
Rachmaninov Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op 3 No 2
Rachmaninov Prelude in G-flat major, Op 23 No 10
Rachmaninov Prelude in B minor, Op 32 No 10
Rachmaninov Zdes'Khorosho, Romance Op 21 No 7 (arr Volodos)
Rachmaninov Serenade, Op 3 No 5
Rachmaninov Etude tableau in C minor, Op 33 No 3
Scriabin Mazurka, Op 25 No 3
Scriabin Caresse dansée, Op 57 No 2
Scriabin Enigme, Op 52 No 2
Scriabin Flammes sombres, Op 73 No 2
Scriabin Guirlandes, Op 73 No 1
Scriabin Vers la flamme, Op 72

Arcadi Volodos piano

Barbican Hall, London, 7 March 2019
******************

As a pianist, Arcadi Volodos, is very much sui generis. His pianism of such quality that it is a wonder in itself, as much for its poetic as technical capacity.

He performed the early incomplete D157 Sonata of Schubert with enormous care and a kind of radiant inwardness which made a maximum case for this sonata.  Most memorable was the hypnotic Andante.  Then began what must be one of the slowest performances of the Moments Musicaux in London recital history.  These are magical pieces, and Volodos' willingness to truly play piano was admirable.  But the effect was ever so slightly soporific.

The sequence of Rachmaninov preludes may have been expected to change the tone, but no.  Reflective, exquisitely weighted performances continued.  The B Minor Prelude Op 32/10 could have been written for Volodos' special qualities.  His velvet touch and deep musicianship turned its 5 minutes into a searching, epic experience.  But was not some drama missing?

Scriabin's miniatures are as important as Rachmaninov's to the piano repertoire and here Volodos' apparently limitless palate of colours and intonation spoke authentically.  There is always a question of how to shape these pieces.  Are they short, incomplete statements, or rounded coherent journeys? Volodos gave us supple pianism, but favoured the moment over the whole.

All of which led us to the inexhaustible mysteries of Vers la flamme (Towards the flame).  In many ways the culmination of Scriabin's mystical beliefs, the build towards the flames of destruction (of music? of the world?) was compelling as Scriabin's roulades of tremolos and harmonies rounded off the advertised programme.

This recital certainly did not catch fire.  However it was a fine meditative experience, eavesdropping on a pianist producing magical sounds, while stuck in a slow inward mode throughout.

Arcadi Volodos

Radu Lupu acclaimed in Beethoven

Beethoven: Coriolan Overture

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.4
Rachmaninov: Symphony No.2 

Philharmonia Orchestra
Paavo Järvi conductor
Radu Lupu piano

Royal Festival Hall, London 3 February 2019

****************

Based on decades of exalted musicianship, Radu Lupu is very much in the cult-status category in Europe.  The rarity of his visits to London ensured a packed Festival Hall for his concerto, and also some empty seats after the interval.

His musical prestige has for long also been a source of pride for his native Romania and this concert was accompanied by a foreword from the Romanian government during its current 6 month presidency of the Council of the EU.

Not that all of this has in any way affected the man. This evening will live long in the memory for Radu Lupu's direct, unaffected truth-telling. His physical presence on stage with his straight backed chair that of a genial monk, occasionally glancing at his figures with mild surprise they'd hit a wrong note, generally engaged with the music and his colleagues in the orchestra.

Lupu's particular magic was a wonderful match for Beethoven's Fourth Concerto.  Happy to play genuine pianissimos his approach emphasised the delicacy and clarity of the music, far removed from the thicker sonorities that are the norm.  His soundworld remains a delight from its distinctively pearly treble notes to the beautifully weighted harmonies of the bass.  Following enthusiastic acclaim, a perfectly judged encore of Brahms' Intermezzo Op 117/1 followed.

Beside all this Paavo Jarvi's approach to the Beethoven Coriolan Overture was studied rather than dramatic and the more successful Rachmaninov built up in slabs of bold, direct interpretation. A refusal to linger may have tempered the emotion at times, but of course this symphony does not lack for that.  The Philharmonia's woodwind did not have their most characterful night, but the strings and brass played with great depths of tone and drama, and what can be a wayward symphony developed towards a very satisfying sense of culmination at the end.

Radu Lupu

Wagner in Melbourne

Wagner Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg

Michael Kupfer-Radecky Hans Sachs
Stefan Vinke Walther von Stolzing
Natalie Aroyan Eva
Warwick Fyfe Sixtus Beckmesser

Opera Australia Chorus
Orchestra Victoria
Kasper Holten director
Pietari Inkinen conductor

State Theatre, Melbourne November 2018
**************

What a pleasure to be back in the State Theatre with its glorious curtain, troubling acoustic echo, and a most satisfying production of Wagner's Meistersinger.

Seen by Wagner as a pair to his Tannhauser, both feature singing competitions with Die Meistersinger receiving extra lashings of German pride and nationalism. The conclusion where Hans Sach (up until that point a sympathetic character) warns all and sundry of the dangers of nasty foreigners jars and the production tried to carve it out by flooding the stage in harshly cold lighting at that point.  Was the idea that it was not really part of the rest of the opera?  That we could leave it to one side?

The set was a monumental marble construction with traditional liveryman garb for the Mastersinger members.  Walther's biker look seemed a bit odd but he is meant to be the outsider, albeit an aristocractic one.

The production was well sung across the board, with Warwick Fyfe's Beckmesser strong in voice and characterisation, and Michael Kupfer-Radecky projecting humanity and doubt as Hans Sachs wrestles with his demons.  It's coup de theatre came at the end with a roundly annoyed Eva storming off stage as Walther (who had promised to run away with her) is convinced to join the mastersingers men's club and respect German tradition.

This was at the end of the glorious 2 hour Third Act, which takes off to a whole other level of musical quality after Acts 1 and 2.  One among so many examples of Wagner's overwhelming artistic genius.

Eva before Walther fails her

The State Theatre's curtain

Rattle says farewell to Berlin

Jörg Widmann: Tanz auf dem Vulkan (UK premiere)
Lutosławski: Symphony No.3
Brahms: Symphony No.1

Berliner Philharmoniker 
Simon Rattle conductor

31 May 2018, Royal Festival Hall, London *************
In 2018, Simon Rattle's tenure at the helm of the Berliner Philharmoniker comes to a close,  Rattle heads to the London Symphony Orchestra and Russian conductor Kirill Petrenko takes his place in Berlin. 

The last London concert for Rattle and the Berliners was a snap-shot of his life in Berlin.  Admirably championing newer music while accommodating the traditional core repertoire of this famous orchestra in intelligent if not life-changing interpretations.

No sooner had the orchestra finished tuning when it launched into a jazzy theme and on rushed Rattle with stagey expressions of annoyance.  Then the "proper" music was started.  Only at the end does the jazzy music return and conductor walk off stage while the orchestra finishes.  All nicely done in this short new work from Jörg Widmann: Tanz auf dem Vulkan ("Dance on the Volcano").

Then it was the Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski's Third Symphony, premiered in 1983.  It is a very fine work structured around a repeated motif with clear references to the famous opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.  This returns to divide up the sections of the 30 minute piece, many of which thrillingly use "aleatory" writing where the players have freedom to play their sections at their own speeds.  It all culminates in an almost tonal climax of considerable emotion.  The performance was of great poise, clarity and virtuosity.

Johannes Brahms

And then to Brahms, his first symphony certainly not his best but whose outer movements pack a great emotional punch.  From the start the refinement of the orchestral sound was glorious, the strings very weighty and built from the double basses up in classic Brahmsian fashion.  Were the strings a little too numerous?  Perhaps at times they seemed to overpower the woodwind.  And then there was a developing concern that it was all a little rounded and cultured, albeit in a super-refined way. 


But no, we had simply been set up for the coda, the whole concert waiting for the final minutes when we were taken to another level and treated to a truly extraordinary sound: blended, bronzed and with seemingly infinite reserves of tonal depth and sonority.  It was engulfing, uplifting and more than a little awe-inspiring.  Thank you Berliner Philharmoniker.

Sinon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker

Evgeny Kissin hammers the Hammerklavier

Beethoven Sonata No 29 in B flat Hammerklavier

Rachmaninov Preludes;

Op 23 Nos 1-7

Op 32 Nos 10, 12 & 13

Evgeny Kissin, piano
29 March 2018, Barbican Hall, London
*************

No-one ever accused Evgeny Kissin of understatement.  His technique is prodigious, his dynamic range a match for the largest of halls, and his piano most definitely has hammers.  Indeed for all the obvious wonders to expect, I approached this latest recital with some trepidation.  When last heard at the Barbican, Kissin murdered a couple of Beethoven sonatas with an unremittingly aggressive attack and unclear structural command.

What was painful on that occasion turned out considerably better in the Hammerklavier.  This 50 minute sonata exercised Beethoven for a year and is written with such scale and ambition that any performance is an event.  It carries great dangers of fatigue for performer and listener alike.  I have heard many performances where the overwhelming impression on reaching the fugal finale was that the pianist had made all their expressive points and was just trying to survive to the end.

So let it be said that in Kissin's hands the finale of the Hammerklavier was the pinnacle of the evening and quite unforgettable.  I have never heard such definition and projection in recital.  It was an extraordinary intellectual feat from this pianist.

Earlier on, Kissin’s fantasy-like approach to Beethoven interpretation worked well in this monumental yet strange work.  Kissin treated the epic 20 minute slow movement with sustained emotion and care, but was content to take a more episodic approach to the first two movements. Structurally, Kissin is not one of the masters, but his matter-of-fact but highly cultured approach to phrasing was most effective.  

With Rachmaninov Preludes for the second half Kissin was on home territory.  His approach to each was focused and technically dazzling.  Yet, surprisingly, he did not seem entirely inside this music and the group did not add up to something more than its parts.  And of course there were many encores for a increasingly enthusiastic audience.  Amongst offerings of Scriabin, Tchaikovsky and more Rachmaninov, most arresting was Kissin’s own jazz-flecked Toccata.

Evgeny Kissin

Argerich, Maisky and Jansen at the Barbican

Beethoven Cello Sonata No 5 in G minor, Op 5 No 2

Shostakovich Piano Trio No 2 in E minor, Op 67
Schumann Violin Sonata No 1 in A minor, Op 105
Mendelssohn Piano Trio No 1 in D minor, Op 49

Janine Jansen violin

Mischa Maisky cello

Martha Argerich piano

Barbican Hall, London, 6 February 2018

****************

Mischa Maisky and Martha Argerich

For an artist who enjoys performing chamber music so much, London’s opportunities to hear the great Martha Argerich outside concertos are surprisingly rare.  So a packed Barbican Hall awaited this concert with much interest. 

For many years, Argerich partnered with Mischa Maisky, Gidon Kremer and Yuri Bashmet in the chamber repertoire.  Here, Maisky and Argerich were joined by Dutch violinist Janine Jansen, herself a leading soloist of a younger generation.  

Janine Jansen

Maisky is as well known a figure for cellists as Argerich is for pianists.  An extraordinary life story includes growing up in Latvia, being taught by two giants of the instrument: Mstitslav Rostropovich and Gregor Piatigorsky, imprisonment in the Soviet Union after his sister left to Israel, release after several years and a splendid career.  His musical style is big and romantic and his dress style more than a little 70s Frank Zappa eccentric with split flares and flamboyant blouse tops.   

A night of many musical splendours was guaranteed with artists of this calibre, to what extent it gelled was an open question.  The Shostakovich was the biggest triumph, its mechanistic savagery, sadness and eerie harmonics extraordinarily intense in the hands of these masters.  Elsewhere Jansen and Argerich did not seem fully aligned in the Schumann and Maisky’s broad musicianship was put quite in the shade by Argerich’s phenomenal dispatch of the piano part in the Beethoven. 

Argerich was, as ever, a wonder.  The vitality and musicality of all she did was life-enhancing and of overwhelming intensity.  Her piano sang, rested, flashed and darted.  Beside her Maisky could seem lead footed.  But Jansen has a creamy, close vibrato and projected effortlessly in the large hall.  She gave every impression of being able to match Argerich’s quicksilver moods with her violin.  

With time this trio could really build rapport.  As it stands, it felt that Argerich was holding court, Maisky was fixed in zen-like calm, and Jansen was obviously the new comer.  Certainly she was not helped by Argerich’s bluff approach once the music stopped.  Each time the three walked off stage was a minor comic masterpiece; Jansen trying to defer, Argerich stopping and starting, Maisky meandering and staying out of it. 

Maisky and Argerich in earlier days

Tosca

Puccini: Tosca

Floria Tosca: Adrianne Pieczonka

Mario Cavaradossi: Joseph Calleja

Baron Scarpia: Gerald Finley

Spoletta: Aled Hall

Cesare Angelotti: Simon Shibambu

Sacristan: Jeremy White

Sciarrone: Jihoon Kim 

 

Royal Opera Chorus 

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Dan Ettinger conductor 

 

7 February 2017, Royal Opera House Covent Garden (live broadcast)

***********************
This featured some fine singing from Calleja in particular and an impressively strong characterisation of Tosca from Pieczonka in an otherwise tradiitional production.  But in the cinema the orchestra was projected so forward as to overwhelm the singers and deafen the audience.  When the clarinet solo in e lucevan le stelle drowns out out Cavadorossi, it is time to complain. 

Primary colours Verdi

Verdi: Rigoletto

Duke of Mantua Michael Fabiano
Rigoletto Dimitri Platanias
Gilda Lucy Crowe

Royal Opera Chorus
Royal Opera Orchestra
Director David McVicar
Revival Director Justin Way
Conductor Alexander Joel

16 January 2018, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
***************

The plot of Rigoletto is not the last word in subtlety, nor much of a standard bearer for sexual equality.  And Justin Way's approach to the latest revival of David McVicar's Royal Opera production offered no escape.  The Duke of Mantua's court was a lurid place of debasement and sexual exploitation, providing maximum contrast with the innocence of Gilda fresh from her convent.  The sense of dread for her safety was very effectively underlined.  But later her subsequent acceptance and protection of the Duke in all his flaws made little dramatic sense given his plainly horrific behaviour.

Verdi's music is a non-stop delight, clearly one of his most successful scores.  The singing on the whole did not live up to its subtlety.  Dimitri Platanias's Rigoletto was a hugely impressive physical, menacing performance, entirely capable of revenge.  But vocally he projected the more sensitive aspects of the role less successfully.  Lucy Crowe's Gilda had vocal control, but was not fully inside the role. In Caro nome there was no sense of a girl's breathless anxiety, more a singer focusing on her vocal technique.   Michael Fabiano's Duke was by contrast very fine throughout, with a gleaming tone and great command of the stage.

Recorder overload

Vivaldi Concerti La Notte, L'Inverno, La Pimavera, The Gypsy and the Priest, and RV40.
Works by Giovanni Bassano, Dario Castello, Tomasso Albinoni, Baldassare Galuppi, Guiseppe Tartini, Pietry Locatelli, Biagio Marini, Maurizio Cazzati.

Red Priest

Trinity Church Wimbledon, 21 November 2017
*********************

Red Priest have been a fixture on the Baroque circuit for 20 years, with their refreshing take on the music and the concert ritual itself.  Red Priest was of course the nickname of the flame haired composer Antonio Vivaldi.
  
It’s made up of harpsichordist David Wright, cellist Angela East, violinist Adam Summerhayes and Piers Adams on the recorder.  Amongst these Adams is clearly the leader, happily skipping between soprano, alto and bass recorders, fronting repertoire spanning all the Venetian greats from Vivaldi to Galuppi, much of it arranged for the ensemble.

The concert was the “Venice” instalment in this year’s Wimbledon International Music Festival as part of its "Musical Capitals" theme in 2017.  Despite the undoubted brilliance of Adam’s artistry on the recorders, the relentless recorder-led music lacked variety in the first half.  The performances did not seem to achieve either enough polish or enough fun, falling awkwardly in the middle.  It was a relief when Adam Summerhayes’ violin began to take on more solos as the evening continued.

On the whole the second half proved much more successful, featuring the ensembles rendition of the over-famous Spring concerto of Vivaldi with a healthy injection of fantasy, and culminating in a version of the same composer’s "Gypsy" Concerto given a “wild Romanian” take.

Rattle champions Haydn

Wagner Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde
Bartok Piano Concerto No. 2
Haydn An imaginary orchestral journey

London Symphony Orchestra
Denis Kozhukhin, piano
Simon Rattle, conductor

Barbican Hall, London 11 July 2017
****************
Simon Rattle’s commitment to Haydn’s genius produced a memorable Barbican night.  For him this was a reprise of a concert in Berlin stringing together movements from various Haydn works into “An Imaginary Orchestral Journey”.  This type of thing has also been successfully done to Rameau by Marc Minkowski.

The Esterhazy Palace, Haydn's long-term home

As well as giving a more prominent platform for part of the “7 Last Words of Christ”, Symphonies 64, 6, 46, 60, 45, and 90 were excerpted as well as The Creation, The Seasons and the obscure L'Isola Disabitata. There was some lovely moments of fantasy, not least when the little known mechanical organ took centre stage.  Haydn wrote 17 pieces for mechanical organs, one of which was featured here before Rattle paused proceedings to listen to these little constructions being broadcast unadulterated from various locations around the Barbican Hall. Somehow both arch and evocative all at the same time.

Joseph Haydn

Alexander Karpeyev in full bloom

Recital: "1917 The Final Flowering"

PROKOFIEV Vision Fugitives, Op. 22 Nos. 1, 3, 8-11, 14-15, 18-20
MEDTNER Sonate-Ballade, Op. 27
GRECHANINOV Prelude Op. 78 No. 1
Lullaby Op. 78 No. 2
Waltz Op. 61 No. 5
Reproche Op. 61 No. 6
Caprice Op. 61 No. 2
RACHMANINOV ‘Nïne otpuschayeshi’ from All-Night Vigil, Op. 37 (arr. Rachmaninov)
Fragments
Etude-Tableux, Op. 39 No. 7
STRAVINSKY Three movements from Petrouchka (arr. Stravinsky)

Alexander Karpeyev, piano

Savile Club, London, 22 June 2017

*******************

2017 is of course the 100 year anniversary of the Russian Revolution.  A seismic event in so many ways, Russian music was forever changed also. 

Alexander Karpeyev

Russian pianist Alexander Karpeyev here gave a fascinating and satisfying programme built around works from around 1917 by Russian emigres.  All left Russia before or straight after the revolution, and had greatly varying relationships with their homeland afterwards.  

Some like Rachmaninov never returned.  Others like Prokofiev and Medtner did, not that they got along once back in their homeland.  "His playing was good, if a bit boring", the prickly Prokofiev wrote in his diary after a Medtner recital.

No such problems on this night.  Karpeyev has a burgeoning reputation as an interpreter of the period and at a sweltering Savile Club it was not hard to hear why.  Karpeyev's magnificent technique combined with a powerful artistic vision of each piece.  Medtner's Sonate-Ballade benefited greatly from this kind of advocacy and reached an engulfing conclusion.  Karpeyev, amongst other things, is the Artistic Director of the International Medtner Festival.

Rachmaninov, and - a composer new to me - Grechaninov were broadly aligned in their lush late-romantic sound worlds.  Karpeyev strongly characterised each miniature.  A particularly magical moment was a rarely heard piano arrangement of Nyne otpuschayeshi from Rachmaninov's All Night Vigil.  In the original the conclusion requires "octavists", especially low bases customarily found in Russian choirs who sing one octave lower than the normal bass voice.  The piano also concluded deep in its lower registers.

After the pealing bells of Rachmaninov's Opus 39/7 Etude-Tableux, we were left with that most thrilling of 20th century piano showpieces - the Three Movements from Petrouchka.  Stravinsky never thought much of the piano, considering it essentially a percussion instrument.  But what an exercise in rhythm it is, with a stupefying set of technical hurdles for the performer to jump.  Karpeyev's performance was technically spectacular but also brought out its musicality, with transitions particularly beautifully handled.  It was an overwhelming musical experience and brought the audience most deservedly to their feet.

Don Giovanni goes cruising

Mozart: Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni      Ashley Riches
Leporello     John Savournin
Donna Anna      Lauren Fagan
Don Ottavio     Ben Johnson
Donna Elvira     Victoria Simmonds
Il Commendatore     Graeme Broadbent
Zerlina     Ellie Laugharne
Masetto     Ian Beadle

Dane Lam, conductor
Oliver Platt, director
Holland Park Chorus and Orchestra

Holland Park Opera, London, 16 June 2017

******************
As so often at Opera Holland Park, this new production blew all the cobwebs away.  Naturalistic acting, increased contemporary recognition and originality to put many a major opera house production to shame.

The idea here was setting the opera on a luxury cruise ship circa 1910.  Anyone who has seen Titanic will be familiar with the divisions between first class passengers and those on the lower decks.  This provided the platform for the class divisions that are so central to the plot: aristocrats versus peasants.  Time and again the search and costume change scenes came over as much more dramatically plausible than is normally the case.  It was smart acoustically also, projecting the voices most effectively in a difficult open air location.

Ashley Riches as Don Giovanni

Oliver Platt directed a lean version of the score, not always controlling the orchestra's volume to allow the voices to come across clearly.  One voice that needed no accommodation was Lauren Fagan's Donna Anna, providing the most arresting moments of the evening with her dramatic and thrilling grip on every note.  Ashley Riches and John Savournin were a well-matched pair as Don Giovanni and his servant Leporello.

Lauren Fagan's powerful Donna Anna

Leporello's Catalogue Aria

The Commmendatore was consigned to the cooler after his demise and arrived in full ghoulish form at the climactic dinner scene.  How good to see a genuinely horrible Commendatore instead of the rigid, powdery statue which is the norm.  At the conclusion Don Giovanni is not consigned to the flames but rushes over the ship railings to a watery death. 

Don Giovanni! I've come to dinner

At the very end there were some ill-advised recitative cuts.  Zerlina/Masseto, Don Ottavio/Donna Ana, Donna Elvira and Leporello received no chance to wrap up their plots.   The only genuine misstep in a most enjoyable and stimulating production of Mozart's eternal masterpiece.

Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream

Benjamin Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream (1960)

Iestyn Davies Oberon

Sophie Bevan Tytania
Jack Lansbury Puck
Clive Bayley Theseus
Leah-Marian Jones Hippolyta
Nick Pritchard Lysander
George Humphreys Demetrius
Clare Presland Hermia
Eleanor Dennis Helena
Matthew Rose Bottom
Andrew Shore Quince
Lawrence Wiliford Flute
Sion Goronwy Snug
Nicholas Sharratt Snout
Simon Butteriss Starveling
Elliot Harding-Smith Cobweb
Ewan Cacace, Angus Hampson Peaseblossom
Adam Warne Mustardseed
Noah Lucas Moth
Willis Christie, Lorenzo Facchini, Angus Foster, Nicholas Harding-Smith, Kevin Kurian, Charles Maloney-Charlton, Robert Peters, Matthew Wadey chorus of fairies

Aldeburgh Festival Orchestra
Netia Jones direction, design, projection
Ryan Wigglesworth conductor

Snape Maltings Concert Hall, 11 June 2017, Aldeburgh

*****************
Benjamin Britten premiered his A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1960 and it has been consistently popular ever since.  After the re-opening of Snape Maltings in 1967 a new production was presented, and now Aldeburgh Festival was celebrating 50 years since this event.

Technology has moved on since the 60s and video projections are increasingly common in production design.  Netia Jones is making a name for herself, with imagery which are better synchronised with the action.  No drops were placed in a character's eye without a huge image of a substance being dropping into water on the wall to wall screens that were the backdrop to the stage.

Iestyn Davies mesmerising as Oberon

Ms Jones, production set the play in the Victorian age.  The visual style a homage to dreamy early Victorian photography.  The boy fairies were ghostly figures in sunglasses.  Tytania wore full Mrs Haversham cobwebby dresses.  Oberon a still and sinister apparition in powdered silver outfit. 

Netia Jones' approach of projecting imagery onto the screens created bewitching light and perspective effects at times.  But for much of the afternoon the projections from the front made the poor singers look like someone trying to give a talk with the powerpoint slides shining in their face.

Vocally this was an outstanding cast with no weak links.  Iestyn Davies was mesmerising throughout, physically and vocally, Sophie Bevan's soprano delightfully agile, and Matthew Rose's Bottom dominated the stage.  The Rustics were gently humorous and the four lovers made the best they could with roles that as written are quite impossible to make interesting.  Diction was a problem throughout, with the honourable exceptions of Davies and Clare Presland's Hermia.  Jack Lansbury had a tumbling good time as Puck.

Ryan Wigglesworth directed a finely nuanced reading.  The orchestra were magnificent, not least in the bewitching opening to Act 3.  Never has Britten sounded more like Arvo Paert.  A dream indeed.

Snape Maltings at interval

Respighi from the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia

Rossini: Overture, The Siege of Corinth

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No.1
Respighi: Fountains of Rome; Pines of Rome 

Orchestra of Santa Cecilia Rome
Sir Antonio Pappano conductor
Yuja Wang piano

Royal Festival Hall, London, 11 May 2017

******************

Antonio Pappano's Santa Cecilia orchestra has been making its mark on the international scene in recent years, but the orchestra's history goes back over a century to 1908.  Its string sound is on the lean side but with plenty of texture; a natural platform for an outstanding set of woodwind soloists.  The repertoire was focused on Italy, with a Rossini overture to start (always welcome) and the better two of the Roman Tryptich of Respighi.  This orchestra has special claims to these pieces having premiered them both in the early twentieth century.  It is highly pictorial music, from its depictions of flowing water to the moods of dawn and dusk.  There was no doubting the sensitivity of Pappano's approach and the superb contributions of his woodwind.  For the ground-pounding conclusion with the Roman Legions marching in triumph into Rome, Pappano stationed the brass high around the hall for extra surround sound effect.  A cinematic touch for the music that launched a thousand movie soundtracks.

 

Antonio Pappano conducts the Santa Cecilia Orchestra

A wonderfully withdrawn Valse Triste of Sibelius led into Rossini concluding the evening with the second encore of the William Tell overture.

Earlier, Yuja Wang had displayed all her supersonic piano technique in the Tchaikovsky piano concerto.  Tchaikovsky wrote a notoriously episodic concerto, and Pappano and Wang did nothing to fix that particular problem.  All moments were given their full indulgence, whether rapt reflection or thunderous attack.  Anything resembling an onward musical flow was lost, from which the big loser was the conclusion of the first movement which was stripped of all majesty and became yet another moment of display.  As so often the second movement fared well and Wang was genuinely thrilling in the finale.  The encores were memorable: a very fine Schubert/Liszt Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel, and then the jazzed up hyper-virtuoso version of Mozart's Rondo all Turca was a show stopper for which an inevitable ovation followed.

Anna Netrebko throwing thunderbolts

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin

Anna Netrebko, Tatiana
Petter Mattei, Onegin
Alexey Dolgov, Lenski

Alexey Dolgov sings the role of Lenski, and Robin Ticciati conducts. - See more at: https://www.curzoncinemas.com/film-info/met-opera-tchaikovskys-eugene-onegin#sthash.CVaST5DU.dpuf

Elena Maximova, Olga Stefan Kocan, Gremin

Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra
Robin Ticciati, conductor

22 April 2017, The Metropolitan Opera New York, live cinema broadcast
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Anna Netrebko as Tatiana

One of the advantages of the Met's live broadcasts is having Renee Fleming speak with the cast, often seconds after having finished an Act.  Poor conductor Robin Ticciati was waylaid in his room when he clearly just wanted to get up to his orchestra for Act III (he arrived late). 

This being Tchaikovsky's famous opera of the even more famous Pushkin novel, various Russian singers were asked the obvious question: explain for a worldwide audience what Onegin means to you.  Apart from its ubiquity on the school curriculum, none left us any the wiser.   

Similarly, we had to take the emotional intensity of the opera's plot on faith in this performance much of the time.  Why does Onegin stir such volcanic feelings in Tatiana?  Why does Onegin change his mind so dramatically in Act III?  Ill health had removed Dmitri Hvorostovsky from the line-up for this performance alongside Anna Netrebko.  Taking his place was Peter Mattei, sure of voice but a stolid acting presence.  Perhaps this was the prime reason why the emotional and dramatic logic of the evening was not always clear. 

Alexey Dolgov's Lenski was on surer ground, and Netrebko's Tatiana a brilliant thing.  The letter scene was magnificently paced, and at its conclusion overwhelming, Netrebko's voice throwing thunderbolts out into the house.

So, an evening filled with very fine singing, but with more uneven acting.  The setting was the usual Met traditional and true to the original.  Although was that a conceptual landscape at the end?  The palace setting for the ball combined with the frozen lake from the duel.  What will the upper east side say? 

Anna Netrebko, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Štefan Kocán, Alexey Dolgov, Elena Maximova - See more at: https://www.curzoncinemas.com/film-info/met-opera-tchaikovskys-eugene-onegin#sthash.CVaST5DU.dpuf

Anna Netrebko, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Štefan Kocán, Alexey Dolgov, Elena Maximova - See more at: https://www.curzoncinemas.com/film-info/met-opera-tchaikovskys-eugene-onegin#sthash.CVaST5DU.dpuf

Anna Netrebko, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Štefan Kocán, Alexey Dolgov, Elena Maximova - See more at: https://www.curzoncinemas.com/film-info/met-opera-tchaikovskys-eugene-onegin#sthash.CVaST5DU.dpuf

Anna Netrebko, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Štefan Kocán, Alexey Dolgov, Elena Maximova - See more at: https://www.curzoncinemas.com/film-info/met-opera-tchaikovskys-eugene-onegin#sthash.CVaST5DU.dpuf