The Ulster Orchestra under Daniele Rustioni, making his Proms debut, were set a tricky challenge: an hour and half of available playing time, without interval. They filled this with a programme of broadly associated works, inasmuch as all were German and Romantic, but an eclectic selection for all that.

Opening with Wagner’s overture to Tannhäuser the initial wind passages were played with a well-refined elegance that never strayed towards ponderous, joined by equally restrained strings. It was a shame that the skittish, running passages that followed were occasionally marred by smudged rhythm and nervy entries. However the orchestra soon recovered its balance particularly as it segued into the Venusburg music, an extended opening to Act 1 added by Wagner in his 1861 revision of the opera.

Skipping forward a hundred years or so the orchestra was joined by Louise Adler for Richard Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder. Composed in 1948, with Germany facing the full horror of Nazism and the Second World War, Strauss’s tender songs were beautifully delivered. Adler floated beautifully above the lush orchestrations, delivering the long, melismatic lines with poise and delicacy. Special mention too for the orchestra’s leader Tamás Kocsis whose solos were a perfect foil to the vocal line, particularly in the third song Beim Schlagengehen. Strauss is a regular user of dynamic markings such as piano subito and pianissimo subito, and just occasionally these weren’t observed quite promptly enough leading to the soprano being lost: a desk fewer of upper strings would likely have been enough to compensate for this.

Gustave Mahler’s Blumine Is a short work with a long history, having served time as a movement in the first symphony, re-sused as incidental music and then further reworked at least once as a love offering to women Mahler had relationships with (neither of them Alma). Despite all the baggage, the piece itself is, in the most part, a light, joyous 6/8 lilt, and Rustioni led the way through a rendition that never took itself too seriously. Following the opening passages for an expertly-played solo trumpet and strings, the melody was passed gracefully around the various instrumental families. A darker moment when the theme is inverted on a haunting oboe soon gave way to the return of the original theme, ending with one of the most delightful pianissimo duets between first and second violins, heavily laden with suspended 6ths before the final resolution.

Robert Schumann’s Symphony no. 4 is, like its composer, a much more serious sort of work, the D minor of the key signature being relentless through the stately opening subject of the first movement and never far away in the quicker section that completes the rest of the opening movement. Schumann’s original version of 1841 had the whole piece as one played-through work with linking passages, and despite Schumann’s revision ten years later, here the orchestra allowed no time between movements – which worked well, I thought. The similarly dark second movement benefited from some particularly fine work between a solo cello and oboe, before being followed by busy scherzo, interleaved by two contrasting sections and a finale, played in a style that had more than passing nod to Beethoven’s middle symphonies.

This was all led by an energetic conductor (so much so that he leapt into the air more than once) whose boundless enthusiasm infected both his players and audience alike. In a particularly nice touch he turned the orchestra to acknowledge the audience in the choir stalls – and the bust of Sir Henry, who I am sure would have been as swept along as the rest of us.

Lucas Elkin

So what do Delius and Puccini have in common? Both entered short operas for competitions sponsored by the publisher Sonzogno – the former in 1902 and the latter (while still a student) in 1883. Neither won. But here they both are, courtesy of the ever imaginative Opera Holland Park.

It’s easy to see why Margot La Rouge didn’t impress the adjudicators. It’s a simple tale of a girl whose rediscovered lover is killed by another contender whom Anna kills in revenge. Although some of the orchestration is magnificent – including a storm with horns, timps, racing scales and I loved the passionate tenor sound of Samuel Sakker’s voice – generally speaking the piece is pretty one dimensional. He finds his former love, Margot (Anne Sophie Duprels) working as a prostitute so the piece is glued together with all the usual nineteenth century hypocritical moral horror of prostitution. And it’s a pity, English surtitles notwithstanding, when you can’t hear the diction. Had I not known, I probably would not have noticed that the piece is sung in French.

After the interval the mood is quite different. Puccini was a melodist though and through and much of the music in Le Villi is rich and warm with hints of what lay ahead in his later major successes. The piece opens with a big engagement party for Anna (Duprels again – really coming into her own this time) and Roberto (Peter Auty). A black clad chorus dance in lilting 3|4 round the front of takis’s ring-shaped stage extension with the orchestra behind them and we’re immediately in a very convincing dramatic world.

The construction is odd, though. Once Roberto has left on a business trip (sort of) to Anna’s distress, the plot snaps shut like a telescope. Stephen Gadd (lots of gravitas) explains in spoken words that Roberto has been corrupted and debauched. We see nothing of his journey or Anna’s death from a broken heart. Next thing you know she’s in a coffin while Puccini winches up the emotion as only he can.

It gets better after that. Roberto returns in agonised repentance (beautiful aria from Auty) and is then haunted and killed by Anna’s vengeful ghost. The dancing Villi, white veils and evocative choreography have terrific dramatic impact and Puccini’s use of violas to connote terror will stay with me for a long time.

The set by takis works well in both operas. We are given a centre stage building constructed with rough planks which is manually revolved to provide scene changes. Outside incidents, such as people running to escape the storm or Roberto returning from his moral wilderness are played elsewhere on Opera Holland Park’s vast stage.

Congratulations, too, to conductor Francesco Cilluffo who keeps orchestra and singers firmly but fluidly under control. Only once or twice did the balance go awry so that the orchestra was drowning out the singing.

Susan Elkin

One of the underlying objectives of the Proms, from the earliest days, has been to make music accessible to people from a variety of backgrounds, breaking down barriers that may exist and ultimately creating a larger audience for ‘classical’ music in general. Recent years have seen the introduction of more specialised proms bringing in different musical genres and crossovers from popular, folk and film music. This particular prom was the first given over entirely to music exclusively written for the ever expanding games market. As the title might suggest this was an attempt to highlight a variety of music written across the last few decades, from the earliest games, where computer generated sound was exciting but severely limited, to the seemingly unlimited potential of the latest technology.

It was evident from the reactions to the games being name-checked that a substantial number of gamers were present in the hall – some who have been doing so for a number of years and others of the younger generation. I am sure there were also others like me, who knew nothing about the particular games but could still enjoy the music.

As well as the large orchestral forces there were some clever nods to the earliest computer generated sounds. Electronic treatments of some of the acoustic instruments featured alongside electric guitar, synthesiser and sampled sounds. Two harps and a vast array of percussion (as well as flexible wind tubes worked aggressively in the air) all added to the variety of timbres.

There was a section devoted to Japanese composers, references to classic games such as Pokemon and the long running Final Fantasy series. There was music from the ground-breaking Journey and the very recent Battlefield 2042. This latter arrangement was the European premiere. Featuring an array of visceral sounds and often devoid of melody or easily identifiable structure this piece stood out from the rest of the programme, which was often very melodic and full of contrasts. It was a highlight for me with the sheer force of the orchestra’s full resources, coupled with real world samples and manipulations.

The sheer energy on show from the musicians under the completely committed conducting of Robert Ames left the audience in no doubt that this music was being taken seriously in its own right and that it was worthy of being presented in this manner. The subtle visuals on display above the orchestra added a pleasing extra dimension without the music being relegated to the background. The enthusiastic and informative compering by presenters Louise Blain and Steffan Powell also did much to engage the audience and to present this music with enough background for the uninformed (like me) as well as some playful references for those who knew a bit more.

I found myself thinking that, in the true spirit of the Proms, this was a further wonderful example of creating a more inclusive and democratic culture. Already this week we had seen it at the Commonwealth Games with its deliberate mixing of para and able bodied athletes and with the huge increase of interest in women’s football with the European Championships. Here, tonight, Gamers saw a recognition of their particular interest, together with the composers (several of whom were present with us in the audience) whose work deserves to sit alongside the film and television scores we already rightly appreciate and celebrate.

Perhaps the next step is to work towards presenting this music alongside traditional and contemporary works for the concert hall, the pop and folk world and those from cinema and television in mixed programmes designed to cater for an ever-widening audience.

Stephen Page

This show is deeply moving on at least two levels. First, there’s Jessica Duchen’s story for our times about a young Syrian refugee in Britain who finds herself through cricket and is then reunited (sort of) with her own mother. Second, it’s both inspirational and impressive to stage a community opera with 180 all age, diverse performers including – via video – youth choirs from Damascus and Bethlehem and a small group of professionals

Roxana Panufnik’s music is often beautiful, always colourful and makes aptly dramatic use of a wide range of orchestral sounds. There’s some exquisite harp work, for instance, under the rich bass-baritone of Jonathan Lemalu, who plays Harry, Dalia’s foster father in Britain, When there’s conflict in the action Panufnik gives us discordant, strident music – all nicely managed by Douglas Boyd and the Philharmonia Orchestra in the pit.

The sober opening to this uplifting opera presents distressed, depressed people, listless in a refugee camp. Then Dalia (Adrianna Forbes-Dorant – a warm, vibrant singer) arrives at the home of Harry and Maya (Kate Royal – good) where she is made warmly welcome although everyone has to do a lot of adjusting. Their children are played by Erin Field and Joshey Newynskyj, who both sing well. Of course there’s some hostility from the local community especially from cynical, critical Roger (Andrew Watts) at the cricket club. Watts is a counter tenor with a very high range whose troubled, piercing, bitter interjections work perfectly, Eventually coached by Fred (Ed Lyon, tenor) Dalia finds a talent for spin bowling and grows in confidence.

In many ways, though, the high point of this show is the arrival of Dalia’s mother Aisha (Merit Ariane) at a refugee detention centre in Dover. Ariane sings an Islamic lament full of quarter tones sounding like articulated vibrato which is intensely powerful and the scene in which she meets her daughter again is gut wrenching because there is no definite prospect of a happy ending.

There is much about this fine show to commend. It makes excellent, imaginative use of big video screens to show, for instance the choirs elsewhere which haunt Dalia or to stress the tension of the car ride to Dover with just the wing mirrors and the motorway flashing past. Then there’s the oud, played evocatively on stage by Rachel Beckles Willson, the brief appearance of the cream Labrador – part of the community – and the set by Rhiannon Newman Brown which understatedly links the quasi prison at Dover with a cricket net. Moreover the idea that Dalia finds acceptance through cricket sits beautifully at Wormsley which is famous for its historic ground. And full marks to Karen Gillingham for her undaunted direction of this huge cast and enabling them to force this hard-bitten critic to grope for a tissue several times.

Susan Elkin

This was an interestingly paired concert: It’s hard to think of two more contrasting pieces than Jennifer Walshe’s The Site of An Investigation and Brahms’s German Requiem.

Walshe is an Irish composer born in 1974 and her twelve section, 33 minute piece is a mixed-genre hybrid which sits somewhere between a concerto and a play with music. For this London premiere Walshe herself was the soloist – starting dramatically, with hand held mic standing behind the brass, moving to the middle of the percussion and finally coming down stage next to the conductor to the traditional soloist spot.

She speaks to the music and sings: sometimes with silvery lyricism and sometimes with strident forcefulness. She ruminates – with passion, wistfulness and occasionally humour – on the state of the world. So we are led to think about what we’re here for, ocean pollution, the pointless arrogance of the space race and the absurdity of AI-induced “eternal” (sort of) life, among many other things.

The orchestral colour in her composition is striking. The large orchestra gives us, for instance, some lovely discordant trombone glissandi, percussive harp, glorious woodwind detail and a couple of passages in which the whole brass section are required to shout “Break over them like the sea…” at angry fortissimo. There’s never a dull moment for the percussion section either. As well as playing a wide range of relatively conventional instruments they are required to pop bubble wrap, swirl coloured streamers and built a pyramid from plastic storage boxes which they then knock down. I struggle, it has to be said, to see the point of placing a four foot high model of a giraffe on a plinth and then noisily wrapping it in crinkly paper.

And so, after the interval, to the glorious familiarity of Brahms and his very personal take on the concept of a requiem – lots of Lutheran Bible, no Latin and no Christ.

The National Youth Choir of Great Britain makes a strong, energetic sound carefully managed by Ilan Volkov from the podium. It’s good to see so many fine tenors and basses with plenty of diversity and, of course, because this is a youth choir they are well able to stand throughout the work, thus precluding the need for tiresome bobbing up and down.

Bass baritone Shenyang brings terrific warmth to Herr, lehre doch mich and I really liked the pointing up of the fugue at the end of the movement. And soprano Elena Tsallagova sings with great sensitivity in Ihr habt nun Trauigkeit especially in rapport with flute.

But, for me, the best bit of this enjoyable performance was the choral singing. Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen is very well known as a standalone but this time, sung with explemplary tenderess, it sounded as fresh as if one had never heard it before. Similarly there was admirable drive in Denn wir haben and real minor key menace in Denn alles Fleisch especially in the fortissimo recapitulation.

Susan Elkin

The UK premiere of Mark Adamo’s 1998 two act opera was an interesting event. It sits well with Opera Holland Park’s policy of mixing the very well known work with the much less familiar within a single season and features some talented singers at various stages of their careers. It was also good to see the composer there, clearly moved by this account of his work.

We’re in the world of Louisa M Alcott’s famous 1868 novel with glances at its sequels as the four March sisters reflect from maturity on the events of their childhood. As with Carmen and Eugene Onegin the set by takis brings some of the action into the space between the audience and the orchestra which conveys a strong sense of immediate intimacy. For this show the main stage is dominated by a series of huge, distressed picture frames which make the small room scenes convincing and contained.

Adamo’s score – of its time, obviously – is short on sustained melody but strong on orchestral colour. During Brooke’s (Harry Thatcher) impassioned courtship of Amy (Elizabeth Karani) for example, with Jo (Charlotte Badham) trying to stop them, we get timp glissandi, snare drum tattoos and glockenspiel. And I like Adamo’s use of tubular bells. Both percussionists (Glynn Matthews and Jeremy Cornes) work very hard in this opera and the results are often arresting. Meanwhile there’s some good work in other sections in a piece which often sets up unusual combinations of instruments all well managed by Sian Edwards on the podium. The sympathetic playing here is testament to the long partnership between Opera Holland Park and City of London Sinfonia.

On stage Kitty Whately finds plenty of vocal warmth in Meg using her wide vocal range and depth to bring the most matronly of the sisters to life. Charlotte Badham delights, using body language and lots of notes to connote Jo’s confusion, intelligence, love for her sisters, anguish and – eventually – the hope of a happy ending for herself. Benson Wilson is terrific too as Friedrich Bhaer. His richly resonant bass voice would have captivated me too, had I been Jo.

There are a few problems with this show, though. There is a quartet of women who sit on stage, busy at various pursuits, almost continuously, occasionally singing. They are oddly dressed – one is a knight, another a Bohemian artist-type and the other two in 1920s-style slinky cocktail frocks. I spent much of the 2 hours and 50 minutes (including interval) of this show trying to puzzle out who exactly these women are and why they’re there.

And, good as the orchestra is, it occasionally overpowers the singers. There were times, for example, when I couldn’t hear Charlotte Badham. And there is a problem with accents – I suppose the cast has been directed to sound American. In fact it is not sustained and the odd word you hear pronounced other than in RP it sounds like Cornwall. Moreover the diction is often fuzzy. One really shouldn’t need surtitles for an opera sung in one’s own language but in this case you certainly do, so I was glad they were there.

There is, however, plenty to admire in Little Women and I hope Mr Adamo was pleased with it despite the flaws.

Susan Elkinn

Verdi’s Requiem and the Royal Albert Hall are a marriage made in heaven. The grand vision of the music is a perfect match for the beloved, huge Victorian domed space. And I like to think Verdi would have approved of this fine account of it – the hall buzzing with excitement and five BBC cameras sliding unobtrusively about for the opening night of the first full Proms season since 2019.

Sakari Oramo is very good indeed at managing the detail even when he’s controlling an orchestra of over eighty players, eight off stage trumpets for Dies Irae and a massed choir of over 130 some of whom are a very long way from him – in addition, of course, to supporting four fine soloists with visible care and attention. It must be like driving a whole convoy of tanks.

I have known this work since my teens and have sung in several performances of it but have never played in the orchestra or studied the orchestral score. I was therefore surprised and delighted at this unforgettable performance to hear details I had never noticed before. For example there was some beautiful flute work with the soloists in the Offertory and a nicely pointed bassoon continuo passage with the soloists in quartet in Dies Irae. And I loved the piccolo delicately picking its way around the melody in the fugal Sanctus and again in Lux eterna. Yes, Oramo who mouths every word with the chorus and delivered every note with phenomenal precision, is on top of every shred of detail and made sure that the audience was too – even at the opening which I’ve rarely heard quite so hushed and exciting. Nothing was ever muddy even for a second.

Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha (soprano) really came into her own in Agnus Dei and in the silkiness of Lacrymosa with Jennifer Johnston (Mezzo) who brought richness and drama. And Rangwanasha’s Libera Me evoked all the tremulous, unresolved anguish that it should. Of course Mors Stupebit is a wonderful edge-of-the-seat moment for a bass-baritone and Kihwan Sim ensured everyone listened with attention and wonder. There was a strong performance too from David Junghoon Kim, a last minute replacement for Freddie De Tomaso who was ill, especially in Ingemisco tamquam reus.

Other high spots in 84 minutes of some of the finest music-making I’ve heard in quite a while included the extra trumpets in Dies Irae. I think they were in the gallery and the whole, vast Albert Hall resounded immersively with musical fear of judgement day. Then there was the way the tenors cut through with Hostias over tremolo second violins and violas – in this work which packs so much glorious operatic contrast. Finally, we got the biggest bass drum I’ve ever seen: at least six feet in diameter and two feet deep. It wasn’t used for the famous syncopated Dies Irae passage but came into its own for some very ominous, thunderous rumbling before the final statement and again at the very end.

Susan Elkin