It was lovely to return to the beautiful surroundings of Opera Holland Park – a vast performing space with orchestra pit set into the middle, covered by an open-sided canopy – for the last night of this year’s season.

The opera is (and always was) a difficult piece to get right. Following on from the success of The Mikado, Ruddigore was widely panned at the premiere, underwent innumerable cuts and alterations before then disappearing from the repertoire entirely for 35 years. Whilst many directors look for ways to make G&S ‘relevant’ to contemporary audiences with varying degrees of success, John Savournin has, refreshingly, eschewed that and presents a production that is as close to the original material as I’ve seen in a while: no modern references thrown in here for cheap laughs, the writers’ material is allowed to do the work – and my word, in these hands, it achieves it well.

Musically, too, the production is pretty faithful to the original material. The new reduction by conductor David Eaton, superbly played be the City of London Sinfonia truncates the overture (vastly preferable to the unfortunate current habit of cutting them completely) and moves the Act 2 melodrama music to the piano. I liked the decision to include the second verse of duet at the start of Act 2, again usually cut, which adds more context to that scene, and a pleasure to hear the original version of the Act 2 finale.

The energetic chorus of professional bridesmaids led by Zorah (Natasha Agarwal) and Ruth (Caroline Carragher), bemoaning their lack of employment, led to the introduction of a feisty Dame Hannah (Heather Shipp).

The central pairing of Rose Maybud (Llio Evans) – delightfully fussy, in her strict adherence to the ridiculous rules of her book of etiquette – and Robin Oakapple (Matthew Kellet) – awkwardly shy – complimented each other well, both as actors and vocally.

A muscular portrayal of Dick Dauntless (David Webb), a particularly unnerving and convincing interpretation of Mad Margaret (Heather Lowe), a splendid turn by G&S veteran Richard Suart, clearly thoroughly enjoying himself as Old Adam, whilst Director John Savournin as an over-the-top caped and curly moustached Victorian showman-magician completed the Act 1 line-up.

The test of any performance of Ruddigore is the revealing of the ghosts a short way into Act 2. Here we were treated to the full Hammer Horror panoply of effects: thunder, lightning, spooky laughter, intense music in a minor key – which made the eventual appearance, sliding in round the flats, just a touch underwhelming. However Stephen Gadd’s stentorian Sir Roderic Murgatroyd, the last ghost to appear, commanded the stage whilst his later duet with Dame Hannah was beautifully delicate.

It goes without saying that all parts were beautifully sung with clear diction that reached all parts of the theatre, and a pleasure to hear. It’s also true that the Savoy Operas were written for all-rounders and understandably today’s first-study singers don’t necessarily make the best spoken-word actors (at times I felt the dialogue was bellowed and lacked nuance) or dancers (whilst Merry Holden’s choreography was slick and appropriately pitched, more than once I sensed on-stage self-consciousness).

After the calls, OHP CEO James Clutton asked all staff and crew onto the stage to receive an end of season ovation – a lovely touch, making me feel like a guest at your party. Thank you very much for having me, look forward to seeing you again!

Lucas Elkin

György Ligeti Requiem (Jennifer France: soprano, Clare Presland: mezzo-soprano)
György Ligeti Lux aeterna (Edvard Grieg Kor)
Richard Strauss Also sprach Zarathustra

A second visit in a week to the Royal Albert Hall, and a second packed house for a programme loosely based around Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A space odyssey – all three works feature in the film’s soundtrack.

Ligeti’s Requiem (1963-5) is a piece that pushes the boundaries of the musically possible. An extraordinarily low-pitched, very quiet opening for the bass singers and trombones leads slowly through a rising progression of instruments and voices, all starting from their lowest registers. This polytonal word painting for the opening line (Requiem aeternam dona eis, Dominine) sets the mood for the rest of the piece, the Kyrie continuing with heavily layered voices and the accompanying strings subdivided into at least sixteen parts.

In a movement of great extremes, The Dies Irae unleashes a violent attack on the first chord. Remarkable acrobatic work from the two sopranos follows (Jennifer France and Clare Presland) for whom Ligeti writes enormous leaps and instant dynamic changes throughout – handled with great skill by both. The concluding Lacrimosa, meanwhile, returns to stings scored as thick as organ mixtures, this time punctuated by chilling harpsichord interjections.

Given the work is a mass for the dead I found it a particularly programmatic interpretation, bringing to mind a tortured soul trapped after a painful death. Comfortable listening the piece isn’t – but powerful, moving and impressive it most certainly is.

After the interval was Ligeti’s much calmer unaccompanied Lux aeterna. Here conductor Edward Gardner opted for a theatrical approach, putting the Edvard Grieg Kor into the top galleries and the hall into darkness bar a single spotlight on the podium. This allowed the audience to focus entirely on the sound, washing down from above – a cleansing coda to the preceding Requiem.

The concluding work, Richard Strauss’s vast tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra, is loosely based on ideas from Friedrich Nietzsche’s poem of the same name, and best known for its opening sunrise motif. At the start the sound felt rather than heard, helped by the Albert Hall organ’s pedal stops, a luxury seldom available in concert halls. The LPO’s string section, given full range in Strauss’s exceptionally specific division by desks and players were as warm and lush as I have ever heard in the following Von den Hinterweltern whist the fugue (Von der Wissenshcaft) – often payed in a strictly metrical manner – was gentler and more lyrical than many performances, and approach I liked. The delightful waltz, illustrating The Dance Song (Das Tanzlied) with its busy, chattering wind instrumentation was particularly notable for leader Pieter Schoeman’s excellent solo work with its elaborate string crossings and double stops. Following the dramatic 12 bell strikes the piece winds down to its pianissimo end, delicately played, to a final pairing of chords that never quite settle – a fitting epitaph to a challenging evening.

Lucas Elkin

Dora Pejacevic Overture
Grace Williams Violin Concerto (Geneva Lewis: violin)
Gustav Holst The Planets

On a damp London evening it was warming to see the Albert Hall as full as I have seen it for a very long time for this evening’s concert, barely a spare seat in the house and Promenaders packed in like Sardines – all very encouraging.

Dora Pejacevic’s Overture (1919), is a short work loosely in sonata form with hints of film music and the Croatian and Hungarian music of her background, particularly towards the end. It dances along too, with syncopated rhythms and a triumphal ¾ ending with forthright brass that in the careful hands of Jaime Martín isn’t allowed to dominate.

Grace Williams’ violin concerto is in unusual form, the three movements being slow-slow-fast. An eerie opening with the solo violin floating over muted strings and brass develops into a deeply lyrical movement punctuated with a fiery cadenza with tricky double stopping and an awkward passage of stopped fourths, all handled expertly by Geneva Lewis, a current BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist. The second movement, with some unusual orchestral effects (pianissimo gong, just enough to sense the timbre, for example) segues into the punchier last movement with more humorous rising chromatic phrases intruding into the lyricism. At times the orchestra and soloist lost balance, drowning out some of the detail of the solo work which was unfortunate..

After the interval there was a definite sense of both orchestra and audience settling in for 50 pleasurable minutes with a well-known old friend, Holst’s stellar suite having been played over forty times at the Proms. And tonight’s performance would have been up there with the best of any, from the opening tension of the Mars rhythm to the final drift into the distance of the ladies’ voices at the end of Neptune the energy infected the whole hall.

Venus employed some particularly beautiful playing from the two harps and celeste, Mercury bubbled along playfully especially in the string semi-quaver passages whilst Jupiter had the audience almost sighing with appreciation at the very well-known second subject.

But it is the last three movements that, for me, make a Planets performance, and where Holst employs some unusual and challenging orchestration: Saturn with four flutes (one of them a bass) accompanying the double bass section (particularly fine dynamics this evening, the crescendo and decrescendo being acutely observed). Uranus with its angular, staccato 6/4 rhythms and particularly Neptune with its wordless celestial chorus of womens’ voices. Tonight they were positioned at the back of the very top gallery with their backs turned to the stage. Whilst the effect was magical the musicianship challenge was huge and it was a great shame that there were a couple of perhaps inevitable rhythmic glitches and speeding up.

The only criticism I might make was of the audience – perhaps it is my age and upbringing, but a collective decision to applaud after every movement (presumably because they’re played commonly as stand-alone pieces on certain radio stations) somehow diminishes the integrity of the suite as whole work. I sensed Jaime Martín felt it too, as he was very keen to move on swiftly after Saturn and segued Uranus and Neptune together, which I thought worked much better.

But overall, an excellent evening of pieces both new and familiar that left this reviewer smiling and humming all the way home.

Lucas Elkin

In my music collection there is a handsomely bound vocal score of Elijah, presented to my grandfather as a chorister’s prize in 1912. It’s a relic of a time when Mendelssohn’s oratorio stood second only to Handel’s Messiah in public esteem, to the extent that it was sometimes given a definite article: “the” Elijah, as Messiah is still sometimes “the” Messiah. Those days are long gone, as a slightly less-than-capacity audience at Saturday’s Prom performance attested, but Maxim Emelyanychev’s performance suggested that there might be life in the old prophet yet.

At the first performance in 1846, Mendelssohn directed 396 performers in Birmingham Town Hall, including a chorus of 271. On Saturday there were about a third of that, with a chorus of 80. So there was some loss of weight and volume, but a distinct gain in clarity and vigour, with a particularly impressive contribution from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Chorus, whose clear tone and faultless diction brought the dramatic moments vividly to life. Another benefit was the use of period instruments by brass and strings, with crooked horns, natural trumpets and even an ophicleide. On modern instruments Mendelssohn’s scoring can sound thick and heavy; here it was bright and sinewy, with the harsh tones of the horns adding extra aggression to Elijah’s aria “Is not his word like a fire” in part I.

Mendelssohn calls for no less than eight soloists, of which the BBC could apparently run to five. I was ready to grumble about the allocation of some of the quartet work to the chorus, but the front row sang “For he shall give his angels” and “Cast thy burden” so beautifully that my complaint died on my notepad, and I take my hat off to the single soprano who led off the chorus of seraphim in part II. It seemed a shame, though, that a real boy couldn’t have been found to announce the coming of rain. Of the soloists, Helen Charlston stood out as an authoritative Angel, adding edge and aggression to her tone for a formidable Queen in part II. Carolyn Sampson was a more ethereal angel (there are quite a lot of angels in this piece) and a warm and deeply-felt widow. Rowan Pierce completed the female line-up, blending flawlessly in the duet and trio, and ascending to the organ-loft to hail the miraculous raincloud. Andrew Staples filled the vast space of the Hall effortlessly with his burnished tenor as Obadiah and Ahab.

Which leaves us with the title role. Long revered by singers, Roderick Williams probably attained national treasure status with his appearance at the coronation. His Elijah was, as ever, sensitively phrased, faultlessly enunciated and alive to the character’s many changes of mood. But his voice is really more Wigmore Hall than Royal Albert, and this Elijah failed to dominate as even in a revisionist performance he surely should. At times I couldn’t help thinking of a firm but fair headmaster rather than Mendelssohn’s volatile prophet. There is something not quite right when Elijah is outsung by Ahab.

Conducting without a baton or indeed a podium, the unfailingly energetic Maxim Emelyanychev drew precise and dynamic playing from the band, bringing out orchestral details which often get lost in a Victorian wash of sound. If he could not entirely conceal Mendelssohn’s occasional lapses in inspiration, his approach made a strong case that Elijah’s former place near the head of the choral league table was not entirely undeserved.

William Hale
Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou

To commission and produce a new opera is a brave thing for an unsubsidised company to do, especially in the current arts climate, so warmest congratulations to Opera Holland Park for this achievement. It’s not just the concept which is laudable either. A sung-through full length opera, Itch is sumptuously imaginative, witty and thoughtful. Director, Stephen Barlow and his cast of eight really have worked wonders.

Itchingham Lofte aka as Itch (Adam Temple-Smith) is a geeky teenager who collects samples of elements. He’d really like some uranium for his birthday: cue for audience laughter. With the help of his long-suffering younger sister Jack (Natasha Agarwal) he finds a rock on a beach which seems to be radioactive. He has discovered a new element – and one which has huge commercial, destructive potential so others want to take possession of it for ignoble reasons. Eventually, of course, good triumphs over evil.

Dove’s score is astonishingly expressive and delivered beautifully by a twelve piece orchestra conduced by Jessica Cottis. For example, when Itch and his mother (Rebecca Bottone) are arguing about his explosive experiments it is underpinned by dramatic, amusing trombone leaps. Dove makes terrific atmospheric use of harp too and half the orchestra space is occupied by the percussion section and its impressive pair of players. One of the things I really like about Opera Holland Park is that you can see every single orchestra member.

Temple-Smith finds terrific sensitivity in Itch, using his colourful voice to denote a wide range of emotions and Agarwal blends with him well. There’s a strong sense of sibling bonding/rivalry which they reinforce in their duet work. James Laing (counter tenor) brings other-worldliness to Cake, the beach hippy, who directs them to rocks which have been turned up by an earthquake.

Eric Greene is outstanding as Nicholas Lofte, the children’s father. His powerful bass voice (wonderful sound at the bottom of his register) exudes warmth and passion. Also stunning is Rebecca Bottone in her second role: Roshanna, head of Greencorps who will stop at nothing to obtain Itch’s rocks. Her evil is conveyed by very high, widely spaced notes sung with dramatic attack – imagine The Queen of the Night on amphetamines. Bottone, her intonation almost perfect, manages to make it grimly funny as well as musically impressive.

What most of us will remember most vividly about this show, however, is Frankie Bradshaw’s set. It gives us a beach at the front of the orchestra and a striking cuboid arrangement of boxes at the back through which actors climb. Yes, it’s the periodic table and yes, as one character remarks, it does look a bit like a castle with turrets. Superimposed on this is Jake Wiltshire’s video design – each element lighting up as Itch mentions it. At other times we get landscapes, the bottom of a mine and other scenarios. The boxes meanwhile also become a school science lab and a mining tourist shop. And there’s a delightful moment when Switzerland is mentioned repeatedly and each time the word is mentioned yet another Swiss flag lights up. There is a lot of humour in this opera.

Ultimately, though, it’s a moving piece about redemption and forgiveness as Nicholas, who is away a lot for work and often not there when his children need him, finds and rescues Itch from serious danger. Greene’s lovely voice at this point is emotionally as well as musically resonant.

This was Itch’s world premiere. I hope it now gets taken up elsewhere not least because, along with its many other strengths, it unobtrusively taught me a lot about the periodic table and all learning is a bonus.

Susan Elkin

Who knew that there was a BBC Proms Japan? There has been reason to question the BBC’s commitment to classical music of late, but our national broadcaster seems as keen as ever to build on the Proms brand, even if “the world’s greatest classical music festival” seems to have a little less actual classical music every year. The first piece in Tuesday’s concert by the BBC Symphony Orchestra was receiving its European premiere after a first performance by the same forces under the Proms banner in Japan last autumn. Noriko Koide’s Swaddling Silk and Gossamer Rain takes its inspiration from silkworms, and built its textures from almost imperceptibly whispered beginnings like a cocoon built up from invisible threads. Unconventional instrumental techniques sought to break down the barriers between music and the sounds of the natural world, until the piece once again withdrew to silence. Or would have done, had the audience managed to restrain its bronchial tendencies – this was perhaps not the venue or the occasion for such a delicate composition.

Much more at home in the Albert Hall was Beethoven’s third piano concerto, performed by Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki, who looked like a giant when he arrived on stage with Hong Kong-born conductor Elim Chan. He played like a giant too, making his first entry with almost Lisztian bravura and effortlessly filling the vast space of the hall. But there was precision as well as assertion, and in the second movement he accompanied the woodwind solos with warmth and restraint. The Sturm und Drang returned for the last movement, aided by emphatic (perhaps rather over-emphatic) timpani, and persisted with only minimal lightening of the mood until the final chords. The encore, Chopin’s Nocturne, op. 9 no 2 in E flat, provided a welcome moment of repose, though even here there was a Beethovenian eruption near the end.

Elgar’s Enigma Variations is another Proms stalwart, and one always wonders what a new conductor will bring to it after so many performances. The opening theme exhibited a very English restraint compared to Beethoven, and for the first half it was the quiet moments that seemed most effective, with a particularly winning viola solo in no. 6. I forget how many p’s Elgar puts in the string parts at the opening of Nimrod – here there were at least five, and the wind players were hard put to it to match the whispering strings at their first entry. After that, things settled, and the high point of the performance was probably G.R.S., in which Dan the bulldog seemed to be breasting a stormy sea rather than the tranquil waters of the Wye at Hereford. In the Romanza the clarinet quotation from Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage seemed to be coming from an immense distance, as if from a ship disappearing over the horizon. All was swagger and celebration for the conclusion, with the Albert Hall organ lending its considerable weight to the sound, and the audience responded with almost equal volume.

William Hale

Photo: BBC/Sisi Burn