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Opus Theatre – update

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Oliver Poole  & Tamara Radjenovic in conversation with Brian Hick

World Series at Opus Theatre

International Operatic Soprano Tamara Radjenovic made a flying visit to the Opus Theatre last weekend before shooting off to prepare for her next Carnegie Hall concert. It is a mark of how well Opus Theatre has established itself in such a short time that it has encouraged so many international singers and musicians to perform at this intimate venue in the heart of Hastings. Pianist Oliver Poole is coming to the end of his time as Artist in Residence, though he will continue to maintain strong links with the venue, if only because of its magnificent piano which he has demonstrated with such skill and innate musicality as accompanist, soloist and with superb improvisations.

 

I met up with them just before last Saturday’s concert, in time to hear Tamara singing Puccini’s Quando m’en vo. Though the composer is eternally popular, he is actually very difficult to perform as the arias in particular allow for rubato in almost every bar. This is a challenge for both of them. A hack accompanist would simply churn out the notes – deadly if at least supportive – but a singer hopes for much more and Oliver’s improvisatory approach leads to an extra level of frisson where singer and pianist have to listen more carefully to each other, and trust each other. It is very exciting to see them working together.

Tamara really welcomed the chance to work with Oliver at the Opus, relishing the intimacy of the venue as well as its superb acoustic. ‘You can really feel the music here, sense the way the audience are responding to every note as it happens’. Oliver feels that she has a particular affinity with each character she brings to life, inhabiting the personality like a method actor would on the stage, rather than simply singing the part. It makes for a much more challenging performance, and one which communicates with its immediacy.

They are both passionate about bringing classical music to new and often younger audiences. It has been of feature of Oliver’s time as Artist in Residence to draw on as wide a range of performers and music as possible, and keep prices as low as possible. The problem is world-wide. Tamara is from Montenegro, and while audiences there are very supportive, warm and appreciative, all events have to be really well promoted to ensure that those interested actually know they are happening.

Their concert at the Opus Theatre on Saturday evening was strongly attended and they were glad to see the Mayor, who is an enthusiastic supporter of live music-making, among the large audience.  The event brought the current World Series at the Opus to a close but there are exciting plans for the new season – and a new Artist in Residence to be announced very soon. Watch this space!

 

 

Bexhill Choral Society

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St Barnabas Church, Bexhill-on-Sea
5 October 2019

A patchwork programme meant that, on this occasion Bexhill Choral Society and conductor, Kenneth Roberts, were able to feature several rather lovely short works – such as the G minor  Schubert Stabat Mater and Gounod’s O Divine Redeemer – which don’t get too many outings in standard format concerts. And I really liked the spacious, warm red brick Victorian church venue which is new for BCS so there was a festive atmosphere and a pleasingly large audience.

The most striking performance of the evening was, by chance, also the shortest. Roberts and his choir gave us, in the first half, an excellent rendering of Mozart’s famous little gem, Ave Verum Corpus. The control was palpable, the cohesion arresting and result outstanding largely, because – having presumably sung this all their lives so little need to look at the music – every singer’s eye was on the conductor.  It was a riveting couple of minutes.

Judith Buckle, a fine contralto, did her best with Gounod’s O Divine Redeemer but it’s a schmultzy piece further blurred, on this occasion by the church acoustic but a nice sound nonetheless from both soloist and prominent instrumentalists such Sally-Ann Thorkildsen on cello. All the work from the 21-strong Sussex Concert Orchestra was competent and Richard Eldridge, who played several beautiful clarinet solos, deserves a special commendation. I found their account of Mendelssohn’s overture The Hebrides pretty understated, however, apart from some dramatic crescendi. It was mostly taken well under (the usual) tempo too.

Mendelssohn’s Hear My Prayer is actually a weak piece with far too much choir and soloist echoing each other but soprano Kristy Swift did what she could with it. Her tone was harsh in the opening sections but by the time she got to the lower register O for the wings of a dove! it had warmed and softened bringing the first half of the concert to a reasonably satisfying conclusion.

The single post-interval work was Beethoven Mass in C, a delightful work which really should be performed more often. All four soloists. Buckle and Swift along with Gary Marriott (tenor) and Barnaby Beer (bass) worked unusually well together to achieve some attractively colourful effects especially in the Gloria and  Agnus Dei.

It is well known that Beethoven took no prisoners when it came to choirs and this piece is a demanding sing especially for sopranos. On the whole, as with the evening’s earlier pieces, BCS did a reasonable job here but the strain and tiredness was audibly beginning to tell as the Mass neared its conclusion. And it would be churlish to dwell too much on the occasional tuning problems, ragged moments and the failure of most choir members to look as if they were enjoying themselves. Many a conductor/ choirmaster I’ve worked with has pointed out that if you smile and look confident your intonation will probably look after itself.

Susan Elkin

ENO: Orpheus and Eurydice

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London Coliseum, Tuesday 1 October 2019

The ENO’s ambitious Orpheus project has been launched with Gluck’s masterpiece Orpheus and Eurydice. So far, so good, and thankfully the musical side of the performance is everything one might wish for. Though the edition being used comes via Berlioz, bringing a larger modern orchestral sound, Harry Bicket’s brisk conducting drives the score forcefully and there is much fine playing to enjoy. The soloists are equally splendid. Even though we were asked to indulge Alice Coote as she had been suffering from a throat infection there was no hint of this in her impassioned reading of Orpheus. Equally strongly cast were Sarah Tynan as a waiflike Euridyce and Soraya Mafi’s bright Love.

The ENO chorus seemed to be in good voice but as they were banished off-stage throughout it was difficult to get any sense of nuance from their singing. This decision seemed to reflect Wayne McGregor’s whole approach to the work. Though the opera has a large amount of dance in it, it is not a ballet. The interaction between Orpheus and the rest of the world is a key element of Gluck’s writing. In this production Orpheus does not face any other living human beings. Consequently there is no dramatic action on stage. The nearest we get to this is in Act 4 as the couple return to earth and are alone. Che faro becomes the turning point of the evening and the only moment when there is a cathartic link between singer and audience. For too much of the rest of the evening any potential narrative is dissipated by the dance group whose costuming and movement seem to have little if any relationship to the narrative. Though the costumes are bright and cheerful they are also so abstract as to prevent any idea of time or place. Gluck’s Orpheus is not a stereo-type but a real and very vulnerable human being whose grief is shared by the world around him.

Lizzie Clachan’s vast grey box of a set certainly gives the dancers a lot of space, and Ben Cullen Williams’ videos create atmosphere – particularly effective in the opening grey seascapes – but little sense of contact with the story.

If not quite the success we might have anticipated, let us hope the rest of the project, as it unfolds, gives us a more profound understanding of the Orpheus myth.

CDs/DVDs October 2019 (1)

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Verdi; Il Trouvere
Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Roberto Abbado
DYNAMIC 37835

There is no mistaking a Robert Wilson production, but what can work magnificently, and entirely convincingly, for one opera does not necessarily translate into another. I had really enjoyed his approach to Aida where the static, often monumental, staging was entirely appropriate for what is an intensely personal narrative where little actually happens. Verdi’s Il Trovatore – here given in its full French version at Il Trouvere – suffers in the opposite direction. Robert Wilson’s production drains the whole story of emotion and interaction. The singers have no room to show responses or to interact. If anything I have seen far more emotional frisson in a concert staging than is allowed here. The ballet is staged in full – and good to hear all the music for once – but the pseudo boxing max which is the ‘danced’ staging is so inappropriate as to be utterly confusing.

The singers do what they can, though the makeup, close to, makes them look unreal and often unnatural. If this is what Robert Wilson intended then it really does not work and too often lets the singers down. Listening, one would not credit the lack of visual interest.

 

Rossini: Ricciardo e Zoraide
Rossini Opera Festival, Giacomo Sagripanti
UNITEL 752608

If the Verdi above suffered from a lack of emotional involvement, this goes rather too far the opposite way with an old-fashioned blood-and-thunder approach and some of the dullest choreography I have seen for some time. Unfortunately, it also boasts Juan Diego Flores and Sergey Romanovsky singing their hearts out and producing thrilling accounts of Rossini’s early score.

If you are a Rossini enthusiast and don’t have a recording of a respectable but hardly barn-storming score then this is certainly worth a look but thankfully Rossini wrote far better, even if not all later operas are as well sung as this.

 

Haydn: String Quartets Op20
Dudok Quartet, Amsterdam
RESONUS RES 10248
String Quartets Op 71 & 74
The London Haydn Quartet
HYPERION CDA 68230

The Dudok Quartet are planning to record all of the Op20 quartets and the second volume will be very welcome given the loving attention to detail they show in this first cd. The quartets date from 1772, and show a marked stylistic development away from the Op9 and 17 quartets –  a development clearly delineated in this recording.

The Op71 & 74 quartets, brought to us by the London Haydn Quartet, date from 1793 – over two decades on from Op20 and composed as a response to the success he had had in London. Their more overt style seems to respond to the public performance of chamber music which was now increasingly familiar. The players respond to this with aplomb and enthusiasm, making for a most welcome release.

 

Pavel Kolesnikov plays Chopin
HYPERION CDA 68273

This is a deceptive recording which draws us in through very familiar works – Fantasy Impromptu, Waltz in A flat and D flat – to some less familiar ones, but all of which are captivating in their immediacy. The quality of sound is also impressive with a sense of a warm room within which we are standing rather than the microphone stuffed into the piano lid. All the more convincing then given that the recording was made in the concert hall of the Wyastone Estate, Monmouth, (owned by Nimbus records) on a modern Yamaha concert grand.

 

Beethoven transformed
Boxwood & Brass
RESONUS RES 10249

The sextet is given here in the arrangement the composer himself made for wind instruments, and is coupled with an arrangement of the Septet Op20 made by his pupil Carl Czerny. Both are charmingly convincing.

 

Schubert & Brahms
Gerald Finley, baritone, and Julius Drake, piano
HYPERION CDA 68288

The cd combines Schubert’s Schwanengesang with Brahms’ Vier ernste Gesange. Gerald Finley’s diction and sensitivity to the text is well known but even here it is almost unexpectedly intimate and compelling. This is a deeply personal approach, at times almost whispered as if in confidence, at others raging with emotion that almost overwhelms. A wonderful disc.

 

20th century British works for solo cello
Rohan de Saram, cello
FHR FHR45

Five works by five modern composers, three of whom are very much still alive. What strikes me about them is the serious, often darkly melancholic, tone they provide taken as a whole. This may say as much about Rohan de Saram’s compelling and deeply felt approach as it does about the works which open with a brief Suite by Richard Drakeford, followed by Zuhuy Kak by Hilda Paredes, Sons and Dances for Mourning by David Matthews, Eos by James Dillon and finally Sannyasin by John Mayer. The recording is in honour of the cellist 80th birthday and is certainly a fine tribute to his playing and his championing of contemporary music.

 

Dame Ethel Smyth: Mass in D; Overture to The Wreckers
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo
CHANDOS CHSA 5240

With all the awareness of the need to promote female composers it is surprising that no national opera company has taken up Ethel Smyth’s masterpiece The Wreckers. I well recall the magnificent proms performance under Odaline de la Martinez in 1994 – thankfully still available on cd – but since then there seems to have been no attempt to mount a full professional production. This new recording of the overture reminds us of just what a splendid work it is. We can but hope!

The bulk of the new recording is given over to the Mass in D, which is an exultant outpouring, here given its head by the BBC forces under a conductor who seems to have an innate understanding of the British musical temperament. Solo voices are secure if a little reserved compared to their choral partners. Perhaps Sakari Oramo could consider live performances of either of these works?

 

Brahms: Symphonies 1 & 3
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner
CHANDOS CHSA5236

After his fine Mendelssohn series, Edward Gardner turns his attention to Brahms with the first and third symphonies. The approach is calmly effective, with close attention to detail and balance, without any sense of unnecessary weight or romanticism. The outcome is highly effective and enjoyable without any sense of the music overwhelming the listener – an impression somehow closer to its classical origins than its potential later romantic development.

 

Eric Coates: orchestral works vol 1
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, John Wilson
CHANDOS CHAN 20036

Volume 1 implies we are to get more like this and they can’t come soon enough. Eric Coates is surprisingly undervalued, even with the resurgence of interest in light music. There are some very familiar pieces here – The Merrymakers, By a Sleepy Lagoon, London Suite – alongside the ballet The Jester at the Wedding and two symphonic rhapsodies. All engaging and here splendidly played by the BBC Phil under one of the real champions of light music, John Wilson.

 

J S Bach: The French Suites
Alexandra Papastefanou, piano
FHR FHR 70

The first cd comprises French Suites 1-4 while the second includes two arrangements for keyboard of sonatas for solo violin. Alexandra Papastefanou plays a modern Steinway and there is no attempt to produce anything other than a crisp contemporary sound. This is actually quite refreshing when set against many versions on original instruments, a wide variety of keyboards and temperaments. It is strangely old-fashioned – the sort of sound I grew up with – but if anything this makes it all the more compelling. I particularly enjoy the balance she brings to the various voices and the clarity of the inter-play.

ENO UNVEILS INAUGURAL JONATHAN MILLER SAFETY CURTAIN

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30 September: English National Opera (ENO) has unveiled a new annual project to redesign the safety curtain in the world-famous London Coliseum’s auditorium.

Named in honour of long-standing and beloved ENO collaborator Sir Jonathan Miller, the new Jonathan Miller Safety Curtain will be commissioned each season, giving the London Coliseum a canvas to showcase new and innovative design. Each year a new artist will be invited to design the curtain.

Luke Edward Hall is the first artist to undertake this project, having kindly volunteered his time to create the new curtain artwork. Luke’s new curtain was unveiled in the Coliseum’s auditorium today (Monday 30 September) and will take centre stage throughout ENO’s 19/20 season.

Described by Vogue as interior design’s ‘wunderkind’, the London-based artist, designer and writer established his studio in 2015. His love of history and the classics inspire his playfully colourful works and he acknowledges the influence of ENO’s upcoming Orpheus series in the curtain’s final design:

‘I’m delighted to have worked on a new design for the safety curtain at the Coliseum, and to be the first artist involved in ENO’s exciting new scheme. My inspiration for the design came from the Coliseum itself and the Roman grandeur of its richly decorated interior. I drew upon my love of the mythology of Ancient Greece and Rome and created a scene in which Orpheus, the legendary poet and musician, is seen playing his violin beside the lyre-playing Apollo, god of music and dance. I wanted the atmosphere to feel magical, mysterious and dreamlike. I believe opera and theatre should transport viewers from their ordinary everyday existences to a place of fantasy – I hope my design will help to prepare them for the adventure.’

The curtain’s namesake, the director Sir Jonathan Miller, has worked with ENO for over 4 decades, directing 15 productions that have become the heart of ENO’s repertoire. Sir Jonathan was celebrated in 2016 with Marvellous Miller, an evening-length tribute at London Coliseum. Having trained as a doctor, Sir Jonathan went on to build an international career as a writer, presenter and theatre director. He directed his first opera in 1974 before working with ENO for The Marriage of Figaro in 1978. Sir Jonathan was knighted in 2002 for services to music and the arts. He is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and a Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Science. His inventive staging of The Mikado will take over London Coliseum once again this season, transporting Gilbert & Sullivan’s operetta to an English seaside hotel.

Sir Jonathan believes it is best to: ‘Be safe with your audiences so you can be wild and original with your work’, making the new safety curtain a fitting tribute to the bold director with his audience at the heart of every vision.

ENO Chairman Dr Harry Brünjes says: ‘Sir Jonathan Miller’s operas have become some of our best loved productions. It seemed only right that we name the new curtain after him, in honour of his work’s continued presence on our stage. All at ENO would also like to extend our gratitude to Luke Edward Hall, for the fantastic new artwork that he has kindly gifted to the project.’ The curtain will continue London Coliseum’s reputation as a home to creativity, through opera, ballet, musicals, comedy and now art.

The traditional safety curtain typically guards the audience in a theatre auditorium. It is lowered during intervals and when the stage is not in use, as a precaution in case of fire backstage. The current curtain has been in place since the Coliseum’s auditorium was renovated in 2004.

ENO: The Mask of Orpheus

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The Mask of Orpheus
Sir Harrison Birtwistle (1934 – present)
Libretto by Peter Zinovieff (1933 – present)
 
Director, Daniel Kramer
Conductor, Martyn Brabbins
Second conductor, James Henshaw

 

Birtwistle returns to English National Opera as The Mask of Orpheus receives first full London staging since its premiere

Opens Friday 18 October at 19:00 (5 performances)

‘The finest British opera of the last half-century’ (the Guardian) receives its first major staging in London since its premiere at English National Opera (ENO) in 1986.

Marking the composer’s 85th birthday, Harrison Birtwistle’s remarkable work – with a libretto by Peter Zinovieff – mixes music, drama and myth. Scored for massive orchestral forces, the ENO orchestra is led by ENO Music Director Martyn Brabbins, a dedicated exponent of the music of Birtwistle. Noted for conducting the definitive recording of the piece with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 2009, Martyn is truly honoured to be leading this new production, 33 years after the ENO premiere.

Daniel Kramer directs the Birtwistle masterpiece, which forms part of ENO’s Orpheus Series he has curated with Martyn for autumn 2019, following their collaborations for last season’s War Requiem and Jack the Ripper: The Women of Whitechapel. ENO’s Orpheus Series reimagines four operas exploring the Orpheus myth, each interpreted by four directors from diverse theatrical disciplines, all in sets by renowned British designer Lizzie Clachan.

Daniel Kramer began his opera career at ENO a decade ago with Birtwistle’s Punch and Judy in 2008, which won the South Bank Show Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera, and this production promises to continue that total theatre approach to Birtwistle’s work.

Costumes are by artist, campaigner and designer Daniel Lismore, described by Vogue as ‘England’s most outrageous dresser’. To inspire and support Lismore in creating his first ever set of costumes for the stage, Swarovski has exclusively provided the opera production with 400,000 crystals.

The Mask of Orpheus retells the Orpheus myth in a non-linear narrative, and examines the various manifestations of grief and loss, love and rage. Birtwistle’s complex retelling explores the Orpheus myth from different perspectives. The opera’s leading characters appear in three distinct guises, representing their human, heroic and mythical form, while different areas of the stage symbolise the different depictions of the ancient story.

Birtwistle, one of Europe’s leading figures in contemporary music, extends beyond the conventional operatic resources by integrating electronic music (realised by the late Barry Anderson) into the complex score, in addition to the massive orchestra of wind, brass, harps, guitars, and a huge battery of percussion.

Tenor Peter Hoare sings Orpheus the Man, in his fifth performance at ENO while tenor Daniel Norman sings Orpheus the Myth, after his ‘persuasive’ (The Times) performance as Monostatos in ENO’s production of The Magic Flute earlier this year.

Praised for her ‘warm mezzo’ and ‘velvet-voice’ (The Telegraph), British-Spanish mezzo-soprano Marta Fontanals-Simmons makes her ENO debut as Eurydice the Woman, having recently made critically acclaimed house and role debuts at the Royal Opera House as Siébel in David McVicar’s production of Faust and as Hel in the premiere of Gavin Higgins’s The Monstrous Child (Linbury Theatre).

Mezzo soprano Claire Barnett-Jones, hailed as ‘a young singer to watch’ (Opera Today) makes her ENO Harewood Artist’s debut, taking on the roles of Eurydice The Myth and Persephone. Claire has performed as Soloist on the Last Night of the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, for Opéra National de Bordeaux, with the Orchestra of Valencia, CBSO and at Wigmore Hall.

Claire is joined by four other Harewood Artists and the cast is completed with James Cleverton as Aristaeus The Man, Simon Bailey as Aristaeus the Myth/Charon and Robert Hayward as The Caller. James Henshaw joins as the second conductor.

Lighting and video design is by Peter Mumford, sound design by Sound Intermedia and choreography by Barnaby Booth.

The Mask of Orpheus opens on Friday 18 October at 19:00 at the London Coliseum for 5 performances: Oct 18, 25 & Nov 7, 13 at 19:00 and Oct 29 at 18:00.

Tippett: A Child of Our Time

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CBSO: anniversary season 2019-20
Birmingham Symphony Hall, Thursday 26th September 2019

It seemed fitting, with the present political convulsions across the world, that the CBSO should choose Tippett’s deeply felt masterpiece as the major choral work to open two years of celebration for its centenary. Elijah and Gerontius will follow later but for now the stark beauty of Tippett’s own text and score seemed even more appropriate and intensely moving. There was one, poignant, difference on this occasion. As we entered the hall we were given the score for the chorus of Deep River and Steal Away. Before the performance started, conductor Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla explained that Tippett had wanted the spirituals to act like the chorales had done for Bach – a link between the performers and the audience. Consequently we were being invited to join in with these. This proved to be a very moving experience, particularly as Deep River ends the work, and so everyone in the hall was involved in the final bars.

If this added to the impact of the performance there was certainly nothing amiss with the music-making. The CBSO Chorus were in thrilling form, finding the balance between emotional weight and clean muscular lines, plus the clarity of text which the acoustic in the hall allows.

The soloists were well matched with Joshua Stewart as impassioned and heroically voiced tenor lead. Brindley Sherratt brought warmth and gravity to the bass part, while Talise Trevigne provided the high-soaring lines of the soprano writing with great beauty. Perhaps the most humane writing is for the mezzo-soprano and here Felicity Palmer was at her subtle best, enfolding us with the comfort of her presence.

Though the playing of the CBSO for the Tippett was as committed as we have come to expect, they had already demonstrated this in their own right in Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem which opened the evening. Not an easy work, it made a convincing partner to the oratorio. The yearning intensity of the Lacrymosa giving way to the onslaught of the Dies irae, not a sudden plunge into hell so much as an endless, almost eternal, bombardment of pain. If the final Requiem aeternam is more reflective it is none the less stark and demanding. There was no need to point out that both composers were pacifist, the music spoke for itself.

Throughout, Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla galvanised her forces with a mixture of graceful fluency and absolute accuracy, which communicates itself as much to those of us in the audience as, surely, to the performers.

Rhythmie Wong

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Chapel Royal Brighton 17 September and Haywards Heath Music Society at St Wilfrid’s Church September.

We Sussex audiences don’t know our Spanish piano music, do we? German, Austrian, French – fine. But unless we hear a guitar playing, other Spanish music evades us. We know composers from other countries create pictures of Spanish scenes, even set operas there.

Even de Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain remains unfamiliar to most of us because although it might be seen as one, it is not named as a piano concerto and so we British don’t have a track record of rushing out to hear it performed.

We can think of at least one of de Falla’s two ballets, likelier The Three Cornered Hat. But, famous guitar soloist Joaquin Rodrigo apart, how many other actual Spanish composers can we even name against the clock?  One great pianistic Spaniard, not an Armada naval sailor but a civilian wartime passenger during 1916, drowned with his wife off the Sussex coast after a Nazi torpedo struck. That was Enrique Granados.

The two Sussex audiences last week were listening to his music without even knowing this grim fact. We need help from pianists such as Hong Kong-born Rhythmie Wong to drop in from her Cologne base to open our ears to hidden Spanish delights.

As one of the three prize-winners at Worthing in the 2018 Sussex International Piano Competition, she returned there in November to begin excitingly this process in her International Interview Concert with Book I of Albeniz’ vividly evocative Iberia. I notice as seasoned a British artiste as Imogen Cooper, four decades into her career, has just arrived at recording this piece. Last week, Wong brought Granados to Brighton and Haywards Heath.

We might quickly be tempted to view Spanish piano music as mainly tapas dishes – suites and single-movement pieces. No harm done early on, provided this is not discriminating.

Wong drew from Granados’ Goyescas set his narrative tone poem, The Maiden and the Nightingale, also the sinuously bracing and evocative Allegro de Concierto, and his delightful octet of Valses Poeticos – Melodic, Passionate, Slow, Humorous, Brilliant, Sentimental, Butterfly and Ideal. Much great Spanish piano music is dished up with such accessible non-abstract titles.

Wong appears from the dressing room a neat, graceful, small figure with a self-effacing gait and demeanour, but from the piano stool she disproportionately unleashes a frequently towering arsenal of virtuosic and poetic ammunition, delivered by a romantic heart – not by clinical weaponry.

Allegro de Concierto hit Brighton between the eyes but before all three Granados pieces at Haywards Heath she used a Trojan Horse: a Haydn’s final Piano Sonata, sharply and cheekily offered as a fascinatingly engaging and anything but throwaway starter.

At both recitals she brought Ravel to set our imaginative and cardiac pulses racing with the three-part Gaspard de la Nuit and – these current years her signature work – La Valse. And she performed both, would you believe, back to back with just a short pause for breath. This was not a circus act but a deliberate placing of four canvases close together on the same wall to test the aural effect and artistic impact.

The result was as spectacular as it was arresting. At Brighton her performance was breath-taking; at Haywards Heath it was masterly.

I was fortunate to be the only person at both concerts, and able to appreciate their different seasonings. On the modern Kawai piano at the small lively-walled Brighton chapel, bright and brassy, Wong was able to give the audience less dynamic range, contrast and nuance than the veteran Broadwood enabled her at Haywards Heath, in its larger, less regular space.

The Brighton lunchtime audience reacted to the concluding, climactic La Valse in shocked delight. The knowledgeable elderly Haywards Heath Club, served well by the warmer instrument and acoustic, were deeply thrilled and exploded with noisy acclaim. Their reward was, as a special intimate encore, an arrangement of the traditional Chinese song, Colourful Clouds Chasing the Moon.

The Basque-born and raised Ravel’s creative spirit was far closer to Spain than his Parisian residence. Wong, with insightful logic, successfully teams him with these Spanish brothers in a richly rewarding combination.

Richard Amey

 

 

Even More Even Stephens

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St John’s Hollington, 21st September 2019

Even if it was Even More Even Stephens, it was a very entertaining evening and it certainly didn’t suffer from repetition. This, their third performance, at St  John’s, was supported by a large appreciative audience.   Their appeal and fan club is obviously growing.

Steve Corke and Stephen Page presented a wide variety of music and song, which not only showed off their talents, but entertained all.  We had music and songs from Bach to Flanders and Swann; songs from musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof, Oliver, Jekyll and Hyde and Jesus Christ Super Star, and Steve Corke’s rich but gentle baritone paid great tribute to Matt Munro.  Stephen Page played piano and organ with great virtuosity and expertise. He announced that he wanted to ‘present the different sides to an organ’, and so he did. We heard  Bachs,’Fantasy in G minor’ and ‘Blaze Away’ and much more played expertly.  He did great justice to the piano also. His playing of ‘Autumn’, a reflective and melodic piece was quite haunting.

Many items were humorous particularly Steve’s organ accompaniment to Stephens’ piano, several of their duets, and Stephen’s piano playing of Dance of Three Old Ladies.

It was a richly varied and highly imaginative programme.

Part of the evening’s entertainment, and such is the attraction of this duo, was to have the programme cryptic; thus an item entitled Organ with a Twist was an Oliver medley and A filthy Number  was Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud. It was a delightful mixture of popular and lesser known pieces presented in a relaxed and friendly style.  It was all very good. Thank You! Please, let’s have even, even more!

Rev Bernard Crosby

 

A Rollicking Romp – Opera South East

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Manor Barn, Bexhill, 22nd September 2019

Opera South East had something of a whirlwind weekend with three concerts on successive days in very disparate venues. They came to a highly successful end at the Manor Barn, packed to standing-room-only by a capacity audience, enhanced by German exchange visitors. Quite what they must have made of Gilbert’s lyrics is another matter, but the continuing relevance of his satire on English society is not in doubt.

The programme brought us an overview of all the major G&S works and included excerpts at the end from Utopia Ltd – a fine a cappella chorus – and a somewhat unusual drinking song from The Grand Duke. Before that, the many solo items gave a chance for a wide range of singers to demonstrate their vocal prowess and there were particularly impressive contributions from David Woloszko as both Judge and Mikado, Gary Marriott as Frederick and Marco, Ruth Parsons as Mabel and Maya Godlonton-White as Yum-Yum. Karen McInally, who had organised the semi-staging of the event, chilled us as the Fairy Queen but delighted with the praise for free booze! Oscar Smith introduced each of the selections and made his own fine contribution with the Nightmare Song from Iolanthe, and an Oscar Wilde would-be from Patience.

Kenneth Roberts directed from the keyboard at the back of the hall, managing to keep his often disparate forces well in check even when they were moving swiftly between the rows of chairs and dancing.

Opera South East return with Amahl and the Night Visitors in November and The Mikado will follow next April.