I first encountered La Traviata when I was about nine. My father, who wasn’t actually a great classical music man, saw it at Royal Opera House with my mother and fell in love with all those fabulous Verdi melodies. So he bought “new fangled” LPs of La Traviata to play on his recently acquired three speed record player. For a long time the house resounded to Verdi’s rich and lovely tunes – many of them in lilting triple time – and I soaked them up like blotting paper. A lifetime later, of course, I’ve learned to appreciate this take on Dumas’s La Dame aux Camelias, in turn based on a true story about hedonism, passion and illness, rather more thoughtfully.

In Opera Holland Park’s new production Lauren Fagan gives a sensitive, intelligent account of Violetta. She took a little while to warm up on press night (nerves?) but once she got there it was a magnificent performance: passionate, convincing and thrilling with some stupendous top notes. Her Alfredo, Matteo Desole, an impressive tenor likewise rapidly got better after a lacklustre start. By the time they reach the deathbed scene in Act 4 their rendering of that supremely simple duet over pizzicato strings was beautiful.

There is strong support from bass Stephen Gadd and from  Laura Woods as Flora. The latter has a glorious wine dark voice, effectively an old fashioned contralto, which is a striking contrast to Fagan’s soaring soprano.

Sterling work from the orchestra under Matthew Kofi Waldren’s baton underpins the whole. This music is full of colour and Waldren allows us to see and hear it all – assisted by the clear acoustic in this venue which places the orchestra on the level in front of the stage. The work from the brass during the deathbed scene is especially noteworthy. It’s surprising how well the sound works here when you consider that the auditorium is open to the elements at the sides and you can hear the odd peacock, goose, aircraft or park reveller.

Director Rodula Gaitanou makes interesting dramatic use of a large chorus and ensures that the story telling is clear. I like Cordelia Chisholm’s ingenious set too. Built on a huge saucepan shaped quasi joist angled across the stage it offers an adaptable intimate space beneath the “pan” and more public area for parties and so on along the length of the “handle.”

It is altogether an enjoyable production which does the piece real justice. My father died in 1997. He would have been 96 this month. I think he would have approved.

Susan Elkin

What a strange piece Cosi fan tutte is. In a way it covers the same ground as A Midsummer Night’s Dream – sexual licence and the temporary (?) hots for the wrong person. Yet the ambiguity of the message makes it seem very different. It’s almost tragic rather than comic. Oliver Platt’s directorial emphases in this enjoyable production, for example, left me feeling deeply sorry for the duped women and I don’t always.

Despina, the knowing maid who assists in the duping, is undoubtedly the best female role and petite Sarah Tynan made a fine job of it – hitting all those soaring high notes with aplomb and adding lustrous warmth to numbers such as the glorious sextet which ends the first half. She’s also very funny disguised as both the doctor and the notary.

Peter Coleman-Wright’s Alfonso has plenty of scheming gravitas as he sets up his two friends to find their fiancées unfaithful – and his 6/8 patter song as he backs out of the door with Despina is pure Mozartian fun. Then the four young lovers: Eleanor Dennis, Kitty Whately, Nicholas Lester and Nick Pritchard all sing well both together and in groups with Dennis’s second half aria being a particular high spot. The farewell quintet before Lester and Pritchard’s characters pretend to go off to war is another gem delivered with tender warmth here.

Opera Holland Park’s playing space is almost traverse theatre and it’s vast so most designers find ways of confining it to a smaller area and Alyson Cummins is no exception. Her main, rather ingenious set is based on a huge hinged, five facet flat positioned centre stage, which represents walls with doors and windows. It’s decorated with pastel wall swags in relief which looks strikingly pretty.

Her costumes are good too – firmly in period with the men in gorgeously colourful velvet breeches and elaborate 18^th century beehive wigs which make them look ridiculous even before they disguise themselves as lustful Albanians. It’s a pity that Kitty Whately’s dress is quite so frumpy but it’s a small point. She is so convincing as Dorabella that I soon stopped noticing it.

In many ways the real star of this show is Dane Lam who works musical miracles in the pit. A highly charismatic, left-handed, word-mouthing conductor, he ensures that not a nuance in the music is missed. We hear every bassoon and clarinet solo with clarity, for example. And I liked the work of both timpanist, Scott Bywater using hard sticks and of Stuart Wild who plays the harpsichord continuo with delightful responsiveness. The latter makes the recit passages sound as it they really are simply conversations.

Susan Elkin

Temple Church Choir, London, 24 May 2018

Temple Church, with its lofty fan faulting and intricate stained glass glinting in the early evening sunshine, is a magnificent setting for a concert. And this performance of Haydn’s colourful masterpiece, sung in English, certainly did it justice – in memory of Jonathan Hirst QC who died last year and whose chambers, Brick Court, sponsored the event.

Temple Choir, which has in recent years made quite a name for itself, is authentically male with 12 choir men and 18 choir boys. They were ably accompanied by Outcry Ensemble whose string work is commendably crisp. It’s an unusual idea to place the timps at the back of the choir so that the singers acted as a muffler but it worked.

Roger Sayer, director of Temple Music, has a real passion for detail and the clear, revealing acoustic of the building allows him to fulfil it. From the first bar of the introductory Representation of Chaos, he ensured that we heard every note from every instrument. Later he and his musicians had such fun with Haydn’s witty sound  effects that the audience chuckled aloud at the “flexible tiger” and the stress on “long” and the evocative bottom E for the worm sung by bass, Jimmy Holliday. Another lovely moment was Holliday’s rendering of the descending fourths in Rolling in Foaming Billows with the flute weaving underneath.

Tenor Guy Cutting sang with lyrical warmth and terrific dynamic control especially in “In Native Worth and Honour Clad” and soprano Augusta Hebbert was  delightful in part three when she and Holliday sang their section as Adam and Eve with sparkling smiles to remind us that this is a freshly minted young couple in love. Their voices blended well because each singer was totally attuned to the other.

There was some fine singing from the choir too. Sayer clearly has a terrific rapport with them, conducting without baton and mouthing words. I particularly admired the way they did the Spacious Firmament fugue with energy that lasted right to the end and included a magnificent crescendo. It’s a testing sing for any choir and more often than not flags long before the last note.

Given the effort which had clearly gone into one of the finest – and certainly the most sensitively dramatic –  renderings I’ve ever heard of The Creation, it’s a pity they didn’t hire a harpsichord. Of course Greg Morris played the recit passages more than competently on piano but it sounded far too plummy for music of this period. It didn’t spoil it because everything else was so beautifully done but it would have been even better with harpsichord.

Susan Elkin

Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury and touring

Prokofiev’s lush score – with all its minor key melody and those evocative rhythms – dates from 1946 and part of it was written during World War II. Matthew Bourne’s idea of setting it in the London Blitz therefore makes sense, and the “Ball” in the Café de Paris – which was bombed on 8 March, 1941 – is beautiful, poignant and apt. And there are some lovely conceits, such as Cinderella (Ashley Shaw in the performance I saw) being whisked off to the dance by her angel (Liam Mower) on a white motorbike and sidecar. There’s a cinema framing device with lots of Pathe news footage too which works a treat.

This production, which has been around for a while, is currently touring nationwide and Matthew Bourne did a post-show question and answer session for the first night Canterbury audience.

Shaw first appears as Cinderella, drab in grey and bespectacled at home with Alan Vincent, her wheelchair-bound father. Given that this character doesn’t dance other than with his arms it might have been appropriate to cast a wheelchair user which Vincent isn’t – an opportunity missed?

She is bullied by a stepmother (Anjali Mehra – strong) and a chorus of individually characterised step-siblings, each of them good value in the way they convey greasy nastiness. Then, of course, she is whizzed off the glitzy Café de Paris, despite having been denied her invitation, in glittering white. Cue for some lovely muscular dancing by the men and, then for some very engaging duet work between Cinderella and her “prince”, Harry the Pilot who is styled to look like John Cleese but who dances with verve.

Like all the best ballet performances it’s an ensemble piece. The real star is Bourne’s spiky, fluid, story-telling choreography. There is no point work so the dancing feels very natural –  effectively a movement based, Brechtian drama. There’s a splendid scene, for example, when Cinderella is in hospital and her family visit – moving as one round the screens which form doors, pecking menacingly like a flock of vultures. The tiny visual subplot in which a pair of gay men fall for each other is nice too.

The second (but not by much) best thing in this show are Lez Brotherston’s stunning designs for sets and costumes. Most of the clothes are black, white and grey with filmy, flowing 1940s dresses for the women and various sorts of uniform for the men.  He provides a spacious family room at the beginning, a very convincing café de Paris amongst bombed buildings followed by shocking devastation at the end of Act 2. And we even get Paddington station and a rather good train.

This is the sort of show which could, I think attract new audiences to dance productions. Without a tutu or pair of tights in sight it feels much more like a moving piece of musical theatre than a “classical” ballet. Bravo!

Susan Elkin

The Mote Hall, Maidstone, 19 May 2018

An all-Russian evening to end the season – and what a splendid season it has been as Peter Colman rightly notes, with an equally exciting programme in view for the autumn.

The evening opened on familiar ground with Tchaikovsky’s overture Romeo and Juliet. In his introductory remarks – always a welcome start to the evening – conductor Brian Wright had noted that the royal wedding was not in view when the programme was planned and he hoped that the outcome for the royal couple would be somewhat better than that for Shakespeare’s lovers.

The overture opened with a brooding tension which was held throughout, the emotional outpouring coming with all the intensity of snarling brass and rasping woodwind.

Prokofiev’s third piano concerto linked in quite well with the emotional power very much in evidence. Pianist Martin James Bartlett may have had an injury to his thumb but there was no evidence of this is the quality of his playing or the staccato, percussive attack he brought to his reading. The occasional romantic reflections become all the more effective in the midst of such challenging attacks on our senses. His encore, a gentle piece of Schumann, was all the more moving in the light of the contrast to the Prokofiev.

After the interval Shostakovich’s First Symphony sat comfortably within this company. Its tongue-in-cheek opening movements were very well structured, with a strong sense of line and pace. Then came the bleakness of the third movement with its fine opening oboe solo and developing sense of depression. If the finale tries to overcome this darkness it only does so by fits and starts, and Brian Wright’s approach left us wondering just how enthusiastic we should be about the bombast of the finale. For a student piece, this is amazing and makes us eager to hear how Shostakovich develops this near schizophrenic approach to composition in the later symphonies.

The new season opens on Saturday 13 October with familiar works by Britten and Mussorgsky, and Shostakovich cello concerto no1 with Michael Petrov. Season tickets now available and individual concerts at www.mso.org.uk

Sunday 13 May 2018

Many of the supportive audience waiting attentively in the sharp acoustic Worthing’s assembly hall had been following the competition all week. So by the time it reached the Grand Final on Sunday afternoon it was very much a case of “Now sits expectation in the air”.

Three fine soloists played three (different) concertos with the somewhat pared down Worthing Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Gibbons who is also the director of the competition which launched in 2010.

The orchestra did well although it’s a big ask to accompany Tchaikovsky’s First Piano concerto with only three desks of first violins, three of seconds and two each of cellos and violas. B flat minor is hard work for string players at the best of times and when numbers are so low it becomes even more of a strain. Moreover the acoustic of the hall means that brass and timps can sound too loud especially for listeners in the gallery and when strings are relatively thin. These are passing observations though, rather than gripes. In general Gibbons and his orchestra accompanied the competing soloists with warmth, commitment and panache.

First up was Rhythmie Wong from Hong Kong playing Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor. Petite and very young looking she played the creamily romantic piece with poised stillness. She brought neat dynamic control especially in the first movement with its passages of rippling 6/8 and in the dancing lyricism of the finale. And it was reassuring to see Gibbons beating the bars during Wong’s middle movement cadenza which she played with so much  rubato that I would certainly have got lost. Good to know that professionals, potentially at least, have the same problem.

Then came Russian Sofya Bugayan with the Tchaikovsky. It is, of course, a magnificent old war horse but that makes it harder to bring off because almost everyone listening knows it. This performance had some fine moments – a very exciting alla breve in the first movement for example and some commendably precise pizzicato work. And Bugayan’s passionate interpretation of the middle movement was impressive. It’s a pity thought that some of the tempi were misjudged which meant that sometimes Bugayan was falling over herself at high speed. In a piece this well known wrong notes show.

The afternoon concluded with Yi-Yang Chen from Taiwan who played Beethoven’s fourth. Totally engaged with orchestra, conductor and audience he played the concerto as if it were chamber music,  alertly and intensively looking up and looking round continually. The first movement was, unfashionably, slightly under the tempo set by Beethoven’s metronome markings which allowed us all to revel in the detail such as the horn interjections, flute passages, bassoon colour and all the rest of it. And Chen, throughout, was totally at one with the orchestra. Rarely have I heard a performance which made it quite so clear that Beethoven is rejecting classical conventions and finding a highly expressive romantic voice. That’s what Chen, young as he is, wanted us to hear and we did.

Gibbons is clearly very accomplished at supporting young, relatively inexperienced soloists. With Chen, who visibly feels every note of the music, it felt much more of an equal partnership

At the end of the concert and the competition my money was firmly on Chen to win. Happily the judges agreed with me and he was, after an interval for them to confer, declared the overall winner of the 2018 Sussex International Piano Competition. He receives a £5,000 cash prize and the opportunity to make a recording at Champs Hill. The audience must have approved too because he also won the Audience Prize.

Susan Elkin

Royal Festival Hall 24^th April 2018 

Having been thwarted by adverse weather conditions for the last recital it was especially good to be back in the Royal Festival Hall for this occasion.

William Whitehead’s programme contained items that may be regarded as Bach- inspired as well as just a little from the master himself.

A wonderful example of the ‘fantastic style’ of his teacher Buxtehude, Nicolaus Bruhns’ Praeludium in E minor  opened the preceedings with flair as loud florid outbursts contrasted with more contained introspective moments. This served as an excellent introduction to a short but key section of the evening’s recital.

William Whitehead has been curating The Orgelbuchlein Project, which is now almost complete. A number of composers have been approached to produce their own treatments of the planned for but never completed remaining chorales of Bach’s book. Two of Bach’s short chorale settings were played between premieres of Errollyn Wallen’s Ach, was ist doch unser Leben?, Kalevi Aho’s Herr Gott, erhalt uns fur und fur and Thierry Escaich’s Gott Vater, der du deine Sonn. The composer of the first of these was present with us for the performance. The widely diverging styles and the contrast with Bach’s settings made for a very special listening experience, emphasising the ongoing tradition of composers throughout the centuries adapting and re-working these carriers of the Christian faith.

Two movements from Schumann’s 6 Fugues on the name BACH followed and Parry’s Fantasia & Fugue in G brought the first half to a close in grand style.

The second half contained just one work – another large scale Fantasia & Fugue –  on ‘Ad nos, ad salutarem undam’. This tour de force was followed up with a beautifully contrasting encore –  Elegy by Parry, freshly rediscovered and about to be published.

A well-constructed and engaging programme, played with apparent ease and made all the more approachable by the occasional controlled introductions and explanations by Mr Whitehead – a feature I have often hoped for at these concerts. Humorous mention was also made about the lack of the organist’s “catwalk” – an earlier staging malfunction necessitating the evening’s performer to make a shorter (and easier) entrance from console level.

The next concert in this series opens the 2018/19 season with Stephen Cleobury and other musicians in a programme of Howells & Vierne on Wednesday 19^th September.

Stephen Page