Brighton Dome, 8 October, 2017

Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto is a bit out of fashion – apart from, maybe, at Raymond Gubbay concerts. I haven’t heard a live performance for several years but it’s a gorgeous old warhorse and it was a real treat to hear it in the opening concert of Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra’s 93^rd season.

And what a performance from young Romanian soloist, Alexandra Dariescu who sat at the centre of it like a full-skirted silver fairy. She worked her way colourfully though all those contrasts in the first movement from lyrical to passionate and from thunderous to whispering. She and conductor, Barry Wordsworth achieved a delightful balance in the mini-duets in the second movement with flute, oboe, cello and horn. The elegant delicacy in Dariescu’s playing is quite special.

The concerto was the substantial meat in the sandwich which gave us Schumann’s overture Genoveva (yes, new to me too and, I gather to most of the orchestra) at the beginning and Brahms’s third symphony at the end.

The nicely played Schumann included a long – very Schumannesque – slow introduction with lush strings before dancing away into a syncopated fortissimo section with nifty work from lower strings and some tuneful interjections and fanfares from brass and woodwind all leading to a satisfyingly resounding conclusion.

Wordsworth and the BPO gave us an enjoyable, workmanlike account of the Brahms. Especially noteworthy were the lovely brass and woodwind solos and the cello led 3/4 melody at the opening of the third movement.

Sue Elkin

London Coliseum, Thursday 5 October 2017

Thirty years old, and it looks as fresh as the first day it was staged, such is the marvel of Jonathan Miller’s The Barber of Seville. Much of this is due to the approach which keeps the work strictly within its historical framework and allows the singers the do what they do best – sing for us.

The evening is certainly not without its genuinely comic moments, but it is the singers, who really understand the characters, being encouraged to explore Rossini’s masterpiece for themselves that carries the evening. Many of them are familiar to us having been in the previous revival in 2015, most notably Morgan Pearse as Figaro. His sense of confidence and the bravura he brings to the music sweep all before him. Alan Opie, Miller’s original Figaro thirty years ago, returns as Dr Bartolo, and brings an unexpected depth of character as well as a finely nuanced musical performance.

Eleazar Rodriguez returns as Almaviva, more confident now than he seemed two years ago, and the top of the voice in splendid form.

The real newcomer to this production is Sarah Tynan as Rosina, though she is no stranger to ENO. Her sense of humour and the fluid coloratura made for a captivating performance throughout.

In the pit Hilary Griffiths was making his ENO debut, but the sparkle he achieved from the orchestra makes one hope he will return soon.

There must be a limit to how many more times this production will be revived but for the moment it does not seem to be anywhere near the end of its working life.

The Kings Head Theatre,  2 October 2017

Puccini’s 1887 masterpiece was, of course, meant for the big stage, initially at Theatre de la Porte at St Martin in Paris but, 140 years later, it really does work in an intimate, almost televisual space too.

The Kings Head theatre, Islington, London’s first modern times pub theatre and open since 1970, accommodates this bijoux, two hour, four hander version very naturally. We – just over a hundred of us – are seated in the round and some of the action spills into the audience space. The rough brick walls and subterranean atmosphere (although actually the venue’s at street level) intensifies the drama. This production, which sets the action in Paris under the Nazis, is in very accessible, modern English by Becca Marriott who sings Tosca and Adam Spreadbury Maher who also directs.

There is top notch work from Michael Georgiou as Scarpia (role sharing with Przemyslaw Baranek at other performances). He is depicted as a plain clothes, senior Nazi. He is good looking, reasonable, plausible and ruthless – with a fine baritone voice – as he sends Cavaradain, also known as Marius, to torture and tries to trick Tosca into having sex with him.  In the act 2 scene in which she sings Vissi d’arte (with terrific passion and beautiful vocal control), translated here as “Love and music are all I live for”, he circles her, touching and tasting her. It’s rivetingly revolting and theatrically very effective. Georgiou is an actor who can communicate simply by twitching his lips.

Becca Marriott has an intensely expressive face and brings real depth to the hapless Tosca. Roger Paterson (role sharing with Martin Lindau) finds plenty of range in the tenor Marius although I found his voice practical and accurate rather than attractive. Thomas Isherwood, on the other hand, as Jacob Cohen and as Scarpia’s side kick (the only role which is not shared) has a splendid bass voice which resonates with great power in this tiny space – especially when he’s in duet with Georgiou. He too is a strong actor, particularly as the terrified Cohen.

All in all it’s a well thought out, scaled down take on a familiar piece. And it’s fascinating to hear Pucinni’s big score successfully arranged for a three piece orchestra: piano, clarinet/bass clarinet and cello. Between them these three instruments catch every musical nuance.

This Tosca is part of an opera tradition at The Kings Head although, in a sense, it will be the last because Kings Head Theatre is moving out of the pub into nearby purpose built premises next year. Meanwhile its 2016 production of La Boheme is to be revived at Trafalgar Studios from 6 December 2017 to 6 January 2018.

London Coliseum, Thursday 28 September 2017

Aida lends itself to spectacle and the sort of vast theatricality of open air arenas, but at its heart is an intimate love triangle, and it is this reality which Phelim McDermott’s new production draws on. In many ways it is a very old-fashioned approach, the soloists often down-stage singing straight out, caught in a single follow-spot. When the scene opens out, Tom Pye’s settings are weighty and powerful but never specifically Egyptian, moving us away from the tourist view to an imagined world of ritual within which individual needs suffer. The two temple scenes are particularly impressive, the off-stage priestess here very much in view and the misty depths of Act 3 finely caught.

Within this world, the protagonists have more freedom than usual to find subtlety in the text. In this Latonia Moore is particularly impressive as Aida. The voice is large and at times genuinely thrilling, yet she is able to suggest the pain and inner sensitivity of the character. O patria mia was wonderfully expressive and the real joy of the final scene completely convincing. She was well partnered by Gwyn Hughes Jones in heroic voice throughout as Radames and looking the part of the Commander. His shock and capitulation in Act 3 was moving and completely convincing.

Michelle DeYoung seemed uncomfortable as Amneris and was the only soloist who seemed to have come in from another production. The voice was not fully focused at the start, though she was not helped by a costume that made her look like a cocoon. Where the rest of the cast were easily able to sing with dramatic impact directly to the audience, she appeared often to be giving a recital, and the final scene lost some of its impact because of her. It will be interesting to see if Dana Beth Miller later in the series has a more profound impact.

The rest of the cast were drawn from strength with Matthew Best an imposing King, Musa Ngqungwana a fierce Amonasro, and Robert Winslade Anderson – standing in at short notice – a particularly impressive Ramphis. The chorus were on superb form, sounding like double their number which often happens in Aida. The dancers/actors of Improbable were used tactfully across the evening, adding colourful choreography to the temple scenes and unexpected militarism to the triumph scene – which on this occasion became a celebration for dead heroes, and effective for being different to expectations.

A scene from Aida by Verdi @ London Coliseum. An English National Opera production. Conducted by Keri-Lynn Wilson. Directed by Phelim McDermott. (Opening 28-09-17) ©Tristram Kenton 09-17 (3 Raveley Street, LONDON NW5 2HX TEL 0207 267 5550 Mob 07973 617 355)email: tristram@tristramkenton.com

Keri-Lynn Wilson conducted with considerable panache, her sensitivity towards the introspective scenes particularly impressive, and her sense of the sweep of the narrative always under control.

This was a fine start to the new season and a number of new brooms in evidence. Let us hope it continues that way.

Royal Albert Hall, Friday 8 September 2017

As always on the penultimate night of the world’s biggest classical music festival, the atmosphere in the Royal Albert Hall was up several notches as the capacity audience settled down and the Vienna Philharmonic filed in.

Michael Tilson Thomas (how like the fondly remembered Otto Klemperer he begins to look – same sort of charisma too) made sure we heard lush precision in Brahms’ Variations on the St Anthony Chorale. The woodwind section players were almost dancing by the time we got to the vivace in Variation 5. It’s a fine work to begin a concert with because the score (not that TilsonThomas was using one) provides so much for everyone to do. It’s almost as much of showcase for instruments as is Britten’s Variations and Fugue on a theme of Purcell aka TheYoung Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.

Then, the orchestra was slimmed down for Mozart’s piano concerto No 14 in E flat major, K449. Written in 1784 in Vienna this elegant, if shortish, work is an apt choice for a VPO concert although it isn’t one of Mozart’s most familiar concerti. Emmanuel Ax was an unshowy soloist who played Mozart’s own cadenzas with authority and lightness of touch. The dialogue between piano and orchestra, especially in the andantino middle movement was nicely balanced and it’s good to see Ax so engaged with the orchestra that he was virtually conducting from his piano stool when he wasn’t playing himself.

The advertised part of this fine concert ended with Beethoven’s Symphony No 7, as glorious and joyful as ever. Tilson Thomas’s interpretation, however, is more grandiose than frothy. His tempi, in the first three movements are gentle. He spares us those ultra-fashionable Norrington-esque hurtles in pursuit of Beethoven’s original metromome markings. The result? You could hear every delightful detail in the texture including lots of fine flute work, strong contrast between brass interjections and  woodwind rejoinders  along with the rich, but spirited string sound for which the VPO is famous. He gave us plenty of speed and lots of the prescribed brio in the allegro to round off a pretty splendid account of a popular work which manages never to sound hackneyed. I do wonder, though, about the wisdom of lining up horns and trumpets, five big steps above the strings. It means they can see and be seem, obviously. But it also means that you can hear their parts so clearly it’s as if you’re reading their music and sometimes it’s obtrusive rather than blended into the sound.

Tilson Thomas introduced the encore On Hearing the first Cuckoo in Spring as “a piece you will all know very well” – a hint that he, an American, and the VPO do not. In fact I discovered afterwards that the orchestra had never played it before. Well of course Delius is a long way from Brahms, Mozart and Beethoven in terms of both time and place but the VPO played it with tender respect and it was a fitting end to a most enjoyable concert.

Lovely to see the VPO in London again, by the way. This time I counted seven women players: four second violins, one first violin and two cellos. Things are gradually equalising but they still have a way to go. I’m sure there are plenty of eager, talented female brass and woodwind players in Austria and elsewhere just waiting for a break …

SE

I heard the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra on their home turf in Amsterdam in June so it was a real treat to catch them on their first Proms outing since 2009, only a few weeks later – this time with their chief conductor, Daniel Gatti – and the choice of programme, definitely not mainstream, was interesting too. Wolfgang Rihm, born 1952, and Anton Bruckner are not obvious bedfellows but in combination they provided quite a showcase for this fine orchestra.

Like most people in the hall, I was hearing Rihm’s In-Schrift (loosely translated as Inscription), premiered in 1995, for the first time. It requires a chamber size orchestra without upper strings but includes six percussionists and six trombones, two of them bass trombones. The starring role belongs to the percussionists who at one point lead a magnificent quasi-cadenza on five side drums. Mesmerised by the sheer excitement of it, I was also glad that I didn’t have to count for the entries in such an episodic work full of tempo changes. I was almost relieved to see Gatti counting the bars with his fingers for the percussionists as they reached the turning point in their big moment. There’s a lot of finely nuanced dialogue in this piece as it works through its many moods and tensions. The principal flute, who led the orchestra for this piece, for example, has a lot of interplay with trombones, woodblocks and tubular bells (5 sets). If you want drama in music, there was no shortage of it here.

After an interval to digest the impact of the Rihm, we were back to a more conventionally configured full orchestra, although Gatti splits his violins and puts his double basses behind the firsts. Bruckner’s unfinished ninth symphony in D minor (homage to Beethoven, he said) is not one of his best known works. Written at the very end of his life, it feels like an autobiographical retrospective which works well in three movements – two slow ones sandwiching a contrasting scherzo and trio.  Gatti, who conducted this without a score, coaxed a sound from the orchestra which managed to be both crisp (those repeated chopping down bows in the middle movement) and velvety with a pleasingly warm brass sound, suitably plangent in the first movement and like melted chocolate in the adagio. Clearly a charismatic musician, Gatti sometimes beats time clearly and at others reduces his hand movement to a minimalist, understated twitch. He is, presumably, communicating with his eyes which, of course, the audience can’t see. At 65 minutes this is a very long, concentrated work and although Gatti ensured that it held the attention and was pretty moving, it might have been better to have cut some of the repeats, especially the one at the opening of the third movement.

Susan Elkin