Royal Albert Hall, 12 August 2017

It is Thomas Dausgaard’s extraordinary control over dynamics that I shall remember most about this concert. In the Schubert he had the upper strings whispering so softly that they were hardly there which made those punctuating sforzandos all the more dramatic. At the end of the Mahler the sound simply died away, while 5000 people waited, breath held, for the baton to drop (and it was a long time) despite the earlier inappropriate applause at the end of powerfully moving movements in both works.

It is an inspired programming idea to give us a pair of unfinished (arguably valedictory) symphonies composed 90 years apart. Here the Schubert stood gloriously self contained in its two movements – both in triple time with all that familiar B minor melancholy. Dausgaard has a knack of really making you listen (to the cello opening and the anguish in the second movement for example) with the results that this performance sounded delightfully fresh. Even the slight raggedness in the syncopated theme in the first movement was only a momentary distraction.

The Mahler, in contrast, was presented here as completed by Deryck Cooke and a team of three others as it almost always is. This version was first played at the Proms in 1964 and this was its seventh performance there. The opening adagio (pretty much pure Mahler) with its unusual gift to violas at the start gave Dausgaard plenty of scope to squeeze out every drop of dynamic contrast although sadly, when the music is as quiet as that one becomes more conscious of audience noise and fidgeting. Both scherzos and the playful but doom laden Purgatorio added to the sense of Mahler’s anguish – when this symphony was drafted he was both dying and dealing with his wife’s infidelity. This felt like an authentically autobiographical performance and a poignant one.

The high spot of Mahler 10 is, of course, the moment when the second scherzo, the fourth movement, gives way to the finale. Dausgaard, who described the music in this symphony as “transcendental” in conversation with Sean Raffery on Radio 3’s in Tune last week, really leaned on  those extraordinary resonant silences which lurk menacingly in the dialogue between bass drum and tuba. Yes, we were suddenly a very long way from the Schubert we’d heard an hour earlier.

Congratulations to the BBC Scottish Symphony orchestra for all of this. The Mahler, in particular, is an exhausting work to play but there was never any sense of dipping energy levels. Rather the playing (Charlotte Ashton’s long flute solo in the Mahler, for instance) was always fine and often exciting. If this is the quality they can achieve with their new chief conductor then I look forward to more.

SE

Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen

Parvo Jarvi

Vilde Frang (violin)

Lawrence Power (viola)

This was a concert which grew in scale as it proceeded. We began with a small string orchestra for Erkki-Sven Tuur’s Flamma, augmented to a chamber orchestra for Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante and finally to a full symphony orchestra for Brahms second symphony. It meant that some players were twiddling their thumbs back stage until after the interval but it also provided a show case for the versatility of this energetic orchestra – there’s so much body movement from players that it’s hard to sit still as you watch although Parvo Jarvi is a relatively unshowy conductor.

The Mozart was the high spot. It’s a real pleasure to hear this glorious, joyful work live with a pair of highly charismatic soloists. I have no idea how well Frang and Power know each other or how much they’ve worked together in the past but they communicate in musically flirtatious twinkles, leaning in towards each other with lots of smiles. At times, especially in the presto, it was like watching a dance. Neither is standoffish and both clearly see themselves as ensemble chamber musicians, often gently playing along with the orchestra. Power is an emphatic player with curiously expressive bouncy knees. The sound blend of their two instruments in the beautiful andante movement is something to treasure.

It is, however, their encore which most attenders at that concert will remember. Both clearly good actors who enjoy a joke they swapped instruments and then proceeded to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star very badly. Power on Frang’s fiddle gradually ran away with the tune until Frang, in mock exasperation, snatched his bow. Then they played Mozart’s showpiece variations with witty aplomb – all great fun.

At the front end of the programme sandwich, the UK premiere of Flamma by Estonian Erkki-Sven Tuur, was full of nicely executed climbing motifs and glissandi along with lots of busily difficult cross string work. Premiered in Canberra in 2011 the piece was inspired by the Australian experience of fire.

And finally to Brahms 2; a cheerful upbeat work after the angst of the first symphony, as the composer himself said. I enjoyed the freshness of the sound which comes from Jarvi’s splitting first and second violins by putting violas and cellos in the middle – with basses behind the firsts and timpanist in the body of the orchestra. In an understated but quite vibrant performance, Jarvi calmly allows the dynamics to stress the drama, especially in the Allegro con spirito fourth movement with its very soft fidgety string passages contrasted with big Brahmsian melodies.

SE

Of course I’ve heard many performances of Verdi’s Requiem and I’ve lost count of the times I’ve sung (alto) in the chorus for amateur attempts. Never, though, have I heard or felt it delivered with such heartfelt passion as in this memorial for Opera Holland Park employee, Debbie Lamprell, who died in nearby Grenfell Tower in June. Every one involved in the performance including two conductors (who swapped before the Offertorio), City of London Sinfonia, all the singers and a huge front of house team had given their services in order to raise funds for the Rugby Portobello Trust which is supporting Grenfell Tower victims.

In many ways, this really is Verdi’s greatest opera. Atheist he was but he certainly understood emotion wherever it springs from. The Lacrymosa (conducted here by Peter Robinson) is a terrific B flat minor dialogue between the woodwind and mezzo. Yvonne Howard who has the clarety richness of an old fashioned contralto in the lower registers squeezed every drop of feeling out of those sexy chromatic shifts.

Anne Sophie-Duprels (who sang the title role in Opera Holland Park’s Zaza this season) started Libera Me in a restrained, understated way – clearly a deliberate decision because she builds it to a terrific climax.

Neal Cooper is very actorly singer to watch and I suspect he’s more at home in opera than oratorio. He throws himself, face screwed up, somewhat disconcertingly into every note although the sound is good especially when he reaches the pianissimo of “Salva me” in the Rex Tremendae movement with all its contrasts and mood shifts.

Bass Barnaby Rea makes a lovely edge-of-your-seat start on the dramatic “Mors” passage in the Tuba Mirum. It’s marked pp but he does it at an even lower dynamic which gives a sense of death creeping in insidiously – and totally appropriately for this particular event. On the other had he sings the rest of his part so gently that it felt more like a rehearsal sing-through than a performance which mean that he was, often , overpowered by the other three when he shouldn’t be.

The chorus sang with immaculate precision, power and control. Many OHP principals and guest artists were included and that really showed.

Full marks too to City of London Sinfonia who played magnificently. There’s something about the layout and acoustic of Opera Holland Park (and the direction of Peter Robinson and Sian Edwards) which allows you to hear aspects of Verdi’s orchestration which usually get muddied away.  There was some delightful, very audible, work in this performance, for example, from principal flute Alison Hayhurst and timpanist Tristan Fry. And what an inspired idea to place the offstage trumpets at the back of the auditorium for Tuba Mirum – total immersion in the last trumpet and the day of judgement.

A note in the programme, signed by Opera Holland Park’s directors James Clutton and Michael Volpe “and the staff and trustees of Investec Opera Holland Park” declares: “We can think of no better way for commemorate the victims or to express our feelings than to make music”. They are right.

Royal Albert Hall, Saturday 29 July 2017

Imaginative programming meant there were three contrasting styles from three different centuries in this vibrant concert. All credit to the BBC too for investing in an expensive modern work (The Greatest Happiness Principle by David Sawer) which requires seven percussionists, harp, masses of brass and extra strings most of whom were not required in the rest of the programme. It would have been more economical to pair it with, say, a Mahler symphony but more original and probably more enlightening to hear it before Haydn.

The evening began with a thoughtful rendering of Brahms’s First Piano Concerto with its compelling D minor melancholy and mood swings. Stephen Hough gave a highly accomplished performance including a sumptuously lyrical middle movement.  Both grandiloquent Brahms piano concerti are effectively big symphonies with a piano part. It was interesting, therefore to see Hough turning respectfully away from the audience and piano whenever he wasn’t playing to watch Mark Wigglesworth and the orchestra of which he evidently regards himself as part. He’s a totally unprima-donna-ish team player.  It took Wigglesworth a while to get the orchestra into overdrive – the strings sounded hesitant in the first movement’s exposed pianissimo passages – but they played  with panache once warmed up.

The 1997 Sawer piece is a rhythmic and unexpectedly melodius exploration of symmetry inspired by Jeremy Bentham’s design for a new prison at Milbank where Tate Britain now stands. Wigglesworth and the BBC Philharmonic had a lot of fun with all that percussion and repeated phrases with lots of colourful variation. And, of course, David Sawer was the only one of the three composers who was bodily present in the hall – the others were there only in spirit.

And so to reduced forces and Haydn’s 99^th symphony. In this perky work Wigglesworth established a fine balance between tempi and dynamics to allow all the orchestral detail to shine smilingly through. He gave us a crisp and witty first movement, a minuet which really danced into the trio and caught most of the audience by exaggerating that typical Haydn joke – the false ending.

SE

Garsington Opera at Wormsley, Sunday 30 July 2017

Community operas have a very different dynamic from conventional stagings and Roxanna Panufnik makes the most of these in her new work Silver Birch which was given three performances at Wormsley last weekend with a cast of 180. The use of large choral forces was much in evidence but they are split across three convincingly naturalistic groups. While the narrative line brings together the realities of the trauma of war – an excellent libretto from Jessica Duchen – it moves seamlessly between Siegried Sassoon and the war in Iraq. Jack’s story is reflected in the massed reactions of the general public, the army itself and a large body of school children.

Jessica Duchen does not flinch from the painful realities of the effects of war. Jack is genuinely traumatised by his time under fire, and though to the crowd back home he is a hero, his emotional life – fragile at the best of times – is destroyed. We are given a bleak insight into his family relationships and the destructive power of his callous father. One of the few dubious moments in the whole evening is the attempted reconciliation of father and son at the end.

Much of the evening is given over to choral scenes which are staged with exemplary clarity and discipline by Karen Gillingham. While individual characters emerge from the mass across the wide stage there is never any point at which the focus of attention is lost. The energy the younger members bring to the stage is extraordinary – whether they are the soldiers PE routines or the primary children singing Soldier, Soldier.

The opening scene reminded me of the start of Porgy and Bess. A real community of real people – and lots of them – which we suddenly realise is growing and developing before our eyes. If the narrative focusses down eventually onto Jack – a splendid characterisation from Sam Furness and very moving – it is the seeming lack of understanding from the community as a whole which impinges. This is never more true than in the school scene where his brother Leo gets into trouble, reading Jack’s copy of Siegfried Sassoon, because of the traumatic disruption Jack’s joining the army has caused. It is not just soldiers who are hurt by war but all of us.

Roxanna Panufnik writes bold passionate choruses, often easily lyrical but never simplistic or overtly popular. While easy to take in on a first hearing, there is more than enough here to make me wish there were a way of adapting the whole for different forces. This was a magnificent undertaking for all concerned – not least Douglas Boyd and his extended orchestra – and let us hope something more long lasting will come out of it.

Prom 14- Ralph Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 9 in E Minor & Gustav Holst’s The Planets performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Wilson at the Royal Albert Hall, on Tuesday 25 July 2017.
Photo by Mark Allan

Tuesday 25 July 2017

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

CBSO Youth Chorus

John Wilson

It’s a quirky but rather lovely idea for a Scottish orchestra to play two works by quintessentially English composers. The 5,000 people who packed the Royal Albert Hall to the gunwhales for this concert had clearly – and wisely – left politics, devolution, referenda and the rest at the door.

Vaughan Williams’s 1958 ninth and last symphony is a valedictory work in soulful E minor. It bears all the usual RVW hallmarks such as lush lyrical string passages in the second movement, the strident crunchy brass chords and, of course, reluctance to stick to the same time signature for more than a line or two.  Leader Laura Samuel made something pretty special of the The Lark Ascending-like violin solo and, in a spirited rendering, Wilson carefully emphasised the contrasts in texture and rhythm. He also made sure we sensed the finality and gravitas of the ending – this is a composer very close to the end of his life.

The symphony requires quite large forces which is another reason for its pairing well with The Planets. A few extra players arrived after the interval to complete the double brass and six-strong percussion section, but not that many. And then we were in for a real treat. Familiarity does not detract from the wonder of this spell-binding work played here with incisive warmth and exemplary textual accuracy. From the busy, mysterious, relentless 5|4 of Mars to the magic of the CBSO youth chorus tucked away on the top balcony (chorus master: Julian Wilkins) for remote, mystical Neptune, this was a riveting performance.  Wilson’s take on Uranus is exaggerated and comical – the man next to me (another critic, I think) actually laughed at the organ flourish. And I was much more aware in this performance than I usually am that Mercury is another name for quicksilver – the precise mood Wilson coaxes from the orchestra. The ending was the thing I shall long remember about this concert, though, as the top notes from the choir gradually silenced the orchestra. I’ve rarely head it done with such control or been so acutely aware of 5,000 people listening intently.

Another positive thing about this concert incidentally, in a week when we’ve heard an awful lot about gender imbalance in the media and the arts, is to see women so well represented in almost every section of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Bravo. SE

This accomplished revival of Leoncavallo’s 1900 opera makes you wonder why it isn’t performed more often. It was entirely new to me – hitherto my acquaintance with Leoncavallo stopped at Pagliacci. I found it a piece full of harmonic lushness, imaginatively witty orchestration and a great deal of 3|4 and 6|8. It also has what musical theatre people call a strong “book”. The words are by Leoncavallo too and they tell a powerful story of an actress with a past who falls deeply in love with a man she later discovers to be married. There is nothing remotely fantastical or fey about any of it. The composer’s intention was to explore just how far the grittiness of real life could be presented through opera.

At the heart of this production, directed by Marie Lambert, is a stunning performance by Anne Sophie Duprels as Zaza. It’s a massive role – and a plum part  – and she is rarely off stage in two and a half hours. Looking like a young Imelda Staunton, Duprels finds warmth, passion, despair, affection, anguish, regret and much more. Her singing and acting are immaculately nuanced and sustained.

As the two men in her life Joel Montero (tenor) as Milo and Richard Burkhard (baritone) as Cascart create triangular tension. Montero sings with charismatic appeal – the man (and we’ve all met him!) who thinks he’s entitled to have his cake and eat it regardless of anyone else’s feelings. Burkhard’s Cascart, former lover now friend, counsels, advises and supports her with gravitas and a pleasingly commanding voice.

Among the support roles there’s incisive work from Ellie Edmonds as the pregnant Natalia, Zaza’s dresser and confidante. Louise Winter is both funny and mildly moving as Zaza’s mother who also has a chequered past.

Designing a set for Holland Park’s very wide space must always be a challenge but Alyson Cummins has come up trumps for this production. In the first half of this four act opera Zaza’s dressing room is centre stage while the stage right space gives us a sideways view of the comedy club show which proceeds continuously. Stage left is occupied by Natalia’s costume store where she sits and knits (for the baby?) when she’s not with Zaza and over it is a walkway meant to suggest the way in and out of the building. It’s very ingenious use of space although the later boring, projected Eiffel Tower to suggest Paris looked as if the budget had run out after Acts 1 and 2.

City of London Sinfonia, meanwhile, does an enjoyable job under Peter Robinson’s baton in Holland Park’s shallow pit which means all players are on view and double bass scrolls sit four feet over the footlights. The advantage is acoustic, though. Orchestral detail is crystal clear – Deborah Davis’s piccolo interjections for example, some delightfully evocative horn work and some pleasing solos from leader Gabrielle Painter.

Opera Holland Park, July 2017

This concise, passionate piece comes with echoes of both Chekhov and Ibsen – somewhere between The Seagull and A Doll’s House. Based on a mid-nineteenth century Russian play and inspired by Janacek’s late flowering love for a much younger woman, it is written with mature, if not always subtle, musical skill – that fortissimo timpani roll at the moment of sexual ecstasy for instance –  and, in this production, conductor Sian Edwards ensures that every nuance is brought out.

As always at Opera Holland Park the playing area is so wide that it’s almost transverse theatre except that the audience is all on one side. Designer Yannis Thavoris has used it pragmatically, with a pseudo river, complete with the ubiquitous reeds, winding across the space and a semi circular mini stage to represent indoors in various forms – I won’t dwell on the fact that in its first incarnation the latter reminded me of a trampoline guard. It was effective thereafter.

Kat’a (Julia Sporsen) is a married woman with an unexciting husband (Nicky Spence) and an appalling mother-in-law (Anne Mason). In her husband’s absence she falls in love with Boris (Peter Hoare) and of course – this is opera – it can’t end happily.

Sporsen and Hoare work pleasingly together and each brings out the raw longing, regret, guilt and all the rest of it with some impressive solo singing and duet work. The symbolic flying movement as they lift all four of their arms to create a sense of togetherness (with a nod at the old slang implications of “flying”) underpins the singing rather cleverly too. Amongst the supporting roles Paul Curievici as Kudrjas stands out as does Clare Presland’s Varvara.

The chorus is a strange beast in this production though. The score gives them very little singing but, since they have to be in the building, director Oliver Fuchs uses them a lot in other ways to provide a sense of bustling crowd scenes, people walking by the river or observing the action. The trouble is that there are 32 of them and the lay out of OHP’s stage means that it takes a long time to get that number of people on and into position for what are often very short scenes – the whole laborious concept is far too fussy. Full marks, thought, for their beautiful, elegant Downton Abbey-esque costumes – in brown, terracotta, amber, burgundy and orange; like warm old bricks.

Kat’a Kabanova doesn’t  seem to get as many outings these days as Cunning Little Vixen or Jenufa and that’s a pity because it’s an interesting piece worth exploring. Well done Opera Holland Park for the usual imaginative programming.