Daily Archives: 24 May, 2015

Garsington Opera on Screen

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Garsington Opera’s 2015 production of Così fan tutte will have free screenings in three coastal communities Louth (5 July), Grimsby (29 Sept) and Ramsgate (Oct), as well as in Oxford (2 July) and Waddesdon (3 September).  Their 2014 production of Offenbach’s Vert-Vert will also be screened at Marlow Festival (14 June).

These free public screenings, together with extensive education projects, are part of the Garsington Opera for All programme, set up by Magna Vitae and the Coastal Communities Alliance after a successful bid made in the autumn to Arts Council England.

Garsington Opera for All  will work with secondary and primary schools for a week in each area where the film will be screened.   Each project will see the young people developing their own short opera based on the themes of Così fan tutte, devising and composing their own production and their residency will end in a performance to the school. All the participants will come to the screening of the opera.  On the day of the opera screening Garsington Opera will work with up to 40 adults from the community to learn and explore themes on Così fan tutte, to produce a 5-10 minute promenade performance.

Garsington Opera’s production of Così fan tutte features international star Lesley Garrett in the role of Despina, Romanian soprano Andreea Soare (making her UK debut)and Kathryn Rudge in the roles of Fiordiligi and Dorabella.  The award-winning Irish tenor Robin Tritschler (Ferrando) and Ashley Riches (Guglielmo), a former Jette Parker Young Artist, allow themselves to be drawn into the intrigues of their cynical friend Don Alfonso, sung by Welsh bass-baritone Neal Davies, who persuades them to put the love of their fiancées to the test. Garsington Opera Artistic Director Douglas Boydconducts, John Fulljames, Associate Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House directs and Dick Bird designs.

SCREENING DETAILS

MARLOW                  Sunday 14 June 7.30pm        Marlow Festival Enclosure

OXFORD                   Sunday 2 July 6pm                 Magdalen College Fields

LOUTH                       Sunday 5 July 1.30pm            SO Festival, Westgate Fields

GRIMSBY                   Tuesday 29 Sept 12noon        Grimsby Auditorium

WADDESDON           Thursday 3 September           Waddesdon Manor

RAMSGATE              October                                   Ramsgate Arts

Brighton Festival:

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Janacek & Shostakovich

Halle Orchestra, Brighton Festival Chorus, Mark Elder

Saturday 23 May, 2015

mark elder

Janacek gives us such life and vitality in his scores they can hardly fail to leave an audience uplifted. When these are combined with the enthusiasm and joy of Shostakovich’s Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and Strings, we are bound to leave feeling better.

The Halle opened with the Suite from The Cunning Little Vixen where the warmth and sweetness of the score was allowed to glow within the ambience of the concert hall rather than being restricted to the opera pit. Mark Elder kept the pace firmly in hand so that the softer moments never tipped over into sentimentality but there was never any sense of the academic to the playing.

I first encountered Shostakovich’s concerto when I worked, almost half a century ago, for a ballet company where we had a work set to it called Attitude Greque. It was as tongue in cheek as the score itself and always a favourite. Pianist Benjamin Grosvenor was joined by the Halle’s first trumpet Gareth Small for an exhilarating romp through the score which shows the composer at his most relaxed. The combination really should not work but it does because of the sustained invention of the musical line and the insistence that we do not take it too seriously. The slow movement was beautifully phrased and gave way to a riotous conclusion. All perfectly conceived and delivered.

The Glagolitic Mass is deceptive. Though Janacek was an atheist the work comes across as emotionally more convincing than many settings from committed believers. There is an urgency, a fervour, to the score which was beautifully captured by all involved, particularly the incisive choral singing and the strident tessitura of tenor Peter Berger. Darius Battiwalla was the organist for the extended impassioned organ solo towards the end of the work. The brass section was a delight throughout, producing raucous fanfares and ear-splitting power as required. in these hands the score seems at times to be almsot uncomfortably modern.

As the main classical offering of the Festival this year it was a fine evening, and appeared to be sold out with a queue waiting for returns. Perhaps there is a need for more?