Monthly Archives: May 2017

Ellen Kent: La boheme

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White Rock Theatre, Monday 8th May 2017

Although Hastings is reasonably close to London it is still something of an effort to attend professional opera in the capital; all the more reason then to welcome touring productions to the White Rock Theatre. Ellen Kent’s company has been touring familiar productions of even more familiar operas for a quarter of a century now and brought La boheme last week.

The presentation was something of a curate’s egg. The orchestral playing under Nicolae Dohotaru was excellent throughout, with the balance and impact always carefully handled and tempi strong enough to maintain the narrative flow. In the conversational sections of the work, which Puccini handles with great skill, the interplay of characters was often convincing but there was a problem with the more familiar arias. To take examples in the first act alone. Vitalii Liskovetskyi may not be an accomplished actor but conveyed the potential innocence of Rodolfo and his naivety towards women with some skill in the opening scene. However, when he came to Che gelida manina he turned up the volume and hurled the aria straight at the audience. The same was true of the final moments of the act. Where Puccini asks his lovers to leave the stage, floating their final notes into the closing night, here they remained centre stage and gave us the full force of their large voices without any subtlety.

Olga Perrier’s personable Musetta suffered in the same way. Her interaction with Iurie Gisca’s convincing Marcello was somewhat spoilt when she played Quando m’en vo straight to the audience as if the crowd on stage did not exist. While the chorus may have had little rehearsal their lack of interaction with the rest of the cast was very noticeable even though they sang convincingly.

The staging itself has certainly seen better days, and there was little sense of place in any of the acts. If it is still being set in the 1830s, why do we see the Eiffel Tower in the second act which was not built until 60 years later?

A little positive attention to detail and a better understanding of the size and acoustic in the White Rock would have resulted in a far more satisfying evening. If this was somebody’s first introduction to opera it may have simply confirmed all their fears.

 

GARSINGTON OPERA ANNOUNCES 2018 SEASON

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In 2018 Garsington Opera will present the world premiere of The Skating Rink by leading British composer David Sawer with a libretto by award-winning playwright Rory Mullarkey.  This new commission is based on the short novel by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño; Stewart Laing will direct and Garry Walker (The Cunning Little Vixen, 2014) conducts.

The Philharmonia Orchestra joins for Verdi’s Falstaff with Henry Waddington making his debut in the title role.  Richard Farnes will conduct and Bruno Ravella (Intermezzo, 2015) directs.

Garsington Opera’s first collaboration with Santa Fe Opera features Strauss’s Capriccio with Miah Persson as the Countess.  Tim Albery (Idomeneo, 2016) directs with Douglas Boyd, Artistic Director of Garsington Opera, conducting.

A new production of The Magic Flute opens the seven week season on 31 May with Christian Curnyn conducting and Netia Jones directing, both making their Garsington Opera debuts.

Brighton Festival: Monteverdi – the other Vespers

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I Fagiolini, Glyndebourne, Sunday 7 May 2017

Robert Hollingworth made some very interesting comments before the performance commenced. While these vespers are not as well-known as the regularly performed Vespers of 1610 they are, nevertheless, a complete liturgical recreation of Vespers of the period. As such he pointed out that we were involved in an act of worship just as much as if we were in a church or cathedral, and requested that we did not applaud until the end of each half.

His remarks raise a number of fascinating theological points which lay outside the remit of this review but reflect on the continuing, and wide scale, interest in religious music at a time when the believe systems which they support have been widely rejected. Few churches mounting these vespers liturgically would get anything like the response we saw at Glyndebourne yesterday. But then of course few churches can provide the sort of frisson which we got from I Fagiolini and the English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble.

The Vespers are built around five psalm settings, a hymn, the Magnificat and the final Salve Regina. The Antiphons before each psalm were chanted but their liturgically necessary repeats were replaced – as was conventional in the seventeenth century – by instrumental versions of the text. Consequently, while the majority of the vocal items were by Monteverdi, we heard a Canzon by Viadana, a Sonata for solo violin by Uccellini – which brought the only spontaneous applause of the evening – a Toccata by Frescobaldi and a final sonata by Usper for cornetts and organ. All immaculately played and highly sensuous. In fact it was this tactile quality which seemed to inform the whole event. There was a latent eroticism to many moments of Monteverdi’s settings and a richness to Gabrielli’s Magnificat of 1615 which seemed to surpass any simply liturgical need.

The final Salve Regina was spine-tingling in its impact. A solo tenor and lute, crystal clarity of text and line, melting into silence.

I Fagiolini will be performing the other vespers across the rest of the year – details on www.ifagiolini.com

 

Bexhill Choral Society

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De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, Saturday 6 May 017

Messiah in May? We have become accustomed to Christmas and Easter outings for Handel’s masterpiece so it was refreshing to encounter it at the start of summer. Moreover, we were in the more opulent acoustic of the De La Warr Pavilion rather than the ecclesiastical surroundings of St Augustine’s. All of the early presentations of Messiah were in theatres as the operatic nature of the composition was deemed far too irreligious for church performance, and Kenneth Roberts brought a dramatic intensity to his reading which helped keep the narrative moving rapidly.

The loss of the first eight rows also helped the impact of the performance, placing singers and musicians in the same room as the audience, with the soloists effectively in the centre of the space rather than isolated at the far end. Having heard many concerts here where the chorus was almost inaudible at the back of the stage this was a real advantage.

It also allowed for a greater dynamic range, with orchestral pps in the repeat section of the Overture and the Pastoral Symphony particularly effective in the hushed string playing. The lack of rehearsal time which plagues all performances these days was evident at the opening of Surely where Kenneth Roberts had to stamp his authority to get the tempi he needed and it was to the credit of all that they responded so rapidly and professionally.

Choral singing was crisp and responsive throughout, with clear articulation of the text and very tight rhythms. And He shall purify, Behold the Lamb of God and All we like sheep were particularly clear in attack and clarity of part singing.

The soloists were very exposed but given the quality of the singing this was never a problem. Andrew Mackenzie-Wicks is a dramatic tenor who combines fluid coloratura with a rich tonal palette. The contrast between Comfort ye and Thou shalt break them was thrilling. Peter Grevatt found a Georgian sense of conviction for The trumpet shall sound with Andy Gill in splendid form on solo trumpet.

Fae Evelyn brought beauty of tone to the soprano arias though as yet she has difficulty breathing through Handel’s long lines. Phillipa Thomas was a lighter voiced mezzo than we often hear in Handel but it was good to encounter a female voice here in an age dominated by counter-tenors. Her sensitivity carried well.

We are used today to technology and take it for granted. When it goes wrong everything stops, as happened just before For behold, darkness when all the lights went out, and returned to flash like distant lightning. Handel’s candlelit hall in Dublin would never have had that problem!

Bexhill Choral Society return to St Augustine’s on 7 October with works by Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Purcell and Albinoni.

 

 

 

Hastings Philharmonic

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Hastings Philharmonic is producing  a keynote concert which shows off its full professional orchestra to best effect. The concert of Beethoven and Brahms are at St Mary in the Castle on Saturday 20 May at 7pm. In addition to Beethoven’s Egmont overture and Brahms’ 2nd Symphony, the concert features a rare choral, orchestral and piano piece by Beethoven which was a precursor to his ninth (choral) symphony.

Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy Op 80 was composed late in 1808 as a concert finale that incorporated elements of several works from an extraordinary concert. The concert included premieres of some of Beethoven’s finest works: Beethoven presented for the first time his 6th (Pastoral) Symphony,his 4th Piano Concerto in G major (with Beethoven himself as soloist), the 5th Symphony, ‘Ah Perfido’, ‘Gloria’   and ‘Sanctus’ (from his C major mass); Beethoven played the piano part himself in the first part of the Fantasy for piano, chorus and orchestra and it ended triumphantly.

Far from being a slick affair, the Choral Fantasy’s composition and performance is thought to have been a last minute concoction, but it served as a precursor to Beethoven’s Choral Symphony No.9; Beethoven had not written a score for the piano solo at the beginning and extemporised at the premiere on 22 December 1808 in Vienna. Improvisation was not unusual and even expected of virtuoso musicians in Beethoven’s time. Consequently the actual piano score now used owes something to a reworking nearly a hundred years later by the famous late 19th century pianist Xaver Scharwenka.  The concert made Beethoven more famous than ever and proved his greatness after a less than well received Fidelio put on earlier that year had dashed his hopes .

Beethoven’s pupil, Carl Czerny, wrote that the Symphony in c minor (his 5th) was meant to conclude the concert but to delay this important symphony to the end would have lessened its impact after so many other worthy new pieces. According to Czerny,  Beethoven felt this and, at the last minute, wrote a separate finale.  He chose a song that he had composed many years before, sketched out a few variations, the chorus, etc, and the poet Kuffner was commissioned to write a choral text.  The result was the Choral Fantasy, Op. 80.

The first two thirds of the work is a somewhat unusual concert piece for piano solo and orchestra; it begins with an expansive solo passage almost as if it were a piano sonata.Then the orchestra joins in and only later does the chorus enter with some melodic elements of “Ode to Joy” – which was  to be completed as the Choral Symphony some 15 years later.

Although not a poet of Schiller’s stature, Christoph Kuffner’s poem used for the Fantasy  bears the hallmarks of many Age of Enlightenment writings and the post-revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. Beethoven’s possible membership of the freemasons is still a very controversial topic, but the case for his being one is based partly on the statement by his later personal secretary and admirer, musician Karl Holz, that he had been a mason but was inactive in later life.

 
Roger Cotte in his book La Musique Maçonnique suggests that Beethoven’s Fantasia Op 80 was indeed a masonic work describing it as a ‘veritable symphonic poem on initiation of the first degree’. Cotte suggests that the unusual structure of this piece reflects a masonic initiation ceremony: it starts with the initiate standing in darkness represented by the long piano introduction. As the initiates are unveiled, the interaction between orchestra and piano represents the question and answer phase, while a horns, oboe and piano passage concludes the unveiling and leads to the choral climax.  The choral jubilation was, according to Cotte, steeped in masonic symbolism both in words and music with the text ‘When love and strength are united, the favour of God rewards man’ being closely associated with the masonic concept of moving from Dark to Light, and a c minor-major progression of the music being evocative of a leap towards joy.

One of the highlights of the concert is Brahms’ great 2nd Symphony which should be a delight coming from the full romantic Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra  The concert at St Mary in the Castle also includes Beethoven’s Egmont overture, music set for Goethe’s ‘Sturm und Drang’ drama which was dripping in revolutionary ideals of the late eighteenth century.  Goethe’s membership as a mason was fully documented.

Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra play Brahms 2nd Symphony, Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy and the Egmont Overture at St Mary in the Castle, 7 Pelham Crescent, Hastings TN34 3AF on Saturday 20 May at 7pm. Tickets £22.50, £17.50 and £10 (under 16s)