Monthly Archives: June 2017

Puccini: La Rondine

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Investec Opera Holland Park

The opening performance in OHP’s 2017 – and in its lavishly refurbed premises – is energetic, enjoyable and colourful. Director Martin Lloyd-Evans makes interesting use of the very long (almost traverse), split level playing space and there’s a vibrant sound coming out of the pit under Matthew Kofi Waldren. The occasional acoustic awkwardness and time lag caused by having, for example, the horns a very long way from the percussion is more than compensated for by delightful attention to the detail in Puccini’s richly orchestrated score.

 

Puccini’s 1917 opera tells the story of Magda, a classy girl whose comforts have mostly been earned on her back, attracting and falling in love with a decent man who doesn’t realise what she is – cue for much angst, eventually on both sides and no chance of a happy ending. The title – the swallow in Italian – presumably refers to her flitting from man to man and disappearing at the end.

Design by takis places us firmly in the 1950s with candy coloured full skirted frocks, a rather beautiful pastel green drawing room and lots of suits and smoking place us firmly in the 1950s. And when we move to a bar/nightclub/salon of doubtful repute in Act 2, the all cast waltz is choreographed (movement director: Steve Elias) as a big jiving sequence which is good fun and very effective.

The night belongs, though to Elizabeth Llewellyn as Magda and Matteo Lippi as Ruggero. Llewellyn has a voice like best dark chocolate in the lower register and crystal clear water in the upper. She achieves an impressive variation of tone and packs in huge amounts of immaculately acted emotion. Her reading aloud of the letter from Ruggero’s mother in the third act is a good example of impassioned excitement mixed with horror. It is a very fine performance indeed.

Lippi blends with her well, also conveying well sung passion and, in the end distress. This may not be Madame Butterfly, Turandot or La Boheme but there are still some very melodious passages and Lippi and Llewellyn treat us to some magnificent duets.

A good start to the season, then, and I was one of hundreds of women who were openly impressed by the new lavatories. Thanks, Opera Holland Park and your sponsor Investec.

Susan Elkin

English National Opera’s award-winning Orchestra and Chorus present The Dream of Gerontius, conducted by Simone Young

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Saturday 1 July at 7.30pm and Sunday 2 July at 3pm at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall

English National Opera is proud to present a unique and visually striking version of one of Britain’s most-loved pieces of music. Two performances of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius will take place as part of Southbank Centre’s Chorus festival.

With richly evocative design by the award-winning Lucy Carter, three of the UK’s most acclaimed singers will present an emotionally-charged rendition of John Henry Newman’s poem. Soloists Gwyn Hughes Jones, Patricia Bardon and Matthew Rose join ENO’s Olivier Award-winning Chorus and Orchestra, the BBC Singers, and Australian conductor Simone Young, who leads the ENO Chorus and Orchestra for the first time.

Elgar’s choral masterpiece The Dream of Gerontius tells the story of the passage of the soul of a dying man as he passes into the next world. One of the most popular choral pieces nationwide, this performance gives the rare opportunity to see it staged with design to match the sweeping power of the music.

Lucy Carter has been praised for her work in lighting design across theatre, ballet and opera, notably winning the 2015 Knight of Illumination Award for her work on the Royal Ballet’s Woolf Works. She received wide acclaim for her ‘beautifully nuanced’ (Time Out) lighting for 2016’s Oil at the Almeida Theatre and now brings her vision to Elgar’s oratorio. She comments:

‘The concept for the visual world of this performance is to create an immersive experience that heightens the emotional textures of the music with a light energy, creating visceral lighting environments that the audience feel and hear as well as see. It draws on religious imagery and symbolism connected to the themes of Elgar’s epic oratorio, and uses the idea of light as an elemental, evocative and ultimately cleansing force.’

The title role is taken by Welsh tenor Gwyn Hughes Jones. A singer frequently seen on the ENO stage, he was recently described as ‘everything you could want’ (The Times) for his Cavaradossi in 2016’s Tosca. His other performances for ENO include Walther in 2015’s Mastersingers of Nuremberg (a role he reprised earlier this year for the Royal Opera House) and Don Alvaro in 2015’s The Force of Destiny.

Irish mezzo-soprano Patricia Bardon sings the Angel. The youngest-ever prize-winner of the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, she was much admired for her ‘magnificently sung’ (What’s On Stage) Arsace in 2017’s Partenope at ENO as well as her 2014 performances in The Gospel According to the Other Mary.

Bass Matthew Rose sings the dual role of Priest/Angel of Agony. Most recently seen with ENO as King Mark in Tristan and Isolde in an ‘impeccably sung’ (The Daily Telegraph) performance, he has sung this role on multiple occasions, including earlier this year at the Musikverein in Vienna.

Conducting the ENO Chorus and Orchestra will be Simone Young, former Intendant of the Hamburg State Opera and General Music Director of the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, and before that Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of Opera Australia. Multi-award winning, including the Goethe Medal and the Brahms Prize, she is known as ‘one of the world’s most in-demand conductors’ (Sydney Morning Herald). This marks her first time performing with the ENO Orchestra and Chorus.