English Touring Opera are delighted to announce a season of lyric monodramas to tour nationally from October to December. The season features music for solo singer and piano by Argento, Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich with a bold and inventive approach to making opera during social distancing.
This tenth of ten Live from London concerts was in fact a recorded live performance from California. It was no less enjoyable for that, and it was also uplifting to learn that this wasn’t in fact the ‘last’ LfL event that we will be able to enjoy, courtesy of VOCES8 and their fellow vocal ensembles (more below …).
Ever since Wigmore Hall announced their superb series of autumn concerts, all streamed live and available free of charge, I’d been looking forward to this song recital by Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper.
Although Stile Antico’s programme article for their Live from London recital introduced their selection from the many treasures of the English Renaissance in the context of the theological debates and upheavals of the Tudor and Elizabethan years, their performance was more evocative of private chamber music than of public liturgy.
Evidently, face masks don’t stifle appreciative “Bravo!”s. And, reducing audience numbers doesn’t lower the volume of such acclamations. For, the audience at Wigmore Hall gave soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn and pianist Simon Lepper a greatly deserved warm reception and hearty response following this lunchtime recital of late-Romantic song.
For this week’s Live from London vocal recital we moved from the home of VOCES8, St Anne and St Agnes in the City of London, to Kings Place, where The Sixteen - who have been associate artists at the venue for some time - presented a programme of music and words bound together by the theme of ‘reflection’.
'Such is your divine Disposation that both you excellently understand, and royally entertaine the Exercise of Musicke.’
‘And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven … that old serpent … Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.’
There was never any doubt that the fifth of the twelve Met Stars Live in Concert broadcasts was going to be a palpably intense and vivid event, as well as a musically stunning and theatrically enervating experience.
‘Love’ was the theme for this Live from London performance by Apollo5. Given the complexity and diversity of that human emotion, and Apollo5’s reputation for versatility and diverse repertoire, ranging from Renaissance choral music to jazz, from contemporary classical works to popular song, it was no surprise that their programme spanned 500 years and several musical styles.
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields have titled their autumn series of eight concerts - which are taking place at 5pm and 7.30pm on two Saturdays each month at their home venue in Trafalgar Square, and being filmed for streaming the following Thursday - ‘re:connect’.
The London Symphony Orchestra opened their Autumn 2020 season with a homage to Oliver Knussen, who died at the age of 66 in July 2018. The programme traced a national musical lineage through the twentieth century, from Britten to Knussen, on to Mark-Anthony Turnage, and entwining the LSO and Rattle too.
With the Live from London digital vocal festival entering the second half of the series, the festival’s host, VOCES8, returned to their home at St Annes and St Agnes in the City of London to present a sequence of ‘Choral Dances’ - vocal music inspired by dance, embracing diverse genres from the Renaissance madrigal to swing jazz.
Just a few unison string wriggles from the opening of Mozart’s overture to Le nozze di Figaro are enough to make any opera-lover perch on the edge of their seat, in excited anticipation of the drama in music to come, so there could be no other curtain-raiser for this Gala Concert at the Royal Opera House, the latest instalment from ‘their House’ to ‘our houses’.
"Before the ending of the day, creator of all things, we pray that, with your accustomed mercy, you may watch over us."
The doors at The Metropolitan Opera will not open to live audiences until 2021 at the earliest, and the likelihood of normal operatic life resuming in cities around the world looks but a distant dream at present. But, while we may not be invited from our homes into the opera house for some time yet, with its free daily screenings of past productions and its pay-per-view Met Stars Live in Concert series, the Met continues to bring opera into our homes.
Music-making at this year’s Grange Festival Opera may have fallen silent in June and July, but the country house and extensive grounds of The Grange provided an ideal setting for a weekend of twelve specially conceived ‘promenade’ performances encompassing music and dance.
There’s a “slide of harmony” and “all the bones leave your body at that moment and you collapse to the floor, it’s so extraordinary.”
“Music for a while, shall all your cares beguile.”
The hum of bees rising from myriad scented blooms; gentle strains of birdsong; the cheerful chatter of picnickers beside a still lake; decorous thwacks of leather on willow; song and music floating through the warm evening air.
Once again, George Frederick Handel’s old stamping ground of St. George’s Hanover Square, London, resounded last night to the sound of his music as aspiring young singers from all over the world fought out the Final of the London Handel Singing Competition.
Year on year the competition’s status has grown and this was reflected last night in both the quality of the singing, and the quantity of audience there to listen – the place was packed with keen Handelians of all ages, music agents, directors and critics. Some sixty original young performers had started out on the audition and knock-out rounds, so the final six singing last night had made it through against considerable opposition and it showed. What was perhaps most interesting of all was perusing the contestant’s resumés and noting that two came from Australia, one from South Africa, one from Portugal and one from Eire.
As with all competitions, what the judges are looking for is not always what is appreciated most by the audience, but at least the London Handel one acknowledges this with both 1st and 2nd prizes and also an Audience Prize, given to the singer who gains the most votes in a quick-fire ballot taken immediately after the singing stops. Last night overall victory went to the only baritone singing, Derek Welton, the possessor of a fine, robust instrument who concentrated his fire on shorter oratorio and anthem pieces, with only one excerpt from an opera. His singing was focused and exact and technically very secure, his wider experience showing, even if he was rather wooden in his character portrayals. At the other end of the male vocal scale, and receiving the 2nd prize, was the countertenor Christopher Ainslie who conversely concentrated on Handel’s great arias for castrato from Serse, Orlando and Tamerlano. His rather elegantly “English” voice, although slightly covered at times, was complemented by a pleasing stage presence and flair for interpretation. For the ladies, it came as no surprise when the Audience Prize was bestowed on the charming Irish soprano, Anna Devin. Her strong interpretive skills were matched by a strong, secure technique and beautiful vocal tone and she shone in her two arias from Alcina and Giulio Cesare.
The losing competitors had nothing to be ashamed of – they all sang with credit and commitment and with great promise for the future: Gilliam Ramm, Joana Seara, sopranos and Julia Riley, mezzo-soprano. The first named had a big voice, perhaps lacking a little in Handelian style but impressive nevertheless, Seara from Portugal sang with delightful delicacy and precision, without too much power however, and Riley seemed to suffer a little from nerves and a rather odd choice of repertoire in her first items which hardly showed her voice off as they might. Her final aria from Ariodante showed glimpses of what she may be capable of in time.
As usual all the young singers were accompanied by the very supportive and elegant London Handel Orchestra, guided by Laurence Cummings.
© Sue Loder 2007