30 Sep 2011
The music of Donnacha Dennehy
Love and Death is the name of one of Woody Allen’s earlier films, one built around parodies of Tolstoy and other Russian 19th century literary giants.
Recently in Reviews
Domingo Conducts Holdridge’s New Opera Dulce Rosa
Dulce Rosa, a brand new opera, had its world premiere Friday night, May 17, 2013 at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica, California. It was produced by Los Angeles Opera, but staged in the smaller theater.
Verdi’s Falstaff at Glyndebourne
Richard Jones’ 2009 production of Verdi’s Falstaff translates the action from the first Elizabethan age to the start of the second.
Gareth John, Wigmore Hall
Baritone Gareth John is rapidly accumulating a war-chest of honours. Winner of the 2013 Kathleen Ferrier Award, he recently won the Royal Academy of Music Patrons’ Award and was presented the Silver Medal by the Worshipful Company of Musicians.
La bohème at ENO
This second revival of Jonathan Miller’s La bohème was the first time I had caught the production.
Rolando Villazón: Verdi (International Opera Stars Series 2013)
It’s Verdi’s bicentenary year and Rolando Villazón has two new CDs to plug — titled somewhat confusingly, ‘Villazón: Verdi’ and ‘Villazón’s Verdi’, the latter a ‘personal selection’ of favourite numbers performed by stars of the past and present.
Brahms Third in San Francisco
Nicola Luisotti and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra climbed out of the War Memorial pit, braved the wind whipped bay and held spellbound an audience at Cal Performances’ Zellerbach Auditorium at UC Berkeley.
Ariane et Barbe-Bleue on Blu-Ray
Paul Dukas’ Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, first heard in 1907, once seemed important. Arturo Toscanini conducted the Met premiere in 1911 with Farrar and later arranged some of its music for a 1947 recording with his NBC Symphony.
Glyndebourne: Ariadne auf Naxos
Utterly mad but absolutely right — Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos started the Glyndebourne 2013 season with an explosion. Strauss could hardly have made his intentions more clear. Ariadne auf Naxos is not “about” Greek myth so much as a satire on art and the way art is made.
Wozzeck at ENO
“Man is an abyss. It makes one dizzy to look into it.” So utters Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck, repeating what was also a recurring motif in the playwright’s own letters.
Mulhouse: Rare Britten Well Done
National Opera Company of the Rhine has marked this year’s Benjamin Britten celebration with a remarkably compelling, often gripping new production of the seldom-seen Owen Wingrave.
Frankfurt's Intriguing Idomeneo
Once upon a time, Frankfurt Opera had the baddest ass reputation in Germany as “the” cutting edge producer of must-see opera.
Rigoletto at Lyric Opera of Chicago
Productions of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto can serve as a vehicle for individual singers to make a strong impression and become afterward associated with specific roles in the opera.
Britten Sinfonia with Ian Bostridge
Just in case we were not aware that the evening’s programme was ‘themed’, the Britten Sinfonia designed a visual accompaniment to their musical exploration of night, sleep and dreams.
Aida, Manitoba Opera
Poor Aida! She never seems to have anything go her way.
Superlative singing: Don Carlo, Royal Opera House
Is it possible to upstage Jonas Kaufmann? Kaufmann was brilliant in this Verdi Don Carlo at the Royal Opera House, London, but the rest of the cast was so good that he was but first among equals. Don Carlo is a vehicle for stars, but this time the stars were everyone on stage and in the pit. Even the solo arias, glorious as they are, grow organically out of perfect ensemble. This was a performance that brought out the true beauty of Verdi's music.
Sarah Connolly: French Song at Wigmore Hall
The big names were absent: Duparc, D’Indy, Debussy, Ravel … and while Fauré, Chausson, Roussel and several members of Les Six put in an appearance, in less than familiar guises, this survey of French song of the early 20th century and interwar years deliberately took us on a journey through infrequently travelled terrain.
Rare restoration: Handel’s Esther 1720
Composed between 1718 and 1720, Handel’s Esther is sometimes described as the ‘first English Oratorio’, but is in fact a hybrid form, mixing elements of oratorio, masque, pastoral and opera.
The Damnation of Faust, London
Hector Berlioz's légende dramatique, La Damnation de Faust, exists somewhere between cantata and opera. Berlioz's flexible attitude to dramatic form made the piece unworkable on the stages of early 19th century Paris and his music is so vivid that you wonder whether the piece needs staging at all.
Elizabeth Connell Memorial Concert, St John's Smith Square
St. John’s Smith Square was the site of Elizabeth Connell’s final London concert, intended as a farewell to London on her moving to Australia. It was rendered ultimately final by her unexpected death.
Aida with all the Trimmings, Even a Blue Silk Elephant!
With the building of the Suez Canal, Egypt became more interesting to Western Europeans. Khedive Ismail Pasha wanted a hymn by Verdi for the opening of a new opera house in Cairo, but the composer said he did not write occasional pieces.
OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »
Reviews
In Celtic, those words serve as the title of a major piece by the relatively young Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy (b. 1970). And that piece — Grá agus Bás — gives its title to the CD containing it and a song cycle set to the poetry of William Butler Yeats, called That the Night Come. Bob Simpson’s booklet essay for the Nonesuch release attributes to the composer the claim that the title piece is “in no sense a Nationalistic statement.” Indeed, despite the Irish folk music that serves as the inspiration for Grá agus Bás and the poetry of one of Ireland’s greatest authors forming the basis of That the Night Come, the Nonesuch CD doesn’t feel like a 21st century Irish travelogue in contemporary music form. Dennehy manages the tricky and admirable feat of creating music that, while definitely showing its influences, presents a strong and interesting personal profile.
The title piece is a very bold statement. About 25 minutes in length, Grá agus Bás features the vocalism of Iarla Ó Lionáird, a man who specializes in sean-nós, “old tradition” singing. This is full-voiced singing, within a rather limited range, in which wavering of pitch colors the sound, offering tints of yearning and eeriness. Dennehy maintains interest over the work’s span by varying the textures in seamless segments. At root, the accompanying Crash Ensemble performs a sort of kaleidoscope of minimalist gestures, but more of John Adams's style than, say, that of Philip Glass. This is to say, there are acerbic statements at times, and more of a subtly shifting static fabric than the endlessly looping arpeggios of Glass.
Nonesuch provides an English translation of the texts for Grá agus Bás (as well as the Yeats’ poems), but perhaps the best way to experience Grá agus Bás is to let the sound wash over one, imaging the changing weather playing across the sort of bleak but beautiful landscape seen in the packaging art.
Dawn Upshaw takes the vocal line in That the Night Come, but Dennehy’s lines bring touches of the sean-nós tradition, and Upshaw manages them very well. As ever, her enunciation is crystal clear, and though her soprano has noticeably darkened, it is still a very attractive presence. The six selections range from just over 3 minutes to about 9, and the Crash Ensemble’s support sometimes features percussion and electronic effects that show Dennehy’s familiarity with the better representatives of pop-rock music of the last two decades. Still, this is unmistakably art music — not aggressively challenging, but evocative and complex.
Without resorting to excessive claims, this is one recording of contemporary music that leaves a listener interested in hearing more from a composer. Donnacha Dennehy may not have intended a “nationalistic statement,” but Ireland has itself a major voice.
Chris Mullins