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.
![Michael Eder and Tom Martinsen [Photo by Jochen Quast]](http://www.operatoday.com/10__Sa%CC%88chsischer_Staatsopernchor__Michael_Eder__Tom_Martinsen_%E2%80%93_Foto_Mathis_der_Maler_%E2%80%93_Jochen_Quast.png)
While Pegida anti-refugee demonstrations have been taking place for a while now in Dresden, there was something noble about the Semperoper with its banners declaring all are welcome, listing Othello, the Turk, and the hedon Papageno as examples.
The political situation made the legendary opera house’s new production of Paul Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler (Matthew the Painter) all the more urgent. This intellectually stimulating, musically enthralling, and utterly exhausting experience, made for a rare, highly enriching and unforgettable trip.
Though a popular composer with the avant-garde youth in Germany during the interbellum, Hindemith’s eleven operas are nowadays rarely performed. You might recognize the opera’s title from the composer’s instrumental precursor Symphony: Mathis der Maler. For the opera, he wrote his own libretto. Instead of Acts, Hindemith structured his magnum opus in seven Bilder (paintings).
Inspired by a visit to Isenheim and the altarpiece of “The Temptation of St. Anthony” by painter Matthias Grünewald (1470-1528), Hindemith identified the Nazis’ artistic oppression of him with the painter’s struggle against the powers that be during the Great Peasants’ War--the largest uprising against the aristocracy before the French Revolution. Later, the Nazis would ban Mathis der Maler. Propaganda strategist Heinrich Goebbels declared Hindemith an “atonalen Geräuschemacher” (atonal noisemaker).
Annemarie Kremer and Markus Marquardt
With the scope of grand opera, Hindemith’s libretto nearly mythologizes the painter. Although the Cardinal protects him, Mathis joins the peasant cause and helps its leader Schwalb and his daughter Regina escape from religious persecution. Even though conflicted, Cardinal Albrecht is financially broke, so supports the wealthy. In the massive choral scenes, a book burning leads to a peasant uprising, then an aristocrat is publicly lynched, when the law ends the uprising with a public massacre.
There is also romance. Mathis has an unfulfilled love for the Protestant merchant Riedinger’s daughter Ursula, who must marry Cardinal Albrecht. They don’t, because Albrecht recognises her true convictions. After Schwalb’s death, Ursula ends up caring for the dying Regina. Mathis rejects Cardinal Albrecht’s offer for renewed protection. In the end, the painter bids farewell to all. The story and Hindemith’s industrious score make for consuming opera.
Director Jochen Biganzoli and set designer Andreas Wilkens successfully developed a concept that follows a reverse timeline of controversial 20th Century pieces of art in each of Hindemith’s Bilder. Roberto Longo, Roy Lichtenstein, Ernst Ludwig Richter, Claude Monet pass the revue. In Bild 6, Biganzoli critiques commercialisation of art in an over-the-top auction of Grünewald’s Altar.
There was a dark, sarcastic undertone that reminded of director/provocateur Calixto Bieito’s unsettling ambiences. Biganzoli portrays the powerful as corrupt, sinful hypocrites through Gestapo leather kink, and a philandering Cardinal. Also, during the peasant uprising, a body hangs dangling from his feet upside down over the stage till the scene ends. A bit too abrasive for my taste.
John Daszak and Markus Marquardt
The last piece is Hindemith’s own rejected opera. After a recording with Goebbels speaks out against (I assumed) Hindemith at the beginning of Bild 7, the final statement involves a stage with a missing orchestra. The topic hit close to home with the current lack of political support for orchestras. This felt particularly urgent concerning the EUYO.
Markus Marquardt triumphed in the technically demanding lead. He offered a human take of the womanizing heroic artist. With his first aria “Sonniges Land” Marquardt demonstrated his wide range and stamina. Such power! His conflicted duet with the fierce Kremer enflamed Bild 3. They produced the highlight of the evening in a battle of frustrated romance presented with refined agita and impossible stamina, resulting in exhilarating chemistry. In Bild 5, Kremer had another showstopper with Daszak. Utterly displeased with the Cardinal, Kremer fired up her voice matching Young’s orchestral intensity.
Herbert Lippert put down a decent Schwalb with a depth that generated a protective vibe. Emily Dorn distinguished Schwalb’s daughter Regina with a resilient vibrato that perforated the orchestra’s volume, while retaining a vulnerable, touching, and utterly virtuous presence.
Simone Young made her debut at Semperoper. She produced a muscular sound from the Dresden Staatskapelle. While Hindemith’s score contains drab passages, Young produced a relentless momentum. Sometimes her forte fortissimo conducting led to overpowering volume that occasionally eclipsed the vocals, though most of the time, the soloists fit in Young’s musical fold.
The Saxony State Opera Chorus Dresden proved an indispensable presence. Its epic intensity increased with each Bild. Perfectly prepared by Jörn Hinnerk Andresen with an undeniable vocal zeal, the choir moved through defeat, rage, and madness. Stamping and swaying, Sylvia Zygouris’ choir choreography gave an extra surge to their stage intensity.
This demanding production of Hindemith at the Semperoper should be commended for its audacity. This rarity must be brought back, because opera fanatics deserve to hear such an intelligent and provocative production of Hindemith’s masterpiece. Impressive how the Semperoper made such a big risk pay off.
David Pinedo