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.
The Sixteen continues its exploration of Henry Purcell’s Welcome Songs for Charles II. As with Robert King’s pioneering Purcell series begun over thirty years ago for Hyperion, Harry Christophers is recording two Welcome Songs per disc.
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.
In February this year, Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho made a highly lauded debut recital at Wigmore Hall - a concert which both celebrated Opera Rara’s 50th anniversary and honoured the career of the Italian soprano Rosina Storchio (1872-1945), the star of verismo who created the title roles in Leoncavallo’s La bohème and Zazà, Mascagni’s Lodoletta and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
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.
Collapsology. Or, perhaps we should use the French word ‘Collapsologie’ because this is a transdisciplinary idea pretty much advocated by a series of French theorists - and apparently, mostly French theorists. It in essence focuses on the imminent collapse of modern society and all its layers - a series of escalating crises on a global scale: environmental, economic, geopolitical, governmental; the list is extensive.
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.’
Amongst an avalanche of new Mahler recordings appearing at the moment (Das Lied von der Erde seems to be the most favoured, with three) this 1991 Mahler Second from the 2nd Kassel MahlerFest is one of the more interesting releases.
‘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.’
If there is one myth, it seems believed by some people today, that probably needs shattering it is that post-war recordings or performances of Wagner operas were always of exceptional quality. This 1949 Hamburg Tristan und Isolde is one of those recordings - though quite who is to blame for its many problems takes quite some unearthing.
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."
In 1726 on 25 August, Jacques-Vincent Languet, Comte de Gergy, the new French ambassador to the Venetian Republic held a celebration for the name day of King Louis XV of France. There was a new piece of music performed in the loggia at the foot of Languet's garden with an audience of diplomats and, watching from gondolas, Venetian nobles.
The work performed was almost certainly Vivaldi's serenata La Senna festeggiante RV693 (The Seine rejoicing), an occasional work for three soloists and orchestra which remains a relatively lesser known piece in Vivaldi's oeuvre.
Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo gave Vivaldi's La Senna festeggiante a rare London outing at the Wigmore Hall on Friday 5 April 2019 with soloists Emőke Baráth (soprano), Anna Reinhold (mezzo-soprano) and Callum Thorpe (bass). The piece sets a libretto by Domenico Lalli, a Venetian poet who had supplied the librettos for some of Vivaldi's operas, and it takes the personifications of L'Eta dell'Oro (the Golden Age), Virtu (manly valour) and the Seine. They moan about the state of the world today, are entertained by the singing and dancing of woodland deities and then, in the shorter second half, pay homage to 'the greatest star which is the light of Gaul', i.e. the 16 year old Louis.
Vivaldi seems to have supplied music which prized entertainment value above all, much of the piece is positively toe tapping with strong vibrant rhythms, and some fine showy arias. It is not the deepest of works, and you certainly do not have to look at the libretto. But in a performance as finely engaging as the one from Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo, there is much enjoyable charm in the music and moments of fine virtuosity. Whilst clearly Italian in style, Vivaldi paid nods to his hosts with elements of French music, most notably the way he uses orchestral accompanied recitatives (something common in French opera) rather than continuo accompanied ones, and the whole work ends with a grand Coro which is a Chaconne, a movement beloved of French composers, though the keen eared will detect links to a movement of Vivaldi's Gloria too, and indeed the whole work has a great element of re-use of material, but part of the charm is the way Vivaldi works it into a finely attractive whole.
We started with a crisp and bouncy Sinfonia, with a jolly bass part for the bassoon, something Vivaldi repeated in other movements, and a middle Andante with graceful flutes. Much of the music had the same delightfully perky bounce to it, with the musicians of Arcangelo taking great delight in making Vivaldi's writing vividly engaging.
As L'Eta dell'Oro, soprano Emőke Baráth had a lovely rich, focused soprano voice and a winning way with her, charming us with each entry and dashing of the ornamental passages with ease. She made the music seem delightful. Anna Reinhold as Virtu was a more sober performer, with a lovely well modulated dark-toned voice that we first heard in concert with graceful flutes. In the second half she had a striking aria where the elaborate vocal line was accompanied by a 'bass line' of just violins and harpsichord. Throughout, I was struck by the imagination which Vivaldi brought to the scoring.
As the embodiment of the river Seine, Callum Thorpe was suitably resonant and dark voiced, impressing with the sheer gravity of his sound yet also complementing the perky bounce of the accompaniment with a beautiful resonance.
The three singers came together for the Coro movements, particularly the delightful dance-inspired ending of part one and the chaconne at the end of the work where all concerned were clearly having great fun. So much so, that we were treated to an encore of the movement!
There was a great deal going on in London on 5 April 2019, not least of which was the performance of Semele by Vivaldi's great contemporary Handel at the Barbican. But for those interested in exploring some of the byways of the Baroque world, Jonathan Cohen, Arcangelo and the team gave us wonderful engaging account of a work which, whilst neither deep nor philosophical, certainly delighted and charmed.
Robert Hugill
Vivaldi: La Senna festeggiante RV693
Emőke Baráth (soprano), Anna Reinhold (mezzo-soprano), Callum Thorpe (bass), Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen
Wigmore Hall, London; 5th April 2019