GSMD Ned Rorem Our Town

Ned Rorem's Our Town received its European premiere at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, last night.  Rorem is a prolific composer of vocal music, but has rarely ventured into opera, so Our Town is quite a scoop for GSMD. Ironically, some of the leading Rorem specialists in this country were associated with the Royal College of Music.

Our Town is based on the play by Thornton Wilder (1938) which pits the artifice of theatre with the reality of live performance. A Stage Manager (Stuart Laing) stands on the GSMD Theatre platform, interacting with the stage hands. The opera has already started though we in the audience haven't realized yet, for The Stage Manager is an interface between us and the performers.. It's a good device for later, the dead Emily Webb (Sky Ingram) will  go back in time and relive a day in her childhood. She interacts with her parents, but also carries the knowledge of what will happen to them in the future. Parallel realities. It's so unsettling that she returns to take her place among the dead in the cemetery,who observe mourners come and go with dispassionate detachment.

But first, we see George Gibbs (Alexandros Tsilogiannis), playing with schoolmates and falling in love with the girl next door (Emily, aged 16). The Stage Manager tells us about this small town, with its churches, drug store and neat rows of houses, similar to the one in the photo, perhaps, which shows Thorton Wilder and his family in 1900.  It's "Normalcy", as Warren Harding described America of this period., though even then, it was an idealization. It's so bland that the dramatic pace of the first act drags, unless you're familiar with the cultural context.  In the second and third acts, the narrative takes leave of convention and becomes far more involving.  But this orderliness is just a foil for the metaphysical goings-on. Although nostalgia is integral to the plot, Wilder insisted on absolute non-realism. Thus the stage at the Guildhall is almost bare. Performers mime activities. Stage hands run in and out .They're performers too, part of the strange blend of theatrical illusion and reality.

Like most of Rorem's music, the vocal lines are almost conversational, the orchestra (conductor: Clive Timms) providing atmosphere. Nice keyboard, adding a "period", drawing room feel. Singers don't get to sing much, since it wouldn't be right in this conformist society where there is "No culture" as Mr Webb the newspaperman (Ashley Riches) tells a questioner planted in the audience.  All they do is sing hymns. Towards the very end, though, the Stage Manager gets to sing gloriously long lines, so protacted that you start counting the bars. The whole opera pivots around Emily and George, but the closest Sky Ingram gets to elaborate singing is when she realizes she can never go back among the living. While they were "alive", the performers had to act. When they're "dead" they can sing properly again.  Short but excellent moments from Mrs Soames (Anna Starushkevych), Mrs Gibbs (Kathryn McAdam), and the Choirmaster Simon Stimson (Jorge Navarro-Colorado). Barnaby Rea  was Dr Gibbs and Emily Blanch was Mrs Webb, who don't die and sing as much.

Rorem's Our Town is good for students as it teaches singers how to act without relying solely on vocal technique. Actors can learn how music changes the way theatre works. Since large numbers of students can participate, everyone has something to do. Even skills like moving as an individual in a group are useful. One good example is when the alcoholic Choirmaster throws up in the choirstalls. Obviously there's no real vomit, he doesn't really throw up, but the actor closest  to the mess reacts, screwing up his nose at the smell, wiping his hands on the bench, after the action has moved back to the front of the stage. Most of the audience wouldn't notice, but this was very good acting indeed, completely natural. The Guildhall School of Music and Drama teaches theatre and music skills, but these are just as useful in other professions. If an actor can be so dedicated that he keeps in character even when no-one is watching (except me), he can be dedicated in any kind of work he does. Not everyone who graduates from GSMD ends up like Bryn Terfel, but many learn things that will serve them well whatever careers they choose.

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Lots more on Rorem on this site. If the idea of Rorem's Our Town appeals, you might like Laci Boldemann's 4 Epitaphs, These  are based on Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology (1915). Masters writes fictional epitaphs, each of which tells the story of the person supposedly buried beneath. Ollie McGee denounces her abusive husband. "In death, I am avenged". Sarah Brown tells her lover to tell her husband "There is no marriage in Heaven. But there is love".....Laci Boldemann (1921-69) gets straight to the point, expressing the "person" by inflections in phrasing and syntax, rather than through ornamentation. The songs feel like speech, just as you'd expect from gritty pioneer folk who don't mince words. Anne Sofie von Otter recorded them in 2009 - cult favourites!  Read more here.

How to do Oberon Britten Midsummer Night's Dream

Strange comments this week about GMSD's Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream at the Barbican on the role of Oberon. Surely those who write about music would know that Britten wrote the part for countertenor? If he had wanted to write the part for tenor he would have, particularly as he had one in house. But he deliberately wrote it for countertenor. Think why.

Oberon is the King of the Fairies and appears at night, after the "witching hour", when sleep releases the unconscious and dreams. Throughout the music, nocturnal sounds, creating shadowy images and magic. So Britten wants Oberon to sound ethereal, way above the normal register, floating like moonlight. Hence countertenor, the perfect voice for otherworldly mystery. Moreover, Oberon is not a nice person. He wants Puck for unspecified (possibly unsavoury) reasons and is prepared to do Tytania harm to get the boy away from her. What he does to his spouse amounts to abuse, even though it's "magic". So Oberon has to sound weird, cool and slightly sinister - it's what the role's about. That's exactly what Tom Verney did at the GSMD performance of A Midsummers Night's Dream. and good for him. READ FULL REVIEW HERE. The secret of judging and creating performance is knowing what the music does. This applies to all things, including  Rusalka, about which I'll write more soon.

Below is a clip from a version of MSND at the Liceu in Barcelona. It looks as if it was created by someone who really understands the music and the magic in the opera. Look at the image of the moon, representing nocturnal forces, dominating the dark set. The counter tenor is David Daniels - this is one of the great roles in the repertoire. How coolly and weirdly he sings!  The roccoco oscillations are part of the supernatural magic.  But words that count thus come out sharply cut and undecorated.  Despite the high register, he's masculine and physical, for Oberon is powerful and gets his way. But the last thing you want in the voice is butch and basso.  You're supposed to be unsettled by who Oberon really is. In the Liceu production, Oberon's hair and beard are green, for he's a nature spirit, like the Green Man.The director is Robert Carsen, who did the La Scala Don Giovanni and the Glyndebourne Rinaldo (both reviewed on this site, use search box)  On the basis of this short clip, I've ordered the DVD. Anyone interested in stagecraft and in Britten might want to do the same.

Poulenc Dialogue des Carmélites Guildhall

Dark, fractured shards shroud the stage at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for Francois Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites. The shards resemble broken glass, as if the audience is peering through a window that has been shattered.  For the French Revolution has shattered society: everything's being smashed, the convent, the aristocracy and innocent lives.  It's also a vivid metaphor, for Poulenc's edgy, angular music thrusts and cuts relentlessly. No easy lyricism here even if Poulenc's idiom is  easier on the ear than many other composers' might be, given such material. This production, directed by Stephen Barlow and designed by David Farley, is impressive because it's so musically astute.
Full review in Opera Today HERE.
Dialogues des Carmélites is an unusual opera because it unfolds as a series of disconnected tableaux, like the Stations of the Cross. This structure is significant, for Poulenc is connecting the nun's journey to the guillotine to Christ's journey to the cross. Poulenc further emphasizes the non-linear progression by writing expressive interludes which are almost as much part of the narrative as the text. In "normal" productions this subtlety can be lost. At the Guildhall, the shards close in, isolating the stage, so the audience is forced to pay attention to what's happening in the orchestra.  Simple inexpensive staging but extremely effective. I suspect they're just boards swathed in velour, but litt from above, the shards look like glass. Lit from behind, they resemble rocks. (lighting design : Declan Randall). The shards also hide the many scene changes, so momentum isn't wasted. A practical as well as an artistic solution to the musical demands of this remarkable opera. 

This is what good stagecraft should be, created around music and meaning. This isn't a typical opera because it's very direct and to the point. No decoration in the music, so no fussy effects on the stage. In the Final Act, the mob descends on the Place de la Révolution. The guillotine is shown only in the distance, hidden by the mob, who are dressed in shades of red. As the mob moves, the red  moves, like a stream of blood. No need to depict the executions - the image expresses so much. The nuns stand in a line confronting the audiernce. In real life they'd hardly be wearing immaculate vestments, but spiritually they're already among the angels, as one by one, each nun is picked out by spotlight. At last the shards are vanquished, like the barbarism they depict. Sister Blanche of the Agony of Christ is shown alone in a moment of glory, transfigured with light.

This production is so good it could be transferred to a much bigger, higher-budget house and still be astounding. Since the Guildhall also teaches stagecraft, it means that the students will be learning their business from good hands. Even singers and musicians benefit, because by taking part, they're  learning how intelligent, musically-informed staging is made. A useful skill now that audio only recordings no longer dominate the industry and opera is once again appreciated as all-round drama.

It's a pleasure to watch how the GSMD students respond. For a change, they're acting very well, for Barlow's good at directing people. Very natural movement, often closely co-ordinated with musical detail. Nicely blocked crowd scenes, concentrated when needed (as in the mob), diffuse when the nuns feel isolated in their travail. The nuns are treated like individuals, which is what they are, despite the regimention of the Carmel.  Principals are well cast too - it's good to hear familiar voices get good exposure.

The role of Blanche in Dialogues des Carmélites is interesting, because Poulenc isn't explicit but hints at worrying traits of neurosis and self-delusion. Something's very not right about a girl who screams at the butler's shadow and causes her brother such anguish. Nowadays such girls wouldn't be accepted into the novitiate. Whoever sings Blanche needs to fill in the backstory for herself, so it's convincing when Blanche makes her sacrifice. Anna Patalong sings 3/3 and 7/3, Natalya Romaniw on 5/3 and 9/3. They're both major names at GSMD.

Blanche is emotionally vulnerable while the old Mother Superior, Madame de Croissy (Cátia Moreso) seems strong but dies a traumatic death. It's a high point in the opera because it reverses the idea of a pious person being free from doubt. Moreso sings with a force that belies her supposed physical weakness. Poulenc's not into literalism but spiritual veracity. Just as Blanche's music is hyper, so is Mme de Croissy's, though of course in different ways.  Both are more affected by the turmoil around them than they let on.

Mère Marie (Sylvie de Bedouelle and Amy J Payne), Mère Jeanne (Sioned Davies) and Madame Lidoine (Sky Ingram) are all strong, conventional characters. The book that inspired the play on which Poulenc based his opera was written by a German feminist, Gertrud von le Fort, who could see what was happening around her in the 1930's. The French Revolution didn't have a monopoly on mobs. The male principals too are relatively conventional parts, very solidly created. Gary Griffiths and Koji Terada alternate as the Marquis de la Force, Charlie Mellor and Paul Curievici as the Chevalier and Alberto Sousa sings the priest. Excellent

So pay attention to the role of Soeur Constance. She drives Blanche to distraction because she's so irrepressibly cheerful, but she is the one who intuits the meaning of Mme Croissy's death. Sophie Junker sings the part vivaciously, and Barlow directs her to leap and dance. Psychologically right, although Carmelites are a semi-silent order. Constance isn't a typical heroine, but she's so full of joie-de-vivre that the sacrifice the nuns will make is thrown into high perspective. Lovely ensemble singing and hymns.

Yet Dialogues des Carmélites, despite its religious subject, isn't as solemn as might seem. It's distinctively Poulenc, and Poulenc's sardonic. Blanche is devout but her music verges on deranged. The Prioress acts like she's older than Methuselah but she's only 59 (and Poulenc lets us know exactly how her life was divided). Her death scene's over the top, so it's almost funny how the nuns are shocked. Doubly ironic when you realize Poulenc's best friend was dying when he wrote this music. It's like whistling in the graveyard, overcoming fear by denying its power. Typical Poulenc irony.  Listen to some of the key wind parts, too, especialy the sour-sweet solos, and the raucous churning in the strings. Soeur Constance's lively spirit could come straight out of Banalités (which are anything but banal) or Les mamelles de Tirésias. Poulenc's elegant, ironic wit cannot be silenced any more than the nuns' faith can be supressed.  A more formal improved version of this will appear in Opera Today.

Photos : Clive Barda courtesy GSMD (details embedded)

Most exciting show in town - Guildhall!

http://www.operatoday.com/content/2011/03/poulenc_dialogu.phpThe most exciting show in town and it's a Guildhall production! HERE IS FULL REVIEW. Which shows, never underestimate the power of student productions. Superlative Poulenc Les Dialogues des Carmélites at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama tonight. Ths one's a force to be reckoned with - way better than many high-budget big houses. Extremely tightly focused stage action (Stephen Barlow) perfectly in tune with the orchestra (which matters with Poulenc). Marvellous set (David Farley), which expresses both music and drama and also overcomes the practical challenges the constant scene changes create. Good performances all round too. If GSMD students are learning at this level, who knows what great things they'll go on to 
in the future? This is a very unusual opera, but the production is extremely well thought through. Someone understands Poulenc's idiom and what the opera really means! 

I'll write much more later because this is so good that it really deserves in-depth comment. Get to it if you can - it's fabulous !  Next performances: Saturday 5th, Monday 7th and Wednesday 9th. More thru this link.

GSMD Opera - Dialogue of the Carmelites

Another Guildhall School of Music and Drama production coming up this week - Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites.  All GSMD events are interesting because those involved are fresh and motivated. This opera's full of high drama - cloistered nuns, holy fervour, the French Revolution and the guillotine. Death and sex (or rather the repression of sex). Be prepared for an eventful evening. FOR THE FULL REVIEW CLICK HERE

Guildhall productions are always worth supporting because students need the experience of performing and public feedback. Not everyone becomes Bryn Terfel (graduated 1989) but all benefit. What better training in presentation skills, organization and public interaction? These are great skills in any business. GSMD delivers more than "just" the arts.

GSMD operas are always stimulating, even when they're over the top, because the students have energy and committment. Past productions have included Sallinen The King Goes Forth to France, Rossini La cambiale di matrimonio, Martinu The Marriage and the rarity Spinalba by Fransceco d'Almeida which had a lot more going for itb than most realized.

GSMD students work with established professionals, so they hone their skills. This GSMD production will be directed by Stephen Barlow, well known for his stagings of Fantastic Mr Fox, Tosca, and Hansel and Gretel at Holland Park. He's also worked at Glyndebourne, ROH and the Met. (He's not the composer Stephen Barlow, married to Joanna Lumley). Conductor will be Guildhall regular Clive Timms.

But it's the students we really go to hear. Some good names to listen for : Gary Griffiths, Koji Terada,  Natalya Romaniw and many others. Ensemble work too is always enthusiastic. Terada and Romaniw are two of the four finalists in this year's Guildhall Gold Medal, to be awarded in May. (The other contenders are Ashley Riches and Victor Sicard.)

Performances on 3, 5, 7 and 9 March. More details on the GSMD site.

Spinalba Almeida Guildhall

Ever-enterprising, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama staged a rarity, an opera called Spinalba by Francisco António de Almeida (1702–1752). Spinalba is the daughter of an old man Arsenio who goes mad when Spinalba goes into the wide world dressed as a man. She's doing it to chase her lover.  Cue for a complicated rococo plot, lovers in disguise, misunderstandings, cross-dressing and much else. It's billed dramma comico, but there's more depth to the opera than straight farce.

Note the opera's subtitle "The Mad Old Man" Spinalba herself is pretty much a  typical stock character (think Despina or Florabella) using a ruse to test a lover. Arsenio on the other hand is an old man, confronted by change and loss, who can't make sense of the world and is ridiculed. Egged on by those who should be caring for Arsenio, Togno the servant plays along with the old man's confusion.  But Arsenio turns the tables by trapping Togno in a magic circle, claiming he has supernatural powers. Who's the crazy one now?  Who can cure whom?  Love is a form of madness, too. The fascination of this opera is the way it plays on illusion and delusion, reality and non-reality.

At the Guildhall School of Music and Design Almeida's plot was set in a nursing home where the elderly are treated like objects rather than as people. These situations awoke sad memories for me, so I was uncomfortable, but maybe that's as it should be. "Care" homes often don't really care, even when carers are well intentioned. Just because people don't seem sentient, it doesn't mean they don't have to be treated sensitively. While I cringed at the petty humiliations the old folk suffered, much of the audience laughed hysterically. That in itself is a lesson. The GMSD crew (director Stephen Metcalf) and designer (Isabella Bywater) have clearly spent time in these situations too, so their observations are accurate. But they are trying to shock us into sympathy with the old folk. If the audience thought it was funny, it says something about them, not the production. Some of them were old enough that they'll soon face pain, bedpans, and walking frames. So why so callous?

A play within a play  focuses the idea of delusion. The old folk seem to be rehearsing a play but can't remember their lines.  But it isn't just the old folk. Togno strums a ukelele and can't remember the words to his song, because the words aren't his but his master's. Life is like that, everyone rushing about pretending to be something they're not. Baroque audiences were sharper than they're given credit for. Almeida (pictured right) lived on the verge of upheaval. Lisbon was to be devastated by an earthquake, and rebuilt on clean "modern" lines by the Marquis of Pombal (pictured above) an enlightened, visionary by the standards of the time. No wonder Spinalba is becoming popular, especially in Portugal, which is and was by no means a backwater.

Some of the visual gags like the hospital bed worked extremely well, but others, like the line for the toilet, didn't. Almeida's opera isn't bad at all, but it keeps repeating format, which makes it drag. No stratospheric displays of vocal invention to dazzle (which is why Steffani's Niobe, Regina de Tebe worked so well). In  GSMD's student production that would be too much to ask.

What really would help is judicious editing. Cut multiple duplications, tighten the pace, so the comedy flows better. Timing is what makes comedy, But this was a student production and they don't have that level of expertise. So they had to go for visual gags. Part of what the Guildhall teaches is how to create drama from materials at hand. So in that sense, this production worked well because it elucidates meaning by finding universal context. If it's not perfect, it's a good try.

I think GSMD chose well in doing Spinalba because there are many substantial parts, most of them meaty enough to give each student a chance to show what they're capable of. There's relatively little interaction, so it can be rehearsed in separate parts, which probably doesn't help the dramatic flow but is practical from a training point of view. There's lots of range, too, comic and straight parts, slapstick etc. all of which will come in handy when the students move on. So there's a possibility it could be revived. Just as Spinalba tests her lovers, Spinalba the opera tests how well the students have learned.

On the night I attended, Spinalba was Anna Patalong, nice, clear singing. Koji Terada sang Arsenio. His acting's prescient, connecting to the feisty rebellion in the character beneath the "madness". Voices can be as individual as fingerprints. Terada's is - he's distinctive and memorable. Amy J Payne sang Dianora, Paul Curievici Ippolito, Matthew Wright Togno, Sylvie Bedouelle Elisa, Sophie Junker Vespina and Alberto Sousa Leandro. I'm still suffering that long lasting virus that's going round so I couldn''t manage the second half, but the first two hours were enough to show how good the performances were.

As for Almeida the composer, I'm interested in ordering a copy of his oratorio La Giuditta. René Jacobs conducts Concerto Köln, which is a huge plus. Singers include the gorgeous counter-tenor Axel Köhler so it might well be worth the exorbitant price!

June - English Song Weekend Shropshire

June in Shropshire, by the banks of the river Teme, the perfect image of England in summer. The English Song Weekend takes place in Ludlow 3 to 6 June. This is the absolute, ultimate Festival of English Song, lovingly organized by Finzi Friends, who know and care passionately about the genre. It's only held once every three years, so it really is a special occasion. People come from all over the world. Link HERE.

This year's schedule is good. Well chosen programmes. One's called "A Satnav of English song", with songs about different parts of England. It's one of Iain Burnside's witty compilations: Roderick Williams and Andrew Kennedy sing with Burnside at the piano.

But devotees come because this is a gathering of anyone who's anything in English song. It's a meeting place for old friends and new: great atmosphere. The talks and workshops are good, and quite in-depth. Being in Ludlow to hear Kate Kennedy analyze By Ludlow and Teme will make the performance specially interesting. Pam Blevins will talk on Howells and Gurney. Hilary Finch and Huw Watkins (who played Henze piano solos at the Barbican, Saturday) will discuss song in the 21st century. This is a progressive festival - new talent always supported. There's a competition for composers, and Ann Murray will give masterclasses.

Two unusual events, too. Burnside's created a fully staged theatre piece linking songs and poems about war. There'll also be another concert mixing singing and acting: different responses to poetry.

Then there's the food. Shropshire is traditional market garden and orchard country, and Ludlow is home to some of Britain's top restaurants. More Michelin starred places than anywhere outside London, including the culty La Bécasse and Mr Underhill's, both foodie pilgrimage sites. The local market (with traditional bakers and cheese makers) is so good that you can get way above average picnic stuff too.

And of course the countryside! June is the best time to explore the English countryside, everything's lush and green. Ludlow is still well preserved, medieval buildings and an old castle, no urban sprawl, a huge area of natural woods and parkland, and of course the river. That's part of the attraction, which London cannot possibly match. The pace of life here is not, perhaps, all that different from the early years of the last century, if you lie on a hillside and look out on the rolling fields around, and hear the blackbird's song:
"Lie down, lie down, young yeoman;
The sun moves always west;
The road one treads to labour
Will lead one home to rest,

And that will be the best."

Marriage is a farce, Guildhall

Operas at the Guildhall School of Music are always fun. Currently, there's a double bill of satires on the sacred institution of marriage. The show repeats on 5th, 8th and 10th, so try and go. It's a good cause and young performers need support.

The first part of the evening was Martinu 's The Marriage based on a play by Gogol. A man thinks it would be a good idea to be married except he hasn't found the girl. Somehow it ends up with two marriage brokers, five suitors and one terrified girl, and he chickens out at the last moment. The plot is pretty slight, and the music (1952), while amusing isn't Great Art but entertaining.

The set is built so "rooms" change by moving a cut out panel across the Guildhall stage. It's a good solution for the Guildhall stage which is wide but not deep. Designs reference Franz Marc and Expressionist painters, perhaps even Cezanne and there's a connection too to mumming tradition and 1920's horror films. These references are appropriate, but it's a bit erudite, and a lot to take in for a fairly inconsequential piece. Maybe that's why it needed boosting, but such puff and fluff can be easily be overwhelmed.

The real highlight was the early Rossini farce La cambiale di matrimonio. Again, the subject is marriage as a cynical commercial transaction. This time the stage becomes a pole dance nightclub, with several different focal points as the action switches. This was very good, well thought through and witty. It would transfer to great advantage on a much bigger stage and hall.

Sleazebag club owning father wants to sell daughter off to strange Canadian, but is racy slapstick, gags and some very decent arias. The seedy sex industry reference is unfortunately all too relevant these days, and this production brings out the sharpness of Rossini's social observation. It's certainly lots more than Romantic fluff.

The direction is by Alessandro Talevi, who's already developing a distinct "personality" - wit, panache, madcap. Sometimes over the top but better that he tries and thinks like that than some of the parsimonious, bland productions we've seen and pointless grimness we see too much of. Channel his enthusiasm well, and Talevi will have a lot to contribute. Designs are by Madeleine Boyd.

Singing, dancing and acting were pretty average, which is only to be expected in performers this young. Duncan Rock in the main role in Martinu, Derek Welton as Mill in Rossini were strong players. Welton was the star in the last Guildhall show, Sallinen's The King Goes Forth to France. (read review HERE), and was Rock's servant in Martinu, and Mill's Nicky Spence, who is fairly well established, made a wonderfully arch Kochkaryov, the friend of the bachelor in Martinu's piece, gloriously sleazy yet sinister - a Grand Guignol Stephen Fry.

Rebecca van den Berg was a lively Fanny in Rossini, singing with confidence and charm. Lots of other good performances, including Rhona McKail, Hannah Hipp, Andrew Finden, Emily Steventon, Raquel Luis, Emily Blanch, Jonathan Sells, Daniel Joy and Carlos Noguiera, in no particular order. And lots of extras ! Different cast on different days.

Oddly enough, one performer stood out, not because his roles were big but because he had that magic that is "stage presence".Adam Torrance was one of the crowd of Calais burghers in the recent Sallinen skit, employee in Rossini. Not at all major parts but somehow he has something extra. Comic edge maybe? Personality counts, in all things, not just on the stage.
photo credit

Xenakis Total Immersion

Of the three Total Immersion Days at the Barbican this year, this was the most demanding as it connected with the on-going Le Corbusier exhibitions at the Barbican and RIBA. Yet for that very reason, Xenakis Day was the most satisfying because it meant “thinking outside the box”, architecture people connecting to music, music people connecting to architecture.

Xenakis didn’t give up architecture for music. Both architecture and music were, for him, different aspects of creative expression. Just as architecture is a way of enclosing space, music is a way of ordering sound.

The day (12 hours!) began with Mark Kidel’s film Something Rich and Strange. It was made in 1991, and Xenakis himself features. As in all good film, some of the most revealing moments are impromptu. Xenakis and his wife visit his old school. She’s thrilled. Until that time, Xenakis had been a political exile : Greece was a part of his life she’d not known. He’s more sanguine. “It’s all in the past”, he says. He was pragmatic, a man who sought solutions.

Hence Anastenaria, from 1953, when Xenakis was still working full time with Le Corbusier. The first part, Procession aux eaux claires refers to ancient Thracian mysteries. The male voices represent the Anasthenarides, priests, who lead the populace to sacred waters. The music evokes chant but made abstract, angular layers of sound building up to density. The second part, Sacrifice, employs slow glissandi which will become one of the composer’s trademark.

But it’s the third section, Metastaseis, where the interface with architecture is most apparent. Diagrams for the score resemble diagrams for the building. It was used to “introduce” audiences to Varèse’s Poème Électronique as they entered the Philips Pavilion at the Brussels World’s Fair in 1958. The Pavilion went even beyond Le Corbusier’s ideas about free form buildings. It was conceived as a unit of three surfaces, curved, rather than flat, which enclosed the space within in a womb-like embrace. Xenakis was less poetic, describing the concept as “cow’s stomachs”. The surfaces weren’t even solid but composed of small panels individually pieced together. What shocking sci-fi it must have seemed to people used to buildings as rectangular boxes !

Metastaseis grows from simple sustained pitch, from straight line to curve, long arcing glissando stretching and bending, like the planes of the Philips Pavilion..It’s a relatively straightforward miniature, though, so Tracées, from 1987, opened the evening concert where Martyn Brabbins conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Tracées employs ninety-five musicians, yet is tightly constructed. Brabbins understands why, conducting with discipline. Here, the woodwinds imitate glissandi, although they aren’t designed for such things. Without good performers of this calibre, these sections would collapse into mush. Congratulations are due to the musicians involved – this took expertise and Brabbins let them do it without fuss.

In the Marc Kindel film, Xenakis stands in his old school and recites from memory, apparently spontaneously, Ariel’s song from The Tempest, “Full fathom five, thy father lies….”. Perhaps he had been meditating on the poem, for he set it in 1994 for the BBC Singers as Sea-Nymphs. They’ve performed this often, and with Stephen Betteridge conducting, it was nicely polished. Less polish, though, would have been preferable in Nuits, which Xenakis dedicated to political prisoners from antiquity to the present. It’s a horrific protest, written from personal experience. The words are tortured like the prisoners are, yet when they can, fragments leap out like vocal glissandi, before subsiding into the complex polyphony, intensified by non verbal sounds like whistles and low hums. Exaudi, which has performed Nuits several times in the past few years, has a more acute feel for the tense anguish of the piece.

It was good to separate Sea Nymphs from Nuits with Mists for solo piano, for it made a bracing interlude, throwing the different techniques into high relief. In the programme notes, Ivan Hewett describes the mathematical theories behind the work. I can’t explain them nearly so well, but simply enjoyed the clean, uncluttered lines and clusters of notes which Rolf Hind played with rapid-fire tempi.

In Troorkh, Xenakis explores “extreme glissando”. Hewett’s notes describe it so well that they’re worth quoting. Xenakis, he says “treats the trombone as a kind of superhuman Homeric bard, recounting some tempestuous tale in wordless song”. The technical and physical demands are such that even Christian Lindberg, for whose skills the piece was written, collapses visibly from exertion after each of the two most demanding passages. It is an elegaic piece, as expressive as Greek tragedy. The trombone is supported by a group of brass, written with character. The trombone in the orchestra cannot possibly hope to match the virtuosity of the solo part, but responds in simpler mode. The tuba part is expressive : it can’t match the trombone’s stretching slides, but its tone is darker and profound.

Antikhthon again demands a huge orchestra. One of its characteristics is a long, shrill chord, like an air raid siren, or perhaps the drone of an aircraft taking off. It doesn’t matter, the effect is eerie, menacing, out of this world. If the chord is mega-glissando, it’s balanced with clouds of densely layered pointillist sound. There’s so much disparate activity it’s hard to make individuals out clearly, like finding a single insect in a swarm of locusts. Pithoprakta springs to mind, though this is later and more sophisticated. . Like the multiple panels on the planes of the Philips Pavilion, the different units function together. Sometimes the cloud clears, to reveal details, like the first violin (Andrew Haveron) tapping staccato on wood, before the orchestra wells up again. Brabbins’s strategy of keeping textures clean and clear paid off well. Like good architecture, an elegant structure doesn’t need fussy curlicues.

This was a magnificent concert, and would be quite an event at the Proms. Like the South Bank Xenakis series some years ago, audience numbers were healthy. Total Immersion Days aren’t just about blockbusters, though. Not all Xenakis is mind bendingly difficult.

Earlier in the day there was a special concert of Xenakis’s works for percussion ensemble. Sanforta, a specialist percussion ensemble played Okho for three djembas. In Africa, these drums really can “speak” as they’re played with much improvisation. Notated music is never going to be quite so fluid. Catherine Ring, still in her final year at the Guildhall, impressed as soloist in Rebonds, cheered along by the Guildhall Percussion Ensemble who performed Persephona. It was good to hear these musicians and these pieces because they reveal how Xenakis’s more elaborate works grew from “simple”, direct roots.

Please look at this link for more detail, and more photos

READ my piece on Xenakis's designs for Varese Poeme electronique

http://www.musicalpointers.co.uk/reviews/liveevents09/XenakisDay.html

Sallinen The King goes forth to France Guildhall

Madcap mayhem! Aulis Sallinen's The King goes forth to France is off the wall. England is in the grip of an Ice Age, so the Prince of England, four girlfriends and the populace cross the bridge over the channel (yes) and invade France. Cue for ragtag armies of archers, Genoese, blind Bohemians and the houses of Parliament wielded like a cannon. Don't ask.

Guildhall School of Music operas are a delicious secret not known to the mainstream Establishment. This production shows why. Guildhall students have fire. It's refreshing to hear performers so enthusiastic that the lack of polish actually makes the experience more exciting. Who cares about note perfect when they're clearly pouring out their hearts ?

The King goes forth to France was a good choice because its crowd scenes let many students participate. They need the thrill of "live" to grow. This is an opera with so many vignettes everyone gets a chance to contribute. It's full of gags, visual, vocal, and musical, which stretch the performers so they learn their craft while having fun. Indeed, this is "why" the Guildhall is important. Statistically only a very tiny minority end up at La Scala or the Vienna Philharmonic. But the experience of performance will remain with them forever, enhancing their lives whatever they go on to do. From an employers point of view, students like these are a good bet because they've learned to care about things, to work in teams, and that trying your best is spiritually more rewarding in the long run than coasting.

The opera itself has its ups and downs. It's funny, which is almost harder to do than depressing. In Finnish, apparently, the text is hilarious, full of puns which have Finns howling with laughter. In English, we have to make do with visuals like the procession where the peasants carry symbols of Englishness like fish and chips, football scarves, Colman's mustard etc. Then when we get to France the locals carry placards marked "Fermé". The plot's mindless, but then so is reality, these days. It could be blacker, but let's be glad of small mercies. This opera has only ever been staged in the UK once, years ago at ROH.

A friend of mine attended the Covent Garden performance, hated it then and hated it again. The Guildhall performers are definitely not to blame though. For one thing, Sallinen wants to pile so much in that the business becomes busyness. Like telling the same joke ad nauseum. After a while it gets stale. After nearly three hours, your brain goes numb. I learned this opera from the (only) recording, which meant I could hit pause and get it in smaller doses.

But it was worth going to for the performers. Many, like Derek Welton as the Prince/King have interesting voices that will adapt to many things. He's singing Jephta, on 12th March, part of the London Handel celebrations. Hanna Hipp (blessed with a name the Gods could not have devised better) as The Anne who Strips, has real dramatic flair. The part is great, but I suspect, it's partly thanks to her ability to make it so. Ensembles were tightly directed - I liked that mock marching with hops! The scene with the Calais burghers was very well done. In groups like this, individuals don't stand out but one of them drew the eye and ear. Perhaps that is the secret ingredient no-one can ever teach - charisma and personality. Even if we all don't end up mega bucks like Bryn Terfel, this is what makes a person interesting.

These productions deserve support. Coming up next, in June, is an intelligent programme - Martinu's The Marriage and Rossini's La cambiale di matrimonio. Anyone in London, pencil it in your diary.

Under the Radar Independent Opera at Sadlers Wells

The Independent Opera Company is "under the radar" for those who think of opera mainly in terms of big name celebrities and high profile "appearances". Yet for those who really love good opera and good theatre they are THE buzz on the streets. Yes, this is top quality opera but so lively, so fresh and so innovative that it draws in a mix of serious cognoscenti and bright young minds. Anyone who saw their outrageous (in a good sense) Elizabeth Maconchy operas last year will know what I mean ! This is utterly hip, utterly creative theatre, imaginatively applied to opera. Brilliant ! Big companies take note !

I've loved their work since their first Handel Orlando a few years ago when they struggled against huge odds to produce a magic. Truly "triumph over adversity", in the spirit of baroque. This summer they did a concert performance of the same at the Wigmore Hall which displayed how good the singing is, too. The star was William Towers who's a fairly big name now but has long been associated with this company. That says lots about them too : they draw a loyal group of enthusiasts who come because they love what's happening. Not at all like the sub West End wannabes that sometimes infiltrate the big houses to show they're "posh"! Independent's director is the charismatic Alessandro Talevi, a very gifted creative but also a great manager - the logistics of running an opera are formidable and he carries it off with such style !

Do not miss their Pelleas et Melisande opening tomorrow night and running for only three days. It's a special chamber version because you can't fit a full orchestra into the Lilian Baylis at Sadler's Wells but that's OK. The shining diaphanous textures of this music might sound all the better for being more intimate.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/sandh/2008/jan-Jun08/orlando2106.htm