Harrison Birtwistle's secret opera? King Lear

Harrison Birtwistle's secret opera, King Lear ?  Dementia is not madness but the last flaring up of a brave soul, raging that the world is closing in on him: a final explosion of creative defiance against the cruelty of fate.  All the elements of Birtwistle's style - cryptic clues embedded in complex mazes,  geological blocks of sound built layer upon layer, sudden flashes of quirky illumination.  Birtwistle and Lear were meant to be. Plus, a perfect role for John Tomlinson. While everything around him disintegrates, this Lear will hold himself together, searching for patterns against all odds.  Lear's madness is a rage against the storm and gathering night. 

In typical Birtwistle fashion, an anti-overture that functions as a finale in reverse. A densely detailed, long introduction that creates Lear in his prime as a forceful personality for whom creativity was the very stuff of life. Themes and sub-themes suggest Lear's  inventive mind and passion for experience, so intense that the layers jostle for attention. An overwhelming challenge. But so is life.  Great theatre: knocking the audience off their seats right from the start. Gradually as the opera proceeds, themes fall away until what's left is a basic line, repeated fitfully, refusing to end.  People with dementia do rituals because repeated routines provide a structure to hold onto.  One old man told me why he liked touching the walls of his room. "So I can remember the shape of space". Utterly logical and a very Birtwistle concept.

Lear's lines are short. Words suddenly shoot out in a torrent, sometimes in mechanical  patterns. Towards the end, words themselves disintegrate into fragments, a boon for a singer conserving his resources.  If the singer barks and growls, so be it ! He's earned the right of respite.  As the orchestra sang the full story at the beginning of this opera, it will sing for Lear when his own voice becomes dim. Other parts appear fleetingly,but they aren't central, often submerged within a chorus whose form and composition varies.  Sometimes the chorus explodes in mad chatter while Lear listens. Sometimes the  voices fade sotto voce, hiding secrets. Every now and then, flurries of lyrical sound, representing a world beyond that is now elusive, but was so good that it was worth living in.  Little trios, like the daughters when they were young.

Birtwistle's King Lear is a masterpiece, fierce, difficult to play and conduct, but relatively easy to stage.  But why didn't London notice?  Too distracted by Jonas Kaufmann at the Barbican?  Tonight I had a surreal dream and woke, wondering who the librettist might be. Not Harsent, maybe Martin  Crimp.  Then I realized that the whole opera had been a dream, so intensely vivid and detailed that I'd remebered it in full from the night before, and was revisiting the night after.  Another level of non-reality, framing the "real" opera. 

"Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head!"
.

Shakespeare in the late Baroque - Bampton Classical Opera

Shakespeare re-imagined for the very Late Baroque, with Bampton Classical Opera at St John's Smith Square.  "Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare....the God of Our Idolatory".  So wrote David Garrick in his  Ode to Shakespeare (1759) through which the actor and showman marketed Shakespeare to new audiences, fanning the flames of "Bardolatory". All Europe was soon caught up in the frenzy.  Fairies, nature spirits and the supernatural inspired the transition between the orderliness of the Enlightenment and the wild, revolutionary spirit of the Romantic Age.  This delightful yet thoughtful concert from Bampton Classical Opera  contrasted two pieces, both from 1776: Thomas Linley's Ode on the Spirits of Shakespeare and Georg Anton Benda's Romeo and Juliet,  showing how two very different composers responded to Shakespeare in their own, original ways.  

Georg Anton Benda (1722-1795)  was a member of a family well-connected to the German musical establishment.  His Romeo und Julie was a three-act "ernsthafte Oper" a Singspiele with prose text by Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter, who also adapted The Tempest.  Benda and Gotter subscribed to the principles of classical antiquity as perceived in their time, dramatic values that predicated on the unity of time, action and place. Thus Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was pared down, Benda's Romeo und Juliet focusing on the key characters. Bampton Classical Opera presented a half-hour version of Benda's original, revolving around Juliet (Clare Lloyd-Griffiths) and Romeo (Thomas Herford). Laura (Caroline Kennedy) duets with Juliet, and a single Capulet (Richard Latham) stands in for the feuding families. The choruses (as in Greek drama), sung by Cantandum, thus provide backdrop and commentary.  Lloyd-Griffiths, substituting at short notice for Rosalind Coad, was very well cast.  She has an attractive, bright timbre that captures Juliet's youth and purity.  In the recit and aria, Juliet is already contemplating death "I am trembling with such joy and with such fear....See, the moon turns pale...."

Thomas Linley (1756-1778) was part of the English theatrical and artistic establishment. His father was a famous actor; his sister, also an actress, was a muse of Thomas Gainsborough and married Richard Brinsley Sheridan.  Unfortunately Linley died so young that part of his mystique rests on what he might have been had he matured. Linley's A Lyric Ode on the Fairies, Aerial Beings and Witches of Shakespeare adapts a text by his teenage schoolmate, who also died young.  Its hyberbolic exaggeration  thus represent the enthusiasm of youth.  The Spirit of Avon (Clare Lloyd-Griffiths)  and Fancy (Caroline Kennedy) are memes in an allegory, not fleshed out-personalities as in Shakespeare or, indeed, most opera.  

Linley's Ode began with an overture, very much in a formal style, but more salon piece than Handelian public opera.  Gilly French conducted the Bampton Classical Players, on period instruments including harpsichord,  with antique horns and trumpets, positioned at each side of the stage.  The Englishness of the aesthetic came over well.  "O guardian of that sacred land, where Avon's wood-crowned waters stray" sang the chorus.  Though the Avon in question would be Stratford-on-Avon,  as there are references too to Arden, it may or may not be significant that the Linleys had connections with the Avon of Bath and Bristol.  Thus the Spirit of Avon (Lloyd-Griffiths) addresses Greek detiies advising them that "Shakespeare now demands your lays"  As the Spirit of Avon, Lloyd-Griffiths had more with which to demonstrate her range.  Lloyd-Griffiths is also interesting because she's very English, (though she may be Welsh) and The Spirit of Avon is a kind of Britannia.  English sopranos are a distinct Fach, an aesthetic that's much under-appreciated. Lloyd-Griffiths reminds me of Lucy Crowe. Caroline Kennedy, as Fancy, also has a bigger part, and used it well. Although the mood in the First Part of Linley's Ode glorifies Shakespeare's birth like a divine act (witnessed by Jove himself),  darker mysteries creep in. What to make of the "sordid wishes of the grov'ling crowd that chain the free-born mind"?

In Part II of Linley's Ode, the Fearful Observer (Richard Latham)  sings of the id-like world of the night where "with feeble cries the gliding spectres throng".  Linley responds to these sinister images with vividly dramatic figures, even spookier because they're conjured up with small ensemble and the timbre of period instrumentation.  French and her orchestra rose to the occasion, playing with animated vigour. But dawn breaks, and spells are broken.  The Spirit of Avon announces peace, since these horrors were created by Shakespeare's art.  "For who can wield like Shakespeare's skilful hand, that magic wand, whose potent sway the elves of earth,of air, of sea obey?"  Yet Linley's not just looking back. He sets the final lines with mischevious glee:  "Oh, give another Shakespeare to our Isle". 

St John's Smith Square is a gem of the English baroque: an ideal setting in which to experience Bampton Classical Opera in London. And much else, besides! SJSS is one of the hidden secrets of London's cultural life.  

This review also appears in Opera Today

Antony and Cleopatra, Schmitt : Oramo BBCSO

Florent Schmitt's Antony and Cleopatra (Suites no 1 and 2, Op 69, 1920)  with Sakari Oramo conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra, with movements re-ordered and interspersed with excerpts from Shakespeare, adapted by Bill Barclay of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, at the Barbican Hall, London.

Lurid colours lit the stage, saturated washes of red and gold. Aquamarine lights shone on the platform floor, spotlights glowed on the sheets the musicians were playing from. The music was equally lurid, beginning with a wildly exuberant fanfare  Not a military display so much as statecraft as theatre. Perhaps Cleopatra, like many rulers since, knew you can dazzle others even if you don't have much in the way of firepower.  So spoke Enobarbus, describing Cleopatra to his fellow Romans : 

"The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
 Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold "

No wonder Ida Rubinstein - another  extravagant diva - wanted to portray her and asked André Gide to create a spectacular showcase. Stravinsky was asked to provide the incidental music since he, Diaghilev and Rubinstein had worked together since the early days of the Ballets Russe, For various reasons he demurred.  Florent Schmitt's Antony and Cleopatra quotes so explicitly from The Rite of Spring that one wonders what Stravinsky might have thought, particularly as the angular "primitivism" of the Rite is overlaid with elaborate decorative ornamentation.  Barely seven years before, the Rite of Spring had scandalized Paris, causing a near riot. In Schmitt's Antony and Cleopatra, the fierce chords depict the Battle of Actium so graphically that you can almost visualize ships battling on the open ocean.  Swashbuckling stuff!  Consider Erich Korngold's infinitely more original Die  tote Stadt which also premiered in 1920, with great success, pretty much inventing a new musical genre.   In the 1920's movies were silent, but spectacular. Consider Jacques Feyder's L'Atlantide (1921) where the Queen of Atlantis lives in North Africa. But what we now call film music had its roots in popular music for the stage. Exoticism is a theme that has such deep roots in the French aesthetic that its influences are felt far beyond specifically exotic subjects.
Japonisme shaped Debussy : Africa shaped Picasso.

Orientalism in France has a long pedigree, dating back to Napoleon's campaigns in Egypt , bearing fruit in an enduring fascination with different exotic locales, which manifested itself in painting, literature and music.  Berlioz La mort de Cléopatre, and Les Troyens, Bizet's The Pearl Fishers, Délibes Lakmé. Massenet Le roi de Lahore, and the songs of Maurce Delage and Jaubert.  Ida Rubinstein's Cleopatra was part of a huge surge of public interest in things Egyptian which influenced fashion, decorative arts and popular culture, which still prevails today. The French Shakespeare tradition goes back to Charles Kemble, and carried no cultural baggage. Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette, for example, is very much an original work, not a setting of the play Thus Rubinstein's Cleopatra, via Gide, is part of a much wider cultural theme.


This Antony and Cleopatra was part of a year-long celebration of Shakespeare all over Britain. Hence the high-profile production, with the BBC SO, the flagship of the BBC stable of orchestras.  Schmitt probably doesn't get luxury performances like this too often. Sakari Oramo conducted with panache, he and his orchestra clearly enjoying the big brass effects and theatricality. At one point, the actors "spoke" to Oramo, who is noted for his good-natured geniality. He beamed and acknowledged them without missing a beat. 

"Purple the sails, and so perfumèd that The winds were lovesick with them. The oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they beat to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes"

The actors were Janie Dee (Cleopatra), Simon Paisley Day (Antony), Brendan O'Hea , Cassie Layton and Tom Kanji. The Director was Iqbal Khan.  Shakepeare's Globe isn't Stratford but earthier.  there's not much you can do about staging at the Barbican,  but then Shakespeare's own productions seem to have been closer to Greek ideas than to Hollywood.  The concert was recorded for broadcast at a later date, but I'm glad I saw it live.

Britten Untamed ! Glyndebourne A Midsummer Night's Dream

At Glyndebourne, Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream,  in a performance so good that it was the highlight of the whole season, making the term "revival" utterly irrelevant.  Jakub Hrůša is always stimulating, but on this occasion, his conducting was so inspired that I found myself closing my eyes in order to concentrate on what he revealed in Britten's quirky but brilliant score.  Eyes closed in this famous production by Peter Hall, first seen in 1981?  The First Act takes place in dense forest, at night, when nothing is as it might seem. Do we see trees or projections thereof, or both?  What do the shadows conceal, even when the moon slips  fleetingly through clouds?  John Bury's designs are immortal because they are so abstract, and surprisingly "modern", though they ostensibly resemble the well-known Victorian painting by John Noel Paton - another reversal of visual imagery.  Since
Shakespeare's  A Midsummer Night's Dream operates on so many simultaneous levels, the one thing to be wary of is literal realism.

How Britten must have relished the opportunities to express in music what could not be said in words. Like Shakespeare, Britten was poking fun at a world that mistakes power for virtue and convention for truth. Theseus and Hippolyta –  ancient Greeks in Elizabethan costume  – sneer at the Mechanicals' play. But perhaps the joke is on them.  A Bergomask before bedtime might just have unforeseen consequences. Britten's Gloriana was long misunderstood by audiences who took it at face value. (Read my article : Gloriana : Britten's Mock Tudor).  A Midsummer Nights Dream, written barely seven years later, has an infinitely superior plot and the music is much more sophisticated, but there are parallels. And in A Midsummer Night's Dream there are levels which would have had personal resonance for the composer. 

Jakub Hrůša's conducting is so idiomatic that we can almost feel the caustic bite of Britten's humour, while also feeling the pain that lies beneath the surface.  Britten's score sparkles with variety.  Figures shape shift as swiftly as they are delineated, Elizabethan forms pop up from the endlessly elusive and very contemporary stream of consciousness   Hrůša doesn't smooth over the spikiness, but keeps the pace animated, so the orchestral playing seems to fly free, like the Fairies – the Elementals to the earthbound Mechanicals.  The moments of reverie glowed, the lower woodwinds and brass breathing ominous mystery. The London Philharmonic Orchestra seem to shine for Hrůša, even more than they usually do. Perhaps Hrůša brought insight from having conducted Rusalka and The Cunning Little Vixen at Glyndebourne in the past, two operas which also have close affinity with A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Hrůša seems to intuit how pertinent the variety in the score is to the meaning of the opera. Everything changes at the turn of a point, themes transform, like magic, nothing can be taken for granted. Because Hrůša  got such alert, taut playing from the orchestra, he could bring out the innate anarchy beneath Britten's elegantly defined orchestration.  Orchestrally, this was an exceptionally vivid performances, so strong that it will live in the memory.

The cast, acting as well as singing, were of an equally high order.  Matthew Rose first sang Bottom ten years ago. Now, he's matured and so has his characterization of the part, which will probably now be hard for anyone else to improve upon. Bottom is Everyman but no fool. Rose's voice carries authority, which is why his friends turn to him as leader. Even with the head of an ass, and his bottom in the air, Rose makes the part dignified and sympathetic. Rose creates the "donkey" wheeze in Bottom's lines sound so natural that, even in the palace in the final Act, a bit of donkey-ese breaks through irreverently.  Even his body movements worked in synch.  Equally strongly cast were the Mechanicals – David Soar (Quince), Sion Goronwy (Snug), William Dazeley (Starveling), Anthony Gregory (Flute) and Colin Judson (Snout). In ensemble, they were superb, singing and speaking as if to the manner born.  In the play, and in the opera they are much more significant than Theseus (Michael Sumuel) and Hippolyta (Claudia Huckle).

As Oberon, Tim Mead's high, sharp timbre dripping malevolence, reversing the more usual baroque stereotype of counter tenor as hero.  He towered over Kathleen Kim, as Tytania.  Good visual casting, reflecting the power play between them. Kim, though was no submissive. She sang forcefully and with élan – no surprise that she's a Glyndebourne favourite.  Oberon's hair was styled in two peaks, resembling the ears of an ass. Wonderfully subtle touch.  The lovers, Lysander (Benjamin Hulett), Hermia (Elisabeth DeShong), Helena (Kate Royal) and Demetrius (Duncan Rock) were also well cast, DeShong creating Hermia's feisty, strong-willed personality with particular definition.

But Puck is the agent of insurrection, upon which the plot turns, and particularly symbolic for Britten himself.  Puck is not a singing part, but  David Evans stole the show, quite an achievement for an actor stepping in at short notice,  into a part that's so demanding that it's notoriously difficult to cast.   Britten dreamed that it could be played by a young athlete whose voice was beginning to break: a changeling between two worlds, a Britten innocent on the cusp of corruption.  Tadzio, with a voice. And what a voice! Evans is cheeky and shrill like a boy, yet also rebellious and assertive like somone passing into his teens, though he looks younger. He also projects with great force, while respecting the curious rhythm in the text.  Evans runs up and down stage, sailing into space on a guy rope, popping in and out of the scenery, without missing a note.  Did Britten identify with Puck, who could get away with things a nice, obedient boy like Young Ben could not?  And yet Puck is a tragic figure, not so much because he doesn't belong but because his freedom cannot last. Will he be sucked into Oberon's sick games? Evans will grow up, but this moment of glory will live with him for the rest of his life.

This review appears in Opera Today

 

photos : Robert Workman, Glyndebourne Festival Opera

English Baroque Opera, St John's Smith Square

English Baroque opera at St John's , Smith Square, ready for booking now.  The English baroque style is unique, more "classical" than exuberant; southern forms, yet connected to contemporary theatrical values.  St John's, Smith Square, is a gem of British baroque architecture, an ideal place in which to enjoy English baroque music.

Bampton Classical Opera starts the new season with "Diviner Comedies" on 13/9, pairing Thomas Arne's The Judgement of Paris,  "a  witty account of a celestial beauty contest"  with "the supremely lyrical  Gluck Philemon and Baucis, continuing  Bampton's, enterprising exploration of Gluck's lesser-known operas. Paul Wingfield will conduct CHROMA

Henry Purcell Dido and Aeneas on 29/9 with the celebrated La Nuova Musica, led by David Peter Bates. Major headliners - Dame Ann Murray will sing Dido and George Humphreys will sing Aneas.  Again, a very good cast. What's more, with typical adventurous La Nuova Musica flair,  this performance will be illustrated with dancers, choreographed by Zack Winokur. This should be one of the highlights of the season - book early !

Thomas Linley's Lyric Ode: on the Fairies, Aerial Beings and Witches of Shakespeare  features in Bampton Classical Opera's second concert on 15/11. A glorious piece,, vividly dramatic.  It's being paired with excerpts from Georg Benda's Singspeil Romeo and Juliet,which Bampton Opera did in 2007.  Gilly French conducts the Bampton Classical Players and  a cast that includes Rosemary Coad, Caroline Kennedy, Thomas Herford and James Harrison.

Another highlight! The Early Opera Company, conducted by Christian Curnyn, makes a welcome return to St John's on 18/11 with Handel's Serse HWV40 , this time with Anna Stéphany, Rupert Enticknap, Callum Thorpe and Claire Booth, among others.

Lots more, too. La Nuova Musica is doing Bach Mozart and Haydn in December.  And don't forget the famous SJSS Christmas season, which sells out fast because it's so much fun. For more details visit the SJSS . website HERE>

Berlioz Roméo et Juliette - Boulez

Perceptions of  Hector Berlioz Roméo et Juliette (Op17 1839) have been shaped by performance practice filtered through recordings, which is fair enough, since recordings reach more than live performances. Given Berlioz's fascination with Shakespeare and other things English, it's perhaps not so surprising either that English conductors dominate recordings.   Everyone's grown up with Colin Davis, for example. Over the years, though, my feelings about Berlioz have been developing on different lines, thanks, probably, to getting immersed in John Eliot Gardiner,  Historically informed performance isn't about instruments so much as about understanding a composer on his own terms, and imagining what he might have envisaged.

In Berlioz's own time, he was very much avant garde.  His Grand Treatise on Orchestration (1843)  championed among other things the saxophone, invented only three years before and still very much experimental.  The picture above shows Berlioz conducting to the horror of his audience, the figures in the foreground supposedly include Franz Liszt. Recently a friend recommended listening to Pierre Boulez's Roméo et Juliette, with the Cleveland Orchestra, recorded live in 1970, though not issued until some years later.  How distinctive it sounds !  Boulez wasn't conducting a period orchestra but he seems to have understood why Berlioz used instruments like the ophicleide. They aren't timid ! Hence the fanfare in the introduction, the quirky trumpets and bassoons. the lushness of the harps  and above all the sassy punch of the strings, pulling everything together with dramatic forward thrust.  We hear the wayward dance figures, and the sinister, almost demonic undercurrents. Roméo et Juliette is neither a stage play nor conventional opera but an innovation: music theatre for orchestra.


Shakespeare carried no cultural baggage for continental European audiences in Berlioz's time, so the composer could do pretty much his own take on the story, using the Garrick version of the play brought to Paris in 1827 by Charles Kemble, which  Berlioz attended and where he became infatuated with Harriet Smithson.  The picture at left shows Smithson and Kemble in a production in the 1840's. In an age before close-ups and amplification, theatre practice would have to have been more exaggerated than we're used to now. Perhaps Berlioz, a theatre critic, intuited that good orchestral writing had the potential to express feelings in greater complexity than most actors at the time were capable of. The extremes in this music reflect stage practice, yet modified by the sophistication that orchestral subtlety can provide.  This is an intense performance, made all the more powerful because Boulez draws from the dramatic tension inherent in the music itself : a composer's insight into interpretation, that springs from within.

Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette isn't about the lovers so much but about cross-currents : feuding families, crowds versus individuals, beauty versus violence and in the midst of all this, an element of supernatural magic that is more "Gothic" than Shakespeare.  Structurally it's tight, the Prince holding forth in the beginning and the brilliant Friar Laurence monologue at the end.  Montagues and Capulets rip each other apart,  but Friar Laurence's intelligence and humanity give Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette its power.

Remarkable Rossini - Otello

Gioachino Rossini's opera Otello  broadcast here on BBC Radio 3 - very different to Verdi's Otello and, indeed to Shakespeare's original play. The opera premiered in Decemeber 1816,  at a time when  Shakespeare was being rediscovered anew in continental Europe. Otello was overshadowed by the popular success of The Barber of Seville, but it's a very fine piece, and greatly cherished.  Technically it's very demanding, but fortunately there are voices to do it justice.  There are several good recordings and this broadcast is from the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona in February this year. We could dream of  Bryan Hymel as Rodrigo and Jonas Kaufmann as Otello, but this cast  is pretty good. Jessica Pratt sings Desdemona, reprising the part she first created at Bad Wildbad in 2008,  Dmitry Korchak sings Rodrigo, Yijie Shi sings Iago and Gregory Kunde sings Otello. The conductor is Christopher Franklin.

Notice: Otello isn't first, though he's by no means the least.  Rossini's interest in the interplay of voices led him to focus on the relationship between Rodrigo and Desdemona; he developed the characters, giving them spectacularly beautiful music to sing to.  Some of the arias in this opera are bel canto trailblazers, which almost literally defined the style. The tenor voice has great flexibility, lending itself to glorious coloratura display.  Listen out too for the duets and trios, where the subtle gradations in voice type create complex, interweaving patterns of sound. Rodrigo, Iago and Otello are bound together here by more than fate.  Desdemona and Emilia (Lidia Vinyes-Curtis) have lovely solos and duets.  Elmiro, Desdemona's father (Mirco Palazzi) is a bass, providing ballast.  The First Act sets context with its glorious orchestral colour, but already the music hints at something wayward and individual, in the solo instruments flying capriciously above the tumult. The most flamboyant passages occur in the Second Act. Rodrigo's aria "Che ascolto? ahimè, che dici?"  is a killer tour de force, ending with dramatic ornamentations on the word "Traditor". Normally passages like this stun a house into silence, but Rossini follows it with many more good moments, one after another. the cumulative effect is intoxicating.

Vocal gymnastics aside, the focus on Rodrigo and Desdemona fleshes them out as personalities with whom we can identify. The Gondolier's song adds a haunting dimension, setting the mood for Desdemona's Willow Song with its delicate, sighing harmonies.  When violence intrudes on this atmosphere of melancholy beauty, the exchange between Otello and Desdemona is fast and furious.  The strings scream, the orchestra whirring as if driven by demonic winds. Otello and Desdemona are in fact singing similar words, though they're at cross-purposes. "Mori , infedel" cries Otello. As if stunned into horror, the orchestra reiterates stabbing staccato.  The Doge, Elmiro, Rodrigo and the chorus rush in but it's too late. Otello kills himself  "Punito m'avrà..." And suddenly, the drama ends, in shock.

If you like Rossini's Otello, you'll like his Maometto II - another outsider more hero than villain - which I heard at Garsington. Read my review of that HERE and get the CD. Lots on Rossini opera seria on this site.

Libretto of the 1816 version, as heard in Barcelona

Choral Shakespeare - unusual settings from Cologne

Choral songs from Shakespeare in a concert by the West Deutsche Rundfunk Radio Chorus, Cologne; conducted by Stefan Parkman, pictured above in front of the Cathedral on BBC Radio 3's "Shakespeare in Sound" series. Programmes like this are fascinating because they offer new perspectives on settings of Shakespeare. Much more fun than run-of-the-mill things we can hear anytime, anywhere, and lots better than some of the other stuff on offer so far.  Lively vocal ensembles do interesting things, because they're more individualist and independent than bigger,  less-flexible ensembles.

Like Jaako Mäntyjärvi (b 1963) Four Shakespeare Songs, from 1984. We hear only one here, Bubble Bubble Toil and Trouble.but we can hear why Mäntyjärvi has been a favorite in choral circles for a long time. The music "bubbles". The Three Witches are depicted in three blocks of voices. The low male voices keep the rhythmic line, while higher voices take off, rising like steam, then dissipating  in smokey sighs. Cackling good fun to sing.  Not included here is Mäntyjärvi's Full Fathom Five where the music flows across the different voices, blending them subtly, suggesting mysterious, submerged depths.  It's very different to Ralph Vaughan Williams's version in his Three Shakespeare songs for choir, where the "bells" toll  right from the start, as omnipresent as the "bells that ring on Bredon".  True artists find their own original voices.

Frank Martin's Five Ariel Songs  (1950) connect to Martin's opera Der Sturm, based on The Tempest, completed soon after. The tonal colour in Come unto these yellow sands blends and reshapes – synaesthetes, who process music visually, will be in raptures. Out of this the watchdog's bark "bow wow" rises almost like descant.  Martin's Full fathom five is graphic. The undulations of the female voices evoke an image of seaweed swaying in the depths, while the men's voices follow a more direct rhythm, lovely backed by the women singing in half tones. On the words "sea change" the music itself undergoes a change "into something rich and strange". The "ding dong" refrain is understated, for the beauty of this song lies in its polychromatic undulations. In contrast, "You are three men of sin" brings all the voices together. The part singing here is very tight, even the silences precise. The choir intones "Remember, remember" before the alto takes up the melody.  Inherently dramatic. More contrast, too, in Where the bee sucks, where the quick changes of tempo suggest fleet-footed lightness.

The WDR Chorus and Parkman continue with five sets of unusual settings of Shakespeare; Four Fancies from Sven-Eric Johanssen (1919-1997) : Wake me up from my bed of Dreams, Under the Greenwood Tree,  Blow, blow Thou Winter Wind and O Mistress Mine.  The acompaniment reveals their origins in piano song. Nils Lindberg (b 1933) Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day, Coloured Snakes, Lullaby, and The Whole World is a Stage,   Conductor Stefan Parkman's younger brother Håkan, who died aged only 33, was a composer. His Clown Song from Twelth Night shows great promise.  Why is my soul so barren of new Pride? , Alfred Janson (b 1937) Sonnet 46.  is interesting. The male soloist asks the question over and over, while the chorus at first hums (in German) and then sings in English. The answer seems to come when the female voice appears, "Telling what is told". The setting is call and response, as if the sonnet were part of a religious ceremony.  The concert ends with Carl Michael Bergerheim's settings of Sonnets 8 and 60, with beautiful piano accompaniment.  

The songs are introduced with readings from Shakespeare translated into German, delivered intelligently: a treat for English speakers who don't hear the translations too often, though some of these translations inspired some very great works.  There's another programme in this series, from Barcelona last year, where the readings are in Catalan.  This also features choral settings, some unknown in this country.  Jonathan Swain's late night programmes often provide hidden treasures.

Shakespeare in Chinese movies 1931

Shakepeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona became 一剪梅 (One Spray of Plum Blossom) in Shanghai in 1931. The Chinese film industry was very well established, serving a huge internal market. Movies were big in China because they reached an audience fascinated by modern ideas.  One Spray of Plum Blossom had instant resonance with educated urban viewers, many of whom did know their Shakespeare, who is in fact cited in the opening credits. Incidentally, the fact that this shows modern Chinese people means simply that that's how some people lived at the time. Even when Proteus flies a bi-plane, he's only doing what rich young men liked doing then.  But this Chinese version tightens up the plot and embeds the drama so well in a Chinese context that it would appeal even to those who didn't know its origins.

Valentine and Proteus become Hu Luting and Bai Lede, good transliterations of their names, though the English subtitles made with the film retain the names Shakespeare gave them.  The two gentlemen have just graduated from the Whampoa Military Academy, the Chinese Sandhurst and West Point, which produced a leadership elite who were to shape modern China.  This gives the film  a much deeper subtext than the original play, particularly as its release coincided with the Japanese invasion and nearly 20 years of war.  The scenes shot on location with rows of soldiers on parade have poignant meaning for Chinese audiences.  Valentine (played by Jin Yan) is class valedictorian. Proteus (Wang Cilong) gets called "Perfume General" because he's not quite so morally upright.  Proteus spies Valentine's sister Julia, who falls for him. She's played by Ruan Lingyu, the biggest star of the Chinese screen. Proteus recommends Valentine to his uncle, the military governor of Canton (Guangzhou), and gets appointed chief of the Guards. The  Commander's daughter, Lady Sylvia, loves horses, wears riding gear and waves riding crops.  She's  the "masculine" side of Sylvia without actual cross-dressing.  She has a retinue of guards, some of whom are clearly female though they wear military uniforms.  This "Sylvia" type appears in other Chinese films and echoes historic heroines like Hua Mulan.  She taunts Valentine, but they fall for each other.

Sylvia is a spoilt heiress, who, despite her amazon exterior, lives in a girly fantasy. She loves plum blossoms, so her rooms are covered in plum-blossom motifs.  even the arches to her inner rooms are shaped like plum blossom. Julia's home is tasteful and Chinese; Sylvia's is vulgar, but treated with humour. When her father holds a dinner party, there is a wonderful shot, where she and the guests have their chopsticks pointed at the food in the middle of the table. Shot from above, the diners' bodies form "petals" around the round table and the chopsticks the stamens of the plum blossom.  Valentine and Sylvia declare their love by writing poems about plum blossom in a grotto surrounded by flowers.  Plum blossom, of course, is the symbol of Spring and of the New Year.

When Tiburio comes along, Proteus concocts a plot to eliminate Valentine, who gets banished and falls in with a band of bandits, becoming their leader. Being posh and morally upright he makes them follow new rules: to right wrongs, to help the poor and to respect women.  When the soldiers beat up peasants, masked bandits save them, firing arrows with identifying marks carrying the plum blossom symbol.   This Robin Hood meme also had precedent in Chinese culture.   Julia comes to Guanzhou and thinks Sylvia is marrying Proteus. As in the original play, the two women sort things out and plot for justice.  Interestingly, the two actresses were Cantonese, local to the area where the action takes place, unlike most of the crew and cast.

When Sylvia gets kidnapped, her father and his troops come out and are in battle with the bandits. Valentine appears, and Proteus acknowledges his guilt.  Valentine is reinstated and his followers absorbed into the Commander's guard because they've proved their virtue. Along the way, cameo parts which appear in the original play but in this film are extremely well acted and realized. The rape scene also makes more sense.  Sylvia fights back rather well.  In the last scene Valentine and Sylvia, Proteus and Julia all wear uniforms and presumably live happily ever after.  The fundamentals in Shakespeare's original are observed, and the story is retold coherently, making extra points relevant to a Chinese audience.  Opera audiences, who panic about "updating" don't understand the power of art. 

Shakespeare lives ! The Garrick Ode, the Beamish Masque

Shakespeare Lives! The BBC Shakespeare 400 celebrations are called "Shakespeare Lives!" for a good reason, demonstrated by this concert broadcast from the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford-upon-Avon, where Shakespeare was baptised and where he is buried.  There'll be plenty of plays, operas and discussions this year, but this concert captures  the spirit of creativity the Bard symbolizes,  Shakespeare lives, as long as  we care enough to keep his ideas fresh.

First, something few will ever have heard before: The Garrick Ode. This was David Garrick's tribute to the playwright. He'd built his career doing the plays in London, so the Ode was a tribute to the playwright himself.  The Ode helped establish the cult of Shakespeare as icon. Garrick's words are flamboyant  : "Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare....the God of Our Idolatory".  Watching Samuel West, dressed as Garrick, declaim his lines reminds you how 18th century text highlighted phrases in upper case with melodramatic flourish. Garrick, a man of the theatre, the ultimate salesman. This isn't naturalistic acting, but showmanship.  Watch the video of the concert here, but be warned, you have to fast forward to 15.01min)  The singers and musicians wear black Tudor gowns, but the spirit of theatre reigns paramount   If violinist Emilia Benjamin's white ruff looks cheerfully aware, it's a reminder that once, nice women wouldn't have been able to perform in public.  Jeffrey Skidmore conducts the singers of Ex Cathedra and a trio of harpsichord, viol and violin.  Thomas Arne wrote the original music, some of which is lost. Sally Beamish filled the gaps so the piece can come to performance.  Reconstructed from fragments by Adrian Howard, The Ode lives again!

Just as Garrick created his own, original Ode for his times, Sally Beamish creates A Shakespeare Masque that adapts Shakespearean form to modern times.  She uses a "broken consort", an ensemble often used in early English music, combining different families of instruments. In this case, a duo of viols and recorder/flute with a trio of lutes (lute, cittern and bandora) with extra percussion instruments.  Some of Shakespeare's texts are used, but so are poems by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. The result is a  lively blend of ancient and modern.  Jeffrey Skidmore conducts the City Musick. The adult singers of Ex Cathedra are joined by their own  children's choir and by local schoolchildren whose  voices evoke freshness and youth. And humour too. The children sing "Etcetera, etcetara" then "William ! William !" as if he were one of their own  Very muchn the purity of "I know a bank where the wild thyme grows". Some of these children are so young that their eyes shine in wonder.

Masques were theatre, combining movement with music. Each tableaux is defined by movement : choristers marching in procession, accompanied by percussion instruments, the clapping of hands and rhythmic gesture.  The children bounce up and down to the music: a wonderfully primeval response, which connects music to its roots.  The whole performance space is used, art integrated into normal life.  The references to Stratford-upon-Avon integrate Shakespeare's semi-rural  origins with the destiny he found in London, and Shakespeare's journey from England into world culture.  Beamish's Masque ends with a glorious coda on recorder.  An early music instrument reborn in modern music. Shakespeare lives!

Ex Cathedra is taking this programme on tour : Birmingham on Sunday, then Hereford Cathedral, Wolverhampton, Southwell Minster and Milton Court at the Barbican in London on May 12.

James Cagney in Shakespeare : Midsummer Night's Dream Hollywood

James Cagney in Shakespeare? And Mickey Rooney, Olivia de Havilland and Dick Powell too, in  A Midsummer Night's Dream, the movie (1935). Shakespeare's text was cut and adapted. Mendelssohn's music revised by Erich Korngold, and extra dance sequences added, by Nijinsky's sister Bronislava.  Huge money was thrown behind the production, and all the state of the art technical resources Warner Brothers could muster.  This  was Midsummer Night's Dream as Hollywood musical extravaganza. It's compelling and repelling at the same time. Shakespeare kitsch, but kitsch on such a grand, audacious scale that you have to keep watching.  What a pity this was made in black and white and not in gaudy Technicolor !

On the other hand the special effects are so clearly "home made" that their very crudity is part of the charm.   Surfaces are splashed all over with reflecting fragments which sparkle "fairy dust". everywhere to distract the eye. The cameras lenses are heavily greased to soften focus  and many close-ups are lit from behind to soften detail.  This magic forest was clearly made in the studio workshops. The fairies are chorus girls, heavier on the hoof than ballerinas might be. But in its own gauche way this movie captures some of the wide-eyed naivety which Shakespeare found in the rude mechanicals. No one seriously believes the Wall is a Wall!

Once someone told me that he couldn't watch Shakespeare unless the costumes were "authentic" . Shakespeare and his audience would have thought he was a fool. They walked around in costumes as part of their normal lives. When they went to the theatre, they used their minds and imaginations.  The spartan simplicity of theatre practice in Shakespeare's own time is more "authentic" than glammed-up excess. In the past, audiences were accustomed to conceptual thinking, because they studied the classics and had an idea of Greek drama. They also went to church and understood the role of symbolism. Audiences now expect the literalism of TV costume drama. More than ever, we need Shakespeare's Midsummers Night's Dream to remind us of the interplay between art and reality, between outward appearances and inner meaning. Which is why it's worth watching the Hollywood Midsummers Night's Dream.  Bottom and his friends are workmen who don't know much about art, but they're funny because they improvise. Warner Brothers set out to make a 1930's extravaganza that would cost money, make money and establish their high-art credentials.  So this movie achieves Shakespeare's aims, despite itself.

So back to the actors. Victor Jory's Batman cape acts a more convincing Oberon than he does and Anita Louise is more tat than Tatiana, and her singing cuts like a rusty razor blade. Shakespeare's poetry gets so mangled that you're glad the text gets cut to breaks where armies of extras run in long lines, pretending to be fairies. Hordes of kids and dwarves (that Hollywood speciality).  Dick Powell was a matinee idol, and Olivia de Havilland box office hot, so the directors (Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle) make more of Lysander and Hermia than they might have otherwise. Mickey Rooney was 15 when he played Puck, so something of his child star impishness enlivens his acting.  When he stumbles on words, and over-exaggerates, he creates a suitably Puckish waywardness. James Cagney, though, is a wonderfully earthy Bottom. The other actors ham their way through the poetry and make it sound arch. Cagney's delivery feels like Bottom's natural growl. Bottom as con man and gangster who fools the toffs - yes, indeed! And gets fooled himself in the process. Did he realize how well he played this part?

As for the music, the sound quality on the recording is so bad that it kills a lot. Since I like Korngold,  I like the blend of corn and gold in this soundtrack, with its twittering decorations  and glamorous flourishes.  Korngold writes authentic Hollywood, and very much created the style, even before he left Vienna.  He was interested in movies even before sound.  I need a fix of echt Mendelssohn to clear my ears after watching this movie, but a fix of sugar is a guilty treat.  Below, the trailer, which  says loads about the philosophy behind this film. It is embarrassingly close to the values of present-day opera audiences.

Not Finzi for Beginners - Introit, Collon, Aurora Orchestra

This new recording of works by Gerald Finzi is not "Finzi for Beginners". Its virtues will be lost on those who don't actually know Finzi or what he stood for.  Finzi fans, though, will "get it", because it  shows how the composer's  creative legacy continues to live on. Anyone can listen to the standard versions of Finzi's work. This disc hows how Finzi inspires musicians who respond and engage with his music, extending performance possibilities. It's not for nothing that the recording was made possible thanks to the generous support of the Finzi Trust.

First surprise : the Amen from Finzi's Lo the Full,  Final Sacrifice Op 28.with no organ and no voices!  Of course nothing matches the glorious wash of colour with which Finzi gilds the word "Amen", but in Paul Mealor's orchestration for strings and alto saxophone we hear the underlying melody. Since Mealor composes mainly choral music , this is an insight.. This "Amen" sounds like a prayer.  In Mike Sheppard's orchestration of The Salutation,  Dies Natalis Op 8/5, the voice part is replaced by alto saxophone (Amy Dickson), making the listener appreciate just how magical the human voice can be. The instrument just isn't quite as flexible, but we all know the words: this is a chance to relax and savour.  In Who is Sylvia ? Sheppard substitutes horn ( Nicolas Fleury)  for voice. The line is more primitive, reminding me of the kind of horns Shakespeare might have been familiar with.  The strings extend the palette.

Most successful are the orchestrations of piano song, such as Rollicum-Rorum and To Lizbie Brown , Fear No More the Heat of the Sun and Come away, come away Death. We may lose the perfection of the originals, but we gain an understanding of how they work.  Finzi loved the poetry of James Elroy Flecker, and set his To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence in which the poet imagines his successors far into the future. It didn't matter what they did, as long as they shared his reverence for art. As I listened to this recording, the final stanza of the poem rang true:
;
"Since I can never see your face,
And never shake you by the hand,
I send my soul through time and space
To greet you. You will understand. ".

Nicholas Collon and the Aurora Orchestra also do "straight" Finzi - the Three Soliloquies from Love's Labour Lost, the Intrada from Dies Natalis,  Prelude Op 25,  Romance Op 11 , A Severn Rhapsody and a very lovely Eclogue, where Thomas Gould's violin soars evocatively over the orchestra. At the heart of this recording is Finzi's Introit in F major, Op 6 for violin and small orchestra. Gould's playing is plaintive yet very moving. An Introit is an antiphon sung by a choir as the priest approaches the altar at the beginning of the ceremony . Hence the gentle but firm processional nature of the piece and the rapture of the violin part (Thomas Gould again)  Perhaps this recording isn't "Finzi for Beginners" but it's still a good introduction for those who approach Finzi with respect. 

Gustav Holst's Falstaff - At the Boar's Head

John Tomlinson, Philip Langridge.  Felicity Palmer, Elise Ross and David Wilson-Johnson. the greatest English singers of their time, all still young and vigorously in their prime. An ideal way into Holst's At the Boar's Head (1925)  on BBC Radio 3 HERE.  The voices absolutely matter in this cheerful one-act opera, which springs from Shakespeare's Henry IV and in particular the scene at the Boar's Head tavern. Voices utterly dominate, since Holst was inspired by the text in the plays, which he read while enjoying the score of John Playford's The English Dancing Master and transcripts of folk tunes collected by Cecil Sharp. The words seem to come alive in his imagination. as though, as he said, the music replicated the plays. This context shapes the opera  which predicates on the interplay of different voices and on the syntax of speech. Thus orchestral links are minimal, and oriented towards sturdy dances. David Atherton and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra don't have a great deal to do but mark the lively counterpoint and pace.  But what wonderful singing - sharply articulated, lively, perfect diction and mastery of tongue-twisting lines, such as would have thrilled the audience of a play with incidental music.  The dialogue betweem Tomlinson's Falstaff and Langridge's Prince Hal is close to ideal.

"Bye the bye", Holst wrote to Jane Johnson, "Have you ever tried declaiming 'Shall packhorses  and Hollow pampered jades Which cannot go but thirty mile a day Compare with Caesars and Cannibals and Trojan Greeks  Nay, rather damn them with King Cereberus and let the welkin roar". But at the premieres in Manchester and Golders Green, audiences were not amused.  As Imogen Holst wrote "Listeners felt cheated, for as soon as they got hold of a tune, it woud be snatched away from them, and woven, with the utmost cunning, into a restlessly changing pattern that baffled the ear." yet Holst was following Shakespeare, if not to the letter but in the spirit of the play. "Not one syllable had been distorted", she wrote " from its natural rhythm and inflection for the sake of fitting in the tunes. And each word came through clearly, for the orchestration was so light that it resembled 'a succession of pin pricks!"  

Fortunately now we can listen to At the Boar's Head without expecting a musical, and appreciate it for what it is. 

Roderick Williams, BCMG Wigmore Hall - New Songs to English Poetry

At the Wigmore Hall, the London premiere of a major new work by Howard Skempton, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, with Roderick Williams and BCMG, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.

Samuel Taylor  Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner intrigues because there's nothing quite like it in English verse. Though its tone suggests ancient saga, its subject was unequivocally modern, in the sense it caught the Zeitgeist of the Romantic era's fascination with the "Gothic". The Mariner breaks unspoken  rules and kills the Albatross. He and his shipmates are cursed, dying of thirst though there's "water, water everywhere" around them.  Two centuries later, the Rime still haunts. The Mariner's journey is a descent into the darker unconscious. Like the wedding guest, we "fear thee, ancient Mariner ! I fear they skinny hand!"

Howard Skempton's setting grows from the ballad, so symbiotically it seems a "living thing". The vocal part reflects the strange obsessive nature of the text which draws the listener in as if hypnotized.  The cadences rise upwards and down, at a pace which suggests a hard march. Coleridge began the poem while hiking on the moors.  Roderick Williams is a remarkable narrator, capturing the demented undercurrents in the verse. The lines run like a form of Sprechstimme, not recitation, yet not quite singing. This nightmare does not let a voice take full flight. Williams has a gift for natural, direct communication, without theatrical histrionics. He makes us sympathetic to the Mariner as a mortal man, which makes his fate all the more tragic.

The voice is accompanied at first only by the cello (Ulrich Heinen), legato drawn drone-like, as if it were some ancient, primitive instrument, or, indeed, a force of nature, like a sinister wail.  The cello carries the music for a while, until other voices join in in subtle combinations. The double bass (John Tattersdill) quietly murmurs, suggesting sinister depths.  The viola (Christopher Yates) leads the violins. When the ship is becalmed -- "As idle as a painted ship/Upon a painted ocean" -- the music hovers almost imperceptibly, as if listening out for a breeze. When things change, the piano (Malcolm Wilson) and other players create a tumult.  When the visionary figures appear, the high violins at last take flight.  Coleridge  writes movement into his lines, which Skempton translates into abstract sound.  We listen, as if spellbound to the strange, unworldly atmosphere.  Maurice and Sheila Millward, who suggested the setting and commissioned the piece, had insight. Skempton's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a remarkable work which needs to become part of the canon of British music.

The BCMG Wigmore Hall concert began with  Dominic  Muldowney's An English Songbook (2011) with a new song, "Smooth between the Sea and Land", a BCMG commission receiving its London premiere. This song is a setting of A E Housman, and reflects the poet's distinctive timbre, which stands out in contrast to the three settings of W H Auden, whose arch sophistication demands music of equal bite. Muldowney;'s "At Last the Secret is Out"  and "Funeral Blues" reflect Auden's verbal intelligence, Yet when Roderick Williams sang "Stop the clocks.....", one could feel the sensitivity which Auden concealed behind his combative, cynical surface.

Songs to poems by Edward Thomas  and John Betjeman bridged the divide between Auden and Housman,  with Muldowney creating a  nice, almost bluesy feel as if shadowing the spirit of the 1920's.  Muldowney responds even better to Shakespeare. His version of "Winter " nips along, as if skidding on ice. "tu-whit, tu-who, a merry note", sharply  manic. Finest of all, Muldowney's "Fear no more the Heat of the Sun".  This song is the heart of the cycle, connecting to "Funeral Blues" and "Winter", but also in mood to the other songs in the group. It's a wonderful song, at once elegaic, yet tender. With Skempton and Muldowney, the art of English Song is alive and well.

This review  appears in Opera Today

Hubert Parry English Lyrics - the English language in song

From Somm Recordings, the first of a projected series of songs by Hubert Parry: Twelve Sets of English Lyrics and other songs. This series could lead to a re-evaluation of the development of English art song. The generic title English Lyrics symbolized, writes Jeremy Dibble in his excellent notes, "...an artistic manifesto and advocacy of the English tongue as a force for musical creativity, shaped by the language's inherent accent, syntax, scansion and assonance". (Read Dibble's book on Parry HERE)  In short an approach to singing in English distinct from the British choral tradition. After unification, the German economy prospered so rapidly that it became a major, and global,  competitor with the British Empire. Parry's approach thus mirrors the growth of German Lieder. Why not art song based on great English poetry?  While Stanford set approximations of folk poetry and Elizabethan verse, Parry went for the most challenging. Fourteen of the 30 songs in this volume are settings of Shakespeare. Others include texts by Robert Herrick, Beaumont and Fletcher, Philip Sidney  et al.

Parry's songs are sophisticated art song, far removed from Victorian parlour song or even folksong, with which English song is so often associated, rather ironically since Britain industrialized earlier and more thoroughly than the rest of Europe.  Written between 1874 and 1918, Parry's English Lyrics herald the work of later composers, like Roger Quilter and Gerald Finzi. Parry's knowledge of Shakespeare's plays enhances his settings. The plaintive delicacy of Willow, willow, willow suggests Desdemona's innocence: she doesn't know what's coming but feels distressed and expresses herself in child-like song.  O mistress mine is livelier, even the notes tripping bright and agile. Parry's When icicles hang by the wall sparkles. Short phrases crackle, the way frost makes the sense tingle. The refrain "Tuwitt ! tuwhoo !" seems embedded, wordlessly, in the piano part. This sprightliness also reinforces the contrast between the images of cold and cosy comfort. "When blood is nipt and ways be foul", good folk go about their daily tasks, tending the fire and cooking. A perceptive  setting which challenges Purcell.

Parry responds to No longer mourn for me when i am dead, a setting of Sonnet 71 with great sensitivity.  The sonnet is dignified, but deep emotion breaks through. Parry emphasizes the words "for I love you so" soaring out of the longer phrase in the poem. The piano introduces a firmer mood. From "Oh, if I say, you look upon this verse", Parry's lines stretch as if they could reach out into the future, defying time.

The first set of Shakespeare songs are followed by songs that reflect Parry's appreciation of different poetic styles. To Jocasta on going to the wars and To Althea, from prison, both to texts by Richard Lovelace, blend poise with confidence. ""Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage".  To mark the change in mood, a change in singer. James Gilchrist and Susan Gritton sang the first songs, Roderick Williams most of the next ten. This balance between voices creates further contrast. Williams's direct style is extremely effective in songs like On a time the amorous Silvy Follow a shadow, an altogether more graceful setting of a poem by Ben Jonson, then Ye little birds that sit and sing (Thomas Heywood) where Parry writes brisk bird-like trills which Williams carries off with aplomb.

 Finest of all, To Julia (Robert Herrick) where the ease in Williams's voice lets the sensuality in the song flow pointedly yet discreetly.  Susan Gritton sings two more Herrick settings, and Gilchrist sings Rosaline (Thomas Lodge) with its charming refrain "Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!", soaring up the register at the end with impassioned verve. Under the Greewood Tree, the vigorous, jaunty lines sung by Williams with evident pleasure.  Then Shakespeare with a twist. If Germans could set Shakespeare in translation, so could Parry. It's interesting to compare Parry's "German" Shakespeare to his English Shakespeare.. The piano parts take on greater prominence, as if Parry were remembering Schumann.  To further mark the difference, Gilchrist sang in the English Tenor style, though he normally sings German quite idiomatically.  The English Tenor style is partly based on class pronunciation and on the choral tradition where individual voices have to cut through the voices around them. Hence the crisp articulation of consonants, and the precision of delivery. The very finest English tenors can add great depth to German song - think Bostridge's performances of Henze. With this recording, where Parry addresses the sound of English syntax, we can learn to appreciate the unique quality of the English language in song.

Glyndebourne 2016 revealed - Shakespeare's coming !

For the 400th anniversary of his death next year, William Shakespeare will be celebrated in the beautiful country house setting of the Glyndebourne Festival.

Highlight of the Glyndebourne 2016 season will be Hector Berlioz's  Béatrice et Bénédict, adapted from Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Laurent Pelly. Glyndebourne Music Director Robin Ticciati,said: “In Béatrice et Bénédict we see Berlioz responding to his great love of Shakespeare. It’s a magical piece which fizzes with texture and lightness". Ideal repertoire to match the fizz and light-hearted gaiety that marks the Glyndebourne experience. The cast includes Stéphanie d'Oustrac and Paul Appleby.  It will be fully staged by Laurent Pelly, whose Ravel L'enfant et ses sortilèges, is a Glyndebourne classic. Read more about its premiere HERE)  Pelly's lively, imaginative wit should make this a Béatrice et Bénédict,   to remember. The opera is streamed HERE in Opera Today with a full libretto.

Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream extends the Shakespeare tribute. Superb cast - Matthew Rose, Tim Mead and the irrepressible Kathleen Kim. It's a revival of Peter Hall's 1981 production.  Kazushi Ono will conduct. He's marvellous - another good reason to book.

The Glyndebourne 2016 season also includes revivals of the sunny Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, with Gerald Finley. Read what I wrote about the premiere HERE.  Two more revivals - The Marriage of Figaro and The Cunning Little Vixen (reviewed here)   More adventurously, the second new production of the Glyndebourne 2016 season will be Rossini's Il barbiere di Seviglia, with Glyndebourne's own Danielle de Niese and Alessandro Corbelli. Most operas will be broadcast in the Telegraph.

Thrilling 2015, 2016 - Garsington Opera at Wormsley

Thrilling 2015 and 2016 for Garsington Opera at Wormsley, showing how it's maturing, and developing a unique niche in the British opera world. As the curtain goes up on Garsington Opera’s 25th anniversary season, Douglas Boyd, artistic director, has announced two major developments - partnerships with The Royal Shakespeare Company Theatre, Stratford, and the Philharmonia Orchestra, London.:.

For the first time Garsington Opera is working on a joint project with the RSC with performances at both Wormsley and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford. It will be a rare opportunity to see an abridged version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream performed by members of the Royal Shakespeare Company, under the creative guidance of Gregory Doran, Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, illuminated with Mendelssohn’s enchanting incidental music, played and sung by the Garsington Opera Company and Orchestra, conducted by Douglas Boyd. RSC Artistic Director Gregory Doran said "A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of my favourite Shakespeare plays, so I am delighted to be able to stage this bespoke version incorporating speeches from the play along with Mendelssohn's gorgeous score. It was one of the first pieces of music I heard in childhood and inspired my lifelong love of Shakespeare. This is a very exciting new collaboration with Garsington Opera, and I hope will appeal to lovers of theatre and music alike."

Garsington Opera will  also form a partnership with one of the world’s great symphony orchestras, the Philharmonia Orchestra, initially for five years, which will enhance the artistic quality and reputation of the company. Garsington Opera is also committed to the Garsington Opera Orchestra, which will focus on baroque, classical, Italian and chamber works, whilst the Philharmonia Orchestra will enable larger-scale works to be performed. David Whelton, Philharmonia Orchestra Managing Director said: “Creative partnership is at the beating heart of the Philharmonia's artistic approach, and the opportunity for us to collaborate with one of the most forward-thinking opera festivals in the UK is tremendously exciting. We are absolutely delighted to be a part of Garsington Opera's future, and look forward immensely to working together with Douglas Boyd and the Garsington creative team to bring extraordinary new productions of the larger scale 19th and early 20th century repertoire to audiences at Wormsley."

This year's season starts with Fidelio on 6/6, Offenbach Vert-Vert on 7/6 and Janáček Cunning Little Vixen on 22/6. Almost sold out! So look ahead :

In 2015  Mozart’s Così fan tutti  conducted by Douglas Boyd and directed by John Fulljames, Britten’s Death in Venice conducted by Steuart Bedford, who conducted the world premiere in 1973,  directed by Paul Curran, and Strauss’ Intermezzo conductor Jac van Steen, director Bruno Ravella.

 In 2016, Douglas Boyd will conduct a new production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin directed by Sir Michael Boyd, David Parry conducts Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri directed by William Tuckett,  and Tobias Ringborn conducts Mozart’s Idomeneo with Tim Albery directing.

Garsington Opera at Wormsley fills an important niche. It's Britain's foremost Rossini house, having presented 12  Rossini opera since 1995.  Read about the ground-breaking new Rossini Maometto Secondo commemorative CD (new edition) here.  It's also an elegant Mozart house. The new developments suggest thrilling new possibilities. The season at Wormsley, includes a weekend commemorating the First World War with a celebrity recital by Steven Isserlis, masterclass with Ann Murray, tours of the world-famous Getty Library and a symposium Peace in our Time? led by James Naughtie with Oxford historian Professor Margaret MacMillan, writer Miranda Carter and Jeremy Paxman .

photo: Mike Hoban

First Shakespeare movie 1899

The first movie based on Shakepeare, 1899. Normally, we see only stills and read contemporary reports, but we don't often get a chance to see "real" acting and body movements. Herbert Beerbohm Tree was the foremost Shakepearean actor of his time and created the mould for Shakespearean staging in the first half of the 20th century. How stylized and formal this acting is!  Chances are, Shakespeare himself did things differently, but we'll never know. No movies in Shakespeare's time.

Shakespeare's Globe with ROH extras

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre isn't the original Elzabethan Globe theatre but a 1997 recreation,  geared to the international market for Shakespeare experiences. It's Stratford-upon-Avon South, and even more "authentic" in some ways in that it's near where Shakespeare actually worked. In January 2014,  the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse opens to the public, extending the Globe's potential. Sam Wanamaker was the visionary behind the new Globe, so it's good that he's being commemorated with a new building that will expand the Globe's potential.

For a long time, it's been apparent that the Royal Opera House needs a new medium sized performance space  for productions that are smaller scale than merit the main house but too big for the Linbury Studio Theatre. Perhaps the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse might fit the bill? Certainly it would be an interesting place to do baroque and other works loosely connected to the 17th and 18th centuries, but I don't think it's a long term total alliance.  Outsourcing is not a bad idea. The ENO has been using the Young Vic for years, and the Barbican is expanding across the road and to Milton Court. It makes business sense and doesn't involve spending millions. Only the South Bank seems fixated on  keeping things in one place whatever the cost or the logic. Read my article : Band Aid or Surgery - rethinking the South Bank)

So the Globe Theatre. Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and the Royal Opera House are planning a joint venture for March 2014. Francesco Cavalli’s L’Ormindo which  was first staged in Venice in 1644 at the Teatro San Cassiano. "The intimate nature of the work performed by nine singers and eight musicians in the intimacy of the theatre will provide a rare experience of Baroque opera, and a level of authenticity that promises to be richly revealing as well as rewarding." Perhaps it might work in the Linbury, but that's not the point. It's being done in a performance space that fits the aesthetic, and suggests new possibilities.Photos of the new theatre's interior show a modern foyer with a classically-inspired but elegant  "Jacobean" stage.

"Kasper Holten, Director of The Royal Opera, directs a production that draws on the theatrical conventions in London at the time, with music under the direction of Christian Curnyn, one of the most sought after Baroque specialists of today. And as the opera will be performed in English, this is a rare opportunity to discover not only the immediacy of a stage world of jealous lovers, elopement and the intervention of Fortune and Destiny but also the unique qualities of Baroque opera itself."

Excellent cast, created under the auspices  of the Early Opera Company, familiar to London baroque audiences. It certainly seems up market, and will help put the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on the cultural map.

The new Sam Wanamaker Playhouse certainly doesn't exist "just" for opera. Even before L'Ormindo, the SWP will present "Mozart in London" a series related to Mozart's year in London. Trevor Pinnock curates a series of performances and readings which will feature no less than Kristian Bezuidenhout, Carolyn Sampson, Alina Ibragimova and Chiaroscuro. In April 2014, I Fagiolini led by Robert Hollingworth will be doing "The Boat from Venice to Padua", Monteverdi Madrigals and duets and Barca di Venezia per Padova.(1605) a short musical comedy by monk and musical prankster Adriano Banchieri. It will be staged by Peter Wilson. This is typical I Fagilioni adventure!

Hollywood's Midsummer Night's Dream Korngold

Not Shakespeare, not Mendelssohn but Hollywood's Midsummer Night's Dream. Great play, great music and the hottest stars of the day? Could the combination fail to succeed? Midsummer Night's Dream the movie (1935) combined classics with film technology attempts to create the ultimate Gesamtkunstwerk. What a pity they din't have colour or computer animation! This is a film that screams excess. Everything's pumped up. The Duke's wedding takes place in a vast baroque palace, attended by rows of Indian Princes in turbans. The Mechanicals seem more out of place than ever.

Hollywood's Midsummer Night's Dream is a strange beast which, despite its ambition, is very much a portrait of the time and place in which it was made. Dick Powell plays Lysander, for example. He was a matinee idol and a crooner, usually cast as a romantic lead who could do comedy, too. Hear him sing tunes from Mendelssohn. Because he was a such a star, the film lingers on his part more than strictly necessary. It's hard to square Powell's persona with a subordinate part: he looks and moves like a 30's screen idol. I don't think he was miscast. He's hilarious and almost steals the show.Demetrius and Helena  barely register.

 Powell's  Hermia is Olivia de Havilland. She was being groomed for stardom, so this film was her big breakthrough. The camera loves her, and her face glows, but her lines are delivered with such campiness it's hard to imagine her passionate Scarlett in Gone with the Wind, or 30 years later, Hush, hush sweet Charlotte. Puck is no other than Mickey Rooney. It's perhaps the strangest role ion his career, but he's perfect - ugly and barbaric but athletic. He makes the corny dialogue sound anarchic. He was only 15 at the time. The Mechanicals are so fake they're embarrassing.

It wouldn't be fair to blame the wooden acting on Max Reinhardt who directed in German. He was an important Weimar director and knew his Shakespeare. Something must have got lost in translation. In any case, Shakespeare was augmented by scriptwriters who ratcheted up the dialogue, adding extras in fake archaic style that ruin the flow of Shakespeare's original. Mendelssohn doesn't escape either. Not only do we get music from his Midsummer Night's Dream, we get extracts from the Scottish and Italian Symphonies and extra snippets which are pure Eric Korngold.  To throw us off still further, the Mendelssohn parts are radically re-orchestrated and clumsily played,

But this Midsummer Night's Dream is fun because it's a thirties Hollywood musical through and through. Authenticity doesn't come into the equation. Instead, we see special effects that must have been state of the art at the time. The forest is a Maxfield Parrish fantasy of undergrowth and elongated verticals. Oberon and his cohorts are clothed in myriad tinsel lights, shining like Xmas trees.  Tatyana's hair is backlit so it shines like a golden halo. Pure 30's glamour shot! The fairies fly on hidden guy ropes. Some are played by ballerinas, who dance in formation like chorus girls. No finesse in the dancing, even though the ballet was choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska, Nijinsky's sister. In 30's style, the film gave employment to dozens of dwarves. Some, however, are costumed as monstrous grotesques. But Oberon's minions can be sinister. As Bottom discovers, the night unleashes ugliness as well as dreams.