Unusual Christmas concert - songs, poetry and harp !

Unusual Christmas concert - songs, poetry and harp ! with Sarah Minns, Adam Best and Mary Reid at Stoke Newington Old Church
 


From Roger Thomas


Soprano Sarah Minns's message -- to very loosely paraphrase her introduction to this fascinating OperaUpClose evening concert (December 5) -- was that Christmas is coming, but let's not drown in schmaltzy Xmas musical fare but, rather, examine the season of "hibernations and awakenings". The themes were not followed so closely as to self-destruct but we got the picture. The chilly wet and windy weather helped, as did the venue: Stoke Newington's Old Church (now an arts centre), the only surviving church in London built in the Elizabethan era.

We don't hear enough of Sarah Minns, one of London's most characterful, lively and versatile classical sopranos. The versatility was in full play here; no piano for this recital but harp, played exquisitely by Mary Reid, who had also prepared the harp transcriptions of the vocal works from piano or full orchestral scores. The Old Church cried out for Shakespeare and actor Adam Best was there to add the Bard's own words to Minns's Shakespeare-influenced songs, as well as other poems suited to the season and themes.


But first an aria ("O Sleep, why dost thou leave me") from Handel's Semele, with a libretto based on Congreve's (he -- not, as often believed, Shakespeare -- who wrote "Musick has charms to soothe a savage breast"). Charms indeed from Minns, but above all regret poignantly portrayed as the mortal Semele awakens to the realisation that her dream of the God Jupiter has faded -- only the beginning of her troubles.

In this first group, more regret at an aborted awakening as Adam Best read Emily Dickinson's poem "I thought the train would never come" (/How slow the whistle came/I don't believe a peevish bird/So whimpered for the Spring...) Then, from Minns, three of Aaron Copland's 12 settings of Dickinson poems: a forcefully expressed, soprano-apt "Why do they shut me out of heaven?" (/Did I sing too loud...); "The World feels dusty"; and "Heart we will forget him".


Before we moved into Shakespeare territory Mary Reid refreshed our musical palates with two of Marcel Tournier's evocative Images: the cool and calm of "Au Seuil du Temple" and the multicoloured fluttering of magical birds in "La Volière Magique" -- I expected Stravinsky's Firebird to fly in at any moment.


Shakespeare moved in with Hamlet: Minns sang Elizabeth Maconchy's beautifully simple setting of "Ophelia's Song", mourning the death of her father Polonius, its watery sounds perhaps foretelling Ophelia's own demise.


Then different approaches to Romeo and Juliet. Minns in bel canto mode made the most of Giulietta's lament from her balcony in Bellini's I Capuleti e I Montecchi ("Eccomi in lieta Vesta"). What's to be done to get Juliet out of a marriage she does not want? Adam Best took us back to Shakespeare where Friar Lawrence in Act IV Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet confidently expounds to Juliet his cunning plan to have her seem dead and thus escape her unwanted marriage and flee with Romeo. But as we in the UK know all to well these days, "cunning plans" engineered to leave marriages often go askew.


Before the interval, Mary Reid played "Improptu Cristatus" a work written for her by Thomas Chevis that had its world premiere in Ripon Cathedral on November 29 in a recital entitled Les Oiseaux. Podiceps cristatus is the great crested grebe, a water-bird noted for its elaborate mating rituals. On the harp, much frantic paddling, splashing and flapping of wings. And the low and harsh call of the male bird, which, Reid warned us, involved some harp technique that worried the Ripon audience who thought the resulting sound was a mistake.


The shorter second half took us gradually towards Christmas but also featured Elizabethan and older texts. Edmund Rubbra's "A Hymn to the Virgin" set a text from c. 1300 and was followed by Adam Best's reading of Shakespeare's Sonnet 43, which grapples with the paradox of seeing his lover more clearly with eyes closed or dreaming than in the light of day-to-day reality (When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,/For all the day they view things unrespected;/But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,/And, darkly bright, are bright in dark directed....)


Then more Elizabethiana: Ivor Gurney's exquisite setting of John Webster's poem "Sleep" from the composer's Five Elizabethan Songs. Gurney's sparse scoring -- not a note too many -- worked just as well on the harp as the piano.


Two of Samuel Barber's 10 Hermit Songs ("The Crucifixion" and "The Desire for Hermitage") based on Irish monks' marginalia, took us back to the 8th to 13th centuries.


We were now on the way to a sophisticated Christmas. The two poems read by Adam Best that framed this final section were ironic, but respectfully so, prompting us to think of new angles on the Nativity. Joseph Brodsky's "Star of the Nativity" takes us to a realistic Bethlehem seen from a newborn's perspective but with Godly intervention (...from the depth of the universe, from its opposite end-the star/was looking into the cave. And that was the Father's stare.). Worth reading in full. For text, see here.) U.A. Fanthorpe's poem "I am Joseph" also takes an oblique view of the Nativity, with Joseph gently lamenting (I wanted an heir, discovered/My wife's son wasn't mine). But he's still deeply in love with Mary and will take things as they are (My lesson for my foster son:/Endure. Love. Give.) (For full text, see here.)


Mary Reid played the harp solo "Interlude" from Britten's Ceremony of Carols, for me distant church bells heard in a snowy landscape.


Max Reger's "The Virgin's Slumber Song", sung in the original German by Minns, draws on a text written in the late 19th century but has a folk-song down-to-earth reality. Mary is a real (loving) mother but is tired and dearly wants her baby to sleep (And soft and sweetly sings/A bird upon a bough: /Ah, baby, dear one,/Slumber now!). The exclamation mark is indicative; it's in the German text too. Mary is far from shouting at the baby, but is frustrated.


Finally, Sarah Minns sang some old favourites: Holst's "In the Bleak Midwinter; Franz Gruber's "Silent Night" (Minns invited the audience to join her in singing this); and Adolph Adams's "O Holy Night". Great work from the trio, with special praise to Sarah Minns for singing her whole lengthy and varied programme from memory, without any back-up scores in sight.

Photos: Roger Thomas

Crossed and fractured lines - La voix humaine Sarah Minns

From Roger Thomas

When Denise Duval premiered Francis Poulenc's tragédie lyrique La Voix Humaine, in 1959, she wasn't exactly young. But recordings of her performing it reveal a bright, youthful voice and impressive acting skills. A regular in new Poulenc works, Duval fulfilled what the composer called for in his brief notes on the musical interpretation: [the role] "ought to be performed by a young and elegant woman. This is not about an elderly woman who has been abandoned by her lover."
 
At Kings Place, London, Sarah Minns, with Richard Black (musical director) an expert hand at the piano, in Poulenc's own piano version of La Voix, uses the English translation by Joseph Machlis issued by Poulenc's publisher, Ricordi, in 1977. Minns is a few years younger than Duval was in 1959 and ideally fits Poulenc's call for youth and elegance. She is also one of the most capable actors in classical singing in London. That is crucial because, to be successful, La Voix Humaine -- a 40 minute-plus psycho-drama for soprano (called, simply, Elle) in conversation on the telephone with a former, or still fleeing, lover, whose voice we never hear, with alternating emotional support and assault from the piano score -- is no place for acting wimps.
 
In her programme notes to this OperaUpClose production, director Robin Norton-Hale tells us that in the opera's preparation she and Minns mapped out what the unheard lover at the other end of the line might have been saying. An eminently sensible strategy, which added colour and authenticity to Minns's responses. There is clearly a back story in Jean Cocteau's libretto (based on his 1928 play). Elle's lover is already well on the run. From what Elle says on the phone it emerges that he is seeking to retrieve letters they have exchanged. And the lover has abandoned his pet dog at Elle's apartment. The dog passage is apparently sometimes cut by directors who see it as a baffling non-sequitur, but Minns's extremely sensitive delivery of the description of the dog's state -- pining for his master, refusing to eat, lurking in the hall, turning vicious -- makes it clear that the dog is a surrogate in suffering for Elle. "In spite of his intelligence, he surely cannot guess the truth."

But since Elle's phone conversations are fraught with deception -- about what she is wearing, where she has been and with whom (lunching with Martha?), when she has in fact been in a sleeping-pill swoon -- how do we know for sure that the dog is not still full of joie de vivre and eating well? Or maybe stiffly starved to death on the doormat. Elle's changes of mood are adeptly handled by Minns: her frustrations with the party line (nothing to do with the Parti Communiste Française -- if you are too young to have experienced one, check Wikipedia); her barefaced lying bravado (not that the unheard voice does not offer his own fair share of deception); her descent into despair, sometimes retracting her lies to the point of admitting to what is effectively a suicide attempt. Another crucial episode -- when "Madame" interrupts on the party line for the third time. Elle's anger at the eavesdropping as portrayed by Minns is visceral and scary. ("But, Madame, we're not trying to be interesting, I can assure you ... If you really find us so silly, why are you wasting your time instead of hanging up?"). In her anger, Minns powerfully reminds the audience that we too have been salaciously listening in on a private conversation for the past half hour or so.

Simplicity and elegance are key features of this production, with a nod towards the 1930s. Minns wears white silk pajamas, sometimes with a fur-collared overcoat over them (set and costume designer: Kate Lane). Lane's set is minimalist and subtly lit (lighting designer: Richard Williamson). At first I thought the wire mesh panels might be overstressing Elle's isolation and mental imprisonment, all of which is more than adequately spelt out in the libretto. But I rapidly concluded that they amounted to rooms in the apartment that Elle could wander around while remaining visible. A telephone expert did suggest to me that the phone flex might be out of style for the 1930s. But nothing is perfect in this world, is it? 

Certainly no directorial overkill here. Do we really need the audience being guests at a party in Elle's apartment (she's not well enough to organise one), or videos of the voiceless lover? No, not when what is all there already in the libretto and piano score is so skilfully presented.

 La Voix Humaine continues at Kings Place Hall 2 on 6 and 20 August; on tour at Redbridge Drama Centre, London E8, on 3 October, and North Wall Theatre, Oxford, on 20 November.

 Photo: Christopher Trimble

Into Zeus's storm: The Invited at St Paul's Church, Covent Garden

Roger Thomas writes :

London is blessed with several small independent
opera companies that give an opportunity for

talented young singers to take on substantial leading roles rather than having their skills confined to the choruses of the big houses. This Opera Room Productions/Iris Theatre production at St Paul's Church, Covent Garden (the Actors' Church) was a good example of the genre.

The Invited (music by Richard Knight, libretto by Norman Welch) is set in 1916 in an upper middle class household in rural Suffolk that has been shrivelled by the vagaries of the First World War to the two daughters of the house; their mother is away undergoing treatment for consumption, their doctor father is serving on the Western Front and the servants have left.

The performance opened dramatically: with the sisters on stage – early morning, with Violet (Sarah Minns) still in bed and Emily (Emma Häll) at a table – the nine-piece orchestra, dressed in a fair approximation of WW1 army uniforms, processed down the church aisle playing a martial theme. But the coup de théâtre's effect was dissipated when they settled down and tuned up. What a waste! Effectively the performance had to begin again.

At the opera's core is a dialogue between the two sisters induced by the catastrophic losses of the war: “rational” Emily seeks comfort from the natural world; Violet, increasingly deranged, seeks a solution in a return of the ancient Greek gods, convinced that in a coming storm Zeus will impregnate her with a new saviour who will cure the world of its ills. Emily proves powerless to dissuade her sister. A third element driving the action is a washerwoman from the village, Mrs Galloway (Miriam Sharrad), whose prying curiosity fuelled by village rumours about the sisters' unorthodox behaviour leads her to spy on their close physical intimacy. Eventually Mrs Galloway reveals that her soldier son has been killed in action, and produces a letter ostensibly indicating that one of the sisters – Violet, it turns out – is pregnant by her son and had promised to marry him.

Violet strenuously denies all this, despite demands from her sister and Mrs Galloway that she tell the truth. Having threatened Mrs Galloway with a knife, she eventually stabs herself. As she dies, her sister, grief-stricken, expels the washerwoman from the house, and moves off the stage down the aisle, into the coming storm, singing that she will offer herself to Zeus in her sister's place.

Minns gave a stunning performance as Violet, acting the deranged and deluded young woman with scary conviction as she pointed heavenwards and stared fixedly forward, at one point moving trance-like down the aisle into the audience. Her singing was powerful and moving. All praise here also to the director (Neil Smith) for tapping Minns's undoubted movement skills (she has dance training as well as established singing credentials) and talent for characterisation. Minns might not have the coloratura to cope with the crazed Lucia di Lammermoor, but on this showing she could beat any singer in acting that part. Häll sang strongly and convincingly as Violet's concerned and loyally loving sister, although her diction was problematic from time to time – a hindrance when so much

depended on what was said in a dense libretto. Sharrad caught effectively the unhealthy mix of busybody and bereaved mother in Mrs Galloway.

The string, wind, horn, percussion orchestra played extremely well, actively and skilfully directed from the piano by Elspeth Wilkes, so it seemed a pity that the music was so heavily scored – relentlessly tutti and seemingly at times in competition with the singers rather than supportive of them and the story line. With such skills available, it might have been more appropriate to the action had there been more lyrical passages using single instruments or groups of instruments.

Yuji Suzuki produced a simple but effective stage design – I particularly liked Violet's bier-like bed with blood-red cover – and Ciaran Cunningham's lighting design and Ned Welch's sound got the approaching storm just right.

Eleanor Vale, Wedmore Opera John Barber

Benjamin Britten believed in the value of community opera. Albert Herring, for example, works well when it's performed by the "ordinary" townsfolk it depicts. Next year, the Aldeburgh Festival is presenting Albert Herring in Britten's birthplace, Lowestoft, with local participants.

Community opera is a genre in itself, with its own rationale and values. It brings communities together. All kind of people contribute : everyone gets a chance to enjoy and be creative. Even the big houses like Glyndebourne and the Royal Opera House have education programmes that reach out to new audiences. Britten was right : community opera has social purpose.

John Barber's Eleanor Vale at Wedmore Opera fills the brief.  Large choruses and crowd scenes, so everyone gets to have a go. Big scenes for the children, who are clearly having a wonderful time and will treasure the experience for the rest of their lives, as will their families. Barber's music is lively and full of variety, filled with witty allusions. Part of the fun is picking up the witty allusions clothed in Phillip Glass-like sonorities. Modern music need not be scary! Nor does it have to be difficult to sing, an important consideration in these circumstances. The libretto, by Peter Cann, is droll, shiny as an apple, but sharp, which makes the rot at the core of the plot all the more potent.

The main role of Eleanor Vale holds the whole opera together and gives the opera distinctive character. Eleanor Vale rides into a Victorian Somerset village astride a man's bicycle. Barber can write much more demanding music for Eleanor. She stands out from the crowd in every way. It's a role for a professional with a strong personality, for it is the backbone that holds the entire opera together. Sarah Minns creates the part perfectly, indeed I think it was written for her. She has a clean, bright voice with enough depth to convey the more sinister side of Eleanor's personality. Sweet charm shields savage menace. Crows end up dead on the doorsteps of human carrion eaters. Dogs that chase Eleanor's bike end up dead. Eleanor wreaks havoc on the small-town small minds who destroyed her mother. Minns, who is a regular at Opera Holland Park, Grange Park Opera and elsewhere, has the voice, stamina and personality to keep this opera afloat (perhaps not the best choice of words given what happpens in the plot).

Nicholas Sharratt sings Matty the Mender, who's "travelled as far as Bristol". He fixes bikes and tries to fix Eleanor but she's beyond mending. The best writing in this opera focusses on Eleanor, but the dialogues between Matty and Eleanor give both singers a challenge which they meet well. Minns and Sharratt (I enjoyed his performance in Maconchy's The Sofa in 2007) both have solid experience and interesting voices. They're both in the photo above, with Adam Green as the Headmaster. He's a regular at the ENO and in concerts, both in the UK and abroad. He was good, but the role wasn't big.

Wedmore Opera, founded nearly 25 years ago, shows great foresight in commissioning this new opera. Barber's Eleanor Vale is "Somerset local interest", which is good, and places Somerset on the repertoire map.  But it's an opera with basic human interest, which could transfer well nearly everywhere, Suffolk perhaps, and even London. The big crowd scenes can be cut down easily, when community participation isn't of the essence. The orchestra is small enough for Eleanor Vale to exist in chamber version. Indeed, it's almost like there are two operas here, one communal, another more concentrated version waiting to emerge. Perhaps they could co-exist?  Tighter focus would overcome the natural difficulties that come with amateur performance.  The punch in the libretto and score would hit harder if audiences could hear it more clearly. Ironically, away from the countryside, Eleanor Vale might blossom with the spark contemporary music specialists might give. Eleanor Vale shows that communuity opera can work when the basic concept is good. And the role of Eleanor Vale is a gift for a young, bright soprano, though it needs to be properly cast, as it was here. This is an opera that should be heard again.