Glyndebourne 2011 officially out

Glyndebourne's 2011 programme is now officially out and can be seen on the Glyndebourne site.   The BIG draw will be Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, so hot that tickets are restricted to two per application. The good news is that it will be conducted by Vladimir Jurowski (though I'm not entirely enamoured of his Wagner). The maybe not so good news is that it will be directed by David McVicar, but on the other hand he can be good, too, sometimes.

The other new production is Handel's Rinaldo, conducted by Ottavio Dantone, directed by Robert Carsen, who directed Semele and Orlando for William Christie at Aix-en-Provence. Sounds promising.

This year's Don Giovanni will be back, cast as yet unconfirmed.  This time round conductor is the very trendy Robin Ticciati, who makes up for extreme youth with charm. Perhaps this time round the newspapers will have figured out why there are flames in Act 1 and why Don G is dressed as a sleazeball. Although the 2010 production will be screened on British TV at Xmas and is already available to non UK audiences on medicitv, it is definitely worth experiencing live. Read more about it HERE.

Other slightly older revivals are Rusalka (2009), and L'elisir d'amore (2007). I'm going bto make an effort to get to The Turn of The Screw (2006) based on the touring version, because I missed it last time, and want to know how Joanthan Kent approached its staging difficulties  The photos look intriguing, not that you can judge by those alone.

Nagasaki Christians Macau War

This picture looks like desert scrub. In fact it's Nagasaki, after the atomic bomb hit on 9th August 1945. In Hiroshima, a torii in a shrine was partly spared the devastation all round it. In Nagasaki, the Catholic Cathedral was the only structure left standing. (that's it on the hillside) Most of its parishioners didn't survive.

"Why Nagasaki?" some asked, for this was a most westernized, liberal city. Nagasaki was where St Francis Xavier preached to the Japanese, converting hundreds of thousands. Nagasaki began trading with the Portuguese in 1543.   Huge vessels sailed from Lisbon carrying silver and weapons in exchange for silk and porcelain. "The Black Ships" inspired Nanban art. From Nagasaki, many Japanese travelled west, to Macau, to Goa and to Europe.

Japanese Christians built Macau's St Paul's Cathedral, Japanese baroque, mixing Asian and western imagery. Read about it here (photos are mine)  Macanese genes are probably more Japanese than anything else. What an irony! When the Japanese invaded South China,  thousands of Macanese, who'd emigrated to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Canton, were forced back to Macau as refugees. So the circle turns.

Japanese Catholics went underground after their religion was banned early in the 17th century, and re-emerged nearly 300 years later, their faith intact. Because Nagasaki was a Christian centre, many Japanese Christians joined the Navy. There is a story that, weeks after the fall of Hong Kong, the Macanese community were worshipping in Rosary Church. In marched a Japanese naval contingent. Everyone panicked. But it turned out that these Japanese were Catholic, and had just come to hear Mass like everyone else. So much for stereotypes and divisions between people.

 Please take time to explore this blog as there is a lot on Nagasaki. Macau, Japanese and Chinese culture, non violence, war, Hiroshima,  multi cultural things like mixed race communities (beyond Puccini!) .Things on this site you will not find elsewhere. Like THIS, a study of a Buddhist response to the madness of violence, in the film Burmese Harp.

Prom 28 BCMG Knussen Bedford Abrahamsen Benjamin

The BCMG (Birmingham Contemporary Music Group) came to late night Prom 28, with a programme of Hans Abrahamsen, Luke Bedford, Oliver Knussen and George Benjamin. (photo credit Pepe Araneda)

Hans Abrahamsen's Wald (2008-9) is a joint commission between the BBC and the Asko/Schönberg Ensemble, The title hadn't really registered on me before listening, but my first impressions were of dense textures, multiple layers of strange, half-heard sounds, which keep moving forward, into "clearings" of greater lightness. Like exploring a mysterious woodland, where sights are half-glimpsed in shadows, and invisible creatures teem in the undergrowth. Percussion on the right, distanced from the rest of orchestra, clustered around piano and marimba. Layers on layers. A primeval past is evoked by natural horns, and the creatures of the forest by scuttling, scattering techniques on strings and low winds. Read the programme notes by Julian Anderson for more.

"Music is pictures of music", says Abrahamsen. "That is a strong underlying element in my world of ideas when I compose - as is the fictional aspect that one moves around in an imaginary space of music. What one hears is pictures - basically, music is already there." Wald is a beautiful work, which goes far beyond literal representation. It works when you enter the mood, experiencing it on its own terms.

I've written about Abrahamsen's Schnee, which is also very organic, the layers building up like falling snow, muffling and changing what is heard. A good friend thinks it's the most boring piece ever, "like watching snow fall". So the atmosphere doesn't work for everyone, but for me it's like Buddhist prayer, very purifying. It's out on CD now.

Luke Bedford's another exceptionally interesting composer/ LOTS about him on this site, follow the labels and search! Or voit tout en aventure bowled me over when I first heard it in 2006, for it is a truly remarkable piece, one of the most voice-friendly works in the repertoire. Claire Booth looks about 8 months pregnant now, and I worried about the strain on her, but Bedford's lines move like speech, rising and falling  naturally. Crescendi build up gently, so Booth can breathe effortlessly  into the words. Or voit tout en aventure is already something of a perennial, and Booth's been singing it with BCMG from its premiere. This, too, is on CD, an essential, I think. Bedford's written an opera, scheduled for 2011.

More layers with Oliver Knussen's Two Organa (1994). Only six minutes in total, but densely constructeed. The first part uses only white notes, dizzying polyphonic fireworks over a deeper pulse of plainchant. The second adds a secret puzzle: Schoenberg's name is spelt in pitches, concealed in joyous cross-harmonies.

George Benjamin was due to conduct this Prom with his Three Inventions for Chamber Orchestra. Although he wasn't there, this was ironically a fitting tribute to Benjamin's bereavement, for one of these inventions was written in memoriam of Olivier Messaien, Benjamin's creative father figure. It quickly segues into the longer, elegaic Lento titled Alexander Goehr, who is most certainly still alive, but the overall thrust feels dignified, respect warmed by love.

I was very impressed by Ilan Volkov, called in at short notice. When he conducted the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, it often felt like something was being held back.  I wonder now that it was the orchestra itself, who may be happier with one of their own. Volkov is young, eclectic and an outsider. He deserves an orchestra that appreciates him. He's still principal guest conductor at BBCSSO, but hopefully, he'll find a niche in London or in mainland Europe.

We are Frank Chickens!

Frank Chickens has been voted best British Comedy Act in 30 years, thanks to some Anglo male artist trashing them because he didn't know who they were. This is a true Frank Chickens moment, thousands of people voted for them in protest. Now, after 25 years plus Frank Chickens is back in the limelight.

Frank Chickens were two radical feminist Japanese girls living iin London in the early 80's on the fringe of the alternative music underground. No-one else remotely was like them, they were true originals in those fairly uptight free improvisation art music circles, which included Pere Ubu, The Art Bears, Robert Wyatt, Fred Frith, The egg and I, Bang on a Can and a very young Heiner Goebbels. They were the zaniest of the lot! They paid for the first London Musicians Collective building, because they were the only ones who had any money.

I remember them singing the C&W hit "Four walls" where the walls call out to the singer "hello, hello" Nashville, completely subverted, the song made surreal and avant garde. Frank Chickens are still going strong. Here's their website.

Gergiev Mahler 4 & 5 Prom 26

When Gergiev conducted Mahler's Fourth symphony at the Barbican in 2008, my friend and I were seated across the aisle from each other. At first we were numb. Then, spontaneously, we looked at each other in horror. "The worst experience of my concert-going life," said my friend, who has been listening for over six decades. Would Prom 26 be better?

This time Gergiev conducted the World Orchestra for Peace, founded by George Solti in 1995. There are lots of summer season orchestras like these. Some, like the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, really are astounding, attracting the best musicians in the world, fired by intense musical passion. Others, like Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, are genuinely "orchestras for peace", where the players risk their lives to participate. They don't have money to train, travel, etc. so it's a real an act of faith when they come together. Musically, they're pretty good, considering. But pulling together musicians from all over doesn't automatically ensure anything.

Perhaps Gergiev has learned from the débacle of his Mahler cycler in 2008. This Mahler 4 was less self indulgent, but also without character. The LSO musicians then looked shocked, but at least that gave the performance tension since Gergiev wanted them to go one way, and they, with their extensive experience, didn't.  This time, everyone was on best behaviour but the result was curiously inert. When music is basically as good as this, there always will be people who enjoy it. But separating performance from the music itself  is another matter. There were some nice details, as to be expected, but overall there wasn't much coherence. Nothing offensive, but nothing of insight. Not even in the cataclysm at the end of the third movement, which marks the passage from death to the afterlife.

At least this time round Gergiev had a decent soloist who  realizes that Das himmlische Leben isn't a West End show tune. On the other hand, there's more to it than feast after famine. Camilla Tilling was one of Ben Zander's discoveries years ago, and has matured. Good move to choose her, she delivered well.

In theory an extremely good conductor could carry off Mahler 4 and 5 in the same programme. There are links, but it would take a real Mahler specialist to bring them out.  The Fifth can be played with chamber-like lucidity, reflecting the grace of the Fourth . But here they don't connect. The Fifth is popular when it's loud so no doubt there will have been many who enjoyed this more than I could, though I tried..
Please  listen to the Orchestre de Paris Mahler cycle online. It's wonderful, a fabulous resource, and links to Henry-Louis de La Grange talk too.

Masaki Kobayashi The Human Condition

Clocks stopped at Hiroshima at 0815 on Monday 6th August 1945. Immediately, the justifications began. But can mass murder ever be condond? Who decides who's "good" and who's "bad" ?  So I want to commemorate this day with Masaki Kobayashi, The Human Condition. It is a monumental epic, a trilogy that lasts nearly ten hours, without breaks. Like Wagner's Ring, it's extremely demanding emotionally, but the effort is worthwhile. These films will change you, if you  engage with them, and let them work on your soul.

Based on a six-volume novel by Junpei Gomikawa, The Human Condition is set in wartime Japan. Japan doesn't have mineral resources, so it occupied Manchuria in 1931. Effectively, the province was turned into a gigantic slave camp, Manchurian and Chinese workers drafted in to work under horrific conditions.

At head office in Japan, a young idealist called Kaji (Tatsuya Nakadai) thinks treating workers well increases production. So he's sent to Manchuria where he come up against reality. The dread secret police, the Kempetai, use the mines to dispose of political prisoners. Kaji gets set up by corrupt officials, but not before witnessing the defiance of some Chinese prisoners. As one is about to be beheaded, he shouts against tyranny. When the Kempetai try to kill Kaji, the Chinese prisoners march on the Japanese with nothing but moral force, and the  Kempetai back down.

For his pains, Kaji is sent to a danger unit in the Army, but proves his moral worth. He avoids killing but one day kills a Russian hand to hand. He feels guilt, even though he will be the sole survivor of his unit, which gets massacred. Kaji ends up in a Siberian POW camp much like the one he used to run. Again he's set up by venal bullies, but decides to escape, against all odds. Of course he ends up dead, but he's liberated.

Notice that the book was written very soon after the war and filmed by Kobayashi from 1959 when memories were still fresh and painful. Kobayashi was himself a soldier in Manchuria, and a leftist. There were a lot of Japanese socialists, although it was a criminal offence. Masao Ohki, who wrote the Hiroshima Symphony, was another one. The Japanese were certainly not all western movie caricatures.

The film is shocking because it deals with things like death camps and comfort women and the massacres that followed the Russian advance.  Yet what's really striking is the way people are portrayed with dignity, even to some extent the villains. Despite unrelenting degradation, Kaji learns what it is to be truly human. He doesn't betray his principles, and in the end he defies the system, just as the Chinese he watched being beheaded stood up to their oppressors.

These films mean a lot to me. In China, no-one wasn't affected by the Japanese invasion. Obviously, millions traumatized. Because I used to do so much about the war in China, I came across many remarkable stories, where people didn't react with hate. Even stories like Kaji's, men caught up in situations not of their choosing and having to take a stand.  In one incident in Hong Kong, 35 people were beheaded in one day, to intimidate the population. One man, an elderly Christian pastor, who'd studied at Cambridge, comforted each victim. He was the last to die, but after cutting 35 heads, the sword gets blunt, it's gruesome. Yet Reverend Wong continued praying to the end, forgiving his killers.  The Human Condition is a movie, but many stories like it in real life.

Eschenbach talks Mahler with Henry-Louis de La Grange

Mahler specialist extraordinaire Professor Henry-Louis de La Grange discusses Mahler with Christoph Eschenbach.  A whole series of short clips HERE on the Orchestre de Paris site. They discuss performance practice in the light of what's known of Mahler's mind and working methods. Prof. de La Grange knows all there is to know, so it's extremely useful for interpretation. Click on each of the little blank screens to hear the video.

To hear the symphonies, click HERE. This is probably the best cycle available online, masterful performances, full of insight. Mahler 5 has just been added and Mahler 4 comes on 15th August. On 15th September, Mahler 3. Watch and listen to these, they put the Proms into perspective. There is a Mahler 8 which I've written about, but it's an experimental performance, made for French TV. Eschenbach's been a regular at the Proms for years, but in  this Mahler year, he's not there! Which is perhaps just as well as he'll eclipse most else.

Mahler 3rd Runnicles Prom 24

For my review of Mahler 7 Metzmacher please look HERE. For Mahler 9, Haitink in 2009 please see HERE.To be honest, I did not know what to make of Donald Runnicles's Mahler Third Symphony, Prom 24. Obviously it wouldn't be fair to compare it with the brilliant Abbado Mahler 3 at the Proms in 2007 (or his even better performance at Lucerne earlier that year).  Runnicles has been appearing at the Proms for years (I liked his Gurrelieder in 2002). Now he's taken over from Ilan Volkov as Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, he's getting a massive publicity build-up. It is good for the US market, where he is well-known.

No Mahler Symphony no 3 can ever really disappoint, because it's glorious music. Even Gergiev's Mahler 3 was one of his finer moments, because he responded to the "inner demon" in this symphony. This may be the sunniest and happiest of all Mahler's symphonies, but there's a kick in it that's more Puck than Flower Fairies.

The first movement is capably set out. Runnicles goes for a sense of vastness, big open spaces. It's impressive, but as with all Mahler. struggle is of the essence. At the BBC Proms in 2005, Franz Welser-Möst conducted the Cleveland Orchestra in a quite remarkable Mahler 3 where the first movement actually felt like climbing mountains.  Mahler was a hill walker, he knew that peaks aren't reached without struggle. This music moves like a series of peaks and plateaux, each summit revealing further challenges.

Mahler would have reached Steinbach-am-Attersee, on whose shores the symphony was written, through an arduous climb over a mountain pass. The hushed rumbling rolls of percussion evoked a sense of dark depths, struggling ever upwards. “Pan sleeps”, he wrote, "but gradually gleaming flashes of brass grow ever more insistent, as if something is stirring." Mahler wanted the effect of  “a military band on parade, with such a mob (of onlookers) milling about”. There are several other marches here, a funeral, the procession of Dionysius and his drunken followers, and the journey through mountain peaks, and the onward rush of summer - and time -  itself. Runnicles's vision is more magisterial, classically elegant, rather than dangerous.

In his original plans for the symphony, Mahler used the term “Pan awakes!”. As Donald Mitchell says, Mahler discarded his titles like a builder discards scaffolding when a building is complete: but ignore the original intention at your peril. Pan represents a disorder, a powerful life force that convention cannot withstand. He drives away winter, and all it symbolizes. So a sense of Pandemonium wouldn't be out of order.  Listen to Jascha Horenstein for the dark heart of this symphony. Sometimes, just the manic whips of brass suffice to whip the music along. Here, though, they were more integrated into a more even-toned pace.

Runnicles's final movement impressed me more on relistening. He brings out its measured repose well, and Karen Cargill's dark timbre gave O Mensch  depth.  Vibrato, properly used, isn't a crime, and was valid in Mahler's time. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra Junior Chorus sang nice bimm-bamms, but children's choruses usually sound better when the kids are allowed more freedom. To riot, perhaps, as Pan might have liked. But with that resounding finale, all that is passed is wiped away in a blaze of light and colour. Good beginning, good ending, but it would have been good to get a better sense of the journey.

Please read about Esa-Pekka Salonen's Mahler 3 in June 2007, which marked the reopening of the Royal Festival Hall. Given the occasion, its brightness was appropriate, for this symphony celebrates "newness" - the coming of summer, invigorated freedom and creativity. Runnicles' Mahler 3 can perhaps be heard in that light, too, though it was more sedate. The BBCSSO and the Philharmonia Orchestra are very different, as is the Royal Albert Hall. .PLENTY of Mahler on this site, please use the labels and keep reading.

Lewis Smoley on Varèse New York

A little late but here's an account of the Edgard Varèse concert at the Alice Tully Hall in New York in July, by Lewis Smoley. LOTS more on Varèse on this site, please explore! Even a link to a full download of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, where  the composer appears as an actor.

Elgar conducts Elgar The Kingdom

Elgar conducts his own The Kingdom in a historic recording from the 1920's.This Saturday, it will be conducted by Andrew Partington at the 3 Choirs festival in Gloucester. Good soloists. Good orchestra - the Philharmonia. I have a ticket and with luck I'll be there. Some tickets still available, see 3 Choirs site.

Danses Macabres - Ravel, Ligeti, Benjamin, Mozart Prom 22

Danses macabres at Prom 22, with Mozart, Ligeti, George Benjamin and Ravel. Pierre-Laurent Aimard led the procession with Mozart's Piano Concerto no 7 (K595), using Mozart's own cadenzas. By Aimard's usual glorious standards, this was relatively restrained but in many ways this approach worked,  integrating  with the tautness of what was to come.

György Ligeti Musica ricerata no 2 Mesto, rigido e ceremoniale is skeletal. It was written in 1950 when such modern, innovative expression could get you thrown in prison under the Communist regime. Spare textures, quirkiness, music heard in the mind rather than as public consumption. Even the deremonial procession's secretive, sketched in outlines for the listener to flesh out. Jonathan Nott conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in the seminal Ligeti Project for Teldec some years ago. It was his finest moment. Sometimes his work is mixed, but at this Prom he was good.

Good Proms coverage for George Benjamin's Duet (2008) first heard at  Lucerne in 2009. and later at Aldeburgh the same year. It's a new departure for Benjamin, his first piece for piano and orchestra. Benjamin’s own notes describe it succinctly. “The piano has an enormous pitch compass and is capable of accumulating complex resonating harmonies, but each note begins to decay as soon as it it is sounded. On the other hand, stringed and wind instruments can sustain and mould their notes after the initial attack”. Thus Benjamin tries to find common ground, restricting the pitch range of the piano, avoiding the higher registers where decay occurs quickly. Percussion, harp and pizzicato create attenuated sounds that meet the piano on its own ground.

The piano part isn’t elaborately flamboyant: rather it’s spare, single notes occurring in series, like flurries. It evoked the movement of birds – short, quick jerks expanding into flourish as they take flight. Duet for piano and Orchestra is a different kind of concertante, where soloist and orchestra don’t interact in the usual way, but observe each other, so to speak. Then, with a punchy crescendo, it’s over. Benjamin’s music often sounds pointilliste, like detailed embroidery, but here there’s sharpness in design, and clarity of direction.

Piano and orchestra warily stalk each other's moves, so Duet is a kind of furtive, circulating dance. Excellent introduction to Ravel's danses macabres. First, Valses nobles et sentimentales, intelligently played, favouring the noblesse. Then, in apposite contrast, the relatively little heard Miroirs – Une barque sur l'océan and La valse, so famous that it's basic repertoire.

Hearing them together enhanced Miroirs. It made me think of the Flying Dutchman, not Wagner, but the  haunted soul doomed to sail the high seas. The moments of calm seemed eerie. La Valse of course isn't Johann Strauss. It's haunted too, by the horrors of war.  A fine performance from Nott and the BBCSO, though not, perhaps as savage as it might have been, but plenty good anyway..

Hiroshima and Nagasaki Exhibition, London

Sixty-five years ago on Friday, atomic bombs landed on Hiroshima, then on Nagasaki.  These towns were not military targets. Most of those killed were children, women and the elderly.  "The world's worst terrorist attack".

An exhibition commemorating Hiroshima and Nagasaki opens this week in London. See some of the objects HERE. Simple objects, like a blouse a girl sewed herself from her mum's old kimono. Her mother had to rip it off because the girl, no more than a child,  was covered in burns.  A survivor will be speaking, too,  There aren't many left after 65 years, though many have been born since with birth defects and cancers.. 

What has been learned? When Tony bLiar can hoodwink a nation into war on flimsy evidence yet come out shining with glory, any morality?  On 9/11, those who were trapped sent out messages of love, not hate. It was intensely beautiful: hope rising from the ruins. Instead, Iraq, the Vietnam quagmire again, on a bigger scale. Maybe our worst enemies are not outsiders at all.

In 1918, revenge against Germany set the scenario in which Hitler came to power. In 1945, some lessons were learned. Madness muliplies easily. Breaking the cycle of hate is more difficult. Read more about the exhibition HERE on the Society of Friends website.

Henk Neven Marlin Christensson Wolf Brahms Proms

Introducing Dutch baritone Henk Neven! Listen to the chamber music Prom PCM3 and hear why he's hot. BBC New Generation Artists are plentiful these days, and some are sadly not very good. Henk Neven, though, is a discovery with genuine potential. 

Listen to the way he launches into four of Brahms's Heine Settings. He can be confident because he knows how to use his voice to make them work. What a bounce he puts into Es liebt sich so lieblich im Lenze!  The voice is weighty, yet leaps upwards, decorating the word Nachtigall so it flies, like the bird. He's a little more occluded for Sommerabend, but opens his chest, breathing well into Mondenschein. He's still young, and needs polishing but the basic material is there.

Neven's just won the major Dutch Music Prize and has the support of a Borletti-Buitoni Fellowship. BBC Young Generation Artists get maximum exposure, but other awards develop their abilities better. I first heard Neven in June 2008, as Frère Léon in Messiaen's St François D'Assise in Amsterdam, in the wonderful Holland Festival production, conducted by Ingo Metzmacher, which later that year came to the Proms.  There's lots on this site about this opera and composer, follow the labels.  Neven was the eager young monk who follows the saint around though he can't quite understand what makes him tick. Frère Léon is a demanding role, but Neven was so good I had no idea how young he was in real life.

Read more about Henk Neven on his very professional-looking website, which has audio samples. His agents are Intermusica (photo credit: Marco Borggreve).

Malin Christensson is also a BBC Young Generation Artist, getting top level exposure at the Proms. She's given recitals at the Wigmore Hall  and has recently recorded Werther with Villazon and Garanča, singing Sophie. Read more about her HERE on the Askonas Holt site (photo credit: Sussie Ahlburg).

At this Prom, she sang Alban Berg's Seven Early Songs, an ambitious choice, for even early Berg is an undertaking which singers grow into. Hugo Wolf's Italienische Liederbuch, however, is a gift for Christensson's light, airy charms. Here, she can sing the coquette in Auch kleine Dinge, stretching her lines playfully to emphasize how small her lover is.  She sings the cheeky last line doch eben nicht in dich from Du denkst mit einem Fädchen with lively spirit. Then O wüßtest du, where she negotiates the high tessitura."Der Himmel" indeed.

Listen to Hank Neven sing some of the more subtle songs, like Schon streckt' ich aus im Bett. The piano sounds deliberately insouciant, like a lute. But listen to the words, which have darker meaning.  Wolf's settings do favour the male voice for depth of feeling.  The encores were best of all, Christensson singing the witty Ich hab' in Penna, and Neven Ihr seid die Allerschönste. And Wolf wouldn't be Wolf without the wonderful piano commentary, ably played by Hans Eijsackers.

Because this year is the 150th anniversary of Hugo Wolf's birth, we'll be hearing more of the Italienische Liederbuch, but surprisingly Wolf isn't getting nearly as much attention as he deserves.

Rattle, Romantic. Prom 21 Wagner Berlioz

For Rattle Mahler First with the Berliner Phil see http://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2010/09/rattle-berliner-mahler-1-beethoven-prom.html

When Simon Rattle first started conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, some wondered if a conductor known for modern(ish) music could adapt to early music. Not a problem. Many modern composers and conductors have refreshed themselves in music before 1870. No-one now queries Rattle's affinty with the genre.

Prom 21 confirms how Rattle and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment use period principles to inform mid 19th century classics. Refinement isn't something always associated with Berlioz, but shorn of the big choral finale, the delicacy of the Act 2 love duet from Roméo et Juliette sounds exquisite. Romeo and Juliette are alone, in a garden at night. Rattle makes the themes curve like caresses. Remarkably fluid playing, strings and winds in seamless harmony.

Knowing that Tristan und Isolde was to come, it was natural to pick out correspondances, like the tiny passage near the beginning which sounds like a prelude to the later opera. Can we hear the future ocean call?

Another Act 2 love duet, this time between Tristan and Isolde. Period instruments favour intimacy, so the orchestra creates a musical veil wrapping the lovers from the world outside. We hear the sea and the muffled sounds of the hunt, but Tristan and Isolde are oblivious. We hear the mounting tension in the music and Brangäne's cries, but we're hypnotized by the music, just as the lovers are hypnotized by one another.

Fabulous, luminous playing, gently unfolding, so when the tension breaks, it's agony. A pity that the singing wasn't technically up to the level of the orchestra. Violetta Urmana's a dramatic diva, more heroic than tender, and Ben Heppner's voice is losing its bloom. I don't mind that much, since Tristan is a man with a past, and a haunted past at that. Indeed, psychologically he's more convincing as a weary older man than a mindless lad. Isolde has a past, too, and had planned to kill him. So no staging needed. Urmana and Heppner act with their voices, and to me, that's what drama is about.

La forza del destino - Opera Holland Park

Opera Holland Park proves, with this ambitious Verdi La forza del destino, that it can punch way above its weight. The secret? Better than average singers, better than average staging. This is a production that could be adapted for a bigger house and still stun.

It's not the easiest opera to stage. The plot verges on melodrama, so singers need to act well to convince. Much of the drama grows from context, too. All those peasants, soldiers, beggars, monks and priests give a wider dimension to the tragedy. The Vargas family of Calatrava are destroyed because they're obsessed by class and status. All around them, society is ripped apart by war and famine. Only the Church offers stability - or does it? Verdi shows the Church isn't a sanctuary.

It's a narrative that might call for widescreen excess. Opera Holland Park doesn't have such resources, but has found a solution in simplicity. In the Overture, the chorus stand before the audience, face to face. No action needed, the implication is obvious. We're invited to view the mass as individuals, each with their own private drama.

Such a panoramic opera could descend into chaos if badly put together. Fortunately, Alison Chitty is one of the most experienced designers in the country, who created Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur at the Royal Opera House. Her set for La forza del destino focuses on the cast, not the scenery. Black backcloth to hide the remains of Holland Park House. Palace, town, battlefield, church, fundamentally the same thing. It's the human drama that counts.

Neat rows of chairs indicate a church. Splattered with red, hanging at awry angles, the chairs depict the chaos of war, order overturned. Minimal effects, maximum impact. These humble chairs function as a silent, secondary chorus, providing discreet support.

Singing, too, was of a higher order.  Gweneth Ann Jeffers deserves far more attention than she gets in this country. Her voice is rich, with a wide range, and capable of great expressive depth. At the inn, she appears unobtrusively from a far corner, dressed as a man, but the moment she sings, she's unmistakable, singing of a higher order than anyone else. Her Pace, pace mio Dio is specially moving, which she phrases carefully, colouring subtle shifts of emotion.  Singers of Jeffers' quality deserve to be polished, like gemstones. She needs good management. If she's properly pushed, it will pay off. She has the potential to be a star.

Although I've heard Mark Stone in recital and in smaller roles at the Royal Opera House, this was the first time I've heard him in a role as substantial as Don Carlo.  He's even better as opera singer than recitalist, because he projects so well, and has commanding stage presence. Stone's Don Carlo is a natural aristocrat. You know immediately that he's not Pereda of Salamanca - no meek student would sing with such authority! An elegant voice, which Stone uses well to evoke the more driven aspects of the character. Don Carlo's so maddened with hate that he'll kill his own sister if it's the last thing he does.

Peter Auty is perhaps the most experienced of these principals, but is less convincing as Don Alvaro. A few strained notes are acceptable, but unlucky pacing meant that he ran dry towards the end of long passages.Of course, he's been wounded in Act 2 but this is theatre, not reality. He should be able to match if not outclass Don Carlo, since he's supposed to be such a hunk that Leonora chose him above her family, class and homeland.. Here, though, there wasn't much romantic chemistry.

Carole Wilson's Preciosilla was sassy and intelligent, not stock-gypsy slut. She made the part a parallel to Leonora, for both women are strong willed and passionate. When Wilson sings the fiery Rataplan, Rataplan, it feels like she's inciting the chorus to riot.  They respond with such gusto that it feels like revolution. Mikhail Svetlov's Padre Guardiano doesn't seem too discomforted, but I suspect Verdi's sympathies lay with the crowd.

The lesser parts in OHP's La forza impressed, too. If only Graeme Broadbent's interesting Marquis wasn't killed off so soon. Aled Hall's Trabucco is racier than Don Alvaro, and Donald Maxwell's Fra Melitone mellow toned, for a bass baritone.

For a long opera, this didn't drag. The direction (Martin Duncan) was firm, though I wish the gunshot that felled the Marquis had been audible. Later gunshots were, so perhaps this was mechanical failure. As my friend observed, without this first gunshot, the whole premise of the opera doesn't make sense.  Some very good moments, though. The procession emerges from the passageway among the audience. Cross held high, very dramatic. Just as everyone carries a burden in this opera and dies, so did Jesus.

Even more impressive is the way Duncan creates the transition between the merry scene with the vivandières and the scene with the starving peasants. It takes just minutes, for all the chorus do is discard their colourful outer robes. But it marks a major reversal of fortune, "the force of destiny".

Though the chorus in this opera is large, it's extremely well choreographed by Paul Kitson. The singers move in tightly defined groups, very precisely blocked. Many small vignettes, like the lovers, but nothing to dissipate from the main focus (unlike the ENO style described before)  Complex interactions, but so well executed everything flows smoothly. At one point, Padre Guardiano's cloak almost gets snagged on some furniture, but a chorus member spots it and pulls it free so the singer doesn't trip. Quick thinking!

Opera Holland Park is a fun experience, though the performances don't generally overwhelm. This La Forza del destino was in a much higher league though, definitely way above average. So good, in fact, that it should be revived even in an established theatre. Sadler's Wells? The Barbican? It deserves to be heard.