Brecht Weill Die Dreigroschenoper Threepenny Opera

Kurt Weill's Die Dreigroschenoper  (Threepenny Opera)  is on at the Royal Festival Hall, part of a "Berlin weekend". How would Bertolt Brecht feel about the opera turned into consumer experience?  Brecht, I suspect would have loved the money. Despite his left-wing rhetoric, he was happy to profit through the work of others. Socialist words, capitalist actions? Read John Fuegi's The Life and Lies of Bertolt Brecht (1994).  Contradictions abound in The Threepenny Opera.  The opera can be presented as style icon for those who want the Weimar Experience as a fashion statement, rather in the way that "Vienna City of Dreams" marketing castrates Viennese culture. Capitalist consumer values contradict the very idea of class war. Ignore the issues in the opera. Publicize your street cred with the right T shirt or tea towel. "Capitalism consumes itself" as some might say. 

Brecht and Weill wanted to communicate with non-musical audiences, so in principle there's no reason why it shouldn't be adapted for different types of audiences. The Los Angeles Rise and Fall of Mahagonny made me cringe with its shallowness, but then shallowness is what the opera depicts. Delicious irony.  In Dreigroschenoper, appearances deceive. Seerabuer Jenny is a servant kicked about by customers in the "lumpige Hotel". But wait! "Ein Schiff mit acht Segeln iund mit funfzig Kannonen" will come and bomb the town. Who will die ? Jenny says, "Alles!"

Macheath is an enigma. He's a sleazeball who always manages to slip away uncaught. MacHeath oozes, like slime, his lines replicated in saxophone and slide trombone. A lounge lizard characterization is good, menace concealed by an air of impenetrable elusiveness. MacHeath gets by because he hunts in camouflage.  He is no comic book thug. He and Tiger Brown were comrades. Posh, but dangerous. The Shark bites!

Although Macheath is the hero/anti hero, the Street Singer holds the whole opera together. The role is not unlike tha tof the Circusmaster in Lulu. Almost certainly Berg knew Die Dreigroschenoper and saw the film made in 1931, directed by G W Pabst.  Berg and Brecht were both familiar with Wedekind. In both operas the menagerie holds humans, trapped by their position in life. Lulu herself, like Macheath, survives by being what others expect her to be. Neither opera is naturalistic, though Pabst's film uses naturalistic sets.

Ernst Busch sang the Street Singer in the 1928 production of Die Dreigroschenoper, and also in the Pabst film. A committed Communist, he didn't leave Europe and ended up a prisoner of the Nazis.  Busch and Hanns Eisler were comrades. Eisler made it to Hollywood, but wrote some of his finest work in exile, inspired by his experience of capiltalism in its most exuberant form. Weill, on the other hand, wrote musicals with vaguely political connections, but nothing like The Threepenny Opera. Eisler also challenged Brecht and tightened his political focus.  The result was Kuhle Wampe, worlds away from The Threepenny Opera. Read more about Kuhle Wampe here, with full download. 

Ernst Busch's performances are so remarkable that he has defined the role and indeed the opera. His voice growls  like a savage beast. Exaggerated "rrrr"s, done with defiant panache. "Messerrrrrr, besserrrrr" .The Street Singer has to sell for a living, so he purrrrrs to attract custiomers,while Macheath nicks their wallets. Or, should we say, adjusts the distribution of wealth?  Of course there can be commercialized, fashion icon Threepenny Operas, but for me, Dreigroschenoper needs to be as sharp as Mackie's knife. (see also my review of  the superlative and very original Deigroschenoper at the Barbican in 2009 HERE. "Bostridge trades fey for Kray". Surprisngly idiomatic cast. A pity that's not on CD

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Britten Noye's Fludde Blackheath Halls Review

Britten's Noye's Fludde at Blackheath Halls  - a heartwarming experience that really shows how to "grow" opera audiences of the future. Most schemes to promote interest in classical music are worthless. Benjamin Britten, however, believed that if people were involved with performance, they'd appreciate what was involved.

Blackheath Halls has a reputation for producing high-quality opera on a very small budget.  This Noye's Fludde was so good that a professional company weould be glad to have created it. Perhaps it helps that many locals are involved in music anyway, and their standards are high. But this performance was special because of the children.  They had spent the whole half-term holiday preparing. Noye's Fludde iss an ideal multi purpose project for schools. because it can start kids thinking about issues like the environment, and ethics, which all children can relate to. Everyone can join in, whether they're singing or not. The animal, bird  and insect props werer made by the children themselves at school,. Each "head" was made from an empty milk container, adapted to look like an animal with bits of recycled material. Simple ingenuity, and environmentally sound

For me, the show began even before the performance started. .Happy children were milling around the premises, quivering with anticipation. Their faces shone with enthusiasm, even though they'd had a busy week. Children haven't lost touch with the sense of wondrous discovery. Too often adults have that creative spark knocked out of them by convention and received wisdom. Britten wrote so well for children because they are truly "innocent" and see the world afresh.

The children of Blackheath  justified Britten's faith. Surprisingly good singing, especiially the three boy trebles. Sem, Noye's son, must have acting genes. This experience will enhance the lives of all these children, no matter what they go on to do as adults. The Kyrie Eleison, sung by a chorus of children carrying symbols of animals and insects, is naturally dramatic. There's no pressure on the children to perform  It's enough that they're enjoying themselves.  Effective, unfussy directing by James Hurley, the Gossips being particularly well defined, the stylized ritual softened by humour. . Noye's Fludde derives from medieval mystery plays. Britten knew his traditions: Blackheath children were learning their heritage.

Matthew Rose was a superb Noye. Although this opera is nothing without children, casting Noye is crucial.. Rose looks imposing. His voice conveys strength, but more importantly, he sang with great tenderness. Dressed in simple working man's clothes,  a raincoat suggesting a sou'wester, Rose's Noye is a human being with frailties like anyone else, whose wife (Clarissa Meek) has a mind of her own. When Rose sang the phrase "think on me", he conveyed sincere humility,  He communicated so well that the children were transfixed, lining up later to get their programmes autographed by The Famous Opera Singer. Rose chatted to them as individuals. These children aren't going to grow up thinking that opera is elitist.  Lawrence Wallington, the bass, spoke The Voice of God with authority, yet also suggested paternal joviality. After all, The Voice of God calls Noye "my darlinge deare". One day, perhaps, Rose will do the Voice of God, and these children will be opera fans. They'll be able to say, "We sang with Matthew Rose when we were young".

Britten's orchestration is inventive, so Noye's Fludde can be enjoyed on many levels. even the youngest children can relate to sounds made when spoons beat mugs suspended on strings. No-one needs to be professional - or adult - to delight in simple instruments like recorders, a wind machine, gong, hand bells and bugle. Atmospheric special effects are built into the music. Embedded in the main orchestra is a children's orchestra, so the music operates on parallel planes. In the Flood, Noye is not alone but protected by his Ark and his faith. Conducting this kind of ensemble requires sensitivity, and  Nicholas Jenkins achieved a good balance. Although Noye's Fludde is an opera performed  with children and amateur musicians, it's sophisticated musically. For example, Britten uses phrases from Peter Grimes. Noye, his family and the animals are "those in peril on the sea", though not quite in the same way as Grimes and his boys were. The hymn connects to religion, but more pointedly for Britten, to his faith in the value of community. Strife reigned before, but the Deluge wiped out cynicism and self interest. Now there is true harmony, between God, nature and man. The community is made whole. This new dawn is far more profound than coloured lights. The real rainbow in Noye's Fludde, as Claire Seymour says in her The Operas of Benjamin Britten, is "the kaleidoscope of instrumental colours" in the final Amen, "symbolizing the all-encompassing embrace of God's blessing on Noye".

This summer, watch out for Verdi Macbeth at Blackheath Halls.

Britten Owen Wingrave Imbrailo broadcast

A rare chance to hear Jacques Imbrailo sing Owen Wingrave in Britten's spooky anti-militarist opera, broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Thursday, available for a week. This is a recording of a live performance at the Linbury, Royal Opera House in 2007. Imbrailo was then in his first year as a Jette Parker Young Artist, but already it was obnvious that he had something exceptional to offer. This performance isn't available on the open market, so listen carefully. Imbrailo's portrayal is imbued with natural purity: his voice seems to glow from within.  So many productions focus on the Wingrave family and their rigid traditions, so Owen can come over as a cipher in comparison. But Imbrailo suggests that the mystery of Owen Wingrave is cryptic. Is Owen like Billy Budd, evoking  metaphysical forces? Does he represent love (not necessarily marriage) in its purest form?

What also makes this performance interesting is that it's transcribed for smaller orchestral forces by . David Matthews, who worked closely with Britten, and understands his idiom well .The original opera was made for TV, so it's perfectly reasonable to make alterations for stage performance. The result is a sharper, more chamber-like focus, which concentrates the mind. Britten makes a lot of the militarism, but a few fanfares and drum rolls can go a very long way. The sparser textures throw more emphasis on the lyrical ballad, reminiscent of folk music. It is “Owen’s theme” reflecting his music. It also emphasises the impression that the legend of the ghost is as ancient as the Wingrave family, depicted in Elizabethan portraits, one of which sports an incongruous Pickelhaube – surely this cannot be a mistake? The nature of the ballad also recalls Britten’s earliest protest music, particularly the remarkable Our Hunting Fathers to texts by W H Auden. “They are our past…..and our future” is surprisingly apposite: listen to it and think about Owen Wingrave.  It was Auden who radicalised Britten. Britten was a conscientious objector during the Second World War, as was Pears – whose brother was a prisoner of the Japanese.
 
 Thus, there are many reasons why Britten would think of Owen Wingrave in terms of an anti-military statement. However, perhaps that’s what explains the weakness of the drama. The opera assumes war is a game: toy soldiers and horses abound in this production. But as the Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke, genuinely descended from an ancient military family, said, “No one hates war more than a soldier”. They know reality, politicians don’t. Von Moltke’s descendant, incidentally, rejected the Army, but gave his life opposing Hitler. Perhaps that’s the significance of the Pickelhaube portrait that featured in the staging in 2007?

 The Wingrave family certainly don’t know reality, but live in a miasma of blind duty, propelled by a warped fascination with death. Miss Wingrave got her dominant status because of the deaths of her brother and fiancé. Kate thinks Owen’s death in battle would bring her glory: it’s not the man she wants to marry, but the social cachet. Mrs Julian is complicit, too, by moving in with the family, though as an officer’s widow surely she would have had a home of her own. Something’s very odd here. When this household sings the funeral march in unison, their solidarity is more terrifying than the lines they sing. Spencer Coyle, the man who tutored Owen for Sandhurst and presumably knows lots more about what the military means, is much more sanguine about the situation. He doesn’t get nearly as violently upset as the Wingraves. Why are they so hysterical at the prospect of change? What really motivates them? Britten emphasises the role of the house itself. “Listen to the house!” goes a line in the libretto, as if Paramore were a living, active presence. It makes it easy to explain why Owen dies in the haunted room, but why he goes there in the first place isn‘t quite so clear. What has a non-violent man to fear from the ghost of a boy who refused to fight? (the ghost presumably killed his bullying father). Owen Wingrave is the quintessentail Britten innocent, who routs the deviousness around him by the sheer example of his goodness.
 
photo: Sim Canetty Clarke

Wolfgang Sawallisch, pianist

The auditorium seems empty. Wolfgang Sawallisch is dead, aged 89. All the obits give details of his career – look them up. When I write obits I try to add something personal. But it takes time, in order to do the person justice. So this time, something simple. Everyone has favourite memories of a conductor who seems to have been present all our lives.  His Munich era means most to me, because those were golden days whn Fischer-Dieskau, Schreier, Moser and others were active. The first thing that popped into my mind on hearing of his death was his Meistersinger with DFD.  But I'll post something different. Sawallisch was also a pianist, who accompanied Lieder singers. Here is a recording by an ensemble called "Capella Bavariae".  Here they're singing Schubert Der Gondelfahrer D809. Recognize the voices ? (Read more about this song here)

Britten Noye's Fludde, Blackheath Halls (1)

Benjamin Britten's Noye's Fludde is on at Blackheath Halls.  Here is a link to my review.  From what I've heard this promises to be a particularly spirited performance. Certainly lots of enthusiasm, which is critical, because most of the cast is made up of children. Enthusiasm is far more important than fine singing where children are concerned. Noye's Fludde was written, in part, to get children excited about performance. Absolutely, they're the key to the whole opera, even though the three adult parts are taken by professionals: Matthew Rose is singing Mr Noye. Delightful orchestration, full of unusual sound effects.  This is an opera that absolutely needs to be experienced live, because it is the children, and their joyous engagement, who make it work.
 
Noye's Fludde is seminal Britten, too, for it captures so many themes dear to his heart. Children are given respect, even more so than adults. Like animals, children are fundamentally innocent. Noah saves them from the Flood so they will renew the earth. The cynics who doubted God's word are annilhilated. Perhaps in Noye's Fludde, Britten is re-enacting his own antediluvian ideals.

 For background, read Claire Seymour's The Operas of Benjamin Britten : Expression and Evasion (Boydell), wherre there's a whole chapter on this short one-act opera. Noye's Fludde may be small scale, and "community" based but it's a serious work of art.  For Britten, integrating community with "high" art was a statement of faith. Creativity should be part of normal life, not elitist exception. Britten's interest in early music connects, in part, to the way in which music was created in the distant past, by "ordinary" people creating mystery plays and such. Significantly, the first performance of Noye's Fludde took place in Orford Church, with local people.

 Below, the film in which Britten speaks about the first performance, courtesy the Britten Pears Foundation.

Met Parsifal rave review

John Yohalem was at the Met's Wagner Parsifal. Here's a link to his review in parterre :
"The assembled folk, male and female still divided, unenlightened, appear for the funeral of Titurel ....Their utter demoralization in this featureless, storm-clouded landscape for once seems proper for their bitter and ungenerous attack on desperate, pain-wracked Amfortas. I’ve always felt, at that point, that the Knights of the Grail, for all their supposed sanctity, sure don’t demonstrate much Christian (or basic) generosity towards a fellow Knight’s suffering—but that may have been exactly Wagner’s point: Dogma without the personal attainment of compassion is never enough. It’s tough to out-think someone who thought as elaborately as Wagner."

So much about the Knights of the Grail contradicts Christianity.  Is Wagner  taking the mickey out of religion just as he contradicts capitalism, paternalism, heroism and so much else in the Ring?  

Wolf with Wit - Bostridge Daneman Drake Wigmore Hall

Fun and Hugo Wolf ? Wolf's songs are the epitome of art song, due great reverence. But they're also vibrant with good-hearted wit. This latest concert in Julius Drake's ongoing "Perspectives" series at the Wigmore Hall brought together  Sophie Daneman, Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake, all of whom have been working together for many years, and the chemistry was almost palpable. The Wigmore Hall, with its small size and good acoustic, is specially suited to Lieder recitals, but this concert had an unusually intimate immediacy.

Given Wolf's exceptional feeling for poetry, any interpretations must be influenced by the texts he chose. In this recital, we heard songs by Eduard Mörike.and Goethe, each of which Wolf turns into a miniature opera distilled into purest form. Some of these songs are character studies like Abschied where a critic is kicked downstairs to mock waltzes and garishly manic melodies. There's so much action in this song that it could be expanded into monodrama, but Wolf doesn't overpower the simplicity of Mörike's text. Apart from the droll, and very pointed, reference to Viennese taste,  Wolf writes with the precision of a Lieder composer. Even when Wolf sets more abstract texts, like   Selbstgeständnis, a soliloquy where the single child considers a family dynamic different to his own, the focus is on the protagonist's inner life, and on the poem.

Wolf may have been prickly, but he was an acute observer, and very empathic towards others. From Frank Walker's biography, still the best after 60 years, we get a much more rounded sense of his personality than accounts of his death might suggest. Perhaps his sensitivity to others might explain his respect for the individuality of the poets he set. Wolf's songs, be they settings of Mörike, Eichendorff, Goethe or Heyse, are informed by an interest in people and the siuations they get into.  This good-hearted warmth runs throughout his work. This Wigmore Hall recital was a delight, because it connected to that fundamental humanity in Wolf's music.

Wolf creates character with great subtlety,  In Agnes, for example, a young woman has a ribbon in her hat, which flutters gently in the wind. Daneman sang quietly, as a maiden might. The piano, however,  expresses what a demure girl dare not say. Just as the ribbon flutters. the girl's heart beats wildly at the thought of the man who gave her the ribbon, who has now betrayed her. Often the postlude fades unnoticed, but Drake emphasizes the "fluttering" figures, reinforcing their impact by following Agnes with Lied vom Winde, where notes explode forcefully,  "Sausewind, Brausewind, Dort von hier!". Drake reinforced the connection with the "fluttery" images before the final strophe. "Lieb ist wier Wind....... nicht immer beständig". This wind is capricious but not destructive.  As it blows away, the words "Kindlien, Ade!" repeat three times, suggesting that winds, like love, can return. The connection was made again in An eine Äolsharfe where Drake played the postlude so beautifully that he evoked the magical world of nature spirits that inspired Eduard Mörike.

Like Wolf, Mörike had what we might today recognize as psychological issues, but he also had a jaunty sense of irreverence that gives so much of his work a defiant vitality, which Wolf picks up on. Abschied, for eample, touched on a painful subject for Wolf, who was a music critic as was Eduard Hanslick. Behind the slapstick humour in this song lies the suffering and frustration that would later drive Wolf insane. Sensitivity is important in an artist, so ill-intentioned nit-picking isn't constructive.  Wolf and Mörike.suggest that an artist, being creative, will triumph over the venality around him. Bostridge's performance was superb, conveying bite as well as wit. Every consonant sharply enunciated, crisp, confident, even defiant.

Storchenbotshaft  has long been a Bostridge/Drake speciality. The song is funny, and we join in the shepherd's shock as he learns he's become the father of twins. Yet the poem is Mörike, and there's an element of the supernatural. Wolf writes jerky, angular figures into the music which suggests the way storks move, but also conveys a heightened sense of excitement that borders on panic. "Ein Geistlein, ein Hexlein, so wustige Wicht", each phrase defined by just the right short gasp. Is the shepherd altogether happy?  One of Bostridge's great strengths as an artist is his intuitive ability to access deep, often disturbing undercurrents in the music he sings. His Britten is exceptional.  Over the years, his Wolf has developed true maturity.

In the Goethe songs, Daneman was charming. Her Blumengruß was lustrous, and her Cophtisches Lied I and II nicely articulated. Bostridge was frech und froh in the two Frech und Froh songs, and created Gutmann und Gutweib bringing out the riotous humour. For an encore, Daneman, Bostridge and Drake did an excellent Schubert Licht und Liebe (Matthäus von Collin). As duet, the words "süßes Licht" entwine deliciously.

The surprise of the evening, though, happened while Daneman sang Wolf's Epiphanias.  The door behind the stage opened. In walked a boy dressed as a Wise Man, bearing a gift. He was followed by two other boys in costume, and then a little girl, dressed asd a fairy, waving a wand with a star at its apex! The song was written on 27 December 1888, while Wolf was spending the holidays with the Köchert family. In Goethe's time and quite likely in late 19th century Vienna, household masques like this weren't unknown: indeed, Goethe staged a presentation of this very poem at Weimar in 1781. Moreover, people used to have processions door-to-door bearing a star. The parallel with Wagner's children serenading Cosima on her birthday wouldn't have been lost on Wolf if he'd known.  Wolf had a long-term love affair with Melanie Köchert, with the tacit approval of her husband, Wolf's patron and friend. Evidently they all got on, so Wolf was able to rehearse the Köchert children and play the piano. The song was a gift of friendship, a love song in code (Read more here). This time, at the Wigmore Hall,  two of the children were Bostridges and the younger pair were Daneman's children.  All four moved solemnly in time to the music, with great dignity.  It was hilarious, and also magical. It showed Hugo Wolf as "family man", loving and loved. For years, I've dreamed of interpretations that would access this aspect of Wolf's idiom. Thanks to Drake, Bostridge and Daneman (and their kids), that dream is  fulfilled.

For more detail, read the full review in Opera Today

Edward Gardner - what Bergen means

Edward Gardner's been appointed Chief Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. starting October 2015. Some media reports suggest that he's doing it for the weather as it rains a lot in Bergen.  So what does it really mean?

Gardner is the Great Hope of British conducting, often compared to Simon Rattle,  He's a good conductor, and very charismatic. He flirts like a pro, too. It's part of the job! His career has implications for the British music scene as a whole.  It's been five years since Gardner shot to prominence as Music Director at the ENO. Before that he was relatively unknown, though he'd been head of Glyndebourne On Tour, where Robin Ticciati  is now before taking over the main Festival in 2014. Gardner has worked with numerous different orchestras and is currently Principal Guest Conductor at the CBSO, whose Chief Conductor is Andris Nelsons. Gardner neeeds  significant international tenure to expand his CV.

Although Bergen is a  fairly small town, (pop under 300,000), it's culturally significant.  The orchestra was founded in 1765, which makes it contemporary with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.  It's significant that Gardner takes over in 2015, the 250th anniversary of the orchestra's foundation, when all ears will be on Bergen. Gardner has conducted this orchestra many times before, so they already have a good relationship. Bergen also punches above its weight because it has a strong recording profile, but Gardner is a much more interesting conductor than some the orchestra has had in the recent past.  Gardner's also contracted to Chandos, who plan major initiatives with him and with Bergen in future years. Gardner's best known for conducting opera, so Bergen will consolidate his reputation in the orchestral mainstream. It will also mean high profile recordings, which will reach international audiences. Maximum impact! Gardner (and his management) are shrewd. He's not going to Bergen for the scenery. He's being positioned for greater things in the longer term. 

New Chief Exec at ROH ?

Wow, have I heard a rumour but this one's so intrguing I can hardly believe it. Somone will extensive experience, who knows the business and who knows London well. Let's consider the job specs. With Kaspar Holten, Tony Pappano, and John Fulljames, the artistic side of things is covered. The top man's job is to interface with government, sponsors, artists, audiences and to back creative vision.  This person ticks all the boxes and has a profitable track record, too. A long shot but if it happens......hint, not one of the contenders proposed in the media,

ENO Charpentier Medea

"Musical Theatre at its best", writes Claire Seymour of Charpentier's Medea at the ENO, in a detailed, analytical review in Opera Today. Read it in full HERE. 

"Although the Prologue, with its discrete contemporary political intent, is sensibly omitted, McVicar resists the temptation to exclude those elements of the score which others might deem un-dramatic and irrelevant: thus, the elements of spectacle — the ballet de cours with its extravagant costumes and scenic effects, the formal dances and elaborate divertissements — are intelligently and convincingly incorporated, smoothly dove-tailed with the scenes for the principals."

"That said, the more abstract interpretations of the final three acts are more compelling than the heavily stylised end-of-act frivolities of the first two acts. The Act 2 divertissement to celebrate the arrival of the nubile Creusa — with its sequinned, star-studded plane, diva-esque posturing and nautical buffoonery — is a little too reminiscent of Flying Down to Rio or the stylised hamming of South Pacific. But, the demonic diversions of a snarling Vengeance, resentful Jealousy and aggrieved crowd of demons who poisonously bewitch the golden dress destined for Creusa, are fittingly disconcerting; similarly, the insubstantial phantoms which defeat Creon’s armed guard in Act 4 exemplify the choreographic approach of Lynne Page: namely, to present extremes of emotional excess expressed within controlled formal structures."
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Petition - Chetham's and other music schools

Frances Andrade should not die in vain. Read the background to the case here.  This isn't "just" a Chetham's story, nor "just" a situation peculiar to music schools. Abuse - psychological, sexual and otherwise - occurs whenever there are unequal balances of power, exploited by unscrupulous people.  Statistically, there are more good people around than bad, but safeguards should be in place to prevent abuse. People can learn, and thrive, without being made to feel like dirt. The problem needs to be addressed, if only to clarify guidelines. HERE is a link to a petition for an inquiry drafted by Paul Lewis, Timothy William Horton and Ian Pace. Read and participate.

Another Madame Butterfly - Butterfly Wu

The name "Butterfly" suggests fragile beauty but Butterfly Wu was a survivor, whose life reads like a lurid novel. Butterfly Wu (Wu Dip, Hu Die 胡蝶) made her first movies in Shanghai as a young girl and became a megastar. She was the real "Lady from Shanghai" before Marlene Dietrich. Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe. Her name was a byword for beauty, but she was admired because she was strong and resourceful. Her life is like a chronicle of moderrn China.

Because Butterfly Wiu was so prominent, she was courted by warlords, and adored by film goers, to whom she was an inspiration of ideal Chinese Womanhood. Then the Japanese attacked China. Millions were killed, even more millions forced to move round the country as refugees. Yet in the midst of war, Butterfly Wu found love. In her native Hong Kong, she married a businessman, but the Japanese conquered Hong Kong, too. Because of her high profile, Wu Dip had to be smuggled out into Free China, pursued by Japanese agents. She wasn't safe there, either. General Dai Li (戴笠), head of the terrifying Chinese secret police, became infatuated with her and threatened to kill her husband unless she became his mistress.  Dai Li, who made the Gestapo and NKVD look like amateurs, died in a plane crash in 1946, possibly assassinated. Wu Dip and her hiusband were reunited, but he suffered ill heath, possibly a result of being tortured and imprisoned..  

Wu Dip continued to make movies until 1967, so her career spanned several golden ages of Chinese cinema. Because she's so closely associated with pre-war Shanghai, her contribution to Cantonese cinema is undervalued.  I've been watching "A Gratitude as Weighty as the Mountain" 恩重如山 (a quote from poetry) made in 1962.  In this film, she stars with Lam Ka Sing, who plays her son. He was an extremely famous opera singer and actor. 

A young woman's lover is  moving with his school into the interior of China. She's left behind and is bombed out and homeless. She falls into the hands of a man who rapes her and sells her into prostitution. Meanwhile, she's given birth to a son, named Tak Ming. Eventually, she escapes the crook and starts a new life in Hong Kong where she works as a bone massager, not quite prostitution but shameful. She had earlier given up her son to a kindly neighbour, who brought him up in South East Asia, so he would have a chance for a better life.

When the boy grows up, he returns to find his mother, but she pretends that his real mother is dead.  The son  goes to university and gets a job with a wonderful boss, who treats him as his successor.. Everything seems perfect, but he discovers that the woman who is looking after him a masseuse. He renounces her violently. How can she shame him so? The film contrasts the arrogant son with his self-sacrificing mother. He has a fancy western education but she has proper values. She is the one to whom he owes "gratitude as great as mountains". Throughout this film, it's strong female characters who help others and do virtue.

Then boss and rejected masseuse meet. "She is your natural mother", says the boss. "And I'm your natural father". The complication is that Tak Ming has made the boss's daughter pregnant. Scandal is averted when father reveals the daughter was a foundling, so the young couple can marry. This might sound like a crazy plot device but it was a genuine concern  in those days, when so many families were disrupted by war. No doubt there were real life stories like this. No wonder people turned to movies, which reflected their own pasts and anxieties. 

When Wu Dip retired and moved to Canada, there was a retrospective of her films on TV. I watched with my grandmother who was herself a Shanghai belle.

Geschichte vom Soldaten - Berlin

A regular reader sends an alert about Stravinsky Histore du Soldat in Berlin, auf Deutsch. Wow, this is electric ! Isabel Karajan,  the speaker, crackles with Expressionist energy, her animated face and voice powerfully dynamic. All the "characters" come alive - the soldier, the devil, the dancer. Guy Braunstein plays the violin, or should one say the fiddle in this context. "Gibt mir die Geige!"cries Karajan and Braunstein, a big man, quivers.  Watch it here, definitely worth the cost.

Ständchen or Sérénade Schubert Valentine

Jusqu'à toi mon chant dans l'ombre
Monte doucement

Verdi Giovanna D'Arco Full broadcasts

Giuseppe Verdi Giovanna d'Arco broadcast on BBC Radio 3 today, as the BBC Verdi 200 series continues. This is a  recent performance, from Graz,  so chances are vfew have heard it. Don't miss. Maria Agresta sings Giovanna, Jean-François Borras sings Carlo VII, King of France. Carlo Montanaro conducts. Being a fan of Borras, I think this will be good. Listen online for a week.

There are lots of recordings of Verdi's Giovanna D'Arco, so we're spoilt for choice. Last year the Parma production of 2008 was released, but only on Blueray. The earlier Bologna production is readily available and recommended for several reasons. Riccardo Chailly conducts, and Vincenzo La Scola sings Charles VII.  He's wonderful, not at all compromised because he also sang crossover. When an artist is genuinely good it really makes no difference. And even if an artists isn't "that" good, we have no right to complain if they give pleasure to others. La Scola died aged only 53. Although Susan Dunn isn't a specially remarkable Giovanna, another reason for seeing the Chailly/Bologna DVD is that it was directed and designed by Werner Herzog. This is why opera houses commission directors outside the opera world. Some, like Herzog, can translate their skills. As film, Herzog's Giovanna D'Arco is stunning. Watch the scene where the crowd, dressed in masks, parade around carrying candles, singing "Viva, Viva" though we know they're out for Giovanna's blood. The candles look like spikes or staves, a reference to  the armies Joan led into battle, the violence now turned upon her.

Verdi's Giovanna d'Arco has been recorded many times, so if you want audio-only, you're spoiled for choice. For starters : Renata Tebaldi and Carlo Bregonzi with Alfredo Simonetto, from Milan 1951, or Montserrat Caballé and Placido Domingo with Levine (1973). HERE is a link to a full broadcast of the 1996 Royal Opera House production conducted by Daniele Gatti, with June Anderson and Dennis O'Neill. It comes with full libretto, too.

 Lots more on this site on the theme of Joan of Arc in music, film, opera and literature. Some quite unusal, like Honegger (with Ingrid Bergman) and Braunfels. and of course Carl Th. Dreyer's film, The Passion of Joan of Arc