Marriage is a farce, Guildhall

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tienanmen, June 4th 1989 new footage

Twenty years ago today, the protests at Tienanmen square in Beijing were crushed. The protests seemed to suggest a new era, like the May 4th movement in 1919 which was a watershed in Chinese history (leading among other things to the foundation of the Communist party). So it was traumatic when the protests were ended. Everyone remembers what they were doing when the news came through, also what others were saying and doing. François Bisson was there, in Beijing, right in the heart of the action. He made this film using footage he and a cameramen he knew shot at the time. It's very direct, first person, watch it and "be there" again.

This is Zhao Ziyang, the Party Secretary, addressing the crowds, sympathetically urging caution on both sides. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest. He kept a secret journal in which he managed to express his hopes for the future. It's just been published, as "Prisoner of the State". READ a review here.

Uncompromising Elijah Berlin

Mendelssohn's Elijah suffers from its popularity. Late 19th century Victorians saw it as an opportunity to go overboard. There were performances with literally several thousand voices blasting out the message "Our God is right, your's isn't!". Through association with Middle England on the warpath, self righteousness and moral certainty, Elijah (and Mendelssohn) has gained a bad reputation. Beware critics like George Bernard Shaw whose own blinkers blinded him to the reality of Mendelssohn's music.

Elijah in the Bible wasn't a cosy character. He stood up alone against the worshippers of Baal, who would have killed him if God hadn't done flashy miracles. The picture above shows Elijah confronting King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. To them he must have seemed a smelly old wild man from the desert come to destroy what to them was a pretty good way of life. So it's ironic that Middle England should have claimed him, as a kind of weapon.

For Mendelssohn himself, Elijah probably meant something quite different. He may have switched religions but he respected his Jewish origins. He knew all too well about faiths won through struggle. Significantly, for this magnum opus, he didn't do Jesus. Elijah served the God of Judaism, not C of E (episopalian). So it's good to hear the oratorio in German, in Germany, where Elijah isn't quite so entrenched as a pillar of Middle England values. Recently Seiji Osawa conducted Elijah with the Berliner Philhamoniker with Matthias Goerne as Elijah, Natalie Stutzmann, Anthony Dean Giffrey and Annette Dasch in the main other parts. Osawa uses a small orchestra and a choir that fits easily on the Philharmonie platform. The emphasis then is on the drama inherent in the music, not the experience as such. This brings us closer to Elijah himself, who has no delusions other than he's a channel for a higher power.

In Part One God does things like blitzing graven pagan images, so naturally the emphasis here is on power and drama. Magnificent singing and playing - this choir is very tight, as disciplined as the orchestra, so as music it's clear and focussed. The soloists don't have to battle against a wall of noise so their words can be heard clearly. One wonders how they must have stood out even more against early instruments : It's a credit to Osawa and this orchestra that they can do simplicity with gorgeous instruments. The quartets and terzetts are nicely don : Stutzmann and Giffrey singing more sympathetically than in a while.

Goerne stands out. Now he's turned 40, his voice is maturing, bringing out extra depth and richness. Most impressive, though, is the way that he sings as if the words mean something. This Elijah has a personality and feelings. Listen especially to the aria Es ist genug! So nimm nun, Herr. Meine Seele!. Elijah goes willingly to death, but without defiance, only gentleness. It's so beautifully nuanced and phrased: much more convincing than the noble heroes we sometimes hear.

Silence and humility in the presence of the Lord. Note how Mendelssohn builds a long pause in the Angel's lines before the lovely Verhülle dein Antlitz, denn es naht der Herr. That's also why Mendelssohn includes a boy soprano, the embodiment of purity. It's not big butch effects Mendelssohn's after but (to quote from the hymn) "the still small voice of peace".

Mendelssohn knows his Bible. God may be surrounded by earthquake, wind and fire, but he's the still, quiet voice of peace that arises out of the turbulence. So Elijah gets taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot, but Elijah himself sings tenderly. The mountains shall be riven apart but as long as God is with him, Elijah is at peace. Then the choir and orchestra can surge triumphant, for they have "witnessed" a miracle. The finale is all the more glorious because of what's gone before. Aber einer wacht von Mitternacht, und er kommt vom Aufgang der Sonne.

Berg Lulu, Third Act and a good article

A fragment of the palindrome in Act 2 of Lulu – perfect symmetry. Circles within circles, a multi ring circus, spiralling, dizzying, twisting vortices, these are all images I'd try to work into a Lulu staging to bring out the structure of the music.

There's an advance production shot of the new ROH Lulu with an interesting article by Philip Hensher. Read the whole piece HERE. Why can't more music writing be as sincere and thoughtful as this, especially in this once great paper? Hensher's original and perceptive. Writing of the Third Act's suppression, he says "If Lulu had been performed in its full glory, as it could have been in the late 1930s, we might have been spared a lot of ignorant diatribe against the 12-tone method. The three-act Lulu showed what could be done with it."

"Ignorant diatribe" is an excellent way to describe the new Readers Digest approach to music history that now prevails. Artists in real life don't operate in rigid school. But it's easier for those who don't understand to force things into artificial boxes.

Like Hensher, I believe the Third Act is integral to the opera as a whole. If nothing else it extends the dramatic narrative. So It was completed by Cerha rather than Berg himself? It's still fundamentally important to know. We don't reject Mozart's Requiem or Mahler's 10th because they aren't pure.

Besides, of the 1326 bars in the Third Act, 390 were scored by Berg - that odd first scene almost entirely. According to Douglas Jarman, "Of the 1326 bars only 87 were not fully notated in Berg's short score and with one exception, all these "problematic passages" could be completed with Berg's intentions either by following the indications provided in the score or by doubling the instrumental parts". The exception he mentions is the barrel organ music in scene two, but Jarman says "an indication ...is to be found at the end of the Variation movement of the Symphonic Variations where the first four bars appear...in Berg's own orchestration". Please read the review HERE

Foochow Blind Boys Band 1900 Eurasian Hybrids

Images can speak as loud as words. "Reading" images in music, opera and stage is not so different from reading a poem or a painting. There's no scientific technique, it's more intuitive, though supported by background knowledge. You just learn to understand signals.

This is an early postcard of a band of blind boys in Foochow on the China coast around 1890-1900. (Click on photo to enlarge.) Foochow (Fuzhou) was one of the "treaty ports" forcibly opened to western trade by the "Opium Wars" (1840-60), a pretty term for military invasion. The card was published by the Church Missionary Society, so these boys must have been organized by missionaries: hence brass and drums. They must have played rousing hymns. No room here for finesse. Click on photo to enlarge - the Eurasians are trumpeters and one of the horn players.

This kind of music isn't so far off traditional Chinese band music, for public events like processions, where simple, loud and bright tunes work well. Though many missionaries were much opposed to traditional culture, these boys had a place in society. Since they were taken in by missionaries they would have come from poverty stricken backgrounds. Oddly enough Chinese funeral processions adopted western melodies like Dixie, O Susanna and She'll be coming round the Mountain. They'd be played by Chinese musicians, on Chinese instruments (augmented by western brass). In fact until I was quite old I thought these were Chinese songs. How this happened I don't know. Relatively few missionaries were American, and this was long before radio. Somehow, though, New Orleans funeral jazz mixed with Chinese tradition, creating a bizarre hybrid.

Then look at the boys themselves. At least three are mixed race. There's almost no research on Eurasians, and indeed only one decent book, Vicky Lee's Being Eurasian (Hong Kong University Press 2004). Yet Eurasians were a distinct and surprisingly large community. Their backgrounds were very different, but as a disparate group, they are a mirror to the history of modern China.

Eurasians weren't accepted by the mainstream, they had to find their own way through turbulent times. In big cities there were Eurasian networks, created by intermarriage. Some families have been mixed race for 150 years. It's certainly not just Madame Butterfly situations, though they did exist. Nowadays lots of people are mixed race. But once there was a time when being Eurasian was a kind of subculture: people stuck together and gradually there was a distinct China Coast Eurasian identity. It's a world that's completely disappeared, lost forever as the few who remember pass away.

After 1949, most Eurasians became absorbed into Chinese society. They would have a very rough time during the Cultural Revolution when any hint of foreignness was a crime. A few years ago, I met a senior Chinese academic. He was obviously Eurasian, more white looking than me, though completely acculturated Chinese. He was old enough to have grown up in the Mao era, with the Red Guards and that violent paranoia. Yet he must have had a strong personality to have survived. He looked at me and I at him: we understood each other without having to put things in words. It was so poignant, a moment when history jumped into the present.

I'm interested in developing a resource for China coast subjects, especially Cantonese culture. So please let me know if you're interested. There is almost nothing in English on our South China heritage and yet now there must be thousands of people who grew up abroad or use English. And also, the uniqueness of Cantonese identity is not so obvious now people speak guoyu and think in national terms. It's important that we think of Chinese culture from a NON Eurocentric perspective particularly now that the net is dominated by the English language monoculture. Please contact me, maybe we can develop a resource.

HERE is a great resource for Sarawak Chinese culture. Most of the Chinese who settled in South East Asia (the namyang) originated along the China coast, in places like Fuzchou, which is on the periphery of the Cantonese world.

ROH Ondine - ballet heralds Henze year

In April 2010, the ENO, London, will stage a new production of Hans Werner Henze's opera Elegy for Young Lovers. Henze is undervalued in England, which is surprising, since he spent so much time here in his youth. So, Henze lovers, we have a duty to spread the word!

So the current Royal Ballet staging of Henze's Ondine is a must see. Henze was a sensation in the early 1950's, radical in his own contrary way. He was still only 30 in 1956 when Ondine was written, but he'd already written seven ballets : Ondine was the breakthrough that established him in the genre.

Henze had already made his mark in opera. Boulevard Solitude (1948) enjoyed a new production a the Royal Opera House in 2001: it's regular repertoire in Germany. There's a DVD available (not ROH) - enjoy! Some fifteen other operas have followed. L'Upupa, und der Triumph der Sohnesliebe was a massive hit at Salzburg in 2003. The DVD of that is fantastic!

In 2006, Henze was so seriously ill he was months in a semi-coma. His partner of 40 years nursed him through his illness, but then suddenly died himself, still young. Frail as he was Henze completed the phenomenal Phaedra, where love triumphs over death. It's incredibly powerful, even without knowing the background. I was at its premiere in Berlin, shaken by its intensity. Rupert Christensen of the Telegraph, true to form, scolded the composer for making a "farewell" that wasn't light hearted and funny! Fortunately, for us, Henze isn't a follower by nature. He's now written yet another opera, Immolazione, to be premiered in 2010. Londoners may have to wait, or go to Rome, but the Barbican is doing Phaedra semi staged in January 2010, the highlight of a Henze Total Immersion weekend. John Mark Ainsley sings, as he's done in past productions.

So get down to Ondine at the Royal Opera House and savour Henze's beautiful music. The choreography is by Frederick Ashton: beautifully romantic. The staging's deliberately retro, evoking the 19th century ballet Ashton wanted to celebrate Margot Fonteyn. Oddly enough the designs are by Lila Dinobili (b 1916) who also designed the Glyndebourne production of Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers in 1961. So indulge. This production is like a museum piece, its very antique look quite appealing in a post modernist way.

I learned the music from the CD set conducted by Oliver Knussen, so it was wonderful to "see" how it translated in dance. This was a lesson! Music for ballet has to allow for physical demands. Dancers can't float up in the air indefinitely. And there have to be episodes for extended dancing, which is the whole purpose. On audio such moments may drag but the drama is in the dancing itself. The music and choreography are so seamlessly integrated that you can see each semi quaver twitch in synchrony. Each note reflects in movement. The interplay between harp, piano, guitar and celeste is ravishing, but wait til you see the dancers express it en pointe! There's a wonderful scene where Ondine plays with her shadow, which the orchestra recreates with different textures. Then a wonderful ensemble, when the dancers form a circle, their arms undulating like a giant sea anemone. I'll never be able to hear that passage again without seeing them in my mind.
See full review HERE
PLEASE SEE ALL THE OTHER POSTS HERE ON HENZE, enter name under SEARCH There are lots

The buzz is on ! Lulu at ROH

The big buzz in town's the new Lulu at the Royal Opera House, London, starting June 4th. Word of mouth is spreading fast that it's going to be interesting. Lulu herself will be a mystery new singer called Agneta Eichenholz, quite famous in Sweden but unknown outside. That's very appropriate as Lulu is a mystery. Who is she really? People know her by different names.

The new ROH production sounds fascinating because Christof Loy (who found Eichenholz), has worked carefully on the characterization. He seems intrigued by the essential mystery of who Lulu is and why she's come to be the way she is. It sounds like a much more psychologically informed approach than the usual cliché that assumes Lulu is no more than a mirror, projecting what others want.

Listen carefully to the music, blanking out the words. Lulu's music speaks, elusively, even though she seems passive. She's had a horrific past that's taught her to hide herself behind survival strategies. That's exactly how abused kids function. They wreck things like a kind of pre-emptive strike because they've learned that happiness can't last.

The photo above comes from the 1929 Louise Brooks film based on the Wedekind play that inspired Alban Berg. Brooks doesn't do actorly things like emote or declaim: instead she fills space, generating energy. That's another reason for getting into the opera through the music. It hovers over the plot like an invisible presence, it speaks character.

So why is the new ROH production causing such interest? Michael Volle is singing the critical role of Dr Schön, who's known Lulu since she was a girl. He's her extreme opposite, a powerful magnate who seems to have it all, but is destroyed. Volle has worked with Loy before – last year in Munich they did Hans Werner Henze's Die Bassariden.

"I knew he would not do anything conventional but that he would try and get into the characters and find the key to their personality”, says Volle. Loy’s does this by working closely with the singers from the start. “We talk a lot about the role. He tells you his thoughts about the background and what he imagines the character is like and then you have to find a way to express it. He is one of those directors who knows and loves the music so well that he can make it easy for a singer to find his way into a character. He doesn’t try anything artificial you can’t understand. It’s more like putting flesh and bones on the score”.

“There are productions where there are a lot of sexual things on stage”, adds Volle, as if Dr Schön’s motives are simply erotic, for men (and women) lust after Lulu. But in this production, it’s more complex. “Only one kiss”, says Vollle, "and a few bits of touching. There’s no need to show nudity and violence. It’s shocking how much violence there is in it anyway”. Suicide, murder, implied paedophilia, and Lulu seducing Alwa on the very sofa his father bled to death upon, all easy subjects to play up to scandalize an audience. Yet Loy’s approach is not sensational for sensation’s sake. “What I like about Loy’s work is that he does not do Yellow Press”.

“It’s very tragic. Terrible things have happened to Lulu in the past, and it’s affected her so she can’t trust anyone, or be content”, says Volle, explaining the psychology behind this production. “She must always destroy the happiness of others ”. Lulu wrecks Dr Schön’s engagement but she’s unhappy when she marries him herself. “She loses interest because she doesn’t have to fight for attention anymore. In this production that tragedy is made very clear. There are lines which show Lulu does have feelings for Dr Schön, but she’s damaged, and hurts others because she’s been hurt so much herself”.

Volle is also happy with the Royal Opera House production because it’s being developed so closely with the conductor, Antonio Pappano. “He is a gift”, says Volle, “He was there at the first rehearsal, and he knows the piece inside and out. He gives so much input and ideas about the music”. With Berg, details count. “The more you hear in it, the more you discover”, says Volle. This is significant, as Volle knows Berg’s idiom well, having sung the title role in Wozzeck.

One of the minor subplots in this opera is the idea that wealth and status are worthless without deeper values. In Act 3 the banker's shares turn out to worthless, and of course Dr Schön's wealth does him no good. Perhaps Michael Volle's own background gives him insight, but he's an experienced singer who specializes in roles with depth of character. His Graf Tamare in Franz Schreker's Die Gezeichneten is exceptionally well realized. That's one of the great early 20th century operas.

Read more about Micahel Volle and about the new ROH production HERE. I'll be writing more about Lulu and this production in the next few weeks.

TRY TO GO ! As Volle says, on first hearing, it's shocking, but the subject is shocking. This is not a plot whose issues you can be complacent about. And listen to the music. It's not that difficult or strident, and a very good performance brings out its clarity and oddly enough its beauty. There is a very good DVD of the Glyndebourne production of 1996 where Christine Schäfer is compelling. Far and away the best orchestrally is the CD set with Pierre Boulez conducting. This isn't an easy opera to do. Many versions have weak points and there's one I would actively dis-recommend. So bear this in mind, and go to this Lulu and make the most of it. PLEASE READ THE OTHER POSTS on this blog re LULU, which include reviews, interviews, and a whole movie downlaod ! Not only this Loy production but Cheereau too and other thoughts on the opera. Go to the labels list on right and click on "Berg".

Prof. Henry-Louis de La Grange, Mahler 's greatest biographer

This day, 26th May, marks the 85th birthday of Professor Henry-Louis de La Grange. Prof. de La Grange is the world's foremost authority on Gustav Mahler. Last year he published the fourth volume of his monumental biography of the composer. It's probably the most significant in the whole series, because the years covered were full of incident. Mahler was going through radical changes in his life, and producing masterpieces like the 8th and 9th Symphonies, and Das Lied von der Erde.

The book is extremely important because it sheds so much new light on the composer. He died at a point when, perhaps, he might have been starting a whole new phase. He was only 50, entering a period when many composers are just reaching maturity.

Professor de La Grange's work has huge implications for how we appreciate Mahler's music. The more we understand about what made the composer tick, the better we are able to understand the way his music came about. Biography is thus an extremely useful tool for informed interpretation. It enhances performance, and deepens the way we listen. Mahler performance practice has benefitted so much from Professor de La Grange's insights. He has contributed so much to Mahler studies that, frankly, there is no way anyone can claim to "know" Mahler without knowing his work.

Read "Mahler Triumphant", a detailed synopsis of the volume HERE. It's written by Hugh Wood, the composer. It's an excellent description, so take the time to read it thoroughly..

This fourth volume is the culmination of a lifetime's work. The bust on the cover was made by Rodin. Anna Mahler, the composer's daughter, who was a sculptor, also made a bust which now stands in pride of place in the Médiathèque Musicale Mahler in Paris. It was bought by Mahler people all over the world to celebrate Professor de La Grange's 80th birthday. That's how much the author is loved and respected.

Mahler has been Prof. de La Grange's career. But he's had a remarkable life himself. He studied with Alfred Cortot, and the library contains the Cortot archives. He's been involved in music on many levels: he was one of the regulars at the Domaine Musicale concerts Boulez organized from 1954. At the first concert none other than Jean Cocteau arrived, in a flowing cape. Professor de La Grange is a modest man, preferring to keep the spotlight on Mahler, but his own life is a mirror of 20th century intellectual life and is worth volumes too. His parents were fascinating people too – his father, a French count, one of the first pilots in the early days of flying, his mother a lively patron of the arts. Such interesting people, no wonder they produced such an interesting son.

So Happy Birthday, Professor de La Grange, may you prosper! I can't begin to express how much admiration and affection I have for him and for his work. You need this book if you care about Mahler. Of all four volumes, this is the most important because it covers the most turbulent years and some of the more complex symphonies. Please explore this blog where there's LOTS on Mahler : original material, inspired by Prof de la Grange's pioneering work - see Mahler 10th posts for example

Requiem for a young poet

Currently available for listening (4 euros for 48 hours) on the Berliner Philharmoniker website is Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Requiem für einen jungen Dichter, Requiem for a young Poet.

It's worth watching because the video is very sensitively filmed. The camera work is remarkably prescient about what's happening in the music. Zimmermann wrote figures that seem to be something quite different from what they are: the camera focuses on objects in the auditorium from odd angles, so at first you think it's abstract art. The camera also understand the visual aspects of this panoramic piece of music. It pans to the roof of the Philharmonie, where small lights are scattered. In the darkness, they shine like stars in the firmament. The score itself is dramatic, about a metre long, with complex diagrams and markings, so we get close-ups of the particular passage being played as it looks on paper – this is well informed filming par excellence! Even if you don't like the music, this video is worth watching as an example of how good film can enhance the musical experience.

The downside is that there's no text but again that's no bad thing, because you're forced to listen more carefully. The whole concept is music as an aural world, with snatches of sounds half heard, sometimes live and close, sometimes recorded and from a distance, multi-dimensional. So much fuss is made of how Stockhausen does this in Hymnen, but Zimmermann was doing this at the same time, with infinitely more human input and sophistication. Zimmerman's collages are carefully chosen to represent key sound images of the 20th century. Hitler, Pope John XXIII, Ezra Pound and Mao Zedong, Stalin and a jazz quintet and a snatch from the Beatles (this was 1968 after all, it was obligatory, though it sounds naff today). It's like a documentary in sound, historically well informed, structurally planned rather than haphazard porridge. Leagues sharper than Stockhausen! The nearest comparison is Luigi Nono's Prometeo, written nearly 20 years later.

The soloists, vocal and instrumental, are very good, though Eötvös as conductor is a little soft focused. This music is a painful scream by a very literate composer who cared about what was happening in the world around him – Vietnam, the Greek junta, Dubcek. Soon after, Zimmermann committed suicide in despair. This past is still relevant, if anything even more now that protest is neutralized. Get hold of the recording by the Holland Synfonia, conducted by Bernhard Kontarsky, issued by Cybele late in 2008 (pictured above). It's good and comes with a 76-page booklet with facsimiles of the score, which are useful for decoding the layers of sound. You don't need to "get" it all. Make the effort to listen and put it together, says Zimmermann. That's how we experience history, we process what we hear. in many ways and hear things differently in different contexts. For me this is a deeply rewarding work, inspiring feelings about the last century and how history comes to be written/processed. Stockhausen doesn't provide repeat musings in quite the same way.

Cross-cultural firecracker label

This is a firecracker label. There used to be lots of small firecracker factories in Macau, where firecrackers were rolled, filled and tied by hand. Lots of accidents, fires, etc. At new year, when I was a kid, the streets would be littered a foot high with spent firecrackers, often with others hidden below waiting to explode. Our neighbour used to buy a long string of fireworks, suspended from the roof, and then lit. Obviously safety hazard in modern high rise cities, so they were banned in Hong Kong after the 1967 riots. Which is why Hong Kong now does the biggest and best public displays.

Firecracker factories were dangerous places, and sometimes they would explode, killing everyone. No workers rights, child labour. Macau was one of the centres of firecracker making, usually on the outer islands. My uncle Herculano took us to visit one once. The kids were just tying strings of firecrackers together, or filling gunpowder with their fingers - no safety procedures.

This label comes from a Macau firecracker factory. It is so unselfconsciously multicultural, it's fun. Whoever designed this probably wasn't too bothered about accuracy, but it's lively and would have sold well because the images, odd as they are, symbolize auspicious things like wealth and health. People do firecrackers to drive away bad spirits and bring good fortune, so it makes sense. The sacred white elephant comes from Buddhist mythology, and the risque half naked foreign goddess comes from Greek myth. She's holding what appears to be a cornucopia asnd the staff of medicine. And the angels, very un-Chinese, like the goddess and crown ? That's the clincher. The word "Macau" (O mun or Ao men) appears in the little gold boxes at the top. But in the old days, people were often illiterate, but they could see the symbols and know where the firecrackers came from.

At right is the original. See the angels? This image is the official seal of Macau, "the city of the name of God". The granite plaque was made to commemorate the incorporation of the city in 1557. The figure is the Virgin Mary, surrounded by saints. So the man who designed the firecracker label was on the right track. Click on the photos to get high-resolution details. PLEASE SEE OTHER POSTS on this blog for more cross culture ventures and how to read icons - see Macau, Chinese culture etc on the labels list on right.

Opera and Lieder bridged by Wolf

Lieder and Opera are different worlds, where different values apply. In opera, a singer has to compete with others, with the orchestra, the set and even the plot. In Lieder, singer and pianist have to create whole worlds on their own in the space of a few minutes.

Hugo Wolf's songs are often called "operas in miniature" because each contains so much action they're like condensed sagas. Wolf's piano parts act like commentary, often wry and subversive.

On 19th May, those who'd booked for Netrebko and Hvorotovsky missed out because they cancelled, but Lieder fans were OK at the Wigmore Hall with Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch.

The 46 songs in the collection aren't a cycle, and don't form a narrative. Instead they're like a kaleidoscope of "Italian" life, romanticized through Austro-German imagination. Wolf panicked and got seasick on his only attempt to get to Italy, but these songs burst with colour and energy, each a mini drama in itself. Dissolute monks seduce girls whose mothers trust men in robes, a girl wants an "older man" – aged 14! Sometimes it feels like you're listening in on a moment from a much larger story. Why are the lovers scrapping? How can a man's heart leap clean out of his chest and go looking for his girlfriend?

Plenty of drama then in these songs, so the temptation is to play it up to the hilt with expansive action. Yet, fundamentally these songs are still Lieder where what you hear is only the beginning. It's not enough just to create a character. Lieder is about frames of mind, abstract ideas as well as literal stories.

Christian Gerhaher knows this, singing with clear focus, convincing without help from costumes or narrative. But with Lieder there is always something deeper and invisible. Take the song, Schon strekt' ich aus im Bett. A man jumps out of bed and heads for the streets where he plays his lute. But it's no serenade. Wolf sets the last stanza with a strange, meandering cadence. It sounds like the strumming of the lute, yet also evokes the man's relentless wandering. "Many a girl has been moved by my song" go the words, but his music "is wafted away in the wind". Nicely elusive. Is the man a rake, or do the girls dump him despite his songs?

The soprano, Mojca Erdmann is very young, so she's at the stage where she needs to show what her voice can do technically. Hence the starry diva moments like the flourish at the end of Ich hab' in Penna. Impressive, but not in balance with the song. Sure, the girl in the song is bragging about having lovers in every town, but it's more effective with a touch of subtle humour. The difference between opera and Lieder is that Lieder is close focus, thoughtful and intimate. As the first song went in this recital went, Auch kleine Dinge können uns entzücken (even small things can delight us) . "Think of the rose" it continues, "it's small but smells so sweet".

Tim Ashley said much the same about this concert but less gently. read HERE

Peter Grimes ENO stagecraft (part 2)

"Too much sex and politics" is the usual rallying cry of those who don't like opera staging. But sometimes sex and politics are part of what the composer wanted.

There is sex in Peter Grimes, and politics too. The nieces sell their prettiness for money. And why are the townsfolk so down on Peter Grimes in an age when kids from the workhouse were treated as disposable commodities? The beauty of this new Alden production at the ENO is that he doesn't go for prurience. The nieces are little girls. However coy and culpable they may be they are too young to be predators. "Why should we be ashamed ? We comfort men from ugliness".

There's no escaping the fact that Benjamin Britten had a thing for pre-pubescent boys. David Hemmings and Scherchen junior were adamant that there was no sexual contact, and that Britten seemed more like a boy himself. Perhaps something happened to him when he was that age, fixing him forever in a fantasy world "before the fall"? It's a theme that recurs throughout his work. The apprentices become Tadzio. Is Britten grappling with his own sexuality? By modern standards, he'd probably be arrested even though, like the folks in the pub "we keep our hands to ourselves".

These days it's almost impossible to conceive of a time when homosexuality was illegal . In Britten's time even a whiff of scandal could scupper a man's career. Yet Britten never denied his orientation, which was in itself an act of courage. So Peter Grimes can be read fairly clearly as support for privacy and respect in a climate of malicious gossip. Maybe that's why Auntie looks butch ? After all, the neices are careful not to fool around til she's out of sight, another tiny detail that throws the usual assumption that the Boar is a brothel. In early 19th century Suffolk ? Perhaps implausible.

Britten was taken from his mother aged 13 and sent to boarding school where he was miserable. School was a posh kind of workhouse where boys were sent for their own good, possibly to be brutalized. Ellen and even Auntie are substitute mothers. What attracts Peter to Ellen is that she represents the nurturing he never had, even though he keeps his hut neat and orderly. Ellen's fallen middle class, so she can look pretty. Auntie's got up mannish, which doesn't necessarily mean she's a butch movie lesbian. She's a single woman running a business in a tough world.

Alden divides the men and the women of the parish when they march out of church. A barrier runs diagonally across the stage, men down one side, women down the other. Yet in real life it's not so clearcut. Auntie and Ellen do men's work, Peter would perhaps be less brutish if he knew how to. When the women talk about their lives, they form a knot, dragging Mrs Sedley in despite her resistance. She, too, was a woman once though she's shrivelled up now with meanness.

A very interesting detail is the way the nieces change after they're propositioned by Swallow. One of them wears a sailor suit, the other a kind of army drab. For the first time, they're different, playing at being adult. But the military is male dominated. What does it mean? The beauty of images liken this is that they are meant to stimulate thought, around and beyond what's immediately grasped. That's what good direction does.

Alden's crowd scenes are brilliantly choreographed. The townsfolk move in formation, like a single unit. Alden has them making hand gestures, upwards and down, so the effect is multi-dimensional, constantly in motion - like a shoal of fish. Because their costumes are drab, the whiteness of their hands and faces catches the light, like the glint of fish, writhing in a net. It's beautifully subtle, for throughout the text, there are references to "glitter", the "glitter of waves" and so on. This also underlines the musical phrases, short cascading flurries that sparkle against longer sonorities.

The excellent Opera North production centred round a net on stage, for good reason. Alden turns the crowd itself into a net, for in a way, they're all as trapped as Peter Grimes, though he's the one trying to break free.

Alden has the drummer centre stage, on his own, not part of the mob, which is often the case. This intensifies the impact of the drumming. There is no way of getting round the significance of Britten's position as a conscientious objector when the rest of the country was caught up in war frenzy. There's no war in this opera, unlike its companion piece Billy Budd. Rather Britten is dealing with the impulse that drives people towards warlike behaviour, whatever the actual cause.

When the Rector and the lawyer find Peter's hut empty, they're relieved. Yet even if there's no case, Mrs Sedley is out for blood. Peter must be punished, right or wrong. So the crowd sing "Who holds himself apart.... Him who despises us We’ll destroy" Peter must be destroyed not for what happens to his boys but because he's different, doesn't go to pubs, and thinks about rising above his station. The boys are just an excuse. "Dullards build their self esteem by inventing cruelties" sings one of the lawyers.

Hence the crowd as mindless shoal, or penned in at angles on the stage. They raise their prayer books , or lift their arms in diagonal salute. The references are subtle at first, but towards the culmination out come little Union Jack flags. This will incense a lot of people, but it's definitely in line with what Britten knew at first hand. Alden's not insulting the flag : it's the mob who insult it, by using it as a cover for their selfish cruelties. Ironically, it is fear that makes Peter drop the rope when he hears the mob approach. It's in the score.

One image I still don't understand is the fleeting glimpse of Peter, back from sea, observing the crowd unseen. He's wearing an animal head. Is this a reference to primitive sacrificial rites? Or to the idea that men are animals? Or even to Birtwistle's Minotaur, who looked like a monster but was the only untainted soul? Again, that's why intelligent stagecraft is so stimulating, it makes you think. Throughout Peter Grimes runs the idea of not making quick assumptions, so this is an opportunity to put the principle to practice.

The final scene is overwhelmingly beautiful and bleak at the same time. Sea merges with sky, the horizon very distant and obscure. That's exactly what the coast around the North Sea looks like. There are few cosy harbours. If Britten wanted Middle England he'd have lived in a suburb in the Home Counties. It's also apt as a metaphor, because it shows that rigid boundaries are not the only way, in nature as in morality. We don't need detail, for where Peter Grimes has gone is beyond our ken, where we can't possibly see. The set allows the music to take precedence. It wells up like a swell on the ocean :

In ceaseless motion comes and goes the tide
Flowing it fills the channel broad and wide
Then back to sea with strong majestic sweep
It rolls in ebb yet terrible and deep.

Peter Grimes ENO stagecraft (part 1)

A friend, who knows more about theatre than I ever will, praised the new production of Peter Grimes at the ENO. “It’s what opera direction has been leading up to for 30 years”. These days opera directors are condemned on autopilot, as if hate were a badge of honour. Of course there are some seriously moronic productions (not all avant garde or German). But operas are staged so their meaning can be enhanced. As stagecraft, this new production, by David Alden, vividly elucidates the essence of Peter Grimes.

The set is spartan. Immediately this is metaphor. Large flat planes cross the stage, like huge panels of weathered timber. Life in fishing villages is tough, the locals exposed to the elements like their surroundings. The bleakness on stage suggests at once the landscape and the desolation of those who live in it. Yet bleached timber can be beautiful. Its texture is irregular and it takes on myriad hues as the light changes.

Wide open spaces are important to the meaning of this opera. Britten contrasts the wild, unpredictability of storms with the ordered ritual in church, the endless horizons with cramped, closed spaces. Thus the courthouse, where Peter is not convicted, is fairly open plan, the crowd penned into a corner, writhing. The pub, The Boar, (a savage animal) is evoked simply by a row of solid over stuffed sofas : immobility and solidity, the illusion of comfort. Yet the storm rages, roads are flooded. The flat planes that enclose the pub careen dangerously as if at any moment they might be blown in by the gale. Auntie doesn’t believe in shutters. Lightning flashes suddenly. No wonder the nieces are scared.

Auntie’s nieces are often depicted as hardened prostitutes, for they are part of the pub's attractions. Although they're obviously complicit, there is ambiguity about their role. Hence their strange twin like behaviour. Little about them is straightforward. Depicting them as very young schoolgirls makes a lot of sense, though, for the suggestion is that they are, like the apprentices, Britten’s quintessential innocents, doomed to be corrupted.

“Is this a Christian country? Are pauper children so enslaved that their bodies go for cash?” cries Boles, when he hears a new apprentice has casually been “purchased”. He has a point. In some productions, the preacher is ridiculed like a comic book nazi or buffoon. Here, though, he’s not unsympathetic. When Swallow tries to “buy” one of the girls, there’s a connection between the nieces and the boys, often lost in less subtle productions.

Alden further reinforces the similarity between the girls and boys by having the nieces smack their toy dolls when they’re upset, as children do when they can’t deal with their own feelings. John the new apprentice also acts like an abused child, rolling up in a foetal position, too terrified to speak.

Then when Peter faces his dilemma in Act 3, Alden doesn’t have him do a wild “mad scene”. Instead, Peter seems to crumble inwards, curled up and rocking himself mindless, just like John did, just like a trapped, tortured animal. It’s incredibly painful to watch, as violent anguish at least is “adult”. The implication is that Peter, too, was an abused child, who treats his boys harshly because he knows no other way to interact. Their vulnerability reminds him of something he’d prefer not to deal with, so he lashes out. Significantly, the only time we see solid looking “brick walls” in this set is in Peter’s hut, where the walls tower like a prison, bathed in eerie green light.

This isn’t a bad rationale for Grimes's behaviour. He is brutal, but it’s directed inward, too. He asks Ellen,“Wrong to try, wrong to live, right to die”. It’s a warning, a sudden but revealing flash of insight. This production implies that Peter’s whole life has been one long, slow suicide, his attempts to better himself a cry for help. When he does face fate, it’s with curiously dignified resignation, as if he’s rehearsed the moment since he, too, perhaps was a boy from the workhouse.

Please see part 2 of this which deals with the more controversial aspects - sex, politics etc. In fact I think it says even more about the staging, the opera and Britten, but then I'm prejudiced, I wrote it. You can find it by scrolling up or looking under the subject labels on right under Britten. Look under "stagecraft" too if you want to read analyses of the stagecraft in other operas. There's more on Britten including some off the wall stuff ! This is a seriously good production, because it brings out so many deeper levels in the opera, often missed. As my friend said, it needs to be seen again and again. And read the score before deriding this production. If it's "not what Britten intended", then someone should get Britten to rewrite the opera, and make Mrs Selby the heroine.

Mahler 8 Boulez Berlin

“So far I have employed words and the human voice …….t o express symphonically only with immense breadth”, said Mahler of this symphony. “But here the voice is also an instrument ……. used not only as sound, but as the bearer of poetic thoughts”.

Because of its sheer theatrical impact, this massive symphony will always be stunning. But as Mahler so explicitly states, the vast forces are bearers of "poetic thoughts", so powerful that they need ambitious expression. It's not spectacle for the sake of spectacle, not a circus for pulling stunts of sheer people management. Central to its meaning is its relationship to Mahler's music and ideas as a whole.

The theme “Veni, Creator Spiritus” runs throughout this symphony, so there’s no mistaking how much the idea meant to the composer: ignore it at your peril. The music is a powerful affirmation of life and of the spirit of artistic creation. In many ways it is perhaps the most critical of all Mahler symphonies because here he crystallizes many of the ideas he’s developed up to this point. It also occupies a critical turning point in his work, clearing his horizons for Das Lied von der Erde and the 9^th Symphony. “Come, spirit of creation” expresses the idea that through emotional awareness and creativity, we can reach transcendence.

Faust is redeemed by faith, and by love. Nit-picking pedants are right, it's not rational. But it's so strong that it seemed to Mahler "like a vision” which struck him “like lightning”, making him write so quickly that the notes seemed to fly onto the page as if they were being dictated.

In April 2007, Pierre Boulez conducted the Eighth in Berlin with the Staatskapelle. It was one of the great experiences of my life. Boulez seemed to hear the symphony as profoundly liberating: after all, Faust beats the devil and is raised up to heaven. Sin is expunged, purified in a blaze of light. Boulez never loses sight of the ultimate destination, even though he's clear on detail. Accende lumen sensibus was heralded by a particularly bright, celestial fanfare. He not only highlights the trombone and trumpet passages but respects how they change with each recurrence. The magnificent coda at the end of the first movement was electrifying, because it marks the crucial transition.

The performance was explosive, as would be expected from a section where the words Gloria ! Gloria ! repeat with increasing ecstasy. Yet it's not simply excitement for its own sake. The textures build up and multiply, so detail wasn't buried under the crashing drums and glorious, full-throated choruses.

The slow, non-vocal section that opens the Second Part of this symphony is crucial to understanding the “poetic thoughts” in the text. Interpretation, thus is even more critical, because there are no words as clues. This part of the symphony refers to the final scene in Faust, where Faust is raised to Heaven. Goethe places the scene in a bizarre landscape inhabited by anchorites, complete with tame lions who pace about stumm-freundlich (placid and peacefully). It’s a direct reference to a medieval concept depicted in paintings of the period.

Mahler not only knew Goethe’s poetry, but was also familiar with its manifestations in art. It was so important to him that he writes into the manuscript: Bergschluchten. Wald. Fels, Einöde. (mountain gorge, forest, cliff, desert). Again, the vision of anchorites helps express the musical texture of the symphony. In art, the hermits inhabit surreal perspectives, sometimes even hovering over the ground, and here we have Pater Ecstaticus auf and ab schwebend (soaring up and down). Later the angels lift Faust’s soul and they fly off in der höheren Atmosphäre. There’s movement everywhere, which Mahler translates into music that soars and flies ever upwards in different levels. Boulez manages to capture this multi-dimensional effect again by respecting Mahler’s details.

Almost unbelievably pure, high woodwinds ascend ever upward, followed by glorious strings, deepened in tone by brass. Boulez (who loves art and collects paintings), is painting colours with sound, creating craggy shapes with the steady horizontals of pizzicato and percussion. The overall palette is of shimmering light: even the cymbal is played relatively quietly. This is much more effective than letting it crash for dramatic effect. Instead, its resonance blends subtly into the diaphanous textures, all the more effectively because the musical effect reinforces the spiritual imagery.

Then, out of the stillness, rise chords in ascending procession, anticipating the entry of the choir. When the voices join in, it’s like a pilgrimage, the quiet reverential singing underlined by pizzicato-like footfalls. Boulez is evoking Tannhäuser, a connection which Mahler almost certainly would have appreciated. Again, he does this by extremely precisely defining the different textures and colours, so that they literally seem to shine. The famous off-stage trumpets were exceptionally effective in the clean acoustic of the Philharmonie, truly adding an unusual, celestial layer to what was happening on stage.

For all its highly charged spirituality, this symphony is profoundly personal and intimate. Thus the poignant solo violin part, pitted against the massed choir, and the delicate celeste and mandolin among the grand instrumentation. It’s dedicated to Alma. Mahler’s wife and muse. She was the Gretchen to his Faust. Read Professor Henry-Louis de La Grange's monumental biography of the composer for background. The Fourth volume, A New life Cut Short is absolutely essential reading, for it covers the turbulent last years of Mahler's life. The book sheds great insight, an invaluable aid to appreciating what made Mahler tick.

However badly Alma was to treat the composer, she was his inspiration. So it is Das Ewig-Weibliche that draws us heavenward, as the Chorus mysticus tells us, the Eternal Feminine, embodied in the Mater Gloriosa, “Jungfrau, Mutter, Königen, Göttin”.

Alma's diaries place Mahler in a bad light because she blamed him for not letting her become a composer herself. It's true, but he was hardly the monster she makes out. He wasn't a fool: her music isn't remotely in the league of his. Yet he did pay for her music lessons, even with Zemlinsky after their marriage. After the trauma of her affair with Gropius, he berated himself for not respecting her more. Alma's resentments may cloud our image of Mahler, but by the standards of his time, he was remarkably liberal. The two parts of the symphony may seem different on a superficial level, but they connect conceptually, as the "creative spirit" is made concrete through love, and the power of a specifically female nurturance.

Throughout Mahler’s work, figures repeat, sometimes used in different ways, but also, importantly, like leitmotivs, symbolising more than the notes alone convey. This performance was part of the Berlin cycle of Mahler’s symphonies, that preceded the more publicized (in the Englsih speaking world) New York sequence. The performance was thus deliberately enhanced by hearing it in the context of the grand panorama of Mahler's work as a whole.

For example, there are recurring references to Das himmlische Leben, so intimately linked with the Wunderhorn symphonies. Yet there are passages in the Second Part which use ideas from what would become the song Von der Schönheit.Just how far Mahler had developed the ideas at the time he was writing the Eighth, I don't know, but we know the song now and can’t escape the reference. Similarly, when we hear the soprano and altos sing about the reinen, reichen Quelle (pure rich spring) that sustained the Saviour in the desert, we can’t help but think of the lotus-pond that will appear in Das Lied von der Erde.

In the finale, the chorus sings Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis (all things transitory are but parable). Old concerns are obliterated in new, heavenly inspiration. The symphony culminates in ecstatic glory. Light, and specifically the intense, divine light of spiritual illumination, runs throughout Mahler’s work with clear, undaunted commitment. In many ways it’s even more important than the usual assumptions that dominate conventional commentary, because it focuses on solutions and goals. Mahler deals with death and darkness, but his music inevitably heads towards a goal of resolution – resurrection, rebirth, transfiguration, and the power of Primeval Light. More than most, Boulez has contributed to this new, challenging "light infused" perspective on Mahler's music. From this springs the clarity of his textures, the clean, precise detail and the unswerving focus on overall architecture.

What Boulez illuminates is Mahler’s unceasing search for answers to eternal mysteries. What Boulez does is based on sixty years of knowledge of the composer's music and life, so his approach is deeply felt and thought through. He isn't heart on sleeve indulgent. Instead, he lets the music speak, bringing the listener closer to source, so to speak.

There’s an adage that says the more you know something, the more you realise just how much there is yet to learn. From what we know of Mahler, we can deduce that he was an innovator not a conformist. As is Boulez, like Mahler himself an intellectual and individualist. We can never stop learning, because there is so much we've yet to fathom. Professor de La Grange's fourth volume stresses that Mahler was possibly on the verge of a new phase when he died. We'll never know how, but this open ended concept makes the Tenth Symphony so tantalising.

There is a recording of the Berlin Boulez Mahler 8th, made a few days after the Philharmonie performance. I also have a tape of the live broadcast. They are brilliant – you "need" to hear them if you want to engage with of this wonderful symphony.

Erich Korngold rarity with MANIC video

Mahler connection. Erich Korngold's father was Julius Korngold, the formidable music critic who dominated Vienna in Mahler's time. Naturally when little Erich showed signs of being a prodigy everyone who was anyone in town knew about it, including Mahler, who called him a genius. Hardly surprising, for his piano sonatas (written when he was 11 and 14) are wonderful. Having such a powerful father was perhaps not entirely a blessing, but Erich seems to have been much too nice a guy to do a Mozart to his dad. Now Brendan Carroll, author of the famed "Erich Korngold : the Last Prodigy" (1997, 464pp) has created a tribute to Korngold, so we can all share. The sound comes from a very rare test recording made in the course of making a film. It's accompanied by photos from private collections, some of which haven't been seen before.

Lots of movies for which Korngold wrote music appear on Youtube, and also snips of his other music. But the clip below is worth singling out because it is a total scream! "It's NEW! It's DARING! It's from WARNER BROS!"