Father and Son : cultural values in movies

Movies as cultural history : 父與子"Father and Son" says so much about Chinese values that it's a film that should be studied by anyone with any interest in these.  A small boy, Ha Tsai "Shrimpy" lives in a very traditional village. He's even got an old-fashioned haircut, bald at the back, round in the front. He's playing with the other village kids. (The actor was 9 year old Yuen Siu Fai 阮兆輝)

A stranger in a western suit arrives. It's Ha Tsai's Dad (Cheung Wood Yau 張活游) who went to Hong Kong when the kid was a baby and is now taking him to the big city. Father is good at his work and has just been promoted: a model success story. So he buys his son a western suit and takes him to the funfair. "Do you love me?" asks Dad. "I love you so much that I want to tend fields and grow lots of rice for you to eat!" says the kid. Dad gulps. That's not what aspirational fathers want.

But the boss's son's posh schoolmate needs a job and Dad is demoted - no employment laws then. "Connections", a colleague consoles him, "that's what gets you ahead, not merit" . So Dad is determined to give his son the best possible start in life,. In Hong Kong in those days there was no public education, instead all kinds of small schools, some even on rooftops, parents sacrificng themselves so their children might have a better life. Although Father is slightly better off than his poverty-stricken flat mates, he's quite poor. But he enrols the boy in a posh school and gives him a new fancy name, Ng Kwei Sang, which symbolizes his new prospects. But when the teacher calls out the new name, he can't remember it. "I forgot" said the kid, "I'm Shrimpy" The other kids laugh because it's a country bumpkin name.

Father has to borrow money to get the kid a uniform or he can't go on school outings. Interesting the uniform is decidedly bizarre with stripey cap, very un-Chinese. The kids conform and march to a whistle. Kid gets the uniform in a mess and father smacks him. Their flatmate stops the beating "Education is not uniforms!" he cries. It's poignant, because the neighbour is a labourer, probably illiterate, so poor that his son can't go to school at all.  Ah Keung, the neighbour's son, sneaks out in the rain to work as a shoe-shine boy to help his parents. Kids were like that in those days, the whole parent-child relationship based on mutual support.



Ha Tsai  skips school. Father goes berserk. "I pawned things, I borrowed money I don't have, I've even given up meals so you can go to school. How can you destroy my hopes". It's heartbreaking how he's projecting his anxieties onto the boy.

One of Ha Tsai's rich classmates (son of father's boss) throws a birthday party.  Father and son walk all the way up the Peak because they can't afford transport. "Where's your maid? " asks the doorman. Watching the kids play, Dad beams with pride. He doesn't hear what the nasty rich kid says about his son.

One day the posh school gets the kids to sell flowers to raise money for kids who can't afford education. Enterprising Ha Tsai finds his way into a movie studio where mega stars are playing themselves as actors - brilliant!  "Here's a fiver" says Ng Chor fan, which was a whole month's school fees in those days. Ha Tsai's teacher arrives at Ha Tsai's home, "This is your house?" she says. Ha Tsai sold all his flowers but brought no money back.  She thinks he's stolen the money. It turns out that the kid gave it direct to Ah Keung the shoeshine boy, who couldn't afford school. He was right in intention, but he didn't understand the system.

Father is pressured into throwing a birthday party for Ha Tsai, even though he can't possibly afford it.  They don't even have the space, and have to move their furniture out.  But it's the biggest treat Ha Tsai ever had - western soft drinks instead of tea, western cakes, and a cowboy suit. It's an investment in impressing the rich and making the kind of fancy connections that count in getting ahead in the world. When Rich Kid arrives, he's appalled. He's never seen a tenement before, he can't believe people live like that. "Flies!" he screams, "Mummy says flies cause disease". So the rich schoolkids all go away. "Why let all this food go to waste"? says the neighbour,. So the tenement families tuck in and Ha Tsai gets the best party of all.  Next we see Father taking son back to a humble community school where the kids grow their own vegetables and get their clothes dirty.

This film is a cultural document of Chinese values.  Watch it HERE (no English). Parents sacrifice everything that their children might have a better life for themselves. That was why Hong Kong people worked so hard. Hong Kong was prosperous because Hong Kong people made it so. Chinese parents saw education as the key. In this film, we see affluent kids who have no idea how other people struggle and quite possibly grow up to fritter away their expensive educations.

A healthy society grows when people have social conscience. I went to a school where entry was based on merit, so there were extremes of wealth and poverty. One kid told her father that her best friend was struggling. Very discreetly, that father sponsored his child's friend. Someone who was in a position to know who paid for whom told me that it wasn't an isolated incident. In Hong Kong in those days, many people had gone through war and being refugees, even if they prospered later. Maybe those who take good fortune for granted and put others down might be the majority but not all the privileged are morally bankrupt.  On the other hand, once I went to apply for a scholarship and the man administering the charity put pressure on me to co-operate with his filthy desires.  He was not a local, or he would have known that kids from my school were notoriously hard to intimidate. I walked out, but in colonial society you didn't rock the boat. Maybe by not kicking up a fuss, I'm responsible for other people being harmed by that man,  other people who were more desperate for a scholarship than I was, and more intimidated by white guys in suits. but he was exploitative scum, who used charity as a cloak for his bullying.

Berliner Philharmoniker goes American Charles Ives 4

Gershwin, Antheil, Charles Ives and Bernstein - an all-American programme, but with a twist. Often programmes like this make me cringe because they're done with self-conscious folksiness. But Ingo Metzmacher conducts the Berliner Philharmoniker with wry, distinctive style. Each piece stands on its own merits; no special pleading needed. Even Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story sounds fresh, the tunes integrated into the overall musical logic. That's saying something!

If Bernstein is the over-exposed "face" of American music, George Gershwin and George Antheil don't get the respect they deserve. Gershwin's 1932 Cuban Overture isn't his greatest work but it's an attempt to use Cuban rhythms in "mainstream" music. What fun it is to see the august players of the Berliner Philharmoniker play bongos, maracas and rhythm sticks! Cuban music aficionados will probably cringe, but the point is made. Even with Gershwin, Cuban doesn't go gringo.

George Antheil's Jazz Symphony (1955 version) is musically a better proposition, and the Berliners give a vigorous account. I prefer the spikier 1925 version, (excellent recording by Ensemble Modern) but Antheil's later, larger orchestration reflects the period in which it was revived. It's apposite, however, in the context of the Bernstein suite. Even at the end of his life, after a long career in Hollywood, Antheil still understood what jazz is. The Berliners did it with style - wildly bluesy trumpet, louche piano, the orchestra deliciously decadent and witty.

Charles Ives's Symphony no 4 was by far the best part of the programme. Metzmacher appeared to be the only conductor, though a second conductor was present.  But much of the leadership came from Pierre-Laurent Aimard who has played the symphony many times. His Ives is idomatic in the sense that he's played all of Ives's music for piano, but his structural clarity doesn't go down well with those who want their Ives "traditional". Too bad, I think. Ives was writing serious music, not retro. A supremely professional exponent like Aimard would have been beyond Ives's wildest dreams.

The beauty of Ives's work, for me, is the way he blends popular culture into sophisticated music. The hymns, songs and marches  shouldn't over-dominate for they are snatches of memory in a much more complex musical conception. Aimard took control from the first bars of the Maestoso, dominant dark chords making a firm statement A single cello responds, and then the choir, singing brief snatches of the hymns whose origins Ives knew so well. Metzmacher conducted so a sense of contemplative silence prevailed, much more in keeping with the mood of the songs than the uncharacteristically muted diction of the Ernst Senff Choir.

The Allegretto is a strange beast, with multiple cross-currents. It's notoriously difficult to conduct, but Metzmacher understands 20th century music so well that he can show how Ives was way ahead of his time. Ives breaks the orchestra into components, playing at different tempi: individual cells operating within a larger mechanism. Aimard leads. playing faster and faster almost to the point that the strings can't keep up. This tension underlines the strange, mechanical repeats in the music. The filming is musically sensitive: two violinists are shown bowing in a strange mechanistic ritual.  Yet the overall impact is of extreme energy, even a sense of madcap zany rebellion in the wayward rhythms. One thinks of New York, where Ives worked, its skyscrapers (even in 1918) and busy infrastructure. Years before Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Ives is creating futurist concepts in music. 

Th offstage ensembles intensify this idea of multiple spheres of activity. A solo violin is heard from above the stage, adding ethereal unworldliness. The second piano plays a relatively easy melody. Their music feels symbolic, like a commentary on the main piano and orchestra below. Then all hell breaks loose. What sounds like a conventional miltary match  develops at a wacky, wayward pace. Most definitely not a march to march to, which may also be part of the underlying meaning.

Metzmacher breaks it off sharply, strengthening the contrast with the Fugue and its mixture of hymn melodies and memories. Is Ives looking back on an idealized past? Ives's father fought in the Civil War and played the games required of patriotic veterans, but from what we know of his life, he wasn't happy or fulfilled. Ives strongly identified wth his father, the black sheep of the family.  Can these references to nostalgia be as simple as they seem? The trombone plays a reference to "Taps", played at the close of day, but also to mark the death of soldiers.

Percussion mark the start of the Finale, suggesting a procession or march. Metzmacher and the Berliners take this so quietly that the mood seems ominous, even though the strings soar in more conventional unison. Aimard reinforces the darkness, firm, assertive playing and absolute precision. Again, Ives contrasts mass with individual. A single violin plays  a slow, gracious figure which contradicts the gloom. Mysterious swaying sounds in the main orchestra, gradually building to a strange climax and retreats. Out of this almost nothingness Aimard plays passages so beautiful that they seem magical. The hazy diction of the choir worked musically, for me, because it put greater emphasis on piano and orchestra than on the literal meaning of the words. That, perhaps, is Metzmacher's achievement. Ives's Fourth Symphony is much greater than the sum of its parts. Listen to this concert on the Berliner-Philharmoniker website.

The photo shows Charles Ives in 1945 (Eugene Smith, courtesy charlesives.org) It's famous because it shows the quirkier side of Ives. Look at that crouch - is he about to spring at the photographer and catch us all unaware? 

Kaspar Holten Juan

At last, I've seen the film Juan by Kaspar Holten.  Please see my post from April 2011 for links to clips, and read  the first major review which was in Opera Today in July 2011.  This isn't another staging of Don Giovanni, not by any means. Juan is a wholly original concept, taking its cue from the heart of the opera. As film noir on its own terms as cinema, it's extremely impressive.

Juan begins in an opera house. Grand settings, and a performance on stage so gloriously late baroque that it would cost too much to mount in full today. Juan (Christopher Maltman) is in the audience. Elvira (Elizabeth Furtral) is in a box. Eye contact. Suddenly for both, the crowd disappears. Assignation and clearly consensual groping. The gilt and pomp of the opera house aren't reality. The camera pans on elegant marble staircases: luxurious, but hard and cold. Much is hinted at, but not disclosed. When the Commander pulls a gun in this modern setting, you wonder, what sort of man carries weapons into his daughter's rooms?  The railway station imagery above is evocative. Anna is "between trains" looking for connections she may never make.We're not watching a remake of Don Giovanni, but a study of the lost souls in this plot, desperately searching for things they can't articulate. This isn't sordid for sordid's sake. The mean streets, the empty places, all expressions of this terrain of spiritual anomie.

Juan is a pschological study of the characters. Enough of Mozart's music is there so anyone familiar with the opera will be listening on two levels, following the dramatic logic in the film while carrying the opera like a shadow. The effect is deliberately unsettling. "Real" people don't sing, but these characters do, albeit in English, which further distances us from the real Mozart. Humour, too - one of the guests at Zerlina's party is Placido Domingo, in street clothes! Then, when Elvira, Ottavio and Anna gatecrash, the camera switches to the film crew, gesticulating. Flames burn the curtains. Are these special effects? Or does Maltman look genuinely in danger as he runs along the rafters in the ceiling?

One of the strongest points in this film is the way tension builds up to breaking point. Sirens of police cars and anbulances, piercing any semblance of safety. Sudden, stealthy glances. People are stalking each other, trapped in difficult games. In the final act, Juan and Leporello (Mikhail Petrenko) are assaulted by Nature itself, as rain pours down on them. No shelter: no conventional ending with Don Giovanni safely despatched to hell. No final triumphant ensemble.  Instead, the film ends with a wonderful shot of a terrazzo, paved in an intricate pattern of black and white, like a gigantic maze. Anonymous figures in raincoats huddle under umbrellas, walking randomly, without purpose.


Photo : Elvira (Elizabeth Futral), Juan (Christopher Maltman) and Leporello (Mikhail Petrenko) - credit Steffen Aarfing(courtesy juanfilm.dk)

Oxford Lieder Festival 2012 starts Friday

It's October and time for the 11th Oxford Lieder Festival, 2012. On Friday, Sandrine Piau and Roger Vignoles open the season with a recital of French song. Read about her Wigmore Hall recital earlier this year HERE because it looks as if she's singing a very similar programme, built around Debussy Ariettes oubliés. Piau's voice is light and pure, probably even more suited to a small venue like the Holywell Music Room.

In partnership with Stone Records, the Oxford Lieder Festival has been recording all the songs of Hugo Wolf (read about some recordings in the series so far HERE). Wolf's Spanisches Liederbuch features over 2 days, as there are 44 songs in all. The songs in the first part are a mix of religious and erotic, while the secular songs are like miniature operas, where each song tells a story. Birgid Steinberger, who so impressed at last year's OLF (read more HERE), heads a good team.

Florian Boesch and Malcolm Martineau on 14th October. Anyone who goes to the Oxford Lieder Festival has heard Schubert Die schöne Müllerin dozens of times, but Boesch and Martineau make it feel fresh and original.  I've been speaking with Boesch, who says this will be a very different interpretation to what we are used to. Watch this space!

I'm proud to say I've been a Friend since year 2. Oxford Lieder is especially good at nurturing new talent.  Many OLF discoveries go on to great sucess, but return because the OLF atmosphere is good. Back this year are James Gilchrist and Anna Tilbrook, Sophie Danerman, Lucy Crowe, Katarina Karnéus and Alice Coote. How time flies! These singers show why OLF is good to be part of. The secret of OLF is that it encourages the joy of singing, for its own sake, and from this all else follows.

This year the singers to watch out for include Robert Murray (excellent Steersman in the ENO Flying Dutchman), Susanna Andersson (The Baby in Knussen's Higgelty Piggelty Pop!) (reviewed here) and Stuart Jackson,  who won second prize in the Wigmore Hall International Song Competition. They wouldn't give First Prize to someone so young, but Jackson has such a distinctive voice that I could remember him a whole year after I'd first heard him sing a few songs in a private recital.  Voices like this are unique, and should be nurtured. Jackson's sensitive and intelligent qualities are extremely important in art song. I suspect he'll also be good in opera, especially English repertoire.

Robert Murray sings Janáček The Diary of One who Disappeared, one of my all-time favourite cycles, on 18/10. Susanna Andersson sings Schubert with much loved OLF perennial Stephan Loges on 27/10. Stuart Jackson will be singing on OLF's Day of English Song on 20/10, together with Johnny Herford, William Vann, Jonathan McGovern, Lucy Crowe and John Mark Ainsley.

For more information see the Oxford Lieder Festival website here.

photo : Peter Trimming

Exciting Glyndebourne 2013 - brave new ventures

Exciting developments at Glyndebourne! Many new initiatives that could transform Glyndebourne from a summer festival to a truly international, year-round opera experience.

But first, details of the 2013 season. A new production of Rameau Hippolyte et Aricie,
a first for Glyndebourne and relatively rare in live performance. This is big news because it will be conducted by William Christie who does Rameau with more élan than anyone else. If anything, this could outshine the famed Glyndebourne Purcell The Fairy Queen. (reviewed here) Rameau is even more extravagantly baroque than Purcell, and, of course, is associated with dance more than any other composer before Stravinsky. Imagine the possibilities! Christie is joined again by director Jonathan Kent and designer Paul Brown, so they should be able to come up once more with something spectacular. Sarah Connolly will sing the role of Phèdre. No doubt, this will be a highlight of the whole 2013 year.

The other new production for 2013 will be Richard Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos. Vladimir Jurowski is standing down as Glyndebourne's Music Director after 13 years, but there'll be another chance to hear him there in a special Celebration Concert, where he'll conduct a dramatic realization of Benjamin Britten's Canticles. .Jurowski's legacy will also be marked by the release of four of his performances on the Glyndebourne label - La Cenerentola, Love and Other Demons (Eötvös) , Tristan und Isolde,  and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (reviewed here)

Not quite a revival, not quite a new production : Donizetti Don Pasquale.  This hasn't been seen in the main Festival but was very well received during the 2011 Glyndebourne Touring Opera season. This time, Danielle de Neise will be singing Norina. Marking the Britten and Verdi anniversaries, Glyndebourne will revive the Michael Grandage Billy Budd (Padmore instead of Imbrailo) and Richard Jones's acclaimed Falstaff. Le nozze di Figaro sold so well in 2012 that it will be back next year too.

Glyndebourne's Sussex summer season is unique, but its magic can be enjoyed all year round. The 2012 Touring season runs until 8th December and reaches eight British towns. The operas are Rusalka, Le nozze di Figaro and The Yellow Sofa, by Julian Phillips, Glyndebourne's Composer-in Residence. This year there will also be special screenings of the David McVicar Handel Guilio Cesare.  Glyndebourne Touring Opera doesn't merely replicate the main Festival but offers its own specialities, as the hit Don Pasquale proved. The big draw in 2013 will be Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, receiving its first Glyndebourne staging since its 1946 premiere with Kathleen Ferrier and Peter Pears, who will be a hard act to follow. Also touring next year will be L'elisr d'amore, Hansel und Gretel and a new commission, Captain Blood's Revenge, aimed at schools and families, an important facet of Glyndebourne's outreach programme.

Glyndebourne also reaches out internationally. New for 2013 is a Digital Festival where all six Festival operas will be broadcast in cinemas and online through a combination of live and recorded-live transmissions. Picturehouse Entertainment will be screening Glyndebourne productions next summer in over 100 cinemas. As a special seasonal treat, the Guardian will also stream the 2007 production of Tristan und Isolde (Bělohlávek, Stemme, Gambrill, Pape) from 26/12/12 to 6/1/13. What's more, Glyndebourne's own recording label is now making its entire catalogue available for digital download, with new releases like The Cunning Little Vixen (reviewed here) and the Ravel double bill L’heure espagnole and L’enfant et les sortilèges, (reviewed here)
photo: Iain Crump

Music in Palestine, Musical Times 1939

From my friend Mischa Horenstein : Please go to his facebook page on Mahler where there's an erudite discussion going on

Music in Palestine
The Musical Times, Vol. 80, No. 1153 (Mar., 1939), p. 225
DURING the summer months a season of popular concerts was given by the Palestine Symphony Orchestra with Jascha Horenstein as chief conductor and Milhaud's 'Suite Provencale' as the principal novelty. The winter season opened later than usual, for owing to the international situation it was impossible for Pierre Monteux to make the journey in October, as originally planned. The subscription season in Tel-Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem started in November under Eugen Szenkar, who made such an impression here last year, and proved again to be a convincing interpreter of great music, especially of the romanticists and late nineteenth century works. In his second series of concerts Szenkar had Huberman as soloist in the Beethoven Violin Concerto. It was the first time that Huberman had played with an orchestra after his flying accident last year (when there were fears that he would never recover from his injury). His performance was an experience that no member of the vast audiences in the three towns is likely to forget. In addition Huberman gave recitals, assisted by Angelo Kessissoglu, and a concert with chamber orchestra. Some of these concerts were repeated in some larger settlements.

Another event of importance in Palestine musical life was the first performance here of Mahler's third Symphony (the first Symphony was given in the orchestra's first season under Steinberg). Szenkar conducted the work by heart, and the orchestra, enlarged for the occasion, was at its best. The choir was from the Michael Taube chamber choir, and Vittorio Weinberg, a baritone, sang the alto solo.

Szenkar's last concert brought-apart from Beethoven's fifth-Ravel's second suite from the ballet 'Daphnis and Chloe' and the first performance of a thoroughly uninteresting work-Eugen Zador's 'Capriccio Hongrois.'

Szenkar's farewell-outside the regular series of concerts--was a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with Elsa Juelich-Taube, Dela Gotthelft, Marcel Noe and Vittorio Weinberg as the vocal quartet, and the choir of the Palestine Oratorio, conducted by Fordhaus Ben Tsissy. The conductors engaged for the rest of the season have been Dobrowen, Szell, Dr. Sargent, and Monteux, who has promised to make up for the cancelled concerts this spring.

En avant la musique 1907

Another innovative film by Segundo de Chomon. More elsewhere on this site.

Dancing Baroque? Handel and Rameau

Handel's Giulio Cesare at the ENO raises intereesting questions. Michael Keegan-Dolan is a choreographer, so his staging would naturally emphasize dancing, not singing or even drama. Dance is part of the baroque aesthetic, but to what extent? If any composer is associated with dance it's Rameau. Rameau's rhythms throb in intricate patterns, so energetic that they beg expression through physical action. Prior to Stravinsky, Rameau defined movement in music.

Rameau's Les Indes galantes is now available on medici.tv.  It's a work of near genius, with William Christie and Les Arts Florissantes who have the genre in thir souls. Christie shows how vital and vivid period performance can be, done well and on its own terms. The cast is particularly strong - Partricia Petibon, Nicolas Rivenq, Danielle De Neise, Nathan Berg, João Fernandes, Christoph Stehl,  Malin Hartelius etc) so it's pretty outstanding. Baroque is stylized, but it isn't dull. The acting, directed by Andrei Serban, is full of wit and personality. True to the baroque spirit,  the designs (Marina Draghici) are extravagant. Rameau chose his subjects because they'd be visually exciting to audiences in his day who had probably never seen much of Peruvians, Turks or "the savages of America". Draghici can thus blend elements of alien cultures with fantasy : a Matelot in an Ottoman Court, for example, and a stunning recreation of the Inca God of the Sun. Magically lit and beautifully filmed.

But this Les Indes galantes is essential, I think, for dance fans because it shows how dance can be integrated into an opera. The choreographer is Blanca Li. She "conducts" the dancers as effectively as Christie conducts singers and players. Ensembles move as the music moves, dancers are individualized just as instruments are individualized.  The elegant orderliness of Rameau's music allows quite complex choreography, which Li and her dancers execute flawlessly. For three hours!  These people are seriously fit.  Blanca Li blends different dance styles, like getting the "Savages" to strike angular poses, channelling Diaghilev in the Rite of Spring. Again, the spirit of baroque, all influences joyously mixed in riotous profusion.  I didn't go to the ENO Handel Guilio Cesare last night, having seen Michael Keegan- Dolan's last ENO double bill. His Rite of Spring wasn't bad because the dancing "spoke".  His Duke Bluebeard's Castle fell apart for me because dramatically the ideas weren't thought through. So maybe that's the conundrum choreographers have to face when they stage opera. Dance is a tool, but dramatic logic is what makes dance in opera work.

Missing Mahler photo found !

From E Randol Schoenberg, the composer's grandson, comes exciting news! In 1907, Mahler gave Schoenberg a copy of his portrait, and added a personal dedication. Schoenberg treasured it .In this photo, taken in Schoenberg's studio, the Mahler photo is hanging below Schoenberg's painting of Mahler. At some point, the photo went missing. Suddenly, someone contacted the Schoenberg Centre in Vienna, saying a photo had been found "hidden in the back of a boiler room". Read the full story HERE.

Music Theatre Wales - Watkins MacRae double bill

"Oner Night, two Operas", as Music Theatre Wales describes its current double bill, Huw Watkins In the Locked Room and Stuart MacRae's Ghost Patrol. This week at the Linbury, ROH2. Next : Cambridge, Basingstoke, Manchester, Cardiff and other places in Wales. The production premiered at the Edinburgh Festival (reviewed by Juliet Williams  here), so I was delighted to get a chance to hear it too.

The operas are new works jointly commissioned by Music Theatre Wales and Scottish Opera, giving two bright young composers an opportunity to write for the stage. Writing for theatre is different to writing vocal music, so it helps composers develop. We all benefit.

Huw Watkins is well known as a pianist and was picked by Thomas Adès who got him a composing commission in 1998. NMC has just issued a Huw Watkins Debut Disc (review here). Although it's hard to label any composee with style while he's in his mid-thirties, Watkins' music is accessible and open, potentially well suited to opera. In  the Locked Rooom is based on a story by Thomas Hardy. A couple arrive at lodgings where one room is permanently left locked, for the exclusive, unpredictable use of a poet, Pascoe (Håkan Vramsmo). The woman, Susan (Louise Winter) adores poetry and is unsatisfied by her venal materialist partner Stephen (Paul Curievici). As a metaphor, the "locked room" is obvious. What's less obvious is why drop-dead gorgeous Vramsmo, who sings with as much character as he looks, is having an on-off affair with the mature landlady Ella (Ruby Hughes), but this is fundamental to the outcome. . 

The libretto is by David Harsent, whose work with Harrison Birtwistle (The Woman and the Hare, The Minotaur) is exquisite. Harsent's poetry is so subtle that its simplicity is deceptive. It's close to conversation, where meaning is expressed by more than words. Thus the composere has to find a way of filling in meaning around text. Perhaps Watkins is so in awe of Harsent that he doesn't dare, yet, hold his own against him. A plot like this doesn't need illustrating so much as being undermined, creating deeper levels of tension. There are good set piece moments (particularly for Susan) which let the singers shine. All sing well, but Vramsmo and Curievici steal the show because they're both natural actors, and can expand their roles beyond singing. They are directed by Michael McCarthy. Wonderful set, designed by Samal Blak which tells the story remarkably well. When Music Theatre Wales does things, it does them with style.

Stuart MacRae's Ghost Patrol is far more demanding as music, and as such much more satisfying. The text (Louise Welsh)  is clunky and the ideas fairly incoherent, but MacRae writes with the flair of a born dramatist. A drifter Sam (Nicholas Sharratt) breaks into a bar whose owner Alasdair (James McOran-Campbell) recognizes him as a former comrade in the Army and hires him. MacRae uses the tensions to develop a psychologically adept portrayal of posttraumatic stress syndrome. The two ex-soldiers are deeply conflicted,  and their suppressed memories boil to the surface. We can hear the guilt and violence in MacRae's music, crackling with menace and fear. The orchestra springs into vivid action,  so even the rough edges feel right for the subject. Pre-recorded voices and film footage show the civilans the soldiers killed. They haunt Sam and Alasdair, who gradually fall apart emotionally. Perhaps they are even aspects of one another? That shows how perceptive MacRae's music is, for it suggest so much beyond the plot. Alasdair's girlfriend Vicki (Jane Harrington) has lovely music written for her but the part isn't all that integral to the narrative . Harrington just gves it weight by her performance.

Although also in his mid thirties, MacRae is extremely experienced, with several Proms behind him. His Violin Concerto has been recorded by Christian Tetzlaff, no less, and NMC has a CD of MacRae's music. Ilan Volkov conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, where MacRae was resident. If Ghost Patrol is anything to go by, MacRae has great potential.  The joy of Music Theatre Wales productions is that they allow composers to learn their trade as opera writers through practical experience.  Excellent performances, lucid stagings. For more information on upcoming performances, touring to 11th November, please see here.
 photos courtesy Music Theatre Wales

Brabbins LSO Barbican Elgar Third Anthony Payne

Colin Davis should have been conducting his 85th birthday concert with The London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, but he was taken ill . "I hope to be home soon", he said in a message read out to the audience. In the circumstances any disappointment must be moderated by good wishes for his recovery - and the health of Mitsuko Uchida, the scheduled soloist who also had to cancel. These things happen, and I wish them well.

The good news was that Martyn Brabbins stood in. Brabbins is a fixture on the British conductor circuit, extremely well respected.  His technical foundations are rock solid, yet he's adventurous and free spirited. Once I bumped into him when he was wearing ghoul makeup for David Sawers' Rumpelstiltskin (more here). Huge grin! Brabbins' range is eclectic, but he specializes in 20th century British music.  So it was good to hear him conduct Anthony Payne's elaboration of the materials which might have led to Elgar's Third Symphony.

Payne's Elgar isn't a "completion" but rather the result of Payne's engagement with Elgar and his mental processes. "I had to 'think Elgar'", he has said. There's a whole book on the experience Payne went through. The Elgar fragments are developed both as an extension of Elgar's ideas and as the response of a British composer writing with 70 years of further experience into the world Elgar left.  It's "not" Elgar, though there's enough to tantalise. The "summer" themes, for example, evoke many Elgarian ideas.  Payne stimulates us to think about Elgar in the light of our own responses to the composer. It's an extremely creative approach, which makes us reflect on how we respond to any music.

Brabbins' approach to Payne/Elgar is vivaciously energetic, which might not suit those who like their Elgar staid. But that in iteself is an insight. Brabbins negotiates the changes of perspective briskly, bringing out a very strong sense of dialogue, which, for me, is the secret of the piece: Payne's reflections on Elgar show how understanding is shaped by our own insights. With the LSO, Brabbins creates a vivid sense of Payne coming so close to Elgar's mind that he's doing a lot more than just dollying up bits of Elgar. This performance was much livelier than Brabbins'  account at the BBC Proms eight years ago. That shows how Brabbins himself keeps developing and hearing things afresh. Sakari Oramo's CBSO performance in 2007 was excellent,  but Brabbins' sense of Payne's personality gave this latest interpretation a distinct edge. Payne identified so closely with Elgar that he effaced himself, but Brabbins brings out the warmth and inventive spirit of Payne as well as of Elgar.

It was a greater tribute to Colin Davis to hear Brabbins, one of the leading exponents of Payne/Elgar, conduct because it was a reminder that, while we grow old, music lives on. The continuum doesn't break. Richard Strauss Vier letzte Lieder as Birthday Tribute was a much more questionable choice,  given that Strauss was contemplating death. Sally Matthews sang with obvious sincerity, but sacrificed articulation in the process. The pace dragged, self conscious and dirge-like. "Beim Schlafengehn" walked in its sleep. In the circumstances, Colin Davis might be more cheered by a more idiomatic  performance.

Gordan Nikolitch directed Mozart's Symphony no 35 D moll The "Haffner". This is a piece that depends on good ensemble and a good leader. Normally we wouldn't even notice there's no conductor. It's not a reflection on the LSO, who were fine, but this time the absence was poignant.

Jurowski LPO Strauss Zemlinsky Florentine Tragedy

"The tragedy of fate drives two people apart. The husband's passion for his work leads him to overlook his wife's beauty, and the woman herself cheated of her youth and physical appeal, becomes  a slave to apathy, dejection and open hatred. To bring the two back to reality, a terrible catastrophe is called for. This is a real tragedy because one life has to be sacrificed  to save two others. And you, of all people, have failed to understand that?"

So wrote Alexander Zemlinsky to Alma Mahler when she objected to the premiere of Eines Florentine Tragodie (A Florentine Tragedy). The work was conducted by Vladimir Jurowski at the Royal Festival Hall last night. The lines are quoted in Anthony Beaumont's pioneering biography of Zemlinsky, (2000) by far the best authority on Zemlinsky ever.  Beaumont is seminal, not only because his work was so original, but because he navigates his way around the myths that have grown up about the composer. He dismisses, for example, the influence of Korngold, who was only 18 when A Florentine Tragedy was written. More importantly Beaumont shows how Zemlinsky can be appreciated other than through Klimt-gilded sentimentality. Zemlinsky's far more challenging.

Zemlinsky's A Florentine Tragedy employs luxurious excess - glorious swathes of shimmering strings, arpeggios that flicker like golden light. One could be seduced by such gorgeousness and swoon into the same trap as Bianca fell into when she married. Or Alma, for that matter. The sumptuousness of A Florentine Tragedy is a tragedy, make no mistake. Its sumptuousness deceives. Those fooled by glamour lose their souls. Interpreting Zemlinsky on a superficial level is to miss the emotional rigour at the heart of his work.

Throughout much of his life, Zemlinsky returned to the "Alma theme", where an ugly man is rejected by a beautiful but shallow woman. He's not nursing his wounds so much as finding a metaphor for art. Zemlinsky wasn't good looking but he created beauty because he was an artist, overcoming obstacles. When Simone kills Guido, Bianca falls in love with him because he's "strong". Is violence a sign of strength? Have this pair any idea of the consequences of killing Guido The Prince of Florence? Psychologically, nothing rings true about this conclusion, if the opera is understood only as thwarted love story. Simone is far too sharp to trust Bianca. We don't know how the story might have ended if Oscar Wilde had finished writing it. But that suits Zemlinsky, who can instead focus on the inner drama of artist and art.

Simone does most of the singing: Guido and Bianca are largely ciphers. Albert Dohmen was clearly unwell. He looked flushed, perspired and drank a lot of water. Fever? If his projection was under par, his phrasing was precise, and got the notes even with less fire than he might otherwise. In the circumstances, it was a heroic performance. He was clearly suffering, yet he did his duty as an artist. True to the role!  In the Royal Festival Hall, Sergei Skorokhodov (Guido) and Heike Wessels (Bianca) were hard to hear. On the broadcast, the BBC engineers adjusted the balances in their favour. Always in live performance, you must make allowances. In any case, Zemlinsky's writing a monologue for Simone, with the other roles as props.

Interpretation is pertinent to performance. Jurowski's Zemlinsky is lovingly soft focused. Has he heard past the myth of Vienna City of Dreams? He can't be blamed, for this approach is so prevalent these days that it smothers engagement with the music and individuality of composers. Unfortunately, too, because some audiences are hostile to any whiff  of modernity, in politics as well as in music, they won't stand for anything but doggedly retro, even if it means not listening too carefully.  Let us remember that Zemlinsky and Schoenberg were dear friends until Mathilde Zemlinsky's affair with Richard Gerstl, which ended in Gerstl's suicide. "One life has to be sacrificed to save two others".

Individual concerns superseded by the triumph of art.  Far from being banned from seeing Alma, as she melodramtically asserted,  Mahler let Zemlinsky give her music lessons, gave him work and would have conducted his Der Traumgörge had Mahler's contract with the Hofoper not been terminated two days before the premiere.  All the more reason for interpreting A Florentine Tragedy as the struggle for artistic integrity. Simone's "strength" isn't physical but artistic. The London Philharmonic Orchestra are so good that they detail the music nicely, even if there was no sense in this performance of greater complexity. I learned my Zemlinsky from James Conlon, but his work is infinitely superseded by conductors prepared to go deeper. The closest we get to a penetrating Florentine Tragedy is the recording by Riccardo Chailly. Gerd Albrecht and Armin Jordan are also recommended.

In the first half Jurowski conducted orchestral episodes from Richard Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten.  Eighty years ago it was common to hear programmes of "bleeding chunks", so there's historic precedent. Modern ears, trained by easy access to whole recordings, don't take so easily to the style. I didn't go expecting to hear the opera, so listened to the excerpts as "abstract sound". On this level, the innate theatricality of the orchestration shines through. Strauss throws in all the effects he can – on stage trumpet and trombone band, wind machines, thunder machines, military drum, two celestes, glockenspiel and glass harmonica. The London Philharmonic Orchestra played with colour and gusto. Once you get past the idea of the "missing" opera, you can enjoy the orchestra having fun. Plenty more about Zemlinsky on this site.

Dangerous thoughts Delius A Village Romeo and Juliet

Ronald Corp conducted Frederick Delius A Village Romeo and Juliet at the South Bank.with Christopher Maltman, Andrew Shore and others. I didn't go since I'm out five nights of seven this week. But it would have been interesting. Like most of my generation, I learned Frederick Delius A Village Romeo and Juliet from the recording with John Shirley-Quirk, Robert Tear, Benjamin Luxon, and the John Alldis Choir. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was Beecham's orchestra and they would have imbibed his approach. This recording is the classic for this reason: Beecham defined Delius as a British composer for many generations. But did Britishness strangle Delius interpretation?

Significantly, Delius did not set Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, but Gottfried Keller's late nineteenth century Germanized version, Romeo und Julie auf dem Dorfe, where the poet deliberately changes the lovers' names.  Delius was well read and almost certainly knew of Keller's novel Der grüne Heinrich, and of the poet's reputation as a radical rebel. That's what drew Hugo Wolf to Keller, even earlier. So bang goes the idea that A Village Romeo and Juliet is no more than pastoral, English nostalgia.

Delius was international. For him, Bradford might have felt claustrophobic. After living among the natives in Florida, he spent his life in France. Had he not contracted VD he might have stayed among the racy, cosmopolitan set in Paris.  A Village Romeo and Juliet was written in 1901, at the height of Empire. Delius was colonized, just as the rest of the world was colonized. Delius could be appropriated as a doughty rejection of Wagner, Strauss, Debussy and them foreigners. To this day, British music circles still bear the mindset of Eric Fenby. For some, being British is more important than being artistic. So poor Fred is remodelled as British Bucolic.

In Keller's Romeo und Julie auf dem Dorfe, there are no grand Italian backdrops. Sali and Vreli are the children of peasants feuding over land that doesn't belong to them. No genial Friar Laurence. Instead the sinister Dark Fiddler, doomed by his illegitimate birth. He's a warning that lovers should not stray from the straight and narrow of orderly Swiss life. He's also a fiddler, which in German mythology equates with the Devil, our old Freund' Hein. Or is he a version of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, with violin not harp, forced to live on the margins of society because of some dark deed in his past? The photo shows Wicus Slabbert singing the part (more details here)

Opposed by their parents, Sali and Vreli need to escape. "Here we cannot stay" sings Sali, "I know another place". The bells triumph, timpani routing the dissolution. The Walk to the Paradise Gardens is usually heard on its own, out of contect. Hearing it as part of the whole opera completely changes its meaning. When a lone violin is heard apart from the tutti, do we hear it as pretty detail or as the Dark Fiddler, hovering in the background?  The Paradise Gardens is a dissolute tavern where the Fiddler and other lowlifes sing of "Freedom". Sali and Vreli are heading to Paradise, but not quite as blissfully as one might think. Shimmering strings, plateaux of pure sound. Eventually, the lovers head down a river to their deaths. Think Wagner. Is A Walk through the Paradise Gardens downstream from Siegfried's Journey down the Rhine? "The children love, their parents hate, and nobody knows the end" sings the Dark Fiddler. Sali and Vreli committ suicide by drowning in the depths.

Is this a sentimental opera? As a fantasy of happy yeomanry, maybe. But Sali and Vreli are alpine peasants, they live tough lives and don't faff about. This completely changes the tone of the opera. Can A Village Romeo and Juliet be heard as a precursor to Franz Schreker's Irrelohe? (more here).  Is Delius writing a strong-minded moral parable? Like the Dark Fiddler, Sali and Vreli must pay for the sins of those before them, but they chose to do so of their own accord. Romeo and Juliet died because their fancy plans messed up.

Delius's  A Village Romeo and Juliet isn't grand opera, quite the contrary. Although choruses predominate, the choirs represent simple peasants. Its uncompromising moral rigour simply does not suit elaborate theatres like the Royal Opera House, which is why I wasn't the least bit surprised when ROH decided against staging it. It's being done next year at Wexford, where the smaller scale will suit it better.

lots more on Delius and British music on this site

Extra Dry Rheingold, not Wagner

Is it sheer coincidence that Keith Warner's heavily marketed Wagner Ring of the Nibelungen opens at the Royal Opera House London at the same time as the Oktoberfest opens in Munich?  Commercialism rears its ugly head! But at least in this case, one can reflect that sixty years ago audiences knew what "Rheingold" meant and associated it with liquid gold. Notice the bombastic "orchestra".  Perhaps those audiences even got the irony of using arch anti-capitalist Richard Wagner in a crass commercial. 

What is the message of Das Rheingold  and of the entire Ring Cycle?  Whoever holds the Ring is cursed. Alberich rips off the oppressed Nibelung working class. Wotan  rips off Alberich. Fafner and Fasolt scrap with each other. Wotan's scams go far wider than cheating on a mortgage. He cheats on his wife. He doesn't "do" responsibility, even when he tries to protect his daughter. Hagen and Gunther think they can rip off Siegfried.  "Des Ringes Herr als des Ringes Knecht"  Alberich's curse applies to himself since he stole the Rheingold in the first place. An indictment of the Capitalist system!

Thickets of moral compromise. So grüss' ich die Burg, sicher vor Bang' und Grau'n! sings Wotan as he accepts his entitlement. But heed what Loge has to say : Ihrem Ende eilen sie zu, die so stark in Bestehen sich wähnen. Fast schäm' ich mich, mit ihnen zu schaffen; zur leckenden Lohe mich wieder zu wandeln, spür' ich lockende Lust. The Ring is for the rich. Plebs need not apply. But as beer, Das Rheingold is available to all. For details of the ROH broadcast schedule, please see here.

Huw Watkins NMC In my craft or sullen art

Huw Watkins's opera In a Locked Room starts at the Linbury at the Royal Opera House this week. (Read about the Edinbugh premiere here). Huw Watkins is a famous pianist, but as composer he's best known to those who've heard live performances and read his scores. He's a significant composer, so this new recording, on NMC, will establish his reputation in wider circles.

Watkins's Sonata for Cello and Eight Instruments dates from 1999, and was previously only available on CD in piano/cello transcription.  In this version (recorded 10/2010) Paul Watkins's cello is supplemented by the Nash Ensemble, conducted by Ian Brown. The woodwind parts are alluring, mediating between cello and piano.  Watkins's gift for clarity comes over well in Partita for solo violin (2006). Despite the allusion to Bach, it's not baroque. As Bayan Northcott says in his notes "no double dotted rhythms, no courante, sarabande or gavotte". Alina Ibragimova, the dedicatee, negotiates its tricky turns gracefully, so the wayward molto allegro sounds vivid, even humorous.

Four Spencer Pieces (2001) for solo piano, played by the composer himself . Each of these miniature tone poems was inspired by a specific painting, like "Shipbuilding on the Clyde" and "The Resurrection of Soldiers". Stanley Spencer's paintings show ordinary events but lit by preternatural light, every detail crystal clear. The "pictures" are framed by a Prelude and a ravishingly beautiful Postlude in which cascading cadences suggest light, clarity, contemplation. Watkins isn't "illustrating" the pictures so much as expressing the earthy surrealism of Spencer's work, so the rapture of the Postlude is extraordinarly perceptive. This exqusite miniature is the highlight ofthe whole recording.

Like so many British composers before him, Watkins turns to W H Auden. Three Auden Songs (2009) are settings of Brussels in Winter, At last the secret is out, and Eyes look into the well. Thorny text lines twist. The mood is menace. "Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire"...."There is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this". An understated refrain but naggingly persistent.

Dylan Thomas's craft was poetry, but Watkins's setting of In my Craft or Sullen Art (2007) suggests that poetry, like alchemy, has the power to transmute base material into magic, "exercised in the still night when only the moon rages". A strange unworldly cello entices us in, and the first voice setting is relatively straightforward. A second, longer section for the Elias Quartet, singing together with their strings. Perhaps this is an interlude, but it feels central to the piece, sparking off a completely different setting of the same poem. This time the mood is agitated, insistent. The words "In my Craft or sullen art" are projected like a cry. Mark Padmore adapts his usual smooth urbanity so it captures the surreal nature of the piece. At times he sounds uncannily like Ian Bostridge. This isn't a work for voice and string quartet so much as a work for string quartet with additional voice. In the final strophe of the second setting of text, the strings subsume the human voice, and take over where it leaves off.  That's Huw Watkins's "Craft": singular and very original.

I've been reading the libretto to In the Locked Room and will be writing more on Huw Watkins's new opera soon.