Biggest, most ambitious Oxford Lieder Schubert Project ever

"Bringing Schubert's Vienna to Oxford". This year's Oxford Lieder Festival will be the most ambitious Schubert undertaking  ever attempted in Britain.  "An intense survey of Schubert songs like this has never been done in the UK before, " says Sholto Kynoch, of the Oxford Lieder Festival, "the idea is to bring people to Oxford, to immerse them in the world of Schubert and Vienna, the world that Schubert inhabited"

Every song Schubert wrote will be performed, including part songs, sacred music and chamber music, quite an achievement. But that's not all - Oxford Lieder has organized an impressive array of other special activities to attract serious Lieder devotees and those new to the genre. The Bodleian Library will show several Schubert manuscripts; the Ashmolean Museum will host live music events and a specially devised audio guide; there will be four performances of  a new play by Iain Burnside; Schubert’s sacred music will resound around college chapels; the Botanic Gardens will collaborate on a study event looking at Schubert’s relationship with nature; a pop-up theatre will recreate a famous Schubert gathering; and local restaurants will feature Viennese food and wine. Masterclasses, talks and workshops abound, and the Festival will stretch to all corners of the city from Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre and Europe’s oldest concert hall – the Holywell Music Room – to the contemporary settings of the O’Reilly Theatre, the Phoenix Cinema and the recently restored Ashmolean Museum.
Graham Johnson, the doyen of Schubert studies, will be conducting four full-day discussions of aspects of Schuberts life and music, illustrated by performances, in the Jacqueline du Pré Theatre, in an idyllic setting by the river - "Am Wasser zu singen", bring a picnic.

Stellar performers :(John Mark Ainsley, Joshua Ellicott, James Gilchrist, Daniel Norman, Neal Davies, William Dazeley, Stephan Loges, Christopher Maltman) joined by mezzo soprano Sarah Connolly for songs, partsongs and the exquisite serenade, Zögernd leise (10 Oct).  In more than 60 concerts, singers include Sir Thomas Allen (25 Oct), Ian Bostridge (16 Oct), Christiane Karg (21 Oct), Susan Gritton (26 Oct), Dietrich Henschel (17 Oct), Robert Holl (28 Oct), Wolfgang Holzmair (30 Oct), Sophie Karthäuser (11 Oct), AngelikaKirchschlager (29 Oct), Jonathan Lemalu (1 Nov), Mark Padmore (24 Oct), Christoph Prégardien (19 Oct), Maximilian Schmitt (28 Oct), Sylvia Schwartz (11 Oct), Birgid Steinberger (11 Oct), Kate Royal (13 Oct) and Roderick Williams (15 Oct), alongside emerging stars including Allan Clayton, Anna Lucia Richter, Martin Haessler, Christoph Pohl and many others. They will be joined by the world's leading pianists, including Thomas Adès, Eugene Asti, Imogen Cooper, Julius Drake, Bengt Forsberg, Graham Johnson, Malcolm Martineau, Roger Vignoles & Justus Zeyen. In addition, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Doric String Quartet and the Schubert Ensemble will be performing key chamber works.

This will be the biggest, most impressive  Oxford Lieder Festival ever - absolutely unique, and absolutely unmissable. Watch the video below! For more details visit the Oxford Lieder website.

Gustav Mahler Birthday Cake

From Mahler fan, Paul West, a delicious tribute !

Legendary Mahler 5 released - Horenstein

At last, a remastered release of  the legendary Jascha Horenstein  Mahler Symphony no 5, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra recorded at the Edinburgh Festival in 1961. It's available for digital download from  Pristine Classical, the specialist supplier.

"And so it came to pass that on the night of 31st August, 1961, somebody, somewhere, was listening to the radio broadcast that evening, live from the annual Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, with tape reels loaded up, poised and ready to press record as the BBC announcer began his introduction to the evening's main concert attraction: Jascha Horenstein would be conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of Mahler's Fifth Symphony.  Perhaps the unknown sound recordist was already aware of Horenstein's reputation in this field. Perhaps he was simply excited to hear a performance of this then-somewhat-neglected composer's symphonic work. Perhaps he was merely curious. I don't have any clues on this front. But the tape survived and, fifty-something years later, a copy arrived in the hands of the conductor's cousin, Misha Horenstein, who has dedicated a good part of his life's energies into collecting together as comprehensive an archive of Jascha's work as is possible." writes Andrew Rose, head of Pristine Classical

Horenstein's "renown in the works of Mahler is legendary. Yet two major symphonies have eluded us and for many years were believed unrecorded: the second remains in this limbo (though who knows?...); the fifth is now known to exist in no less than three concert recordings, all unreleased. This week we finally fill that gap in Jascha Horenstein's catalogue with the most brilliant, electrifying performance of those three, a performance with the Berlin Philharmonic which easily demonstrates the conductor's abilities as one of the great Mahlerian's of all time, a performance that all involved would surely be proud of."

"Sometimes mythical, lost recordings turn up, then fail to quite live up to expectations. It's as if they sounded better in the imagination than in reality. That is not the case here - indeed, I suspect for many this will exceed their expectations, and then some."

As Mischa Horenstein, cousin of the conductor, writes "I listened to the whole symphony and compliment you on a grand job. You have successfully managed that compromise between cleaning up a pretty miserable recording and maintaining good sound, no, improving it tremendously, so that's terrific. The sound is very similar to what I remember from the JH concerts I attended, big orchestra, wide dynamic range, powerful bass line. Bravo!"

Please click HERE for a link to purchase Click HERE for a review

The many lives of Maria Stuarda ROH

Donizetti Maria Stuarda at the Royal Opera House, London tonight with Joyce DiDonato, perhaps the best singer in this role today. HERE is my review : Bel canto isn't realism: Maria Stuarda at the Royal Opera House. Alas, the anti-modern boors were out in force, enraged because it wasn't historical fact. Don't these people realize that Donizatti was Italian ? Or that the libretto he set was based on a translation of  Friedrich Schiller ? Or that Schiller, a German, was more interested in drama than fact, making up characters who didn't exist ?  In any case, no-one really knows the truth. Maria Stuart was surrounded by intrigue, deception, fake letters and false friends. Surely British audiernces should be educated enough to know their own history ?  Almost inevitably those who demand historically accurate productions don't actually know history. It says something about the educational level of British audiences that some demand from a production something that wasn't in the opera in the first place.

How dare Donizetti write good music for the scene in which Elizabeth and Maria confront each other ? It never happened. Should the whole scene be excised to please the anti-modern crowd ?  Composers, librettists and playwrights might pick on situations in the past,  but what they create is an imaginary reconstruction  based on their own interpretation of events. What is "beautiful" about a drama as grim as this ?

Opera is about human emotions, not about costumes or sets. What's so dangerous about human emotion ?  Unless a person is emotionally crippled, it should be posible to respond to ideas and feelings, especially in the kind of extreme situations that stimulate the imaginations of composers and playwrights.  So people don't behead each other nowadays ? Some would, if they could.  Perhaps people watchn too much TV costume drama and expect all art to be on the level of Downton Abbey. But no-one has a right to intimidate anyone else by booing. Booing is the mindset of mob violence. In other words, the actions of those who don't know or care what Schiller stood for. Or Donizetti, for that matter.

Wrestling through Waffle - Arts Council funding 2015-2018

Questioning the Arts Council England funding programme for 2015-2018 is like questioning Nanny.  Wrestle through the waffle of the 67-page document "Great Art and Culture for Everyone". It's a masterpiece of corporate-speak. But corporate-speak is designed to look good and say nothing.  Arts organizations have to play along.  All the more reason those us who care about the arts need to think.

Read John Berry's  brave defence of the ENO, faced with a vindictive 32.7% cut over the 2015-2018 period  Most classical music organizations, including orchestras, are getting cut around 5%, except for the ENO and the Barbican, which is being slashed by 21%. It's highly ironic that the ENO should be treated in this way at a time when it's starting to emerge from a difficult period, ironically underv the helm of Peter Bazalgette who left in late 2012 to chair the ACE. Is this ironic?  He says he didn't intervene in the application, but he should have known how the ENO connects with other parts of the opera world.  The ENO's new business plan is reasonable,  much more comprehensive than the nonsense about "switching to musicals" which the media seized upon. Sure, the ENO may emerge stronger but it might also collapse, even with extra emergency funding. The Daily Telegraph might gloat,  but that's short-term pettiness.  Without the ENO, there'll be a huge, gaping wound in British opera life, which cannot be filled, no matter how much money goes to smaller companies.

The ENO represents lively creativity, fundamental to the good health of the arts overall. We don't have to like what it does, but it fills a niche that other opera groups do not address. At the top, we have the Royal Opera House, one of the greatest houses in the world,. It's so important that, frankly, it should be ring-fenced, protected like the national asset that it is. There are dozens of opera companies in this country, but the fact remains that any company has to reach a level of critical mass to be viable. The ENO is big enough that it has the capacity to do more than the tiny fledglings the ACE wants to promote, however worthy they might be. Size and experience matter. The ENO is big enough that it can support British composers and the much respected Harewood Artists Programme. It also attracts  an audience younger and more open-minded  than the ROH, and one with higher expectations than the West End.   When so much has already been invested in the ENO - and not just in money terms - it simply does not make good business sense to wreck it.

Because the art s are inherently diverse, arts organizations can't be evaluated on equal terms. Opera costs a lot to produce. Hundreds of years of tradition have gone into what we see and hear now; even the avant garde pieces like Quartett (reviewed here) connect to European culture more  than London critics, ever insular, can comprehend.  The true value of opera can't be measured in terms of seat sales and direct market reach. Opera and classical music are the West's great contribution to world culture. Digital broadcasts, HD and DVDs bring classical music and opera to more people than could ever fit into a physical house.  So what if Harriet Harman's constituents don't go to Covent Garden?  People don't have to participate in something to recognize its general worth. Nessun Dorma pervades into the football community: they may not know its context but they can spot a good tune. The German government recognizes that the arts are part of the economy, whose health affects the health of the nation. (Read more here). In Finland, people spend on culture like they'd spend on education (more here).  But in the UK we're hung up on the idea that excellence is elitist and something to be shunned. Nuts, I think, in a country where the old divisions that fuelled class war changed decades ago.There's nothing wrong with elitism if it means excellence, and innovation.

What does "diversity" mean anyway? It's a good thing to encourage the arts outside London, but again, it's an inescapable fact that Britain, unlike the US, it a highly centralized nation, like it or not. Technology trumps old boundaries. Digital and cinema broadcasts, and the internet break down regional barriers, faster than ever before. The BBC unites the nation with its policy of broadcasting from  places like the East Neuk Festival and places beyond. If ever there was a beacon for diversity and world-wide inclusiveness, it's the BBC Proms. Fortunately the ACE doesn't control the BBC - yet.

No amount of political tinkering in the arts is ever going to change society. Forcing one kind of culture down people's throats, whether they want it or not, is counter-productive (Read my End the Missionary Position in the arts) Addressing the fundamentals of education and job opportunities will do much more to create a climate where people don't feel excluded by perceived barriers. Addressing the fundamentals of education and job opportunities will do much more to create a climate where people don't feel excluded by perceived limitations.

It's good that the ACE supports smaller localized organizations. But no matter how much is put into some of these companies, even the very good ones, they aren't going to change the cultural climate. It's simply not possible to equate an organization that needs less than £10,000 a year with one that needs £10 million plus. Real diversity means recognizing difference, but in a positive way. All arts organizations are in this same navy, with similar goals. In all probability, some of the ENO audience includes the same people who go to the same smaller opera opera companies and dance groups that are getting increased funding.  You don't run  a navy by decimating its flagships and most high-tech vessels. Or maybe you do if you're the British Navy. We honour the little boats that saved the army at Dunkirk. The war could not have been fought without doughty tugboats, and  fast-moving cruisers. But it was an armada, like the US Navy in the Pacific, that really changed the course of history.

PLEASE also read this article  The Trouble with Arts Funding   "....one of England’s National Portfolio Organisations speaks out about transparency, whistle-blowing, the curse of arts buildings, and why artists feel disenfranchised from the arts funding system." Too much emphasis on the Missionary Position and on quasi political agendas, too little transparency. No real across the board analysis of what makes the nations arts scene work. Absolutely no vision. I suspect what needs reform is the ACE itself and its cosy links with the media and with privileged luvvies, which Harriet Harman thinks is a good thing. .

FREE Glyndebourne Don Giovanni

FREE Glyndebourne Don Giovanni on Sunday 6th July from 3pm.  ENTER BY CLICKING THIS LINK HERE.

With this glorious weather you can picnic in the comfort of your own garden, if you can rig things up. I don't know if it's international, but it's worth a try. The link will stay live for a week. Wonderful, vivid production with a better cast than the current year - Luca Pisaroni practically steals the show.

HERE is what I wrote about the premiere in 2010  (the one we'll be seeing)
 
".......instead of a conventional set, there’s a giant rotating cube, a square globe, so to speak, which contains “the world”. It unfolds, reshaping and reinventing itself: a box of tricks, like Don Giovanni himself. Because it’s meticulously designed the cube moves quickly and silently. it’s much less intrusive than conventional set changes. Major transformations take place during the interludes, so they don’t get in the way. This amazing set frees the action from technical limitations. allowing the drama to unfold, rapid-fire and free.At first the cube reveals its secrets slowly. A crack appears. It’s a narrow alleyway. Don Giovanni is trapped like a rat, so he lashes out and kills the Commendatore..The cube closes again, its outer walls like a stone building. Later, the cube opens to reveal a sunlit garden, complete with trees. It’s the peasant wedding. So many shifts of focus. Garden transforms to ballroom, Zerlina’s loyalties shift, the masked visitors move in on Don Giovanni."


"Conflagration ends the First Act. While the crowd converge on Don Giovanni, Don Ottavio points at objects, just like the Commendatore will later point at Don Giovanni. For now, it’s just the furniture that goes up in flames. Real flames, you can smell the gas. It feels dangerous, even though you know Glyndebourne (and its insurers) have checked it all out thoroughly. We know Don Giovanni will end up in hell, but seeing him circled by fire is dramatic. It’s entirely consistent with the turbulent music with which Mozart marks the beginning of Don Giovanni’s end"

Glyndebourne La finta giardiniera

I was a bit wary of Mozart's La finta giardiniera because the recordings I've heard do little for it. At Glyndebourne, however - a Mozart house - they know how to bring out the best. Excellent staging and performances serve Glyndebourne's La finta giardiniera well.  Claire Seymour's review in Opera Today WITH VIDEO. 

This sounds like it's definitely worth going to ! Returns available. 

"Wake-Walker has judiciously applied the pruning shears to both arias and recitative, and there is some re-ordering, but — even with such a uniformly excellent cast, and especially in the long second half — there are a few redundant arias, showing that the precocious composer might have acquired musical mastery but had not yet sharpened his dramatic instincts. That said, there are many moments which look ahead to the treasures to come, most particularly the two Act final ensembles where conductor Robin Ticciati moved things along swiftly, highlighting the juxtapositions between characters. And, there was a directorial nod towards Don Giovanni with the cloaked entrance of the masked gang, searching for Sandrina, at the end of Act 2, as the characters mistook other’s identity in the darkness"

Read the full review HERE. 
photo : Tristram Kenton

Luiza Borac recalls meeting Alice Herz-Sommer - the Lady in Number 6

Luiza Borac, the pianist, met Alice Herz-Sommer the pianist some years ago, when Alice was "only" 106. Read more about their meeting here on Evan's blog, Comments on Culture. (Read the whole piece there) (photo courtesy Luiza Borac)

"....... we talked for a while, Alice was pointing very often to the big painting on the wall of her son, Raphael, whom she loved and missed so much. The whole meeting was floating among words, glances, smiles and laughters light and wonderful like a dance of essences. I was a pianist who came to meet a pianist, still none of the words we exchanged referred directly to piano playing. Alice told me about her busy schedule. With her 106 years old she was attending the University classes every day. On Monday we have Literature, Tuesday History Wednesday Art and so on. Her eyes were sparkling with joy and enthusiasm, she was loving to learn, 'there is still so much to learn' she said. Alice is a fragile appearance but what a strength and wonder in her. So small in her height, she seemed to me like a huge fairy who was flying high above and I was one of her reign creatures trying to comprehend her greatness, beauty and love. As I left her warm presence I knew that I just had the greatest lesson on piano-playing, on music, on life." 

Enjoy the video 

Salonen Mahler 8 - not a Symphony of a Thousand

Mahler's Symphony no 8 was given its title "The Symphony of a Thousand" by a promoter who wanted to attract the kind of crowd who like blockbusters, but don't necessarily care much about music. Judging from the delirious applause at last night's Royal Festival Hall concert, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, that kind of audience is all too common these days, too.

The Mahler anniversary year murdered Mahler. Everyone seemed to jump on the bandwagon. Shameful exploitation, like "The People's Mahler", cynical commercialism, sloppy clichés instead of scholarship.  The cause of Mahler was set back 50 years just as the composer was at last being understood with more sophisticated depth.  I will not blame Esa-Pekka Salonen for this brutishness. He conducted an excellent Mahler Symphony no 3 a few years ago that emphasized the open-air summery optimism in the symphony: definitely a valid insight. Salonen also conducted an astute Mahler 7th (read more here). He's not by instinct an idiomatic Mahler conductor, but he's worth listening to.  I should however have reckoned with "South Bank Mahler" created for first-time listeners, their enthusiasm whipped up by the excesses of Mahler Year. But there is infinitely more to Mahler than loud and brash.

"Veni, veni creator spiritus". This opening is wonderfully theatrical, exploding as it does from near silence. On the other hand this explosion was so violent that it seemed more like an aggressive call to arms. If the spirit of creativity is personal, and private, it would wither in this blast. And so the choruses continued, forceful and strident, in the manner of Victorian massed choruses, for which quantity mattered more than quality. Salonen's approach was closer to Mahler the man of the 20th century, more questioning and more agile. His tempi were fleet, and apart from some sad blips from the trombones, the Philharmonia responded with alacrity. Sometimes you can visualize  banners flying in the wind, in the tempestuous first part of this symphony: Mahler seems almost giddy with expectation and creative verve. The choruses, however, seemed to prefer to march at their own pace.

Mahler 8 employs a lot of singers but fundamentally it's a symphony rather than a choral work per se. The best Mahler 8th I've ever heard was at the Philharmonie in Berlin, which is roughly comparable in size to the RFH. I've even heard it in an 8,000 seat velodrome in Paris, better suited to rock concerts than to symphonies, and that worked well, too. Large choral pieces do work well in the Royal Festival Hall, so it wasn't a matter of performance space but performance.

Significantly, there's a pause for silence between the two parts of this symphony; that alone should be a cause for reflection. The second part begins with a long, ruminative section where the orchestra sings, not the voices.  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)..Here, Salonen and the Philharmonia achieved much better results. Solo instruments interacted well with larger groupings : particularly lyrical flutes and high winds, suggesting purity and upward flight.

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

These words are important for interpretation, though Mahler 8 can support many interpretations, even Bělohlávek's completely unidiomatic but genially Bohemian-flavoured Proms performance. But the voices have to connect to the music.  In this performance, the soloists stood at each end of the platform, between the orchestra and the choruses, probably because there isn't much space on the RFH platform to squeeze them anywhere else.  Unfortunately that meant that the soloists had to shout to be heard.  Roland Wood usually has good pitch and a voice which projects well on stage, but here his Pater Ecstaticus was untypically rough.  Elizabeth Llewellyn, fortunately, sang a lovely Una Poenitentium /Gretchen.  Garlanded by harpists, her singing was balm. Judith Howarth, replacing Elisabeth Meister, sang a well-balanced Magna Peccatrix.  From up in a box, Lucy Crowe's voice created a luminous Mater Glorioisa. The Tiffin Boys Choir showed how refreshing choral singing can be when it's connected to music.

Knussen Aldeburgh - Carter, Webern - and Mendelssohn ?

Mendelssohn Symphony No 1, with Elliott Carter's Instances for chamber orchestra (2012), written shortly before his death aged 103. Trust Oliver Knussen to come up with a programme that blends Mendelssohn, Dallapiccola, Carter, Webern and Ligeti, conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe at the Maltings, Snape, Aldeburgh, part of this year's Aldeburgh Music Festival. Knussen's programmes are intriguing, always planned with musical nous and intelligence.

At first, I was shocked. Mendelssohn played with exuberance that veered close to wildness? Definitely not the kind of over-processed, over-manicured performance that puts too many  people off Mendelssohn. Instead Knussen made us think of Mendelssohn as audacious and free-spirited. Our perceptions are shaped by received wisdom, tainted by Wagnerian prejudice asnd boring, safe performasnce practice. Knussen might shock, but boring he never is.

Mendelssohn and Elliott Carter have a lot more in common than one might expect. Geniality and good humoured wit, for example, and an appreciation for stylish bon mot. Carter's Instances for chamber orchestra is an eight-minute piece for a medium-sized orchestra. In the first six minutes "a seemingly random sequence of sonorities and figures are are playfully flung at the listener", to quote Bayan Northcott, who writes serious programme notes, the kind that deserve to be quoted and remembered, infinitely more rewarding than the superficial pap that programme notes have beome (other than at Aldeburgh),  ".... culminating in a surging tutti, suddenly broken off. At this point a slower chorale-like texture previously adumbrated by  the brass, is taken up mainly by the strings in a more sustained and touchingly valedictory coda".  Then a deliberate pause, and a two minute "second movement" asserts itself, reiterating the ideas in the first movement with joyous, epigramatic concision.  As so often with Carter's later work, the piece seems intimate, as if the players were conversing, delighting in exchange.

Hearing Anton Webern's Symphony Op 21 (1928) after Elliott Carter made me realize how much Carter and Webern have in common, too. Two distinct movements within ten minutes, and an orchestra pared down to basics. The first movement "Ruhig, schreitend" employs an "Exposition comprising an intricate double canon, But the lines are so fragmented and criss-crossed " that they seem processional.  The double canon repeats  "but with the note values so altered, and the dynamics intensified, it sounds quite different", adds Northcott. The second movement "Variationen" develops the theme yet again, in even more distilled purity, ending elusively, as if the symphony, such as it is, will play out in the imagination.

A listener request, phoned in by another composer! Knussen has a thing for repeating shorter works in a concert. This time, he repeated the second movement of Webern's Symphony, so we could further savour its elusive, tantalizing promise.

Ligeti's Melodien for orchestra (1971) concluded the programme. Spastic pizzicato suggesting kinetic, oddly organic flickerings, glimpses of half-hidden images barely grasped in the undergrowth.  Carter, Webern and Ligeti forming a trinity  in which the idea of a symphony take new fiorm.  Earlier in the programme, Knussen followed Mendelssohn  with Luigi Dallapiccola's An Mathilde, a cantata based on three Heine poems, Den Strauss, den mir Mathilde band,  Gedächtnisfeier, and An die Engel. The soloist was Katrien Baerts. An interesting piece, which should be heard more, but this concert favoured the orchestra rather than voice and orchestra.

Tonight, Klangforum Wien presents two equally fascinating concerts under Ilan Volkov, the late night concert featuring Tristan Murail's Winter Fragments (2000) and Gérard Grisey's Vortex Temporum I, II and iii (1994-6) Alas, I can't be there but you can read about the pieces HERE and HERE. Klangforum Wien is one of the finest new music ensembles of its kind, so I hope the concert is recorded.

Leoš Janáček : The Cunning Little Vixen, Garsington Opera

"Janáček started The Cunning Little Vixen on the cusp of old age in 1922 and there is something deeply elegiac about it. In a letter to Kamila Stösslová dated the 10th of February that year he writes wistfully “I have begun writing The Cunning Little Vixen. A merry thing with a sad end: I am taking up a place at that sad end myself ……and I so belong there”."

Douglas Cooksey enjoys The Cunning Little Vixen at Garsington Opera at Wormsley. Read the Full review HERE in Opera Today

Interesting aside : How does Oliver Knussen's Higgelty Piggelty Pop ! compare to The Cunning Little Vixen ? Both operas are whimsical, but both pack a punch. Red in Tooth and Claw? Claire Booth and Lucy Schaufer star in both. Read more about Knussen's Higgelty Piggelty Pop! HERE.


Photo: Clive Barda, Garsington Opera at Wormsley.

Ariadne auf Naxos - Royal Opera House

Karita Mattila's presence guaranteed success for Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos at the Royal Opera House. Strauss was a pragmatic man of the theatre, who knew how a Big Name could win audiences. Mattila delivered. Her presence was commanding - every inch the glamour queen the primadonna is meant to be. She had the grand gestures and right amount of theatrical excess. But Ariadne auf Naxos isn't about ancient Greece. It's an opera about an opera, or rather,  as the Composer discovers, about the un-making of an opera. 

The Composer  (Ruxandra Donose) wants to write  about Ariadne, abandoned on an island. Strauss builds in references to Mozart, making wry jokes on the nature of art. If the Composer were really good he wouldn't be imitating someone else.  The Composer disappears after the Prologue, but Mozart lingers eternal. One of the Dryads, Ariadne's handmaidens, is costumed as Mozart. Appropriately, this Dryad is Echo (Kiandra Howarth). But even Mozart can't save things, as the show is taking place in the house of "the richest man in Vienna". His Major Domo (Christopher Quest) clashes with the Music Master (Thomas Allen). The man with the money wants fireworks and comedians and what he wants will happen.

This production, directed by Christof Loy, with designs by Herbert Murauer, emphasizes the duality in the opera. "Upstairs" in the Prologue is elegant but empty, and soon dispensed with. Loy stresses the individuality of each singer, so their purpose can be understood even by those in the audience who aren't familiar with the opera.  This further underlines the concept of multiple realities so fundamental to this opera.  That is the magic of theatre: it's not literal reality. Singers become supernatural maidens, and comic rogues become Commedia dell'arte archetypes. But Ariadne, too,  lives in a strange, unnatural reality . She's been on Naxos since Theseus dumped her there after giving her a kiss to steal the secret of the Minotaur. For years, she's lived in a cave driven half mad by her dreams of love.  It's Bacchus (Roberto Sacca) who brings her deliverance.  And Bacchus, the god of wine, brings intoxication, the illusion of escape.

Visually, the second act glows with jewel colours, emerald and sapphire, lit with details of gold and candlelight. The room is lined with late baroque wallpaper depicting Arcadian scenes, rich European fantasies of wilderness. Because we're seduced by this luxury and beauty, the ultimate tragedy hits even harder.  Ariadne isn't going to find happiness. The future lies with Zerbinetta (Jane Archibald)  Ariadne obsesses about death and misery. Zerbinetta gets on (and gets off), exuberantly, full of vigour and life. Strauss is writing about the making of theatre, but also commenting on music.  Looking backward is all very well, but the nature of true art is originality and creative renewal.

Karita Mattila's Ariadne is courageous. Mattila throws out her notes in the second act with bravado,  diva reborn. but Strauss created the part for an older singer, thoughtfully limiting vocal extremes to flatter voices that are still loved, and function well enough, even if they aren't quite at their peak. Zerbinetta's music, on the other hand, races up and down the scale, demanding great technique and coloratura display  Archibald's  "Grossmächtigen Prinzessin" was done with vigorous zest. Although she doesn't have the finesse of some of the great singers who have done this role, her vivacity compensates. Ariadne  may be comforted by the words, but how discomforting the singing must be for any older singer.

Ruxandra Donose sang a remarkably convincing Composer. It was hard to recognize her costumed as a man, but the distinctive timbre of her voice was unmistakable. What a pity Strauss dismisses the part: Donose makes the composer sound interesting as a person. Very strong singing in the other parts, enhanced by a staging that emphasizes their place in the opera. Markus Werba's Harlequin was superb,, as energetic and as witty as Archibald's Zerbinetta, which is quite saying something. Excellent ensemble work : Werba, Jeremy White, Wynne Evans and Paul Schweinester interacted  with precision, moving as a unit even when they weren't close together. That's good movement direction (Beate Vollack).

Antonio Pappano has been working flat out this week with Manon Lescaut (read my review here). He must have the stamina of a superman. I could have used more "fireworks" at the cataclysmic end of the Prologue. Pappano is a genius Puccini conductor, but he gets the lively gaiety in Strauss quite well.

One big plus : no ritual booing. Booing is a form of intimidation.  Booers have no right to inflict their opinions on others.  Almost inevitably booers don't really know the score and don't have the ability to take on board the simple fact that other people might be allowed different opinions. Booing is vulgar and coercive, a form of expression used by those too ill bred and ill informed to respect anyone other than themselves. Perhaps the penny has dropped that booing inhibits creativity and is fundamentally anti-art. 

Brno salutes Janáček with beer

Starobrno Beweries salutes the Star of Brno, Leoš Janáček, whose 160th birthday is next week. Free beer on a specially-commissioned train ! No idea if they're doing sausages as well.  Just the sort of earthy celebration Janáček would have enjoyed, I think. Alas I can't be there but I'll raise a tankard, too

Discovering the Gramophone

Chinese villagers near Shanghai, gathered around a strange contraption, from which sounds emerge. They've all be lined up by the photographer, John Sullivan (born Bristol 1885). Lovely shot! This was taken in 1910, when gramophones became (relatively) common.  Below a photo of a shop in Hong Kong from the same period which advertises the latest "No Horn Gramophones"

Broadcast Alerts - June July

Thank you, as always, to the intrepid Andrzej !

SPECIAL APPEAL TO EUROPEAN READERS ESPECIALLY In HUNGARY !!!! Please send details of transmissions the rest of us might miss.. Piotr Beczala is appearing on Hungarian TV in September  please help !


  13 Jul 2014    23.20    Dialogues des Carmelites PARIS Arte TV

    14 Jul 2014   Bastille Day Concert at the Champs de Mars (with JDFlorez) Paris France 2HD

  14 Jul 2014    19.15  Maria Stuarda ROH BBC Radio 3


  16 Jul 2014  19.00   Ariadne auf Naxos ROH  BBC Radio 3

  19 Jul 2014  Tosca Hannover NDR HDTV

  27 Jul 2014  17.00    L'Orfeo (with Christian Gerhaher)  Munich Internet Stream
  
  28 Jul 2014  20.50    La forza del destino  Munich Arte HD