Remembering Lin Dai

Fifty years ago today, Lin Dai 林黛 committed suicide. She was 29 years old, at the height of her career. Her death sent shock waves through Chinese communities all over the world. It's hard to overestimate the impact.  I can still recall the sense of utter disbelief when the news broke.  Lin Dai seemed to have everything going for her. Her movies were guaranteed box office hits, artistically as well as commercially top notch. She seemed to radiate happiness whatever she did. On camera, she seemed to glow. Even in private life she was vibrant and charming. Why did she want to die?  There had been a trivial family misunderstanding but nothing to suggest suicide. She was given a proper Catholic funeral, since the bishop ruled that her death wasn't intentional. To this day, fans flock to give their respects at her pink marble tombstone. After  her death, her husband kept their room exactly as she had left it, with her hair in her hairbrush and her lipsticks on the dressing table. When he died a few years ago, the room was preserved intact in a museum.

Lin Dai was loved because she was much more than an actress. She was a symbol of the hopes of her era. When she died, it was as though those dreams were shattered. Lin Dai's father was a powerful politician in Guangxi, a province with a tradition of fiercely independent reformist leaders, among them  General Bai Chongxi (白崇禧) hero of the anti-Japanese resistance. The Japanese invasion created one of the biggest population upheavals in modern history. Millions of Chinese moved as refugees to the distant  western provinces of Guangxi, Sichaun and Yunnan. Later, the demographic upheaval reversed, and millions fled the Communists. In many ways, Lin Dai represented Brave New China.  She was making a fresh start in a new region and in an industry which played an important role in the modernization of China. In her first movie, 翠翠 Singing under the Moon (1953) she plays a country orphan, devoted to her grandfather. People could identify with her fresh, youthful optimism.

In 1957, Lin Dai was signed by Shaw Brothers Studios, bigger and more ambitious than any other Chinese (and many western) film studios. Shaw Brothers put Lin Dai in high-budget historical extravaganzas. far more sophisticated than anything she'd done until that time. In Diau Charn (貂蟬) her big breakthrough, she played a heroine who united warring kingdoms.  The Kingdom and the Beauty (江山美人) beat all box office records. Lin Dai plays the peasant girl who steals the heart of an Emperor in disguise. It's one of the best Shaw Brothers movies of all time. It's a shame that the company that bought the rights to Shaw's catalogue hasn't done much to make them better known. The Kingdom and the Beauty is so good that it could easily find a p;lace in international cinema. Lin Dai also starred in Beyond the Great Wall and The Last Woman of Shang, both released after her death. In Beyond the Great Wall, she plays a heroine who goes into exile to save her lover the Emperor and her country. These movies aren't ponderous, stultified costume dramas because Lin Dai plays her roles as convincing human beings. The shot above shows her famous pout, followed by a slow sideways glance that often bursts into a smile.

Lin Dai also made an opera-based movie, Madam White Snake (1962), but her singing voice was untrained, better suited to more light-hearted musicals,  and cheerful comedies like Les Belles, Bachelors Beware and Cinderella and her little angels and Love Parade, with an unusual story line based on fashion shows, for which she designed the costumes.  She was a "modern girl". Lin Dai's vivacious charm makes these films sparkle, but they're much better than similar films from Hollywood.  She was also a serous dramatic actress. In The Blue and the Black Parts 1 and 2, released after her death, she plays a brave woman whose life is damaged by war.

But the movie that makes Lin Dai immortal has to be Love Without End (不了情, 1961). This is a version of La Traviata. The heroine even retreats to a remote island in her last illness, where she's tended by a Catholic priest. Lin Dai plays a virtuous nightclub singer whose beloved faces financial ruin. To save him, she agrees to go abroad with a rich man, but gives her virginity to the boyfriend first. He doesn't understand, and walks out on her in an extremely moving scene where he skulks along a back alley while she watches from above. Eventually, he finds out that she sacrificed herself for his sake, but when he tracks her down, it's too late. Like Violetta Valéry, she dies. If only this film were readily available outside Region 3. It's one of the most iconic movies of Hong Kong in  that period, describing the values of its time. The title song is so famous that it's seared forever in the memories of those who were there.  It's not actually her singing voice,  but it breaks the heart.
 
.

FREE Herbert von Karajan - today only

Herbert von Karajan died 25 years ago today. He was Chief Conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic from 1966 to 1989. The Berliner Philharmoniker website now contains a section dedicated to his memory. In the Digital Concert Hall "you will find recordings of the Unitel company from the sixties and seventies, including Dvořák’s Symphony “From the New World”, a Brahms cycle, Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 3, 6, 7 and 9 and the documentary Karajan – The Second Life."

"On today’s anniversary, these films as well as the recording of the memorial concert for Herbert von Karajan which took place in Salzburg cathedral in the summer of 1999 with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Claudio Abbado, are available free of charge. Further films with Herbert von Karajan will be released in the Digital Concert Hall into next year. During this time we will also talk to musicians of the Berliner Philharmoniker about their memories of Herbert von Karajan and these conversations will be made available as a documentary"  Read more here

Further recording s will be released in the next few weeks, Altogether they will create an excellent one-stop archive. If you're already registered, log in and watch for free. If you're not already registered, you can register and enjoy, too. But just for today. It's definitely worth signing up because you get access to all the Berliner Philharmoniker concerts, year round, and all those in the archive. So we have to pay to participate, but that's fair enough. The arts cost money. For a reasonable fee, you get the world's finest orchestra (arguably) right in your own room, wherever you might live. Politicians grumble that classical music doesn't breach the masses. That's not true. You can't measure audiences simply in terms of filling halls.

Many in my generation were conditioned to hate Karajan for his politics and his style, just as trolls today hold extreme views on contemporary conductors. I don't do bandwagons, as anyone who reads me regularly will know. I really came to Sibelius through Karajan's chilling, almost demonic interpretations. Pity Adorno kept his ears closed.

Happy Birthday, Harrison Birtwistle !

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARRY! Today is Sir Harrison Birtwistle's 80th birthday - many happy returns and many more good years ahead! May he thrive like Elliott Carter, always finding new challenges. Birtwistle is Britain's greatest living composer - no-one else comes near, by leagues.  Tonight, BBC Radio 3 is broadcasting Gawain, Birtwistle's breakthrough opera. It's from the performance this May at the Barbican, which you can read about HERE. Read about the NMC recording HERE.

Fifty years ago, Birtwistle was one of the Manchester-based Young Turks who created British music in the wake of Britten and Vaughan Williams, the two disparate, discrete musical tribes in this country up to that time. The words "disparate" and "discrete" used correctly! The kind of word-game that Birtwistle loves to play. Alas, with the dumbing-down of language, that aspect of Birtwistle's art may well be lost to future generations. Birtwistle is audacious, but behind his affable mask lies an acutely precise intellect, occupied with  puzzles, games and conundrums. His music fascinates because it's alive with layers whirring away, operating on many levels at once, vivid detail growing as if they were organic life-forms.

Birtistle connects to Boulez, to Messiaen, even to Webern, and also to the complexities of the avant garde in Europe, yet his music seems to spring from some ancient source. When I listen to Birtwistle, I feel the earth move, in the sense that one might pick up on invisible magnetic fields under a calm landscape. Go to Avebury or Silbury at night, when the tourists are gone, and commune withthe souls of the ancients who built those mysteries. Listen to Earth Dances,  to Yan Tan Tethera. and much more and "hear" something so rooted in primeval mysteries that it can only be expressed obliquely through music. Birtwistle plays with time, mechanisms and myth - From Harrison's Clocks to the Maze of The Minotaur, a vast universe of ideas and sounds.

I've often wondered about what really happened when Birtwistle's Punch and Judy was heard at Aldeburgh. The story goes that Britten walked out in despair, alternatively that he went out for a drink. It's even been suggested that the rumour was played up to emphasize Birtwistle's notoriety. Maybe we shall never know, since Britten and Pears are long dead, but it hardly matters. Britten could read a score and he wasn't so stupid that he included things at Aldeburgh he didn't know about. The point, I think, is that music doesn't exist "for" a particular listener, but for itself. And Birtwistle fits with the Aldeburgh aesthetic better than most. Britten and Birtwistle, the two greatest names in 20th century British music.

More on Birtwistle on this site than almost anywhere else.

Il turco in Italia - Aix Festival

Rossini Le turc en Italie, Il Turco in Italia at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. a delicious approach to an opera that predicates on mistaken identities, fancy dress and good humour. The opera may have been written 200 years ago but its charm shines ever brighter in this lively staging directed  by Christopher Alden. Rossini's Prologue is very long but illustrates the themes to come: lively, upbeat frolics give way to a horn solo, at turns sensual and melancholy, interrupted by staccato outbursts from the rest of the opera. Rarely is abstract music translated so perceptively into visuals. The joyous, extravagant tutti in the orchestra suggests exuberance: we see a stage covered in minute abstract patterns, bathed in ever changing colours. But, like the horn, the central character is alone.

Prosdocimo (Pietro Spagnoli) is so fixated on writing something that  he doesn't notice the glories around him. His friend Don Geronio (Alessandro Corbelli) is frustrated too, by affairs of the heart. Luckily the gypsies arrive. Gypsies are outsiders.  They don't have to be garbed like escapees from a bad staging of Carmen. They represent people who don't conform to the rigidities of convention. So Zaida (Cecelia Hall) says she's an escapee from a Turkish harem. Selim the Turk (Adrian Sâmpetrean) turns up, but he's attracted to Geronio's glamorous wife Fiorilla (Olga Peretyatko) who fancies him, ignoring her husband nearby. As for Narciso (Lawrence Brownlee) he's living in dreams. So much for literalism. Il turco in Italie is art, not history. Prosdocimo is a poet, not a bean counter. The characters flirt: the art of illusion. Prosdicimo can magic up chairs.  Alden's lighting (Adam Silverman) magics up colours. Rossini's music magics up a wonderfully vivid storm. Conductor Marc Minkowski whips up the tempi, and the singers and chorus sing heady, windswept staccato.

Wonderfully punchy performance, electrified by sprightly, punching rhythms, lucidly enunciated. In the inn scne, Corbelli and  Sâmpetrean joust with rapier-swift passage work. The strings add exclamation points. Lovely detail: the inn is as colourful and kitschy as a pseudo-Turkish tea room, complete with plastic-coated tablecloths, which serve a purpose. As Selim and Geronio scrap, they push bottles back and forth, the bottles sliding in time with the music. Everything predicates on confusion. Stunning dialogue between Sâmpetrean and Peretyatko. Until now, Rossini doesnt give Narciso all that much to sing, but when Brownlee  explodes into Tu seconda il mio disegno, he reveals the intensity Narciso has kept hidden for so long. Earth shattering high C's.  Corbelli 's Geronio is a tour de force, sparkling with fire and agility. At last, even Albazar (Juan Sancho) gets to sing his heart out.

Magical  ensemble in the Masquerade scene, when the ship's mast is lit with golden lights, and Corbelli ascents its dizzy heights, expressing Geronio's pent-up rage.  This scene is crucial. When Fiorilla realizes what divorce might mean, Peretyatko's singing becomes impassioned, for she knows what Geronio is made of. If there had been good singing before, Peretyatko now brought down the house. Superb. And so the Poet Prosdocimo gets his inspiration. Poetry, and opera, is about human emotion.

Hotting up - Elgar at the Proms

First Night of the BBC Proms Friday : Elgar The Kingdom which i guessed thru mysterious powers (more here).  An ideal extravaganza with which to start the summer. Even the weather report suggests a surge in the temperature. Elgar  took to technological change with zest, making numerous studio recordings and taking part in films. No regressive fuddy duddy he ! Below, the composer conducts the Prelude to the Kingdom. There aren't any photos I can find  showing him directing The Kingdom, so I've used one where he conducts the Dream of Gerontius.  You can imagine the premiere in 1906.  Lots more on this site about Elgar, composer recordings etc and The Apostles, a work closely connected to The Kingdom (read more here)

Cantonese Opera comes to London

The renowned  Cantonese Opera singer Yuen Siu-fai (阮兆輝 ) is bringing top quality Cantonese opera to London on 4th August (details here). Masters of this calibre don't often come to the west. This will be a unique experience. Yuen is bringing his own troupe, the Spring Glory Cantonese Opera Workshop.   They will be performing short extracts from four operas - Loyalty under the Sun, The Assassin, The Celebration of Good Times (a duet) and The Princess in Distress. Each of these pieces will illustrate an aspect of the Cantonese opera tradition, so much to learn as well as enjoy. The evening will be free of charge but it's very high level indeed. In Hong Kong Yuen's workshops cost a lot. There'll also be explanations in English, though the singing will be Cantonese. A lot of the physical gestures are stylized, so the shows should be easy enough to follow even though non-Cantonese speakers will miss out on the poetry of the Cantonese language. It's organized through the True Heart Theatre, who have been creating since 2006 a platform for British Chinese voices to be seen and  heard through work in mainstream scripted productions and in applied theatre contexts.

Yuen trained under the even more famous master Mak Bing Wing. Like most Cantonese opera singers, he trained not only in classical opera singing but also in martial arts. Theyre all part of a wider cultural continuum, very different from the narrow definitions of western opera. Martial arts aren't about fighting but about mental and physical discipline. Yuen (born 1945) also did straight drama, acting in films. One of his signature roles was the boy Little Shrimpy in Father and Son (父與子, 1954)  one of the seminal classics of Cantonese cinema. Yuen was only 7 years old then and his voice was still squeaky, but already his stage presence and intelligence shine through.  Please read my analysis of the film here.

Bel canto isn't realism - Maria Stuarda Royal Opera House

We are in a golden age of voice.  Joyce DiDonato creates an astonishing Donizetti's Maria Stuarda at the Royal Opera House, which will define the role for decades to come. Her range is breathtaking and  her technique is flawless. We will never know how Maria Malibran sounded when she premiered the role, but there's almost no way that Malibran, however good she might have been, would have had at the age of 25 the polish and depth DiDonato brings to the role. So much for the idea that the past is always better. In Joyce DiDonato we have a wonder we should treasure.

"Bel canto isn't realism", someone once said to me. No-one speaks with florid melismas and repeated trills. Bel canto is extreme singing, the triumph of art over naturalism.  When we hear DiDonato's voice soaring, surfing over wave after wave of swelling sound, we - or at least I am - transported to a rarifed realm of hyper-idealism, unsullied by literal pettiness. Maria Stuarda isn't about the execution of Mary Queen of Scots in 1567. The story isn't  history but creatively re-imagined by Friedrich Schiller into a masterpiece in which an individual triumphs over repression.  Donizetti adds more new angles to the story, such as the love affair between Mary and Dudley, Earl of Leicester, to spice up the drama. 

Elizabeth and her apparatchiks cut Mary's head off but her spirit triumphs. When Joyce DiDonato sings in her final scene, her voice trembles, expressing fear, as if we can hear her heart palpitate. Shorn of her hair, and in her under-robe, she looks painfully vulnerable. Yet that voice releases such firmness and such assurance that we know that Mary has entered into a far finer world than that of the grubby trolls who brought her down. DiDonato seems lit from within, transforming the glare of the execution room into transcendent light.  Although Schiller and Donizetti weren't admirers of the misuse of religion, their Mary, through Joyce DiDonato, reaches apotheosis. The crowd outside, lit in Marian blue, sing quietly, like pilgrims.They've witnessed the triumph of an individual whose inner nobility has set her free. Maria Stuarda is kin to Leonore, but even more powerful and symbolic..The curtain drops, suddenly, like a sword. Snap! the drama ends, so abruptly that it is, and should be, unsettling. Blood and a severed head would be banal, a complete misreading of the ideas in the play and in the opera.

It defies basic common sense that this production should have warranted booing, a churlish and bigoted form of abuse. So we don't behead people these days? Of course we do, in different ways. The directors, Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier, are extremely experienced,  and know their music better than most who malign them. Any really good opera inspires new perspectives. If we genuinely care about an opera, or a composer, we seek fresh perspectives. It is irrelevant whether a production is modern or non-modern, as long as it presents the work well. In the case of Maria Stuarda, the very term "traditional" is meaningless, since the opera was unstaged for decades, only entering the repertoire some 40 years ago  It by-passed the whole era of verismo and late 19th century excess. This staging, with its clean lines, focuses full attention on the singers, which is as things should be, especially in bel canto..It's designed with intelligence, illustrating ideas in the opera without overwhelming it with unnecessary detail. If the singers shine, it's partly because they and the directors have worked things through thoroughly, in unison. In any case, the Personregie  in this production is exceptionally fine, given that there are so few parts that there's no room for error. As Joyce DiDonato tweeted:  "People need to understand that great performances are aided by great direction". Pay attention. The lady knows what she's talking about.

The First Act opens in the Palace of Westminster, not "The Houses of Parliament" as such,  Monarchs lived in Westminster Palace before Buckingham Palace and Windsor were completed. In any case Westminster was, and is, the seat of power. It's a symbol of authority. Anyone who has ever been inside, seeing how it operates will recognize the trappings of grandeur - panelling as ornate inside as the facades outside. Wood absorbs sound: the corridors of power are hushed, as oblique as the machinations of the factotums who operate within, the "men in suits" (later seen in long cloaks, like their 16th century counterparts) who pull the strings.  Elisabetta (Carmen Giannattasio) is Queen, but she is a prisoner, too, of sorts, in a system of intrigue and ambition. When she lets her feelings slip, she becomes vulnerable. Just as the crowd outside the palace has to be held back by guard rails, Elisabetta has to keep her feelings under strict control. That's why she cannot show mercy or let Maria's emotional outburst go unpunished. Donizetti's music, with its bright, sharp contrasts, suggests the tension that underlines most of the opera.  The golden burnished tones of Westminster and in the music belie the harsh fact that in this opera, everyone is on a razor edge.

Fotheringay Castle was a border fortress, infinitely less luxurious than Westminster.  For Maria, it was a prison from which she had almost no hope of escape. Towering walls, repressed "cells", corridors, colours of marble and hard granite. When DiDonato sings of the meadows outside, her voice takes on a gloriously lyrical sheen. It's as if by sheer vocal power she can magic in flowers, freedom and femininity. Of course, dour cynics would say, you can't bring a meadow into a prison, but Donizetti knew better. In Maria's imagination anything's possible, and DiDonato's singing makes dreams come true.

When DiDdonato and Giannattasio have their confrontation, Donizetti's music crackles with violent intensity. Maria is letting her emotions out, something which the repressed Elisabetta can never do. Frantic dotted rhythms,  voices trilling and counter-trilling, rapid-fire tempi. DiDonato wins. It's in the score, but Giannattasio gives a good fight, her voice glinting like metal.  Ideally I would have preferred a conductor more versed in period style, but Bertrand de Billy is always reliable.

Exceptional singing as one would expect in this genre where precision and fluidity are so important. Giorgio Talbot is a killer role for a bass, stretching the range cruelly upwards, demanding an agility many basses can't negotiate without compromising the long resonant lines they do more naturally.  Matthew Rose achieved all Talbot's challenges and more, infusing his singing with  emotional conviction.  He creates a Talbot with singular and convincing personality. This is perhaps the finest moment in his career so far (and basses go on singing forever).

Ismael Jordi made his Royal Opera House debut as Roberto, Conte di Leicester, substituting at late notice. As soon as he began to sing,  it was immediately apparent that Jordi has great potential. His voice has a distinct timbre, which combines brightness with mature, expressive  depth. Jordi is also strong enough in terms of personality that he's convincing as the lover of a character as overwhelming as DiDonato's Maria. Let's hope we hear him again in London, soon. Jeremy Carpenter sang a good, solid Guglielmo Cecil, Kathleen Williamson sang Anna Kennedy, Maria's maid and Peter Dineen played the executioner. Altogether an extremely important production, not just for the singing but for the way the staging integrates with the plot and enhances the inherent non-naturalistic beauty of the voices. It also highlights the stupidity of the "anti-modern" Taliban. This staging is a lot closer to bel canto ideals than the booers realize.

photos : Bill Cooper, Royal Opera House

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