Britten
David Nice
When the history of 2021’s slow emergence from lockdown comes to be written, musical administrations will stand out among the heroes. That’s especially true of the country-house opera organisations which have mushroomed in recent years. Don’t ask where some of the money comes from, or who it’s for, but celebrate for now how much work these set-ups have given top-notch singers, players and production teams, many of whom have hardly worked in the previous 14 months. Michael Chance at The Grange Festival has had a particularly tough time – we don’t know the half of it, though I learnt a little Read more ...
Richard Bratby
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra believes that its current post-lockdown summer series features the largest orchestra currently performing live in the UK. It’s not an easy claim to verify, and the full string section certainly wasn’t on stage for this matinee performance under the orchestra’s associate conductor Michael Seal. What’s clear though, is that the platform at Symphony Hall, stripped of risers and choirstalls, offers ample space for a large orchestra that’s socially distanced but doesn’t sound like it. The Hall’s pristine acoustic isn’t suited to every kind of music, but Read more ...
David Nice
It began with a sense of wonder, not just from the Barbican's socially distanced audience but also from the stage, at “that sound you make with your hands”, as Simon Rattle put it in what he said was a novelty speech before a performance. What followed was a celebration – reacquaintance with the instruments of the orchestra in Britten’s brilliant set of variations and a fugue on a Purcell theme, wistful beauty from Fauré, rumbustiousness with a dash of poignancy from Dvořák.Perhaps The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra should be renamed Everyone’s Guide to Orchestral Delights, which come Read more ...
David Nice
It’s second time lucky for OperaGlass Works, whose previous production at Wilton’s Music Hall, of Stravinsky’s The Rake's Progress, hit the mark for me in the singing but not the staging. I suspect that had we been there in the auditorium with performers all too palpable, the same might have been true of The Turn of the Screw in this venue. But Britten’s tricky adaptation with Myfanwy Piper of the ambiguous, first-person-narrated Henry James ghost story, a musical masterpiece, works best here when the camerawork allows distance on the ghosts of the former valet and governess who haunt Read more ...
graham.rickson
Bach: Sonatas for recorder, harpsichord and viola da gamba Michala Petri (recorder), Hille Perl (viola da gamba), Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord) (OUR Recordings)That these sonatas were originally composed by Bach for flute is surely of no consequence; Michala Petri’s affectionate, idiomatic performances on alto and tenor recorders convince from the outset. Importantly, she doesn’t attempt to impersonate a baroque flute, playing these sonatas as if they were written for her instrument. Petri’s sparing use of vibrato feels just right and she’s marvellous in Bach’s extended slow movements. Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee/ Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.” John Donne’s Holy Sonnets may summon all his art of wit and paradox to mock that might and dread; still, we sense the abject terror behind the formal acrobatics of the verse. Benjamin Britten wrote his great settings of these great poems after a visit to the liberated Bergen-Belsen camp with Yehudi Menuhin in summer 1945. A muted howl of anguish flecked with sparks of hope, they make for a mesmerically chilling song-cycle. As sung by tenor Richard Dowling, accompanied by pianist Ian Tindale and Read more ...
Richard Bratby
A darkened stage; a pool of light; a solitary figure. And then, flooding the whole thing with meaning, music – even it’s just a soft chord on a piano. It’s no secret to any opera goer that even the barest outlines of a staging can magnify the dramatic potential of a piece of music to a point when it can seem like a completely new work. And if – like English Touring Opera’s director James Conway – you’ve spent much of the 21st century creating large-scale drama in small venues with minimal resources; well, it all starts to look deceptively easy. Conway makes a pairing of two song cycles by Read more ...
graham.rickson
Janáček: The Cunning Little Vixen, Sinfonietta Lucy Crowe, Gerald Finley, Sophia Burgos London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus/Sir Simon Rattle (LSO Live)You know this is going to be good within seconds of Act 1 awakening, Janáček’s arboreal prelude teeming with life. Making this tricksy score sound so natural and unforced takes rare skill, and it’s to Simon Rattle’s credit that his pliant London Symphony Orchestra play with such care and affection. Orchestrally this is easily a match for Charles Mackerras’s vibrant Vienna version, recorded under studio conditions in the early 1980s. Read more ...
Robert Beale
The second of the Hallé’s Winter Season concerts-on-film is scarcely less ground-breaking than the first. But this time we are in the orchestra’s second home, the former church now extended to be Hallé St Peter’s in the regenerated part of Manchester's city centre. The same skilful use of camera techniques to show a socially distanced ensemble, with Sir Mark Elder as conductor and, this time, Roderick Williams as vocal soloist, makes satisfying visuals to go with arresting sound. Despite limited resources in the installed lighting, there’s still effective use of washes of colour in the Read more ...
Susan Bullock and William Dazeley
Two of the singers in an ambitious project to film Britten’s opera based on a Henry James story – part timeless tale of repressive tradition which chimed with the composer's pacifist beliefs, part ghost story – which was originally “made for television” and premiered on the BBC, give their impressions close to the time of filming.William DazeleyIt began with an email under the heading “another crap job!” It involved traipsing around town, trawling through charity shop clothes rails in search of a slightly shabby, well-loved jacket. Then came two highly unusual costume fittings, one in a car Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
With the wealth of online performances during the pandemic, it is easy to forget the regular offerings from the Wigmore Hall. The Hall found itself in a better position than most, as it was able to present its autumn schedule largely unchanged, the only programming issues arising from international travel limitations for the performers. And the finances somehow permitted them to give concerts even without audiences when restrictions dictated, but broadcast everything live on webstreams. An appeal for donations on every broadcast suggests some hardship, but the fact that these broadcasts have Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
It began as a Christmas present in the bleakest of winters. In December 1939, as war engulfed Europe, Bertolt Brecht sent a poem to the exiled Kurt Weill in New York. Weill set it as a bittersweet gift for his wife Lotte Lenya. “Nannas Lied” – the song of a an ageing, resilient, seen-it-all prostitute – tells us (via Brecht’s nod to François Villon) that the worst as well as the best never lasts forever: “Where are the tears we cried last night? Where are the snows of yesteryear?” Yesterday, in the deserted Wigmore Hall, Christine Rice drew deep from their mingled stream of fury, regret and Read more ...