Prom 41: Belshazzar - OAE / Mackerras - Royal Albert Hall, 16 August 2008
I know how you got here. User stats reveal that the googlers' favourite is topless opera (yawn, here, NSFW), but seekers of the wisdom of teh internets have landed here via everything from Angela Hewitt dress sense to John Tomlinson naked. One of the searches that crops up sporadically but persistently, who knows why, is Charles Mackerras died.
Eh? I can report conclusively to whoever is interested that Sir Charles Mackerras is not only very much alive, but at the age of 82 dispatching a three hour oratorio in the clammy heat of the Royal Albert Hall with laser focus and the energy of a puppy (and a ninja jacket, but I'm not sure how much that helps).
Here, just a couple of nights after the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra's border-busting visit, we were reminded of how far the roots of Middle Eastern conflict stretch back.
Handel's biblical tale relates the fall of Belshazzar's kingdom of Babylon and the freeing of the Jewish people. It sounds unpromisingly stern stuff and perhaps that's why it's not performed often. But Handel constructed a score as dramatic as any opera, short on the narrative twists and turns, but impeccably characterised, melodic and powerful.
The Arena was half empty despite a near sell-out of the seated areas - often the case when people weigh up the prospect of three hours on their hind legs.
Even so, with a huge TV screen at the front of the Arena - providing a view of the conductor for the soloists while blocking it for a lot of prommers - I couldn't see exactly what Sir Charles was up to. But his taut, driven reading spoke for itself. The pace never slackened and the time just whizzed past.
Vocally the night belonged to the rousing and immaculately-schooled chorus, their many contributions hitting the target every time.
Iestyn Davies, fresh from his convincing Proms performance in The Coronation of Poppaea a couple of weeks back, was the pick of the soloists, a honey-toned countertenor who never lets the stubble show vocally. The searches I've had - Iestyn Davies wife and Iestyn Davies gay - testify to the range of his appeal.
The other countertenor on stage, Bejun Mehta, provided a bright and flinty vocal contrast and some dashing coloratura work, as did the impressive Rosemary Joshua as Nitocris.
I was less convinced on the night by the murky and occasionally insecurely-placed sound of tenor Paul Groves and bass Robert Gleadow, though on the radio playback they come across considerably better, with colour and dramatic urgency.
This puzzles me, but not quite as much as the quality of the vocal sound in general on the night. Now, I know the Royal Albert Hall has a cavernous, cathedral-like acoustic, but it's rare to hear quite so much of an echo from every single soloist when the sound from the orchestra and chorus was crisp and clear. It's also rare for comparatively light voices to project so cleanly and consistently all night - not a note was lost to an unwise pianissimo.
There were microphones in front of the singers for recording purposes - naturally, as the event was broadcast live - but no speakers to be seen. I very much doubt whether singers at this level would consent to be surreptitiously amplified, but that's honestly what it resembled - loud, trained voices boosted with near-instantaneous playback. It's just how Juan Diego Flórez sounded in the second half of his Proms performance a couple of years back, when he was (openly and unashamedly) miked.
Perhaps it's just that the TV screen at the front - hard, flat, reflective - increased the normal RAH reverberation level. Because in spite of the BBC's recent lapses from probity, the alternative is unthinkable. Isn't it?
