Intermezzo

Clearance bargains from the Hallé

The Hallé Orchestra are entering into the spirit of the January sales with a generous 25% off tickets for January and February concerts. Details here.

Inside the Vienna Musikverein

Tonight the Vienna Philharmonic will be conducted by Daniel Barenboim for the first of the three concerts leading up to the annual Neujahrskonzert in Vienna's Musikverein.

I haven't been to anything there recently - even for regular concerts, tickets are notoriously hard to come by, with many seats sold in packages to subscribers or booked up in advance by members. You'd have to wait up to 13 years just to get on the list for the Vienna Philharmonic itself. And as for the New Year's concert - forget about it unless you're prepared to pay hundreds of euros on the black market.

So I did the next best thing on my last visit to Vienna and took the guided tour of the Musikverein. This lasts about half an hour and includes a potted history from a knowledgeable guide and the opportunity to take lots of photos - something that's strictly banned on concert nights.

The main attraction is of course the Großer Musikvereinssaal. Surprisingly, it can hold over 2,000 people - the space feels, if not quite cosy, then relatively intimate.

The shape and proportions of the hall contribute to its legendarily 'perfect' sound, with the panelled ceiling and balconies helping the sound waves to reverberate effectively.

Under the wooden floor is a hollow space that makes it resonate like a violin. The suspended ceiling has similar properties. Even the apparently decorative golden caryatids that line the balcony provide extra resonance - they're hollow inside.

Beneath all the gleaming gold and heaving bosomry, the flip up seating looks utilitarian. But it's comfortable enough, with just enough legroom for a moderately tall person. There's a slight rake, which becomes steeper for a couple of rows at the back. Behind the seating, at the very rear of the hall, is a covered area which provides standing places.

The chairs and music stands on the stage itself look well-used.

When the smaller 600-seater Brahms-Saal was renovated in the '90's, it was repainted in its original bold colours. It has similar acoustics to the Grosse Musikvereinssaal.

Lavish gilding and plasterwork is a feature throughout the building - below is a stairwell.

For the full Wienerfacts, check out the Musikverein's own excellent website, which includes detailed descriptions of the building and an extensive photo gallery.

Covent Garden just got cheaper (for some)

The current weakness of the pound is bad news for British operagoers travelling to Europe. Opera is never cheap, anywhere, but now that a pound is worth roughly the same as a euro, continental houses are looking particularly pricey in comparison to Covent Garden.

For the lucky euro-tourists visiting London though, Royal Opera House tickets are about a third cheaper than last year.  Covent Garden top prices of £160 to £210 (depending on the show) compare favourably with Vienna's €168 to €240 and Munich's €138 to €243; even Paris - a shade cheaper at €100 to €172. Could that be one reason why, despite the recession, London so far continues to enjoy packed houses all round?

Berlin Zoo

Not everyone is thrilled about the recent appointment of Salzburg Festival head Jürgen Flimm to the top job at Berlin's Staatsoper - not that there were any other serious candidates in sight. 

The Berliner Morgenpost recalls Gerard Mortier's explanation for bypassing Barenboim's Berlin empire: "There can be only one tiger on the mountain" and says that other candidates reacted similarly. Another offputting factor is that much of the new Intendant's five year tenure will be spent in temporary premises while the Unter den Linden house closes for major renovations from 2010 to 2014.

Bloomberg's Shirley Apthorp words her reservations more strongly:

"Is the talent pool in Europe so small?"

"Thanks to Flimm, Salzburg’s shows look increasingly dated. His choice to run the Staatsoper sure looks like a last- ditch solution for the vacant post."

"As Christmas presents go, the Flimm appointment is right up there with striped socks and floral handkerchiefs. We didn’t ask for it, we didn’t want it, and we can only hope that it will prove more useful than it seems at first glimpse."

The obligatory end of year list

Now is the season when news dries up, musicians take a break, and theatres are stuffed with more Raymond Gubbay specials than you can shake a Nutcracker at.

Time then to fill the empty pages with a list or two. Or three, if you're the Daily Telegraph's Rupert Christiansen, who trumps the usual best-CD lists with Opera's biggest diva of 2008, Most romantic opera duets of 2008, and Top opera punchers above their weight. Yes, 'top opera punchers above their weight'. Well, at least it makes a change.

I am no list-lover, so there's just one name on mine. Daniel Barenboim.

A year ago I went to Milan and heard him conduct a magnificent Tristan und Isolde. Then it was back to London, for his run through the complete Beethoven sonatas, spread over eight jam-packed and ecstatically-received concerts. 

He conducted the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra at the Proms then he hugged every single one of them on stage in Paris. He kept a straight face for three hours while Rolando Villazon and his army of clowns shuffled towards him in the bizarrest-ever Eugene Onegin in Berlin. 

Of course I saw only a fraction of his global jetsetting performances. And yet he had time to write a book. Amazing.

Here's a wonderful Barenboim anecdote, as relayed to Cigar Aficionado magazine. How the great Artur Rubinstein set him on the path to smoking and drinking at the age of fourteen:

"One day, Rubinstein came to Tel Aviv to perform," he says. "I went to a rehearsal. He was very happy to see me, and he told me to come to his hotel Thursday at 5 o'clock so I could play for him. He wanted to see how I was doing. Well, Thursday morning came, and I woke up with a high fever. My mother told me that I couldn't go to school and, of course, that I couldn't go to see Rubinstein. I said not going to school was fine, but I had to see Rubinstein. I had to play for him. We argued back and forth, and I won. At 5 o'clock I was at the hotel."

The teenager walked up to the concierge, who eyed him suspiciously. "I told the concierge that Mr. Rubinstein was expecting me. He looked at me cynically. 'Rubinstein is waiting for you?' he said. I said, 'Yes, at 5 o'clock.' And he told me that Rubinstein and his entire family had left in the morning for an excursion to the Galilee and had not returned. So I sat down and waited. I couldn't understand. I couldn't imagine that Rubinstein had not meant it when he had told me to come, or that he had forgotten me.

"I sat there for hours, feeling miserable. Then, about 8 o'clock, he and his family--his wife and two children--came into the lobby. He saw me, and I saw on his face a look of pain, of realization that he had forgotten this poor boy. He apologized profusely. He looked at me and said, 'You don't look well.' I told him I had a fever, and he told me I shouldn't have come. But I told him I had to see him, I had to play for him, so we went upstairs to his rooms and I played. I played for about an hour, Schubert and Liszt and Brahms." By the time Barenboim was finished playing, it was 9:30. "He told me I couldn't go home yet, I had to stay and have dinner with him. I was very happy, I was feeling elated. He thought I had played very well; he was happy to see how I had developed. I went downstairs to the restaurant with him and his wife and the children.

"He saw I still had a fever, and he said to me that with this fever, there is only one thing I should do: have a vodka. So he gave me my first vodka. And after dinner he gave me a Montecristo No. 3 Havana cigar. He said I should smoke it, and that with the vodka and the cigar by tomorrow I would be fine. By the time I got home it was one in the morning. I hadn't phoned my parents. They were so worried, and I came home smelling of vodka and cigars. And my father said, 'Where in the hell have you been?' I said, 'With Artur Rubinstein.' It was a little difficult for them to believe. But that's how I started smoking, and I've never actually stopped since."

Who's the talented one now?

From the BBC website - the cast list for the Xmas day broadcast of the Royal Opera House's Hänsel und Gretel:

Fortunately, 'participant' Sir Colin is handier with a baton than Katie Derham:

Viktor & Rolf's opera premiere

Genius art-frockers Viktor & Rolf  are to follow up their Spring 2008 'violins' collection, below, with another musical venture.

Taking their first plunge into operatic waters, they will design the costumes for Robert Wilson's new Baden-Baden production of Der Freischütz, which opens on 30 May 2009.

Wilson's trademark strike-a-pose style should allow them to ignore quotidian dullities like can you move in it? and indulge in the complex constructions they are famed for.

Though this classic from 2005 might be more suitable for the audience:

Ruggero Raimondi turns to the small box

 

Veteran bass-baritone Ruggero Raimondi stars in the new French TV drama Le Sanglot des Anges as - guess what - a famous opera singer on the point of retirement.

The four part series premiered on French TV this summer.

Its producers pronounced it "A gripping combination of a thriller, a family saga and a sentimental drama".

A friend of mine who saw as much as she could stomach claimed it was "unwatchable rubbish". Though she did add that M. Raimondi does a very creditable job in the lead role.

Now the rest of the world can judge for themselves, as satellite channel TV5 transmit the first episode tonight (subtitles in French only), with a repeat on Friday. More details here.

teh promo:

And yes, Raimondo gets to sing - view here.

 

Cecilia Bartoli - the credit crunch diva

Cecilia Bartoli / Sergio Ciomei "Soirée Rossiniana" - Barbican, 17 December 2008

Rossini La regata veneziana - Three songs in Venetian dialect;  Bellini L’Abbandono, Il fervido desiderio, Vaga Luna, La Farfalletta, Dolente immagine,  Malinconia, ninfa gentile, Ma rendi pur contento;  Rossini Or che di fiori adorno, Beltà crudele, Canzonetta spagnuola, La danza;  Donizetti Il barcaiolo, Amore e morte, La conocchia, Me voglio fà‘na casa;  Rossini Ariette à l’ancienne, L’Orpheline du Tyrol, La grande coquette;  Viardot Havanaise, Hai luli!;  García Yo que soy contrabandista;  Malibran Rataplan

Encores:  Ernesto de Curtis Ti voglio tanto bene;  Montsalvatge Canto Negro;  Ernesto de Curtis Non ti scordar di me

This is fast becoming a regular annual date. If it's December, it must be Cecilia Bartoli time at the Barbican.

With no new album to promote this year, she chose instead a selection of salon music that she's sung for years. Her frocks too were old favourites - for the second half the thrifty Ceci wore the same red dress as last year, and before the break the same design in blue. And why not? Getting more from ur couture is a lesson every diva should learn in these creditcrunchy times.

Her accompaniment was economical as well - just the sweet cuddly pianist Sergio Ciomei. Did she bring her own sandwiches too? A flourish of twinkly diamonds proved she's hardly down to her last pennies though.

The songs were drawn largely from Rossini's Péchés de vieillesse, a huge collection of piano and vocal music he wrote after retiring from opera. (The piano works too will surprise anyone who thinks they 'know' Rossini - many have moments of greater 'orchestral' invention than the often hurriedly-written operas). Mr and Mrs Rossini hosted sparkling soirées where they would regale lucky guests with this music in a convivial atmosphere of food, drink and song. 

The songs may not be of the very first rank: as with bel canto opera, the texts often let them down and the harmonic progression can be pedestrian. But La Ceci treated every one like a favourite child, with love and tenderness, its character proudly displayed, its flaws utterly denied. Beaming at the audience, sensitive to every slight lapse in attention, every degree of response, she radiated the sheer joy of performing.

The electrifying coloratura of songs like La farfalletta and the tarantella La danza predictably generated the most ecstatic audience response. Cecilia Bartoli still has no peer in this - the grace, the agility, the effortlessness are beyond mere mortals.

But in dramatic narrative like the three songs of La regata veneziana, where a gondolier's girlfriend urges him to race victory, she did more - totally inhabiting the songs - she was that girl at the canalside, egging him on. And all without any unmusical effects - the line was beautiful and musically shaped.

Humour is perhaps her greatest strength. Not many classical musicians can make songs funny - even when they're written with that purpose in mind. But La Ceci's naturally sunny personality combines with wit and timing to devastating effect. Could there be anything sillier than the rolled Rs of Malibran's Rataplan? And could anyone else make them sound like the crowning peak of comedic genius?

Although she (sweetly) checked her running order with a piano-top copy of the same programme that was handed out free to the audience, her preparation was immaculate, and made everything sound like the innovation of a moment. As Sir John Tomlinson once said about rehearsing, "get it right until you can't get it wrong" and anything is possible.

Anyone who's ever nit-picked her recordings needs to get out more. Heard live, her charisma and spontaneous joy and embedded musicality create an experience 1000% greater than any recording. She simply personifies the argument that in the face of CDs, DVDs, films, downloads, streaming, whatever - live performance will never die.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheapest Met HD tickets in town

 

Once again, the cheapest place in London to see the latest Metropolitan Opera HD broadcast (tonight: Thais with Renee Fleming) is Wood Green Cineworld.

At only £9.80, with a further £2 off for seniors, it's less than half what some of the plusher cinemas are asking. And unlike the Barbican Cinema et al, it didn't sell out months ago - in fact tickets are still available online, and probably at the door too.

It may not have the poshest of exteriors, but once inside, the 'Delux Screen' has comfy armchair-like seats and great sightlines. Even a private sweetie kiosk to spend your savings in. If you don't mind a small-ish screen, highly recommended.

Alfred Brendel - the final farewell in pictures

On 18 December, the mighty Alfred Brendel gave the last concert of his farewell tour, and the very last of his career. The venue was Vienna's Musikverein, chosen I suspect not because the longstanding British resident wanted to return to his own homeland, but because that's where the music was born. Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, the classical titans who form the backbone of Brendel's repertoire, are all indelibly connected with Vienna. And for Brendel, the music is always greater than the man.

Brendel chose to bow out with Mozart's Piano Concerto No.9 in E flat, the 'Jeunehomme' as he had for his final London concert.  The conductor was again his old friend Sir Charles Mackerras, but the orchestra this time the home crew, the Vienna Philharmonic.

I couldn't be there - not for want of trying. Apart from Alfred Brendel's own guests, the audience was packed with journalists and Austrian politicians. Even longstanding Musikverein patrons had to fight for seats. Truly the hottest ticket in town.

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger managed to snaffle a seat - here is his report. And for German readers, there's a more detailed one from Wolfgang Sandner for FAZ, here (imagine living in a country where a critic can drop a term like 'tonic-dominant relationship' into a mainstream newspaper and expect readers to get it. Sigh.)

Channel 4 News ran a little feature on the concert - below find a video profile of Alfred Brendel and a chat with lucky spectator Alan Rusbridger (try here if the videos don't work for you). More photos below as well.

For anyone wanting to find out more about Alfred Brendel's approach, or just about playing the piano generally, I cannot recommend highly enough his essay collection Alfred Brendel On Music.

     

Photos: Dieter Nagl

Radu Lupu wishes Steven Isserlis a happy birthday

Steven Isserlis Birthday Concert (Radu Lupu / András Schiff /Joshua Bell / Dame Felicity Lott / Mark Padmore /Jeremy Denk) - Wigmore Hall, 16 December 2008

Bach Italian Concerto in F BWV 971 (Schiff); Haydn She never told her love; The spirit's song; Dvorák Die Stickerin Op. 82 No. 2; Frühling Op. 82 No. 3; Am Bache Op. 82 No. 4; Lasst mich allein Op. 82 No. 1 (Lott/Padmore/Schiff); Schumann Arabeske in C Op. 18; Kinderszenen Op. 15 (Lupu); Janácek Violin Sonata (Bell/Denk); Fauré Clair de lune Op. 46 No. 2; Nell Op. 18 No. 1; Soir Op. 83 No. 2; Mandoline No. 1 from 'Cinq mélodies de Venise' Op. 58   (Lott/Padmore/Lupu); Schubert Fantasie in F minor (Lupu/Schiff) 

Encore: Schubert Rondo in A Major (Lupu/Schiff) 

Extra: Beethoven Bagatelle Op.119, No.10 (Schiff) 

This concert was by some distance the hottest ticket of the Wigmore season. Just look at what was on offer. To start with, András Schiff, Joshua Bell, Felicity Lott and Mark Padmore, any of whom could sell out the hall in no time on their own. Plus the elusive legend Radu Lupu, rarely seen, ever coveted. And it was all in honour of the fiftieth birthday of the much-loved Steven Isserlis, here of course in person though not on stage.

Normally, it's not hard to pick up a returned ticket from the Wigmore Hall website close to the day, even for sell-outs, but not this time. There was a long and mostly to be disappointed queue for last minute returns in the foyer when I arrived. How I treasured my own ticket. A crappy corner seat, but a seat, nonetheless.

A swift Happy Birthday from the audience, accompanied by house manager David on piano, then it was on to the real business. Or not quite.  After reminding us that it was Beethoven's birthday today, not Steven Isserlis's (which is really on Friday) András Schiff paid tribute with an unscheduled dash through a tiny Bagatelle (Op.119, No.10) - then ran through it again for luck. Here it is - the whole piece:

 

Schiff began the programme proper in celebratory mood with Bach's sunny Italian Concerto, enriching it with luxuriantly arpeggiated chords. Here's one he made earlier, for Japanese TV:

He was joined by Felicity Lott and Mark Padmore for a group of Haydn and Dvorák songs. Schiff, always a generous and intelligent collaborator with singers, captured beautifully the veiled resignation of Haydn's lengthy prelude to the first, She never told her love (from Viola's speech to Orsino in Twelfth Night). It tells the story almost better than the words do - delivered here compellingly and occasionally stridently by Mark Padmore.

Felicity Lott handled the eerie chromatic runs of The spirit's song, as so often with 'minor' Haydn sounding at moments about a century before its time. Her voice is now sounding rather fibrous at the top, but still has great allure, and the ability to shape a song intelligently remains entirely undimmed.

The biggest draw of the evening though was Radu Lupu, who appears to favour village halls far from London for his rare UK appearances these days. Unassuming to a tee, he shuffled looking like Fidel Castro's chubby elder brother. He settled into his habitual sawn-off chair to commune with the piano, singing quietly to himself as he played - as if he were in his own front room playing to an audience of none.

Just as you lean in to listen to someone who speaks quietly, so Lupu's playing invites almost conspiratorial attention. It's not just that he plays quietly (though that he does), it's the near-fetishistic attention to detail that pulls you in. Lupu observed Schumann's markings rigorously but entirely without the least breath of exaggeration. It was his own subtle inflections of these - an near-imperceptible acceleration into a ritardando for example - that turned every note into something intensely personal.

As with the Kurtág miniatures Isserlis himself exquisitely performed a couple of weeks ago in this very spot (a concert I didn't find time to write up), there was the sense that every single note of Schumann's Arabeske and Kinderszenen counted, that each had been considered and justly weighted. Even the usually brash tones of the Wigmore Hall Steinway seemed subdued beneath his fingers. Science tells us that because the piano is a percussion instrument, the tone quality of a note is the same whoever hits it, but those rare few like Lupu - and Sokolov is another - seem able to defy even the fixed laws of the universe.

Time for an ice-cream.

After the interval, Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk were the unlucky pair who had to Follow That. If their immaculate and spirited gallop through Janácek's Violin Sonata didn't quite hit the spot, comparison was at least partly to blame.

Back came Radu Lupu in the unaccustomed guise of accompanist to Mark Padmore and Felicity Lott in a selection of dreamy Fauré songs. Mark Padmore found himself rather high up the stave for comfort, and though the notes themselves were achieved, his vowels suffered as a result in Nell and Soir. Felicity Lott demonstrated her expertise in this repertoire with the serene beauty of Mandoline and Clair de lune underpinned by Lupu's sympathetic piano. If he had seemed entirely self-contained for his solo performance, here he proved he could be a painstaking listener too as he cushioned and conversed with the vocal line.

The finale found Lupu's chair to the right of Schiff's more conventional piano stool for Schubert's four-handed Fantasie in F minor. Could they do better than the last pairing I heard, Lang Lang and his mini-me at the Proms?  The bar could hardly be set lower - and the response could not be more contrasted. The sympathy and generosity of both pianists was evident in their extreme restraint, even the epic climaxes handled with delicacy.

The loudly-demanded encore saw Lupu and Schiff swapping seats for Schubert's Rondo in A Major, in some aspects even more perfectly weighted than the Fantasie.

Some birthday present. Happy birthday Steven Isserlis!

Steven Isserlis leaves the stage, followed by András Schiff: 

The secret lives of ballerinas

Other than reviews, mainstream press coverage of the ballet world is on the skimpy side.

This week's ES magazine redresses the balance by interviewing some of the Royal Ballet's star dancers. Also an excuse for a fashion spread, with a scary bony model to prove yes, it is possible to be thinner than a ballerina.

The dancers interviewed are Lauren Cuthbertson ("it's always fun doing things on the side"), Marianela Nuñez ("I was really spoilt"), Roberta Marquez ("I love very high heels"), Laura Morera ("I have a high pain threshold"), Alexandra Ansanelli ("in my genes to perform") and Yuhui Choe ("We're always banging on the living room wall(?)").

The article can be found here and the photos, by Nicky Emmerson, are below.

Boyz next time pls.

 
Marianela Nuñez; model; Laura Morera; Roberta Marquez

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Yuhui Choe; model

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Lauren Cuthbertson; Marianela Nuñez; Roberta Marquez; Laura Morera; model

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Laura Morera; Yuhui Choe; model; Lauren Cuthbertson

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model; Laura Morera; Lauren Cuthbertson; Roberta Marquez; Marianela Nuñez; Alexandra Ansanelli

Tristan, Isolde and Vladimir

London Philharmonic Orchestra / Jurowski - Royal Festival Hall, 13 December 2008

As Glyndebourne's house band, the LPO have played a fair few Tristan und Isoldes, no doubt one factor tonight in their polished concert performance of the second act.

The other factor was Vladimir Jurowski, who buffs their sound to a sheen few others can achieve. Not just well-rehearsed, it was well-planned too. The offstage horns at the start were perfectly integrated, and Brangäne's distant warning to the secret lovers, delivered from the choir stalls, sounded truly faraway. But the flipside of forethought is caution. I could admire Jurowski's lucid phrasing and transparent textures. As in the Adagio from Mahler's Tenth which opened the evening, there were moments I heard things that had never struck me before.

But it was too delicately nuanced for any telling dramatic effect, not to mention curiously amorphous overall, the narrative arch sacrificed in favour of the pointed detail. Contrasts were underplayed, and, in the sterile acoustics of the Royal Festival Hall, much left me cold. As an exploration of erotic abandon, it had the nagging undercurrent of a gynecological exam. The foundations are there, but though I always will Jurowski to impress, it's not yet a great interpretation.

The most moving moments of the night came from Laszlo Polgar as King Marke. Despite (or perhaps because of) a bad cold that gave him a few cracking issues, his Tatest Du's wirklich? had real pathos, his bottomless bass hollow with the dignified resignation of a man already dead inside.

Sarah Connolly's Brangäne - her first Wagner role ever, I think - was a great success, too. Concern and worldly wisdom blended in her rich and surprisingly powerful voice. But the Ikea duvet cover dress was not a flattering choice. Stephen Gadd, doubling up as Melot and Kurwenal, also gave a strong if brief performance. 

As for Tristan and Isolde themselves, there are probably no singers around today who can fill the roles entirely satisfactorily.

Robert Dean Smith has on his side a lyrical voice and buckets of stamina. He also knows the role backwards. He never strained or shouted. But there was minimal characterisation -  he sang the part rather than playing it. I'd also prefer to hear a heftier voice in this role.

Anja Kampe has all the makings of a good Isolde. She tends to excessive vibrato, but her voice has strength and warmth and projects well. She also looks the part, and I know from previous exposure what a great actress she is. But at the moment she doesn't seem to know quite who Isolde is. Either that or she was too busy concentrating on getting the basics right (both she and Sarah Connolly used scores) to characterise her interpretation to her fullest ability. She tackles the role in full for the first time at Glyndebourne next summer, so there's plenty of time to work it out.

The Royal Festival Hall certainly knows how to fill a Saturday night; after the concert it was downstairs for more music, this time the London Sinfonietta's 40th birthday celebrations (recorded live for Radio 3 and available for the next few days here). It's a tiring life.

Wagner's Greatest Hits

The indefatigable Per-Erik of Wagneropera.net has asked a selection of Wagnerites - including me - to name their five favourite Wagner CDs or DVDs.

More eminent names polled include Hans Jürgen Syberberg, Hartmut Haenchen, Lioba Braun, Kasper Bech Holten, Dame Anne Evans and Iréne Theorin (I am honoured and beyond!)

No clear winners emerge, but the list - here - makes fascinating reading nonetheless.

Robin Ticciati's House of Gingerbread

Hänsel und Gretel - Royal Opera House, 11 December 2008 (first night of second cast)

Despite the fact that Hänsel und Gretel is nominally a children's opera, there were precious few kids in the auditorium for this second performance in the run. There weren't many at the first either. But with tickets at up to £110 it's perhaps not surprising.

Less privileged children will just have to wait for the TV screening - now confirmed as BBC2 at 3pm on 25 December.

So 25 year old conductor Robin Ticciati was, as usual, younger than 99% of his audience.  This was not just the first night for the second cast, but also Ticciati's Covent Garden debut. Alternating conducting duties with Sir Colin Davis was not quite a mighty leap into the unknown, as he's just finished conducting Glyndebourne's touring production.

His Hänsel und Gretel is quite different from the dark post-Wagnerian elegance of Sir Colin's. For a start, he set up a cracking pace, knocking at least five minutes off each half. The touch was lighter, he pulled tempos and dynamics around less. It was a playful interpretation that emphasised the shiny surfaces more and the dark undercurrents less.

The orchestra, horns especially, played beautifully for him. Overtures apart, his eyes were locked on the stage almost constantly, with barely a glance at the score, still less at the musicians.  Obviously he's telepathic as well as talented, because everything held together perfectly.

In Alice Coote's Hänsel and Camilla Tilling's Gretel we had a less intuitively-matched pairing than the first cast of Angelika Kirchschlager (enjoying herself in row B of tonight's audience) and Diana Damrau. The first cast were best of friends; the second were more like real siblings, with all the differences and discords that implies.

Alice Coote's Hänsel was the boisterous dimwit familiar from her Met performance earlier in the year and powerfully sung. Camilla Tilling's voice was underweight in the first act, but improved, and she had a childlike vulnerability that eluded Diana Damrau, for all her impressive technique. We all now know girls are smarter than boys, but it's also woven into the Hansel and Gretel storyline, as Coote and Tilling beautifully illustrated.

Irmgard Vilsmaier as Mother and Eike Wilm Schulte as Father got a head start on laughs - she's about twice his size in all directions. They sang more accurately and enunciated more clearly than the first cast, even if they lacked some of their dramatic confidence and presence.

Ann Murray's more governessy character terrified less than Anja Silja's definitive witch, though the voice is in better shape. As reader ljg pointed out, she may be the first singer to tackle a role previously performed by her husband (Philip Langridge at the Met).

Eri Nakamura's Sandman and Simona Mihai's Dew Fairy were both nicely done, though the rubber-masked Sandman costume still gives me the creeps  - far more so than the dead children strung up in the witch's freezer which have so perturbed 'children's campaigners'.  The Tiffin schoolchildren on the stage didn't seem to have the least problem with any of it.

Incidentally, Green & Blacks have been giving out their very yummy chocolate before selected shows for a while now, and I was pleased to find the Royal Opera House have recruited another  sponsor, this time Acqua di Parma, handing out cologne samples. One commercial intrusion I really don't mind.

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grimm truths from the Daily Mail

 

Is the Royal Opera House's new Hänsel und Gretel "Magical, yes. Scary, no" or "terrifying"? The Daily Mail can't make up its mind, so it ran two diametrically opposed stories. Who would have thought they were so liberal?

No surprise that Daily Mail readers have ignored the first piece and lavished their commenting insights on the second, which claims "The two-hour fairytale features lust-crazed parents, a knife-wielding wicked witch who hangs children in her larder before baking them in a giant oven and a final scene of cannibalism in which children feast on her flesh".

"Unbelievable that these morons can hold sway and produce such appalling stuff in this age of burgeoning sickos" claims a reader. From Canada.

Nothing scarier than a Daily Mail comments box.

Hansel & Gretel at the Royal Opera House --- jetzt neu mit Hexentitz !!!

Hänsel & Gretel - Royal Opera House Covent Garden, 9 December 2008 (opening night)

 

Most of the 'new' productions at Covent Garden this year have been borrowed from places like Munich and Salzburg. Leiser and Caurier's Hänsel und Gretel is one of the few to be produced in-house. What's more it's about to be shown nationwide in cinemas, and even on Xmas telly. So it's not just a show. It's a mission statement, temperature gauge, and table of fare. All important these days when the Royal Opera House is scrabbling for a shrinking funding pool, not to mention bums on seats.

 

Leiser and Caurier are a safe-(ish) pair of hands. You know you're not going to get impenetrable intellectualism, half-dressed Nazis or criminal haberdashery abuse. Their ROH Turco, Cenerentola and Barbiere, were, by general consensus, 'fun', if not downright adorable. Their Zurich Clari a few months back was brilliant. Well I thought so anyway.

 

The first half was packed with sweet childlike touches - a Mogwai Sandman (actually, that one freaked me out just a tiny bit), a Princess Barbie Dew Fairy, fluffy squirrel-headed angels with light-up wings hanging from the ceiling. (Probably some people will want to stick their fingers down their throat just reading that. This production is not for you, dear grouches.) So far, so cute.

 

The biggest surprise came in the second half. The last thing I expected to see here - or indeed anywhere - was Anja Silja, legendary Wagnerina and grandmama, entering with - gasp - !!! her bewbs out !!! At Covent Garden! A closer look revealed - heart attack over - they were merely comedy t1ts of the stag party strap-on variety (or a posh ROH makeup dept version anyway). It was naught but a flash, and it was over in moments. She swiftly rebuttoned her open cardie.

 

But it was just the shocking start the third act needed to jolt us from the comforting world of sweet dreams and gingerbread houses into her witch's horror chamber of dead children hung from meat hooks and baked in giant ovens.

 

It's still a fairytale and it's still fun and the nastiness has a comfortingly cartoonish quality. But where the first act glossed over the children's hunger and their mother's neglect (if you're in the market for psychodrama, don't shop at Leiser and Caurier) this part of the production reminded us firmly that Bad Things can happen.

 

So the production was uneven, but the casting was perfection and the performances superb. In the title roles, Angelika Kirchschlager and Diana Damrau channelled their respective inner children so effectively that they were still larking around like eight year olds long after the final curtain had dropped.

 

The ingenious first half set - a teeny wonky-walled bedroom inside a huge tree-scene box - gave them plenty of reverberent surfaces and their voices projected powerfully through the auditorium.

 

Diana Damrau took a while to settle vocally, but both found themselves in the best part of their ranges and played off each other instinctively, relishing the words and enunciating them with a truly childish glee (a shame though that the surtitles entertained some inappropriate modernisms in translation).

 

Elizabeth Connell and Thomas Allen as their parents struck just the right balance between fecklessness and heartfelt concern, and made the most of what could be a thankless first act duet with some wonderful physical comedy.

The Sandman of Pumeza Matshikiza and Dew Fairy of Anita Watson were charming, but neither could avoid the odd scratchy note. Nerves? Both are well cast and should improve as the run goes on.

But Anja Silja was the star of the show. The voice is not the most accurate or the most beautiful, though in darn good shape for someone who's been singing professionally for fifty years. Her witch has a panto look, but a disturbingly authentic menace. I know the opera, I know the story, but as with all great actors, I never quite knew what Silja was going to do next.

Or was Sir Colin Davis the star of the show? He drew a wonderful performance from the orchestra, somewhat stately in pace, but deliciously nuanced. Some people think Hänsel und Gretel is just a cute children's opera; for Sir Colin it's a gateway drug to Tristan und Isolde. The score may not have Wagnerian heft, but it has a driving narrative thrust and glimpes of real harmonic invention. Sir Colin whipped up the drama where needed - the terrifying explosion of the witch's kitchen brilliantly handled - but the gentle lyricism of the dream scene, or the bouncing mock-Viennese waltzes rang just as true. If there was magic in the air, it was all in the pit. Can Robin Ticciati and the second cast match up?

 

   

      

       

 

 

 

Production photos: Bill Cooper

Curtain call photos: intermezzo.typepad.com

Learn to play with the LSO

As part of the YouTube Orchestra project, LSO members have recorded a series of mini-master classes. They're aimed at polishing the skills of amateur musicians planning to audition for the project by video.  But they're interesting to watch in any case. 

In the one below, LSO principal flautist and ace blogger Gareth Davies demonstrates the subtle difference between playing a piece adequately and playing it well. The full list of master class videos can be found here.

Saint Nicolas at the Barbican

Britten's Saint Nicolas - Barbican, 6 December 2008

6 December is St Nicholas Day, when the custom in Germany is to leave out a shoe for the kindly saint to fill with sweeties. The Barbican aren't as generous, but they did put on two performances of Britten's bio-cantata Saint Nicolas, an afternoon one for kids, and the evening one I attended for everyone else.

Britten wrote Saint Nicolas specifically for amateur performers, including children. Not that it's just simple enough for amateurs to tackle; it needs their ‘fresh and unrestrained quality’ as Britten put it, and would actually sound wrong if it was slicked up by professionals. 

So most of the performers came from the local amateur orchestra EC4 Music, and the singers from the local St Luke's Community and Youth Choirs. A smattering of pro support (as per Britten's directions) came from the Belcea Quartet and Guildhall students. And there was Ian Bostridge to sing the role of the saint himself.

But that wasn't all. Saint Nicolas includes two hymns to be sung by the audience. So we had a quick five minute rehearsal from the nation's favourite choirmaster, Gareth Malone. Talk about luxury casting.

It was a mark of the thought and preparation which had clearly gone into this. They even managed a staging of sorts - always difficult in the Barbican Hall, even more so when the stage is full of musicians, and probably a superhuman feat when so many small children are involved. But the action was sparing and intelligent - children waving their arms to make a sea for the sailing song for example - and it came off without a hitch.

I could have done without the the tacked-on spoken interludes - a toe-curling debate in faux-playground-speak between a costumed angel and demon. They pedantically filled in any biographical gaps thoughtlessly left by Britten, as if the whole point of the evening was to prepare for a GCSE in St Nicholas Studies. As the almighty Jimmy McGovern says, better to be confused for ten minutes than bored for five seconds.

But despite this, and despite a bad cold that shredded Ian Bostridge's voice, it was hugely entertaining and very competently performed.

Just to give us value for money, I suppose, there were a couple of Bach cantatas in the first half. For some reason, a completely different group of musicians were used, the London Handel Orchestra and Singers. These cantatas were written for advent, so technically they were appropriate, but the style and mood was so far removed from St Nicolas that they seemed part of a different show.

Carolyn Sampson and Roderick Williams did well with their solo parts. Ian Bostridge had been scheduled to join them, but excusing himself with his cold, Jon Bungard and Edmund Hastings were plucked from the choir to cover. I'm not sure which was which. One has a good basic chorister voice and sang accurately, the other a quite beautiful and well-projected lyric tenor marred by suspect intonation. Both did well under the circumstances (I've heard worse from professional soloists) but hearing Ian Bostridge later, even flawed by illness, did underline the difference between a chorister and soloist.