Intermezzo

Netrebko and Garanca pull it off

Today's general rehearsal for I Capuleti e i Montecchi (opening at the Royal Opera House on Monday) could hardly have gone better. A few question marks over the guys maybe, but Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca were on stunning form, Garanca in particular entirely flawless.

This role really shows Netrebko's strengths with its soaring legato phrasing - none of that hit-and-miss twiddly batsqueak stuff. Even in rehearsal she's right under Giulietta's skin. She looks gorgeous too, in a flowing cream gown - cut low for maximum bewbage but skimming gracefully over any remaining post-baby chub.

And we even got to see her in person and close-up as she made a surprise passage through the bar at the interval, still in full costume of course, with photographer and baby-toting husband Erwin Schrott in tow. The baby incidentally is utterly adorable, his thick black hair in a little mohawk and a look of permanent surprise on his face.

Elina Garanca got an even bigger ovation than Netrebko and deservedly so - tone, phrasing, flexibility, stamina - she had it all. The press photographers in the stalls went trigger-crazy at every Netrebko/Garanca clinch - I'm now waiting for the lurid lesbo headline in the Daily Mail.

Mark Elder's Bellini is a revelation, clean-limbed and twinkling. I hope the ballet-style oafish applause over the end of each scene won't be repeated on opening night though.

Netrebko and Garanca recorded in Vienna last year:

Strange but true - Norman Lebrecht talks some sense

According to the BBC, Radio 3 broadcasts around 16,000 individual works in a given year, around half of which are live or specially recorded. What's more, the station is the largest commissioner of new classical music in the world. All, of course, paid for by our licence fees. So why isn't any of it available for download?

As Norman Lebrecht explains in his column today (and do read the whole thing for the detailed background), it's all down to vested interests. The record companies don't want the competition, the BBC don't want to make enemies. And as Norman not too cryptically puts it - and he should know -"during the downloads war, there was evidence of split loyalties within Broadcasting House."

So the BBC have ruled that classical music should be excluded from downloads. It's perhaps not as Norman thinks "the biggest capitulation to empty threats by a major power since Neville Chamberlain gave Czechoslovakia to Hitler", but it's certainly a daft and misguided ban.

For classical music aficionados, it's all about the individual performance. Amazon UK lists 320 different recordings of Brahms's symphonies. Each of them, no doubt, has their admirers. If you want the Karajan version, you're not going to settle for the Bernstein, and if you're deep-pocketed you may own both and more. Amazon's bestsellers are not even the cheapest versions. So it's hard to believe a free download from the BBC Symphony Orchestra would wipe out EMI's sales. To allay any genuine concerns about direct competition, all that is needed is to restrict downloads to BBC-generated material and exclude broadcasts of commercially-available recordings.

And what about newcomers to classical music? They're not likely to buy anything unless they've heard a version first. There's ample evidence from the distant planet of Pop that free downloads actually stimulate sales, not reduce them. They certainly stimulate interest - the BBC themselves note that a quarter of people in the UK who downloaded the BBC Philharmonic’s Beethoven performances in 2005 (after which the ban was slapped down) had never listened to Radio 3 before, whilst two-thirds had never downloaded classical music before.

Not all of us are able to listen to Radio 3 programmes at the time they're broadcast. Nor can we always stream the recordings during the following week when some of them are available online (that's if we can find them at all in the confusing muddle of Radio 3's online playlists). Downloads that can be transferred to Ipod are the ideal solution for existing fans and newcomers alike.

So let's see some return for our licence fee. And let's see a concrete commitment to spread the arts, one that amounts to more than the BBC's usual empty promises.

Norman optimistically suggests that the BBC Trust members who could vote to lift the ban are "reasonable men and women with a fine sense of public duty. They are susceptible to polite argument and responsive to opinion". Hmmm. But anyway, you can write to them at trust.enquiries@bbc.co.uk. I shall.

Royal Opera's Flying Dutchman - Bryn fails to save ship from sinking

Der fliegende Holländer - Royal Opera House, 23 February 2009 (opening night)

Oh dearie me. The Royal Opera House don't seem to have much luck with Wagner. And I had such high hopes for this new Der fliegende Holländer production. But I haven't sat through anything quite as tedious at Covent Garden since Iphigénie en Tauride a couple of years back. And a long sit it was too. Two and half hours non-stop is enough to give anyone a barnacled bottom.

It's the director's fault. Isn't it always? 

Tim Albery's focus is Senta's daydreaming.  And what she's escaping from is more important than what she's escaping to. She's not really bothered about the mysterious Dutchman, let alone redemption or any sort of spiritual enlightenment. She just wants to hop on his boat and get outta town. So she symbolically clutches a toy ship in place of the Dutchman's portrait that she sings about, looking predictably deranged.

Her mundane life is displayed in all its drabness. There's only one set, the weathered carcase of a giant ship. The lighting is dim. Welly-clad trawlermen and overalled factory girls stomp around in the gloom. An inch-deep puddle spreads apologetically across the front of the stage like a roof leak. 

There are a couple of arresting visual moments when a bank of sewing machines drop from the sky for the spinning sequence and later when the Dutchman's sailors emerge from the hold tinted ghostly green. But otherwise it's relentlessly grim to watch, and the lack of light rapidly irritates.

A better musical performance might have minimised the damage, but only Anja Kampe's searingly bright and fearless Senta struggled through it with unqualified credit.

Bryn Terfel was not up to his best, uncharacteristically subdued and opaque. To some extent this is demanded in a production which focusses on Senta, but he seemed to have little to offer vocally between a shout and a whisper. I find it hard to believe his voice has declined that much in the year or so since I last heard him, so I hope it's just a short-term health problem. His diction was superb and words immaculately pointed though.

Hans-Peter König's Daland was robustly sung though under-characterised. Torsten Kerl's manic Erik sounded strangulated, and his bleached mullet hurt my eyes nearly as much as the lousy lighting.

But perhaps the best singing came from the well-drilled chorus, who also showed more enthusiasm than anyone else on stage for the dreary production.

Although the Royal Opera House orchestra played very well, Marc Albrecht sanded down and whitewashed every ounce of genuine drama from the music, substituting theatrical mannerism.  Excessively slow passages jarred against sprightly songs in a way which did credit to neither. A neatly-constructed and stirring score became interminably long and unforgiveably tedious. And how could an overture played that fast sound that dull? 

When at the end Senta lay down and expired in the middle of the empty stage (no redemption here), I knew how she felt.

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REVIEWS - a very mixed bag for this one

Rupert Christiansen in the Daily Telegraph - "unmissable"
Edward Seckerson in the Independent - "one of those rare evenings in the opera house that has you sitting so far forward in your seat that every muscle in your body is aching by close of play"
MusicOMH.com - "failed to live up to expectations"
George Hall in The Stage - "some thrilling playing and conductor Marc Albrecht does an impressive job"
Barry Millington in the Evening Standard - "a far cry from the thrilling productions seen in Germany in recent decades"
Musicalcriticism.com - "prevents us from engaging with the characters on a human level"
Richard Fairman in the FT - "The performances of the two central characters .... are so compelling that there is hardly time to focus on anything else"
Neil Fisher in the Times - "the strongest argument in favour of this unsentimental night at the opera comes from the pit"
Andrew Clements in the Guardian - "Tim Albery's staging is built around Bryn Terfel's haunted portrayal of the Dutchman, and the bass-baritone unquestionably delivers"

 

Production photos: Clive Barda
Curtain call photos: intermezzo.typepad.com

Jane Birkin - still charmante after all these years

Jane Birkin - Barbican, 21 February 2009

Only Jane Birkin could dress like David Brent and get away with it. Yes, even an ill-fitting waistcoat and skew-whiff tie seem effortlessly cool if they're paired with artlessly rolled shirt sleeves, casually draped braces and an adorably rumpled pixie cut.

The eternal waif and holder of the Gainsbourg flame wasn't sure whether to speak English or French to the Barbican audience, so she ended up with a bit of each. After forty years in Paris, her French is no longer the muddled gab that inspired Serge Gainsbourg's Pas Long Feu. Yet her English remains anachronistically Celia Johnson-proper.

The songs were mostly French, and mostly Serge's - Ford Mustang, Ex-Fan des Sixties, and Sous le Soleil Exactement started as she meant to go on. That tiny, tremulous voice should by rights be a passé ex-novelty, but it still sounds fresh after forty years, encompassing humour and tenderness and wistful longing. The classical solemnity of the four piece band - piano, cello, double bass and acoustic guitar - benefitted some songs more than others.

For Yesterday Yes a Day, she abandoned the stage and wandered amongst her adoring audience toting a microphone in one hand and a lightbulb-budded umbrella in the other. A magical inspiration that converted any remaining doubters.

There was a little - just a little - politics with Jane's own song Aung San Suu Kyi. And interleaved between the Gainsbourgs were Beth Gibbons's Strange Melody, Tom Waits's Alice and a few whimsical self-penned numbers from her latest album, Enfants d'Hiver. But as ever it was the Gainsbourg that everyone wanted most. As she launched into Je suis venu te dire que je m'en vais, it seemed the evening was about to end, but, no, she managed Les P'tits Papiers and a couple more before leaving.

  

 

 

 

 

Mariinsky Theatre's Ring Cycle at Covent Garden - all the details

As previously announced here (and only here!) Valery Gergiev's Mariinsky Theatre are bringing their big bad Ring Cycle to The Royal Opera House this summer.

Performance dates and prices are:

DAS RHEINGOLD Wednesday 29 July at 7.30pm
DIE WALKÜRE Thursday 30 July at 5pm
SIEGFRIED Friday 31 July at 5pm
GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG Saturday 1 August at 4pm

TICKETS prices for the complete four night cycle range from £40 (standing) to £840 for the best seats. That's a little bit more than regular ticket prices, but considering it on a cost-per-minute basis may soften the blow a little.

Booking opens on 24 March for Friends of the Royal Opera House and 28 April for mere mortals.

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And the Royal Opera House now have an official Mariinsky page! It's here.

The detailed seating plan with ticket prices can be found at the foot of this page.

Gustavo Dudamel in rehearsal with the Philharmonia

Given that the Philharmonia's Saturday evening concert with Gustavo Dudamel and Emanuel Ax sold out weeks in advance, I was surprised at the sparse attendance for the final rehearsal earlier in the day. Perhaps people aren't aware that the Philharmonia open some of their rehearsals to the public (the list is here) for a very reasonable £3. (The LSO do too - here's the next one - but the LPO are more secretive.)

Not that rehearsals are a complete substitute for the real thing, but at the very least you gain some insight into the way a conductor works and what he thinks about a piece. I struck lucky here. Dudamel knew the work (Mahler 5 and Mozart's Piano Concerto no 17) so well a score was unnecessary. And the Philharmonia were clearly well-drilled too, only the pizzicato viola sounding completely unrehearsed. All that was needed was to align minds at a few key points.

Dudamel took each movement of the Mahler straight, then went back through a staggering number of individual points he'd somehow managed to retain in his head. He doesn't talk much, but he does sing plenty: "is like di-di-da-da-da-DA-DA-di - yes! more DA-DA-DA!" As he bounced around the podium in a bright orange jumper, his enthusiasm could not have failed to touch every single member of that orchestra. And yet he proved the received wisdom that he's fuelled by passion alone is quite wrong-headed. His tweaks were specific and sensible, with instructions like reducing vibrato or volume directed at balance and textural clarity.

The Mozart seemed so polished it barely needed rehearsing, but of course it got one anyway, with Emanuel Ax adding plenty of (sadly inaudible) comments at each break.

I only took a couple of pictures - mostly because a couple of professional photographers were there taking loads from all angles. With luck they may turn up on the Philharmonia website at some point.

Bryn Terfel performs for free in Covent Garden

 

“It was worse than singing any aria on stage here but I had to get up and sing my anthem".

 

While I was sitting in the Royal Opera House on Saturday afternoon watching Mark Elder put the orchestra through their paces in the first Capuleti rehearsal, Bryn teh Chin was in the pub round the corner watching the Welsh rugby team put England through theirs.

 

The ROH orchestra's performance may have improved as the afternoon went on, but the England team's didn't. This left Bryn - the only Welshman in the bar - to celebrate a rare national victory with a solo performance of the Welsh national anthem in front of a pub-full of lucky punters, as he told Karen Price of the Western Mail here.

 

Another reporter on the Brynterview bandwagon was the Independent's Christina Patterson:

 

"smouldering poses…..at ease in his own skin……it's like being dipped in the darkest, most expensive chocolate you can buy, and being rolled around in it….. purring…..our knees are almost touching…..a gaze that bores into your soul…..quite simply, magnetic…..almost overwhelming…..has me fumbling…..gentle smile…..too, too solid chest…..fainting with delight…..shrieking orgasmic approval....."

 

More moist impressions here.

La Vita Nuova - not so new after all

Vladimir Martynov: La Vita Nuova - LPO / Jurowski - Royal Festival Hall, 18 February 2009

Oh Vlad, Vlad, where do I begin? You and your efforts for make better cultural understanding of British peoples. We know you care. If you'd never had a musical training, you'd have ended up as one of those nerdy boys forever foisting unwanted mixtapes on reluctant girls. Come to think of it, tonight's opera was sort of like a mixtape, wasn't it? Or perhaps mish-mash. Vladimir Martynov chucked in every style from Gregorian chant to tone-row. All filtered through a mesh of workaday minimalism to remove unwanted lumps of originality. 

But how hard you worked to make it sound fresh and exciting! How rigorously you drilled your troops! I can't remember the last time I heard the LPO play with such brilliance and precision, though it was probably the last time I heard them conducted by you. The EuropaChorAkademie too, not only singing immaculately, but mastering all that shuffling around, trooping in and out to some baffling choreographic purpose.  

And how kind of the LSO to lend you Carmine Lauri to lead the band - what an undervalued musician he is, and how inspiring.

All the soloists were simply brilliant - Mark Padmore was your best catch (though whenowhen will he grow out that hideous Danny Dyer's Deadliest Men haircut?). He sang the lumpy recits and bellowed the leaden chants with grace and conviction, though he didn't reach full steam until the second half's faux-Liebestod with lovely Tatiana Monogarova. This was my favourite bit, even if "sweet death come to me" repeated over and over with syrupy violins behind doesn't start to capture the redemptive power of the ultimate sacrifice, the triumph of love over life itself. But we can't all be Richard Wagner, eh?

I quite liked the mini-requiem that came after too. Très Fauré. What a pity a chunk of the already-sparse audience left at half-time and missed it. But I expect you noticed that yourself anyway, Vlad. After all, you started each half facing the audience. Was there a reason for that? But at least it added some visual interest. As did placing Mark Padmore and the three sweet little boy trebles around the auditorium now and again. Is that what you'd call semi-staging? I was happy just contemplating the adorable way your hair kinks where you've taken out your ponytail elastic, but others are less easily pleased, so thanks for your consideration. By the way, you have such lovely shiny hair - what conditioner do you use? (Email me privately if you're shy).

I've heard one new operatic masterpiece this week, though you won't be surprised to hear, Vlad, it wasn't this one. I never even worked out what it was all about.

But I don't want you to stop trying. London desperately - desperately - needs you and your vision. We cannot live on Mahler alone. We need you to bring us stuff of all sorts, music we'd never get a chance to hear otherwise. So thank you. Sorta.

Hay look, it's Saint Vlad:

~~~~~~more photos over teh page~~~~~~~~

How much are opera composers paid?

Le Monde took a look at this intriguing question.

They didn't get any firm numbers. But Philippe Boesmans, whose new opera Yvonne, princesse de Bourgogne premiered at the Opéra de Paris in January hinted that he was able to live 'comfortably' for the three years it took him to write it. And he added that each time it's performed, he'll receive a royalty.

Gerard Mortier, director of the Paris Opera, wouldn't give figures either. But he said the conductor and the director both get paid more than the composer. Philip Glass is the best-paid contemporary composer, and he receives roughly the same as the director of a three-house co-production. 

Older operas are cheaper to stage, because there are no royalties payable. Intellectual property rights enter the public domain 70 years after the death of the composer or librettist, whichever is later. So the royalty costs of staging operas by Richard Strauss, who died in 1949, are the same as living composers. (Making 19th century warhorses all the more appealing to cash-strapped opera houses).

The words 'undervalued' and 'underpaid' come to mind.

Radu Lupu returns

Radu Lupu's self-imposed exile from London is at an end. An occasional visitor at best recently, the Howard Hughes of the piano is set to become its Lindsay Lohan as he schedules a massive three - yes three - concerts in London this year.

On 1 October, he performs Mozart's great Piano Concerto No 20 with Sir Colin Davis and the LSO at the Barbican. A repeat of the concert on 4 October is a sign that it may be recorded for the LSO Live record label - and that would be another scarce occurrence.

On 11 December Lupu visits the Royal Festival Hall for Beethoven's Emperor Concerto with Jukka-Pekka Saraste and the LPO.

His transcendental grace and poetry are rare and precious, and his London performances in 2007 and 2008 were ecstatically-received and near-impossible to get tickets for, so early booking would be smart.

No Grigory Sokolov at the Southbank

 

Visa problems have again made Italy-based Russian pianist Grigory Sokolov cancel a London booking. After last year's Barbican concert was called off at short notice comes the news that he won't be visiting the Royal Festival Hall on 29 April as planned.

The issue is that as a non-EU visitor he needs a visa to enter the UK. In the past, someone else could have organised and collected this for him. But with the new-style 'fingerprint' requirements, he has to present his digits in person to be inked and stamped at an authorised British Consulate office. (The visa arrangements for British visitors to Russia are different, but equally tiresome, by the way).

The difficulty for Sokolov is that he lives in Verona, and the nearest office is in Rome, a long exhausting drive, several hours away. Is it worth the sacrifice of time and sanity - on top of the long trip to London in April - just to entertain a British audience for an hour or so?  It seems Sokolov thinks not, so we won't be seeing him.

The Southbank were clearly well-prepared for red tape to stop play. They've arranged a replacement concert at suspiciously short notice - Angela Hewitt will tackle Bach's Goldberg Variations on the date that Sokolov was due to perform.

EXCLUSIVE!!! - Covent Garden premiere for Mariinsky Ring

The Mariinsky Theatre's Ring Cycle is to receive its London premiere at the Royal Opera House this summer.

The production, which opened in St Petersburg in 2003 and visited Cardiff in 2006, has met a mixed reception on its extensive travels so far.

Some criticised 'Production Supervisor' (oh yus) Valery Gergiev for sporting one hat too many.  "Bereft of ideas and dramatic interaction between the characters" was a typical response. Many found the soloists less than ideal: not all the Mariinsky singers are of the exemplary calibre we heard at last week's Barbican performances. Add to that Gergiev's notoriously hot-cold conducting and the results are unpredictable.

But still, as the Times puts it "Even a mediocre Ring is better than none at all".

Dates and ticket information to be announced soon.

 

 

 

 

all photos © Valentin Baranovsky 2007

Lights out at the Royal Opera House! Into the Little Hill premieres in bar after power cut

Into the Little Hill / Down by the Greenwood Side - Royal Opera House, 14 February 2009

***now updated with review links - scroll down***

Oh yus! Just one week after a snow-bound Die Tote Stadt was cancelled, disaster shunted another Covent Garden performance off stage. But this time, thanks to the iron will and smart thinking of composer/conductor George Benjamin, this Show Went On.

First up was a glitch-free performance of Birtwistle’s brief Down by the Greenwood Side, a burst of twisted musical and physical aggression that's long on the spoken word, short on musical incident, more like soundtracked theatre than opera. In John Fulljames's vagrant Punch and Judy show the violence was  elevated to ritual status. Excellent performances from actors, singer (Claire Booth) and the London Sinfonietta.

Ten minutes into the London premiere of Benjamin's own Into the Little Hill, the Linbury lighting fizzled away into blackness, followed swiftly by the music.  A 'technical problem' which they hoped to fix 'soon' was announced. After a long, long wait in the gloom, punctuated by increasingly resigned updates, we were finally released into the fully lit Linbury bar to enjoy a drink on the house and await further instruction.

People started melting away. The CCTV screen showed a still-dark stage. The singers, Claire Booth and Susan Bickley, joined us. Not promising. But George Benjamin had an idea. The oldest one in the book maybe, but don't knock it, it works. If you can't get the audience in to the show, bring the show to the audience.

And thus it came to pass, at 10.30, more than an hour after the performance should have ended, it began -- in the bar of the Linbury Studio. A hefty chunk of the audience had already disappeared. No problem, more space for the rest of us. We took our seats on the floor, on the steps and around the scattered tables. George Benjamin shoehorned the London Sinfonietta into a semicircle, with the two singers leaning against the bar behind.

the singers
 

the audience
 

the band

................ but wut happened next .................?

Hook up Handel with Portsmouth Model Boat Display Team says Joanna MacGregor

 

Bath Music Festival has been branching out beyond the traditional concert format since Joanna MacGregor took over in 2005.

This year on 26 May, the action shifts to the Roman Baths for a waterborne concert featuring the music of Handel, with new lyrics telling the story of the 1759 Battle of Quiberon Bay.

Amongst the actors, singers and musicians will be Portsmouth Model Boat Display Team operating radio-controlled models of 18th century ships. Without vibrato.

And time will of course be found for Handel's Water Music.

How Bath got its name - the Roman Baths: 
 

Liven up Handel with hookers says Rupert Christiansen

Most people go to the opera for the opera, but not, apparently, the Daily Telegraph's opera critic Rupert Christiansen.

"What interested me" about Opera by Definition's Tamerlano in Tunbridge Wells he said "was that the Tunbridge Wells Opera House is actually a small Victorian music hall converted into a J D Wetherspoon gastropub."

But not even microwaved lasagne and banoffee pie washed down with a choice of six lagers could cheer Britain's grumpiest critic. "Plucky" was as far as he went with the praise.

He does hint how to get a better review in future though. "Next time, they could even arrange for a few prostitutes to drop by, which would certainly liven things up further."

All in the interests of historically Handelian authenticity, of course.

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A swift primer for overseas readers:

Tunbridge Wells:
 

JD Wetherspoon:
 

Rupert Christiansen:

Tamerlano:

a flying Brynterview

 

Last night I went to the Royal Opera House to find out about Tim Albery's new production of Der fliegende Holländer, which opens later this month. The ROH run these 'Insight Evenings' for most productions. There's no fixed format. Live music, talk, background, lectures, recordings - anything or anyone can appear, sometimes even the stars of the show. And that's exactly what we got here. Not just the lovely Anja Kampe (Senta) but the Welsh Dutchman himself, Bryn Terfel. Atoning for past absences maybe? No-one dared to probe that particular issue.

Instead, Bryn answered some more general questions.

He talked about how he prepares for a role, learning by repetition, singing wherever he can, at home or in the car "taking the kids to choir practice". What he sung when he was starting out, like Mozart, was easy to learn. But this is different - once a singer moves on to Wagner, there's no time for a social life. He'll just go straight to the music room when he gets home and open a bottle of red wine.

His first (and to date only) Dutchman was the WNO's 2006 production. But when he looked at the music again three months ago he could remember nothing. It was like looking at a new score. (Too much red wine perhaps?  asked Anja Kampe. We all giggled.)

Studying the discography helps as well. He prefers what he called 'old fashioned' singing, because of the way with words. Diction is very important for Bryn. "The three boys think I'm absolutely crazy" he said (it was so touching how many times he sneaked his kids into the conversation.)

George London's widow gave Bryn some of the great man's marked-up scores, and Bryn was amazed to find he can "cut and paste" London's comments - he had "exactly the same problems" in the same places.

It was clear his feelings about David Pountney's WNO Dutchman were, er, 'mixed'. He prefers traditional productions, so he had to swallow his disappointment when he found out this one was set in outer space. He didn't like the raked stage either. That's partly for health reasons - two of his three back operations followed working on sloping stages.

He's already counted the steps behind the rake in Tim Albery's new set - fifteen, he announced disapprovingly. But he'll get on with it. That's not the only physical trial - he'll also have to tug a rope so heavy it floored a stagehand. (We looked at some design slides later - all wellies and scaffolding - very grim). But he sounded optimistic overall and claimed he's more prepared now than he was first time round. We shall see!

Rufus Wainwright: "the opera world is in a very desperate place right now"

Rufus Wainwright (whose opera Prima Donna will premiere in Manchester) begs for a backstabbing:

"I would say the majority of opera critics are waiting in the wings with long daggers waiting for me to trip. I think it’s the nature of that perfection and that universe; the opera world is in a very desperate place right now. They’ve been able, largely, to keep the daily world out of their affairs but now with both arts funding dissipating and their public getting older and no longer buying tickets, they have to really lower themselves in order to survive. They really had no choice but to work with people like me who aren’t as refined or as educated or classically trained as they are. But I’m excited to be abused by them – you know, I’m gay; it’s one of the perks."

(from the Daily Telegraph's transcription of his recent Oxford Union Q&A session)

 

Rigoletto humps again at the Royal Opera House

Rigoletto - Royal Opera House, 10 February 2009

No wonder David McVicar likes to direct his own revivals. When it's left to someone else, as it was here, you can see just what McVicar adds.  He turns mere singers into McKellens and Denchs, titans of the stage, living, breathing characters. Subtract that and what's left is stylish but conservative window-dressing, Zeffirelli with t1ts. Everyone in this Rigoletto stood in the correct place and pointed in the right direction. But blank what-do-I-do-next faces and stock gestures don't make for compelling drama.

Conductor Daniel Oren's turgid pacing didn't help. In a few places, like the final act's storm scene, the music really came alive. The rest was ponderous and drab, sucking the life out of this most vital of operas drip by drip.

There were at least a few decent individual performances, though none of them came in the bewb'n'botty-splattered first scene. Perhaps they were distracted by the bared flesh wobbling away in all directions. At any rate, only the ever-dependable Iain Paterson as Monterone could summon up a creditable performance.  Francesco Meli yelped like the understudy of an understudy; Leo Nucci simply shouted his way through. Car-crash stuff.

But something must have happened in the two long minutes it took the huge revolving set to squeak its castle wall side around 180' and display the humble shack hidden behind. When they came back Francesco Meli displayed a firm metallic light tenor, like a sort of heavyweight JDF. the sound is thrilling, even if not every note's quite on target. But he was no master of the court, let alone a rampant testosterone-fuelled predator - more like the Duke's kid brother in fact. It's not easy to be secksy in striped pantaloons but better direction might have lent him some authority. Or he could just watch Kurt Rydl, whose Sparafucile was positively scary.

Leo Nucci was - well - Leo Nucci. Maybe no longer the finest Verdi baritone around in terms of strictly technical beauty. The voice is rubbed bare in rather too many patches for that. But full of colour and character, and still able to sustain a melting legato.

For a soprano with Olympia on her resume, Ekaterina Siurina's top notes were surprisingly tentative, and once or twice craftily dodged altogether. But she has a naturally beautiful, silvery tone (and the most unbelievable Slavic cheekbones) and her Gilda was sweet and affecting. Probably the best performance of the night, certainly the most consistent.

There was plenty of enthusiastic ovating, some of it over the top of the music, but more of the glitter drops off this production each time it's aired. It's obviously tempting for Covent Garden to bring back its guaranteed bankers time after time, but they need more care the older they get, not less.

   

     

London Philharmonic Orchestra £10 ticket offer

Just £10 yes £10 will buy you the best available ticket (worth up to £38) for the premiere of Vladimir Martynov’s opera Vita Nuova at the Royal Festival Hall on 18 February in a concert performance from Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

The discount is only available for phone bookings and the top secret password is 'Almeida offer'.

Contact either: London Philharmonic Orchestra Ticket Office: 020 78404242 Mon-Fri, 10am-5pm, no booking fee, or Southbank Centre Ticket Office: 0870 6632530 daily, 9am-8.30pm, booking fee applies.

I can't recommend it because I haven't heard it - though I have to admit what little of Martynov's music I've been exposed to so far has struck me as unpromising retro kitsch. But the samples on the LPO site (check the link above) suggest something of a more liturgical bent - John Tavener meets Mills & Boon maybe. Who knows - at £10 a ticket it's gotta be worth the risk anyway, rite?

Murray Perahia Handels his Brahms better than his Beethoven

Murray Perahia - Barbican, 5 February 2009

Bach Partita No 1 in B flat
Mozart Sonata in F Major, K332
Beethoven 'Appassionata' Sonata Op 57
Brahms Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel

Encores: Schubert Impromptus in A flat major and E flat major

Every Murray Perahia recital I've planned to attend in recent years has been cancelled due to his recurring hand problems. So it was a relief to finally hear him, in what sounded like perfect digital health.

Perahia's technique is built on the foundation of his powerful fingers, which enable ultra-precise articulation, a firm and even placement of every single note. No skipped semiquavers, no smudged runs, and no crafty crime-concealing pedalling required. If the injury or the passing years have diminished his immaculate technique in any way, then it escaped my ears. He remains one of the most outstandingly flawless technicians around.

This served him well in his Bach and Mozart. Neither could really be called searching interpretations, but Perahia's touch was light and precise, and the freshly-laundered charm went a long way.

He came to grief in the Appassionata. There are a million different ways to play this, but they all demand a certain improvisatory quality and, at times, the sense that the pianist is performing at his very limits. Perahia played it like Fred Astaire would have danced it, slipping over the keys with the greatest of ease. It wasn't terrible, it just --- wasn't right.

On to Brahms' inventive Handel Variations, and once more Perahia's superlative technical command could shine. The twenty-five variations and fugue are based on just eight bars of original music. The relentlessly formal AABB structure of each variation could easily pale, but Perahia subtly shaded each repeat as well as each variation, connecting them gracefully with the tiniest pause and seamless shifting of tempo and dynamic.  Perahia seemed to find delight in the dancing rhythms and physical sparkle of the writing, and his playing came alive.

Called back for two encores (and the packed audience wanted even more) Perahia abandoned himself in a couple of Schubert's Impromptus, for once sounding as fresh-minted as their title suggests.