Die Frau ohne Schatten - Grosses Festspielhaus Salzburg, 29 July 2011 (first night)
It now seems incredible that Strauss's musically richest and most colourful opera was dismissed as 'boring' by its first critics. Christian Thielemann coaxed the Vienna Philharmonic into a display of such aural opulence on its Friday premiere that it was easy to overlook the deficiencies of Christof Loy's meagre production.
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Otello - LSO / Davis - Barbican, 3 December 2009
You sneeze, you lose. With Torsten Kerl off sick, the pages of lastminutetenor.com yielded Simon O'Neill. Not the most obvious choice of Otello, even for a concert performance like this one. Indeed you could scour the big Wagnerian's resume and find no mention of Verdi whatsoever. But his bright, hard edged voice proved an excellent fit, and his unfamiliarity with the score was barely noticeable. Now that the role is associated more with darker baritonal tenors like Domingo, the clarity and ease of O'Neill's thrilling top notes hinted at a long-gone golden age. The short-fused Moor's temper flashes perhaps didn't spark quickly enough, but it was impossible not to be moved by Otello's final agonised moments.
The rest of the casting was just as brave, and nearly as successful. The only authentic Italian in the cast was Eufemia Tufano, an understated Emilia. Desdemona's purity and incorruptibility were perfectly evoked in the unearthly silvery soprano of Anne Schwanewilms, even if her delivery was some distance north of Italianate. The London Symphony Chorus trumped her for sheer incomprehensibility though - I didn't catch one single word of their spirited singing all night.
Gerald Finley's intelligently drawn Iago schemed with devious charm. But ultimately he lacks the fundamental heft for this role, as even a golden voice spinning meticulously-crafted phrases cannot conceal. Bantamweight tenors Allan Clayton and Ben Johnson were effective as Cassio and Roderigo, and a trio of magnificent basses - Alexander Tsymbalyuk, Matthew Rose and Lukas Jakobski - rounded off the ensemble.
Sir Colin Davis, we were informed before the concert, has just been awarded the Queen's Medal for Music. Typically, he was keener to get on with the show than acknowledge the predictable ovation. His hard-driven first act lacked a degree of dramatic nuance - when everything's loud, fast and exciting, perversely, nothing is. But with the excess fuel burned off, a more measured approach proved infinitely more compelling. The second half in particular simmered and glowed, sweeping into blazing climaxes, yet eggshell-delicate beneath Desdemona's beautiful Willow Song. A rapturous intensity revealed so many details I'd never noticed before.
A recording will be stitched together from this performance and the repeat on 6 December. Not a purist's Otello perhaps but a vivid reminder that at 82, Sir Colin Davis is still on top of his game.
***** more photos on next page *****
but at least they're talking:
There's always plenty on in London musically speaking, but May looks particularly busy.
For starters, at the Royal Opera House, Diana Damrau and Giuseppe Filianoti take a roll in the hay for the first revival of Laurent Pelly's L'elisir d'amore. Il trovatore and Lohengrin are still around too.
At the ENO, David Alden's hotly-anticipated new Peter Grimes opens. Stuart Skelton, Amanda Roocroft, Gerald Finley and Felicity Palmer sing, Edward Gardner conducts. The second new production of the month is film director Abbas Kiarostami's first venture into opera, Così fan tutte.
Purcell's King Arthur is performed in concert at the Barbican on 6 May by Le Concert Spirituel. There are limited *free* tickets for under-26's for this one (check out the freeB link on the Barbican site).
17 May is Handel-fest day. Christopher Hogwood's Academy of Ancient Music bring Arianna in Creta to the Barbican. Miah Persson, Lisa Milne and Sonia Prina appear as originally scheduled, but Kristina Hammarström replaces the previously-announced Angelika Kirchschlager.
The performance starts at 6.30pm, so there should be (just) enough time to get there from Zurich Opera's Agrippina, which begins at 2pm in the Royal Festival Hall. The impressive cast joining Marc Minkowski and Zurich Opera's specialist period ensemble, Orchestra La Scintilla, includes Vesselina Kasarova, Eva Liebau, Marijana Mijanovic and Anna Bonitatibus.
The other operatic event worth mentioning is not in London at all, but in Manchester. Over two nights, 9 and 10 May, Mark Elder and the Hallé Orchestra perform Götterdämmerung in concert at the Bridgewater Hall, with Katarina Dalayman as Brünnhilde. If this was in London, tickets would go in a flash, but there are still plenty of seats available. Manchester is clearly a harder sell. It rather underlines the folly of the Royal Opera House's plans to create a Mancunian outpost. Northern opera lovers may be dedicated - there just aren't a lot of them.
On 31 May, Rene Pape joins Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO at the Royal Festival Hall for the UK premiere of Torsten Rasch's 2003 song cycle Mein Herz brennt. This is (loosely) based on the music of headbanging German industrial metallers Rammstein - a fact the Southbank promo guff intriguingly fails to mention. Not as scary as it sounds though, as the source material is engulfed by Jurowski's favoured big-boned retro-nouveau Eastern bloc neo-romanticism (or Vladcore for short).
On a smaller scale, there are lots of recitals this month, including the big one, Anna Netrebko and Dmitri Hvorostovsky at the Royal Festival Hall on 19 May.
At Wigmore Hall Kate Royal sings Schumann and Brahms on 7 May, and there's a solo recital from the great Jordi Savall the day after. On 19 May (the same date as Netrebko/Hvorostovsky unfortunately) Mojca Erdmann, Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber tackle Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch. The Wigmore's busy Haydn weekend begins on 29 May with an András Schiff lecture recital at 2pm.
And there are a few more Wigmore day time events worth mentioning. On 12 May at 2pm there's a *free* recital of Kurtag and Schubert by Jonathan Biss, which will be recorded for the Wigmore's own label. On 18 May at 1pm Anne Schwanewilms sings Debussy, Strauss and Wolf, and on 25 May at 1pm Ingrid Fliter plays Chopin and Schumann.
Philip Glass makes a rare appearance at the Barbican on 26 May for an evening of chamber music.
The fabulous Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain plink and twang at the Cadogan Hall on 5 May.
One of the most intriguing events of the month is a Barbican concert on 30 May. Various artists including the Britten Sinfonia perform the Music of Moondog , and there are companion pre, post and interval events, including an 11.30pm concert at St Giles Cripplegate, Moondog Around Midnight .
Lohengrin - Salle Pleyel, Paris, 5 February 2008
Jaap van Zweden / Klaus Florian Vogt / Anne Schwanewilms / Netherlands Radio Choir / Nederlands Radio Filharmonisch Orkest
Wagner is no less popular in Paris than anywhere else, so it was a bit surprising to see a couple of hundred empty seats at this concert performance of Lohengrin. Of course the Nederlands Radio Filharmonisch Orkest is hardly a name to draw a crowd, and it was a wet, wet night.
But the 8pm start (or more accurately, the 12.30am finish) seemed to be the root of most grumbles on the night. Several people left (reluctantly) at the intervals, more (irritatingly) during the quietest parts of the last act, and there was a mad dash for the doors at the end.
The Salle Pleyel is a starchy, institutional-looking cavern with a correspondingly big, boomy acoustic. The empty seats must have accentuated this. The hall is noted for the projection it can bring to even the smallest of ensembles. Stick 200-odd musicians on stage and imagine how that effect is magnified. Not quite surround-sound, but I was in the middle of the stalls and could close my eyes and imagine I was in the centre of an orchestra pit. It made this the perfect venue to experience Lohengrin, which really benefits texturally more from the dense tapestry rather than the filgree web approach.
The Nederlands Radio Filharmonisch may not be the most refined of orchestras, but their energy and enthusiasm go a long way, and they were focussed and attentive towards conductor Jaap von Zweden, a small purposeful-looking man resembling a stray Nibelung.
They tore into the Vorspiel like wild dogs on a rabbit, an indication of what was to come. Shimmeringly radiant strings be damned, brute strength seemed to be the template. Like many in the audience, I was taken aback by the sheer force of their delivery, magnified by Jaap von Zweden's megadecibel Motorhead dynamics. This was one night when I wouldn't have noticed if any mobile phones went off. My neighbours' conversations were completely inaudible beneath the wall of sound.
But it was a power harnessed with great discipline, not an uncontrolled rampage. He was attentive to the demands of the score, and could turn the volume right down too. Crucially, he controlled the orchestral balance, and never drowned out the singers, even the delicate-voiced Anne Schwanewilms.
The exceptional all-round quality of the singing was the real highlight of this concert though. No Wagnerian elephants bellowing at each other across the vast plains of the stage tonight. Their classic concert positioning in front of the orchestra permitted greater subtlety for one thing.
Klaus Florian Vogt's unusual combination of strength and purity makes him surely the greatest Lohengrin around right now. It's a role he's so familiar with that he was the only one of tonight's cast who performed without a score.
His charismatic performance, unwaveringly direct and honest, flawlessly precise, was simply astounding, and the stadium-sized cheer he got at the end was no surprise. Definitely worth a visit to Vienna for in May.
Anne Schwanewilms gave me some doubts to begin with. It took her a long, long time to settle in and stop pecking cautiously at notes before landing on them. But she has a sweet, silvery innocence to her voice that makes her a delightfully girlish Elsa, even if her diction is not as clear as it might be.
Her deep red velvet frock lent a bit of medieval flavour amongst all the tailcoats, but what was with the 1€ plastic butterfly clip in her hair? Why do so many singers wear these gorgeous, pricy dresses, then go and pluck their hair accessories from the bargain bin at Douglas?
Eike Wilm Schulte and Marianne Cornetti were the bad guys, Telramund and Ortrud, and a very effective couple they made. Physically as well as vocally they were perfectly (mis)matched - I would love to see these two together on stage.
Schulte was a bit shouty, which at times rather obscured otherwise very fine singing. Maybe he thought he needed to throw his voice over the orchestra, but Zweden was in fact hugely considerate of his singers, and I didn't notice any overwhelming orchestral waves.
With her Cruella de Vil dip-dyed hair - blonde at the front, flaming red at the back - and her swirling black velvet cloak, Cornetti looked more sinister than she sounded.
A wide vibrato took a while to settle, but it was her Italianate delivery, unexpected in this part and initially jarring, which proved one of the most inspired and revelatory aspects of her casting. Richly dramatic, powerful yet polished to a dark sheen, it was stunningly effective laid next to Anne Schwanewilms' ethereal lustre.
Ronnie Johansen as King Heinrich and Geert Smits as the Herald proved competent and reliable, if not as dazzling as the rest of the cast. And the Netherlands Radio Choir, all 100-ish of them, provided an incredibly high standard of support all round, with a power to match the orchestra's and an assured, accurate delivery. Presumably they had a five hour road trip straight after the concert; there was a fleet of Dutch coaches with engines running outside the Salle Pleyel when I emerged at half past midnight.
As mentioned earlier, there's a full video recording available here of the same concert as given in Amsterdam a couple of days earlier. It doesn't have the overwhelming visceral force of the live experience that makes me soooooooo glad I got to see the real thing, but at least it gives a good idea of how incredible the singing was.
Sometimes it's the background that makes the picture.....^ and v .....
Where am I today? Here's a clue:
and why? Another clue:
Tonight the Salle Pleyel in Paris presents a concert version of Lohengrin, from Jaap van Zweden and the Netherlands Radio Orchestra, with the fabulous Klaus Florian Vogt as Lohengrin and ginger singer Anne Schwanewilms as Elsa. And I'll be there.
I arranged this a while ago, and had I known an enterprising Dutch broadcaster would record the same concert in Amsterdam on Saturday and stream it for free, I'm not sure I'd have made the trip. Still, it's given me the chance to stock up on stinky cheese and Petit Bateau t-shirts.
Go here to find high quality video streaming of the full opera, audio-only alternative, interviews, libretto, full score, blog, chocolate biscuits, etc. They've really thought of everything. Except a translation - it's all in Dutch, but not too hard to follow.
***UPDATE 6/2*** - a wonderful, amazing, concert in Paris. More with pics to follow tomorrow (must get some sleep now....)
LSO/Davis/Anne Schwanewilms/Tabea Zimmermann - Barbican 12 December 2007
Back together with the team that created the marvellous (some might say definitive) 2003 recording of Berlioz's Harold in Italy, Sir Colin Davis conducted another scorching account to close this all-Berlioz concert tonight.
The colourful and characterful viola playing of Tabea Zimmerman capped a ferociously lively performance from the LSO. Even the quietest part, the chorale theme in the second movement, fizzed with energy as Zimmerman rippled out her unearthly sul ponticello arpeggios. Elsewhere, her warm, rounded tone (and what a fabulous instrument she plays) pushed out readily over the orchestra.
The oboe and cor anglais moulded together exquisitely in the mournful respite of the third movement. The massive percussion crash that signalled the start of the last movement was followed by a frantic brigands' dance where Sir Colin managed to retain control and balance despite colossal volume levels. Even a few careless lapses here and there couldn't diminish the power of the overall effect. It was one of those rare occasions I longed to hear the performance again the minute it was over.
If only the first half had been as good. The opening King Lear Overture sounded tired and tepid, and surprisingly sloppy in places.
For Les Nuits d'été, soloist Anne Schwanewilms sported the same black halter neck dress she'd worn for the second half of her debut Strauss/Mahler recital at the Wigmore Hall last week. Unfortunately the intensity and insight she'd brought to Strauss's Ophelia songs didn't transfer to tonight's Berlioz.
She deployed her laser-sharp silvery soprano cautiously. A pure and even choirboyish tone (with a curious buzz over some of the high notes) seemed all she had to offer. After several fluffed lines and some unrecognisable French, I began to wonder how far she'd studied the text. Phrasing seemed more tailored to the physical requirements of the notes than the meaning of the words. A pretty sound is not everything in this repertoire. As she fluted through, I began to long for the pointed diction and bizarre Anglo-French of the version Ian Bostridge recorded with Sir Colin last year.
It was a limp performance from a singer who is capable of much better, and it was matched by a competent but rather colourless contribution from the LSO. I don't know what they did in the interval, but it obviously worked.
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