Intermezzo

Gerald Barry's Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest - Barbican Hall, 26 April 2012

If I could pick just one ENO opera to revive, it would have to be Gerald Barry' s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant from 2005, an aural health hazard that taxed singers, orchestra and audience in equal measure and different ways. Detractors loathed the relentless volume and sonic density; fans identified a cogent sense of humour and a refreshing unwillingness to please wrapped up in a unique compositional voice.

Der Freischutz at the Barbican

Der Freischütz (in concert) - LSO / Davis - Barbican Hall, 19 & 21 April 2012

As a music drama, Der Freischütz is problematical, inherently fractured by the interpolated speech sections. In the theatre, the visual element provides some compensatory continuity - it's this basic structural issue as much as the content of the story that encourages contemporary directors to lard the work in Konzept. But in concert, it's almost inevitable that the talky bits come across as mere chat between numbers. The English language narration commissioned here to replace the original German dialogue only magnified that effect, breaking the spell with unfortunate regularity. And so, despite high musical values, these two performances failed to gather any real dramatic momentum.

Superman sleeve

Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, New Trombone Collective, Navarra Quartet - Barbican, 9 April 2012

Although it was billed as a collaboration with Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessner, the new song cycle Sufjan Stevens presented on Monday night at the Barbican sounded pretty much like all his own work. Or at least more like his last album than theirs.

Gergiev Moneyov

Thanks to reader Benedict for spotting a special offer on next week's Verdi Requiem at the Barbican with Gergiev and his Mariinsky ensemble. Soloists are Victoria Yastrebova, Olga Borodina, Sergei Semishkur and Ildar Abdrazakov.  

Lastminute.com are offering best-available tickets for just £15 (originally up to £65).

Alternatively, you could scoot over to the Barbican website, where loads of seats have been 'dynamically priced' down to £15-£25, around half what some of them were originally going for. (Now, should we tell the Barbican why their advance sales are down this season - or just let them guess?)

Half price Dvorak opera at the Barbican

And it's not Rusalka. Jiří Bělohlávek conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra and a mostly native cast in a rare semi-staged performance of Dvořák's The Jacobin at the Barbican on Saturday 4 February.

Call the Barbican Box Office on 020 7638 8891 and quote 'Evening Standard Offer' or book on the Barbican website using the promotional code 260310.  Stalls tickets as little as £10!

Barbican 2012 - 2013 season revealed

After the usual tedious technical glitches,  details of the Barbican Centre's 2012 - 2013 classical music season are finally up on their website.

It begins on a high as Sir Colin Davis celebrates his 85th birthday with the piano partnership of Radu Lupu and Mitsuko Uchida on 27 September 2012. But there are no visits from European symphony orchestras (presumably three concerts from the highly-paid LA Phil  don't come cheap) and far fewer must-sees than in previous years.

The main strengths in the recitals programme, which includes a one week residency from Juan Diego Florez  and solo recitals from Elina Garanca, Cecilia Bartoli, Renée Fleming and Joyce DiDonato (who also joins JDF in his residency). Pianists include the familiar faces of Evgeny Kissin, Stephen Hough and Murray Perahia, and there's a welcome return to the stage from Maxim Vengerov. 

Operas (in concert) include Donizetti's Belisario (conducted by Sir Mark Elder), Handel's Radamisto and rare Imeneo (with David Daniels and Lucy Crowe), The Turn of the Screw and Lully's Phaéton. 

Booking opens online to Barbican Red Members 23 Jan,  Orange Members 26 Jan and everyone else 30 Jan.

Fiver Seasons

The Seasons - Gabrieli Consort & Players / Paul McCreesh - Barbican, 14 January 2012

I hadn't originally intended to go to this. Two and a half hours of Haydn is always a risky proposition, and the Barbican's eyewatering ticket prices this season (up to £45 for this one) have made me cut back significantly on what I see there. But a last minute offer via Twitter - all seats just £5 - made it unmissable (and pretty much packed out the house). If they'd priced it more sensibly to begin with, they wouldn't have needed to discount tickets - when will they and ENO grasp this simple premise?

Sixteen sing Saul

Saul - The Sixteen - Barbican Hall, 22 November 2011

The Barbican planners cocked up last night. As Handel competed with Opera North's Queen of Spades in the main theatre for the same punters, predictably neither sold out. I suspect the Handel fans were the best-behaved. No mobile phones, no crackly sweeties, no aria-applause, barely a cough - I haven't seen manners like this since Bayreuth. But then Harry Christophers didn't leave a millisecond of fidgeting space in either half - his greatest achievement perhaps being to integrate the musical interludes into the drama in a natural, flowing way. The pace was relentless but the focus was total, with just a brisk twenty minute interval cleaving the three and a half hours.

Say Nyet to Spanx

Olga Borodina / Dmitri Yefimov - Barbican, 7 October 2011

 

Which Russian diva is sticking to her red bikini briefs - even if they do only make them in extra-small these days?

Ariodante at the Barbican - it's Joyce DiDonato's night

Ariodante - Barbican, 25 May 2011

Nice singers, shame about the band. Anyone who came to hear Joyce DiDonato won't have been disappointed. Costumed as Ronnie O'Sullivan for her cross-dressing title role in this concert performance, she outclassed everyone else on stage with her clean line and crisp coloratura.

Pelleas et Melisande with Dessay and Keenlyside

Pelléas et Mélisande - Barbican, 19 April 2011

Pelléas et Mélisande is undoubtedly a tough opera to pull off, but a French orchestra and mostly French cast at least brought a bit of Gallic authenticity to the Barbican's concert version (as concocted for the Théatre des Champs-Elysées in Paris). With singers all parked behind music stands, Natalie Dessay's beaded gown provided the only visual reference to Debussy's opera. Crystals sparkled like stars on black chiffon above a hem embroidered with foaming waves - the dark night and the restless sea in a size 36.

Orlando furioso at the Barbican

Orlando furioso (concert performance) - Barbican, 27 March 2011

Nurtured by recently-departed general manager Dominique Meyer (now installed at the rather grander Vienna State Opera), baroque opera has flourished in recent years at the Théatre des Champs-Elysées in Paris. Earlier this month, a Pierre Audi production of Vivaldi's Orlando Furioso premiered there to acclaim. Its bedrock was Jean-Christophe Spinosi's Ensemble Matheus and most of the cast he first brought together for his benchmark 2005 recording and later toured to the Edinburgh Festival and beyond.

Pub opera for posh people

A Magic Flute - Barbican Theatre, 23 March 2011

 

Proof that even geniuses have off days. Peter Brook's A Magic Flute (note the indefinite article) is the great director's interpretation of Mozart's Zauberflöte.

Pared down to the absolute minimum, he believes it throws an intimate and spiritual light on the masterpiece. What it actually does is stick a bunch of wispy-voiced young singers in a forest of portable garden canes with naught but a piano in support.

Secondary characters like Boys and Ladies are excised. Spiel is trimmed and en français. A couple of dreadlocked actors (the only real sign of life) are employed to patch up the holes left by all this snipping and shaving.

The result is a bore and a half, with a mildly nauseating aura of hushed reverence about it. Mozart's music is the beating heart of his opera, not an optional extra. Brook of all people should realise this. Or perhaps he does - the show runs at 90 minutes without an interval - so no escape for the terminally enervated.

The Barbican had the cheek to charge up to £50 for tickets. You could find something considerably livelier at any pub opera night - and with better singing.

This is an opera I love beyond reason, and it can stand up to a lot of abuse - think of the brilliant South African version at the Young Vic a couple of years ago. Peter Brook goes a cut too far.

yea verily the Berlin Philharmonic have walkethed among us

Berlin Philharmonic / Simon Rattle - Barbican and Southbank, 20 - 23 February 2011

If you've been reading the papers over the past few days, you might be forgiven for thinking you'd missed the Second Coming. 

The Berlin Philharmonic's four back-to-back nights in London have been greeted by near-universal gushing, including an emotional Guardian editorial invoking Karajan and Furtwängler. Has there been anything quite that overheated since, well, since the last time we had Berliners over? - Daniel Barenboim and his "handsome mahogany-toned Staatskapelle Berlin" to be precise.

And did they earn it?

 

The Dude hits town

Los Angeles Philharmonic / Gustavo Dudamel - Barbican, 27 January 2011

The first thing that strikes you about the LA Philharmonic is how un-American they sound. We associate US visitors with breathtaking technical precision and an air of cool detachment, yet the Californians dug in with the fire and passion of a native orchestra, rough edges and all. It's a sound they developed way before the arrival of Dudamel, though he's clearly a good fit.

Barbican 2011-2012 classical music season announced

 
'Announced' might not be the right word - 'tucked away on the website' is more like it. If you want to take a look, start with this page. Booking dates are unhelpfully not mentioned, but presumably imminent.

Opera, etc
There's plenty of opera, and it's not all baroque for a change. The highlight has to be the Mariinsky's Parsifal with Gergiev on 3 April 2012. On  22 February 2012 Louis Langree and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie tackle La Clemenza di Tito with a cast that includes Michael Schade and Elina Garanca. Opera North visit the Barbican Theatre for the first time in November 2011, bringing The Queen of Spades and Ruddigore with them. The European premiere of Gerald Barry's The Importance of Being Earnest with Thomas Ades and the BCMG on 26 April 2012 is a must-see. The BBCSO's concert staging of Dvorak's The Jacobin on 4 February 2012 is another rarity worth catching. And for Philip Glass fans, his breakthrough work Einstein on the Beach comes to the Barbican Theatre in May 2012. Andris and Elgar? The CBSO bring The Dream of Gerontius on 14 April 2012. Karita Mattila joins Esa-Pekka Salonen on 30 May 2012 to premiere a new work.

Orchestral
Have the Vienna Philharmonic been listening to my whinging? Finally they schedule a conductor who isn't Lorin Maazel. Simon Rattle it is, on 17 June 2012.  Martha Argerich is the guest soloist with the St Petersburg Philharmonic on 24 March 2012. There are three visits from the Concertgebouw: with Harnoncourt and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis on 22 April, all Strauss with Jansons on 12 May and Haitink's Bruckner 5 on 20 May. The Leipzig Gewandhaus and New York Philharmonic each have a short residency - the latter includes Joyce DiDonato singing Les Nuits D’été. Full LSO season details are also available (though, strangely, not on their own website).

Recitals
Fewer than usual perhaps, but a choice bunch, including Olga Borodina on 7 Oct 2011, Dmitri Hvorostovsky on 21 Oct 2011, Evgeny Kissin and Andreas Scholl.

Cecilia Bartoli proves Handel has no rivals

Cecilia Bartoli - Barbican, 9 December 2010

On a cold, damp winter's night with the Barbican totally bereft of sandwiches (again), half its ladies loos out of action (still) and bar staff who chuck ice into into your essential V&T without even asking - that's when you need Cecilia Bartoli, reliable bearer of warmth and sunshine and seasonal cheer.

Alcina at the Barbican

Alcina - Barbican, 4 December 2010

This was billed as a concert performance of Handel's Alcina, but it wasn't one of those nose-in-book affairs. With the musicians and most of the cast fresh from a fully-staged version at Vienna's Staatsoper (the first baroque opera there in 40 years!), the awkwardly wide Barbican stage was put to good use for once. Singers sang to each other not their scores, toyed with improbable props (a sheet of paper for an urn....please), and faux 18th century settees were distributed on either side of an orchestra twice the size of Handel's. But then Marc Minkowski's approach to period performance has never been the emaciated doctrinaire type. Vibrato was flaunted, instrumental soloists stepped up front to do their bit.

Arcadi Volodos and Riccardo Chailly with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig / Riccardo Chailly / Arcadi Volodos - Barbican, 2 December 2010

I probably would have skipped this boxful of Russian-Italian soft centres if it hadn't been for the presence of Arcadi Volodos, a pianist revered across the Channel, but unfairly dismissed over here as a mere banger. Though it's true he can be inconsistent, either Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra or Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto clearly brought out his best.

the Colin Davis workout

LSO / Colin Davis / Anne-Sophie Mutter - Barbican, 10 October 2010

Riccardo Muti's off sick till who knows when. James Levine looked frailer than a baby at Saturday's Wagnerthon. Sir Colin Davis is senior to both but seems, remarkably, in the rudest of health. He scampered up the stage steps, sprang on to the podium with a kittenish leap and carved his baton through the air like an Italian traffic cop. Asked recently what kept him in shape for conducting, he replied "conducting". I believe him.