Intermezzo

ENO's brilliant Bluebeard

Duke Bluebeard’s Castle / The Rite of Spring - ENO, 6 November 2009

Opera and ballet don’t necessarily go as well together in practice as they do in theory - witness Covent Garden’s recent Acis/Dido double bill and Opera Holland Park’s Iolanta. The most compelling argument for the Bluebeard/Rite pairing is the logistical one – you might as well use the massive orchestra Bluebeard demands for something else as well. Perhaps ENO hoped too for some cross-fertilisation of opera and dance audiences. But it’s a brief evening, and I can’t think many would be happy to pay £90 for less than an hour of opera, still less for the half hour of dance which follows. Another special discount must be on its way.

Daniel Kramer’s very graphic Bluebeard won’t please purists, but it’s riveting theatre. The reason for Clive Bayley’s quaint Austrian hunting jacket soon becomes obvious – Bluebeard is a Fritzl-like figure with a Sound of Music fixation and a secret family in the basement. His ultimate kick is to dress up as Captain von Trapp while doing something extremely nasty with a sword to his spreadeagled Julie Andrews, Judith. The grubby slasher movie set is atmospheric if not quite the castle of the soul Bartok had in mind, and its boxy shape helps the voices project over the enlarged orchestra. The dramatic pacing is fantastic – Kramer lets little clues slip here and there, but the ending is still a colossal, queasy shock.

The main drawback is the price of rounding out the enigmatic Bluebeard. In a traditional production Bluebeard’s cryptic personality is open to interpretation. A monster, a myth or simply a man? But here, as his desires and needs gain concrete form, Judith’s attraction to him becomes less and less credible. Put simply, you wonder what she’s doing there with this twitching maniacal psychopath. But it’s a brilliantly-executed alternative to the usual inevitably static alternative if you don’t think too hard. Clive Bayley’s rough around the edges voice suits the speech-like lines and he works hard to keep the demented villainy on the right side of panto. Michaela Martens is a more full-bodied mezzo than usually heard, lending her interpretation a knowing quality that doesn’t sit credibly with the easily duped young bride. But both sang clearly, accurately and loudly – basic requirements that the Coliseum doesn’t always meet.

I was less convinced by Ed Gardner’s conducting. Not on a technical level – the orchestra played excellently. But it didn’t deliver dramatically, something a less breathless production might have exposed. Gardner’s young, and he’s tackling many of the works he conducts at ENO for the first time. A conductor needs to spend time with the score as well as with the orchestra. Is he simply taking on more than he can handle?

His Rite of Spring was more accomplished – the key corners at least sounded thought-out. A pity Fabulous Beast’s dance element was so risible. If a weary parade of bog-trotter clichés didn’t diminish the timeless power of Stravinsky’s score enough, there were twenty todgers jiggling in the breeze to contend with as the male dancers disrobed en masse. To give the much-derided Calixto Bieito his due, he understands the effect of mass male nudity on stage is purely and always comedic - he could teach choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan a lesson. And I was left baffled by the ending, where the Chosen One (female) is surrounded by men in frocks. Men should take women's place? A nice bit of misogyny to go home with.

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Venezuelan invasion begins - Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra hit London

Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar / Dudamel - Royal Festival Hall, 14 April 2009 

After their amazing, unforgettable 2007 Proms concert, Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra were back in town to light up the South Bank for the first night of a short residency.

They'd won the game as soon as they stepped on stage, judging by the applause. It's an enormous band - twelve double basses, at least forty violins - but they all squeezed on somehow.

Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra was the opener, a clever choice that demonstrates clearly that the orchestra can handle more than just fiesta music, as well as providing plenty of individual chances to shine. The woodwinds were particularly impressive, their unerringly accurate intonation a rare delight south of the river, but the whole orchestra was immaculately-drilled. The size of the band provides a depth and richness of sound few conventional symphony orchestras can match, but it could also prove unwieldy. Not so in the expert hands of Gustavo Dudamel - even the quicksilver twists and turns of the last movement were crisp and fleet.

He drove Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony relentlessly.  It was exciting, edge-of-seat stuff, but at the same time I would have appreciated more subtlety here and there - the first movement's woodwind slivers airier, like glints of light on water, the brass fanfares more stately and monumental. The potential is there, and these musicians have grasped the most important lesson of all, which is how to listen and how to play as part of a greater whole. All they need now is the age and experience to hone their talents to the final degree.

The standing ovation erupted on the last note, maybe even before, and the lights dipped for a quick onstage costume change. Off came the DJs, on went the famed Venezuela jackets, and they launched into their party-piece Ginastera and Bernstein, complete with dancing violinists, twirling horns, and recklessly juggled drum sticks. The audience went wild, and wilder still as jackets were daintily removed and flung out into eagerly awaiting hands.

This orchestra doesn't produce the most refined playing you'll ever hear, but that's so far from the point it's irrelevant. What it does - and what no other orchestra right now seems able to do - is simply to bring people together in the joy of music. Simple, but not easy, and nobody does it better.

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Van Gogh illuminates Bartok - on yr TV

Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh

A genuinely innovative piece of classical music programming from BBC TV - conductor David Robertson introduces Bartók's Concerto for Two Pianos and Concerto for Orchestra by illustrating parallels with Van Gogh's compositional and painting methods, and his use of colour and line. The comparison is not quite convincing. But Robertson is an enthusiastic presenter, and where he steps away from direct parallels, his analysis is illuminating. Full performances of both pieces by the BBCSO follow.

The programme was originally broadcast last week and is available on the iPlayer until 5 March, here.

A second episode follows on 6 March - this one features Debussy and Monet.

If you would like to congratulate the BBC on doing something worthwhile with your licence fee, you can do so here.

Imogen Cooper and Fazil Say - two pianists for the price of one and a half

Imogen Cooper - Wigmore Hall, 1.00pm 23 June 2008
Fazil Say - Wigmore Hall, 7.30pm 23 June 2008

Schubert 4 Impromptus D.899
Bartók Selection from 14 Bagatelles Op. 6
Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No.13 in A minor

One day, two pianists. First up was Imogen Cooper, in one of the Wigmore Hall's bargain (£10!) Monday lunchtime recitals, broadcast live on Radio 3 (though these days the audience in the hall might be bigger than the one on the little box).

In boho-chic gunmetal silk smock floating over loose black trousers she looked the part. But as soon as she started playing, it was clear something wasn't quite right. It was as ever a meticulous and controlled performance. Ms Cooper's fingers would never dare disobey her.  But her laboured pace, monotonous dynamics and spectacularly overheld sustaining pedal suggested her mind was on matters other than Schubert. The four pieces, so different in shape and mood, blurred into one big Schubert soup. The eleven brief Bartók Bagatelles, spare-textured folk-influenced early works, suffered less. The approach was just as unvaried, but at least the foot came off the pedal here to expose delicately articulated melodic trails. The harmonic and rhythmic similarities between these pieces and the closing Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody were deftly drawn out, but the Liszt too suffered from an excess of subtlety.

Bach French Suite No. 6 in E BWV817
Bach/Say Passacaglia BWV582
Mozart Piano Sonata in A K. 331
Beethoven Piano Sonata in D minor Op. 31 No. 2 ‘The Tempest’; Piano Sonata in F minor Op. 57 ‘Appassionata’

Excessive subtlety is not an accusation you could level at the pianist on the evening shift, Fazil Say. Wringing every last drop of expressive potential out of the piano, he made Bach sound like Beethoven and Beethoven sound like Bach.   All while looking oddly like Oscar Wilde (right) with his floppy fringe and loose black velvet Chinese jacket.

Say's extreme licence with tempo and rubato won't have pleased the purists, but Bach is resilient to a surprising variety of musical 'crimes' and the hyper-romantic intepretation was energising and refreshing. Incidentally, and oddly, his own transcription of Bach's (organ) Passacaglia was the only piece Say required a score for. 

Clearly not everyone was convinced by Say, and there were more than the usual number of half time grumbles and departures - musical specifics and Say's flamboyant grunting and hair-tossing were both criticised. But whatever anyone's opinion on these, it is clear Say is a serious musician whose presentation is integral to his performance, and not simply a showman indulging in lowest common denominator theatrics.

By contrast to the Bach, his Beethoven had a quickfire clockwork precision. While there was little sense of the subliminal orchestral textures that tug at Beethoven's sonatas, Say's sheer exuberance was winning. A large part of the audience seemed to be made up of Say partisans rather than Wigmore regulars, but the enthusiasm of the final applause seemed to be pretty much general.

He finished the evening with an inspired version of Gershwin's Summertime that swept the keyboard from end to end. But his first encore was his own composition, Black Earth, which juxtaposes some cheesy sub-Michel Legrand jazz noodling with some far more interesting Turkish-inspired passages, where he reached one hand inside the piano to hold the dampers in place while he thrashed out the tune on the keys with the other. The resulting hollow plucked sound revealed the very essence of the piano - a row of metal wires whacked with wooden sticks.

Here's a video of Fazil Say playing Black Earth:

And just to show how different his approach is, here's Fazil Say playing the last movement of Beethoven's Tempest sonata (quite a bit faster than he played it at the Wigmore Hall, and on a more 'pingy' instrument):

compared with Wilhelm Kempff's version of the same:

Boulez back at the Barbican with Bluebeard

LSO/ Boulez - Barbican, 11 May 2008

Though the Royal Opera House may now be charging £19 just for a standing place, it's still possible, amazingly, to experience world-class opera in London for under £6 - and that includes a seat. That was the starting ticket price for this LSO concert, the second of two guest-conducted by the legendary Pierre Boulez.

The centrepiece of the evening was a superbly balanced and exquisitely nuanced reading of Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle - a concert version of course, but losing little from the format. Dispensing with the optional prologue and narrator gave it an immediate impact, and Boulez maintained perfect dramatic pacing throughout.

Michelle De Young, nearly a foot taller than Boulez in her heels, looked a little bizarre at his side, but her Judith had great human warmth and clarity, with an absolute mastery of line.

Peter Fried is not a familiar name to me, but he has apparently made a specialty of the role of Bluebeard. He doesn't have the biggest voice, and it disappeared under the orchestra now and again, but the world-weary tone was spot on. And it was a pleasure to hear Bartók sung in undeniably faultless native Hungarian for once.

Peter Fried was also the barely-heard but effective soloist in Schoenberg's Die glückliche Hand, the 20 minute mini-opera which opened the evening. The multilayered orchestral parts emerged with perfect clarity, even the crude circus-like offstage band, though the contributions of the BBC Singers weren't perfectly coordinated.

In between the Bartók and Schoenberg was sandwiched the UK premiere of Osiris, by German composer Matthias Pintscher, fitting so seamlessly into its surroundings that it could have been designed round them, a chink of daylight between their nightmare extremes.

Following a formal process of dispersal and reconstruction, Pintscher explores novel sonorities in glittering fragments. The boosted percussion section looked particularly taxed (and what was that vertically-bowed instrument?), but muted trumpet and bass clarinet got their rare moment in the spotlight too. The LSO executed the complicated writing with laser accuracy, and Boulez brought a sparkling clarity to the dense layers. Unlike many contemporary works, which look limp placed side by side with time-tested classics, this truly seemed to hold its own.

Sadly I won't be around when the LPO perform Pintscher's Towards Osiris on 25 May but I'd suggest it's worth checking out.

Peter Fried passed a rose he was given to an amused Boulez (his first smile of the night), who in turn presented it to LSO Leader Carmine Lauri:

Boulez at the Barbican

LSO/Boulez - Barbican, 30 April 2008

Bartók's Concerto for Two Pianos and Percussion is such a rarity on the London schedules that it's welcome no matter who's performing it.

But having been promised Lang Lang and Hélène Grimaud, I was a little disappointed to find them substituted without warning or explanation by Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich. Aimard is a great favourite of mine, he excels in Bartók, and his performance with frequent partner Stefanovich was predictably exemplary. But I still itch to hear what the man who said "If you like hip hop, then you will like Bartók" would have made of it.

The percussion soloists, the LSO's own Neil Percy and Nigel Thomas, were immaculate and unflashy, and Pierre Boulez pulled the whole thing together tautly. If it didn't have the impact of the pared-down Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion from which it is drawn, that's wasn't down to the performance, but to Bartók's sprawling arrangements, which tend to grab ideas out of the hands of the soloists only to lose them in the orchestra. That Boulez got a far warmer reception on his entrance than he did at the end of this piece reflects entirely on the material.

Boulez's thoughtful programme placed more piano work rearranged for orchestra, his own Notations, at the end of the evening.

With orchestration these become almost unrecognisable, expanded in all directions. The tablecloth size of the conductor's score, running at about two bars per massive page judging from the manic speed of Boulez's flipping, evidenced the intricacy of his arrangements.

The orchestra too was massive, extra percussion and all hands on deck, but every detail was crystal clear, and there was all the focus and momentum the Bartók lacked.

Notation II was the brief and explosive finale, reprised scrappily but even more exuberantly as an encore.

In between these blockbusters came Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces, sounding almost cosy in Boulez's affectionate reading and Stravinsky's Le Chant du rossignol, light-footed and sparkling, with stunning, perfectly judged flute, violin and trumpet solos.

Boulez returns to the Barbican on 11 May with Michelle De Young for Duke Bluebeard's Castle and Schoenberg's Die glückliche Hand - not to be missed.

Jansons shows how to be cool

Prom 60: Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Jansons - Royal Albert Hall, 29 August 2007

Mariss Jansons and his Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra took a distinctly fireworks-free perspective on tonight's programme, Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra and Sibelius's 2nd Symphony. He's a master at treading the right side of the narrow line between subtlety and plain dullness, and he finessed it perfectly again tonight.

The portentousness of Zarathustra offers a certain temptation towards vulgarity. But instead Jansons gave us a dignified and immaculately nuanced narrative, probing towards the unresolved ending.

The odd croaky brass entrance aside, the orchestral playing was a wonder of balance and technique. Bright, molten strings are at the heart of the BRSO's sound. There are no back row passengers in this orchestra, as reflected in their remarkable uniformity and ensemble.

The Sibelius 2, though maybe a little too far on the chilly Nordic side for my own tastes, was nevertheless thoughtfully weighted and immaculately performed. Watching Jansons on the podium was an education in itself, as his entire choreography switched for each new musical idea. At one point he simply stood with his hands glued to his sides for several bars, raising them into the air again as those bars were repeated with a different inflection.

The performance was a little less enthusiastically received than some others have been this week, but maybe this is a reflection of its cool gloss.

Perhaps just to prove they could raise the temperature if they chose, the BRSO warmed up considerably for their splashy encores, the maudlin Sibelius Valse Triste, and a manically energetic snippet from Bartók's Miraculous Mandarin suite. For sheer excitement, this was the high spot of the evening, but it also threw into relief the cultured restraint of the main programme.

Bartok raises the standard, Ades raises a laugh

Prom 49: Philharmonia Orchestra/Dohnányi, Royal Albert Hall, 20 August 2007

J S Bach, orch. Webern Ricercar from 'Musical Offering'
Thomas Adès Overture, Waltz and Finale from 'Powder Her Face'
Bartók Duke Bluebeard's Castle

Charlotte Hellekant

Duke Bluebeard's Castle is such an elegantly concise opera, its sumptuous orchestration so perfectly aligned to the geometry of its spare text. Everything is there in the music, so it loses almost nothing in a concert staging of the type it received tonight.

It was a shame the Albert Hall was half-empty, because the Philharmonia gave a thrilling performance from start to finish. The slow, haunting buildup to the ecstatic central climax, the decline to the inevitable and terrifying ending, all was boldly coloured. Dohnányi wisely held a little in reserve, so that when the big moments came up, they truly exploded.

Charlotte Hellekant as Judith, the woman who can't stop asking questions, threw herself totally into her role. There's an intriguing smoky cast to her clean, secure tones. She's one of the few singers I've heard so far this year who's truly suited to the difficult Albert Hall, projecting clearly across the vast cavern seemingly without effort.

Tonight's Bluebeard, Falk Struckmann, has a warm, burnished tone that's a pleasure to listen to. But from time to time it felt as if he was just going through the motions. Although he has the ability to make a huge sound, at times he simply failed to up the gear and lift his voice over the orchestra. And, buried deep in his score, he often played the inscrutability of Bluebeard to the point of impenetrability.

But it was a fine performance overall, definitely worth listening to again, though the recording process has bestowed a little screechiness on Hellekant and upped the volume on Struckmann.

In earlier part of the programme, a leaden and entirely misconceived Bach Ricercar was followed by the London premiere of a suite Thomas Ades has based on his opera Powder Her Face. This suite redraws parts of the original compact and idiosyncratic arrangement using larger and more conventional forces, losing nothing of its novelty in the process. Like the original, a deceptively light and sugary surface masks a minutely detailed and meticulously constructed heart.

A couple of hours before the concert, I went to watch Ades being interviewed for Radio 3 in the Albert Hall. He made himself distinctly hard work for the interviewer, responding scrupulously in kind to some lame, under-researched questions. But it was great fun for those of us watching (Q - what do you like about Couperin? A - his wig). The silent physical responses (a shoulder shrug doesn't go a long way on radio) were equally treasurable. The process was interlaced with live performances of some shorter works by a student chamber ensemble, rather mixed in quality. I'm not sure that I came away particularly illuminated, but it was hugely entertaining.