Intermezzo

Siege of Calais in Hackney

Siege of Calais (L’assedio di Calais) - English Touring Opera, Hackney Empire, 9 March 2013

L’assedio di Calais is one of those Donizetti operas that don't get many outings. The fault is not in the music, which with its many delightful ensemble pieces is no worse than his more popular works. However the gloomy subject (check the title) doesn't do it any favours. Neither does the (non-)story line (check the title again). The one and only moment of dramatic tension comes towards the end, when the besieged burghers have to decide whether to sacrifice six of their number to seal a peace deal with the beastly besiegers.

Cosi fan tutte without the trimmings

Così fan tutte - English Touring Opera, Hackney Empire, 7 March 2013

English Touring Opera's new production of Mozart's most inscrutable opera relishes its confectionery charms but also hints at the darker undercurrents beneath.  Emphasising the symmetries of the score, the young couples are upholstered in matching rococo finery like pairs of identical twins. Flanking the stage are the two mirror-image panels of Samal Blak's frugally efficient set.

ETO in E8

Opera returns to east London. English Touring Opera's spring season opens on 2 March at Hackney Empire with Così fan tutte. Simon Boccanegra (an unfortunate clash with the opening of Written on Skin at the ROH) and Donizetti's The Siege of Calais follow.

All are new productions, with terrific casting, so it's not surprising that most of the best tickets have already been snapped up. Move swiftly if you want a stalls seat.

The Lighthouse - English Touring Opera

The Lighthouse - English Touring Opera - Linbury Studio, 11 October 2012

In 1900, an overdue supply ship pulled in at a remote lighthouse in the Outer Hebrides to discover that all three of its keepers had disappeared without trace. Their fate was never established. This real-life mystery is the source for Peter Maxwell-Davies's widely-performed 1980 chamber opera, The Lighthouse. Living at the time in a distant Orkney cottage without electricity or running water, Maxwell-Davies had no trouble imagining what the months of isolation might have done to the keepers' minds. Inspiration came swiftly; he wrote the libretto in two weeks, taking just another two for the 75 minutes of leanly-arranged music.

Another win for English Touring Opera

Christ lag in Todesbanden / The Emperor of Atlantis - English Touring Opera - Linbury Studio, 5 October 2012

ROH2 goodbye and good riddance. While the Royal Opera House themselves rarely come up with anything worthwhile to fill their Linbury stage, English Touring Opera have scored a win, yet again, with a striking and powerful double bill.

Victor Ullmann wrote Der Kaiser von Atlantis in 1944 while incarcerated in the Terezin concentration camp. Bizarrely, the authorities sanctioned and even encouraged cultural activities, though inevitably the idiosyncratic vocal and musical arrangements reflect the limited resources available.They were less keen on Ullmann's subject matter - a despotic Emperor who declares universal war, which provokes Death to go on strike.

English Touring Opera's Eugene Onegin

Eugene Onegin - English Touring Opera - Hackney Empire, 9 March 2012

You don't need a load of fancy scenery to tell a story, as English Touring Opera's minimal but effective staging proves. First seen in 2007, James Conway's production employs little more than a large panel in the middle. Lit by turns as window, mirror and screen, it conjures up orchard and ballroom with surprising ease. Lavish period costumes provide eye candy for the sweet-toothed.

Where Deborah Warner's recent ENO Onegin started to go wrong was in creating vast, empty spaces in which to play out the opera's intimate drama. Here, everything is restored to its proper, human scale.  Singing it in English only enhances that.

Il barbiere di Hackney

The Barber of Seville - English Touring Opera - Hackney Empire, 8 March 2012

ETO's new Barber of Seville is sung in English. Perhaps that's why its traditional styling owes more to Regency London than olde Spain.

Daringly, there are no surtitles; fortunately, the ETO cast sing far more clearly than their ENO counterparts. That's no mean compliment when you consider the yards of fioriture involved. The experiment makes a powerful case for doing without. Comic timing is preserved. Attentiveness is obligatory - proper listening in other words. The translation sneaks in a few explanatory phrases where the original text doesn't quite follow the action, so it's ideal for newcomers (of which there were plenty in the Hackney audience).

English Touring Opera back in Hackney

English Touring Opera return to Hackney Empire on 8 March with a new Thomas Guthrie production of The Barber of Seville. It's followed in swift succession by a revival of their acclaimed Eugene Onegin from 2007, a show I never got to see, that apparently "sheds more light on Tchaikovsky's masterpiece than any other recent UK production". After that they're off round the country for a few weeks, taking in venues from Truro to Perth.

Both works will be sung in English, which is sure to get some opera lovers hot under the collar. But ETO's General Director James Conway argues that effective comic timing inThe Barber of Seville depends on immediacy - and he's not keen on English singers tackling the difficulties of Russian.  Casts are mostly young,  mostly British, and include the 2011 Kathleen Ferrier award winner Kitty Whately as Rosina.

ETO is one of the lucky few organisations whose Arts Council funding increased in the last round, but earlier cuts mean they're still far from flush. Despite this, Hackney Empire seats have been kept at at very reasonable £10 to £32, which has to be the best opera bargain in the capital. For the same price as pub opera, you get a full staging and  good (occasionally outstanding) singers - and a decent-sized orchestra instead of some dodgy old piano too.

If that doesn't appeal, in the autumn there's another tour, with a focus on modern and less familiar works. The London stop is the Royal Opera House Linbury Studio, and partners the Aurora Orchestra will be keeping musical standards high. Three broadly contemporaneous chamber pieces - Britten's Albert Herring, Peter Maxwell Davies's The Lighthouse and Viktor Ullmann's The Emperor of Atlantis - have been picked for their theatricality and variety.

English Touring Opera's Xerxes

Xerxes - English Touring Opera - Britten Theatre, 8 October 2011

Xerxes (aka Serse) is not one of Handel's easiest operas to stage - or to love. The insufferably pompous hero is hard to warm to, and his improbable volte-face at the neatly happy ending sets new standards for implausibility in baroque opera.

English Touring Opera's solution is to capitalise on the comic elements. A Battle of Britain airbase stands in for ancient Persia. King Xerxes is a plucky pilot who conveniently forgets he's already been promised to a foreign princess when he falls for his brother Arsamene's girlfriend, a nurse. He sings his opening aria Ombra mai fu beneath a plane of the Spitfire variety, and Nicholas Hytner's English translation ensures a dashed jolly good time is had by all. 

English Touring Opera's Fairy Queen

The Fairy Queen - English Touring Opera - Britten Theatre, 6 October 2011

There are two ways to tackle Purcell's Fairy Queen. One is, as Purcell intended, musical punctuation to a spoken adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The other, which gets you out of the theatre a good couple of hours quicker, is to dispense with the chat and just get on with the music. 

English Touring Opera - half price tickets

Via TimeOut deals, tickets for English Touring Opera's shows at the Royal College of Music's Britten Theatre are reduced to £14.50, which is up to 47% off.

Remaining shows are Xerxes on 8, 10 and 13 October, The Fairy Queen on 11 October, and Flavio on 14 and 15 October.

English Touring Opera back in town

 
English Touring Opera begin their autumn tour on 6 October in the Royal College of Music's delightfully bijou Britten Theatre, tucked away behind the Royal Albert Hall.

There are three operas on offer.  Purcell's Fairy Queen and Handel's Xerxes are new productions; Handel's Flavio a resuscitated greatest hit from 2009. If they're anything like as good as ETO's spring tour offerings, all three nights should be unmissable.

The theatre only holds 400, so tickets have gone quickly, but there are still a handful left on the RCM website, or you can book by phone direct with ETO. The tour then continues at various venues around the country.

The Britten Theatre later hosts a Royal College of Music double bill of two rarely-heard early Bizet operas, Le docteur Miracle and Djamileh - neither exactly masterpieces but worth catching for curiosity value alone.

English Touring Opera do Puccini - twice

Il Tabarro / Gianni Schicchi - English Touring Opera - Hackney Empire, 4 March 2011

 
 
A date in E8 may not sound like touring to most, but it does bring in a completely different crowd from Covent Garden. Last year's ETO dates at the Linbury Studio were packed with regular operagoers, but a lot of the Hackney Empire audience were exactly the same people you see at the panto.

English Touring Opera - touring England again

English Touring Opera's spring season has kicked off, with three productions coming to Hackney Empire from this Friday, 4 March. 

You'll have to wait until September for the Royal Opera House's new Richard Jones Il trittico, but ETO have come up with two thirds of it in the form of a double bill of Il Tabarro and Gianni Schicchi . Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito and Tobias Picker's family opera Fantastic Mr Fox (based on the Roald Dahl story) complete the round up. The Empire is a fantastic theatre for opera (it's like a miniature Coliseum) but it's a shame it's still off the radar for a lot of people, including many locals. Plenty of reasonably-priced seats still available at the time of writing.

Booking has also opened for the autumn season, which takes over the Royal College of Music's Britten Theatre in early October for Purcell's Fairy Queen and Handel's Flavio and Xerxes. Don't hang around too long for these - capacity is limited and they're likely to sell out well in advance.

The Duenna at the Linbury

The Duenna: English Touring Opera - Linbury Studio, 13 October 2010

English Touring Opera are back at the soon to be reopened (yay!) Hackney Empire next spring, but meanwhile the Royal Opera House are kindly putting them up. I was lucky enough to nab a ticket for the first of three long-sold-out shows of The Duenna in the Linbury Studio before it goes on tour round the country.

If there was a prize for most fun night of the season so far at Covent Garden, The Duenna would win it.

But is it an opera?

What's on in London in March

As usual, there's so much going on in London next month that the sooner someone invents a Sky+ for live events the better.

Handelfest begins! English Touring Opera's Flavio

Flavio - English Touring Opera - RCM Britten Theatre, 15 November 2009

English Touring Opera's five-opera Handelfest, celebrating - guess who - kicked off on Thursday with the inexplicably underexposed Flavio. The characters are crafted clearly and reasonably credibly, and it's never less than lively. The weaknesses if any are a shortage of tunes you can hum and a neatly-knitted happy ending that strains credulity more than a little.

Even though very little was trimmed from its two and a half hour length, it moved along with tremendous pace, the momentum never flagging. That's partly down to the writing - a busy plot which intertwines a comic and a more serious story line, with plenty of short arias.  But the staging too was very effective. With ETO's usual ingenuity in turning budgetary constraints to creative advantage, a plain blue wall, cleverly lit, formed a simple backdrop for a production focused on character and plot. Lest anyone might feel fobbed off by minimalism, lavish costuming provided a reassuringly traditional touch.

The 400 seater Britten Theatre - an opera house in miniature - was tailor-scaled for the small baroque band, including a harpsichord, two theorbos and a pair of reassuringly unshiny bassoons. Jonathan Peter Kenny conducted like a singer - well, he is one (appearing in Ariodante later in the week) - always with great consideration for balance and pacing.

Casting was strong, and the action seemed assured and well-rehearsed. I was particularly impressed by Paula Sides, the soprano in the 'straight' role of dutiful daughter Emilia. Andrew Slater and Joseph Cornwell were well-cast as the aging courtiers Lotario and Ugone whose rivalry (over the governorship of Britain, of all the things to fight about) turns from comic to fatal. An auspicious start to the season that indicates there will be plenty to look forward to from the remaining operas over the coming week.

do all Handel operas sound the same?

Your chance to find out this month with the opportunity to catch six Handel operas in less than two weeks.

Five of these come from English Touring Opera. Their Handelfest tour kicks off on 15 October with a new production of Flavio in the the Royal College of Music's mini-opera house, the Britten Theatre. Teseo, Tolomeo, Alcina and Ariodante follow, demonstrating the developments in Handel's style during his most fertile creative period. As usual with ETO, all are very reasonably priced for full productions.

An accompanying brochure (which can be downloaded from the website) sets out a complementary programme of recitals and free talks, together with accommodation and restaurant suggestions (now there's a useful idea).

And if that's not enough, William Christie and Les Arts Florissants bring a concert performance of Susanna to the Barbican on 25 October.

What's on in London in March

Is February over already?

Opera 

At the Royal Opera House, I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca opens on 2 March. Kill for tickets.

Next up is a new double bill of Dido and Aeneas with Acis and Galatea opening 31 March. Choreographer Wayne McGregor, whose work demonstrates little musical sensibility, is the odd choice of director. Sarah Connolly, Lucy Crowe, Iestyn Davies and Danielle de Niese make their ROH debuts.

On 13 March there's a one-off performance of Verdi's Messa da Requiem . Antonio Pappano conducts Barbara Frittoli, Olga Borodina, Piotr Beczala and Ildar Abdrazakov. Sold out, but check for returns towards the date.

At ENO, there's a revival of one of their better recent productions, David Alden's Jenùfa with Amanda Roocroft.

English Touring Opera bring the Magic Flute to Hackney Empire on 12 and 14 March, with Katya Kabanova on 13 March. For authentic 'period' atmosphere (and a bargain), buy the cheapest balcony seats, then stand at the back with your beer (the balcony bar is open throughout the show).

On 2, 4 and 9 March the Royal Academy of Music present Haydn's charming La fedeltà premiata in their bijou but perfectly-formed theatre.

Jiří Bělohlávek and the BBCSO attempt an overdue rehabilitation of Martinů's Julietta in concert at the Barbican on 27 March, with Magdalena Kozena in the title role.

And on 28 March David Parry and the LPO bring Rossini's Ermione to the Royal Festival Hall. 

Not opera

At the Barbican, 7 March is the BBCSO's Xenakis day. On 11 March Thomas Quasthoff presents a Bach and Handel programme. On 12 March it's the turn of Valery Gergiev and the LSO, who perform  Parsifal's Act 3 with the awesome Rene Pape and the remarkably-tattooed Evgeny Nikitin. Bernard Haitink and the Concertgebouw visit on 14 and 15 March with Beethoven's 7th and Bruckner's 9th.

The Royal Festival Hall hosts Maurizio Pollini on 4 March and the not-so-retired-after-all Alfred Brendel on 7 March (it's a charity concert for Comic Relief and he's credited as 'poet'). On 12 March at 6pm there's a FREE concert of Oliver Knussen's vocal works, conducted by the composer himself, with Claire Booth. A few tickets remain for countertenor Philippe Jaroussky in the Purcell Room on 23 March. On 29 March Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra are joined by Anja Harteros in a programme that includes the Eroica Symphony and Strauss's Four Last Songs.

At Wigmore Hall,  Mark Padmore visits on 12 March with a Brahms and Schubert programme. Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk appear on 26 March. Check the website for the inevitable returns.

English Touring Opera's Rusalka comes to Hackney

Rusalka - English Touring Opera, Hackney Empire, 10 October 2008

Dvorak's Rusalka seems to be on a roll right now. Grange Park Opera did it this summer, Glyndebourne will tackle it next, and The Beautiful Tonsils of Renee Fleming will be wrapped around it at the Met next spring.

The story of the water nymph who takes on human form to win a prince's love is relocated in English Touring Opera's new production, sung in English, to a bygone Haiti. Divided by colour and class, voodoo spells bring the unhappy couple together before social pressure drives them apart.

It's a neat and thoughtful transposition, and though a few details were puzzling, the fundamentals of the story were clearly spun out on the elegant, pared-down sets.

Equally trimmed, the chamber arrangement naturally sacrifices the sweeping flourish of the full orchestration, but it gains in intimacy.

There was some top-class singing on display - though of course it's odd for an operatic heroine to spend most of her time silenced by a magic spell. The quirkily beautiful Donna Bateman made her speechless pleas just as expressive as her voice, which captured perfectly Rusalka's impenetrable melancholy and wistfulness.

Richard Roberts was beltingly impressive in the technically challenging part of the fickle Prince, and Fiona Kimm's batty voodoo priestess Jezibaba raised the otherwise cool temperature (and also had the best costume, a tangle of swirling braid and jewels).

Keel Watson was sturdy and imposing as Rusalka's water carrier father. As the scheming foreign princess who pries the Prince away from Rusalka, Camilla Roberts had the courage to be thoroughly pompous and dislikeable.

"I think I get opera now" said my companion at the end (this was her third). "Everyone's unhappy and then they die". Yup, that's about it.