Very rarely do an opera's words, music and staging complement each other so perfectly they seem to have sprung from the same hand. Written on Skin is a multi-layered masterpiece that, like Parsifal or Così, resists a single authoritative interpretation.
Continue reading "Written on Skin at the Royal Opera House" »
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Some important news slipped out last night. During a discussion about Written on Skin at the Royal Opera House, George Benjamin and Martin Crimp revealed they are collaborating on another opera.
All they were prepared to disclose at this stage was the timing - the interval between the new one and Written on Skin is the same as the gap between Written on Skin and their first collaboration, Into the Little Hill - which puts it at 2018 by my reckoning.
After all their trumpeting about support for new opera, let's hope the ROH have put their money where their mouth is this time and commissioned it. It's frustrating for us and ought to be embarrassing for the ROH that the brilliant - and British - Written on Skin and Into the Little Hill spent months travelling around Europe before making it on to native turf.
The ROH hope to make a podcast of the interview available in the next few days - well worth a listen if you'd like to know why George started composing the opera from the middle, not the start, and more about the compositional process.
While we're waiting, here's a video made by Peter Hobday, an actor in Katie Mitchell's production of Written on Skin. The words are George's, the actions - not.
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A first glimpse of George Benjamin's new opera Written on Skin, which premieres at the Aix-en-Provence Festival on 7 July before coming to Covent Garden in 2013.
As mentioned below, you can watch the whole thing from the comfort of the Institut français cinema on 14 July.
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The Institut français in South Kensington is to screen two operas from the Aix-en-Provence festival live in their purpose built cinema, aka the Ciné lumière.
Le nozze di Figaro is at 8.30pm on Thursday 12 July. George Benjamin's new opera Written on Skin, which receives its world premiere at Aix, is at 4pm on Saturday 14 July.
Both are priced at £15, with various concessions available.
As far as I know, this will be the only opportunity to see these shows in the UK. It's possible that festival sponsors Arte TV may stream either or both online, but nothing has been announced yet.
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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 .................?
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David McVicar brings his chipolata-stuffed Rigoletto back to the Royal Opera House on 10 February. Star-power is limited to veterans Leo Nucci and Paolo Gavanelli sharing the title role but this is Verdi at his most unbreakable so that's all it needs. We wait eagerly to see what Francesco Meli and Ekaterina Siurina can make of the Duke and Gilda. More Ekaterina in recital at St John's Smith Square on 20 February.
George Benjamin's highly-praised shortie Into the Little Hill gets its long-awaited London premiere in the Linbury Studio on 14 February. It's coupled with Birtwistle's Down by the Greenwood Side. Still no casting details on the ROH site, whatever that means.
But the major event of the month at Covent Garden is the premiere of Tim Albery's new production of Der fliegende Holländer on 23 February with Bryn 'teh Chin' Terfel as the Dutchman.
At ENO, Jonathan Miller's new La Bohème opens tomorrow. And you are duly warned that John Adams's irredeemably dim-witted Dr Atomic, which I saw in New York last autumn (well the first half anyway: I walked out at the interval) arrives on 25 February. On the plus side, it has a far better production and cast than the material deserves.
Opera Holland Park slip through the park gates and catch the 391 to Richmond Theatre where from 24 February the simple country folk can enjoy their brilliant Tosca from last summer. There are two casts - Amanda Echalaz, the best Tosca in town, sings on 25 and 27 February and 1 March.
The Barbican presents Handel's oratorio Samson on 12 February, for which The Sixteen are joined by a terrific line of of soloists including Mark Padmore, Gillian Keith, Catherine Wyn-Rogers and Roderick Williams. And on 22 and 23 February, the LSO record Berlioz's Te Deum with Sir Colin Davis
Wigmore Hall's bargain-priced 4 o'clock Sunday song recitals continue with two artists on the brink of major careers - Jacques Imbrailo on 15 February and Lucy Crowe on 22 February.
On 21 February Gustavo Dudamel makes an eagerly-awaited return to London, where he conducts the Philharmonia in Mahler's 5th at the Royal Festival Hall.
And at the same place tomorrow night, 4 February Matthias Goerne joins Neeme Jarvi and the LPO for Mahler's Kindertotenlieder coupled with a purist-agitating rarity - Mahler's arrangement of Beethoven's 9th. There's a free talk at 6.15 for anyone who's interested in the background to this fascinating molestation. The photo below shows Mahler conducting Beethoven's 9th in Strasbourg in 1905.
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Barely a week into the new season at Covent Garden, and already we're being asked to whip out our Amexes again, this time for November to March productions. Booking opens this week for those who've paid for the privilege, and next month for the common herd.
Rolando Villazón fights through miles of curtain fabric to reprise his Covent Garden debut role in Les Contes d'Hoffmann. Antonio Pappano conducts the elaborate John Schlesinger production, inching ever closer to its sell-by date. Ekaterina Lekhina (Olympia) is a new name to me, but Gidon Saks, Kristine Jepson and Christine Rice promise sturdy support (photo: Clive Barda).
Rolando also submits to a live interview on 10 November. Space is limited, so early booking advised.
The other star vehicle of the season is a new Tim Albery production of Der fliegende Holländer with (cancelitis permitting) Bryn Terfel in the title role. Anja Kampe makes an overdue ROH debut as Senta. Tickets will be restricted to two per customer for this one.
Britten's The Beggar's Opera pops up in the Linbury Studio. The new production by Justin Way (not by conductor Richard Hickox as the website currently claims - there are limits to his talents) is likely to be popular, so again, early booking advised. The excellent and underused Tom Randle is Macheath.
Also to the Linbury comes the long-overdue London debut of George Benjamin's highly-praised ("the most important new opera of the past 25 years") mini-opera Into the Little Hill , coupled with Harrison Birtwistle's Down by the Greenwood Side. The cast includes Susan Bickley and Claire Booth.
The brilliant Willy Decker production of Korngold's Die tote Stadt that I caught in Vienna finally makes its way to London. Unfortunately Klaus Florian Vogt and Angela Denoke aren't coming with it, but Stephen Gould and Nadja Michael should be a more than passable substitute. And there's the bonus of Gerald Finley in the smaller role of Frank.
David McVicar's t1ts'n'todgers Rigoletto returns with indecent haste. Francesco Meli, Leo Nucci, Ekaterina Siurina and Kurt Rydl are amongst the few cast members who get to keep their clothes on.
Elektra isn't illuminated by Charles Edwards's jumbled production, but with Mark Elder in the pit and a cast that includes Susan Bullock, Anne Schwanewilms, Jane Henschel and Johan Reuter it should at least push some musical buttons.
Even I can't get excited about yet another Turandot revival, but include it for the sake of completeness.
On the ballet side, I have to recommend the triple bill The Seven Deadly Sins / Carmen / DGV: Danse à grande vitesse, especially for the first of these and its wonderful music. Chanteuse Martha Wainwright returns to sing Weill's evocative music, and Zenaida Yanowsky is her dancing doppelganger (photo: John Ross).
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Prom 27: BBC Symphony Orchestra / Benjamin - Royal Albert Hall, 6 August 2008
The Proms house band, the BBCSO, have been at it for a couple of weeks now, and the battle fatigue is starting to show. Or is it just me, projecting my increasing weariness of birthday boy Messiaen on to their opener, L'Ascension? It's too earnest a work to survive such a perfunctory plod. And the string-free first movement cruelly exposed the ragged brass and winds.
I couldn't work up much enthusiasm for Carolin Widmann's accomplished but ultimately timid bash at Stravinsky's Violin Concerto either. The orchestral torpor smothered any attempt she made to break free.
George Benjamin's early Ringed by the Flat Horizon is a dazzlingly precise evocation of a storm erupting over a vast and bare landscape, from ominous rumblings to uncontainable violence. Conducted by the composer himself, it was the highlight of the evening.
Repeated involuntary subjection has dulled the appeal of Ravel's Pavane pour une infante défunte and Boléro so much that I considered slipping out before they began. I'm glad I didn't.
Benjamin sped through with an immaculate control that extended beyond the orchestra to the audience. His raised hand at the end of the Pavane was duly observed, allowing an applause-free conjunction, the only sound, almost inevitably, the muffled ring of a mobile phone buried deep within some distant pocket.
Boléro's timbral transformations sounded remarkably fresh if not quite radical, a proto-minimalism that had more in common with Stockhausen's Stimmung than its own contemporaries. And of course Benjamin managed the Olympic dressage of its sustained, expansive crescendo perfectly. There's a world of difference between listening to music - properly - in a concert hall, and merely being exposed to it, as this performance demonstrated.
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