Intermezzo

showbusiness as usual at Wigmore Hall

Karita Mattila / Martin Katz;   Sarah Connolly / Eugene Asti;   Angelika Kirchschlager / Ian Bostridge / Julius Drake;   Artemis Quartet - Wigmore Hall, 10 - 14 September 2010

Wigmore Hall's 110th anniversary season is made of awesome, with recitals coming up from just about everyone you could possibly want to hear, including rare visitors like Jonas Kaufmann, Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim.

But the season's opening weekend was almost derailed by illness, with both Karita Mattila and Angelika Kirchschlager suffering from colds. Kirchschlager's was so bad she cancelled her scheduled appearance on the Saturday, eventually appearing - only partially recovered - on Monday.

YCAT 25th Anniversary Gala Concert Wigmore Hall

YCAT 25th Anniversary Gala Concert - Wigmore Hall, 24 April 2010

featuring Ian Bostridge (tenor), Adam Walker (flute), Huw Morgan (trumpet), Thomas Gould (violin), Philip Higham (cello), Alexander Romanovsky (piano), Llyr Williams (piano), Doric String Quartet, Heath String Quartet, Sacconi Quartet

The Young Concert Artists Trust is a sort of charitable management agency that provides talented young musicians at the start of their career with the kind of support that money can't buy - advice, guidance and opportunities to perform. The long list of beneficiaries includes Alison Balsom, Susan Gritton, Joanna MacGregor, Charles Hazlewood and more recently, Elizabeth Watts. For this 25th anniversary concert, two more, Ian Bostridge and Llyr Williams, were joined by a selection of the scheme's current artists.

Die Dreigroschenoper at the Barbican

Die Dreigroschenoper - Barbican, 13 June 2009


Ian Bostridge and Cora Burggraaf

The original performers of Weill and Brecht's Die Dreigroschenoper were singing actors, not trained opera singers. And a seven-man band rather than an orchestra supplied the music. The name of course suggests it's an opera, but it has elements that owe more to musical theatre. Lengthy spoken sections (here replaced by a spoken narration that Brecht wrote specifically for concert performances) largely drive the action. And the vocal line is often simply doubled by an instrument.

It's not surprising a variety of performing traditions have arisen, with a mannered cabaret style at one end, a traditional operatic rendition at the other, and the more successful attempts generally falling somewhere in the middle.

Some time ago conductor HK Gruber recorded a version which approaches the spirit if not the specific textures of the original, incorporating his own chansonnier vocals, nostalgia singer Max Raabe, the frankly shouty punk legend Nina Hagen and the crack contemporary music ensemble Klangforum Wien. He brought them to the Barbican, and he again played Peachum in his own inimitable style, but this time he roped in opera stars for the rest.

Dorothea Röschmann, Angelika Kirchschlager and Hannah Schwarz

Some took to it better than others. Angelika Kirchschlager for one. She threw out the rulebook and played Jenny with her tongue in her cheek and a dollop of sauce. Polly Peachum's essential vulgarity was subdued beneath Dorothea Röschmann's elegant lieder technique but she displayed wit and superb comic timing in her spat with Cora Burggraaf's equally sophisticated Lucy Brown.

Ian Bostridge's Macheath was simply bizarre. London's most ruthless, dangerous criminal?  More like Basil Fawlty finding a fly in his soup. Angelika Kirchschlager looked as if she could eat him for breakfast, and in an encore of the Tango Ballad, proved she could.

Other parts were well taken. Hannah Schwarz's powerful Wagnerian mezzo gave her Mrs Peachum some heft, and Florian Boesch's Tiger Brown was idiomatic without being over the top.

HK Gruber himself was the least technically accomplished singer by far, but the one who seemed most at home in his role. He even managed to conduct Klangforum Wien after a fashion while he sang. I'm not sure I'd want to hear the whole thing sung HK style, but with the bandoneon, banjo and saxophones behind him, it made perfect sense.

 

 

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Saint Nicolas at the Barbican

Britten's Saint Nicolas - Barbican, 6 December 2008

6 December is St Nicholas Day, when the custom in Germany is to leave out a shoe for the kindly saint to fill with sweeties. The Barbican aren't as generous, but they did put on two performances of Britten's bio-cantata Saint Nicolas, an afternoon one for kids, and the evening one I attended for everyone else.

Britten wrote Saint Nicolas specifically for amateur performers, including children. Not that it's just simple enough for amateurs to tackle; it needs their ‘fresh and unrestrained quality’ as Britten put it, and would actually sound wrong if it was slicked up by professionals. 

So most of the performers came from the local amateur orchestra EC4 Music, and the singers from the local St Luke's Community and Youth Choirs. A smattering of pro support (as per Britten's directions) came from the Belcea Quartet and Guildhall students. And there was Ian Bostridge to sing the role of the saint himself.

But that wasn't all. Saint Nicolas includes two hymns to be sung by the audience. So we had a quick five minute rehearsal from the nation's favourite choirmaster, Gareth Malone. Talk about luxury casting.

It was a mark of the thought and preparation which had clearly gone into this. They even managed a staging of sorts - always difficult in the Barbican Hall, even more so when the stage is full of musicians, and probably a superhuman feat when so many small children are involved. But the action was sparing and intelligent - children waving their arms to make a sea for the sailing song for example - and it came off without a hitch.

I could have done without the the tacked-on spoken interludes - a toe-curling debate in faux-playground-speak between a costumed angel and demon. They pedantically filled in any biographical gaps thoughtlessly left by Britten, as if the whole point of the evening was to prepare for a GCSE in St Nicholas Studies. As the almighty Jimmy McGovern says, better to be confused for ten minutes than bored for five seconds.

But despite this, and despite a bad cold that shredded Ian Bostridge's voice, it was hugely entertaining and very competently performed.

Just to give us value for money, I suppose, there were a couple of Bach cantatas in the first half. For some reason, a completely different group of musicians were used, the London Handel Orchestra and Singers. These cantatas were written for advent, so technically they were appropriate, but the style and mood was so far removed from St Nicolas that they seemed part of a different show.

Carolyn Sampson and Roderick Williams did well with their solo parts. Ian Bostridge had been scheduled to join them, but excusing himself with his cold, Jon Bungard and Edmund Hastings were plucked from the choir to cover. I'm not sure which was which. One has a good basic chorister voice and sang accurately, the other a quite beautiful and well-projected lyric tenor marred by suspect intonation. Both did well under the circumstances (I've heard worse from professional soloists) but hearing Ian Bostridge later, even flawed by illness, did underline the difference between a chorister and soloist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are we Donne yet?

Ian Bostridge / Mitsuko Uchida / Elizabeth Kenny / Corin Redgrave - St Luke's, 18 October 2008

A programme devoted solely to the words of John Donne makes perfect sense in theory, but the connection is more intellectual than musical, and the way this one was structured made for a curiously fragmented evening. The first half included love poems set for voice and lute by Donne's contemporaries; the second the searing Britten cycle The Holy Sonnets of John Donne.

Scattered between these were readings of Donne's poetry and religious prose. Or were the songs interleaved between the readings? Corin Redgrave's meticulously-wrapped syllables may have edged the recitations into the lead.

The lute songs were interesting curiosities I suppose, but even Bostridge and Kenny's craftsmanship couldn't conceal their slightness.

Britten's Holy Sonnets of John Donne were another matter. Britten's grim response to the horrors of the Second World War, composed after his visit to liberated German concentration camps, articulate his rage and despair.

They're not an easy listen, and Bostridge slipped naturally into their tortured intensity, corkscrewing his frame in a physical mirror of the angular lines. Rather too many words were addressed to the floor, but even so, there was a shocking directness to their fury. Mitsuko Uchida, rigid and disciplined on the piano stool, produced a bold, impassioned accompaniment. It's hard to conceive how a performance of this quality could be bettered.

 

Don Giovanni rides yet again - this time it's Mariusz Kwiecien's show

Don Giovanni - Royal Opera House, 4 October 2008

Pologies for not writing about this sooner, but truly, Mariusz Kwiecien, hawtest Don Giovanni since Erwin Schrott, burned up my SD storage so bad I've only just been able to rescue the precious pixels. His Don is not the cerebral manipulator that Simon Keenlyside offered us in the earlier cast of this production. Instead, "He has something that fits in every woman," as Mariusz explained his feral chancer in a highly entertaining ROH pre-match interview - where, incidentally, he noted his preference as a listener for live performance (yay!) over CDS - "if I see something good, I copy it!". But that's one of the great things about Mozart's conception of Don Giovanni - a hundred different approaches will all work, in their own way.

With this less aristocratic Don came a less sharply-drawn contrast between the noble seducer and his craven aide, Leporello. This didn't work to the advantage of Alex Esposito, whose performance wasn't always as focused as it could have been - tentative with the brash physical comedy and not always totally in line with the orchestra. But he's not without talent, and I suspect he'd impress more in a production less reliant on brainless vulgarity than this one.

The tiny Patrizia Ciofi simply didn't have the clout, physically or vocally, to make anything much of the steely Donna Anna, pretty though her singing was. A miscast. Ian Bostridge, on the other hand, was a near-perfect Don Ottavio. He has famously complained that Mozart tenor roles are 'boring', and his performance led me to agree. But shouldn't Don Ottavio be dull? We need some reason to find Donna Anna's ultimate rejection of him credible. Beautifully sung, anyhow.

The best physical casting came with the pairing of the huge, lumbering Levente Molnár as Masetto and petite Rebecca Evans as Zerlina. They didn't have the knowing chemistry of Robert Gleadow and Miah Persson in the earlier cast - this was a much more traditional interpretation. But Rebecca Evans was winningly sweet and technically faultless, a delight to listen to, and Molnár convincingly lunkish.

Emma Bell's Donna Elvira was convincing in hysterical fury, less so in contrition, and didn't quite make all the notes. But where in the earlier casting the inevitable focus on Joyce DiDonato's stunning Donna Elvira had perhaps not worked to the advantage of the show as a whole, here the balance was redressed, and it became Don Giovanni's story once more.

 

  

 

  

Idomeneo at the Barbican

Idomeneo - Europa Galante/Biondi - Barbican, 14 May 2008

Technical excellence isn't everything. Musically, this concert performance of Idomeneo was rough as a badger's behind. Fabio Biondi, conducting a breakneck pace with violin in hand, failed on several occasions to bring his small band in on time, or to hold them together. Intonation was frequently doubtful in the string section; near-criminal in the brass. But enthusiasm goes a long way, and Mozart in any case demonstrated his usual resistance to the assaults of imperfect execution. The sheer verve of the performance gave it a warmth and charm that more polished approaches often lack (and awww just look at the harpsichordist's score, above).

Ian Bostridge was the motor behind the show, part of his Homeward Bound series running throughout the Barbican season. He's not a singer who melts readily into whatever character he's playing, and the role of Idomeneo would have benefited from more poise and warmth. But however dramatically questionable, his singing was often deeply affecting, and his (very difficult) second act aria Fuor del mar was perfectly judged and exquisitely sung.

Kate Royal provided some Grecian flavour to her part as Ilia in a draped cream goddess gown (marks deducted for visible bra straps).  Her intonation was secure and her tone serenely radiant, notes cautiously but elegantly laid in place. The problem for me was her offputting habit of inflecting by gasping and panting in between notes, something that eventually became far more noticeable than the line it was disrupting.

Emma Bell, the fiery Electra, looked fabulous with her new short-fringed bob and red strapless gown. She made the most of her dramatically redundant but musically riveting role with a thrilling and well-received high-drama, mega-vibrato performance, more in the style of late Verdi than early Mozart. It may have been an anachronism, but it made perfect musical sense. Anyway it slotted in neatly with the various vocal idiosyncracies on display elsewhere.

The most conventionally Mozartean singing came from Jurgita Adamonyte as Idamante, poised, focussed and pure of tone. Despite being a late replacement for the advertised Christine Rice, she gave every evidence of thorough and intelligent study of the role, all her expressive choices seemingly the perfect ones.

The tenor Benjamin Hulett completed the list of principals as Arbace. He reminded me of Toby Spence in his straightforward and versatile vocal quality - also in the fact that he looks about half his age.

The weakest link was the chorus, who I understand were pulled together just for this performance. On the plus side, their enunciation was exceptionally clear and their ensemble near-perfect. But there was scarcely any sign of life from them until the last act, in dramatic contrast to the vigour of Europa Galante.

It was a strange and quirk-packed evening, far from immaculate technically, but for the most part entirely riveting. Proof perhaps that not everything needs to be perfect to be great.

Ian Bostridge sings Fuor del Mar with Charles Mackerras and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra:

Ian Bostridge in St John Passion at the Barbican

St John Passion - Academy of Ancient Music/Layton - Barbican, 14 March 2008

What a Bach fix, two St John Passions in London in one month. The previous one, with the OAE at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, was a small-scale, conductor-less (or as the OAE no doubt see it, conductor-free) affair. Here, the Academy of Ancient Music chose to deploy larger forces - 26 in the orchestra and 28 in the choir - and had Stephen Layton to conduct them. This immediately lost them the intimacy and personal touch the OAE had brought -- but in the big Barbican Hall that's always a tough trick to pull off anyway.

The most obvious difference was in the choral sound. The OAE used a small, more 'authentic' group, which included the soloists. It never quite integrated the different voices. Tonight's choir were the well-schooled Polyphony. Their glorious homogeneous sound had a more celestial ring than their dramatic role might seem to demand, but it formed the bedrock of Layton's distinctly theatrical reading. Brisk tempos alternated with pointed silences; the orchestra suddenly cut out for a cappella choral repeats. Though the orchestra lacked a final touch of polish, their sound was at least perfectly balanced, one of the advantages of having a conductor on board.

The soloists were sensibly placed on raised platforms amongst the orchestra, where they could see the conductor, and the audience could see them. Ian Bostridge, up front throughout as Evangelist, chose to pick through the recitative line-by-line, as if he was thinking aloud, rather than telling a story. But at least it sounded attractive enough.

His decision to shoulder all the tenor arias as well wasn't the smartest of choices. Here, strained high notes lent an ever-increasingly desperate edge to his singing.

The other soloists were impressive, in particular countertenor Michael Chance. Who cares if his voice is showing his age? - his heartfelt Es ist vollbracht was quite properly the emotional crux of the work.

Carolyn Sampson inevitably added a touch of glamour despite her rather dowdy black frock. Her crystal-pure tone and refined phrasing seemed tailor-made for the soprano arias. Her expression though (and I may be doing her a gross injustice here) sometimes gave the impression she was trying to stifle a giggle. Basses Roderick Williams and James Rutherford provided solid and unstarry support.

I didn't mind being asked at the start not to applaud, but Stephen Layton stretched matters a bit far when he held his arms aloft for a dramatically extended silence at the very end. Violinists' elbows started to dip as we passed what must have been the minute mark. There's respect and there's power-tripping, and this trod the line rather too closely.

Bostridge Bostridge Bostridge

Ian Bostridge / Dorothea Röschmann / Thomas Quasthoff / Julius Drake - Barbican
and
Ian Bostridge / Sophie Daneman / Julius Drake - St Luke's, 14 January 2008

Aller guten Dinge sind drei

This was an interesting idea I'd like to see the Barbican repeat more often. One evening, two concerts, a short walk apart, and just enough time in between to grab some of London's finest sushi. The common link - Ian Bostridge - both were part of his year-long series of concerts at the Barbican.

For the first, an all-Schubert affair, he was joined by Dorothea Röschmann and Thomas Quasthoff. Schubert's duets and trios are not his strongest work, and the programme wisely majored on solo settings, mostly of Goethe.

It's probably true to say that there aren't that many people in London who attend lieder recitals on a regular basis, so with a 2,000-ish audience in the Barbican, there must have been a fair number of newcomers present. So it was a brave decision to begin with the heavy stuff, as Bostridge took on the three rarely-heard Gesänge des Harfners, the desolate outpourings of a blind and destitute old harper. Though his awkward twitching and lurching was barely watchable, hands fighting to levitate from pockets, the voice in contrast was pure and immaculately controlled, the tone simply beautiful.

Instead of the mannered enrobement of each and every syllable which has detracted from some of Bostridge's previous performances, there was a real sense of poetry asthe lines flowed, with consonants accented selectively and judiciously. OK, some of his technique, the flicked notes, the portamento, wasn't technically 'correct', but they were choices that worked. I was riveted; some other audience members weren't, but the coughing was boldly and effectively reduced by Thomas Quasthoff with a loud shush and an angry look.

The logical follow up was a little light relief, the lovely if slight duet Mignon und der Harfner, which introduced Dorothea Röschmann. Her presence is direct and assured, her tone bell-like and lyrical, and she complements Bostridge perfectly. Going it alone in the three following Mignon Lieder and Kennst du das Land, her artless simplicity transformed her into the sad child of the songs.

Thomas Quasthoff lightened the tone with the rollicking Normans Gesang and the familiar Ganymed. Grenzen der Menschheit rather overstayed its welcome, but the compensation of a very subtly characterised Erlkönig followed. Quasthoff has enormous warmth and a very easy delivery, but there were many moments when he seemed imperfectly focussed, his naturalness sliding into a less than thoughtful delivery. Not enough of the material was in his satisfyingly rich and resonant bass register either, and he strained on the higher notes.

The trio Kantate zum Geburtstag des Sangers Johann Michael Vogl which closed the lengthy first half at least takes singing as its subject matter, and of course as a rare Schubert trio was appropriate for this particular line up of performers. But a good eight of its ten minutes seemed excessive - at least it was delivered with humour and energy.

The shorter second half of the concert was dominated in every sense by Dorothea Röschmann's three Faust songs, a spectral Der König in Thule, an intense Gretchen am Spinnrade and a moving Gretchen’s Bitte. There is a simple authenticity to everything she sings, an ease which makes every word sound fresh-minted and completely honest - though she wasn't best served by Julius Drake's idiosyncratically languorous accompaniment here, to a lesser extent an issue all evening.

The Szene im Dom which followed, another Faust setting and effectively a duet for Röschmann and Quasthoff, gave Quasthoff the opportunity to play to his strengths as the darkly evil spirit chastising the desperate Gretchen.

After the charming Bostridge/Röschmann duet Licht und Liebe the concert closed with the rather silly but at this stage enjoyable Der Hochzeitsbraten, complete with hunting calls and yodelling effects, where a pair of hare-poaching lovers are caught by a gamekeeper.

And then, at least for the lucky few, it was off up the road to the much smaller St Lukes, where Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake were joined by Sophie Daneman for what was billed as 'Late Night Cabaret', a set of songs by Coward, Porter and Weill. Bostridge's Schubert credentials are impeccable, his popular music less so. The stage was set with a starry night sky backdrop, a champagne bucket and a haze of filtered lights. (No smoking allowed tho).

Opening with Coward's I Travel Alone, Bostridge showed a much less mannered touch than his recording, now a few years old, would suggest. He hardly has the insouciant ease of a Sinatra, but in the songs he connected with, like this one, the performance was at least credible, and considerably less physically awkward than his earlier Barbican showing. The dismissal of considerations of technique which to some ears flaw his classical performances give him a head start here, where the centred voice and the clipped note are not always what works. In others, like Twentieth-Century Blues, he seemed to be offering more of a commentary than a performance, and it didn't come over nearly as well.

He has a terrific rapport with Sophie Daneman, who brought a relaxed charm to the evening. Her high, silvery, vibrato-free voice is just as well suited to musical theatre as to the baroque opera she's more usually associated with. There was never any sense of pain behind her perpetual smile though. As she translated the quiet despair which should underline If Love Were All into a cheerily game resignation, I longed for the raw simplicity of a Judy Garland.

Surprisingly, the least effective songs were the six from Weill's Die Dreigroschenoper, for which Drake's loosely phrased piano work was partially to blame. It's an unfortunate reflection on the art of accompaniment that the audience tends only to notice what the pianist is doing when it's not quite right, but that's the way it goes. A bit more rhythmic impetus would certainly have helped here. And Bostridge's tendency to spit out every other line like a curse grossly distorted the text.

It was a smart idea to end with a group of Cole Porter songs, their supercilious wit ideally matched to the performers' strengths. I don't think this is an experiment I'd want to see repeated any time soon, but as classical crossover goes, it was at least not entirely witless or excruciating, a rarity in itself.

 

All hands on deck - Billy Budd at the Barbican

Billy Budd - LSO/Harding - Barbican, 9 December 2007

The huge crew of this Billy Budd just about squeezed on to the Barbican stage with the help of a bit of sophisticated musical chairs. With every elbow tightly choreographed, there wasn't room to even think about any staging. Just a hint of costuming - the officers sported full frack and the seamen all-black - though the significance of Gidon Saks's lurex tee and winklepickers is anybody's guess.

The sounds of the sea were gloriously evoked by Daniel Harding and the LSO. Here Britten brings symphonic-scale resources to a minutely-embroidered chamber orchestration. Crashing waves, rolling shanties, the thunder of battle exploded into life, sometimes ear-splittingly so. fff-ing loud does seem to be Harding's default volume, but here it seemed utterly appropriate, wrong-but-right, and never drowned the details. Nor the singers -- a few odd moments aside, Harding cleared a generous path for them.

This was the first (or the second if you count an identical performance two nights earlier) of a series of Barbican concerts fronted by Ian Bostridge, and it was also his first outing as Captain Vere. Vere's agonising choice between personal morality and public duty was laid out painfully and vividly, but his public face was less clearly sketched. Indeed, Bostridge seemed completely disinterested in presenting any kind of external characterisation, as if dissection was an adequate substitute for portraiture. But, dramatic considerations aside, his singing was flawless, lyrical, at times heartstoppingly beautiful.

Maybe I've been spoiled by recollections of Simon Keenlyside tackling Billy Budd, but I found Nathan Gunn was a little colourless in the title role, with more charm than real charisma. He improved as the night went on though, and managed in his dawn song (aided by a haunting piccolo solo) to be truly touching and not simply sentimental.

Gidon Saks, the burly, scary Claggart was imposing of voice and demeanour, convincing from head to toe. Brooding malevolence was tempered with flashes of the vulnerability that drives his persecution of Billy. It was a commanding performance, hinting that what lay inside Claggart was too monstrous to contemplate. Absolute perfection.

And the many smaller roles were more than adequately filled. Matthew Best as Dansker, Andrew Kennedy as Novice, Andrew Tortise as Squeak and Alasdair Elliot as Red Whiskers were all particularly impressive, but really, there were no disappointments amongst the soloists at all.

The London Symphony Chorus sailed on somewhat rougher seas, making a splendid job of many of their moments, especially the big shanties, but falling apart rather here and there. I had the impression a couple more rehearsals might have helped.

The whole thing was recorded for future release by EMI -- if they can edit out the first act coughfest it should be a remarkable recording.

A video with some background, including rehearsal footage and commentary from Ian Bostridge:

Rattle and Harding go head to head in Friday night battle

"Anyone with open ears is going to be stunned by the overwhelming beauty of the piece"

says Simon Rattle of Schumann's super-rare oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri, which he brings to the Royal Festival Hall this Friday, December 7.

Though he hedges his bets with
"to our very puritanical, middle-European ears, people think this is simply too beautiful, the dissonances are too extraordinary. People have a problem with ecstatic music".

He's gathered a fantastic cast - Bernarda Fink, Sally Matthews, Kate Royal, Mark Padmore and David Wilson Johnson - so he may just prove himself wrong there.

Same night, different place, the Barbican offers stiff competition with the gay jinks of Britten's Billy Budd.

But there will be no rigging, no jigging and definitely no frigging on Captain Daniel Harding's ship - it's a concert version. Which means (I am presuming) we will have the rare privilege of seeing Nathan Gunn (in the title role) with his shirt on. Ian Bostridge and Gidon Saks (a late replacement for the sick John Relyea) fill the other principal roles, but the casting is chiefly interesting for the quality it brings to the smaller parts - Matthew Rose, Andrew Kennedy, Darren Jeffery, Andrew Staples and Roderick Williams to name just a few.

Fortunately an agonising decision can be averted by opting for the repeat of Billy Budd on Sunday 9 December.

For anyone interested in finding out more about the Schumann, Misha Donat leads a talk on Thursday 6 December at 6pm in the Sunley Pavilion of the Royal Festival Hall. Though here there's no way round the fixture clash with the first night of the Royal Opera House's Parsifal, so I'll be giving it a miss.

LSO's Creation - nearly quite good actually

Haydn: The Creation - LSO/Davis - Barbican, 7 October 2007

The LSO managed a pretty good turnout for tonight's performance of Haydn's Creation considering the competing attractions of the LPO's birthday celebrations at the Royal Festival and a rare Thomas Quasthoff jazz concert at the Wigmore Hall. Once again Evgeny Kissin was a welcome addition to the audience. And BBC cameras too -- the concert was recorded for future transmission (no date fixed yet) on BBC4.

Last year the Barbican staged a Gabrieli Consort performance of the Creation sung in the English biblical/Milton text which originally inspired Haydn. Tonight's version used the German text Haydn actually set, economically combined with a moderately sized orchestra and just three soloists, who doubled up on the five vocal parts.

For all Sir Colin Davis's baton-swinging enthusiasm, the LSO struck a rather subdued Sunday-nighter note, with a few glaring errors of ensemble suggesting a lack of concentration. The London Symphony Chorus were more animated, if not quite as slickly rehearsed as I've seen them of late.

This oratorio is more or less through-sung, so it weighs heavily on the soloists' shoulders -- luckily Sir Colin had engaged a crack team. Sally Matthews scored maximum glamour points, wrapped in red and white taffeta and weighed down in Mikey. Her even, luxuriant ice-cream tone and leisured phrasing lent a celestial purity to her parts, though her strange swoops and twirls were a distracting visual counterpoint.

Dietrich Henschel was initially very reserved, even opting to close his eyes when he wasn't singing. Was he lost in rapture, did he just need the sleep, or are were the audience really that scary? Once thawed out, his attractively dry baritone was subtly nuanced, alert to all the expressive possibilities of the text, and particularly charming as he painted a list of animals.

Ian Bostridge most uncharacteristically barked and shouted his way through the first hour, where, unfortunately, most of his solos were placed. When he suddenly rediscovered his voice in the Mit Wurd und Hoheit aria, it was like a ray of sunshine, and left Henschel so spellbound that he failed to rise from his seat for his own immediately following solo until an impatient chord from the harpsichord continuo summoned him. Bostridge was back to heartstoppingly beautiful top form for his just two solos which followed, but I couldn't help regretting the lost opportunity of the first half.

Whatever any individual shortcomings were, in each of the several trios, the soloists displayed an inspired sensitivity and balance, slotting together to almost freakish perfection.

I'd love to hear the same team tackle this again -- all the right ingredients are in place, and it's just unfortunate that they didn't meld together consistently in this performance.

 

Kate Royal - too hot to Handel

Prom 52: OAE/Freiburg Baroque Orchestra - Royal Albert Hall, 23 August 2007

Quite how this concert managed to sell out when a few days ago one of the greatest operas ever written could barely half-fill the hall is a mystery. Can baroque really be that popular now?

Perhaps some other people, like me, were mostly interested in hearing Ian Bostridge and Kate Royal, even though their appearance was really more of a swift marketing boost for Bostridge's latest recording than a major part of the programme. There was certainly a noticeable exodus from the arena at the interval, following their all too brief 10 minute share of the two and a half hour marathon.

Singers aside, the selling point of this concert was the bringing together of two of the great period orchestras, the Freiburg Baroque and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, albeit in trimmed-down versions of each.

The opening number, Handel's Concerto a due cori, requires two instrumental ensembles. It was a smart bit of programming that demonstrated the subtle differences of timbre between the two bands, most noticeable in the wind and brass. The OAE's Rachel Podger (photo above) directed this from her violin with a permagrin and a hair-tossing vigour that was reflected in a muscular performance from the ensemble.

They followed up with a suite of nine Purcell numbers selected and arranged by Catherine Mackintosh of the OAE, and again directed by Rachel Podger. Although this kicked off with much the same brio as the Handel, the ensemble noticeably deflated about halfway through. They autopiloted for an interminable ten minutes until a comically raw closing jig jolted things back into life.

As the wholesomely glamorous Kate Royal strode on in a ruched silver satin off the shoulder gown, like Kate Middleton doing Rita Hayworth, the teenage girl behind me sighed --oh my god I want to BE her. She did look fabulous. And she delivered Handel's brief Eternal source of light divine with a silvery radiance and great charm. She does breathe like a horse, but nobody's perfect, eh?

Ian Bostridge followed with an impeccable Love Sounds th'alarm, sparkling and vital, every tricky note perfect.  Kate Royal sat glowering into her score as he sang - rehearsing faces for her next number rather than commenting on his performance as it transpired.

Royal and Bostridge then paired for As Steals the Morn and Happy We, the former exquisitely sensitive, the quaint humour of the latter so excruciatingly misjudged I couldn't even look at them as they sang. Despite this little slip, I could have readily listened to them for a lot longer. It was disappointing that their appearance was so brief.

I didn't stay for the rest of the concert - some Telemann, Handel's ubiquitous Royal Fireworks music - though listening to the recorded broadcast, it sounds as if it was no great loss.

Coming up this autumn - Opera in London

Plenty going on of course at the Royal Opera House this autumn, and here's what's happening elsewhere in London.

English National Opera kick off their season at the end of September with a new Carmen. They follow with a revival of Nicholas Hytner's charming Magic Flute, Kate Royal and Lucy Crowe in a new production of Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea directed by Chen Shi-Zheng, a Zandra Rhodes-designed Aida from Houston Grand Opera and a David McVicar Turn of the Screw.

Sadler's Wells once again play host to a few one-offs and touring productions. Sarah Tynan features in a pair of one-act operas by Elisabeth Maconchy on 13 to 17 November. She's back on 26 November for the London premiere of a new James McMillan opera for WNO, The Sacrifice, inspired by ancient Welsh folktales. Glyndebourne on tour visit Sadler's Wells in December with Albert Herring, Macbeth (recently prommed too) and L'Elisir d'Amore.

English Touring Opera hit Hackney Empire on 12 October with Handel's Teseo followed by Country Matters, an English-language version of Haydn's L'Infidelta Delusa on 13 October. They're back on 25 October with Bridgetower, a new jazz opera by Julian Joseph. ETO may not have the star names or the big budgets, but they still manage to conjure up some high quality productions at very reasonable prices, so these will definitely be on my list.

Some musical muppetry for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, where Purcell's Dido and Aeneas "is expanded and reinvigorated by Director Tim Carroll, who weaves Marlowe's play of the same events into the opera, while the action is illuminated by a cast of magical marionettes". Two performances, on 13 and 14 October (note ETO fixture clash).

And the OAE are back for a rare concert performance of Schumann's Das Paradies und die Peri in the Royal Festival Hall on 7 December. "Not an opera" according to Schumann, who titled it a 'poem' and described it as "not for the chapel, but rather for cheerful folk." Cheerful folk joining the OAE include Simon Rattle and a solid cast of Bernarda Fink, Sally Matthews, Kate Royal and Mark Padmore.

Again the OAE have a schedule overlap, this time with the Barbican's Billy Budd on 7 and 9 December, featuring Nathan Gunn as Billy and Ian Bostridge. In sharp contrast to the Royal Festival Hall's increasingly greedy ticket prices, this is a great bargain, with the top price just £30 and loads of balcony seats at £6 and £12.

The Barbican also hosts Les Arts Florissants on 24 October with Landi's Il Sant'Alessio, featuring Philippe Jaroussky in the title role.

Back at the Royal Festival Hall, the LPO have secured the services of the radiant Patrizia Ciofi for a concert performance of Bellini's rarely-heard La Straniera on 3 November .

And the LPO present another concert performance on 21 November, this time the UK premiere of Korngold's Das Wunder der Heliane. Tickets are already getting thin for this. For the Korngold-ignorant (raises hand) there's a free talk beforehand by Jessica Duchen.

TV outing for Michael Ball's beard

Ian Bostridge saved the ENO a small fortune in glue and badger clippings by economically providing a homegrown moustache for the ENO's recent Death in Venice.

Now Michael Ball has followed his thrifty example for the forthcoming ENO Kismet. West End Whingers reveal the splendour of the newly furred chin that an alarmingly premenstrual looking Ball recently displayed on TV:

Death in Venice first night

Death in Venice - ENO, 24 May 2007

Standing in the centre of the above pic is the real star of tonight's production, lighting designer Jean Kalman. With sparsely furnished sets, conjuring up the magic of La Serenissima largely fell to him. Ripples of light traversing the entire stage like reflections in a pool were a recurring effect. Sulphurous yellow fog, a bold orange sunrise, threatening shadows came and went. Without his brilliant effects there would have been nothing much to look at except a bunch of chairs. Speaking of which - I hadn't registered in the dress rehearsal how cleverly the seating was used. Poor frail-looking Ian Bostridge was on stage for pretty much the whole opera. But he regularly plonked himself down in the conveniently-placed chair which found its way into most scenes, helping himself to the artfully worked-in drink, and even a couple of cigs.

Bostridge's performance was the highlight, as it had to be. His singing was absolutely faultless. As the repressed, frustrated Aschenbach struggling to escape his creative block, his portrayal was perfectly pitched, and free of the physical mannerisms which can dog his work. His moustache was a masterly touch - it made it easier to believe we were looking at someone other than Bostridge, even if it failed to make him look older as I believe was intended. It was partly the strength of his performance which made Peter Coleman-Wright's Traveller fade a little further into the background than maybe he should have, though he was a great deal livelier than he had been at the dress rehearsal, and camped up the more comic characters deliciously. Iestyn Davies was the other great singer, a lush, sweet countertenor in the Robin Blaze mould.

Edward Gardner's (below) official conducting debut couldn't have gone better.  The gamelan-esque percussion in particular was terrific, and the energy levels never seemed to drop. I was sitting right behind him at the front (and STILL only managed to get cr@p fuzzy photos, o my trembling hands). His light economical style wasn't hugely exciting to watch, but then only about five people outside the pit could see that, so it was hardly the point.

Fashion notes - defying the summery temperatures, director Deborah Warner wore a long black asymmetric dress and jacket with knee boots. Fiona Shaw looked more seasonal in a grey cotton jersey gathered waist dress with flat strappy sandals. Saffron Burrows was massively glamorous in a dark green sleeveless gathered grecian-type dress, again with the flat strappy sandals. Leader of the opposition Tony Pappano was accessorised with the lovely Mrs Tony and said hello to everyone. The best dressed though was a random femme d'un certain age in a Gucci butterfly print silk dress with matching scarf, shoes and headband.

The cast for a change actually looked better than the audience, in their elegant monochrome edwardian style clothes:

ENO's Death in Venice - Dress Rehearsal

Death in Venice (Dress Rehearsal) - Coliseum, 22 May 2007

A musically stunning production with no controversy-sparking surprises. The monochrome production design makes maximum use of very plain sets, relying heavily on imaginative ever-changing lighting and rear projection to evoke the Venetian settings in a fairly literal way. It looks as if more of the budget went on the crowds and their turn of the century costuming, also monochrome. The stage flooring is split into textured horizontal panels - glassy, rough, boarded - which serve as water, beach, graveyard, whatever is required. Repeated musical themes are echoed in lighting changes - white text projected on to a black background for Aschenbach's piano-accompanied recitatives, cloudy sulphurous all-infusing yellow for the boiling brass of the coming plague. Rattan chairs and potted palms hint at the hotel interior, a single pole is a gondola, flat cutout hut shapes become the beach.

The big pre-show question was whether Ian Bostridge is too young to play the middle aged Aschenbach. The production doesn't really address the age issue. His specially-cultivated moustache hints at Thomas Mann's own, without adding adding anything to the calendar. The appearance, the deportment, and particularly the voice suggest he's in the prime of his life rather than the autumn of his years, even when he's cholera-stricken and on his way out. It's the fat lady issue again - do you hire someone who looks the part, or someone who can sing it attractively? I think it's something you may have to take or leave as you please - the drama is one of psychological crisis, not physical frailty, after all, and personally if I have to listen to someone for nearly three hours, Ian Bostridge will do nicely, thank you. I can't help comparing with Philip Langridge's stunning concert performance with the Philharmonia at the QEH a few months back - though it's questionable whether there's anyone else of Langridge's years who could give quite such a remarkable performance, world-weariness without actual weariness.

Peter Coleman-Wright in the baritone parts gave a relatively subdued performance, but of course this was only a rehearsal so I don't want to read too much into that. I do hope more of the humour comes out in the finished version - this is a work that needs its moments of levity. Iestyn Davies as Apollo has the most beautiful even and bell-like tone, projecting exceptionally by countertenor standards. Each brief time he appeared was, appropriately, like the sun coming out.

One thing I didn't really understand was the decision to costume and choreograph Tadzio very similarly to the other boys in the cast. Combined with his (pleasant enough but) naturally unarresting looks, it made him blend into the background rather. It became a challenge to accept that Aschenbach could see him as his muse, the personification of beauty - even just picking him out amongst the other dancers was hard enough.