Intermezzo

L'Heure espagnole and Gianni Schicchi at the Royal Opera House

L'Heure espagnole / Gianni Schicchi - Royal Opera House, 20 October 2009

This Richard Jones double-bill blew me away on its debut a couple of years back. I'm surprised to see it has faltered at the box office on this first revival (see here for half price tickets offer). I can only assume it’s the lack of star names and well-known titles that are keeping people away, because it’s one of the finest things in the current ROH repertoire.

Richard Jones is always at his best when he's showing human nature at its worst. Here he gets to play with lust, greed and deception - all shot through with wicked humour. Garish wallpaper and charity shop kitsch frame a pair of frenzied sitcoms. Ravel's has a certain French charm with its macaroon colours and gentle farce. A crudely-painted pair of Beryl Cook bewbs in a polka dot bra is spread across the curtain as the opening image. It sets the tone immaculately. For the darker humour of Gianni Schicchi, the wallpaper's stained and the opening shot is a plate of writhing spaghetti. Secks for the French, food for the Italians. Perfect.

Revivals can be shoddy affairs bearing little relation to the original - perhaps that's why Jones likes to direct his own. But this time he was gettin’ roped up and shot down elsewhere, so the task fell to staff director Elaine Kidd. A brilliant job she's done too. It looks better rehearsed than some revivals, and with most of the previous cast returning characterisations are rounded and performances assured.

Comic opera often isn't really that funny, however much we will it to be, but in the clock-stuffed L’Heure espagnole the timing is so acutely finessed the laughs are genuine. Ruxandra Donose is perfect as the frustrated housewife who baits her unsuitable suitors with barmaid bewbs and the sort of simmering allure I wish Elina Garanca had been able to muster up for Carmen. Yann Beuron as the self-obsessed poet she wants, Andrew Shore as the clapped-out banker she doesn't, and Bonaventura Bottone as her unsuspecting husband are all superb. But it was the happiest of endings when she went for Christopher Maltman, a golden-voiced revelation in a vest.

OK, it sags here and there, but that’s down to the composer not the production. Ravel’s strengths are more pictorial than dramatic. The inventiveness of the score is enhanced by Pappano’s delicately evocative interpretation, but the dramatic pacing, or lack of it, is something even he can do nothing about.

Gianni Schicchi is a different matter. There’s as much action as a full opera, but it’s telescoped down to a fat-free sixty minutes. The music is trimmed to the bone and supports the text without cliche. If story telling is what matters, it’s Puccini’s finest creation. The misanthropy which sometimes strikes a sour note in his work is turned to advantage in darkening a cynical portrayal of the family who'll stoop to anything to get their hands on their recently-deceased relative's fortune.

Thomas Allen sings the title role as though born to it. Looking like he’s stepped out of a round of Super Mario Bros, he favours rude over beauty of tone – and his quivering impersonation of the dying man is a bonus. The young lovers weren't quite as perfect. Stephen Costello (Rinuccio) has a fine voice, but it's not consistently focussed. And he ran out of wind at a couple of critical moments, notably the final bar of Avete torto. On this showing, he's still a work in progress. Maria Bengtsson sang prettily though tentatively, and undermilked the big tune, Lauretta's O mio babbino caro. But this really is the quintessential ensemble piece, and all the cast (especially Gwynne Howell and Elena Zilio) revelled in the sheer awfulness of the grasping family.

OK, so it doesn't pack the emotional punch of Loy's remarkable Tristan und Isolde, and Richard Jones's ironic appraisal takes us even further away from empathising. But a little light relief is always welcome.

*****  more photos on next page  *****

Simon Keenlyside does Wigmore Hall

Simon Keenlyside / Malcolm Martineau - Wigmore Hall, 26 October 2008

Fauré Mandoline No. 1 from 'Cinq mélodies de Venise'; En sourdine; Green No. 3 from 'Cinq mélodies de Venise'; Notre amour; Fleur jetée; Spleen; Madrigal de Shylock; Aubade; Le papillon et la fleur   Ravel Histoires naturelles   Wolf Gesang Weylas; Heimweh; Auf eine Christblume II; Lied vom Winde   Schubert An Silvia D. 891; Die Einsiedelei D393; Verklärung D59; Freiwilliges Versinken D700; Gruppe aus dem Tartarus, D583; Himmelsfunken D651; Ständchen D957; Die Sterne D939; Auf der Bruck D853

Encores: Wolf Der Knabe und das Immlein; An die Geliebte   Poulenc Hôtel 

This was the second of two identical recitals that Simon Keenlyside is committing to disc for the Wigmore Live CD series. And if the engineer can zap out the intrusive but ohso predictable coughing it should make one terrific recording.

New dad (congratulations!) Simon is like the Swiss Army knife of baritones - he can do just about anything. Well, except pluck your brows or pick stones out of ponies' hooves, but you have to pay extra for that.

At Wigmore Hall there was little trace of the physicality so central to Simon's operatic performances. Nattily turned out in a three-piece grey suit, he commanded the Wigmore stage by sheer force of presence, fingers locked over his chest. And he was in excellent form, even though his admirable insistence on performing in original keys meant he was stretched tissue-thin at the top.

The first half's Fauré, drawn from the less sticky end of the syrup pot, was sung with affection and feeling, and Ravel's quirky animal songs allowed room for characterisation. His diction was clear without being fussy, and his French mostly excellent. Only a tendency to nasalise vowels too early marked him out as English (a bit pedantic eh, but unless long vowels are sung open, only nasalising towards the very end of the note, it's a dead giveaway.) Malcolm Martineau was in perfect accord, locating as he so often does that tricky middle ground between anonymity and assertiveness.

Simon sang everything without a score, only a couple of lines in the second half's Wolf group challenging his memory. But the Schubert group which followed was the highlight of the evening for me, traversing from the sublime yearning of Ständchen to the operatic thunder of Auf der Bruck and everything in between. The encores continued on a high. The main programme had been beautifully sung, every note placed perfectly, but here in the pair of Wolf songs Simon let rip more, taking risks he perhaps hadn't dared earlier. It left me wanting more....the ideal way to end any recital.

L’Enfant et le Berlin Phil

Berliner Philharmoniker/Rattle - Philharmonie Berlin, 26 September 2008

The Berlin Philharmonic rarely sound like the world's greatest orchestra in the boomy Royal Albert Hall or the desiccated Barbican, but on their home patch, in the acoustically-engineered architecture of the Philharmonie, it's a different matter. Its strange angles seem to pinpoint every note. The precision tapestries of Ravel's Ma Mère l’oye and L’Enfant et les sortilèges< came alive.

Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic were performing the same double bill 

for three nights in a row (beneath a mic-draped ceiling, suggesting a recording is in the offing). It made for a short evening - 30 minutes one end, 45 the other - but like one of those incredibly dense, incredibly rich chocolate cakes, a little went a long way.  

Ma Mère l’oye balanced complexity with weightlessness. Only the surprise volume of the sudden fortissimo a few bars from the end made me realise how quietly the rest had been played, and how subtly Rattle had delineated the crisp changes of texture. Like a series of dressage manoeuvres, it's partly a showcase for solo skills, and all were faultlessly handled.  

I recall Simon Rattle, as he left England to take up the Berlin job, criticising modern British artists for being 'biographical'. Well, no composer could be less biographical than Ravel, so perhaps it was predictable that Rattle seemed in his element. He didn't search dig or embellish, simply presented it in crystal clear focus. A masterpiece of charm, taste and workmanship.

L’Enfant et les sortilèges is a difficult one. It doesn't get many fully-staged outings on account of its odd length and the physical demands of its fantasy storyline. In some ways it's more like a cartoon script than a theatrical text. But the same demands would make a totally straight concert performance confusing and inadequate. The choice here, a concert performance with indicative costume and movement, seemed a reasonable compromise, and the singers had enormous fun with it.

Magdalena Kožená made a wonderfully brattish, exasperating Child, even if the Pudelkopf did her no favours. The other singers threw themselves into their multiple roles with great gusto, tiptoeing round Simon Rattle's podium for a bit of physical interaction where required. The miaow duet of Sophie Koch and François Le Roux was the go-for-broke highlight, but the flowing coloratura of Annick Massis as Princess and Nightingale, and Nathalie Stutzmann's carefully variegated Mother, Teacup and Dragonfly enriched the mix too.

Rattle kept the orchestra unassertive, but there was no loss of intensity or commitment, and it was clear they were thoroughly enjoying themselves.

The subject-matter and its glib treatment may suggest both pieces are 'children's music' (and I did love Andre Previn's classic LSO recording all those years ago) but there's enough wit, invention and plain old craftsmanship there to draw in the most demanding adult too. I can't say I was spiritually uplifted, but I was at least cheered up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Magdalena Kozena turns into Simon Rattle

Yes, it really is her. And I don't think it's a wig either. Just mad tonging skillz and Elnett. Magdalena chose tonight's performance of L’Enfant et les sortilèges by Sir Simon and his Berliner Philharmoniker to unveil this 'interesting' tribute 'do.

 

Sir Simon, meanwhile, found another dame to channel:

This our tempo! Gustavo Dudamel pwns Edinburgh, pwns Proms

Edinburgh Festival: Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra / Dudamel - Usher Hall, 12 August 2008

Prom 37: Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra / Dudamel / Martin Fröst - Royal Albert Hall, 13 August 2008

Edinburgh:
Copland Appalachian Spring
Ravel La Valse
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique

London:
Ravel La Valse 
Anders Hillborg Clarinet Concerto (Peacock Tales)
Berlioz Symphonie fantastique

What proves that the Dudamel effect is not just the creation of a vampiric media, rejuvenating their tired old classical music coverage with fresh young blood, is that he achieves astonishing results with every orchestra he shakes his stick at.

Here was a case in point. The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra - professional, refined, elegant - and about as exciting as a secondhand Volvo. But for two nights in a row - and with a long, tiring train ride (and I know, I did it myself) in between - they set an audience alight with their passion and fervour.

In Edinburgh on Tuesday, Appalachian Spring was sprung with the chill vigour of a sleigh ride. La Valse skirled and lurched drunkenly. The Symphonie Fantastique was delivered with the uninhibited inyerface brashness that for once could make you appreciate why it so scandalised and horrified its original audiences. Berlioz would have wept with joy.

I was left with an agonising decision - whether to hang around for an encore, or dash off through the rainy night to my next appointment (a Gabriela Montero late night recital, of which more later). I escaped, and found later I'd missed the two encores the ecstatic audience had demanded.

But luckily there was no such dilemma on Proms night. After the final wild fugue of the Fantastique, and the thunderous applause, the temperature was lowered with the sombre, hymn-like Sangen by by Swedish composer Stenhammar.

And then two minutes later the roof blew off the Albert Hall with a Latin stomp, Tico Tico, that rivalled the Simon Bolivar Orchestra's rendition at last year's Proms. Complete with the never-before-seen spectacle of the middle-aged sensible Swedish brass section tossing their jackets aside and leaping to their feet with their horns in the air.

But there had already been one encore. This came at the end of the first half. Martin Fröst's staggeringly virtuosic reading of Hillborg's (he turned up at the end to take a bow) Clarinet Concerto (complete with masked dance-mime and spooky lighting) was followed by a klezmer-style arrangement that showed off his skills in yet another light. Is he the best clarinettist in the world right now? Probably.

It should be pointed out, for those who care about such things, that I was sitting inches from the front at the Edinburgh concert, the sort of distance where you can hear every violin individually, and there was not a note out of place in the string section.

Sitting just behind the orchestra in the choir stalls at the Prom, I was impressed too by the calibre of the percussion playing. The whole programme was a mighty test of percussion skills, from the fiendish toms in the Hillborg to the massive bells at the end of the Fantastique. Woodwind intonation varied, but you couldn't accuse Dudamel (as some have done)of not knowing his technical stuff.

The Prom is available on the BBC iPlayer, here, for the next seven days. And the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra have a blog  - in Swedish - with some great photos, here.

Edinburgh:

Gustavo Dudamel and Martin Frost:

 

Martin Frost:

Swedish brass do a twirl: