Intermezzo

Eugene Onegin in Amsterdam

Eugene Onegin - De Nederlandse Opera, Het Muziektheater Amsterdam, 18 June 2011

By telling the story largely in interactive flashback, Stefan Herheim's new production ingeniously restores elements of Pushkin's verse novel absent from Tchaikovsky's adaptation. Flitting between Pushkin's time and today, Onegin and Tatiana take turns to contemplate their past.  At the same time, modern Russia's identity crisis is explored via a procession of national stereotypes from peasant to patriarchs, communists to cosmonauts. This feels over-ambitious, though to be fair it is truthful to the novel, which is drawn on a larger scale than the opera. The production as a whole though is still an extraordinary theatrical experience, enhanced by the brilliant playing of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Dutch downloads

The Concertgebouw Orchestra are kindly (amazingly!) offering free mp3 downloads of ten live symphony recordings to anyone who joins their mailing list.

You can see the full list below.

Go here for more details.

Franz Schubert	Symphony No.8 'Unfinished'	Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Ludwig van Beethoven	Symphony No.2	Mariss Jansons
Felix Mendelssohn	Symphony No.4 'Italian'	Kirill Kondrashin
Cesar Franck	Symphony in D	Mariss Jansons
Gustav Mahler	Symphony No.1	Leonard Bernstein
Antonin Dvorák	Symphony No.8	Carlo Marino Giulini
Camille Saint-Saëns	Symphony No.3 'Organ'	Myung-Whun Chung
Jean Sibelius	Symphony No.2	Mariss Jansons
Anton Bruckner	Symphony No.8	Bernard Haitink
Johannes Brahms	Symphony No.2	Mariss Jansons

the magic baton of Mr Jansons

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam /Jansons - Barbican, 12 and 13 December 2009

Last weekend's flying Concertgebouw visit packed in two concerts in less than 24 hours. The better of the pair was Sunday afternoon's Mahler 2.

Mariss Jansons had me gripped right from the hovering, shimmering strings of the first bar. There's something magical, almost mystical about the way he balances architecture against details, form against texture, head against heart. I never felt any aspect of the music was being sacrificed in pursuit of insights elsewhere. His path was secure, unerring, and in a work that tempts theatrics from even the best, ultimately truthful. His music is the sort that doesn't need to shout to be heard. Quite overwhelming.

Saturday night's concert was more fragmented and ultimately less satisfying. The glowing strings, warm brass and sonorous woodwinds of the Concertgebouw are pretty much a given, so no complaints on that score. But where Jansons's restraint in the Mahler was revelatory, in Saturday's Brahms 4 it seemed more like a brake. There was an abundance of elegant craft, but I found myself longing for the do-or-die passion of Rattle, Barenboim (on a good day) or even Daniel Harding.

Smetana's Bartered Bride overture was energetic but inherently throwaway, and Martinu's Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano and Timpani I simply don't care for, never have, sorry. In some ways, the encores, a Dvorak Slavonic Dance and Brahms Hungarian Dance were the most effective elements of the evening.

Perhaps my diminished enthusiasm has something to do with the seating though. I was, unusually, sitting in the balcony, where the view is perfect and the sound exquisitely blended. But the famously dry acoustic of the Barbican is a thousand times more apparent here than downstairs. The seats are fairly priced (a positive bargain in fact) to take account of tthe problem, but it's an economy I shan't make again in a hurry.

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

Prom 61: Wild Bears and sports bras

Prom 61: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra / Jansons / Magdalena Kožená

Magdalena Kožená needs underwear advice and she needs it now. I don’t know if her gorgeous gold lace gown was a genuine Chanel or an inspired ‘tribute’. Whichever, I’m sure it would have looked better without a black sports bra showing through. Karl would die. And she so nearly got it Catherine Deneuve-right for once with her elegant pearl accessories and sleekly whipped-up hair.

She couldn’t quite get it together musically either. After an uneven and sometimes inaudible start to her five Duparc songs, her voice settled into that cool, otherworldly glow that lends a touch of magic to everything she does. But it was impossible to tell what language she was singing in, let alone any of the words, and her detached manner suggested commentary more than experience. Her encore, Debussy’s Ballade des Femmes de Paris, was more effective for being more relaxed. But it remained abundantly clear that French – at least the French of the exquisitely turned mélodie – is not her language or her idiom.

Ravel’s second Daphnis et Chloé Suite, a work so perfectly conceived it doesn’t leave a conductor much interpretive leeway, was the Concertgebouw’s follow-up. Mariss Jansons couldn’t find anything new, but a dazzling display of taut, responsive playing made it worthwhile.

The first symphony of Sibelius was the uneven opener to the upside-down programme. Beautifully played throughout, but after a fiery first movement, returns diminished. A tendency to drag was marked by a restless audience (surprisingly, far from capacity).

Two splendid encores – Debussy’s Clair de Lune and Elgar’s Wild Bears – were (as so often at the Proms) the highlight of the evening.  

What's on in London in September

Summer is nearly over, and at last the concert calendar is filling up.

Proms and alternatives
The Proms seem to have gone on forever, but it'll all be over for another year on 12 September.

Remaining highlights include Mariss Jansons with the Concertgebouw, Riccardo Chailly with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and the Vienna Philharmonic with Zubin Mehta and Franz Welser-Möst (replacing the scheduled Harnoncourt).

On 4 September there's an unmissable double header - first Matthias Goerne and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester in Mahler, Ligeti, Schoenberg and Strauss, then a late-night George Crumb special.

Incidentally, operatic highlights for the 2010 Proms - you heard it here first - are expected to include Die Meistersinger with Bryn Terfel, Glyndebourne's Don Giovanni, and a substantial chunk of Tristan und Isolde from the Orchestra of the 18th Century with Ben Heppner.

If you want to skip the ghastliness of the last night - something I cannot recommend too highly - alternatives include the Wigmore Hall season opener which is Die schöne Müllerin from Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis.

Or there's a FREE screening of the 1929 silent movie Piccadilly on an outside wall (don't blame me if it rains) of the Royal Festival Hall accompanied by a new score from composers Suki Mok and Ruth Chan. Following the screening, the score "will become the lynchpin of a cross-artform work incorporating dance, drama and video against a backdrop of the original silent movie".

Opera
The Royal Opera House season opens on 7 September with two concert performances of Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix conducted by Mark Elder and featuring Alessandro Corbelli alongside the hotly-tipped Eglise Gutiérrez and Stephen Costello.

Don Carlo has started rehearsals and promises to turn out even better than first time round. Semyon Bychkov conducts, Jonas Kaufmann is in the title role, and the rest of the cast is much the same as it was first time round, with Marina Poplavskaya, Simon Keenlyside and Ferruccio Furlanetto reprising his definitive Philip.

Don't expect much on stage except the singers in born-again minimalist Christof Loy's new production of Tristan und Isolde. Tristan is Ben Heppner and Isolde Nina Stemme, with Matti Salminen, Michael Volle and Sophie Koch completing the cast. Pappano conducts.

English National Opera's season opens with the much-travelled, highly-praised production of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre by La Fura dels Baus.

The Arcola Theatre's variable but occasionally brilliant (and cheap) Grimeborn opera festival continues until 5 September. Handel, Poulenc and Mozart are included amongst the mostly contemporary works.

There's an opportunity to hear Rossini's rarely-performed Il Signor Bruschino and La Scala di Seta as well as The Rake's Progress from British Youth Opera between 4 and 12 September.

And Valery Gergiev conducts the LSO in a concert performance of La Damnation de Faust on 22 September, with a cast including Joyce DiDonato, Michael Schade, Thomas Quasthoff and Florian Boesch.

Concerts
The LSO's season opener is on 20 September, with Gergiev conducting Debussy, Dutilleux and Ravel.

At the Royal Festival Hall, Bernard Haitink conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on 23 and 24 September. And on 25 and 26 September Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO tackle Mahler's 2nd Symphony. Anne Sofie von Otter visits on 30 September with songs from her Theresienstadt CD.

At Wigmore Hall, Matthias Goerne continues his Schubert marathon on 18 and 20 September (a different programme on each night).

And on 28 September it's Imogen Cooper's bus-pass birthday concert. She'll be joined by Wolfgang Holzmair, Mark Padmore, Sonia Wieder-Atherton and Paul Lewis.

More flying Dutchmen - Haitink drops anchor at Barbican

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra / Haitink - Barbican, 14 March 2009

Mozart Symphony No 35 in D major 'Haffner'
Debussy La mer
Beethoven Symphony No 7 in A major

This concert was the first one of a two day flying visit from the Concertgebouw and their venerable Conductor Laureate Bernard Haitink, recently turned 80 and still going strong. Or strong-ish anyway. The steps up to the stage were clearly a bit of a trial, as they were for Thomas Quasthoff a few days ago. And they're not the first - isn't it about time the Barbican gave a little thought to stage access for its many less sprightly guests?

The opening Haffner Symphony was as efficient as you'd expect from the Concertgebouw, but rather charmless, and with that introspective quality that small ensembles marooned in the middle of the Barbican stage often have. I felt more like an eavesdropper than a spectator.

A sturdy and surprisingly hard-driven La Mer showed them at closer to their best, not a detail submerged beneath the rolling rhythms. And there are no weak links in this orchestra - the playing was as near flawless as you could hope for.

Haitink's take on Beethoven's Seventh was fleet and decisive. His snappy phrasing was warmed by the natural glow of the Concertgebouw strings and underpinned by that itchy beat. There was no pause for breath - even the usually monumental Allegretto was light-footed. As the band tumbled into the last movement at breakneck pace there was a palpable sense that some were struggling just to keep up. Somehow it held together. But that was the only point where Haitink's ideas felt imposed rather than organic, and his faithful observance of all the repetitions lent a perfect balance.

Despite an immediate standing ovation there was to be no ercore, but perhaps just as well - that Beethoven would have been an impossible act to follow.

    

Standing ovation for Bernard Haitink and the Concertgebouw: 

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.

Daniele Gatti goes Dutch - Concertgebouw Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Gatti/Repin - Royal Festival Hall, 30 November 2007

Many of the packed audience in the Royal Festival Hall for this Concertgebouw visit bore telltale lapel tags indicating they were guests of the concert's corporate sponsor. Perhaps that accounted for the safe programming choices. It was no excuse though for the lacklustre performance of the first item, Schumann's Manfred Overture. We are accustomed to expect a degree of polish from the Concertgebouw, and to be fair they were technically adept (though the stage's unfriendly acoustics caught them out with a couple of early ensemble lapses). But Daniele Gatti seemed content to let them drift along in workmanlike fashion, as damp, cold and grey as the weather outside.

They seemed ready to tackle Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in similar fashion, but here soloist Vadim Repin leavened proceedings with an enthusiastic and lyrical performance, even if the fireworks of the virtuosic finale exploded in a rather orderly fashion.

Gatti ventured rather more boldly with Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 5, showing with his extreme tempo shifts and daringly suspended silences a willingness to engage with its dramatic element. But it wasn't until the fabulous horn solo in the slow movement that there was a real sense of anything more than scrupulously following the dots. This seemed to galvanise the performance into real bite and drive, even in the dolce con grazia waltz which followed, sweet but not over-sugared. The grandeur of the finale unrolled inevitably.

Perhaps there was a little too much Italian flash and not quite enough Russian soul about the performance - and the Concertgebouw without maestro Jansons are like chips without ketchup - but it was an satisfying performance if not a particularly memorable one.

Prom 55 - Haitink's Dutch masters kick their clogs off

Prom 55: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Haitink - Royal Albert Hall, 25 August 2007

The stage was set for this performance in more ways than one - we arrived in the arena to find the familiar paddling pool and cuddly dinosaur (left) vanished from the centre of the audience area, and a low, roped boxing ring stage set up in its place. Were Haitink and Abbado about to duke it out for the World Maestro Championship (Senior Division)?

No - enquiries revealed it had been set up in advance for Monday afternoon's children's performance. So why not wait till Monday, and leave space to accommodate a full-complement audience for tonight's sell-out concert? My neighbour cynically but probably correctly suggested the BBC didn't fancy paying the bank holiday overtime.

I was hoping tonight's performance would show a livelier side to Haitink than the previous night's. The opening Parsifal Act 1 Prelude was not promising. Mystery and wonder were nowhere to be found in this stolid reading.

Haitink sped seamlessly into a passage from Act 3 of Parsifal, the 'Good Friday Music' with barely half a second's breath. Although stodge was still the order of the day here, it was at least partially redeemed by some exquisite haunting oboe work. But if this is a taste of his forthcoming Covent Garden Parsifal, I'll be bringing my knitting.

There was a sense of routine in the very grounded reading of Debussy's Nocturnes too, with measured restraint replacing the expected shimmering impressionistic textures. 

The other Debussy work of the evening, Six épigraphes antiques, has a long genesis. It's a relatively recent arrangement, by Rudolf Escher, of a set of Debussy piano duets, themselves in turn based on material from Debussy's earlier flute, harp and celesta incidental music for Pierre Louÿs' poems Chansons de Bilitis.

The programme sniffily notes that "the monochrome, percussive medium of the piano duet [!?*!$! send Martha Argerich and Nelson Freire round with a baseball bat...] was hardly more than a means of presenting the material". However Escher's arrangement is like an immaculately faked painting. Trademark Debussyisms like rippling strings and sinuous oboe solos are stuffed in to the point of pastiche. It is hard to listen to it as anything other than an efficient academic exercise. That said, the Concertgebouw dropped some of their earlier brawn and gave a thoughtful, reflective reading.

The most impressive performances of the evening came at the end, with the Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde and the encore, the Prelude from Act 3 of Lohengrin. Seatbelts were unbuckled and rockets lit as the Concertgebouw finally let go and unleashed some passion and momentum. If Haitink can coax the ROH orchestra into this sort of performance for Parsifal in December, we could have some memorable nights.

Haitink hits the yawn button; Aimard hits the spot

Prom 53: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Haitink
and
Prom 54: Mahler Chamber Orchestra/Aimard - Royal Albert Hall, 24 August 2007

The programme rightly notes that Bruckner's 8th Symphony contains "moments of luminous splendour - not least the ending - they tend to stand out amid darkness, mystery and grim reminders of mortality". And so it was with this performance. Flashes of colour illuminated great yawning swathes of beige.

Although there were moments of pure inspiration, it was mostly hard work, a real effort to listen to. At times I wondered if the orchestra was simply tired - I understand they had a very tight schedule getting to London. That luxurious melted chocolate sound of theirs certainly seemed to lack a little of its usual sheen, though technically they were as ever spot-on, with some outstanding displays of individual virtuosity. The last movement was especially pallid, though the big finale did grab the attention.

Perhaps I was expecting too much. This concert came hot on the heels of two really outstanding performances earlier in the week. It would have been hard for anyone to match the passion of Dudamel's Venezuelans, or the elegiac intimacy of Abbado's Mahler. But the chilly efficiency of Haitink's interpretation left little room for any kind of feeling. What a difference from the Concertgebouw's last London visit, when under the baton of Mariss Jansons at the Barbican it was not difficult to think them the greatest orchestra in the world.

In contrast, Pierre-Laurent Aimard's sparsely attended late night concert with the superb Mahler Chamber Orchestra was a delight from start to finish.

Conducting Haydn's Symphony No. 102 batonless, with graceful air-piano movements, he moulded great sweeping legato phrases with a romantic gloss and a dynamic sense of propulsion.

Despite vibrato-less strings, it was fundamentally an unusually forward-looking interpretation. It sounded almost Beethovien, undoubtedly Aimard's intention judging from his take on the Beethoven concerto which came later.

Aimard's piano programmes often place Ligeti alongside the classical and romantic masters, a conjunction which works remarkably well, illuminating both. Tonight the piano was moved centre stage for Aimard to perform a solo selection of Ligeti Etudes, some of which Ligeti wrote specifically for Aimard, while the orchestra sat around him in horseshoe formation and listened attentively.

The neatly structured sequence traced a path through the shimmering multilayers of Entrelacs, to the jerky rhythms of Fém, Der Zauberlehrling's impossibly rapid, trapped trills, and the rambling fifths of Cordes vides, ending with the fearsome chromatic Escher staircase of L'escalier du Diable. The audience remained silent, transfixed during the lengthily-sustained final note. As one day-ticketer said with dropped jaw as the applause began, f*** me. Aimard playing Ligeti can have that effect. His precise and measured articulation of dazzlingly fast passages and his keen sense of the multi-rhythmic lines can make it sound as if several pianos are playing at once.

For the final work, Beethoven's second Piano Concerto, Aimard's piano was moved around so that he remained in the centre of the orchestra, but with his back to the audience, and a kind of clear shield was attached to the piano to reflect the sound better. You can see it in the photo below - it's the dark stripe behind the scores.

Jumping up for some more air-piano work with his expressive hands when he could, conducting with his eyes alone when the requirements of the score tied him to the piano, he gave an exuberant reading of this early concerto.

Alternately drawing out its satisfyingly tidy Haydnesque aspects and splashing joyfully through the virtuoso solos, his elegant fluency and sheer brilliance were a delight. The Mahler Chamber Orchestra matched him every step of the way in technical flawlessness and sheer enthusiasm. For me this was the best 30 minutes of this year's Proms.

Mahler Chamber Orchestra as viewed from the arena:

Both concerts are available for the next week here - bear in mind BBC recording techniques change the original sound balance.