Intermezzo

Schubert Karaoke

2008-10-08T00:16:09+01:00

Singen Sie a bit of Schubert - Gretchen am spinnrade, with Kiri te Kanawa kindly providing guide vocals:

or if it's not a crime to sing over it, how about An Die Musik with Felicity Lott:

and finally the exquisite perfection of Elly Ameling's double-chunk Der Hirt auf dem Felsen. Definitely a crime to use this one for karaoke practice:

Test driving Kings Place

2008-10-07T23:52:50+01:00

London Sinfonietta / Bhavan musicians - Kings Place, 3 October 2008

New venue Kings Place celebrated its opening last week with a five day, 100 concert festival - all tickets £2.50. I missed the first day, 1 October, but settled in for the Friday evening programme, which featured the London Sinfonietta in Hall One and Indian musicians from the London Bhavan institute in the smaller Hall Two.

First impressions? Well, it's a bit further from King's Cross than the 150 metres their website claims. It felt like a long walk battling up bleak York Way on a cold, windy night. And inside, the signage is hard to find, with confusing pictograms instead of proper directions. But the staff were charming and helpful, and once oriented, it was easy to find everything.

Below is the view from the entrance way on the ground floor. Behind the seating is the escalator which goes down to the concert halls, which are situated in the basement. At the very back is a bar/restaurant (packed out when I visited) with views over the canal area. At the rear left is a sandwich bar, and at the rear right is a staircase down to a mezzanine level with direct access to the balcony of Hall One.

This is the ground floor sandwich bar. Lots of organic and vegetarian stuff, looked edible, which by London concert hall standards is an achievement in itself, though I didn't try anything.

And here is the escalator to the basement. As well as the concert halls, there's a bar and cloakroom downstairs. And a profusion of ladies loos - so many that there weren't any queues, hooray!

The photos above were taken by me (the house policy is simply no photography during performances), but the two below are from the Kings Place website, where you can find several more. They show Hall One, the 420-seat main auditorium. It may look like an Ikea flatpack jobbie, but it's actually clothed in an acre of veneer culled from a single 500 year old Black Forest oak tree. It smells pleasingly of fresh-cut joinery and new carpet, though not for long I suppose.

Seats are comfy with plenty of legroom, though the rake is minimal. Which means if you're stuck behind a fathead, as I was for a couple of concerts, you won't see everything.

But the sound is what really matters, and it's excellent. Clear and bright, and highly directional, with a degree of warmth and reverberence sacrificed for clarity, it should suit just about everything that gets played in there.

For their first concert of the evening, the London Sinfonietta performed a new Philip Cashian piece specially commissioned for the occasion, which used a small ensemble and choir with recorded speech. The choir, perched on the balcony behind the stage, sounded heavenly in every sense of the word, and the instruments, scored in pairs, were notably clear. The measured reading of Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time which formed their second concert was just as successful acoustically.

They closed the evening with couple of minimalist classics. First up, Steve Reich's Come Out, a stereo-effect recording projected from the front sides of the stage. The directional nature of the acoustic was very noticeable here - there was no sense of the sound 'wrapping' or reverberating or coming from anywhere other than the speakers. Whether this is a positive quality or not will of course depend on what's being performed. Gavin Bryars' Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet was as technically perfect a reading as you could ever hope for, but I've heard it once too often to be dumbstruck .

In between the Sinfonietta stuf I stepped into Hall Two for some Indian music, courtesy of a massive ensemble pulled together by the London Bhavan institute. Heavily amplified, it wasn't the best measure of the hall's acoustic, but it did attract the only musician I spotted in the audience all night - well, the only one known to me, anyway - Seb Rochford. This auditorium seems to be wider than it's long, and has loose school chair-type seating. There's no rake, so with the performers seated on the floor of the low stage, it meant little was visible from anywhere behind the front row. Standing at the back would be a good option here.

One of the best things about Kings Place is the ticket prices, which will start at just £9.50 for early bookers, and another is the emphasis on contemporary music, which has struggled to find a home elsewhere in London. Over the next couple of weeks and also every Tuesday there should be plenty to explore.

A double helping of Matthias Goerne

2008-10-07T14:54:52+01:00

London Sinfonietta / Martyn Brabbins / Matthias Goerne / Thomas Larcher - Queen Elizabeth Hall, 30 September 2008
and
Matthias Goerne / Alexander Schmalcz - Queen Elizabeth Hall, 2 October 2008

Toru Takemitsu Rain Coming
Thomas Larcher Die Nacht der Verlorenen
Thomas Larcher Antennas...Requiem for H
Toru Takemitsu Tree Line
Thomas Larcher Bose Zellen (Piano Concerto)

Dmitry Shostakovich Suite on poems by Michelangelo Buonarroti, Op.145
Hugo Wolf 3 Michelangelo Lieder
Johannes Brahms 4 Serious Songs

I can only assume London wallets are feeling the credit squeeze. Perhaps that surefire audience repellent 'new music' had something to do with the small turnout for Matthias Goerne's concert with the London Sinfonietta on Tuesday, but I was shocked to see the Queen Elizabeth Hall barely a quarter full for his lieder recital later in the week. Of course many of the target audience hit Wigmore Hall instead for the crazily-scheduled competing attractions of Christian Gerhaher, but even so.....

The centrepiece of the first concert was the world premiere of a song cycle specially written for Matthias Goerne by Austrian composer Thomas Larcher. The perfectly-titled Die Nacht der Verlorenen ("the night of the lost") links fragments of unfinished poetry by the Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann in a single dark stream of song running through a shifting musical landscape. Modern if not especially novel textures like high whiny violins, rumbling fundamental brass and damped piano are applied to even older forms.

So its not revolutionary, but Larcher's gift is to hug the text to the music with such extraordinary sensitivity that it is both completion and response. It's so exquisitely crafted to Goerne's dark, melting baritone that it's impossible to imagine anyone else singing it, and he delivered it with utter security and searing commitment.

Larcher is also a pianist. Dressed ninja-style in a long black shirt and pants with little skippy rubber shoes, he performed a couple of his own works, Antennas, a short solo piece, and Bose Zellen (sic) a piano concerto. Both involved poking around in the piano with lumps of metal and stone, something I grew out of at the age of about 7, and still pains me to watch trained and talented musicians doing. Although the results were more melodic and less purely percussive than most work of this type, I'm not in a rush to hear either again. I'd rather have had an immediate repeat of Die Nacht der Verlorenen, a work I fear that despite its quality is not going to get many outings (any info about future performances anywhere in Europe, please let me know).

In the middle of the concert, Fraser Trainer interviewed Thomas Larcher, who came across as rather sweet and humble. He covered much of the same ground in an earlier interview, recorded at Larcher's stunningly beautiful alpine home, below:

Matthias Goerne was on top form again for his recital with Alexander Schmalcz at the piano two days later. His Shostakovich Michelangelo suite was a little effortful - technically secure but lacking that last ounce of connection with the Russian text.

But the second half's Wolf and Brahms saw him on firmer ground. Such was the intensity of the first group of songs that the audience, instead of bursting into applause at the end, sat there transfixed and silent, and the Brahms Serious Songs launched without a break. Gripping and thoroughly inhabited, every bit as 'godless' as Brahms would have wished, and a million miles from the dull piety of most interpretations, it was a performance almost embarrassing in its intensity. What a shame so few people got to hear it.

£10 tickets for English Touring Opera's Carmen at Hackney Empire

2008-10-06T00:44:13+01:00

English Touring Opera start their autumn tour at Hackney Empire this week with La Tragedie de Carmen (an abbreviated version of Carmen - more info here) and Dvorak's Rusalka (more here, including - beat that, Royal Opera House - a rehearsal video).

WhatsOnStage.com are offering tickets for La Tragedie de Carmen on 9 and 11 October at £10 each - call the box office on 020 8958 2424 and quote 'Whatsonstage' (more details here).

Don Giovanni from the Royal Opera House - free online streaming

2008-10-05T19:33:58+01:00

As previously reported, the Royal Opera House is streaming its recent Don Giovanni in full. The performance is the infamous 8 September "Sun special", which I attended in person, and marked Joyce DiDonato's role debut as Donna Elvira.

Like everything else of interest on the ghastly new website, the link is well-hidden. You can find it yourself on the page http://www.roh.org.uk/video by clicking 'Don Giovanni' in the menu on the left-hand side. Or you can go directly to any of its ten parts via the links below:

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

The technical quality is good on my set up, though in full screen mode the picture is poor and the screen tends to freeze. The sound has clearly been cleaned up. This is mostly sensitively done, though a lot of dynamic contrast has been lost.

Beware there's a Parental Advisory moment at 20:40 of Part 10 (now, how many of you will ff there in the next 10 seconds.........?)

Fresh from the Guardian dictionery

2008-10-04T01:14:25+01:00

As seen at the sandwich bar of London's latest music venue, Kings Place.

Which, not uncoincidentally, shares its premises with those spellcheck-dodgers at Teh Grauniad.

teh close up:

All photos by intermezzo.typepad.com

£10 tickets at English National Opera

2008-10-03T13:04:21+01:00

image: D*Face

ENO's credit must be well and truly crunched. They're offering tickets for a limited range of performances at £10 each.

The seats on offer are in the balcony and back two rows (I and K) of the dress circle only. Balcony seats are narrow and uncomfortable with limited leg room and the view is distant, but sound is generally good. The dress circle seats are more comfortable (leg room still a squeeze) but you can't see the top of the stage or surtitles, and the sound isn't great due to the overhanging upper circle above. What a choice, eh? But still a bargain.

Just select seats as normal here, then enter the code OPERATEN at checkout.

Performances included in the offer are only the following ones:

Cav & Pag - Sat 11 Oct, Fri 17 Oct
Aida - Wed 22 Oct, Fri 14 Nov, Sat 1 Nov
Boris Godunov - Mon 10 Nov, Fri 21 Nov

(thanks to DaveN for the tip!)

Rene Pape rocks Europe's coolest club

2008-10-01T18:35:04+01:00

Yes, 7 October sees Rene Pape at Berlin's infamous Berghain club.

"The world capital of techno" say Pitchfork.

"Walk past the booths on the ground floor and you're sure to see a bare bottom or 10" say the Guardian.

It's one of Berlin's monthly YellowLounge club nights, which take classical music to a younger, cooler audience in some of the city's hippest venues.

Rene is accompanied by pianist Camillo Radicke.

Pack your a$$le$$ chaps, chaps!

Night of the Juggalo Zombies - Rolando Villazon in new Berlin Eugene Onegin

2008-09-30T14:35:51+01:00

Eugene Onegin - Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin, 27 September 2008

production photos: Monika Rittershaus; curtain call photos: intermezzo.typepad.com

Who is Eugene Onegin all about? Onegin or Tatyana? That's the question usually asked. Director Achim Freyer seems to think it's all about himself. Ignoring the demands of the story and the music, he's simply slotted his new Berlin Staatsoper production into his familiar style of puppety characters, painterly sets and disengaged movement. This abnormal level of stylisation and artificiality may enhance a Zauberflote, but it's a treatment that reveals little about the down-to-earth and richly characterised Eugene Onegin. Indeed if you watched the whole thing with your fingers in your ears, you'd be hard pressed to guess what opera was in front of you.

There's a bargain-basement look (what funding crisis?)to the bare stage, sheeted in white for the first two acts, whipped away to reveal glossy black for the last. The costumes were my favourite part of the design concept - anonymous black garments rolled in whitewash that suggest uniformity but also snow and dusty decay.

Freyer has the whole cast on the steeply-raked stage most of the time, made-up like an Insane Clown Posse vid, shuffling up and down and across in a series of extended painful-looking zombie movements, a sort of barking mad dance. Chairs are wielded, waved, sometimes even sat on, a substitute for any human contact.

The whole extended sequence is repeated four and a half times over the three hours - yes, there's a reason why all the production photos seem to look the same. (Once I twigged this, three reps in, I felt enormously clever - until I realised it had taken me two hours to grasp it). The occasional brief respites, like the hundreds of red ping pong balls that cascade down the stage as Onegin rejects Tatyana, are too crudely executed to provoke anything except embarrassed giggles.

Of course this all means that the action doesn't fit the situation, but that's Freyer's point. Life is a series of endlessly repeating loops, without meaning; everything is governed by fate.

Now to be fair, that's a perspective that could be validly drawn from Onegin. But it's far from the only one. And it certainly doesn't bear non-stop exploration to the exclusion of everything else in the opera. Tchaikowsky allows his characters thoughts and actions, with consequences, but Freyer's too busy taking three hours to make one simple point to investigate anything else. As the second act heckler (incidentally young and normal-looking) shouted, "Freyer is boring".

This production isn't half as clever or beautiful as it thinks it is, just rather silly. But in an honest, childlike way, not a manipulative or irritating one. And its chilly detachment does at least avoid the gasping and clutching and cloying sentimentality of many conventional interpretations. In short, it gives the music room to breathe.

Daniel Barenboim's reading was predictably muscular and confident, fortuitously matched to the production. He raced brusquely through the crowd scenes as if he'd rather leave them out altogether, and he certainly left the chorus behind at a few points. For the soloists he was attentive and sympathetic, moulding the orchestra around them, creating the characterisations that the production concept denied. Only the dramatically lingering finale had the least hint of sentimentality.

Rolando Villazón was someone else who positively benefited from the production. The constrained movement encouraged rather anonymous vocalising from many in the cast. Rolando's Lensky moved like a zombie but he sounded like a living, breathing person, full of fire and passion, and his physical stillness focussed and intensified his energy.

He sang in a less (technically) 'open' way than he had in Don Carlo at Covent Garden. But the upside was a voice that sounded totally under his control, with never a hint of strain or cracking. The highest notes pushed him to his limits, but again it was controlled, with just the occasional dip off pitch. On stage for the whole time, often in weird contorted poses, he must have been in some physical discomfort (if not real pain) by the end, but this never found its way into his singing.

If he wasn't already a star, a performance like this would make him one - was that why Freyer placed him centre stage, at the heart of the action? - if there's one character Onegin is not 'about', it's Lensky, after all. Villazón fans could hardly complain about either the quality or the quantity of Rolando on show.

Rene Pape's Gremin was as dignified as his clown makeup allowed him to be, though the chill of the production seemed to have worked its way into his bones. Fine singing, but missing that final degree of commitment.

Beside these two, the other singers largely faded into the background. Roman Trekel sang Onegin competently enough, but if you didn't know the opera was titled Eugene Onegin, you'd never guess from his retiring performance.

Anna Samuil was altogether too detached to be engaging, and brought little sense of Tatyana's emotional development to the final act.

Margarita Nekrasova, a sturdy and imposing Nurse, was the most impressive amongst the smaller roles and Stephan Rügamer's Triquet was nicely sung.

At the end, the boos for Freyer at the end predictably drowned out the applause. The earlier heckler wasn't bored enough to leave - he hung around to add his voice to the masses. It was touching to see both Rolando Villazón and Daniel Barenboim grasp the elderly director's arm in a gesture of solidarity. But I predict with confidence that this production won't be joining Berlin's repertory staples.

The full official photo gallery is here, there are some more press pictures here, and some more curtain call shots below - captioned because you'll need it.....

Rolando Villazón and Anna Samuil:

Rolando Villazón, Maria Gortsevkaya (Olga) and Margarita Nekrasova:

Rolando Villazón:

Rene Pape and Roman Trekel:

Rene Pape:

Rolando Villazón and Daniel Barenboim - comparing injuries?:

L’Enfant et le Berlin Phil

2008-09-30T10:48:00+01:00

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.

Rene Pape's bid for Blobbydom

2008-09-28T09:50:59+01:00

Mr Blobby in 1993:

Rene Pape in last night's Berlin Staatsoper premiere of Eugene Onegin:

and here's teh Papester in action (photo: Monika Rittershaus):

Rolando Villazon Pandacam !!

2008-09-27T23:19:02+01:00

Live from Berlin !! well, live-ish.

Yup, in Achim Freyer's new, minimalist production of Eugen Onegin for the Staatsoper which premiered tonight in front of teh Merkin, the only thing there was plenty of was panstik. And trowels, I venture.

Rolando was on stage for the whole three hours, more or less. Centre stage! Even after he died! It was that sort of show. Anyone who'd gone just to see Rolando could hardly feel short-changed.

Though it looked like the director had taken all the money for the sets and spent it on mind-bending drugs instead, it actually wasn't too bad, in a Nightmare Before Christmas sort of a way. Not distracting, not irritating, just a little silly (though inevitably it got as many boos as cheers, and even a mid-show heckler).

Rolando's Lensky pretty much pwned it, adding a vital human touch amidst the slo-mo zombie posturing of the Konzept. Rene Pape made a late bid for the top spot with his splendid Gremin, but it's hard to be noble in Mr Blobby makeup.

The path was clear for Daniel Barenboim to grab that unoccupied audience attention and make the orchestra the centre of the opera. Perhaps that was the idea all along.......?

More, much more, tomorrow..........

FREE at UK cinemas - Renee Fleming in Met Opening Night Gala

2008-09-27T07:15:11+01:00

Renee Fleming IS Massenet's Manon (photo: Ken Howard)

As a teaser/taster for the live Metropolitan Opera events following later in the year, several UK cinemas are screening a recording of last week's ~~Renee Fleming gown fest~~ opening gala on Monday 29 September - for free.

BFI IMAX is showing it at 11am. Tickets are free but you need to phone to reserve - details here. Some Picturehouse cinemas, including Brixton's Ritzy also have a morning screening - again phone the box ofiice to reserve.

Several Cineworld cinemas around the country are showing it at 5.30pm. For these, you need to print a voucher from their website and just turn up - first come, first served, admission not guaranteed. Details here.

Magdalena Kozena turns into Simon Rattle

2008-09-26T23:05:53+01:00

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:

Opera for all - the Royal Opera House at the cinema this year

2008-09-22T22:23:03+01:00

Below is a list of Royal Opera House productions and co-productions currently expected (*subject to change*) to show at UK cinemas over the coming year.

The Empire chain and the Vue chain are both involved, but specific locations will vary for each production. The full list of cinemas participating in the first screening can now be found on the Royal Opera House website, and I assume details for the later ones will be added in due course.

As a price guide, the Empire Leicester Square is charging £20 for the first screening, and the Vue Islington £15. I gather demand is not expected to be high - both are showing in their most bijou of auditoria.

Live where marked; reheated sloppy seconds if not:

28th SEPTEMBER 2008 UN BALLO IN MASCHERA, Madrid live

Production by Mario Martone. Starring Marcelo Alvarez, Violeta Urmana, Carlos Alvarez, Elena Zaremba, and Alessandra Marianelli. Conductor Jesus Lopez Cobos.

26th OCTOBER 2008 TAMERLANO, Madrid

Paul McCreesh conducts Graham Vick’s production of Tamerlano. Plácido Domingo heads the cast, alongside Monica Bacelli, Ann Hallenberg, Isabel Rey, Sara Mingardo and Patricia Bardon.

9th NOVEMBER 2008 WAR REQUIEM, Royal Albert Hall live

Antonio Pappano conducts Christine Brewer, Ian Bostridge, Thomas Hampson in a concert performance at the Royal Albert Hall, 2 days before the Armistice Day 90th anniversary.

16th DECEMBER 2008 HANSEL & GRETEL, Royal Opera House live

Sir Colin Davis conducts a new production by Moshe Leiser & Patrice Caurier. The cast includes Diana Damrau, Angelika Kirchschlager, Thomas Allen, Anja Silja, and Elizabeth Connell.

1st FEBRUARY 2009 CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA & PAGLIACCI, Teatro Real, Madrid

Giancarlo del Monaco’s production stars Violetta Urmana, Vincenzo La Scola, Vladimir Galouzine and Maria Bay. Conductor Jesus Lopez Cobos.

22nd FEBRUARY 2009 AIDA, Gran Teatre de Liceu, Barcelona

Filmed in 2003 against the historic paper trompe-l’oeil sets painted between 1936 and 1945 by Josep Mestres Cabanes. Performers include Daniela Dessi, Fabio Armiliato, Roberto Scandiuzzi and Juan Pons, conducted by Miguel Angel Gomez Martinez.

29th MARCH 2009 CARMEN, Royal Opera House

Francesca Zambello’s production. Starring Anna Caterina Antonacci, Jonas Kaufmann, Ildebrando D’Arcangelo and Norah Amsellem. Conductor Antonio Pappano.

3rd MAY 2009 DON CARLO, Royal Opera House

Production by Nicholas Hynter with Rolando Villazón, Marina Poplavskaya, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Simon Keenlyside, Sonia Ganassi, Robert Lloyd. Conducted by Antonio Pappano.

30th MAY 2009 LA TRAVIATA, Royal Opera House live

Renée Fleming, Joseph Calleja and Thomas Hampson in a revival of Richard Eyre's production. Conductor: Antonio Pappano.

A cast change announcement from the Royal Opera House

2008-09-22T21:27:11+01:00

If the Royal Opera House's redesigned website is to be believed, bass legend Sir Willard White will be performing the soprano role of Liù in Turandot next year.

And believe me there's plenty more where that came from - I simply picked the most egregious photoshopportunity.

I was looking forward to more and better content on the new website, but what I've seen so far has been a major disappointment. Nothing of any consequence has been added yet. Useful content like the 'view from seat' feature has disappeared. It now rivals this blog for errors, omissions, misspellings and assorted cockups.

And do Covent Garden operagoers really need to know which Norwegian cinemas are screening Un ballo in maschera this weekend? (live from Madrid, not Covent Garden, by the way, though the website omits that key detail).

Not only is roh.org.uk the Royal Opera House's 'shop window' in the literal sense of selling tickets. It's also the most immediate and far-reaching way to communicate with the public at large. But this new website looks like a prematurely launched work-in-progress.

According to the Charity Commission, the objects of the Royal Opera House are TO PROMOTE AND ASSIST IN THE ADVANCEMENT OF EDUCATION SO FAR AS SUCH PROMOTION AND ASSISTANCE SHALL BE OF A CHARITABLE NATURE AND IN PARTICULAR, TO RAISE THE ARTISTIC TASTE OF THE COUNTRY, AND TO PROCURE AND INCREASE THE APPRECIATION AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE MUSICAL ART IN ALL ITS FORMS.

Education starts with getting the facts right. "We hope that the relaunched site provides a stimulating and dynamic online environment," said ROH chief executive Tony Hall.

Yup. But not in the way you think.

Don Giovanni free online from the Royal Opera House

2008-09-19T18:02:05+01:00

Reported in the New York Times:

As part of its quest to bring opera to the masses, the 8 September performance of Don Giovanni will be available to watch free online on the Royal Opera House's website from 5 October.

It will feature DVD extra-type content, like subtitles, listening notes and a podcast with the director Francesca Zambello.

The NYT also says "the company will make it possible to view other complete operas and ballets online" Free? - let's wait and see.

~~More news later.~~

***UPDATE*** full details, including how to access the online streaming, here.

What's on this winter at the Royal Opera House

2008-09-19T17:12:20+01:00

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).

Ye olden Proms

2008-09-16T15:27:05+01:00

"the Prom. audience as a whole seems unchangeable"

"the promenaders....are most restless near the numerous doorways or in the corridor outside. That is, by the way, the first peculiar characteristic of the audience: it does - some of it does - promenade. Not merely between the items, but during the items. And a blighting nuisance it can be, what with squeaky shoes and heavy treads and creaking or thudding doors! Even if you are fortunate enough to be standing towards the centre of the floor, wedged there, shall we say, on a crowded night, so that you are not troubled by movement around you, you are liable to suffer the equal annoyance of whispering, or, often enough, downright talking. I have yet to attend a concert of any kind in London at which I shall be from beginning to end completely free from the disturbance of whispering. But the Prom. audience is far and away the worst I have encountered for that kind of incivility, indulging, as I have said, not merely in whispering, but in talking aloud whenever it thinks it will."

"Proms. are, however, frequented quite largely by almost completely unmusical people."

"To imagine that constant attendance will develop in them any qualitative standards, or even will jade their appetite, is very wide of the mark. They are, in fact, quite devoid of critical sense and enjoy a limitless relish for any and every kind of musical sound that is, so far as I can judge, unparalleled in any other imaginable sphere. The fattest and greediest of boys will sicken of sweets; the leanest of cats will reach the point at which he can turn away from fish; but London harbours a certain number of enthusiasts whose zest for music of all types, performed at almost every interpretative and technical level except the very best (which scarcely ever occurs at a Prom.-the circumstances are not conducive in any way) is to all appearance quite inexhaustible."

"they are smug; and it must be confessed that the kind of publicity they receive in the Press leaves them little chance of being anything else."

"Probably there are, finally, quite a sprinkling of people who, like myself, at each Prom. they go to swear it will be their last.. . . But too much interesting music is played there that can practically never be heard otherwise for our vows ever to be kept."

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All quotations from (note the date!):

The Prom. Audience Ralph W. Wood Music & Letters, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Apr., 1930), pp. 177-181 Published by Oxford University Press

With the appropriate credentials, the full article can be accessed online here:
http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/citation/XI/2/177

or here:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/726348 (this link also includes an extract of the first page)

London - orchestral capital of the world?

2008-09-16T00:21:16+01:00

"Could London now be the orchestral capital of the world?" asks Ivan Hewett in the Daily Telegraph.

Increased public funding combined with the recent appointments of first-division conductors to London's top three orchestras - LSO, LPO and Philharmonia - lead him to think so. (And that's even without mentioning crack specialist ensembles like the Orchestra of the Age Of Enlightenment and London Sinfonietta.)

He thinks "the most obvious shortcoming is the programming policy, which overall is worryingly safe". While there's a strong case for change artistically, you only have to look at attendance figures for the more experimental Proms concerts to see that the commercial case remains weak. London is not Berlin; audiences here are neither as adventurous nor as knowledgeable.

The acoustical deficiencies of our main concert venues are another problem, and one that's even harder to address.

Conservative programming and lousy acoustics aside, London is the only place you can listen to a world-class orchestra nearly every night of the week. Add to that the opera and the chamber music at Wigmore Hall, and the question is not so much where you can go, but what you can bear to leave out.

Is classical music in crisis? Not round here it's not.