Intermezzo

Cleaning lady makes good

Keeping Vladimir Putin, Placido Domingo and Valery Gergiev at a safe arm's length whilst maintaining a tight grip on her champagne flute is just one of the skills a modern diva must master.

Anna Netrebko was in St Petersburg last night to star in a spectacular gala concert for the opening of the new Mariinsky II theatre. The multi-million-rouble modernist edifice is connected by a footbridge to the traditionally-styled old theatre, where the Austrian soprano used to scrub the floor in between singing lessons.

The concert, beamed live around the world, also featured Domingo, Ildar Abdrazakov, Olga Borodina, Alexei Markov, Evgeny Nikitin, René Pape, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Mikhail Petrenko, Sergei Semishkur, Yekaterina Kondaurova, Ulyana Lopatkina, Diana Vishneva, Olga Esina, Vladimir Shklyarov, Yuri Bashmet, Denis Matsuev and Leonidas Kavakos. It was conducted by Gergiev, celebrating his 60th birthday at the same time, and broadcast live.

You can watch the whole thing below - the music starts around 22 minutes in - or for the time-pressed try the brief news summary below that.

Gergiev promises more opera for Munich

Photo: DAPD

As he put his paw print to his brand new Munich Philharmonic contract earlier today, Valery Gergiev promised he would bring more opera in concert to the Gasteig when he begins his reign as chief conductor in 2015.  Speaking to the assembled press in English, he said "The public loves opera", which he sees as a way of bringing in new audiences. His plans include works rarely or never heard in Munich before, and he didn't rule out synergies with his Mariinsky schedule.

Gergiev first heard the orchestra as a student when they visited St Petersburg (then known as Leningrad) in 1975 with Rudolf Kempe. Working with students and young people will be another of his priorities in Munich, and he promised that the German repertoire would form the core of his programme. "German music plays a very important role in my life," he said. (Diplomatically, we must assume - there's none on his 2013-14 LSO schedule). He must have also pleased the local council, tired of fending off requests for a costly new concert hall, when he pronounced the Gasteig's controversial acoustic "good".

Describing Germany as the cultural leader of Europe, Gergiev said he felt at home there. But he warned there would be a domino effect if German efforts to promote culture were to decline.

Gergiev's new hat

A representative of Munich's city council has confirmed that Valery Gergiev is to take over as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic in 2015.

Gergiev has enjoyed a long guest conducting relationship with the Bavarians, so presumably both sides know what they're getting - which is in the orchestra's case means sharing their boss with the Mariinsky and the LSO, neither of which Gergiev has displayed any intention of abandoning.

The appointment is subject to a city council vote, which is expected to be a formality.

Lorin Maazel will continue temping in Munich, as he has done since Christian Thielemann's departure in 2011.

Gergiev Moneyov

Thanks to reader Benedict for spotting a special offer on next week's Verdi Requiem at the Barbican with Gergiev and his Mariinsky ensemble. Soloists are Victoria Yastrebova, Olga Borodina, Sergei Semishkur and Ildar Abdrazakov.  

Lastminute.com are offering best-available tickets for just £15 (originally up to £65).

Alternatively, you could scoot over to the Barbican website, where loads of seats have been 'dynamically priced' down to £15-£25, around half what some of them were originally going for. (Now, should we tell the Barbican why their advance sales are down this season - or just let them guess?)

Gergiev misses his chance

 
Even Valery Gergiev doesn't have time to do everything, so he delegated the Mariinsky's The Makropulos Case to young conductor Mikhail Tatarnikov.

At the end of Graham Vick's new production, the never-aging Emilia casts the recipe for eternal youth into the orchestra pit. According to the Moscow Times, "The more caustic members of the audience were quick to suggest that the indefatigable Gergiyev had clearly missed out on a great opportunity."

Gergiev's Elektra boils dry

Elektra - LSO / Gergiev - Barbican, 12 January 2010

 Starting on a high is one thing, sustaining it for two hours quite another. Gergiev's Elektra landed such a sucker punch in its opening bars that there was nowhere left to go. A cauldron of seething hormonal hysteria gushed out in an earsplitting tidal wave. Nothing was held back. If Gergiev had reined in his forces there and then, perhaps the climactic moments later on would have registered with full effect. But the same thrilling but ultimately wearing pace was maintained throughout. Even a rollercoaster's no fun if you spend all your time at the top of the ride. He seemed buried in his gigantic Russian-edition score throughout - was it simply a lack of full preparation? He had the temperature of the work down, no doubt, but a sense of form and shape eluded him.

Tellingly, the most gripping passage was the entrance of Orest. Here the drastically reduced orchestration literally forced a moment of quietude, a written-in contrast to the tumult around it.

But where dramatic light and shade was missing, colour was not. Though he recognised that the densely-carpeted score needs binding together more than transparency, Gergiev drew details out like flowers in a forest, not easy with the full orchestral complement of 112 on stage.

The vocal honours went to some of the briefest appearances. Felicity Palmer, a fabulous and terrifying Clytemnestra, was the only singer to consistently pierce through Gergiev's decibels. Matthias Goerne's velvet baritone created a world-weary, enigmatic Orest, riveting in his subdued recognition scene, less effective when he had to force his voice above the orchestra. 

Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet, for all her overbaked writhing, was an unpersuasive Elektra. Serene and lyrical, more concerned with tone than text, the impassivity of her singing contrasted with her constantly flailing body. She sang attractively but without either the power or the vocal expressivity for Elektra's matricidal hysteria to register in all its horror. And she didn't quite have the stamina for this very demanding uncut version of the score, flagging noticeably in the final minutes.

Angela Denoke's Chrysothemis wasn't quite right either. Though she matched her resources intelligently to the demands of the role, ultimately there's too much steel and not enough lyricism in the voice to convey girlish innocence. I don't believe the title role is in Denoke's repertoire yet, but it's the direction her voice is headed. Ian Storey completed a less than perfect cast, singing Aegist efficiently but almost totally without inflection, like a brilliant sight reader who'd just been handed the score. Mariinsky soloists of varying quality were shipped over for the bit parts - no doubt a perk of Gergiev's position, but surely an expensive one?

 

  

 

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Gergiev's French dances

LSO / Gergiev - Barbican, 18 December 2009

Valery Gergiev's Dutilleux season is a creditable attempt to air some underexposed music, but this performance of the Symphony no.2 for two orchestras did the composer few favours.  Though the positioning of the smaller second orchestra to the right of rather than in front of the main ensemble may have interfered with the spatial effect Dutilleux was after, the first movement was delicately handled. But the pace sagged fatally in the slow second movement and Gergiev never regained momentum.

The two flanking ballets were much more successful, a cinematically-coloured Debussy Jeux just trumping an effervescent if overfinessed Stravinsky Jeu des cartes.   

Ravel opened and closed the programme. Both works demonstrated the limitations of Gergiev's batonless, air-massaging technique. An uncoordinated first bar entry was the first of several to mar his funereally-paced Pavane pour une infante défunte. And Gergiev's psychic powers alone weren't enough to maintain a flowing upward dynamic in the closing Boléro. Instead the LSO lurched unguided from one volume setting to the next, with overpowering saxophone solos striking an unduly brash note. It was all a bit of an unholy mess by the end, winning out only with the sheer exuberance of the playing.

To be broadcast on Radio 3 at 7pm on Monday 21 December.

 

LSO 2010/11 season revealed

My first reaction to the London Symphony Orchestra's 2010/11 Barbican schedule is disappointment that it includes not one opera (unless you count Candide with Kristjan Järvi in June 2011). The LSO's operas in concert have been a real highlight of recent seasons, and I have to suspect that cost is a barrier.

But there are at least a few choral concerts, with Janáček's Glagolitic Mass from Sir Colin in October, Elgar's The Kingdom from Mark Elder in January 2011, and most intriguingly, a screening of Eisenstein's masterpiece Ivan the Terrible accompanied with Prokofiev's score conducted by Xian Zhang in April 2011.

Sir Colin returns with Mitsuko Uchida for a series combining Beethoven's piano concertos with Nielsen's symphonies; this runs from May to December 2011. There's not much else piano-wise, though Lang Lang's attempt on Liszt's first piano concerto in November with Daniel Harding is likely to be a popular draw.

Violinists are the soloists of choice this season, with Viktoria Mullova, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Nikolaj Znaider, Midori, Janine Jansen, Leonidas Kavakos and Julia Fischer between them covering all the big violin concertos.

Valery Gergiev focuses on Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Shostakovich and Shchedrin. Carmen Suite (with which Gergiev opens the season) aside, Shchedrin is underexposed in London, so this is a particularly interesting choice, though the Mahler 9 in March 2011 may prove the popular favourite.

Simon Rattle conducts Bruckner's 9th in March 2011, and Bernard Haitink's two visits in June 2011 include Bruckner's 4th. Other visiting conductors include Intermezzo favourite Andris Nelsons, Antonio Pappano, John Eliot Gardiner and Andre Previn.

Kristjan Järvi's name meanwhile crops up a massive five times - that's more than official guest conductor Daniel Harding or emeritus conductor Sir Colin. Is some sort of official announcement imminent? Do they just really, really like him? Or does he, like the LSO themselves, offer a bulk-booking discount?

Full details expected on LSO and Barbican websites in January, with booking open soon afterwards.

Instant Gergiev

On 14 and 15 October, Valery Gergiev's Mariinsky Orchestra will join the CBSO, two choirs, ten timpanists, four brass bands, a donkey and a magic trombone to perform Berlioz's Grande Messe des Morts in Birmingham's Symphony Hall.

With nearly 400 musicians and singers required, it's rarely performed in the UK. But concertgoers will be able to repeat the experience at leisure by taking home a live recording of the performance on CD immediately afterwards.

Although this has been done before by rock bands (I have a treasured White Stripes effort from Alexandra Palace), I think it might be the first time a classical orchestra have attempted it in the UK. Way to prop up the dying CD market!

La damnation de Gergiev

La Damnation de Faust - LSO / Gergiev - Barbican 22 September 2009

A curious evening that caught fire intermittently, but never really took off. Gergiev’s preferred preapration method – rehearse the corners, wing the straights - can produce stunning results in slow-burn symphonies. But it’s fundamentally unsuited to the desperately shoehorned ragbag of ideas (“Let's all improvise a fugue!”) that is La damnation de Faust. Faust’s final ride to the abyss truly burnt with the flames of hell, but a few manicured details aside, the first half was largely directionless and often surprisingly (for Gergiev) tentative. All the beauty and delicacy of the woodwind playing couldn’t compensate for a lack of purpose.

The problems could have been compounded when the scheduled Méphistophélès, Thomas Quasthoff, pulled out due to illness on the morning of the show. But Willard White, flown in from Copenhagen, was a magnificent replacement, despite the twinkle in his eye warning his bluster and beguilements shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

Joyce DiDonato, in a gorgeous cornflower gown and tumbling curls, sang beautifully but seemed not entirely at home in the Berlioz idiom. Her Marguerite had the radiant purity of youth but not the ardour that Susan Graham can bring to the part.

Florian Boesch almost stole the show as Brander, but Michael Schade’s Faust was a disappointment. He placed notes accurately and words carefully in his none too intelligible French, but his hard nasal tone is too unvarying and too unyielding in this part. What a pity there was so much of it. The London Symphony Chorus too had a long and tricky sing. They managed heroically, if with more gusto than finesse - for which Gergiev’s flutterfingered non-beat was not entirely to blame.

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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.

Gotterdammerung ends Mariinsky Ring

 Götterdämmerung - Mariinsky Opera - Royal Opera House, 1 August 2009

 

And so the Mariinsky Opera's Ring Cycle draws to an end with - a mouldy angel? a novelty d1ldo? a foetus doing pressups? After 16 hours I shared the don't know don't care mood of most of the cast. The staging, by now familiar, consisted of adjusting the pewp-thingies into various inexplicable positions beneath random disco lights. At least the Tarnhelm had mutated from the first night's hankie into a proper helmet.

The only scene that worked, theatrically speaking, was the first part of Act 1, and even that was entirely down to a couple of splendid performances.

Mikhail Petrenko was simply the best Hagen I have ever seen. It's debatable whether he has the right voice for the part - firm and commanding, it's nevertheless on the light side, more golden syrup than black molasses. But he brings a devious, manipulative intelligence to the role. It's a fresh interpretation that nests with the sinuous music in a way that makes the traditional low-browed thug approach look not only outdated, but wrong. And he does it all in strapless ballgown and baldy wig. Just brilliant.

Evgeny Nikitin's cretinous, cowardly Gunther was equally compelling. He was far more animated than in his earlier appearances as Wotan, and the part seems to suit him better vocally at the moment too. The Egyptian temple set and costuming worked well, and with these two sparring together, for the first time in four days I felt I was watching a properly-rehearsed professional production. And it doesn't hurt that both sung their parts accurately and musically, without resort to bluster.  Elena Nebera's Gutrune was anonymous in comparison, though mostly cleanly sung.

The Siegfried du jour wasn't a patch on the previous evening's. Debatably the better singer of the two, Viktor Lutsyuk's voice has a nasal edge that penetrates any number of orchestral decibels. But his vibrato made it hard to tell what note he was aiming at, and he often resorted to shouting. Without the acting chops or gung-ho charisma of Leonid Zakhozhaev, it was hard to warm to him. In his favour, he did die more credibly than anyone else in the whole cycle.

Olga Savova made a better Waltraute than Walküre Brünnhilde, though I wasn't sure why she sported the same shaggy poncho Wotan had worn the previous night.

Larisa Gogolevskaya seemed at first as if she would prove the best of the three Brünnhildes in the cycle. Her Mrs Tiggywinkle proportions clad in a shapeless black caftan instead of the S&M costume sported by her colleagues, and without much in the way of vocal or physical expressivity, she nevertheless held a firm, steady line in an appealing lyric soprano. Until the end of the first act, that is, when her voice suddenly hoarsened. She struggled through, but it seemed as if she was about to lose it completely. Whatever she took in the interval helped her through to the end of the opera, though she completely missed her third act cue, and limped through the most uneventful immolation imaginable - no horse, no flames, no Rhine, and oddly, no Hagen either.

Gergiev hardly went out in a blaze of glory either. The prologue and first act were promising, but he began the second at a funereal pace that never picked up. There were some nice details here and there, but it was hard to engage with an interpretation so stop-start. I guess economics dictate the touring of operas that sell rather than operas he has a passion and flair for (meaning the Russian repertoire) but I can't help thinking a bit more rehearsal might have rescued this from the realms of the slapdash.

Nikolai Putilin as Alberich reviews the production:

 

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Siegfried - Mariinsky Ring takes a turn for the better

 Siegfried - Mariinsky Opera - Royal Opera House, 31 July 2009

Perhaps I'm just suffering from PILES (Pap Induced Lowered Expectation Syndrome). But this Siegfried seemed not just the best of the Mariinsky's Ring bunch so far, but a creditable performance by any standards.

In most productions, the tenor in the title-role is a bit of a liability, but in this one he was the heroic saviour. Leonid Zakhozhaev wouldn't win any singing contests, but he hit the right notes often enough to convince he hasn't earned his place solely on his acting skillz - which were on a completely different plane to anyone else on stage. From grimaces to bum-wiggles, his performance was packed with little physical details that helped distract from the godawful scenery.

His solid, grainy lyric tenor is a size too small for the role, so he constantly pushed it, with varying unattractive effects on pitch and timbre. But his stamina was unflagging. Amazingly, he sang the last act more cleanly and brightly than the first, all while bounding about like Tigger.

His complete commitment and eagerness to reach out and please the audience transcended any vocal limitations. Most importantly, he didn't judge the character. He played Siegfried as an irritating brat, without ever being irritating himself - the hardest trick of all.

The classiest singing came from Evgeny Nikitin. Unlike most Wotans, he actually sang the part rather than bellowing it, and with nuance and structural appreciation too. Sadly his voice tired towards the end, and he'd clearly had next to zero direction or rehearsal.

Neither Nikolai Putilin as Alberich or Vasily Gorshkov as Mime offered quite such lovely singing, and their ghastly costumes limited them to gleeful-Hobbit characterisations. But both, Gorshkov in particular, milked every word for expressive effect - and proved that a wooden sword to the armpit (where was the director when they planned that one?) can deliver a mortal blow.

Brünnhilde proved a bit much for Olga Sergeyeva, with pitch and vibrato issues as her voice rose, and Anastasia Kalagina couldn't quite find the delicacy (or the very highest notes) as the Woodbird. But then she was hampered by a ridiculous doily costume extending up to cover her head.

The orchestra played well (if not entirely fluff-free) and Gergiev was able to sustain the momentum he found in the preludes. The policy of switching some players between acts seems to help - the orchestra is showing a stamina to equal Leonid Zakhozhaev's.

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Mariinsky do Die Walkure

Die Walküre - Mariinsky Opera - Royal Opera House, 30 July 2009

Things are looking up. Part two of the Mariinsky's Ring Cycle was a definite improvement on the previous night. Like swine flu is better than TB, that is. Still tosh, but evidently planned and rehearsed a little more than Das Rheingold. Performers looked less lost, there were fewer obvious mishaps, and the action was generally a lot more credible.

Gergiev had a patchy night. He wasn't able to maintain the febrile energy he brought to the first act prelude, but the playing did occasionally catch fire later in spite of sluggish tempos and a generally underweight sound.  

Larissa Diadkova sang much more incisively than the previous night and made a commanding Fricka.  It was the only truly world-class performance of the evening. Olga Savova was a shrill (if largely accurate) Brünnhilde, Mikhail Kit's Wotan was expressive but worn, and skipped text, Mlada Khudoley's Sieglinde was hysterically overplayed and Avgust Amonov's wildly variable Siegmund missed more notes than he hit (and his tone narrowed to a costive bleat even then). When one of the Valkyries skipped an entire line, it was par for the course.

The monumental coprolites were again in place all night as the only scenery - so why we needed over two hours of intervals is beyond me. It made a long night even longer.

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Gergiev's defence

On Radio 3's In Tune programme last night, Valery Gergiev defended his Mariinsky Ring staging - according to him the cycle is "not rational" and "not German". Has he slowed down for long enough to actually study it, I wonder?

There's also a brief chat with the very earnest Evgeny Nikitin - who explains why singing Wagner should be like singing Mozart, and why tattoos are a smart career move.

Listen for the next few days here (ff to 1:13).

Das Russian Rheingold

Das Rheingold - Mariinsky Opera - Royal Opera House, 29 July 2009

Infantile, cartoonish, theatrically inept - unfortunately it looks as if this Ring Cycle is going to tick all the boxes that its past critics claim for it, despite a supposed 'restaging' earlier this year.

Stark lighting exposes the shortcomings of the bare set, semaphore substitutes for acting, and the 'difficult' scenes - fights and physical transformations and so on -  are bereft of imagination or credibility. (The Tarnhelm is a big hankie, and it's kind of downhill from there.) The less said about the pewpie dolls hanging from the ceiling, the better. Oh, and the stagehands chatted - loudly - during the music. Can you believe it?

On the upside (yes there is one), while it may be risible, it's not irritating and it doesn't get in the way. I'd just like to have had some sort of intellect or perspective applied, that's all.

And the casting isn't bad. Evgeny Nikitin (Wotan), Evgeny Ulanov (Donner), Zhanna Dombrovskaya (Freia) and Vadim Kravets (Fasolt) can really sing, even if the (lack of) direction means they flounder physically. Larissa Diadkova brought her inimitably starry presence and a powerful set of lungs to Fricka, and Nikolai Putilin's tremendous range of expression made it easier to overlook the shoutiness of his Alberich. Andrei Popov (Mime) proved himself the only convincing actor of the bunch and Zhanna Dombrovskaya (Woglinde) was the best of the Rhinemaidens.

The Mariinsky Orchestra played well, though Gergiev didn't seem to have any particular goal in sight other than getting through it. Das Rheingold, with all its various 'effects', is the part of the Ring you'd expect him to excel at. But the anvil chorus slipped by, and Donner's thunderstorm lacked climactic impact. All rather monochromatic. Part of the problem was an understaffed and underequipped percussion section - it's the bit of the orchestra you don't tend to notice unless it's not quite right. Doesn't bode well for the rest of the cycle.

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Pen pushing in Petersburg

For a few brief weeks of summer, the sun doesn't set on St Petersburg. (So that's why Gergiev looks so shagged out....)

These 'White Nights' have given their name to a two-month music festival founded by Gergiev, which according to the Mariinsky's website "is one of the capital cities on the world´s music and theatre map and has emerged to be one of the most popular and grandiose music forums in terms of content and scale." Rite.

One of the highlights is a run out for the Mariinsky Opera's Ring cycle before they bring it to Covent Garden at the end of the month.

And last Friday, there was a gala concert featuring Gergiev, the ubiquitous Lang Lang, and two amazingly talented young Mariinsky singers who visited the Barbican last winter, Kristina Kapustinskaya and Alexei Markov. They both won young singers prizes sponsored by posh pen makers Montblanc, who brought over glamorous Eva Green (back to her natural auburn) for some belle et bête photo ops with Gergiev and others.

 

Comprehensive slide shows below, including bizarre pre-concert dinner with ballerinas pirouetting between the tables:

White Nights Festival Reception and Gala Dinner(June 25, 2009 in St. Petersburg)

White Nights Festival - Gala Concert (June 26, 2009 in St. Petersburg)

 

White Nights Festival Award Ceremony And Montblanc Press Conference (June 26, 2009 in St. Petersburg)

Valery Gergiev - opera's Johan Cruyff

Louise Jury of the Evening Standard interviews Valery Gergiev a month before he brings the Mariinsky to the Royal Opera House for a Ring cycle over four consecutive nights.

It's a gruelling marathon, so apparently musicians will 'switch parts on different nights to vary the pressure'. What does that mean? Gergiev is typically opaque:

 “It's like what was called total football',” he explains. “About 30 years ago, there was a great national team of Holland who introduced total football' where the defender was able to attack, and the forward — someone like Cristiano Ronaldo or Drogba today — was also able to defend.”

Perhaps as Johan Cruyff himself once said:

"If I wanted you to understand it, I would have explained it better."

Royal Opera House Summer Season is on the way

Not long now till the Royal Opera House summer season opens for booking - 25 March for Friends and 28 April for the rest.

The highlight for me is Berg's Lulu, in a new production by Christof Loy, a director for whom drama is never confined to the stage. He famously (allegedly) sacked Tubby Voigt from his Ariadne in 2004, then walked out of his own production - La finta giardiniera - a couple of years later, citing Spinal Tap style "musical differences" with the conductor.

For his Lulu, newbie Agneta Eichenholz takes the title role, but more importantly, Klaus Florian Vogt makes his Covent Garden debut as Alwa. (Which means he'll be hanging around Covent Garden while Lohengrin's on, should either of the scheduled leads catch Netrebkoitis - we can but hope). A welcome return for Michael Volle (Dr Schön / Jack the Ripper) too. Pappano conducts.

Richard Eyre's beautifully coherent and underrated La traviata returns, this time with the cougarific pairing of Renee Fleming and Joseph Calleja in the leads. Will la Renee's unconcealable chemistry with Thomas Hampson (Germont) lend an 'interesting' dimension? Tony Pappano conducts this one too.

The hugely jolly if puddle-deep Leiser and Caurier Il barbiere di Siviglia gets an all-star cast this time round - Simon Keenlyside, Joyce DiDonato, Juan Diego Flórez, with the fabulous Alessandro Corbelli and the great Ferruccio Furlanetto the cream on top. More Pappano.

Bryn Terfel is the main attraction in Jonathan Kent's tourist-friendly Tosca. Marcello Giordani attempts to fill the shoes last worn by Jonas Kaufmann and Deborah Voigt displays her slimmed-down talents. Jacques Lacombe conducts.

I can't get too excited about Un ballo in maschera with Ramón Vargas and Angela Marambio, though I look forward to Anna Christy's ROH debut as Oscar.

The Mariinsky's summer Ring Cycle is also booking - no casting yet announced. I don't know whether that's good or bad news. But given that the company harbours everything from wet-behind-the-ears teens to world-class soloists, we can only hope for the best. Check out the ticket prices carefully before you book - there are very few cheap seats, even in the amphitheatre.

Gambling types may grab a ticket for Rolando Villazón's recital with Tony Pappano on 24 June.  'Mixed form' doesn't begin to describe Rolando's recent performances, but at least with the opportunity to pick and fine-tune his programme, we may see him at his best.

Finally, the Jette Parker Young Artists Summer Concert on 19 July is an opportunity to hear more from the company's walk-on specialists.

ParsiVal

LSO / Gergiev - Barbican, 12 March 2009

If Gergiev isn't truly fired up by what he's conducting, it's painfully obvious. The centrepiece of this LSO concert was the whole third act of Parsifal  - which I would guess on this showing doesn't do it for him. OK, it was efficiently played by the LSO. But a few neatly-crafted peaks aside, it was as tepid as a cup of Barbican tea. And a concert performance really needs drama, in some ways more than a staged version would. Wagner doesn't hand much out on a plate with Parsifal. The themes of suffering and redemption are buried deep beneath the surface. Gergiev fared so much better with the more overt and flamboyant expression of the Russian operas he presented here just a few weeks ago. With Barenboim's magnificent Berlin reading fresh in my memory, Gergiev's Parsifal paled in comparison.

There was one unmistakeable high point, and that was the brief contribution of Evgeny Nikitin as Amfortas. He has that wan, shagged-out Russian look - too many late nights, not enough fresh vegetables - and he looks as if he couldn't care less. But when he opened his mouth he was transformed, as if he'd been sitting there quietly simmering for an hour and was ready to boil over. Amfortas's anguish and guilt erupted in Nikitin's intense, yet finely-controlled performance.

Robert Holl, in the unfortunate position of replacing Rene Pape at short notice, gave a creditable account of Gurnemanz, earnest and human, though with a slight touch of the routine about it.

The Parsifal, Sergey Semishkur was a weak link. There's an interesting if not especially beautiful voice there - steel cored and bright - but it's not reined in effectively, and vibrato and dynamics were all over the place.

Some compensation for the disappointments was provided by the first half's Dutilleux cello concerto, Tout un monde lointain. LSO principal cellist Tim Hugh soloed with care and precision, matched by some exquisitely delicate playing from the orchestra.