In a mere quarter-of-a-century Gaetano Donizetti (1797 – 1848) managed to compose over sixty operas as well as a quantity of church music, string quartets etcetera. There were a few duds but mostly it was a success story, particularly the tragedy Lucia di Lammermoor and the comic L’Elisir d’Amore and Don Pasquale. A revival of the last-named had its first night on Sunday, September 12, part of what seems to be a Jonathan Miller residence – Cosi on the Friday and Donizetti on Sunday. In a review of the Mozart, the worthy doctor was commended for not committing the besetting sin of comedy direction: more motion than action, i.e. fidgeting. But it now appears that Jonathan was saving up his fidgets for Pasquale.
The design is credited to Isabelle Bywater but there can be little doubt that Miller inspired the theme. The audience is faced with three floors of a vast dollhouse, three rooms on each side with a central staircase. Traffic is fairly continuous (and ingenious) and the staircase is a kind of perpetuum mobile Upstairs-Downstairs. Apart from the four principals there are three old crones/servants.
Somewhere somebody has listed thirty-six plots which are the basis of most dramas and operas. Don Pasquale is apparently number twenty-eight, the one about the old buffer who weds a girl who behaves like a dove but turns into a hawk as soon as the marriage certificate is signed; she usually ends up with the buffer’s nephew. That is the plot of Pasquale with subplots consisting of a false notary (!) and the buffer’s manipulating friend, Malatesta. Norina reverts to dove status when she falls into the arms of Ernesto the nephew (a tenor, wouldn’t you know).
The music is a delight, genial, a bounty box choc-á-bloc with choice tunes, deft orchestration, great opportunities for the singers with much coloratura and patter in arias and ensembles (even a couple of fine chorus numbers) of impeccable style and shape.
Costa Rican soprano Irida Martinez has a clear voice and no little charm (but her second dress is unbecoming), Paolo Gavinelli is superb in the title-role, S. African Jacques Imbrailo is a marvellous Malatestra. American Berry Banks has been opera’s otto cento bel canto stalwart for yonks but can still get round the notes like nobody’s business even if the voice is losing its sap somewhat. He must be the smallest tenor in captivity. He sang the famous Serenade in the last act quite mellifluously.
Chorus and orchestra helped to make the evening full of pleasure directed by Evalino Pido from Turin, a performance with good tampi, style, precision accompaniment, the only let down was the brash brass playing. Maestro Pido would appear to be one of many conductors who confuses volume with intensity.
Alas, Don Pasquale, premiered in Paris in 1843, proved to be the penultimate opera by the Lion of Bergamo for shortly afterwards he became ill. Syphilis brought on insanity and he was also a prey to onanism which weakened him so much that it could be said that Donizetti died by his own hand.
Monday, October 04, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
MILLER MATCHES MOZART
The new season at Covent Garden opened on September 10 with a revival of Jonathan Miller's modern clothes 1995 production of Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte. The worthy doctor not only directed but had a hand in the lighting and the designs. The set is spacious in off-white, even the furniture, with plenty of cushions to flop on; no daylight, no Naples. This production is worthy of Mozart. Miller never fidgets (as so many produces do in comedy); some numbers contain movement (memorably Fiordiligi's up and down aria, Come Scoglio) but others are sung belessedly fairly still. The two lovers go to war in camouflage army gear, returning kitted out as 'rollers' (or is it 'rockers').
Max Loppert has written that Cosi is the cruellest opera plot but I think audiences mostly accept it as a study in artificiality. But Mozart's score has a life of its own, setting comic words and plot with a depth of tenderness, passion and sensibility that is unique; emotions run deep. We are involved with the characters (as we never are in Rossini, masterly though the music is). This is our world as Mozart draws us into his.
Tom Allen is Don Alfonso, arch manipulator, suave, naughty but nice, Italian to the tips of his fingers (just as recently his hands seem to speak French in La Fille du Regiment). What a master is Sir Thomas, singing well too.
It took a little time to work out which was Fioridiligi, which Dorabella, so sisterly did they look and sing. Swedish Maria Bengtsson was the former, Jurgita Adamonyte from Latvia the latter, two clear-voiced miscreants with charm. Pavel Breslik (Slovak) sang a good Ferrando though his voice is not very tenorish; French baritone Stephane Degout was a melliflous Guglielmo. The whole cast excelled in their comedy so that we all had a good evening, not the least Welsh Rebecca Evans, a nimble voiced Despina.
German Thomas Hengelbrock made an auspicious conducting debut in the house.
The performance was telecast live to over 200 cinemas on the Continent so Europe was a happy place that night. I have a theory that the first Mozart opera one sees becomes one's favourite. Mine was/is Cosi, what was yours? and do you agree?
Max Loppert has written that Cosi is the cruellest opera plot but I think audiences mostly accept it as a study in artificiality. But Mozart's score has a life of its own, setting comic words and plot with a depth of tenderness, passion and sensibility that is unique; emotions run deep. We are involved with the characters (as we never are in Rossini, masterly though the music is). This is our world as Mozart draws us into his.
Tom Allen is Don Alfonso, arch manipulator, suave, naughty but nice, Italian to the tips of his fingers (just as recently his hands seem to speak French in La Fille du Regiment). What a master is Sir Thomas, singing well too.
It took a little time to work out which was Fioridiligi, which Dorabella, so sisterly did they look and sing. Swedish Maria Bengtsson was the former, Jurgita Adamonyte from Latvia the latter, two clear-voiced miscreants with charm. Pavel Breslik (Slovak) sang a good Ferrando though his voice is not very tenorish; French baritone Stephane Degout was a melliflous Guglielmo. The whole cast excelled in their comedy so that we all had a good evening, not the least Welsh Rebecca Evans, a nimble voiced Despina.
German Thomas Hengelbrock made an auspicious conducting debut in the house.
The performance was telecast live to over 200 cinemas on the Continent so Europe was a happy place that night. I have a theory that the first Mozart opera one sees becomes one's favourite. Mine was/is Cosi, what was yours? and do you agree?
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
STEADY, MR BEETHOVEN THAT WAS YOUR FIFTH
Headine borrowed from the writing of that wonderful humorist, the late Alan Coren. The occasion was a concert given on the last evening of August in the Cadogan Hall by the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Not so chamber either, there were thirty-eight of them giving a satisfying and rousing performance of the Fifth Symphony of Beethoven.
Writing a programme-note on this work would have to include some reference to 'Fate knocking at the Door', some comments on the political situation in central Europe, the military state of Austria and Germany and, Beethoven's by now whose almost complete deafness and his efforts re combat that shattering disability.
But these considerations can disappear if the performance of the symphony is good enough; and this one was. The playing was very fine led by the director of the A.C.O., Richard Tognetti; the tension never let up; the drama and logic of the work was inexorably revealed, like the flight of an arrow towards the target. From 'fate knocking at the door' to the final clinching, to the series of at least twenty repetitions of the final chord of C Major - like fate slamming the door.
The stamina of the instrumentalists (who stand throughout) was as remarkable as their playing. Moments that stand out were the cellos and basses, their solo bit in the trio of the scherzo where it seemed that the players had remembered that Sir Henry Wood at this point would exhort his men "come on cellos, like a cavalry charge"). Fine, too, was the piccolo's jubilant cry in the finale.
After this stirring, almost exhausting rendition, Tognetti and his players encored with the finale of Mozart's Jupiter symphony, adding 'Match' to 'Game, set'. I think Beethoven would have approved the choice after a concert that pleased an appreciative and distinguished audience (that included Sir Michael Parkinson, Simon Callow, Barry Humphries, Melvyn Tan, and Steven Isserlis).
However I fancy Beethoven would not have approved the Croatian pianist Dejan Lazic's handling of his Piano Concerto No. 4 . He might have said "Why does he slow down for quiet passages and speed up again for the louder ones? and the cadanzas were were horrible, not my style at all, no way, too loud and too many modulations (I bet the pianist wrote them himself).
Lazic has won many plaudits but he only gets them from me for his fluency and his way of playing scale passages in a semi-staccato way, like pearls in a necklace. Needless to say, the audience mopped it up for his is a good example of the Lang Lang school of virtuosity at all costs and in all works.
The programme began with a work for solo violin and strings almost half-an-hour long Vox Amoris which Tognetti had commissioned and played most beautifully. The Latvian composer was Peteris Vasks (b.1946) whose music has been compared to that of Part and Gorecki. The Voice of Love begins quietly, slowly working up to a full climax (via two cadenzas). The material would not frighten the horses for it is quasi melodic but only quasi, meandering in a untuneful, unmemorable way.
This Australian Chamber Orchestra is welcome any time it visits, for it is world class.
Writing a programme-note on this work would have to include some reference to 'Fate knocking at the Door', some comments on the political situation in central Europe, the military state of Austria and Germany and, Beethoven's by now whose almost complete deafness and his efforts re combat that shattering disability.
But these considerations can disappear if the performance of the symphony is good enough; and this one was. The playing was very fine led by the director of the A.C.O., Richard Tognetti; the tension never let up; the drama and logic of the work was inexorably revealed, like the flight of an arrow towards the target. From 'fate knocking at the door' to the final clinching, to the series of at least twenty repetitions of the final chord of C Major - like fate slamming the door.
The stamina of the instrumentalists (who stand throughout) was as remarkable as their playing. Moments that stand out were the cellos and basses, their solo bit in the trio of the scherzo where it seemed that the players had remembered that Sir Henry Wood at this point would exhort his men "come on cellos, like a cavalry charge"). Fine, too, was the piccolo's jubilant cry in the finale.
After this stirring, almost exhausting rendition, Tognetti and his players encored with the finale of Mozart's Jupiter symphony, adding 'Match' to 'Game, set'. I think Beethoven would have approved the choice after a concert that pleased an appreciative and distinguished audience (that included Sir Michael Parkinson, Simon Callow, Barry Humphries, Melvyn Tan, and Steven Isserlis).
However I fancy Beethoven would not have approved the Croatian pianist Dejan Lazic's handling of his Piano Concerto No. 4 . He might have said "Why does he slow down for quiet passages and speed up again for the louder ones? and the cadanzas were were horrible, not my style at all, no way, too loud and too many modulations (I bet the pianist wrote them himself).
Lazic has won many plaudits but he only gets them from me for his fluency and his way of playing scale passages in a semi-staccato way, like pearls in a necklace. Needless to say, the audience mopped it up for his is a good example of the Lang Lang school of virtuosity at all costs and in all works.
The programme began with a work for solo violin and strings almost half-an-hour long Vox Amoris which Tognetti had commissioned and played most beautifully. The Latvian composer was Peteris Vasks (b.1946) whose music has been compared to that of Part and Gorecki. The Voice of Love begins quietly, slowly working up to a full climax (via two cadenzas). The material would not frighten the horses for it is quasi melodic but only quasi, meandering in a untuneful, unmemorable way.
This Australian Chamber Orchestra is welcome any time it visits, for it is world class.
YOUTH AND OLD AGE
In 1947 Ruth Railton founded the National Youth Orchestra. Many years later the Continent cottoned on to the idea. First, the European Youth Symphony Orchestra, whose first concert was conducted by Claudio Abbado. Later still Abbado founded the Mahler Jugendorchester and it was that band that played at the Prom on September 1. The European youth orchestras have advanced the age from adolescents to young players in their twenties. At the Prom there were something like 135 players, two-thirds (and nearly all the strings) were girls, bare-armed in black dresses. There were only four Brits playing, one of them the leader; there were over twenty from France, ditto Spain, the rest in single figures from just about every European country except Luxembourg.
Hearing them and seeing them was an experience to savour, cherish and marvel at. The standard of playing was phenominally high, no weakness anywhere. This of course was due to what a good trainer and conductor can do with a carefully picked and rehearsed body of instrumentalists. That conductor was the American born, Swedish, Herbert Blomstedt, known here more for his recordings than his personal appearances. He is no flailing showman but a craftsman of the old school.
The result was absolutely superb performances of Hindemith's masterpiece, the symphony culled from his opera Mathis der Maler, the opera that got the composer (and Furtwangler) into hot water with the Nazis; after Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a lovelorn Kraut was the racist translation of a neighbour in the stalls) tenderly sung by the honey-voiced baritone Christian Gerhaher, delicately played by a reduced orchestra (only four of the full pack of a dozen double-basses).
The audience in the Royal Albert Hall (where once upon a time Anton Bruckner had given an organ recital) listened in rapt silence to the Austrian composer's final, unfinished symphony. The work is a monument of nobility, strength, spirituality, originality and beauty that can also be called sublime (mind you, some call it a garrulous, start-and-stop bore). It was a privilege to experience, to hear, and see those young women string players all bowing identically 'for the greater glory of God' perhaps, and certainly for the musical satisfaction and elevation of several thousand listeners.
Hearing them and seeing them was an experience to savour, cherish and marvel at. The standard of playing was phenominally high, no weakness anywhere. This of course was due to what a good trainer and conductor can do with a carefully picked and rehearsed body of instrumentalists. That conductor was the American born, Swedish, Herbert Blomstedt, known here more for his recordings than his personal appearances. He is no flailing showman but a craftsman of the old school.
The result was absolutely superb performances of Hindemith's masterpiece, the symphony culled from his opera Mathis der Maler, the opera that got the composer (and Furtwangler) into hot water with the Nazis; after Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a lovelorn Kraut was the racist translation of a neighbour in the stalls) tenderly sung by the honey-voiced baritone Christian Gerhaher, delicately played by a reduced orchestra (only four of the full pack of a dozen double-basses).
The audience in the Royal Albert Hall (where once upon a time Anton Bruckner had given an organ recital) listened in rapt silence to the Austrian composer's final, unfinished symphony. The work is a monument of nobility, strength, spirituality, originality and beauty that can also be called sublime (mind you, some call it a garrulous, start-and-stop bore). It was a privilege to experience, to hear, and see those young women string players all bowing identically 'for the greater glory of God' perhaps, and certainly for the musical satisfaction and elevation of several thousand listeners.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
WIERD AND WONDERFUL
News from the Var
Can you imagine anything stranger than a string quartet transcription of Mozart’s Requiem, K. 626? Perhaps even stranger was that hearing it was a pleasing and moving experience. This weird occurrence took place in a cloister of the Abbaye Royale in Celle, a village on the outskirts of Brignoles, a few miles north of Toulon. The Debussy Quartet played it with conviction differentiating in intensity and decibels between the various strands, the tender moments coming off best. Admittedly the most wonderful moment of all did not quite come off: that amazing crescendo near the beginning of the Lachrymosa where the harmonies and modulations go on and on in ecstasy until you think if it continues you might die (but Mozart did!). I think maybe that knowing the work helped but that is necessarily only a guess. It was a rum experience but more enjoyable than expected. (French Decca have recorded it but if you want the original on a CD get the one on the BBC Legend label conducted by Britten – its shatteringly wonderful).
But wonderful also was my next musical experience in Provence. Pippa Paulik runs a little festival high up in the hills, not far from Grasse, nearer to Fayence. Concerts and operas are given in a little place called Seillans, concerts are given in a small church perched on the summit of a steep hill. The one I went to August 8 was in two parts, the first contained two French chamber septets, Saint-Saëns’ entertaining neo-classical one with trumpet and Ravel’s masterly Introduction and Allegro with Tanya Houghton a virtuosic harpist. The performers are mostly British and excellent. Super excellent however was the tenor Andrew Staples in the second part when he sang half-a-dozen arias as near perfectly as I have heard, short of Tito Schipa and Heddle Nash. Staples is thirty, personable with a beautiful lyric voice supported by consummate musicianship. Please note the name: I think he is a star. He pleasured us with Dalla sua Pace from the Don, the picture aria from the Flute, a Gluck number, Lalo’s magical Aubade and ended with the Prize Song (which he will sing even better in five years time.) Suzy Ruffles supported him in a most appealing way.
Staples also directed two performances of Cosi fan tutte! A small orchestra and chorus performed Bach Brandenburgs, Fauré Requiem, Tippett Spirotuals and an evening of jazz, etcetera; step ten feet away and you can enjoy good French food and drink. Why not go next year?
News from the Var
Can you imagine anything stranger than a string quartet transcription of Mozart’s Requiem, K. 626? Perhaps even stranger was that hearing it was a pleasing and moving experience. This weird occurrence took place in a cloister of the Abbaye Royale in Celle, a village on the outskirts of Brignoles, a few miles north of Toulon. The Debussy Quartet played it with conviction differentiating in intensity and decibels between the various strands, the tender moments coming off best. Admittedly the most wonderful moment of all did not quite come off: that amazing crescendo near the beginning of the Lachrymosa where the harmonies and modulations go on and on in ecstasy until you think if it continues you might die (but Mozart did!). I think maybe that knowing the work helped but that is necessarily only a guess. It was a rum experience but more enjoyable than expected. (French Decca have recorded it but if you want the original on a CD get the one on the BBC Legend label conducted by Britten – its shatteringly wonderful).
But wonderful also was my next musical experience in Provence. Pippa Paulik runs a little festival high up in the hills, not far from Grasse, nearer to Fayence. Concerts and operas are given in a little place called Seillans, concerts are given in a small church perched on the summit of a steep hill. The one I went to August 8 was in two parts, the first contained two French chamber septets, Saint-Saëns’ entertaining neo-classical one with trumpet and Ravel’s masterly Introduction and Allegro with Tanya Houghton a virtuosic harpist. The performers are mostly British and excellent. Super excellent however was the tenor Andrew Staples in the second part when he sang half-a-dozen arias as near perfectly as I have heard, short of Tito Schipa and Heddle Nash. Staples is thirty, personable with a beautiful lyric voice supported by consummate musicianship. Please note the name: I think he is a star. He pleasured us with Dalla sua Pace from the Don, the picture aria from the Flute, a Gluck number, Lalo’s magical Aubade and ended with the Prize Song (which he will sing even better in five years time.) Suzy Ruffles supported him in a most appealing way.
Staples also directed two performances of Cosi fan tutte! A small orchestra and chorus performed Bach Brandenburgs, Fauré Requiem, Tippett Spirotuals and an evening of jazz, etcetera; step ten feet away and you can enjoy good French food and drink. Why not go next year?
A QUESTIONABLE DON GIOVANNI
If Socrates had been in my seat at Glyndebourne on 18 August it is possible that he might, as was his wont, have wanted to ask a few questions about the performance, such as: Why use the Vienna version and not the usual one? Just for a change? It deprives us of Il mio tesoro, adds a lively duet for Zerlina and Leporello and shortens the coda-finale. Why design sets that are so monumental that they dwarf the singers? Mind you, they are very handsome (Paul Brown). Jonathan Kent’s production is also handsome but, as so often nowadays, it ignors the class distinctions and social mores of the times the drama is set in. For example, even supposing that she would listen to a servant’s catalogue of his master’s amorous conquests, Elvira would not forget her social station so much as to go down on her knees in a street – nor allow Leporello to goose her, now would she?
The Don’s amazing escape at the end of act one is made with the aid of flamesshooting up all over the set. But surely the place for flames is when the Don gets his come-uppance at the end and is dragged down to hell?
La ci darem. Why does Don take Zerlina’s hand before he asks the question? Mozartclearly points out the acutal moment when Zerlina gives way; why anticipate it, it spoils the seduction?
O.K. Socarates, thats enough questions. So lets look at the performaers. Glyndebourne’s musical director, Vladimir Jurowski, handed over the nine August performances to Jakub Hrusa, associate conductor of the Czech Philharmonic, who is going to direct the Glyndebourne Touring Opera this autumn; he conducted a stylish, taut performance of the Don, beginning with an Overture whose allegro showed him to be more of a hare than a tortoise, more of an Arturo T. Than an Otto K. Or a Reggie G..The star of this performance came from below the salt; Luca Pisaroni was a brilliant Leporello, so good that he put Gerald Finley’s well sung Don in the shade, rather low voltage, one couldn’t image this Don chalking up 1003 sedutions, seareely 501 ½. Kate Royal’s Elvira had some very luke-warm reviews but she was in good voice on August 18 although I think she was miscast. The Russian Donna Anna, Anna Samuil, warmed up for second act after a dsappointing opening Zerlina, Anna Virovlansky, also Russian, was excellent, it would be a pleasure to darem her mano any day of the week.
So after the questions, the answer is that this was an enjoyable Don, if not a great one. It was certainly an improvement on the last Sussex Don – remember that dreadful dead horse and its all too visible gizzards?
The Don’s amazing escape at the end of act one is made with the aid of flamesshooting up all over the set. But surely the place for flames is when the Don gets his come-uppance at the end and is dragged down to hell?
La ci darem. Why does Don take Zerlina’s hand before he asks the question? Mozartclearly points out the acutal moment when Zerlina gives way; why anticipate it, it spoils the seduction?
O.K. Socarates, thats enough questions. So lets look at the performaers. Glyndebourne’s musical director, Vladimir Jurowski, handed over the nine August performances to Jakub Hrusa, associate conductor of the Czech Philharmonic, who is going to direct the Glyndebourne Touring Opera this autumn; he conducted a stylish, taut performance of the Don, beginning with an Overture whose allegro showed him to be more of a hare than a tortoise, more of an Arturo T. Than an Otto K. Or a Reggie G..The star of this performance came from below the salt; Luca Pisaroni was a brilliant Leporello, so good that he put Gerald Finley’s well sung Don in the shade, rather low voltage, one couldn’t image this Don chalking up 1003 sedutions, seareely 501 ½. Kate Royal’s Elvira had some very luke-warm reviews but she was in good voice on August 18 although I think she was miscast. The Russian Donna Anna, Anna Samuil, warmed up for second act after a dsappointing opening Zerlina, Anna Virovlansky, also Russian, was excellent, it would be a pleasure to darem her mano any day of the week.
So after the questions, the answer is that this was an enjoyable Don, if not a great one. It was certainly an improvement on the last Sussex Don – remember that dreadful dead horse and its all too visible gizzards?
CORAL BROWN(E)
Born Melbourne 1913, Australian, but not always proud of it. Latterly added an e to her name( it helped her career somewhat). Brown was a frumpy Oz: Browne became an elegant, sophisticated lady. No Ozzie accent except when joking or swearing.
The word originally intended to describe copulating was never far from her lips. She was witty and is remembered as much for her foul-mouthing as for her supreme talent as an ACTRESS.
Statistics
28 plays in Australia
41 in UK
7 in USA
31 films
15 TV
11 radio shows
7 full pages of bibliography
As likely as not her performances in comedies were more success than the plays she acted in. But when she played classics she scooped the plaudits, in Wilde, Maugham, Marlowe, Shaw or Shakespeare. “I have seen some good Macbeths but never a Lady Macbeth as memorable or magnificent as Coral Browne.”
Why did she collect awards and prizes but was never given an Honour? Was it because her reputation led the authorities to fear that she might say to the Monarch, “Thanks for the fucking medal?”
Play after play she showed her superiority on the stage; she was always inside the characters she portrayed, her acting was sparkling and in depth. Sometimes her entrance was applauded and she acknowledged that with a twitch of her left eyebrow. She was married twice: first to Philip Pearlman. Midway in her career, Coral joined the distinguished band of actors who suffered seriously from stage fright.
Asked about her later (rather unlikely) marriage with Vincent Price, the silken-voiced master of horror movies when they were both well over sixty, she explained to a friend that their opening night - was like squeezing a marshmallow into an old leather bag! They got on well, even though when they lived in the States she was Mrs Vincent Price rather than Miss Coral Browne. He was the big celebratory known nationally for his horror, locally for his personal appearances, TV shows, lectures on wine. Coral had her face lifted to the extent that when she smiled “it was a terrible effort to get the gum back over her teeth again. And there were endless dietary attempts to keep in shape” (Diana Rigg). Indeed there was a new diet every week. But the cracks were verbal as well as facial (to a dim would-be-writer) “you couldn’t write fuck on a dusty Venetian blind.”
She starred as herself in a TV film about Guy Burgess called An Englishman Abroad. It won awards for her and the author Alan Bennett. Dream Child was another success in TV ( script: Denis Potter). At 70, Coral was enjoying an Indian Summer. She thought Dream Child one of the three best things she had done, the others being Macbeth and Waltz of the Toreadors. “She was fun to work with” (Prunella Scales).
“I’ve got a hole under my arm from the last op and now another in my leg. And that’s in addition to the holes God gave me. I feel like a fucking sieve.” She referred often to joining the feathered choir.
Faith: She became a fervent Catholic. To a young author asking her for work after a service in Brompton Oratory “get anyway can’t you see I’m in a state of fucking grace.”
She married an actor (later agent) not of the first range, then latish in life Vincent Price. She was apparently a devoted wife, but if these two were the main courses, her starters, side orders and desserts were almost legion - and starstudded; Jack Buchanan, Douglas Fairbanks Jnr., Cecil Beaton, Michael Hordern, Paul Robeson for starters.
She had a lengthy affair with the impresario Firth Shephard; Coral used to say, “Firth is my Shephard; I shall not want; he leadeth me into green pastures; he maketh me to lie down in strange places.” she was his leading lady in many lucrative runs. But she also shephered him for she read plays for him often and persuaded him, to put on several plays that he had thumb-downed. (Like The Man who came to Dinner).
Sometimes she liked to discountenance dressing-room visitors by receiving them in the nude.
She was a good, caring, generous friend but that did not stop her spearing them with her caustic wit and naughty nicknames. Ralph Richardson became Sir Turnip, Laurence Olivier Lord Puddleduck and his wife Lady Blowright.
She said about her roles in films: “either a vamp, a sex-starved wife, a murder victim or somebody’s mother.”
Someone else (in the USA) said: “a talent which combined the impact of an Ethel Merman with the intensity of a Judith Anderson.” She worked at her life, her relationships, her friendships, and her marriages were as successful as her work in the theatre. Under her wicked sense of humour there lurked a great vulnerability.
She was blessed with great good looks rather than outstanding beauty and it is to be doubted that any actress in the long history of British theatre had the art of making more of the gifts she was given by God.
When Vincent Price was asked (memorial service) what were her favourite hymns he said there were too many to mention - and quite a few hers. He did not attend that service but a letter from him was read out:
“I find I miss every hour of Coral’s life – I miss her morning cloudiness, noon mellowness, evening brightness. I miss her in every corner of our house, every crevice of my life. In missing her, I feel I’m missing muh of life itself. Over her long illness, as I held her hand or stroked her brow, or just lay still beside her, it was not the affectionate contact we’d known as we wandered down the glamourous paths we’d been privileged to share in our few years together, we were marching toward the end of our time and we both knew it. But, in our looks, our smiles, the private, few, soft-spoken words, there was hope of other places, other ways, perhaps, to meet again.”
And some lines from a poem by Barry Humphries:
A Choral for Coral
....
Her beauty and her shining wit
Sparkle beyond the grave
The girl who didn’t give a shit
Preposterously brave....
Uniquely-minded Queen of Style
No counterfeit could coin you,
Long may you make the angels smile
Till we all fuck off to join you.
Buxton Festival
Richard Strauss once said that he couldn't write about Mozart; he could only worship him but in 1931 he made an edition of one of his god's forgotten operas no doubt thinking he was giving it the kiss of life. Was it the opposite? It took many years before Idomeneo began to be revived and performed (notably at Glyndebourne in 1951).
Strauss wasn't above trying to teach him a lesson or two, he added another pair of horns and substituted a concert aria with violin solo, made cuts, moved things around, composed a rather grumpy interlude, added a quote from his Egyptian Helen of Troy when she is mentioned in the third act and gave the work a new finale ensemble.
An interesting exercise, fascinating for Strauss disciples but on the whole I think most of the audience would have been glad if Strauss had not bothered.
As Idamante, Victoria Simmonds was fine but the singing in general was valiant rather than persuasive. Artistic Director Andrew Greenwood directed intelligently, local chorus good, ditto Northern Chamber Orchestra.
Buxton Festival is on a high, interesting programmes, including literary talks by Roy Hattersley, Deborah Devonshire (the Dowager Duchess) with politician David Blunkett (with black dog) and there were interesting operas (the aforementioned Idomeneo and Luisa Miller, to be mentioned later) and many interesting recitals including some of the opera singers, amungst which I caught a thrilling and satisfying piano hour of Debussy played by Pascal Rogé.
He played half a dozen of the more popular Preludes, better performances of which I don't hope to hear unless I get up-graded to the Pearly Portals, and with his wife played, the Petite Suite and shipped us into La Mer, Debussy's own arrangement. This bought tears to my eyes, it was so exciting and heart-warming – they played with zest and style.
Frank Matcham's Opera House is a little jewel, over a 100 years old , a tiny building designed by an architect who never managed to pass his exams but never the less built nearly a 100 theatres (including the London Coliseum).
Nobody seemed to enjoy Peter Cornelius 'The Barber of Baghdad’, pity because it was an interesting choice but it obviously misfired. But Luisa Miller pleased, written in 1849by Verdi, a Sturm und Drang situation with fatuous lines in the libretto that cannot be taken seriously, indeed, director Stephen Metcalf opted for an ironic tongue-in-cheek production, that is until the tragic end. Tenor and soprano are matched against two villains, one of whom is actually called Worm (Wurm). The basis of the plot is Schiller's play Kabale und Liebe which must surely be several cuts above Commerano’s slack libretto. But, in his late 30's, it suited Verdi down to the melodramatic ground, primitive emotions, no hanging about, good tunes and opportunities for singers, including the chorus, Susan Glanville relished and fitted the title role, bel canto with coloratura. John Bellemer reached effortlessly for his high notes and sang his formidable part with guts and style, Luisa's father has a good baritone part which David Kempston sang eloquently. Worm and his wicked boss, the count, added well to the villainy.
Buxton is said to be the highest town in England and it has high ideals for its Festival. It’s a gracious and elegant place.
Monday, July 26, 2010
STRAUSS’S LAST FLING - CAPRICCIO
Richard Strauss’s last fling at opera was premiered in the dark time in 1942 in Munich, when Germany was in distress and was still causing distress elsewhere. It was also a time of distress for many Germans, not least Strauss, at 78 a world figure but in trouble with the Nazis.
All his life he had tried hard to avoid politics but, being so famous, politics would not avoid him. He feared for the safety of his Jewish loved ones. The Nazis used him and his name when it suited them; eventually they dismissed him and his music as altvaterisch (old fashioned); also he had collaborated with Jewish writers.
As often before, Strauss tried to brush unpleasant things aside, so his 1942 Capriccio looks back to a long gone century for a conversation piece about words and music, which comes first? The plot, if you can call it that, posits a beautiful countess who has two suitors, a poet and a composer. The cast also includes a theatre director, an actress, a dancer, two Italian singers, a prompter and some scene shifters. The idea originally came from the (Jewish) author Stefan Zweig who committed suicide the year of the opera’s premiere. The conductor Clemens Krauss wrote the text of Capriccio in conjunction with Strauss himself; Krauss conducted the first performance and was uniquely rewarded with the dedication of the work (catch Verdi or Puccini doing a similar thing!).
The opera has notable highlights: the prelude played by a string sextet (some premonition here of the masterpiece Metamorphosen), the composer’s sonnet, the Italian singers duet (harking back to Rosenkavalier), a gorgeous intermezzo with horn obbligato, before the soprano’s solo final scene composed in Strauss’s typical D flat lush style. There are also two ensembles of complication, tricky to sing and not setting the world on fire. Some critics have called Capriccio the composer’s finest opera, above the claims of Elektra and Rosenkavalier (discuss?)
This latest addition to the repertory of the Grange, rapidly becoming a rival to Glyndebourne, is more that satisfactory if less than memorable. Stephen Barlow conducts it very well and the large cast is fine with Roderick Williams excelling as the Poet, Stewart Cale as the composer and Matthew Best as the Director. Despite accurate singing, skilled Susan Gritton lacks the cream and the charisma that the part requires. She is the wife, as it happens, of the director Stephen Metcalf who does a first-class and imaginative task in a dowdy set by Francis O’Connor. In the non-singing role of the Dancer Bryony Perkins contributes an enchanting droll cameo, eccentric and zany.
Capriccio is a work for connoisseurs of Strauss and it seemed to please many connoshers in the Grange audience (July 2).
All his life he had tried hard to avoid politics but, being so famous, politics would not avoid him. He feared for the safety of his Jewish loved ones. The Nazis used him and his name when it suited them; eventually they dismissed him and his music as altvaterisch (old fashioned); also he had collaborated with Jewish writers.
As often before, Strauss tried to brush unpleasant things aside, so his 1942 Capriccio looks back to a long gone century for a conversation piece about words and music, which comes first? The plot, if you can call it that, posits a beautiful countess who has two suitors, a poet and a composer. The cast also includes a theatre director, an actress, a dancer, two Italian singers, a prompter and some scene shifters. The idea originally came from the (Jewish) author Stefan Zweig who committed suicide the year of the opera’s premiere. The conductor Clemens Krauss wrote the text of Capriccio in conjunction with Strauss himself; Krauss conducted the first performance and was uniquely rewarded with the dedication of the work (catch Verdi or Puccini doing a similar thing!).
The opera has notable highlights: the prelude played by a string sextet (some premonition here of the masterpiece Metamorphosen), the composer’s sonnet, the Italian singers duet (harking back to Rosenkavalier), a gorgeous intermezzo with horn obbligato, before the soprano’s solo final scene composed in Strauss’s typical D flat lush style. There are also two ensembles of complication, tricky to sing and not setting the world on fire. Some critics have called Capriccio the composer’s finest opera, above the claims of Elektra and Rosenkavalier (discuss?)
This latest addition to the repertory of the Grange, rapidly becoming a rival to Glyndebourne, is more that satisfactory if less than memorable. Stephen Barlow conducts it very well and the large cast is fine with Roderick Williams excelling as the Poet, Stewart Cale as the composer and Matthew Best as the Director. Despite accurate singing, skilled Susan Gritton lacks the cream and the charisma that the part requires. She is the wife, as it happens, of the director Stephen Metcalf who does a first-class and imaginative task in a dowdy set by Francis O’Connor. In the non-singing role of the Dancer Bryony Perkins contributes an enchanting droll cameo, eccentric and zany.
Capriccio is a work for connoisseurs of Strauss and it seemed to please many connoshers in the Grange audience (July 2).
MANON? * MAIS OUI!
Covent Garden is on a high forgetting the daft Aida there have been three outright winners in Turco in Italia, La Fille du Regiment and now Manon. Bravo, Pappano, bravo Padmore. Keep it up!
In his early forties Jules Massenet added to his earlier success with Manon, seventy performances in the first year, 1884, Paris. He had built his reputation on rather lachrymose religious dramas although he once said he didn’t believe in all that ‘creeping-Jesus stuff’. Funnily enough that was the public’s name for him. Apparently each night of a performance he crept round to the box-office to check the takings. The takings were good for the most part for twenty years. Until Pelléas came along and tastes changed.
Manon’s world is the second empire in this sumptuous no expense-spared production by Laurent Pelly (the cost fortunately shared with three other opera houses). The magnificent costumes and sets breathe the very atmosphere of the demi-monde, Renoir and the grandes horizontales. Manon herself is a “mixture of demureness and vivacity, of serious affection but meretricious preferment” – as Kobbé’s Opera Book succinctly puts it. She ruins the religiously – inclined Des Grieux but dies repenting in his arms.
Darling of the operatic public, the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko really takes the stage in the title role, fine voice (perhaps a little too powerful sometimes), but she bulls eyes with her acting, her beauty and the way she wears Pelly’s gorgeous gowns like a denizen of the catwalk. Massenet had many good qualities as a composer, not the least his ability to characterize his heroines with a skilful mix of short notes and winsome harmonies. What easy charm!
As the not yet frocked priest Vittorio Grigolo, from Arezzo, was a worthy foil/lover for this Manon, ardent, impulsive, although he didn’t make one forget the less ardent but more elegant Heddle Nash, anymore than Netrebko made one forget the superior vocalism of Victoria de los Angeles but Grigolo gave a real performance. And so did his stage father, the excellent Christof Fischesser (German for fish eater!), as the Comte des Grieux.
The whole cast, the chorus and the orchestra were on top form under the vivid, stylish Antonio Pappano. A great evening!
In his early forties Jules Massenet added to his earlier success with Manon, seventy performances in the first year, 1884, Paris. He had built his reputation on rather lachrymose religious dramas although he once said he didn’t believe in all that ‘creeping-Jesus stuff’. Funnily enough that was the public’s name for him. Apparently each night of a performance he crept round to the box-office to check the takings. The takings were good for the most part for twenty years. Until Pelléas came along and tastes changed.
Manon’s world is the second empire in this sumptuous no expense-spared production by Laurent Pelly (the cost fortunately shared with three other opera houses). The magnificent costumes and sets breathe the very atmosphere of the demi-monde, Renoir and the grandes horizontales. Manon herself is a “mixture of demureness and vivacity, of serious affection but meretricious preferment” – as Kobbé’s Opera Book succinctly puts it. She ruins the religiously – inclined Des Grieux but dies repenting in his arms.
Darling of the operatic public, the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko really takes the stage in the title role, fine voice (perhaps a little too powerful sometimes), but she bulls eyes with her acting, her beauty and the way she wears Pelly’s gorgeous gowns like a denizen of the catwalk. Massenet had many good qualities as a composer, not the least his ability to characterize his heroines with a skilful mix of short notes and winsome harmonies. What easy charm!
As the not yet frocked priest Vittorio Grigolo, from Arezzo, was a worthy foil/lover for this Manon, ardent, impulsive, although he didn’t make one forget the less ardent but more elegant Heddle Nash, anymore than Netrebko made one forget the superior vocalism of Victoria de los Angeles but Grigolo gave a real performance. And so did his stage father, the excellent Christof Fischesser (German for fish eater!), as the Comte des Grieux.
The whole cast, the chorus and the orchestra were on top form under the vivid, stylish Antonio Pappano. A great evening!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
PASSIONATE SHABBINESS
“Shabby little shocker” was the famous put-down by an American critic, a view not shared by the thousands that enjoy Puccini’s Tosca every year, an opera perennially in the top dozen of any house in the world (except Bayreuth), enjoyed for its melodies, its compelling passionate moments and its sumptuous harmonic orchestral passages. Sardou’s story is admittedly over-melodramatic but most audiences are drawn into the predicaments of the actress Tosca and her painter lover Cavarodossi. It was Puccini’s gift in 1900 to the world and a hundred and ten years later – on 27 June – to the Grange Park Opera in Hampshire, the audience applauded vocifierously a fine performance of it.
The production by Lindsay Posner is inventive in some details but it is straightforward and non-conceptual, Peter Mackintosh’s décor likewise. Speaking personally I must have seen the opera at least ninety times but my sob-count was at least four in the first act. Gianluca Marciano abetted and carried out Puccini’s intentions with an augmented English Chamber Orchestra. Only the Te Deum that ends Act One did not have the required weight and sonority.
None of the singers looked Italian but Claire Rutter was a full-voiced and telling Florian Tosca, Peter Auty a strong, satisfying Cavaradossi. Robert Poulton’s Scarpia was a bit less than menacing and his voice lacked the thread of metal required.
With a juicy Three Oranges and a fruity Tosca, Grange Opera is having a good harvest down in the southern shires.
The production by Lindsay Posner is inventive in some details but it is straightforward and non-conceptual, Peter Mackintosh’s décor likewise. Speaking personally I must have seen the opera at least ninety times but my sob-count was at least four in the first act. Gianluca Marciano abetted and carried out Puccini’s intentions with an augmented English Chamber Orchestra. Only the Te Deum that ends Act One did not have the required weight and sonority.
None of the singers looked Italian but Claire Rutter was a full-voiced and telling Florian Tosca, Peter Auty a strong, satisfying Cavaradossi. Robert Poulton’s Scarpia was a bit less than menacing and his voice lacked the thread of metal required.
With a juicy Three Oranges and a fruity Tosca, Grange Opera is having a good harvest down in the southern shires.
GRANGE ORANGES
Prokofiev was thirty when his opera The Love for Three Oranges was premiered in Chicago at the end of 1931. So it was not the youngest Prkfv (his own abbreviation) but it has youth written all over it. He intended to shock and he succeeded. The music is wild, manic, brittle, ironic, fantastic, contains a lot of stimulating, marvellous music; and quite a lot of second-rate stuff, written, as he admitted, in a hurry. It is a director’s dream, giving him room and a need for invention and an ability to make Prkfv’s extravagant demands work. At the Grange, Hampshire (June 26) it gets what is required from the director/designer David Fielding, gets it in spades (some of the cast are dressed as playing cards). A Prince is wasting away: only if he can laugh will his depression leave him. There are some who would like him to die, others wish him to live.
When one nasty, Fata Morgana, pratt falls the Prince laughs. He also sets out on a search for the trio of citrus fruit that Fata Morgana has told him about, although she warns him that the girls released from their oranges will die if they are not immediately given water. No. Three Orange is the girl that the Prince decides is the one he wants to make Princess. Alas, she turns into a rat. All comes right for the final curtain, after futher adventures with a giant cook and members of the audience who express their wishes for fun and games, not tragedy ..
Before the premiere the composer made the best numbers from the opera into an orchestral suite; this proved a popular success, particuarly the tiny, dotty march that we all know and love. The bits inbetween the suite numbers are rather dry and recitativeish, devoid of melody. The rather thin invention of much of the opera, however gave the director his chance to beguile us with every mod. con.: gimmicks, tricks, amazing lighting effects (the ubiquitous Wolfgang Goebbel, of course). There are many characters and a large chorus, all well sung and effective.
The English Chamber Orchestra (not so chamber neither) is put through its paces under Leo Hussain. There is not much real singing but honours go to the Prince (Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts), his dad the King (Clive Bayley) Truffaldino (Gozzi wrote the original story, hence Truffo, well played by Wynne Evans), the P.M. (Henry Waddington) and Fata Morgana (Rebecca Cooper).
The only under-par performance was that of the sur-titles, frequently late or non-existent.
This was a happy event for a summer’s evening.
When one nasty, Fata Morgana, pratt falls the Prince laughs. He also sets out on a search for the trio of citrus fruit that Fata Morgana has told him about, although she warns him that the girls released from their oranges will die if they are not immediately given water. No. Three Orange is the girl that the Prince decides is the one he wants to make Princess. Alas, she turns into a rat. All comes right for the final curtain, after futher adventures with a giant cook and members of the audience who express their wishes for fun and games, not tragedy ..
Before the premiere the composer made the best numbers from the opera into an orchestral suite; this proved a popular success, particuarly the tiny, dotty march that we all know and love. The bits inbetween the suite numbers are rather dry and recitativeish, devoid of melody. The rather thin invention of much of the opera, however gave the director his chance to beguile us with every mod. con.: gimmicks, tricks, amazing lighting effects (the ubiquitous Wolfgang Goebbel, of course). There are many characters and a large chorus, all well sung and effective.
The English Chamber Orchestra (not so chamber neither) is put through its paces under Leo Hussain. There is not much real singing but honours go to the Prince (Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts), his dad the King (Clive Bayley) Truffaldino (Gozzi wrote the original story, hence Truffo, well played by Wynne Evans), the P.M. (Henry Waddington) and Fata Morgana (Rebecca Cooper).
The only under-par performance was that of the sur-titles, frequently late or non-existent.
This was a happy event for a summer’s evening.
Friday, May 28, 2010
A BUDD THAT HAS BLOOMED
Engaging a director and a set designer to make their operatic débuts at Glyndebourne sounds like folly; and when that opera is as difficult an assignment as Britten’s all-male Billy Budd, folly turns to madness. However... the result is a triumph, the production the most successful to date, from the première, which I saw on December 1, 1951 onwards. Christopher Oram’s multi-decked set transports us to a ship of the line in 1797 when the British Navy was fighting not only the French but the threat of mutiny within its ranks (a member of the cast told me that the cast cheered when it saw the set at the first stage rehearsal). Herman Melville apparently based his short story on a true story of those old times when conditions were tense, discipline strict and cruel. In the first act we see the bloody result of a young novice flogged because he bumped into the Bosun, a flinchworthy sight that matches Britten’s pathetic music, a contrapuntal slow tangle that parallels some of Bach’s passion music with on the top line a poetic saxophone where the older composer used the cor anglais.
The director, Michael Grandage is well known for his work both in New York and in London where he runs the Donmar Theatre. His handling of a large chorus of the crew is as masterly as that of the principals, both the lower deck and the officers on the bridge. We see Captain Vere who fails to save the young foretopman Billy Budd from the penalty of hanging from the yard arm when, unable to overcome his stammer to answer the charge of mutiny brought by Claggart, the master of arms, he strikes his superior officer dead. Claggart is a villain of the deepest dye with a homosexual lust for the young sailor.
Nearly every opera that Britten composed had to have a big part for his tenor partner, Peter Pears. There is no parallel to this liaison which gave rise to at least six major operas. The curious thing is that Britten wrote music for Pears so bound up with the idiosyncrasies of the tenor’s voice and musical personality that one still seems to hear that unique voice again in the performance of latter-day singers. Here it is John Mark Ainsley singing very well but with the overtones of the original portrayer of the part of Vere. Jacques Imbrailo from South Africa is every inch and every sound Budd, loose-limbed, innocent, a carefree young man until he is doomed. Phillip Ens, from Canada, is an impressive Claggart, only lacking a hard edge to his voice that would make him into a kind of latter-day Iago. All the smaller roles are part of a cast that realises Britten’s intentions.
But all this excellence is matched by a mastermind directing Britten’s wonderful music (on reflection this grand opera and The Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, mark the summit of this composer’s achievement, despite the fine qualities of his first success in the medium Peter Grimes).
It seems to me that Sir Mark Elder is now at the zenith of his career. In his early sixties, every work he conducts has a feeling of rightness and he gets what he wants out of his performers. He is at home with modern music, he delights in music of the ottocento (1800 – 1850), his English music, Elgar and Delius, is first class and here he gives us a perfect performance of Benjamin Britten. The Hallé Orchestra is fortunate in having his direction and his visits to London’s concert halls and opera houses bear golden fruit and, as here, bring a Budd to glorious bloom.
The director, Michael Grandage is well known for his work both in New York and in London where he runs the Donmar Theatre. His handling of a large chorus of the crew is as masterly as that of the principals, both the lower deck and the officers on the bridge. We see Captain Vere who fails to save the young foretopman Billy Budd from the penalty of hanging from the yard arm when, unable to overcome his stammer to answer the charge of mutiny brought by Claggart, the master of arms, he strikes his superior officer dead. Claggart is a villain of the deepest dye with a homosexual lust for the young sailor.
Nearly every opera that Britten composed had to have a big part for his tenor partner, Peter Pears. There is no parallel to this liaison which gave rise to at least six major operas. The curious thing is that Britten wrote music for Pears so bound up with the idiosyncrasies of the tenor’s voice and musical personality that one still seems to hear that unique voice again in the performance of latter-day singers. Here it is John Mark Ainsley singing very well but with the overtones of the original portrayer of the part of Vere. Jacques Imbrailo from South Africa is every inch and every sound Budd, loose-limbed, innocent, a carefree young man until he is doomed. Phillip Ens, from Canada, is an impressive Claggart, only lacking a hard edge to his voice that would make him into a kind of latter-day Iago. All the smaller roles are part of a cast that realises Britten’s intentions.
But all this excellence is matched by a mastermind directing Britten’s wonderful music (on reflection this grand opera and The Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, mark the summit of this composer’s achievement, despite the fine qualities of his first success in the medium Peter Grimes).
It seems to me that Sir Mark Elder is now at the zenith of his career. In his early sixties, every work he conducts has a feeling of rightness and he gets what he wants out of his performers. He is at home with modern music, he delights in music of the ottocento (1800 – 1850), his English music, Elgar and Delius, is first class and here he gives us a perfect performance of Benjamin Britten. The Hallé Orchestra is fortunate in having his direction and his visits to London’s concert halls and opera houses bear golden fruit and, as here, bring a Budd to glorious bloom.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
AIDA
Grandest of the grand
Rossini said: “Nobody is capable of writing grand opera except Verdi”: and Aida is the grandest of the lot. Intended for the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 it was eventually premiered in Cairo two years later. The triumph scene is just that, a miracle of organisation and inspiration. Aida, the Ethiopian slave girl, in love with the general of the army, Radames, but has a rival in Amneris, princess of Egypt and the two fathers, Amneris’ King of Egypt, an d Aida’s father, Amonasro, King of Ethiopia.
Act two scene two is the Triumph scene, celebrating the victory by Radames over the Ethiopians. Verdi juggles with three crowds, the Egyptian public, the priests and the defeated Ethiopians – it’s a sort of Three Choirs Festival, with climax after climax. By contrast Act Three is sung only by the four chief characters, it is the heart of the opera. Aida’s success rests mainly on these two peak scenes.
Verdi goes for your heart and your jugular. Never since has opera gone so straight forwardly, almost innocently, for the listener’s heart in terms that everybody can grasp immediately.
From Don Carlos onwards part of the secret construction is that Verdi concentrates on using, in technical terms, chords of the tonic key and its dominant, not often in root positions but in first or second inversion (unlike Berlioz who mostly uses chords in their root position). If you look at a few passages in the score you may see what I mean. And, of course, as well as the harmony, his use of counterpoint has in every line something meaningful and beautiful. Verdi keeps up a stream of inspired melody. A composer of genius in full flow is carried by some strange force, inspiration? Benjamin Britten once said to me that when he was prepared and in form he felt that the music came from somewhere else, as if he was connected to some grid of inspiration.
The new production which I saw on April 27 by Donald McVicar pulls together the many threads of this opera, so complex yet having the impetus of an arrow. The production is compelling if sometimes congested, as if McVicar is trying too hard. The sets designed by Jean-Marc Puissant are dark and gloomy, in contrast to the vision most of us have of Egypt, which is light and sunshine. The action is menaced by a large moveable wall whose prime object is to mask the coming and goings of the various crowds. The ballet is all wriggling, jerking and leap-frogging, effective if not inspired. Act three, the Nile scene looks like a slanted organ console with a big hole in the middle. No local colour or palm trees – too commonplace, perhaps?
Verdi said that his idea of Amneris was a bit of a devil aged twenty. At Covent Garden in this new production he got a singer looking more like a dowager. Admittedly the American mezzo, Marianna Cornetti, was a replacement but she did us no favours with her singing. Amneris is the most interesting character in the opera, dramatically and musically (Verdi seemed to love mezzos) and it is usually a gift to a singer. But this Amneris had a painful beat in her voice and she wob-bob-bob-bled. The Aida, Micaela Corsi, was not wobble-free either and she sang flat sometimes. Her oboeist in her act three aria, O patria mia played his obbligato solos exquisitely; if he had played like the two ladies sang, he would have had his cards (and I bet they were paid ten or twenty times more that he was). The Radames, Marcelo Alvarez, coped with his difficult part well without impressing with any great beauty of timbre. The best singing came from the two kings, Egypt sung by the company stalwart Robert Lloyd, Amonasro (Ethiopia) sung by Marco Vratogna.
The director in the pit, Nicola Luisotti, held things together but smouldered rather than flamed. The chorus did not sound as fresh as it usually does.
The previous production I saw at Covent Garden was Turco in Italia by Rossini and everything was first-class from beginning to end, cast, staging, orchestra, and chorus. This Aida was mediocre by comparison – win some, lose some – does it always have to be like that?
Rossini said: “Nobody is capable of writing grand opera except Verdi”: and Aida is the grandest of the lot. Intended for the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 it was eventually premiered in Cairo two years later. The triumph scene is just that, a miracle of organisation and inspiration. Aida, the Ethiopian slave girl, in love with the general of the army, Radames, but has a rival in Amneris, princess of Egypt and the two fathers, Amneris’ King of Egypt, an d Aida’s father, Amonasro, King of Ethiopia.
Act two scene two is the Triumph scene, celebrating the victory by Radames over the Ethiopians. Verdi juggles with three crowds, the Egyptian public, the priests and the defeated Ethiopians – it’s a sort of Three Choirs Festival, with climax after climax. By contrast Act Three is sung only by the four chief characters, it is the heart of the opera. Aida’s success rests mainly on these two peak scenes.
Verdi goes for your heart and your jugular. Never since has opera gone so straight forwardly, almost innocently, for the listener’s heart in terms that everybody can grasp immediately.
From Don Carlos onwards part of the secret construction is that Verdi concentrates on using, in technical terms, chords of the tonic key and its dominant, not often in root positions but in first or second inversion (unlike Berlioz who mostly uses chords in their root position). If you look at a few passages in the score you may see what I mean. And, of course, as well as the harmony, his use of counterpoint has in every line something meaningful and beautiful. Verdi keeps up a stream of inspired melody. A composer of genius in full flow is carried by some strange force, inspiration? Benjamin Britten once said to me that when he was prepared and in form he felt that the music came from somewhere else, as if he was connected to some grid of inspiration.
The new production which I saw on April 27 by Donald McVicar pulls together the many threads of this opera, so complex yet having the impetus of an arrow. The production is compelling if sometimes congested, as if McVicar is trying too hard. The sets designed by Jean-Marc Puissant are dark and gloomy, in contrast to the vision most of us have of Egypt, which is light and sunshine. The action is menaced by a large moveable wall whose prime object is to mask the coming and goings of the various crowds. The ballet is all wriggling, jerking and leap-frogging, effective if not inspired. Act three, the Nile scene looks like a slanted organ console with a big hole in the middle. No local colour or palm trees – too commonplace, perhaps?
Verdi said that his idea of Amneris was a bit of a devil aged twenty. At Covent Garden in this new production he got a singer looking more like a dowager. Admittedly the American mezzo, Marianna Cornetti, was a replacement but she did us no favours with her singing. Amneris is the most interesting character in the opera, dramatically and musically (Verdi seemed to love mezzos) and it is usually a gift to a singer. But this Amneris had a painful beat in her voice and she wob-bob-bob-bled. The Aida, Micaela Corsi, was not wobble-free either and she sang flat sometimes. Her oboeist in her act three aria, O patria mia played his obbligato solos exquisitely; if he had played like the two ladies sang, he would have had his cards (and I bet they were paid ten or twenty times more that he was). The Radames, Marcelo Alvarez, coped with his difficult part well without impressing with any great beauty of timbre. The best singing came from the two kings, Egypt sung by the company stalwart Robert Lloyd, Amonasro (Ethiopia) sung by Marco Vratogna.
The director in the pit, Nicola Luisotti, held things together but smouldered rather than flamed. The chorus did not sound as fresh as it usually does.
The previous production I saw at Covent Garden was Turco in Italia by Rossini and everything was first-class from beginning to end, cast, staging, orchestra, and chorus. This Aida was mediocre by comparison – win some, lose some – does it always have to be like that?
THREE SYMPHONIES
Myaskovsky, Copland and Liszt
Thats not a bad harvest for the latter half of a single week in London April 29, 30 and May 1, the middle symphony in the Barbican, the other two in the Festival Hall. At the Barbican Antonio Pappano led the London Symphony Orchestra; for the other two Vladimir Jurowsky the Philharmonic, all performances exemplary.
We don’t hear much of Nikolay Myaskovsky’s symphonies; did he flood the market, with twenty-seven of them? I cherish the only one I know, which is number 6 in E flat minor, Opus 23, 1923, particularly for its helter-skelter scherzo (with a slow flute trio of enchantment) and its luscious slow movement. The opening movement is frantically romantic, full of tension and silent gasping pauses; the finale is a bit of a let-down, so desperately jolly as if sucking up to the party bosses; quoting French Revolutionary songs somehow doesn’t help. Jurowsky conducted it as if his life depended on it. It is a long work, its course stated in the programme to be 75 minutes but Jurowsky passed the post at 62.
Copland kept his symphonic tally down to three and the Third Symphony is also long. By 1946 he had established himself as American’s most prominent composer and felt he had to make a statement. He did. It is a fine work yet has elements in it that are overblown, bordering on the portentous. Some of the finest moments are those in which this urban Jewish composer manages to evoke the wide open parts of his continent with widely spaced ethereal high notes, nothing in the middle, supported by a strong bass. The finale is preluded by the Fanfare for the Common Man which became so popular that it/is often played by itself, even used for commercials! Pappano gave it the works. God bless America!
The cliché has it that the Devil always gets the best tunes but in Liszt’s A Faust Symphony in three Characteristic Pictures the Devil steals the tunes of Faust and Gretchen and twists them, mangles them, parodies them in the finale; the first two movements being portraits of Faust and his loved one. Liszt does not tell the story at all, he sketches the characters of all three, except for one episode in Gretchen when the music seems to be saying: “He loves me: he loves me not”.. Sometimes it appears almost as if Liszt is improvising, not at the piano as he was frequently apt to do but on the orchestra. A section comes to an end and the textures pares down to a single line, as if Liszt was wondering what to do next. Sometimes, notably in the symphonic poem Orpheus and in Gretchen, Liszt put aside his virtuoso habits and his devilish complexities and wrote gentle, purely lyrical music. There are some longueurs in the symphony but on the whole the work goes ahead meaningfully and poetically. The melodic material is memorable. And Liszt makes sure that we know the tunes by repeating them again. Faust, the first movement is dramatic, searching and often frantic; Gretchen is graceful, lyrical and as beautiful as Goethe portrays her. Mephistopoles is Allegro vivace, ironico, he has no tunes of his own but transforms the themes of his victims. How to end?
Liszt sums up with an epilogue of almost political correctitude although he calls it a mystical chorus (with tenor solo) proclaiming that “everything is transitory... eternal womanhood leads us on high!! ... das Ewig weibliche!”.
Liszt finished his Faust Symphony in 1857. At the very beginning Faust has a motive that seems to question, with notes of the whole-tone scale, a device that looks to the future of melody and harmony, a pioneering gesture all Liszt’s own. The transformation of themes owes much to the Symphonic Fantastique that Berlioz composed some twenty years earlier.
The symphony was passionately and superbly played. Jurowsky solved the problem of the final by employing an eighty-strong chorus. Too often the final chorus is sung by a small body so that the performance ends in anti-climax. Not so here; Liszt’s symphony ended powerfully.
Thats not a bad harvest for the latter half of a single week in London April 29, 30 and May 1, the middle symphony in the Barbican, the other two in the Festival Hall. At the Barbican Antonio Pappano led the London Symphony Orchestra; for the other two Vladimir Jurowsky the Philharmonic, all performances exemplary.
We don’t hear much of Nikolay Myaskovsky’s symphonies; did he flood the market, with twenty-seven of them? I cherish the only one I know, which is number 6 in E flat minor, Opus 23, 1923, particularly for its helter-skelter scherzo (with a slow flute trio of enchantment) and its luscious slow movement. The opening movement is frantically romantic, full of tension and silent gasping pauses; the finale is a bit of a let-down, so desperately jolly as if sucking up to the party bosses; quoting French Revolutionary songs somehow doesn’t help. Jurowsky conducted it as if his life depended on it. It is a long work, its course stated in the programme to be 75 minutes but Jurowsky passed the post at 62.
Copland kept his symphonic tally down to three and the Third Symphony is also long. By 1946 he had established himself as American’s most prominent composer and felt he had to make a statement. He did. It is a fine work yet has elements in it that are overblown, bordering on the portentous. Some of the finest moments are those in which this urban Jewish composer manages to evoke the wide open parts of his continent with widely spaced ethereal high notes, nothing in the middle, supported by a strong bass. The finale is preluded by the Fanfare for the Common Man which became so popular that it/is often played by itself, even used for commercials! Pappano gave it the works. God bless America!
The cliché has it that the Devil always gets the best tunes but in Liszt’s A Faust Symphony in three Characteristic Pictures the Devil steals the tunes of Faust and Gretchen and twists them, mangles them, parodies them in the finale; the first two movements being portraits of Faust and his loved one. Liszt does not tell the story at all, he sketches the characters of all three, except for one episode in Gretchen when the music seems to be saying: “He loves me: he loves me not”.. Sometimes it appears almost as if Liszt is improvising, not at the piano as he was frequently apt to do but on the orchestra. A section comes to an end and the textures pares down to a single line, as if Liszt was wondering what to do next. Sometimes, notably in the symphonic poem Orpheus and in Gretchen, Liszt put aside his virtuoso habits and his devilish complexities and wrote gentle, purely lyrical music. There are some longueurs in the symphony but on the whole the work goes ahead meaningfully and poetically. The melodic material is memorable. And Liszt makes sure that we know the tunes by repeating them again. Faust, the first movement is dramatic, searching and often frantic; Gretchen is graceful, lyrical and as beautiful as Goethe portrays her. Mephistopoles is Allegro vivace, ironico, he has no tunes of his own but transforms the themes of his victims. How to end?
Liszt sums up with an epilogue of almost political correctitude although he calls it a mystical chorus (with tenor solo) proclaiming that “everything is transitory... eternal womanhood leads us on high!! ... das Ewig weibliche!”.
Liszt finished his Faust Symphony in 1857. At the very beginning Faust has a motive that seems to question, with notes of the whole-tone scale, a device that looks to the future of melody and harmony, a pioneering gesture all Liszt’s own. The transformation of themes owes much to the Symphonic Fantastique that Berlioz composed some twenty years earlier.
The symphony was passionately and superbly played. Jurowsky solved the problem of the final by employing an eighty-strong chorus. Too often the final chorus is sung by a small body so that the performance ends in anti-climax. Not so here; Liszt’s symphony ended powerfully.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
FERRIER AWARDS 2010
Somehow the Wigmore Hall atmosphere is always sympathatic during the annual Ferrier Awards, people come every year and there is friendly support for the singers. The date of the finals was 23 April and the winner was the South African baritone, Njubulo Madlala (28). His voice was the only one of the six contestants that sounded mature with all the registers balanced and he made a warm sound. His programme was chosen wisely to display what he could do best.
A Bellini aria was followed by Butterworth’s song on Bredon Hill, Schumann’s Lied Balsazar, a folksong from the kraal and a passionately warm aria from Leoncavallo’s Zaza (good idea to sing music that the judges might not be too familiar with). His musicianship was impeccable and he didn’t make the mistake that other contestants had made, of singing too loud, and he had ‘the gift to be simple’. He was a winner whose name is worthy to be placed alongside previous winners, who include some of the finest singers of recent times.
Madlala was awarded £10,000; the second prize, half that sum, went to Dubliner Sarah Power with a voice not quite mature but with enough purity and style to win through (though she should beware of a shrill edge to her tone, probably caused by nerves). Bellini again, a bit of Stravinsky’s Rake, R. Strauss and a delightful children’s song by Poulenc with the voice and piano in chattering unison. Anna Cordona her excellent pianist (she won the accompanist’s prize of £3000). I was sorry that the Australian baritone Duncan Rock did not win anything but a lot of sympathy from the audience; he has a good voice and dramatic sense, strong to the point of occasionally hectoring.
To complete the honours: the Song Prize of £4000 went to Manchester soprano Laurie Ashworth with her Strauss, Purcell, Jonathan Dove, Mozart and Je suis Titania from Mignon.
The judges included three eminent singers: Della Jones, Felicity Palmer and Sandy Oliver, pianist Roger Vignoles and administrator Gavin Henderson.
A Bellini aria was followed by Butterworth’s song on Bredon Hill, Schumann’s Lied Balsazar, a folksong from the kraal and a passionately warm aria from Leoncavallo’s Zaza (good idea to sing music that the judges might not be too familiar with). His musicianship was impeccable and he didn’t make the mistake that other contestants had made, of singing too loud, and he had ‘the gift to be simple’. He was a winner whose name is worthy to be placed alongside previous winners, who include some of the finest singers of recent times.
Madlala was awarded £10,000; the second prize, half that sum, went to Dubliner Sarah Power with a voice not quite mature but with enough purity and style to win through (though she should beware of a shrill edge to her tone, probably caused by nerves). Bellini again, a bit of Stravinsky’s Rake, R. Strauss and a delightful children’s song by Poulenc with the voice and piano in chattering unison. Anna Cordona her excellent pianist (she won the accompanist’s prize of £3000). I was sorry that the Australian baritone Duncan Rock did not win anything but a lot of sympathy from the audience; he has a good voice and dramatic sense, strong to the point of occasionally hectoring.
To complete the honours: the Song Prize of £4000 went to Manchester soprano Laurie Ashworth with her Strauss, Purcell, Jonathan Dove, Mozart and Je suis Titania from Mignon.
The judges included three eminent singers: Della Jones, Felicity Palmer and Sandy Oliver, pianist Roger Vignoles and administrator Gavin Henderson.
Monday, April 26, 2010
ROSSINI’S TURKISH DELIGHT
Prodigies? Well, there’s Mozart of course, Mendelssohn challenging Shakespeare, Saint-Saéns with 32 sonatas under his pianistic belt, the infant Yehudi and the brilliant young Dimitri’s first symphony; but then what about the kid from Pesaro not yet had his 5th birthday (Leap Year Baby), already producing his 13th opera and he’s only 21? Ferrara, Milan and Venice had staged numbers one to twelve and here in Milan comes Turco in Italia in 1811, the year Napoleon abdicated, two years before the Barber arrive.
This is a revival five years on of Turco in the Royal Opera House (April 19). The production by Moshe Laiser and Patrise Caurier is lively, imaginative, witty and effective, excellent pit direction by Maurizio Benini.
Rossini called it a dramma buffo. A randy Turk, his old girlfriend, a nifty new Italian pick-up, her ancient husband, a tenor rival and a Poet manipulating the situation as grist for an opera libretto he wants to write. This Poet is a bit of a throw – back to Don Alfonso, a connection with Cosi fan tutte that Rossini and his new librettist Romani allude to. Like Cosi, Turco was a moral feather ruffler, I say!., married woman having it off with an infidel. Tut, tut.
Rossini was a cool cat, more interested in situations than characters but he knew how to cater for his cast and their strengths. The plot bristles farcically, twisting wittily. The music is not Rossini’s finest vintage, there are no melodies to go home with, but the score is tuneful, elegant, merry and professional to a degree, abundant with tricks, sorties, sallies and clichés of the period, formulae which are justified in a winning way. Patter and coloratura (several notes to one vowel) provide pegs for slick singing which it gets nicely here.
Tom (he insists on Sir Thomas) Allen is in brilliant form as the Poet, more Italian than any Italian, up to the mark, down to the wire. But the character who brings down the house is Geronimo, Alessandro Corbelli, a droll to cherish, a baritone to admire. Aleksandra Kurzak, Polish soprano, is his wife, Fiorilla, she has the lioness’ share of the notes with an attractive, athletic voice, stratospheric notes a speciality and she fits the flighty bill. The Turk is glamorous and excellent, Ildebrando d’Arcangelo and no archangel when it comes to speed courting. The outsider Narciso is a tenor to watch, fluent, mellifluous and South African, Colin Lee by name. Zaida who gets the Turk in the end completes the cast successfully, performed by Leah-Marian Jones (she’s Welsh, would you believe it?.)
A happy evening.
This is a revival five years on of Turco in the Royal Opera House (April 19). The production by Moshe Laiser and Patrise Caurier is lively, imaginative, witty and effective, excellent pit direction by Maurizio Benini.
Rossini called it a dramma buffo. A randy Turk, his old girlfriend, a nifty new Italian pick-up, her ancient husband, a tenor rival and a Poet manipulating the situation as grist for an opera libretto he wants to write. This Poet is a bit of a throw – back to Don Alfonso, a connection with Cosi fan tutte that Rossini and his new librettist Romani allude to. Like Cosi, Turco was a moral feather ruffler, I say!., married woman having it off with an infidel. Tut, tut.
Rossini was a cool cat, more interested in situations than characters but he knew how to cater for his cast and their strengths. The plot bristles farcically, twisting wittily. The music is not Rossini’s finest vintage, there are no melodies to go home with, but the score is tuneful, elegant, merry and professional to a degree, abundant with tricks, sorties, sallies and clichés of the period, formulae which are justified in a winning way. Patter and coloratura (several notes to one vowel) provide pegs for slick singing which it gets nicely here.
Tom (he insists on Sir Thomas) Allen is in brilliant form as the Poet, more Italian than any Italian, up to the mark, down to the wire. But the character who brings down the house is Geronimo, Alessandro Corbelli, a droll to cherish, a baritone to admire. Aleksandra Kurzak, Polish soprano, is his wife, Fiorilla, she has the lioness’ share of the notes with an attractive, athletic voice, stratospheric notes a speciality and she fits the flighty bill. The Turk is glamorous and excellent, Ildebrando d’Arcangelo and no archangel when it comes to speed courting. The outsider Narciso is a tenor to watch, fluent, mellifluous and South African, Colin Lee by name. Zaida who gets the Turk in the end completes the cast successfully, performed by Leah-Marian Jones (she’s Welsh, would you believe it?.)
A happy evening.
VARÈSE
Still a Modern Pioneer
Of famous composers only Webern left fewer compositions, just twelve, all played during a mini-festival devoted to Edgard Varèse 1883 – 1965. He was born in France, studied with Roussel, d’Indy and Widor. All his early works were destroyed in a fire probably during WW1. In 1915 he went to America, remaining there the rest of his life. He made his conducting début with the vast Requiem of Berlioz.
His music is still startlingly original, strings rarely used in favour of brass and loads of percussion. He writes little that could be called melody, or harmony; his rhythms can suggest a sort of counterpoint, layer above layer. He referred to his works, not as music, but ‘the organization of sound’.
Varèse had few performers and he had lengthy periods of depression but he was sustained by the friendship and support of many visual artists such as Picasso and Giacometti as well as composers like Busoni, Debussy and Schoenberg (though he no truck with serialism). Latterly he excited the interest of Boulez, Cage, Stockhausen, Frank Zappa and Charlie Parker. His music looked always to the future, he was one of the first to use tapes and electronics; enthusiasm for the new was part of his personality.
His works have interesting titles (fancy?) such as Octandra, Hyperprism, Equatorial and Ionisation. The festival (April 16 and 18 in the Queen Elizabeth Hall) opened with the latter piece whose title is explained: ‘the disassociation of electrons from the nucleus of their atom and their transformation into negative or positive ions’ – not exactly non-fluting! The performance were convincingly played and conducted by David Atherton with the London Sinfonietta. Tapes were used and video, devised by Pippa Nissen, on three screens – landscapes, cloud-scapes, moonscapes, Mars-scapes although we were once brought down to earth by a hand putting powder into a glass. Some of the works were sung well by the soprano Elizabeth Atherton, the Sinfonietta Chorus and, sportingly we all thought, by John Tomlinson, authors Huidobro, Tablada, Verlaine and chants from the Mayan.
Was there a downside to all this startlingly original pioneer music, composed at much the same time as the work of those other pioneers, Charles Ruggles and Charles Ives? Most of the audience seemed to think otherwise, applauding vigorously throughout, But some of us found that the ear gets as tired as the brain with works that seem to have no logic, no intimation of climaxes or summation. In the thirties it might have been labeled by the acronym ODTAA – One Damn Thing After Another; rumble-rumble-bang-crash-wallop. Sometimes there were sequences, sometimes beautiful incantatory solos; Varèse can do pianissimo but more often the noise level was extremely high. The first ten minutes were more enjoyable than the last. But there is no doubt that Varèse at his best had a kind of magic. His work has been described as ‘music in the pure state’. ‘tornadoes of sound’ and ‘a nightmare dreamed by giants’. There are designs in the piece for producing grief and anxiety but none for drama. Varèse often thought of his work to be parallel to crystals: “In spite of their limited variety of internal structure, the external forms of crystal are almost limitless.” Just so.
Varèse was without doubt a great original but for the average concert-goer he needs to be taken in small doses.
Of famous composers only Webern left fewer compositions, just twelve, all played during a mini-festival devoted to Edgard Varèse 1883 – 1965. He was born in France, studied with Roussel, d’Indy and Widor. All his early works were destroyed in a fire probably during WW1. In 1915 he went to America, remaining there the rest of his life. He made his conducting début with the vast Requiem of Berlioz.
His music is still startlingly original, strings rarely used in favour of brass and loads of percussion. He writes little that could be called melody, or harmony; his rhythms can suggest a sort of counterpoint, layer above layer. He referred to his works, not as music, but ‘the organization of sound’.
Varèse had few performers and he had lengthy periods of depression but he was sustained by the friendship and support of many visual artists such as Picasso and Giacometti as well as composers like Busoni, Debussy and Schoenberg (though he no truck with serialism). Latterly he excited the interest of Boulez, Cage, Stockhausen, Frank Zappa and Charlie Parker. His music looked always to the future, he was one of the first to use tapes and electronics; enthusiasm for the new was part of his personality.
His works have interesting titles (fancy?) such as Octandra, Hyperprism, Equatorial and Ionisation. The festival (April 16 and 18 in the Queen Elizabeth Hall) opened with the latter piece whose title is explained: ‘the disassociation of electrons from the nucleus of their atom and their transformation into negative or positive ions’ – not exactly non-fluting! The performance were convincingly played and conducted by David Atherton with the London Sinfonietta. Tapes were used and video, devised by Pippa Nissen, on three screens – landscapes, cloud-scapes, moonscapes, Mars-scapes although we were once brought down to earth by a hand putting powder into a glass. Some of the works were sung well by the soprano Elizabeth Atherton, the Sinfonietta Chorus and, sportingly we all thought, by John Tomlinson, authors Huidobro, Tablada, Verlaine and chants from the Mayan.
Was there a downside to all this startlingly original pioneer music, composed at much the same time as the work of those other pioneers, Charles Ruggles and Charles Ives? Most of the audience seemed to think otherwise, applauding vigorously throughout, But some of us found that the ear gets as tired as the brain with works that seem to have no logic, no intimation of climaxes or summation. In the thirties it might have been labeled by the acronym ODTAA – One Damn Thing After Another; rumble-rumble-bang-crash-wallop. Sometimes there were sequences, sometimes beautiful incantatory solos; Varèse can do pianissimo but more often the noise level was extremely high. The first ten minutes were more enjoyable than the last. But there is no doubt that Varèse at his best had a kind of magic. His work has been described as ‘music in the pure state’. ‘tornadoes of sound’ and ‘a nightmare dreamed by giants’. There are designs in the piece for producing grief and anxiety but none for drama. Varèse often thought of his work to be parallel to crystals: “In spite of their limited variety of internal structure, the external forms of crystal are almost limitless.” Just so.
Varèse was without doubt a great original but for the average concert-goer he needs to be taken in small doses.
JULIAN BREAM – MASTER OF THE FRETS
He was a lad in his early teens when I first met Julian Bream. He was born in Battersea and he sounded like it; he kept his cockney accent all his life (so far) although sometimes he would try to talk posh but it did not disguise his origins. His dad worked in advertising but played jazz guitar. Julian started playing that way but one day Dad brought home the recording of Segovia playing the Tremolo Study of Tarrega; the die was cast. Several doshed folk helped pay his fees for him to go to the Royal College of Music. At that time the guitar was scarcely known straight music apart from the great Segovia. Julian’s personality and his guitar soon had the other students flocking round him, so much that the director actually forbade him to bring his instrument into the College. He played at parties and the girls adored him.
Parties, little concerts, a broadcast or two, gradually he became known. He acquired a contract with RCA Victor and his records sold like hot cakes. He came many times to the Summer School of Music that I organized at Dartington, sometimes with Peter Pears, sometimes just recitals, later on master-classes and with a consort that he formed to play what Hardy called ‘the ancient stave’ my wife Olive Zorian played violin with him) and one year he brought the slightly younger Australian guitarist John Williams. These last two played some happy concerts together and it was fascinating to compare the two players: John a cooler player but technically more reliable whereas Julian was the great communicator even if he took more risks and squeaked more often.
Julian’s contract with RCA was unique. I think. He was able to record what he liked, where he liked and with whom he liked. Julian’s talent and his personality enabled him to get many composes to write pieces for him: Malcolm Arnold, Henze, Walton, Maxwell Davies, Rawsthorne, Tippett and Benjamin Britten.
Some Juliana: mutual friend John Warrack went with Julian to the Royal Academy show one year and they went into one room dominated by a large nude. Julian:”Christ, I know ‘er”. Silence in that room and bystanders waited for the next pronouncement. “What a smashing pair of plonkers”.
While on a longish tour of India (he made time to see a bit of interesting countries) Julian lent his Earl’s Court flat to a singer friend. She found eighteen pairs of evening shoes under the bed, all worn down at the heels, likewise a cupboard containing a couple of dozen dirty evening shirts and a sack full of unopened letters and telegrams.
Down in Dorset there was an annual cricket match (Julian was a good slow bowler), myself one year on Julian’s team playing the local farmers. Julian said they were nice chaps but they argued when the umpire gave them out and wouldn’t walk. Julian got round problem by getting the local Jesuit priest to umpire.
Julian encouraged me to come to the annual English Music Week in the Bavarian Alps at Schloss Elmau. “Great place, nice people, good music, good tucker and I was knee-deep in girls”. I couldn’t refuse and went the following year: it was, they were, it was and he was...
Alas, some of the fire and that power of communication declined after Julian crashed his car on a bridge near home after a convivial evening (“That bridge got smaller that night”) and after a 70th birthday Wigmore recital he decided to retire. Sadly he has become rather reclusive, living alone, walking the dog but not seeing or communicating with his old mates.
Julian was a one-off. His musicianship was profound yet full of joy. Like the greatest of musicians he knew his stuff but played on his intuition. Never routine, never playing to the gallery except sometimes when chatting to the audience, he enriched the repertoire and he enriched the musical experience of his audience. And his programmes were never boring like so many guitarists were. Building up the architecture of the great Bach Chaconne, loving the line of an ancient pavane, savouring the lollipop Malcolm Arnold Concerto, tearing away passionately in a Villa-Lobos study or just frivolling some encore meringue, he was unique.
Parties, little concerts, a broadcast or two, gradually he became known. He acquired a contract with RCA Victor and his records sold like hot cakes. He came many times to the Summer School of Music that I organized at Dartington, sometimes with Peter Pears, sometimes just recitals, later on master-classes and with a consort that he formed to play what Hardy called ‘the ancient stave’ my wife Olive Zorian played violin with him) and one year he brought the slightly younger Australian guitarist John Williams. These last two played some happy concerts together and it was fascinating to compare the two players: John a cooler player but technically more reliable whereas Julian was the great communicator even if he took more risks and squeaked more often.
Julian’s contract with RCA was unique. I think. He was able to record what he liked, where he liked and with whom he liked. Julian’s talent and his personality enabled him to get many composes to write pieces for him: Malcolm Arnold, Henze, Walton, Maxwell Davies, Rawsthorne, Tippett and Benjamin Britten.
Some Juliana: mutual friend John Warrack went with Julian to the Royal Academy show one year and they went into one room dominated by a large nude. Julian:”Christ, I know ‘er”. Silence in that room and bystanders waited for the next pronouncement. “What a smashing pair of plonkers”.
While on a longish tour of India (he made time to see a bit of interesting countries) Julian lent his Earl’s Court flat to a singer friend. She found eighteen pairs of evening shoes under the bed, all worn down at the heels, likewise a cupboard containing a couple of dozen dirty evening shirts and a sack full of unopened letters and telegrams.
Down in Dorset there was an annual cricket match (Julian was a good slow bowler), myself one year on Julian’s team playing the local farmers. Julian said they were nice chaps but they argued when the umpire gave them out and wouldn’t walk. Julian got round problem by getting the local Jesuit priest to umpire.
Julian encouraged me to come to the annual English Music Week in the Bavarian Alps at Schloss Elmau. “Great place, nice people, good music, good tucker and I was knee-deep in girls”. I couldn’t refuse and went the following year: it was, they were, it was and he was...
Alas, some of the fire and that power of communication declined after Julian crashed his car on a bridge near home after a convivial evening (“That bridge got smaller that night”) and after a 70th birthday Wigmore recital he decided to retire. Sadly he has become rather reclusive, living alone, walking the dog but not seeing or communicating with his old mates.
Julian was a one-off. His musicianship was profound yet full of joy. Like the greatest of musicians he knew his stuff but played on his intuition. Never routine, never playing to the gallery except sometimes when chatting to the audience, he enriched the repertoire and he enriched the musical experience of his audience. And his programmes were never boring like so many guitarists were. Building up the architecture of the great Bach Chaconne, loving the line of an ancient pavane, savouring the lollipop Malcolm Arnold Concerto, tearing away passionately in a Villa-Lobos study or just frivolling some encore meringue, he was unique.
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