2012-13 Season in review

The end of the season, the time when we all feel starved of opera and are raring to go with the next. But I thought I'd just reflect on the 2012/13 season as I think it has been for me the best season since I started this blog.

Staged Opera

1. Der Ring des Nibelungen, ROH. Flawed as it was, my first Ring in the theatre was a total revelation for me, and after years of liking Wagner but not being able to get past my reservations, I now completely "get it" and love it unabashedly. I was totally transfixed for the whole 14 hours.
Das Rheingold
Die Walküre

Siegfried

Götterdämmerung

2. The Minotaur, ROH. A wonderful production of an extremely exciting contemporary opera, with a truly great cast. What more could you ask for? For me this eclipsed Written on Skin, which I couldn't quite love as much as everyone else.

3. Eugene Onegin The Royal Academy of Music's production directed by John Ramster was quite simply one of the best shows I've ever seen, proving decisively that opera does not require huge budgets to be thrilling, moving drama. We knew that already, but it's good to be reminded. Wonderful stuff: so good I saw it twice.

4. Wozzeck, ENO. It's one of my favourite operas, so what a joy to see it so brilliantly directed by a debut opera director, and with a superb cast too. So good I saw it twice. I'd seen the very good WNO Lulu just before which made for a fascinating comparison. (I'm proud of the reviews I wrote for these two productions so if you read any, read those!)

5. Gloriana, ROH. This show got mixed reviews, and most reviewers took issue with the score, but I found it immensely enjoyable, with Susan Bullock a magnetic central presence, and Richard Jones' production unbeatable. So much beautiful music to be had in this score: so good I saw it twice.

6. Ariadne auf Naxos Glyndebourne. Again, this got very bad reviews from most, but I found this to be the most moving and telling production of Ariadne that I've ever seen, and this is a very cherished opera for me. So good I saw it twice. My review explains why!

7. Billy Budd Glyndebourne. Magical evening where music, stage, singing, acting, conducting, playing were all in perfect accord. So good I saw it twice.

Other notable mentions: Lohengrin with WNO was a good production, with some great singing - my other great Wagner experience this season. Don Carlo at the ROH somehow didn't quite add up for me, but I was lucky enough to see Harteros on opening night, and she was magnificent (as were the rest of the cast). Medea at the ENO had a very nice cast, and was a stunning production, though the score was not quite as thrilling as had been promised by McVicar. Death in Venice at the ENO and The Emperor of Atlantis with ETO were also beautiful to look at, but didn't quite deliver in other respects.

Disappointments: I didn't have any expectations going into Robert Le Diable at the ROH, but I still left disappointed that so much effort and money had been lavished on this piece of flim flam. Some serious reviewers found things to enjoy, but I cannot fathom how. Kasper Holten's fussy, dramatically weak, Eugene Onegin raised alarm bells for the next decade of the ROH, but one has to remain hopeful for the upcoming Don Giovanni. Nabucco and La Rondine were also lowlights.

Concerts

Some of my very best experiences this season were concert/semi staged performances of operas:

1. Knussen double bill, Barbican. Revelatory - overwhelmingly beautiful contemporary operas.
2. Into the Little Hill, Wigmore Hall. George Benjamin's first opera captivated me, where Written on Skin had left me a little cold. Superb piece.
3. Capriccio, ROH. My favourite opera served by an excellent cast. Catnip for Capriccioblog. So good I saw it twice.
4. Britten Canticles, ROH. Britten, Ian Bostridge, Iestyn Davies. Enough said.

5. Other things: At the Royal Festival Hall with Jurowski, Karita Mattila gave an astonishing account of the final scene of Salome, despite some serious vocal issues. Knussen at 60, of which the abovementioned double bill was a part, was a wonderful event. I experienced some truly excellent chamber music too this season. In Belgium I saw Britten's String Quartet no.2 as part of Festival Resonances (not reviewed) in a superlative performance that managed to capture both the extraordinary diamantine beauty of surface of this quartet and the composer's deep pain, manifest as a sort of eerie emptiness at the music's heart. A curious mixture of Apollonian reserve and psychological intensity, both such hallmarks of Britten's oeuvre, was shatteringly conjured by Katharine Gowers, Beatrice Philips, James Boyd and Martijn Vink. Philips and Boyd were again present for the totally extraordinary Lewes Chamber Music Festival concert of Janacek's On an Overgrown Path that reduced me to uncontrollable tears. Violinist Pekka Kuusisto's recital at the Wigmore Hall proved once again that he is one of the few essential artists of the age. The London Haydn Quartet also gave some very interesting late Beethoven at the Conway Hall, played as if an extension of Haydn; but what really sticks in my mind is their Protean performance of Haydn's quartet op.50/4 that made late Beethoven look tame: too explicable, too rounded, too complete next to it!!

Disappointments: Maria Guleghina and Christiane Oelze (neither reviewed) were both great artists in their prime, but I had to leave at the interval for both of their Wigmore recitals (the latter with Pierre Laurant Aimard) because the voices had declined so much. Pretty Yende also made a disappointing Wigmore debut (not reviewed), revealing a shining voice, but totally monotonous musicianship. She's very young still, and so has time to develop, but the intimacy of a solo recital revealed her flaws rather than her strengths. Joyce Didonato's Drama Queens at the Barbican was dispiriting because she was virtually inaudible from the 11th row of the stalls, but at least I discovered the astonishing musicianship of violinist Dmitry Sinkovsky.


All in all a very enjoyable season for me. The complete list of my 2012/13 reviews are available on this handy page (also linked on the right there). Roll on 2013/14!!!

Strauss with Karita Mattila, Thomas Hampson, the LPO and Jurowski. (The Rest is Noise inaugural concert)

19/01/2013
Royal Festival Hall

This was the inaugural concert in the LPO's two year concert series based on Alex Ross' popular book on 20th century music The Rest is Noise. And like the book it starts with Strauss, who according to Ross is the key composer that bridges the 19th century and 20th century, a culmination of the old century and a preparation for what came next. The concert featured Jurowski talking about Strauss in between pieces, which he did intelligently, but was largely unnecessarily I thought, and I don't know if this is going to be standard practise for every concert in this series.

First was Also Sprach Zarathustra which exciting and lovely though it is seems more silly to me as a response to Nietzsche's text every time I hear it. Yes it's not meant to be a piece of "musical philosophising" but it is meant to be a tribute to Nietzsche, and the "Ascent of Man" described by Strauss' "plot". But could anything be more inappropriate to the mood of Nietzsche's text than the spirit of the Waltz which explicitly or implicitly permeates almost every bar of the score?

I'll get to the review soon, but first an aside. I know this is probably sacrilege amongst Straussians (amongst whose number I certainly count myself) but I actually think many of the tone poems are overorchestrated, and that all the gilt and glitz usually sounds better on the "flattened" sound of a CD than it does in the concert hall. Don Quixote is the first one which is perfectly achieved (I think it's probably his best non vocal work), but I'd say that the preceding ones are where Strauss is really learning and honing his craft, and that the richest rewards of this exploration are reaped in the operas of the following two decades. I also happen to think that he continued to refine further his orchestration even through the fallow years of his musical creativity (mid 1920s to late '30s after which the Indian summer begins) - the perfect muted beauty of Capriccio didn't appear out of nowhere, and nor is it simply a return to what he was doing before.

Anyway, this was a rather light, fleet footed reading of the score I thought, though sumptuously played by the LPO with absolutely astonishing ensemble in the strings in the ridiculously challenging passagework. I was sitting right in the front row, so balance was strange though only in this piece on the program so I don't know if this was a quirk of circumstance. The strings often overpowered woodwind, even if the playing was of such high standard that it was hard to complain too much. Lead violinist Peter Schoeman impressed with diamond edged assurance and tremendously solid tone. It never quite took off fully though, and I wanted more gut busting explosiveness than was delivered.

Next came a rarity. Strauss' op.33 constitutes a major set of four large scale orchestral songs, all of which were conceived in their orchestral guises, an unusual trait for this genre with Strauss. None of this is top drawer Strauss, though all four are worthy of more than the occasional listen and contain many moments of real inspiration. Verfuhrung (Seduction) is perhaps predictably the strongest, and has a particularly magical second half full of classic Straussian harmonic sideslips. Gesang der Apollopriesterin is a paler affair, deliberately so, but doesn't play to Strauss' strengths. Karita Mattila took a long while to warm up during the former and it's clear that singing is quite an effortful process for her now, the voice seeming quite unwieldy - the mouth, jaw and throat are constantly making muscular adjustments to control the sound which though still large and impressively full is also squeezed and hints at wobble when singing below a forte. In fact, it seems that quiet singing is no longer possible "on the breath" for her, and the result is a very hoarse, unstable sound in tender passages. Her German diction is poor, possibly as a result of all the facial manipulations that are required to keep the voice in control, though I'm not familiar with much of her previous German singing I have to say, so I don't know if it has deteriorated. Tuning is still more or less good, though there is significant crooning to get to some notes. Gesang der Apollopriesterin fared significantly better with its less complex lines, but thank god for the astounding Salome that finished the concert or I would have been quite disappointed with a singer that I have admired for some time.


Hampson offered the opposite extreme. Even at 57 his superb technique means he's still exceptionally in control, offering a smooth legato line and effortless high notes without any obvious signs of tiring. On the other hand the timbre is not quite as silky and warm as it has been, and he doesn't seem to have the vast range of vocal colours at his disposal any more that he used to possess. He also simply failed to sing any note below the middle of the bass cleff above a croaking piano, sort of an issue in these songs which go so low and so high, especially when the highs were so brilliant and loud. It's very detailed, considered singing, and he has perfect German with excellent diction, but the lack of emotional range and truly personal response to the text meant that it felt merely polished and composed, rather than communicative and intimate. I do tend to prefer ultra controlled singers who are detailed interpreters and superlative technicians (Fischer-Dieskau, Schwarzkopf, Fleming) who some might find fussy, to more wild, instinctive, rougher singers (Rysanek, Netrebko), but while decent Hampson I thought here epitomised the dangers and pitfalls of the former approach.

His two songs Hymnus and Pilgers Morgenlied are both very exciting and beautiful pieces, the former exalted and resonant, and the stormy, frothing momentum of the latter is especially rarely heard because of its extreme tessitura. But the major rarity was the Notturno op.44 no.1 which opened the second half. Again the extreme vocal demands of this opus has severely curtailed the number of performances, and it's another orchestral song composed expressly for the medium on the grandest scale, this time a full quarter hour. And it's just so strange: a polytonal, moonlit landscape of utmost psychological intensity and depressive angst, with a broken hearted, eerie violin solo drifting listlessly above the nightmarish terrain. It's one of Strauss' finest inspirations and offers a view of a road not travelled - his hand at expressionism, a far cry from his normal gemütlichkeit, virtuosity and shock tactics. And it comes from 1899*! This performance was decent I thought, better than the previous offerings, though again I felt that Hampson was not brave enough in getting to the heart of this tortured, bleakly beautiful piece.

After this we were back on familiar ground with the Dance of the Seven Veils from Salome. I have to say I adore this unpretentious orchestral showpiece, which shocks and thrills just as it should without any illusions to profundity or sublimity. I know that people complain that it's the weakest part of the opera, but it's difficult to know what they expect from this most tacky section of the drama - that Strauss does so much with such vulgar base material can only be described as alchemical and again almost without precedent in his oeuvre - is anything this cleanly or efficiently scored in his output before or after, so full of contrast and thrills whilst remaining completely lucid and clear at every moment? Yes it's cheap, but it's also brilliant. This performance was wonderfully judged by Jurowski I thought, in tempo, gesture and timbre, the players clearly relishing this bonbon and playing as a single machine.

Then came the final scene of the same opera. Jurowski explained that he had chosen to use an orchestration that Strauss had indicated when he revised it in around 1930 for performances by more lyric voices such as the Mozart singer Maria Rajdl (who presumably still had significant vocal heft, as she premiered the eponymous role in Die Aegyptische Helena) so that the role no longer required an Isolde like Marie Wittich for whom it was written. I have to say that I didn't much miss the removed instrumentation and in fact this was by some distance the finest sound the orchestra made all evening - like in the previous piece, but now even more so the orchestra glowered and glowed as if a single entity. Part of it is that the last half hour of Salome is of course in every parameter simply one of the 4 or 5 most inspired expanses of music that Strauss ever composed, but Jurowski lead with deft touch and a superb feel for not just colour but forward direction too. I eagerly await his Ariadne this summer at Glyndebourne.

copyright Richard Avedon

Vocally this was the best portion of the evening too. Mattila strode through with burning willpower and a tangible need to communicate and seemed to be experiencing a moment of personal inspiration which rose frequently to truly incandescent focus. She was hurling her voice around which was exciting but risky, and the same hoarseness in quiet singing and more than occasional instability that marred the songs crept in here too. But the total musical and physical embodiment of character in her performance was of a terrifying intensity, to the point where you sometimes almost forgot she was singing. As a result she transcended her technical limitations utterly, and actually when singing her loudest in the middle voice, a seam of silver-golden tone from her prime was tapped again. I wouldn't want to hear it like this every time necessarily, but this was a performance of blazing power, and it was a wonder to watch Mattila as if possessed give so much of herself, presenting the most complete performance she could muster in that moment. Thrilling and awe inspiring.

Tony Pappano and Tony Hall were in the audience, joining the vast majority in giving Mattila a standing ovation.





*Strauss' orchestral songs for low male voice are a real passion of mine as they're of such consistently inspired quality, and virtually never performed - there are another three to add to the list of those performed here. Five of the six are recorded by the superb Andreas Schmidt with equally superb accompaniment here, and I urge the interested or sceptical to try this disc - one of my very favourites.

Jurowski and the LPO play Zemlinsky and Strauss at the Royal Festival Hall

26/09/2012

A pleasurable concert, partially ruined by the appalling acoustics of the Royal Festival Hall. I was sitting in good seats near the back of the front stalls which are meant to be acoustically the best, but I do wonder whether just being closer might not be a bit better. The Zemlinsky was a little disappointing, and I don't think his operas are as good as the Lyric symphony or some of his instrumental works, but also think that some of his other operas are stronger. I realise that some of my descriptions of the music might equally apply to Schreker ("sickly aura of the piece by consistently subverting and undermining the tonality, sweeping forward in endless gushes of lurid orchestral splurge") but Schreker feels much more like his own man, and just goes so much further towards extremity, kitsch, schmaltz, abandonment, excess, queasy beauty; he's the braver composer, less beholden, and the greater for it. More on him hopefully soon.

I reviewed it for Bach track:

http://www.bachtrack.com/review-rfh-lpo-jurowski-strauss-zemlinsky-florentine

Here's a taster:

Zemlinsky’s A Florentine Tragedy comprised the second half of the concert. Composed in 1917, this deeply autobiographical one act opera is the work of a man drunk on Strauss’ Salome of a decade earlier, but it feels like a second brew of its obvious model and suffers in every way in comparison to its predecessors (Der Rosenkavalier is freely borrowed from as well, first in the prelude, and then whenever sweetness or lighter strains are called for). This is not just a case of unfairly comparing two different works and complaining that one is not the other one – the parallels are so flagrant and numerous that comparison is unavoidable and surely even perhaps intentional.

Brynfest at the Royal Festival Hall

05/06/2012

Ho hum, sort of a hum drum evening this. I don't know why I'm surprised... I saw the repertoire, didn't book the first time despite the singers, but couldn't resist the £20 Timeout offer. They were filming it which explains the desire to fill seats, but there were still loads of empty ones. Is it that Bryn no longer has the power to fill the RFH? Or was it just the poor repertoire?

(Please note that the Royal Festival Hall has a very strange accoustic which does singers no favours, so bear that in mind with the comments - I have too)

The repertoire choices were a bit mystefying - Mostly italian, with a few French things (and the Eugene Onegin Waltz of all things). Although he's always sung this repertoire, it's not exactly what he's known for - I would have thought that a bleeding chunk from Wagner, and possibly some Mozart (does he still sing this?) would have been more appropriate as the main body of this evening, with some French and Italian stuff chucked in. As it was, we got a series of very short, rather light snippets that never seemed to amount to much. Bryn himself was in rather leathery voice and I don't know if this just reflects his current vocal condition or whether he was having an off night. It's lost colour and resonance, and I don't like that he shouts so much, not something he used to have to do, though the sound is still recognisably him. A little disappointing as I would consider myself an ardent fan of his in the right rep. That said, look below for the underwhelming repertoire choices - Miei rampolli femminini from La Cenerentola? Really? Why?

Here's what was performed, just because I don't want to talk through it piece by piece. Maybe I should do this anyway in future reviews.

Giuseppe Verdi: Overture, I vespri siciliani
Giuseppe Verdi: Pietà, rispetto, amore from Macbeth
Giuseppe Verdi: Ecco l'orrido campo from Un ballo in maschera
Gaetano Donizetti: Pour mon âme from La Fille du Regiment
Gioachino Rossini: Una voce poco fa from The Barber of Seville
Giuseppe Verdi: Noi siamo zingarelli from La Traviata
Georges Bizet: Je crois entendre from The Pearl Fishers
Giacomo Puccini: Vissi d'arte from Tosca
Giacomo Puccini: Te Deum from Tosca

Interval

Gioachino Rossini: Miei rampolli femminini from La Cenerentola
Gioachino Rossini: Si, ritrovarla, io giuro from La Cenerentola
Gioachino Rossini: Nacqui all'affanno from La Cenerentola
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Waltz scene from Eugene Onegin
Arrigo Boito: L'altra notte in fondo al mare from Mefistofele
Arrigo Boito: Son lo spirito che nega from Mefistofele
Giuseppe Verdi: Tre volte miagola la gatta (Witches chorus) from Macbeth
Pietro Mascagni: Easter Hymn from Cavalleria rusticana
Georges Bizet: Duet, Au fond du temple saint from The Pearl Fishers

Encore: quartet from Rigoletto

Bryn Terfel bass-baritone
Oksana Dyka soprano
Elizabeth DeShong mezzo-soprano
Lawrence Brownlee tenor
Orchestra of Welsh National Opera
Chorus of Welsh National Opera
Gareth Jones conductor

Oksana Dyka was ok - she has a gorgeous top which is huge and very rounded, but in the middle the power falls away, and there's no lower register to speak of. Vissi d'arte was squally, but strangely, L'altra notte in fondo al mare wasn't at all - she was at her best there I thought. Hard to judge properly in such small bursts of singing though, so I suspend judgement.

This is the first time I have seen Lawrence Brownlee live. In a way it's amazing what he can do, but I found him rather dull. I found his tone monocromatic - the vibrato is identical everywhere and he manages to make every vowel have the same colour. It's a rather soft edged voice, and the top comes so easily that it just doesn't thrill. It might just be that the RFH was simply too cavernous to do his voice (or anyone else's) justice. Both he and Bryn were at their best though during the final number - the famous Pearlfishers duet, where both finally seemed a bit freer vocally.


Thank god for Elizabeth Deshong! She jumped in last minute to replace another (ill) mezzo. I've written about her before here and elsewere, but I just need to reiterate how wonderful this voice is. Gorgeously even throughout the range, agile, MASSIVE chest register, ultra shiny radiant top, and charming to boot. I very much like what she does interpretively too, she colours things nicely, her dynamic choices excellent, and the coloratura can be heroic sounding or tossed off (i.e. she can choose to add weight or not) which is very good. I feel the one thing currently missing is textual acuity - if she took more risks with this I would be even happier. On the way home this evening I was wondering whether she'll be the composer in next season's Glyndebourne Ariadne and this thought filled me with joy, but that is somewhere where text is of paramount importance. I'm not sure if it's an ideal Strauss mezzo voice (both the composer and Octavian were designated soprano parts originally and as a result sit very high) but I don't mind finding out.

One thing - both of the arias she sang are meant to be from rather meek, sweet, girlish characters, admittedly both with a strong core, but though she sings them wonderfully, the voice is anything but meek and mild. Rossini seems to suit so well though, so would love to see her in the "serious" Rossini roles. Would she consider Armida? A soprano role officially, but low lying.


Overall this evening was only really worth it for the contributions from DeShong and that lovely final duet. I would not have been happy had I paid full price.

Jonas Kaufmann

Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
24/10/2010

I've seen Kaufmann once before in the wonderful production of Adriana Lecouvreur that the ROH did last season, though on that occasion, I felt he perhaps wasn't singing at his best. Of course I have listened to his albums, and on record he is certainly my favourite non specialist tenor of the last thirty years. When the mic is up close to catch his artistry, there is really nothing like the glorious beauty of the voice and the astonishing technique.

Whenever one knows a voice very well from recordings, it is always interesting to hear them in real life from across a hall. I was given seats last minute by the wonderfully generous @robmuz which were near the front of the back stalls, which is apparently an acoustic sweet spot in the hall. Though he wasn't loud, I could hear every note that was sung, even his most delicate pianissimos, somewhat of a Kaufmann speciality. The RFH is famously appalling for being able to hear singers however.

The first half was mostly Verismo rep: Cielo e mar from La Gioconda, Giulietta! son io from the Zandonai Romeo e Giulietta, Addio alla madre from Cavalleria Rusticana, with the flower song from Carmen representing the French repertoire. While on record he sings these all magnificently, I found these slightly disappointing here - somehow the radiant fullness of the voice didn't shine through to where I was sitting, and well sung though they were it was difficult to be too moved - you could feel that people were just waiting for the climactic high note, and the applause for these was proportional the how high and how long and how loud that note was. His Italian is perfect though, and his technique is unbelievable - the messa di voce and high pianissimos are second to none. Of course it didn't help that aside from the Bizet this is all schlocky second rate stuff. What also didn't help was that after every aria we'd get an entirely pointless and virtually unrelated orchestral intermezzo. Yes, sure he needs time to rest and get in character for the next aria, but there was such a flagrant sense of padding here, and the constant stopping and starting made it hard for anyone to get too involved (audience or performers).

I actually liked many of the orchestral numbers - mostly quite easily listening, but unfortunately always played so sloooooowly! The overture to I Vespri Siciliani is actually genuinely lovely, as is the Overture to Act 4 from La Wally (Catalani is my favourite of the post Verdi Italian opera composers, by far the most harmonically interesting and lush - reminds me often of Massenet in that regard). Both were here well played I thought, with the Royal Philharmonic strings playing wonderfully all evening. The brass often sounded dodgy however, especially in fast passages.

The second half was much better. After the orchestral Bacchanale from Saint-Saëns Samson (why?) and another piece of Verismo tat (Un dì all'azzuro spazio from Andrea Chenier by Giordano), very well sung of course, we got the prelude to Lohengrin Act 3, and finally the meat of the recital had arrived. Winterstürme from Die Walküre was truly superbly sung, the sound now completely matching the repertoire, and it just poured out of him. Then the celestially beautiful Prelude to Act 1 of Lohengrin and straight into the Gralserzählung from the same opera - such sensitivity to the text and for me the finest singing of the evening. In the spell binding central pianissimo he held us all rapt, not a sound from the entire audience which had been rather noisy and coughey until then - truly extraordinary. Would have been worth it just for that.

As so often, the encores (all four of them), were almost the best bit (and would have been by some margin had it not been for the Wagner). I have no idea why people are so keen to run away after these things! The four encores were L'anima ho stanca, Du bist die Welt für mich, Vesti la giubba and Ombra dì nube. Du bist die Welt für mich is so schmaltzy and just unbelievably gorgeous - the orchestra sounding fantastic, and Kaufmann singing so seductively it was hard not to just smile and laugh. And the final number, Ombra di nube by Refice, sung sotto voce throughout was also extremely special, for me the best italian singing of the evening.

He really is at the height of his powers now. Or can he go further? Apparently Otello, Siegfried and Tristan are coming in 5 years time. Can we get him in London to sing Lohengrin please? Soon?