Category Archives: Opera

On Record – Benjamin: Picture A Day Like This (Nimbus)

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George Benjamin
Picture a day like this (2021-23)

Woman – Marianne Crebassa (mezzo-soprano)
Zabelle – Anna Prohaska (soprano)
Artisan/Collector – John Brancy (baritone)
First Lover/Composer – Beate Mordal (soprano)
Second Lover/Composer’s Assistant – Cameron Shahbazi (countertenor)
Mahler Chamber Orchestra / Sir George Benjamin

Nimbus NI8116 [60’09’’] English libretto included

Producer & Engineer Etienne Pipard
Live performance, 5 July 2023 at Theâtre du Jeu de Paume, Aix-en-Provence

Written by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Nimbus continues its long association with the music of George Benjamin by releasing his most recent opera, as recorded during its initial production at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and here featuring an impressive line-up of musicians under the direction of the composer.

What’s the music like?

Surprising as was the emergence of Benjamin as an opera composer, he has consolidated his standing accordingly – the ‘lyric tale’ Into the Little Hill (NI5964) duly followed by the full-length Written on Skin (NI5885) then Lessons in Love and Violence (NI5976). In spite of its greater length, Picture a day like this marks his return to the intimacy and understatement of that first venture in terms of its reduced cast and chamber forces – for all that the underlying ‘theme’ seems nothing if not significant in its consideration of life above and beyond death.

Unfolding across seven scenes, the narrative relates a Woman’s search for a ‘happy person’ to redeem the death of her child – during which she encounters a pair of Lovers, a retired Artisan and a renowned Composer; their happiness and contentment in each case pure self-deception. After a despairing monologue, she meets a Collector whose attempted empathy leads her to a garden where the arcadian aspect proves as illusory as the contentment of Zabelle: one whose ostensibly tragic story still enables her to glimpse a future beyond what she has experienced.

Musically this work finds Benjamin at his most subtle and often rarified though never merely inscrutable. Understandably eschewing those respectively sustained expressive build-ups then jarring histrionics of his previous two stage-works, the present opera focusses on incremental changes of emphasis both vocally and instrumentally to maintain a fluid if always perceptible momentum. Allied to this the texture has a poise and finesse, notable even by the standards of this composer, as largely mitigates any sense of the drama played out at an emotional remove.

It could hardly be bettered in terms of performance. Marianne Crebassa brings eloquence and no little fervour to the Woman, while Anna Prohaska evokes Zabelle with mounting gravitas. The other singers are nothing if not attuned to their doubling of roles – notably John Brancy’s fractured Artisan, Beate Mordal’s unfulfilled Composer and Cameron Shahbazi’s narcissistic Lover. Long an able exponent of his own music, Benjamin secures playing of responsiveness from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra as he steers this work forward with audible inevitability.

Does it all work?

Yes, providing one accepts that Benjamin’s idiom is inward if not necessarily inward-looking and elusive without its being inaccessible. The ethos of this opera is likely to be experienced at a remove from the drama it articulates, with the listener becoming absorbed in the onstage action but never coerced into an intended response. That what one takes from listening to it is no more permanent than it is predetermined is itself testimony to the conviction of Benjamin’s and librettist Martin Crimp’s fashioning a parable simultaneously of its own yet outside time.

Is it recommended?

Indeed, given the fascination of its subject, the nature of its treatment and the assurance of its realization. Hopefully a DVD presentation of this or the subsequent Royal Opera production will be forthcoming. Even if or when it appears, this release can be strongly recommended.

Watch

Buy / Further information

For purchase options and more information on this release, visit the Nimbus website.

Published post no.2,303 – Tuesday 17 September 2024

On Record – Helen Field, David Wilson-Johnson, soloists, Millennium Sinfonia / James Kelleher: Havergal Brian: The Cenci (Toccata Classics)

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Brian
The Cenci (1951-2)

Helen Field (soprano) Beatrice Cenci
David Wilson-Johnson (baritone) Count Cenci
Ingveldur Ýr Jónsdóttir (contralto) Lucretia
Stuart Kale (tenor) Cardinal Camillo/An Officer
Justin Lavender (tenor) Orsino/Bernardo
Jeffrey Carl (baritone) Giacomo/Savella/First Judge/Second Judge
Nicholas Buxton (tenor) Marzio/Third Guest/A Cardinal
Devon Harrison (bass) Olimpio/Colonna/Third Guest
Serena Kay (soprano) First Guest/Second Guest
The Millennium Sinfonia / James Kelleher

Toccata Classics TOCC0094 [two discs, 101’32’’]
Producer & Engineer Geoff Miles Remastering Adeq Khan
Live performance, 12 December 1997 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Toccata Classics fills a major gap in the Havergal Brian discography with this release of his opera The Cenci, given its first hearing 27 years ago by a notable roster of soloists with The Millennium Sinfonia conducted by James Kelleher, and accorded finely refurbished sound.

What’s the music like?

The third among the five operas which Brian completed, The Cenci emerged as the second of its composer’s seminal works inspired by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). While his ‘lyric drama’ on the first two books of Prometheus Unbound (1937-44) had set its text almost word for word, Brian was ruthless in adapting his ‘tragedy in five acts’ – the outcome being a rapid traversal of a drama whose themes of incest and parricide made it publicly unstageable in the UK until 1922, some 103 years after publication in Livorno where it had partly been written.

Two further operatic treatments emerged either side of that by Brian. Berthold Goldschmidt’s Beatrice Cenci (1949-50) won first prize in the Festival of Britain opera competition in 1951 but itself went unheard 1988 (ironically enough, in a concert performance at Queen Elizabeth Hall), and Alberto Ginastera’s Beatrix Cenci (1970-71) went unstaged in his native Argentina until as recently as 2015. Whereas both these operas centres on the heroine of Shelley’s play, Brian’s focusses more on its ensemble as to content with the emphasis shifting from father to daughter as it unfolds. Compared to the poised yet rather self-conscious lyricism favoured by Goldschmidt or the full-on expressionism of Ginastera, moreover, its often circumspect and sometimes oblique emotional demeanour renders Shelley’s drama from an intriguing remove.

Not its least fascination is the Preludio Tragico that, at 14 minutes, is less an overture than an overview of what ensues – akin to Beethoven’s Leonora No. 2 in its motivic intricacy and expressive substance – which would most likely warrant a balletic or cinematic treatment in the context of a staging. Perfectly feasible as a standalone item, this received its first hearing in 1976 and was recorded by Toccata Classics in 2009 (TOCC0113). Ably negotiated by his players, Kelleher’s lithely impulsive account accordingly sets the scene in unequivocal terms.

What follows are eight scenes which encapsulate this drama to compelling if at times reckless effect. The initial three scenes correspond to Shelley’s first act and culminate with the gauntly resplendent Banquet Scene, but Brian’s fourth scene goes straight to the play’s fourth act with the despairing exchanges of Beatrice and Lucrecia. The fifth scene finds daughter and mother in a plot to murder Count Cenci that soon unravels, then the last three scenes take in Shelley’s fifth act as fate intervenes with Beatrice, Lucretia and stepbrother Giacomo facing execution. Save for a crucial passage where the Papal Legate arrives to arrest Cenci, omission of which jarringly undermines continuity in the fifth scene, Brian’s handling of dramatic pacing leaves little to be desired – the one proviso being the excessive rapidity with which certain passages, notably several of Cenci’s, need to be sung that would have benefitted from a slight easing of tempo. Musically, this is typical of mature Brian in its quixotic interplay of moods within that context of fatalism mingled with defiance as few other composers have conveyed so tangibly.

Does it all work?

Very largely, owing to as fine a cast as could have been assembled. Helen Field is unfailingly eloquent and empathetic as Beatrice, with such as her remonstrations at the close of the fifth scene and spoken acceptance at that of the eighth among the highpoints of mid-20th century opera. David Wilson-Johnson brings the requisite cruelty but also a sadistic humour to Count Cenci, and Ingveldur Ýr Jónsdóttir is movingly uncomprehending as Lucretia. The secondary roles are expertly allotted, notably Justin Lavender’s scheming Orsino and stricken Bernardo. The Millennium Sinfonia responds to Brian’s powerful if often abrasive writing with alacrity under the assured guidance of James Kelleher, and if the sound does not make full use of the QEH’s ambience, its clarity and immediacy tease unexpected nuance from the orchestration.

This set comes with two booklets. One features the libretto devised by Brian, duly annotated to indicate omissions or amendments (yet a number of anomalies in this performance remain unaccounted for). The other features Shelley’s own preface to the first edition, with articles by Brian afficionados including John Pickard’s informative overview of the music and Kelleher’s thoughts on its performance. Charles Nicholl’s speculations as to the ‘real’ Beatrice Cenci are more suited to activities on a culture cruise than to Brian’s opera but are entertaining even so.

Is it recommended?

It is indeed. The Cenci is unlikely to receive further performances (let alone staging) any time soon, so this reading gives a persuasive account of its manifest strengths and relative failings. Kelleher is ‘‘formulating plans to return to conducting’’ and ought to be encouraged to do so.

Listen & Buy

You can listen to samples and explore purchase options on the Toccata Classics website Click on the names for more on conductor James Kelleher and to read more about the opera at the Havergal Brian Society website

Published post no.2,298 – Wednesday 11 September 2024

Arcana at the opera: New Year @ Birmingham Opera Company

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New Year (1985-88)

Opera in Three Acts

Music and libretto by Sir Michael Tippett
Sung in English with English surtitles

Jo Ann – Francesca Chiejina (soprano), Donny – Sakiwe Mkosana (baritone), Nan – Sarah Pring (mezzo-soprano), Merlin – Lucia Lucas (baritone), Pelegrin – Joshua Stewart (tenor), Regan – Samantha Crawford (soprano), Presenters – Grace Durham (mezzo-soprano), Oskar McCarthy (baritone)

Keith Warner (director), Michael Hunt (associate designer), Mariana Rosas (chorus director), Nicky Shaw (designer), Simone Sandrini (choreographer), John Bishop (lighting designer), Matt Powell (video designer)

Birmingham Opera Company Chorus, Actors and Dancers, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Alpesh Chauhan

The Dream Tent @ Smithfield, Birmingham
Sunday 7 July 2024

reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photos (c) Adam Fradgley

Around a decade ago, Birmingham Opera Company mounted a production of Tippett’s opera The Ice Break which vindicated this opera as a dramatic entity, so making its composer’s fifth and final opera New Year a logical further step in the rehabilitation of a latterly neglected and frequently derided dramatist. What was seen and heard tonight was typical of BOC only in its playing fast and loose with a work that, far from representing a creative decline, finds Tippett pushing – unequivocally even if erratically – against the boundaries of what may be feasible.

Since its staging at Houston in 1989 then at Glyndebourne the following summer, New Year has barely surfaced in considering what was a productive and diverse era for opera in the UK – occasional revivals of its suite a reminder of those riches that more than outweigh any dross. Much of the problem lies in just what this work is – a masque whose ‘‘primary metaphor’’ is dance. What better than to locate it in a ‘Dream Tent’, which here functions as the scenic and sonic environment where ‘‘Somewhere and Today’’ collides with ‘‘Nowhere and Tomorrow’’?

Keith Warner’s direction makes resourceful use of the space therein. At its centre, a circular platform enables the presenters to comment on the action, as well as a means of bringing its climactic aspects into acute focus. At either end are a house where the humans are domiciled, then a white cube that opens-up to reveal a spaceship from where the time-travellers emerge. Along either side are gantries for chorus and orchestra – the former as volatile in its comings and goings as the latter is inevitably static, but their synchronization was hardly ever at fault.

Above all, such an array allows free rein to Simone Sandroni’s choreography – as animated or visceral as the scenario demands and abetting a sense of the opera playing out in real-time to onlookers either side of the dramatic divide, which duly blurs in consequence. Both Nicky Shaw’s designs and Matt Powell’s video make acknowledgement of that period from which New Year emerged, while John Bishop’s lighting comes decisively through the haze of ‘dry ice’ to illumine the production and denote the proximity of this opera to the heyday of MTV.

Vocally there was little to fault. As the reluctant heroine Jo Ann, Francesca Chiejina overcame initial uncertainty for a rendition affecting in its vulnerability; to which the Donny of Sakiwe Mkosana was a telling foil in its reckless self-confidence and excess of adrenalin. They were well complemented by the Merlin of Lucia Lucas, duly conveying hubris poised on the brink of disaster, and the Pelegrin of Joshua Stewart whose growing desire to bring together these separate but not thereby competing worlds bore eloquent fruit in his love-duet with Jo Ann.

It was those other two main roles, however, that dominated proceedings. Sarah Pring gave a powerful while never inflexible portrayal of Nan, her innate fervency in contrast to the steely authority of Samantha Crawford (above) whose Regan approaches the human world with something between trepidation and disdain – not least in her confrontation with Donny, where Tippett’s would-be rap provoked some amusement. Splitting the role of Presenter worked effectively, Grace Durham and Oskar McCarthy (below) duly enhancing the stage-action with no little panache.

Not for the first time, BOC Chorus came into its own for what is among the most extensive and immediate of Tippett’s choral contributions to opera – the oft-favoured device of Greek Chorus afforded a visceral twist as it conveys the ominous and often violent attitudes of ‘the crowd’. That many of those involved have signed-up specifically for the occasion only adds to the rawness and physicality of its collective presence: something that the composer was at pains to capture, and which could not have been realized this directly in earlier productions.

Conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with typical discipline and energy, Alpesh Chauhan brought requisite vibrancy and clarity to Tippett’s writing. Less purposefully wrought than in his previous operas, there is no lack of subtlety or imagination – the frequent reliance on percussive sonorities to sustain the overall texture hardly an issue when so deftly realized as here. Is there a more moving passage in his output than the dance for Jo Ann and Pelegrin after their duet – Tippett’s musical past and present brought into disarming accord.

Playing for around 105 minutes, New Year is relatively expansive next to Tippett’s preceding two stage-works so that certain aspects of those outer acts do verge on diffuseness. That this hardly came to mind on the opening night was tribute to the conviction of those involved in seeking to reassess what this opera might be and, moreover, what it is there to do. Far from having run out of ideas, Tippett had a surfeit of these that he struggled to make cohere but in which he so nearly succeeded. Do see this engaging and enlightening production from BOC.

Further performances on 9, 10, 12 & 13 July – for more information head to the Birmingham Opera Company website

Published post no.2,233 – Monday 8 July 2024

Arcana at the opera: Madam Butterfly @ CBSO, Symphony Hall

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Madam Butterfly (1903-04)

Semi-staged performance with English surtitles

Cio-Cio San – Maki Mori (soprano), Pinkerton – Pene Pati (tenor), Suzuki – Hiroka Yamashita (mezzo-soprano), Sharpless – Christopher Purves (baritone), Goro – Christopher Lemmings (tenor), Kate – Carolyn Holt (mezzo-soprano), Yamadori/Bonze – Sanuel Pantcheff (baritone), Imperial Commissionaire – Jonathan Gunthorpe (bass), Yakuside – Matthew Pandya (bass), Cousin – Abigail Baylis (soprano), Mother – Hannah Morley (mezzo-soprano), Aunt – Abigail Kelly (soprano), Ufficiale – Oliver Barker (bass)

Thomas Henderson (director), Laura Jane Stanfield (costumes), Charlotte Corderoy (assistant conductor), Charlotte Forrest (repetiteur), Daniel Aguirre Evans (surtitles)

CBSO Chorus, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kazuki Yamada

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Saturday 29 June 2024

reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photo (c) Yuji Hori

The current season by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra ended on an undoubted high with this performance of Madama Butterfly – if not Puccini’s greatest opera, then likely his most affecting and one with which Kazuki Yamada demonstrably feels an acute empathy.

Semi-stagings can be a mixed blessing, but Thomas Henderson fulfilled this task admirably through several strategically placed screens at either end and across the rear of the stage that enabled the singers to enter or exit without detriment to musical continuity. The costumes by Laura Jane Stanfield brought authenticity without risk of caricature, while whoever handled the lighting should be commended for so discreetly intensifying those emotional highpoints – notably when the ‘heroine’ meets her end in what felt as powerful visually as it did aurally.

The cast was a fine one and dominated (as it needed to be) by the Cio-Cio San of Maki Mori – her unforced eloquence and innate goodness evident throughout, while her only occasionally being overwhelmed by the orchestra underlined her technical assurance. A pity that Pene Pati was not on this level as, apart from his rather cramped tessitura in its higher register, his was a Pinkerton neither suave not alluring but precious and self-regarding – with barely a hint of remorse when forced to recognize the consequences of his actions. Hiroka Yamashita had all the necessary empathy as Suzuki, while Christopher Purves gave a memorable rendering of Sharpless – unsympathetic as to profession yet emerging as a hapless participant conveying real humanity, if unable to prevent what could hardly be other than a tragedy in the making.

Smaller roles were well taken, not least Carolyn Holt as a well-intentioned Kate and Samuel Pantcheff as a yearning if not over-wrought Yamadori. The CBSO Chorus gave its collective all in a contribution that goes a long way to defining the culture and atmosphere in a turn-of-century Nagasaki riven between its Oriental tradition and Occidental intervention. Otherwise, the CBSO was the star of this show in responding to Yamada’s direction, as disciplined as it was impulsive, with a precision and finesse maintained over even the most opulently scored passages. It is often overlooked just how wide-ranging Puccini’s idiom had by then become, with its impressionist and even modal elements duly subsumed into music whose Italianate essence is consistently enhanced while without sacrificing any of its immediacy or fervour.

Some 120 years on and attitudes to what this opera represents have inevitably changed, but it is a measure of Puccini’s theatrical acumen that anti-imperialist sentiment abounds in the narrative without drawing attention to itself conceptually or musically. Conducting with an audible belief in every bar, Yamada ably maintained underlying momentum – not least those potential longueurs in the initial two acts, while his handling of the third act made an already compact entity the more devastating in its visceral drama and ultimately unresolved anguish.

Overall, a gripping account of an opera too easy to take for granted as well as an impressive demonstration of the CBSO’s musicianship after just a year with Yamada at the helm. And, if ‘joy’ was in relatively short supply this evening, next season should more than make amends.

For information on the new CBSO season for 2024-25, click here

Arcana at the opera: Un giorno di regno @ Garsington Opera

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Un giorno di regno (1840)

Melodramma giocoso in Two Acts – music by Giuseppe Verdi; Libretto by Felice Romani (revised by the composer)

Sung in Italian with English surtitles

Il Cavaliere di Belfiore – Joshua Hopkins (baritone), Il Barone di Kelbar – Henry Waddington (bass-baritone), La Marchesa del Poggio – Christine Rice (mezzo-soprano), Giulietta di Kelbar – Maddison Leonard (soprano), Edoardo di Sanval – Oliver Sewell (tenor), La Rocca – Grant Doyle (baritone), Il Conte Ivrea – Robert Murray (tenor), Delmonte – James Micklethwaite (tenor), Servant – Daniel Vening (bass)

Christopher Alden (director), Charles Edwards (sets), Sue Willmington (costumes), Ben Pickersgill (lighting), Illuminos (Matt and Rob Vale) (video), Tim Claydon (choreographer)

Garsington Opera Chorus, Philharmonia Orchestra / Chris Hopkins

Garsington Opera, Wormsley
Monday 1 July 2024

review by Richard Whitehouse Photos by (c) Julian Guidera and Richard Hubert Smith (as marked)

Garsington Opera has a laudable track-record in presenting rarities or supposed ‘also-rans’ to best advantage, with this new production of Un giorno di regno no exception. Verdi’s second opera fell flat on its premiere at La Scala in September 1840, though the death of his wife and both of his children over the previous two years meant his heart was simply not in the writing of a comic opera: one of several extenuating circumstances that included a dearth of suitable singers for the main roles plus the demonstrably backward-looking nature of the work itself.

All credit to Christopher Alden for creating a production which, whatever its modishness of appearance, is rarely less then relevant and always entertaining. Verdi’s hurried refashioning of a 22-year-old libretto – concerning real-life impersonation of King Stanislaus prior to his briefly regaining the Polish crown in 1733 – was never likely to thrill the Milanese audience, but it does provide a lively context for this sequence of increasingly inane goings-on such as respond well to being situated in an authoritarian state swamped by ‘fake news’ and political one-upmanship. Just occasionally the deluge of video imagery threatens to overwhelm what is being enacted on stage but, overall, what can seem a needlessly involved and diffuse plot is, if not simplified, thrown into sharper focus so as to maintain the interest of those present.

In so doing, Alden is abetted by the faux-stylishness of Charles Edwards’s sets and the no less eye-catching costumes of Sue Willmington – their combined effect enhanced by the dextrous lighting of Ben Pickersgill and a video component from the Illuminos duo that adds greatly to the effect of immersive decadence. Nor is the choreography of Tim Claydon found wanting in its physicality and convincing use of all available stage-space, not least those gangways in the auditorium that function briefly if vividly as its extension for certain highpoints of the action.

Madison Leonard in Un giorno di regno Garsington Opera opens Garsington 29.06.24 photo credit: Richard Hubert Smith

An opera production is arguably only as good as its singers, and the present cast could hardly be bettered. As the false king Belfiore, Joshua Hopkins brings style and suavity to a role that could easily become insipid – and with his ‘Freddie Mercury’ cameo carried off to perfection. Teasing out the cowardliness behind his thuggery, Henry Waddington is ideally cast as Kelbar and Grant Doyle hardly less so as the scheming La Rocca – his ‘sparring partner’ made literal during their uproarious breakfast confrontation. Oliver Sewell overcame initial unsteadiness to deliver an Edoardo of resolve and eloquence, with Robert Murray the stealthily insinuating Ivrea. Neither female role leaves anything to be desired – Madison Leonard vulnerable for all her minx-like persona; Christine Rice stealing the show as the Marchesa whose solo spots are the opera’s likely highlights. James Micklethwaite and Daniel Vening both acquit themselves ably, while Garsington Opera Chorus evidently enjoys its collective function as those ‘people in black’ who variously comment on the action then intervene often forcibly when necessary.

Stepping in at the eleventh hour (for an indisposed Tobias Ringborg), Chris Hopkins directed with verve and real sense of musical continuity – not least when Verdi (seemingly for the only time in his career) made recourse to ‘recitativo secco’ which here furthers the action without impeding its progress. Otherwise, the Philharmonia Orchestra despatches with relish a score which, for all that this lacks the sophistication and urbanity of Rossini’s or Donizetti’s mature comedies, crackles with energy along with an engaging personality for which it has not yet had its due.

Members of the Garsington Opera chorus in Un giorno di regno – opens Garsington 29.06.24 photo credit: Richard Hubert Smith

Although a lesser opera in the Verdi canon, Un giorno di regno met with modest success even in his lifetime and its later revivals were well received. Thanks to this Garsington production, his ‘King for a Day’ finds itself more than able to enjoy a timely 15 minutes in the spotlight.

For further information and performances, visit the Garsington Opera website. For more on the performers, click on the names to read about director Christopher Alden, conductor Chris Hopkins and the Philharmonia Orchestra