Tag Archives: Chuma Sijeqa

In concert – English National Opera @ BBC Proms: Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

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Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk Op.29 (1932-33)

Opera in Four Acts (Nine Scenes)
Music by Dmitri Shostakovich
Libretto by Alaxander Preys and the composer after the novella by Nikolai Leskov
English translation by David Poutney
Semi-staged performance, sung in English with English surtitles

Katerina – Amanda Majeski (soprano); Boris/Ghost of Boris – Brindley Sherratt (bass); Zinovy – John Findon (tenor); Mill-hand/Priest – Thomas Mole (baritone); Sergey – Nicky Spence (tenor); Aksinya/Convict – Ava Dodd (soprano); Shabby Peasant – Ronald Samm (tenor); Steward – Alaric Green (baritone); Police Sergeant – Chuma Sijeqa (baritone); Teacher – William Morgan (tenor); Old Convict – Sir Willard White (bass-baritone); Sonyetka – Niamh O’Sullivan (mezzo-soprano)

BBC Singers, Chorus of English National Opera, Brass Section of English National Opera, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra / John Storgårds

Ruth Knight (director)

Royal Albert Hall, London
Monday 1 September 2025

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photos (c) BBC / Andy Paradise

In this 50th anniversary year of Shostakovich’s death it made sense for the Proms to schedule Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, his second and final completed opera, in a performance reminding one of English National Opera’s commitment to this work stretching back almost four decades.

In scenic terms, the semi-staging directed by Ruth Knight was little more than a gloss on what was heard. Its framing device of the heroine in the witness box now seems a tired device that served little purpose, and the emergence of a bed at rear of the platform as a focus for sexual activity had surely passed its sell-by date at the end of the David Poutney era. More effective was the use of lighting to accentuate dramatic highpoints; incidentally reminding one such a procedure had come of age around the time that Shostakovich’s opera first appeared on stage.

Vocally this was a mixed bag. No-one could accuse Amanda Majeski of lacking presence or, moreover, eloquence in her assumption of the title-role, yet her emotional aloofness made her seem not so much distinct as overly detached from the wretched circumstances all around her. Brindley Sharatt was a shoo-in for Boris, his boorishness yet evincing a cunning intelligence who easily held the stage – not least his latter ‘ghost’ incarnation. Nicky Spence was vocally assured but dramatically two-dimensional as Sergey and, as Zinovy, John Findon resembled more a provincial critic than a merchant, though Thomas Mole made a lively contribution as a dipsomaniac Priest with Chuma Sijeqa uproarious as the Police Sergeant. His cameo as an Old Convict found Sir Willard White in gratifyingly fine voice near the end of his eighth decade.

Smaller roles were generally well taken, not least Ava Dodd’s hapless Aksinya and Niamh O’ Sullivan’s scheming Sonyetka, while the ENO Chorus lacked little in forcefulness or clarity of diction, though this latter might have been felt a drawback given the frequent contrivance of Poutney’s translation – which has not aged well. Otherwise, this was very much the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and John Storgårds’s show. Having impressed with Shostakovich symphonies over recent seasons, the latter had a sure grasp of this opera’s dramatic unfolding and paced it accordingly. No stranger to this composer’s music, his orchestra was as responsive to the seismic climaxes (suitably abetted by ENO brass) as to passages of mesmeric introspection which, in many respects, prefigure the composer Shostakovich was increasingly to become.

It has often been claimed that, had his fortunes not reversed so dramatically as on that fateful evening of 26th January 1936, Shostakovich would have continued upon his path as an opera composer. Yet there is a nagging sense that, whatever its theatrical potency, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is intrinsically no more than the sum of its best parts. Leaving aside the intermittent success of his and Alexander Freys’ remodelling of Nikolai Leskov’s ‘shabby little shocker’, dramatic characterization frequently seems to have been laminated onto its musical context.

If tonight’s performance never entirely banished these thoughts, it certainly gave this opera its head in what was a memorable night for orchestra, conductor and, for the ENO contingent, an impressive bowing-out as it prepares for the next phase of its existence – based in Manchester.

Click on the names to read more about soprano Amanda Majeski, director Ruth Knight, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and chief conductor John Storgårds. Click also for more on composer Dmitri Shostakovich, the BBC Proms and English National Opera

Published post no.2,645 – Tuesday 2 September 2025

In concert – London Symphony Orchestra & Sir Antonio Pappano – Respighi & Dallapiccola

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Respighi Vetrate di Chiesa (1925-6)
Dallapiccola Il prigioniero (1944-8) {Sung in Italian with English surtitles]

Ángeles Blancas Gulín (soprano – Mother), Eric Greene (baritone – Prisoner), Stefano Secco (tenor – Gaoler / Grand Inquisitor), Egor Zhuravskii (tenor – First Priest), Chuma Sijeqa (bass-baritone – Second Priest), London Symphony Chorus, Guildhall School Singers, London Symphony Orchestra / Sir Antonio Pappano

Barbican Hall, London

Sunday 5 June 2022

Written by Richard Whitehouse Pictures (c) Mark Allan Photography

This second of the London Symphony Orchestra’s two concerts of Italian music with chief conductor designate Sir Antonio Pappano consisted of two pieces that brought the aesthetic and political divisions of Italy between the world wars into acute while always productive focus.

It might have originated in piano pieces written for his wife, but Respighi’s Church Windows duly emerged among the most opulent and evocative of his orchestral works. That both title and subtitles were postpriori additions does not lessen their relevance – not least as concerns The Flight into Egypt, its tense understatement a telling foil to the ensuing Saint Michael the Archangel with its warlike images rendered graphically by brass and percussion, before climaxing in one of the most theatrical of tam-tam crashes as Satan is banished from Heaven.

Not that Respighi was averse to gentler expression as appropriate, The Matins of Saint Clare featuring orchestration of unfailing finesse on its raptly expressive course. Inevitably, it is the magisterial finale of Saint Gregory the Great when this composer comes most fully into his own – its cumulative fervour drawing on all aspects of the sizable forces for what becomes a heady apotheosis. Music, indeed, that needs to be realized with discipline and focus to avoid overkill, which was certainly the case in a performance where the LSO left nothing to chance.

The London Symphony Orchestra and London Symphony Chorus conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano perform Ottorino Respighi Church Windows Luigi Dallapiccola Il prigioniero In the Barbican Hall (Ángeles Blancas Gulin Mother, Eric Greene Prisoner, Stefano Secco Gaoler / Grand Inquisitor, Egor Zhuravskii First priest, Chuma Sijeqa Second priest ) on Friday, 3 June 2022. Photo by Mark Allan

Whereas Respighi pays (indirect) tribute to Italy’s cultural greatness, Dallapiccola exposes its darker recesses in his one-act opera The Prisoner. Composed over several years that span the decline and fall of Mussolini’s Italian empire, its libretto is drawn from the novel by the late 19th century author Villiers de l’Isle-Adam whose title Torture by Hope became subtitle for this opera by intimating the culmination of a scenario set during one of the grimmest periods in the Spanish Inquisition. By this time, Dallapiccola had evolved that distinctively personal brand of serialism which served him thereafter, but his knowledge of and devotion to Italian opera meant that those more methodical or systematic aspects are harnessed to an emotional fervour as makes for a consistently powerful and often moving while harrowing experience.

The performance was a compulsive one – centred upon Eric Greene’s assumption of the title-role that built gradually to an apex of elation suddenly and cruelly denied. The opening stage is dominated by the Mother – rendered with unfailing charisma yet never wanton melodrama by Ángeles Blancas Gulín, and Stefano Secco brought hardly less conviction to the twin-role of the Gaoler whose urgings to remain steadfast assume a chilling tone when he is revealed as the Grand Inquisitor. There were telling cameos from Egor Zhuruvskii and Chuma Sijeqa as the Priests, with the London Symphony Chorus and Guildhall School Singers combining to potent effect in offstage Psalm settings – the final one a climax of sombre grandeur. Pappano directed with absolute assurance an opera he doubtless, and rightly so, ranks with the finest.

It brought this enterprising and superbly executed concert to an impressive close. One only hopes Pappano will have the opportunity to programme further such music over the coming seasons: the enthusiastic response suggested an almost full house would be there it hear it.

To read more on the London Symphony Orchestra’s current season, visit their website. For more information on the artists involved, click on the names for Antonio Pappano, Ángeles Blancas Gulín, Eric Greene, Stefano Secco, Egor Zhuravskii and Chuma Sijega