Royal Albert Hall, 3 September 2019

Bernard Haitink’s final London concert was characterised by warmth, dignity and charisma. Many years ago I was at one of Otto Klemperer’s last concerts and, two generations later, it was moving to see Haitink, now similarly slow on his feet and using a stick, helped onto the platform by soloist Emmanuel Ax for Beethoven’s fourth piano concerto.

Once on the podium in front of the inimitable Vienna Philharmonic, however, all frailty disappeared. He conducted with unshowy, veteran authority using the conductor’s stool only part of the time.

He and Ax gave us a tender, measured performance with lots of gentle vibrato in the first movement’s long cadenza as it shifts from grandioso to cantabile. I have rarely heard the andante so sensitively controlled and I admired the attractive lightness in the third movement.

Ax then gave us Schubert’s Impromptu Op 1 No 42 – an old friend – as his encore, really leaning on the contrast between the two moods it includes.

After the interval the VPO doubled its numbers (maybe six women in total) as extra brass and percussion players swarmed up the tiers for Bruckner’s Seventh. This colourful marathon is a lovely thing to hear the Vienna Phil play because from stridency to the most delicate filigree lyricism, it really gives every section the chance to strut its stuff – those trombone descending scales in the opening allegro for instance. And, given the size and length of the piece it seemed all the more remarkable that Haitink at 90 is still, apparently effortlessly, able to ensure that the dramatic dynamics are exactly that. And he conducted this work without opening the score.

Other high spots included languorous string playing in the adagio,sparky trumpet solos in the scherzo and I loved the way the woodwind interjections were led to shine through in the finale.

The Royal Albert Hall was as full and busy as I’ve ever seen it for what was effectively a pretty atmospheric farewell party. Bernard Haitink’s respectful standing ovation at the end was a richly deserved tribute.http://www.larkreviews.co.uk/?p=5478

This production of Mozart’s last opera Die Zauberflote is characterised by fine orchestral work, much impeccable singing –  and a great deal of directorial gimmickry.

We all know that this is a surreal piece rooted in the mysteries of eighteenth century freemasonry but I have no idea at all why Andre Barbe saw fit, apparently, to set it in the kitchens at Downton Abbey in which servants wear light up head dresses, calves are butchered and puppetry rules the day. And why does the Second Lady have a jelly mould on her head? Your guess is, I suspect, as good as mine.

Semi staging (by Donna Stirrup) usually works well at the Proms but on this occasion, frankly, I’d have preferred simply to listen to some of the best music in the Mozart oeuvre sung straight as a concert – although the snake/dragon made of giant tea plates, at the very beginning, puppeted by a line of performers as in a Chinese street party was rather good.

Bjorn Burger delights as the mercurial baritone Papageno. He acts beautifully, is lithely funny and sings each of his famous numbers arrestingly. His final “clinch” with Papagena (Alison Rose – good) is gratuitously groteseque, however.

David Portillo, tenor, brings warmth and conviction to Tamino and soprano Sofia Fomina sings Pamina well enough (some nice lyrical singing) although her frumpy manner and outfit failed to convince me that he would have fallen for her quite so determinedly.

Caroline Wettergreen as Queen of the Night presents a suitably witchy figure in plum velvet and stops the show – as usual – with her glittering act two aria.

And behind all this is Ryan Wigglesworth expertly managing this very large production (the chorus is often lined up behind the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and characters frequently appear at the very edge of the upper playing space on mini balconies) without score. I was especially impressed with the care he took to support the three boys (Daniel Todd, Simeon Wren and Felix Barry-Casademunt) mouthing every word and turning to look at them. I liked the original instruments brass sound too.

It was an enjoyable evening but, given the visual nonsense on stage, I half wished I’d stayed at home and listened to it on the radio.

First published by Lark Reviews: http://www.larkreviews.co.uk/?p=5456

Well, it’s a very pretty piano: a fine example of high Victorian bling. It’s just a pity that Queen Victoria’s piano, on its first ever foray from Buckingham Palace, doesn’t sound as good as it looks. Stephen Hough really had to work very hard in Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No 1 to make this salon instrument ring out appropriately across the vastness of the packed Royal Albert Hall. The tinniness, moreover, was even more obvious in the presto by which time the pitch had begun to slip.  It’s a great credit to the ever reliable, versatile Hough that he managed to coax as much good music out of the much hyped, “star” instrument as he did – his Chopin encore was enjoyable too.  Of course, Erard’s “gilded piano” has been played very little in its 160 year history and that doesn’t help.

It sounded very much better after an interval re-tune, when Hough accompanied Alessandro Fisher, a very accomplished tenor, in five charming songs by Prince Albert. Chamber music is what, presumably, this instrument was intended for and the five songs are well crafted and appealing although no one would describe them as great.

The concert – certainly an imaginative concept – was designed to mark the 200^th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s birth (24 May, 1819). So we began with an unusual, late Arthur Sullivan piece:  a suite from an 1897 ballet Victoria and Merrie England.  After a bit of initial raggedness, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment played it with panache and it’s a treat to hear unfamiliar Sullivan being given serious treatment. The piece is full of Sullivan trademarks such as a cheeky melody, a mock-grandiose Proms-appropriate reference to Rule Britannia and then a stirring hymn.

And so to Mendelssohn’s third symphony which concluded the programme and was played stonkingly well from the nicely coloured first movement all the way to the decisive but spritely maestoso at the end. I especially liked the tightly controlled feathery strings in the vivaceand the way in which Fischer made the sumptuous melody in the adagio sing out warmly without ever wallowing in it. Fischer is a warm and cheerful conductor to watch and his pleasure in the music, the performers and the event was palpable. I was fascinated too by his unusual habit of occasionally grasping his baton in both hands and stirring a bit like a two-handed backhand in tennis. It works though. Players were clearly very responsive which is why this symphony sounded so attractively fresh.

First published by Lark Reviews: http://www.larkreviews.co.uk/?p=5425

Unexpectedly, the high spot in this initially populist concert was the Lutoslawski concerto for orchestra (1954) with which it ended. Full of Polish folk and folksy melodies with spikily original orchestration, it came off magnificently in the hands of the always exciting West-Eastern Divan orchestra under co-founder Daniel Barenboim who made the piece sound fresh and dynamic. That striking passage which opens the third movement with pianissimo pizzicato from bases soon ethereally joined by piano and then cor anglais was a special moment.

There is, of course, always a buzz when this orchestra appears at the Proms or anywhere else because everyone present (and the hall was packed tight) understands, and by implication approves of, what it stands for: a bridge, now twenty years old, across the divide in the Middle East. It is warmly uplifting to see and hear these talented musicians from Israel, Palestine, Turkey, Iran and Spain working together.

The first half of the evening gave us Schubert’s Unfinished – an unusual choice of opener but it made this concert rather good value for money. Barenboim opted for a measured tempo in the first movement which exploited every nuance of the Royal Albert Hall acoustic. Positioning second violins to his right, he coaxed and stroked the music into existence rather than indulging in a lot of stick waving.

There was plenty of Schubertian colour and lyricism in both movements with every line and part made loving clear, not least because the orchestra was quite sharply tiered which made for a good sound balance. The timp work at the end was a delight.

And so to the star turn which preceded the interval: Martha Argerich playing Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto. World famous and respected virtuoso that she is, Argerich carries charisma in bucketsful and was clearly a crowd pleaser. Her life-long friendship and rapport with Barenboim (they were both born in Buenos Aires) was evident both visually and aurally. Nonetheless I’m not convinced that this in-your-face, warhorse of a concerto allowed her to play with the subtlety of which we all know she is pre-eminently capable. Given too that she is now 78 and slightly shaky on her feet, I’ll pretend I didn’t notice the rather large number of wrong notes. Instead let’s focus on the engaging sight of her rhythmically rocking from side to side with pleasure at the opening 3|4 middle movement and the light insouciance with which she delivered the 6|8 section.

First published by Lark Reviews: http://www.larkreviews.co.uk/?p=5396

Opera Holland Park

Education is a progressive realisation of our own ignorance, as Einstein said. The same applies to classical music and especially opera. The more you hear and see the more you discover. Francesco Cilea’s L’arlesiana (1897) was completely new to me but this production won’t be the end of my relationship with it because it is a fine piece.

Federico, (Samuel Sakker) who lives with his mother and younger brother on a Provencal farm, is besotted with an “unsuitable” woman he has met in the nearby city of Arles. It would be more sensible for him to marry and settle down with the very suitable Vivetta (Fflur Wyn) a local girl but of course this is opera and things don’t ultimately go right for any of them. L’arlesiana herself dominates the plot but never appears except, in this production, in a dream sequence.

One of the best things about this work is the quality of the dramatic orchestration: brooding basses to connote anger, oboe melody for calm sublimity, pianissimo upper strings for sadness and despair, for example.  And there’s a magnificent Verdi-esque ending to Act One to accompany Sakker’s high level anguish number as he sees the letters which confirm L’arlesiana’s infidelity. The music is in good hands with City of London Sinfonia under Dane Lam.

Sakker is outstanding in the central role, his rich tenor voice laying bare every emotion. Yvonne Howard finds lots of mezzo warmth and despair in Rosa, Federico’s anxious mother. Keel Watson, who has a very attractive gravelly bass voice, stomps about convincingly as family friend Baldassare and, once she gets going there’s delightful, soaring soprano work from Wyn as the hapless Vivetta.

One of Opera Holland Park’s (many) great strengths is its fine chorus work. It’s a huge, awkwardly shaped playing area but the  massed voices of a large ensemble combine excellent crowd acting with a lovely vocal sound and the off-stage interjections are eerily atmospheric.

Garsington Opera at Wormsley

The Happy Princess by Paul Fincham and Jessica Duchen, loosely based on an Oscar Wilde story, is a mini-masterpiece. In the directorial hands of the very talented Karen Gillingham and the Garsington Opera Youth Company it is a fine hour of opera by any standards, anywhere. I hope very much that this piece is soon published and licensed so that other youth groups elsewhere can have access to it.

Of course the smallest children (from nearby Ibstone CE School)  were show stealers as the city birds, flapping their wings and singing with terrific concentration and clarity, skilfully supported by conductor Jonathon Swinard,  but there is much more to this show than cuteness.

The thrust of the story is that pair of swallows (Owain Boyd-Leslie and Maia Greaves, both very young and very tuneful) undertake three errands for the statue princess (Lara Marie Muller – lots of gravitas and a fine voice). That takes us to some big ensemble scenes: sweatshop workers, a school and a group of refugees. Duchen is a fine story teller.

The singing is, from the very first note, incisive, dynamically well controlled and set against accomplished movement. And it all looks very natural – rather than rehearsed and that makes it all feel very professional and interestingly edgy.

Five stars too, if I were awarding them, for Fincham’s score which uses an eight-piece orchestra. It is highly atmospheric, nicely paced and varied, providing lots of opportunities for small solos along with some string choral numbers including harmony. I loved, for instance, the mysterious minor for the repeated trio between the Princess and the swallows with a rising scale motif – simple but very effective. It’s all unashamedly melodious too.

I suppose Offenbach is melodious too but, sadly, A Fool’s Paradise is definitely not his best work. Garsington Opera Adult Company (directed by Gillingham) had clearly gained a great deal from working on it but this 25 minute staged medley with narrated links never achieves lift off although the professional baritone, Robert Gildon, does his best to cut through the pedestrian woodenness.

It is a mistake to separate the adult and youth companies. In the recent past Garsington has commissioned works (Road Rage 2013 and Silver Birch, 2017 for example) in which the adults and young people work together as a single community and that works much better. It means that everyone can learn from and complement everyone else so that standards spiral upwards.

First published by Lark Reviews: http://www.larkreviews.co.uk/?p=5375