Category: Music

Ercole sul Termodonte (1723): Antonio Vivaldi

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Vivaldi: Ercole sul Termodonte

★★★½

(Spoleto Festival, 2006, Il Complesso Barocco with Alan Curtis)

We’ve discussed, on a previous occasion, the indignities inflicted on opera singers, but the sadomasochism of Alcina has just been comprehensively trumped. I’d like to say that one remembers this production of Ercole sul Termodonte for its wonderful music, or for the simple and effective set designs, or for the generally admirable cast. But this would be disingenuous. Cast, crew and orchestra must have known, from the moment they began rehearsals, that this opera would be remembered forever for Zachary Stains performing the title role of Ercole stark naked, with nothing to preserve his modesty except the occasional fortuitous shadow cast by the paws of his lion-skin cloak.

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Divine Comedies: Christoph Willibald Gluck and Thomas Arne

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Divine Comedies: Bampton Classical Opera

(Bampton Classical Opera, 22 July 2016)

Philemon & Baucis (Gluck)  ·  The Judgement of Paris (Arne)

On a warm summer evening, the village of Bampton in Oxfordshire is almost indecently beautiful. The golden stone glows in the sunlight, the leaves look even greener against blue skies dotted with fluffy clouds, and flocks of swifts dart at dusk around the church tower. But one thing sets the village apart from its Cotswold rivals. Every summer, the Deanery garden is transformed by an outdoor stage and Bampton Classical Opera put on productions of lesser-known Baroque music. Past years have featured a wealth of tantalising rarities and this season saw the performance of two one-act operas, given the overall heading Divine Comedies: first, Gluck’s Philemon and Baucis and, second, Arne’s Judgement of Paris.

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Idomeneo (1780): Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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Mozart: Idomeneo

★★★

(Trinity Laban at Blackheath Halls, London, 14 July 2015)

This is another post from the deepest, darkest depths of the drafts folder, as you can see from the date I saw this opera. Admittedly there’s limited point in posting on something more than a year after I saw it, but the post was almost complete and it would be a shame not to use it. Besides, it can still be interesting to see how different productions approach the same opera. And Trinity Laban’s performance at Blackheath Halls was a particularly intriguing choice last summer, because only eight months earlier we’d had another, much higher profile Idomeneo in London, which hadn’t exactly received rave reviews. It was a brave decision to put on another version of this challenging opera, so soon after it had come back to bite the team at Covent Garden.

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Ercole Amante (1662): Francesco Cavalli

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Cavalli: Ercole Amante

★★★

(Concerto Köln and Chorus of De Nederlandse Opera, with Ivor Bolton, 2009)

We haven’t had a properly weird opera in a while, have we? We’ve had imaginative and updated concepts, but nothing sufficiently mind-boggling to take its place in the Pantheon of Odd alongside the shark and the flying skeletal fish. But fear not, my friends. I have a new addition for those hallowed halls: Francesco Cavalli’s Ercole Amante, designed for the stage by David Alden. Sit back and marvel.

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Vivaldi: Nathalie Stutzmann and Orfeo 55

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Nathalie Stutzmann

(Wigmore Hall, 2 July 2016)

On Saturday night it was time for the second contralto recital of the week, this time the multi-talented Nathalie Stutzmann and her orchestra Orfeo 55. You may remember that I saw Stutzmann for the first time at last year’s Halle Handel Festival, where she conducted (and guest-starred) in Philippe Jaroussky’s concert. Tonight she had the stage to herself, both conducting – a variety of beautifully-balanced orchestral pieces – and singing – a selection of arias ranging from the playful to the anguished. And all were by the doyen of Venetian style: the glorious Red Priest himself.

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Arias by Gluck: Sonia Prina

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Sonia Prina

(with La Barocca, directed by Ruben Jais, Wigmore Hall, 28 June 2016)

Sonia Prina is one of the most colourful personalities in the world of Baroque music (which is saying something), and although I’d seen her on DVD as the warrior queen Partenope and the scheming vizier Artabano, I hadn’t heard her in the flesh until Tuesday at the Wigmore. Here she treated us to a programme of sparkling, mostly pre-reform Gluck. Performed with panache and a glorious disdain for convention, it was quite an experience.

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Il Vologeso (1766): Niccolò Jommelli (1766)

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Vologases IV of Parthia

★★★

(Classical Opera, at Cadogan Hall, 28 April 2016)

Another rummage in the drafts folder has unearthed several music posts which are now well out of date, but I would still like to publish them for my own records. Please indulge me! Let’s start with an opera, which I saw in a concert version at the end of April. This was part of Classical Opera’s Mozart 250 project, which was inaugurated by last year’s Adriano in Siria by J.C. Bach.

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Requiem pour les funérailles de Louis XV (1705/64)

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Chapelle Royale, Versailles

(Chapelle Royale, Versailles, 22 June 2016)

What do the composer Jean Gilles (1668-1705), the composer Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) and King Louis XV (1710-1774) have in common? The answer’s an odd one: they all had the same piece of music at their funerals. This was Gilles’s Messe des Morts, which had its premiere at its composer’s own funeral and remained so popular for the next seventy years that it was reworked and adapted in numerous ways to fit the requirements of later taste.

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Exhibitionism: The Rolling Stones Exhibition (2016)

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Exhibitionism_Poster

(The Saatchi Gallery, London, 5 April-4 September 2016)

There’s plenty of satisfaction to be got at the Saatchi Gallery’s latest show on the Rolling Stones.* When my parents came to stay for a long weekend, I decided it was the ideal way for us to spend a morning and all three of us were blown away. The tickets aren’t cheap at £22 a head – Exhibitionism is an international touring show and very much a commercial venture – but it’s worth it if you have even the slightest interest in the Stones. Filling almost the whole Gallery, the show displays costumes, set designs, album covers, ephemera and the band’s own instruments, alongside video footage from the 1960s to the present day. This is less of an exhibition than an experience, not just for long-time fans but also for those (like me) who are only just beginning to discover their music.

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La Clemenza di Tito (1791): Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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Mozart: La Clemenza di Tito (Met 2012)

★★★★

(Metropolitan Opera, New York, 2012)

Since launching the new website, I’ve been busily spring cleaning my blog and, you know what? It’s amazing what you find at the bottom of the drafts folder. As a result, there will be several extremely belated posts cropping up over the next few weeks, starting with some Mozart, in the form of La Clemenza di Tito. As you may remember, I first encountered this opera via the modern, rather conceptual Salzburg version and was keen to compare that with a more traditional production. Enter the Met, stage left, with their legendary, ultra-conservative version. It may not be the most cutting-edge production in the book, but it gave me a visual feast of fine gowns, billowing cloaks and fabulous wigs.

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