Tag: Wigmore Hall

Love and Death in Venice

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Venetian Mask

(Les Talens Lyriques with Christophe Rousset, Wigmore Hall, 26 February 2018)

As the city shivered in winter’s grip on Monday evening, those of us at the Wigmore Hall could imagine ourselves among the campi and canals of 17th-century Venice. The brilliant French ensemble Les Talens Lyriques were back for another London concert under the baton of their director Christophe Rousset. You may remember that I thoroughly enjoyed their recital with Emiliano Gonzalez Toro and Anders Dahlin at St John’s Smith Square last year. This concert was very similar in spirit, including three of the same pieces, but it rang the changes by swapping the tenors for two talented sopranos: the Dutch Judith van Wanroij and the Belgian Jodie Davos. Through the music of Rossi, Cavalli and maestro Monteverdi himself, they carried us deep into timeless tales of fateful passion, all-consuming love and grand anguish.

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Lawrence Zazzo: Weeping Philosophers

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Lawrence Zazzo

(BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert, at the Wigmore Hall, 1 May 2017)

I’ve been waiting for two-and-a-half years to see Lawrence Zazzo in the flesh. In the first flush of my Baroque obsession, back in October 2014, I bought his album A Royal Trio and fell in love with his rendition of Handel’s Va tacito e nascosto. Ever since, I’ve longed to see him live and finally got my wish in this BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert at the Wigmore Hall. Languishing in the realms of the early Baroque, this recital presented a cornucopia of lute-songs and cantatas by Caccini, Frescobaldi, Strozzi and Durante. Zazzo was accompanied by three gifted musicians: Silas Wollston on organ and harpsichord; Daniele Caminiti on archlute and baroque guitar; and Jonathan Rees on bass viol and viola da gamba. By heaven, it was worth the wait.

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Philippe Jaroussky: Bach and Telemann

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Philippe Jaroussky

(with Le Concert de la Loge, at the Wigmore Hall, 1 December 2016)

In June 2015, when we met Philippe Jaroussky after his Festival Concert in Halle, we asked when he’d next be coming to London. His answer was non-committal and typically modest: he wasn’t sure; he didn’t know if the English were all that fond of what he did. But I hope Thursday’s concert at the Wigmore Hall showed that there’s hope for us yet. The recital had sold out months ago and my brilliant friend only managed to secure tickets by incessantly badgering the box office for returns. The hall was stuffed to the gunwales; the atmosphere was palpable; and yet there were times you could have heard the smallest of pins drop. Refined, elegiac and utterly professional, Jaroussky showed us all once again why he remains the hottest countertenor ticket of all.

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Calisto (1651): Francesco Cavalli

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Lucy Crowe

★★★★

(La Nuova Musica at Wigmore Hall, 28 November 2016)

Calistos are like London buses: you wait for months and then two come along at once. Mere weeks after English Touring Opera’s vivacious production, David Bates and La Nuova Musica presented their own version of Cavalli’s tale of lust, disguise and confusion. Conceived as a semi-staged performance, to make maximum use of the Wigmore’s limited space, this Calisto boasted a cast to die for and delivered some great voices; yet it didn’t eclipse ETO quite as thoroughly as I’d expected.

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La Cantarina (1766): Joseph Haydn

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Rachel Kelly

Haydn: Symphony No. 34 in D Minor · Mysliveček: Arias from Semiramide · Haydn: La Canterina

(Classical Opera, directed by Ian Page, Wigmore Hall, 19 September 2016)

I deliberated long and hard about whether to rate this or not. After all, I don’t rate recitals but I do rate operas. Which was this? In the end, I decided that I would treat it as a recital, because the opera element was only one of three different sections. Plus, that saved me the trouble of having to think of a rating, so everyone’s a winner. But, had I rated it, it would have been very much a thumbs-up. This evening at the Wigmore was another stage in Classical Opera’s Mozart 250 project and introduced us to a variety of interesting works written in 1766, all performed with great elan by the orchestra and a quartet of admirable singers under the baton of Ian Page.

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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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Franco Fagioli: Arias for Caffarelli

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(Wigmore Hall, with Il Pomo d’Oro directed by Riccardo Minasi, 13 November 2015)

It’s just over a year since Franco Fagioli made his solo London debut at the Wigmore, a night which was memorable for several reasons. It was my first Baroque concert, and it also introduced me to a wonderful circle of friends with whom I’ve since travelled to operas and concerts across Europe. When we were in Halle in June we heard a very similar programme to that offered in Fagioli’s second London recital at the Wigmore last Friday, but his great strength as an artist is that he never sings an aria the same way twice. For me, the London concert was more adventurous and more emotionally engaged than the recital in Halle; and, in any case, there were two mouthwatering new additions to the programme: Se bramate d’amar and Crude furie. Franco Fagioli doing Serse? Now this promised to be seriously good fun.

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Max Emanuel Cencic: Venezia

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Venezia: Max Cencic

(Wigmore Hall, with Il Pomo d’Oro and Riccardo Minasi, 12 December 2014)

First I must apologise for the recent hiatus in my posting. For the last few weeks life has been little more than an extraordinary barrage of events that finally came to a head this week in surreal but glorious fashion. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Now it’s all over and I can slowly get back into my normal rhythm again. There are lots of things that have been going on which I’d love to share with you in due course. And I’m going to kick off with the most recent and the most exhilarating.

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