• Blog
  • Clients
  • About Me

Richard Bratby

~ Classical music writer, critic and consultant

Richard Bratby

Tag Archives: Donizetti

In love with “Louise”

24 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by richardbratby in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Buxton Festival, Buxton Opera House, Donizetti, Gustave Charpentier, Louise, Reviews, The Arts Desk, Verdi

Buxton Opera House in Festival time

For three successive days this week, I’ve driven the lovely road from Lichfield across the Derbyshire border to Ashbourne and then along the roof of England through the High Peak, to Buxton, and its annual Festival. Its a trip I’ve long wanted to make (impossible before acquiring a car), and it was well rewarded – and not just because it’s a town full of antique and book shops,  faded Edwardian spa facilities and unpretentious Regency architecture. I was there to review three of the Festival’s opera productions: a better-than-expected Verdi Giovanna d’Arco, a disappointing Donizetti Lucia di Lammermoor and…and…Louise, lovely Louise.

Louise: poster for the original 1900 production.

I’ve hankered after seeing this mouthwatering great slice of verismo a la Francaise since the day I read the description in (of all things) Gerhard von Westermann’s Opera Guide. Saki used it as a punchline in his own short story Louise – proof of just how popular it was in the years before the Great War. I had a feeling that Gustave Charpentier’s heroine and I would hit it off when I finally encountered her live (the last UK staging was in 1981, when, aged 8, I don’t think my 15p weekly pocket money would have run to a ticket) and here at last she was. OK, admittedly it was a concert performance (and how I wish they’d ditched the Donizetti – I mean, this’ll be my 4th different Donizetti production this year – and staged this instead), but as any music lover knows, the difference between listening to a CD and hearing anything live is that between splashing in a paddling-pool and swimming in the sea.

The result: I’m now obsessed. I’ve a brand new special-favourite opera. By ‘eck, it’s gorgeous. Any critic who says otherwise (and especially if they’ve recently bent over backwards to insist that some freshly-exhumed bel canto turkey is a neglected masterpiece) is just wrong. Entitled to their opinion, but wrong. So there.

Possibly my enthusiasm coloured my review of the Buxton Festival for The Arts Desk: you tell me.

Seven days, seven reviews.

13 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by richardbratby in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Amati Magazine, Birmingham Post, CBSO, David Matthews, David Nice, Donizetti, Ex Cathedra, Gavin Plumley, Jessica Duchen, Lichfield Festival, Longborough Opera, Newark, Salzburg Festival, The Arts Desk

It’s been a busy week, but gratifyingly, a lot of my reviews seem to have gone up nice and promptly. Here’s everything I haven’t already posted up here:

026

My debut feature for The Arts Desk: and what a pleasant surprise when my colleague (and recent travelling companion in Denmark) David Nice and his husband Jeremy arrived unexpectedly in Lichfield on Saturday for an impromptu visit in which (I’d like to think, anyway) this article may have had some hand…

The CBSO and Lahav Shani play Beethoven, Mendelssohn and David Matthews. Let’s just pray no-one’s seriously trying to line this chap up to follow in the footsteps of Andris Nelsons (at least not for a few years yet, anyway).

Ex Cathedra at Lichfield Festival – it takes something fairly special to get me this enthusiastic about a capella choral music.

Longborough

Don Pasquale at Longborough – god, I love Longborough, where a picnic can cost £60 a head and still taste delicious.

Purfling Powerhouse

And my visit to the wonderful Newark School of Violin Making is up on Amati Magazine: my thanks, again, to Jessica Duchen for entrusting me with such a fascinating assignment and Ben Schindler at the School for making me so welcome.

Now, one more Salzburg Festival programme note to polish off – Mozart’s Symphony No.1 K.16 (Salzburg’s commissioning editor, Gavin Plumley, has an uncanny knack for spotting the bits of repertoire that only I could fall in love with) – and then we’re off to stay at the Gellert Hotel, Budapest: four nights of operetta (Kalman’s Die Csardasfurstin), art nouveau spas, goose liver, Tokaj and general Habsburg-era fun.

And I don’t have to write a single word about it! (Though I probably shall…)

Review: English Touring Opera – The Wild Man of the West Indies

23 Saturday May 2015

Posted by richardbratby in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Donizetti, English Touring Opera, Reviews

The Birmingham Post isn’t always able to post online everything that I’ve written for its print edition, so – after a suitable time lag (you should really go out and buy the paper!) – I’ll be posting my recent reviews here. As per the print edition, they’re all fairly concise – just 250 words. This is of a performance at Warwick Arts Centre on 23rd April 2015.


1 Wild Man
Donizetti’s 1833 opera Il furioso all’isola di San Domingo is a real rarity. The Cervantes-derived story – of a nobleman unhinged by heartbreak, on the loose in the Spanish Caribbean – sounds bizarre, and sure enough, this is one of those operas whose plot summary reads like an absolute car-crash. In fact, as Iqbal Khan’s new production for English Touring Opera demonstrates, it makes perfect dramatic sense when imaginatively staged – and packs a real emotional punch as it does so.

It’s an opera semiseria: a misleadingly unwieldy term for a drama that interleaves comedy and pathos rather more powerfully (to this ear) than some of Donizetti’s outright tragedies. And it could hardly be better-served than by Khan’s production. Florence de Maré’s semi-abstract set suggests the stormy seas that drive the plot, while Mark Howland’s lighting poetically evokes both the colours of the Caribbean evening and the characters’ emotional state.

At the heart of it all was Craig Smith, as the “Wild Man” Cardenio himself: Smith’s warm vocal tone and sympathetic characterisation (little vocal tics suggested his mental affliction) made him a figure of wounded dignity. Sally Silver as his penitent wife Eleonora and Nicholas Sharratt as his brother Fernando delivered swashbuckling high notes and moments of poignant sorrow; Silver, in particular, made convincing emotional sense of the redemptive final scenes.

Peter Brathwaite played the slave Kaidamà as light relief, somewhere between Ariel and Leporello; Njabulo Madlala and Donna Bateman made their roles as sympathetic as slave-drivers can be. The orchestra under Jeremy Silver rose to the vocal characterisation on stage with some wonderfully stylish playing: string portamenti and vibrato-free passages brought out all the fantasy and colour of this entertaining and touching operatic rediscovery.

 

Review: English Touring Opera – The Siege of Calais

16 Saturday May 2015

Posted by richardbratby in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Birmingham Post, Donizetti, English Touring Opera, Reviews

The Birmingham Post isn’t always able to post online everything that I’ve written for its print edition, so – after a suitable time lag (you should really go out and buy the paper!) – I’ll be posting my recent reviews here. As per the print edition, they’re all fairly concise – just 250 words. This is of a performance at Wolverhampton Grand Theatre on 14th April 2015.


2 Siege

English Touring Opera has form with Donizetti, and it was director James Conway’s production of Anna Bolena that first convinced this born Wagnerite of Donizetti’s power as a musical dramatist. So we had high hopes for Conway’s adaptation of The Siege of Calais.

A defensive programme essay from Conway triggered some doubts. Act 3 was omitted outright and its material largely redistributed elsewhere. Conway’s intention seems to have been to throw the focus onto the moments when Donizetti’s patchy, bel canto-by-the-yard score comes up to the level that the drama demands; moments in which Conway and his company clearly believed passionately.

Samal Blak’s set created a timeless atmosphere of war-torn desolation, and in that handful of inspired numbers – most notably the extended finale, when the six burghers of Calais volunteer to die for their fellow citizens – this production worked nobly on its own terms. Throughout the excellent cast, characterisation was naturalistic and affecting.

Craig Smith was a craggy, dignified Eustachio, while Paula Sides as Eleonora and Catherine Darby in the trouser-role of her husband Aurelio both stood out vocally. Their poignant Act 2 duet was a high point – as was the way Darby’s voice gleamed through the glorious sextet that preceded the burghers’ final march to their fate.

The orchestra, under Jeremy Silver, did wonderful things with Donizetti’s woodwind writing; in fact, the only real problem with this production (if you can accept Conway’s rewrites – this is hardly William Tell, after all) was Donizetti himself. It’s always refreshing to see a rarity done with such conviction, but it was hard not to wonder what ETO might have achieved in an opera that the director believed to be stageworthy as written.

The Ice Break

24 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by richardbratby in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Birmingham Opera Company, Birmingham Post, Donizetti, English Touring Opera, Tippett

The best bit about my job is that I get to see – if not quite as much opera as I’d like – pretty well as much opera as is available to be seen in the West Midlands. This month’s reviews have ranged from a community opera in a Worcestershire country church to the Royal Opera House’s live cinematic relay of Brecht and Weill’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, as well as English Touring Opera’s annual spring triple bill.

Two of ETO’s offerings were Donizetti rarities – one (The Wild Man of the West Indies) a triumph, one (The Siege of Calais) a heroic failure – and while it’s always nice to have the chance to see unknown works done with such conviction and quality, the heart sinks slightly at the news that there’ll be more Donizetti next season. I’m not entirely sure the West Midlands needed two productions of Anna Bolena in one decade (let alone Maria Stuarda) – at least, not when that decade hasn’t seen a single professional production of Peter Grimes, Der Freischutz or Un Ballo in Maschera (to choose just three from a long list) in the region. On the other hand, if ETO’s forthcoming Pia de’ Tolomei is anything like as wonderful as their production of The Wild Man of the West Indies (aka Il Furioso all’isola di San Domingo), which I saw last night at Warwick Arts Centre, I’ll feel very churlish indeed for saying so.

Anyway, although The Birmingham Post is currently struggling to post reviews online, it did manage to get one if my recent reviews up within 48 hours of filing. And happily, it’s my review of what might just turn out to be the greatest thing I’ll see all year. Following on from last year’s tremendous ETO King Priam, the Tippett revival really seems to be gathering steam. And about time too

Contact Details

38 Beacon Street
Lichfield
United Kingdom
Staffordshire
WS13 7AJ

07754 068427

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets

Archives

  • June 2020 (1)
  • October 2019 (2)
  • January 2018 (1)
  • December 2017 (2)
  • November 2017 (2)
  • October 2017 (1)
  • August 2017 (2)
  • July 2017 (1)
  • June 2017 (3)
  • April 2017 (2)
  • March 2017 (2)
  • February 2017 (2)
  • December 2016 (1)
  • September 2016 (3)
  • August 2016 (1)
  • July 2016 (1)
  • June 2016 (2)
  • May 2016 (1)
  • April 2016 (3)
  • March 2016 (6)
  • February 2016 (1)
  • January 2016 (3)
  • December 2015 (6)
  • November 2015 (4)
  • October 2015 (6)
  • September 2015 (5)
  • August 2015 (5)
  • July 2015 (8)
  • June 2015 (12)
  • May 2015 (12)
  • April 2015 (1)
  • February 2015 (1)
  • January 2015 (2)
  • December 2014 (4)
  • November 2014 (3)

Archives

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Richard Bratby
    • Join 26 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Richard Bratby
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...