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Richard Bratby

~ Classical music writer, critic and consultant

Richard Bratby

Tag Archives: Longborough Opera

Review: Alcina (Longborough Festival Opera)

04 Thursday Aug 2016

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Birmingham Post, Handel, Longborough 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  Longborough  on Saturday 30 July.


Longborough Opera House

Cotswold Bayreuth

In this Shakespeare anniversary year, what a pity that Handel never wrote any Shakespeare-inspired operas! Perhaps, in staging Alcina, Longborough was trying to make up for that. After all: a tale of lovers trapped on a mysterious island ruled by a powerful magician, haunted by a sense of transformation and loss? Mix in a bit of baroque gender-swapping and Alcina isn’t so very far from The Tempest.

Certainly, it would explain why director Jenny Miller had the musicians of the orchestra spilling up onto the stage, barefoot and antler-clad like the sorcereress Alcina’s victims (she likes to transform discarded lovers into wildlife). And why at moments of crisis the characters stepped in amongst the players, seeming to direct their pleas to the spirit of the music itself: the real enchantment here being Handel’s “sounds and sweet airs”. Faye Bradley’s abstract sets certainly created an air of an alternative reality: occult-looking ox skulls hung on poles, a glowing orange disc represented Alcina’s island, and a blue moon glowered down. Dan Saggars’s lighting was simple but effective in tracing the slow fading of the illusion.

And under Miller’s direction, this was a reality peopled with lively, believable individuals: no mean feat when you’re dealing with humans transformed into lions and boys playing girls while girls pretend to be boys. A youthful but highly experienced cast went at it with total conviction. Lucy Hall, as the Ariel-like Morgana, was exuberantly, sensuously physical, while Anna Harvey made a poised and noble Bradamante. At the start, she changed into her vaguely Edwardian men’s garb on stage – typical of Miller’s imaginative approach to clarifying a far from simple plot.

And typical, too, was the fact that if Julia Sitkovetsky, as Alcina, didn’t have the most lustrous voice on stage – that belonged to her love-slave Ruggiero, sung with glowing expression by Hanna-Liisa Kirchin – the piercing fragility of her top register made her both otherworldly and strangely touching as she lamented her lost love and fading powers. Kirchin has a compelling stage presence, and made a wonderful counterpart to Rosie Lomas’s bell-like purity as the boy Oberto.

With earthy, unfussy playing from the period-instrument orchestra under Jeremy Silver (plus a delightfully inventive continuo group), it all came together. No stand-and-deliver baroque tedium here: this Alcina creates a living, breathing fantasy world – and casts a spell to which it’s a pleasure to surrender.

And relax…

29 Wednesday Jul 2015

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Birmingham Post, Bliss, Elgar, Handel, Hereford, Longborough Opera, The Arts Desk, Three Choirs Festival

Wagner, Verdi and Mozart at Longborough.

Wagner, Verdi and Mozart at Longborough.

Well, not exactly; I’m working on a range of projects this month including programme notes for the Wigmore Hall, a feature on Mahler for the LPO, new orchestral biographies for the CBSO, and laying plans for an exciting new project for Amati Magazine (watch this space).

But things do generally get quieter on the concert scene in August, unless you’re in London or Edinburgh, and after a frantically busy 10 days, my last two long-range review missions will be my last for a couple of weeks, at any rate.

Longborough: dinner is served.

Longborough: dinner is served.

First was Longborough’s final show of the season: Handel’s Xerxes. It takes a lot to make me enjoy a Handel opera but this was…well, read my Birmingham Post review and see for yourself. Taken as a whole, I think it may even have been the most completely successful Longborough production (on all fronts) of the three I’ve seen this year. Longborough is like a little corner of operatic Eden: I’m going to miss that place (and not just for the people-watching and the picnics!)

Longborough - last night of the season.

Longborough – last night of the season.

And then on Monday, to Hereford, for the 300th Three Choirs Festival and a performance of Arthur Bliss’s choral symphony / war requiem Morning Heroes. A rarity like this makes a 180 mile round trip worth while; especially when the work is itself so noble, and the performance so committed. My review for The Arts Desk is here.

Elgar in Hereford.

Elgar in Hereford.

Out in the Cathedral close, Sir Edward Elgar had been suitably garlanded for the Festival week – he looked rather overwhelmed by the sudden attention, I thought.

003

It was good to catch up briefly with colleagues Chris Morley  and Clare Stevens (the Festival’s phenomenal one-woman Press & PR team) at the Cathedral. But these long-range reviews can be lonely affairs, so I’d taken Bliss’s memoirs As I Remember along with me for the trip. And as well as giving me an extra level of insight into the strange, dignified but deeply emotional neglected masterpiece that is Morning Heroes itself, this meant that I had the company of Sir Arthur himself over lunch in Ludlow and my late-night pizza in Hereford before the drive north. Did you know he’d received fan-mail from Webern, was a friend of James Joyce, bashed through the sketches of the Symphony in 3 Movements with Stravinsky, and played tennis with Schoenberg? Well, now you do.

Seven days, seven reviews.

13 Monday Jul 2015

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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…)

West and East

22 Monday Jun 2015

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Amati Magazine, Andris Nelsons, CBSO, Ella Fitzgerald, Longborough Opera, Newark Violin School, Simon Rattle, Tristan und Isolde

Cotswold Bayreuth

Cotswold Bayreuth

I’ve been covering some fairly substantial mileage, both physically and in terms of repertoire, over the last seven days. Here, slightly delayed, is my review of Longborough Festival Opera’s Tristan und Isolde: another superb show whose musical glory wasn’t quite matched by directorial vision.

Newark Violin School

Newark Violin School

Then on Friday I was off to the far side of Nottinghamshire to visit the remarkable Newark Violin School, where I was made to feel extremely welcome. It’s a wonderful institution: you feel as if you’ve wandered into a modern-day medieval guild. Part of me simply wished I could just throw everything in and enrol myself. Maybe I will some day! That was another assignment courtesy of Jessica Duchen (whom I was delighted to see at Longborough – an island of sanity amidst all the black ties, vintage cars and popping champagne corks of country house opera: still a very disconcerting experience for me) for The Amati Magazine. Watch this space for the full report, probably next week.

Newark Violin School

Newark Violin School

Meanwhile – I’ve been writing sleeve notes for Warner Classics’ forthcoming 50-CD box of Simon Rattle‘s recordings with the CBSO. It was bittersweet, to say the least, to be writing those in the week when my former colleagues were marking the departure of Andris Nelsons – and a timely reminder that it takes more than just great conducting to make a great music director. And then, programme notes for the CBSO’s forthcoming Ella Fitzgerald tribute night. Talk about a  labour of love…Ella’s Rodgers and Hart Songbook was one of those albums that entered my life at the exact moment when it could strike deepest; she’s one of the only non-classical artists whose name on a CD sleeve will make me buy it on sight. I still can’t listen to A Ship Without a Sail without feeling crushed inside. Anyway, it’s an absolutely gorgeous programme…maybe someone will ask me to review it..?

Pelleas og Isolde

16 Tuesday Jun 2015

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David Pountney, Longborough Opera, Pelleas et Melisande, Tristan und Isolde, Welsh National Opera

WNO: Pelleas et Melisande, directed by David Pountney. Picture (c) WNO

WNO: Pelleas et Melisande, directed by David Pountney. Picture (c) WNO

Here’s my regretfully-qualified Birmingham Post review of WNO’s Pelleas et Melisande. The last seven days have been amongst the most interesting in my reviewing life, and it must be fairly unusual to see two potentially great productions of two not-exactly-everyday operas (Nielsen’s Saul og David in Copenhagen and Pelleas in Birmingham) both holed under the waterline by the same director. What David Pountney has done for Welsh National Opera as a company is magnificent, and huge amounts of what he does is so compelling. And yet, time and again…

But anyway: Tristan und Isolde at Longborough this afternoon. Hopefully my review will be available on the Post website within the next 48 hours.

Despatch from Denmark

15 Monday Jun 2015

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Amati Magazine, Carl Nielsen, Copenhagen, Longborough Opera

Carl Nielsen as Orpheus (or Tamino?): ceiling mosaic adjacent to the Royal Theatre, Copenhagen.

Carl Nielsen as Orpheus (or Tamino?): ceiling mosaic adjacent to the Royal Theatre, Copenhagen.

My article for The Amati Magazine about last week’s Carl Nielsen anniversary events in Copenhagen and Odense is now live. And – after a hectic week and a couple of false starts, I am now going to review Longborough Festival Opera’s new production of Tristan und Isolde tomorrow. So, if you’ll excuse me while I iron clothes, plan picnics, try to remember how to tie a tie, etc…

Throwback Thursday: Tristan und Isolde at 150

11 Thursday Jun 2015

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Longborough Opera, Mark Wigglesworth, Metro, Tristan und Isolde, Wagner, Welsh National Opera

I won’t get to review the new Tristan und Isolde at Longborough this summer, and I didn’t get to review Welsh National Opera’s most recent either. Same problem in both cases – the senior critics snaffle all the plum gigs (and plums don’t get much juicier than Wagner at Longborough). I only know that – based on what I saw of the 2013 Longborough Ring Cycle – it’ll be extraordinary. Michael Tanner once told me that in his view, Longborough embodies the spirit of Bayreuth more than Bayreuth itself, these days.

Meanwhile, here’s something I did write about Tristan for Metro, in 2006 – WNO’s revival of Yannis Kokkos’ 1993 production. Mark Wigglesworth conducted, and in light of his subsequent appointment to ENO, I think what he had to say then is still of some interest.


“Since I have never in my life known the true bliss of love, I will raise a monument to this most beautiful of all dreams – in which, from first to last, love shall be completely fulfilled”. Say what you like about Richard Wagner – he was a man of his word. In Tristan und Isolde, his 1865 re-telling of the Celtic legend of Sir Tristram and Princess Yseult, Wagner created a love story so overwhelming that even he started to wonder whether he’d gone too far: “Only mediocre performances can save me – good performances will drive people mad!”

So perhaps Welsh National Opera’s Tristan und Isolde should carry a health warning. Conductor Mark Wigglesworth certainly has some sympathy: “It gets inside you, more than any other music. It’s bad for your health!” And he should know. The buzz about this revival of Yannis Kokkos’ 1993 production is coming from a pair of remarkable young Wagnerians. One is Annalena Persson (Isolde) – the Swedish soprano who stole last season’s WNO Flying Dutchman from under Bryn Terfel’s nose. And the other – conducting Tristan for the very first time – is Wigglesworth himself.

Though it’s not his first brush with Wagner. Wigglesworth conducted The Mastersingers of Nuremberg at Covent Garden in 2002. Good training? “No – It’s absolutely no use to Tristan”. Because this opera, he explains, is a very special case indeed. “Mastersingers is a very human piece, with lots of action and genuine historical characters. Tristan is much more difficult – you’re relating to the emotions rather than the characters. Even though it’s shorter than Mastersingers, the sheer intensity that you need to maintain over the whole evening is incredible. I expect it to be much more draining”.

And it turns out that Wigglesworth has, after all, been in training for the challenge. “Starting early is the best thing. I started work two years ago – though you can’t really get to grips with the structure until you’re rehearsing full acts”. But you can begin to immerse yourself in the extraordinary emotional and philosophical world of this huge work. Tristan’s plot – an eternal love-triangle – is deceptively simple. But Wagner, as he wrote the opera, was embroiled in a passionate affair, not just with a friend’s wife, but with the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer. It’s this philosophical dimension that lifts Tristan’s central love story onto a cosmic level.

Wigglesworth’s done his homework. “As a conductor, I have to be interested in the drama – I can’t make a musical decision divorced from the dramatic situation. The idea of just conducting the orchestra is impossible for me.” And he likes what he sees on stage – “I first saw Kokkos’ production back in 1993. It just tells the story; it’s very simple. It’s not a Konzept production, with a capital K”. That’s important for him. “A lot of directors hide behind complex ideas. You can get a bit bogged down, and forget that this is a great story with extraordinary music. Our job is to tell that story.”

But how – practically – do you tell a story that begins with a cry of longing and ends, nearly four hours later, in a quarter-hour musical orgasm? For Wigglesworth, the secret’s in the pacing. “From the very first note, it flows right through to the very last note. It fulfills itself, musically and emotionally, only at the very end” he explains. “You don’t want to peak too early!”

Four hours of deferred ecstasy – no wonder some listeners find Tristan und Isolde slightly more than they can bear. And yet Wigglesworth can’t contain his enthusiasm: “Wagner was just the most extraordinary musical genius we’ve ever had – even more than Mozart”. So it’s worth it? “Tristan’s the greatest love story.  Ever. And it’s told in the most romantic music. Ever. It can transform you”. There’s your answer. Why listen to Tristan und Isolde? Well, why fall in love?


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