Went to the dress rehearsal of Jenufa at Glyndebourne yesterday. Dress rehearsals are for invited audiences of company family & friends and orchestra family is often seated in the front row of the stalls. Therefore I got the full knockout impact of what must be one of the most powerful, horrifying and inspiring operas in the whole repertoire. It is an emotional roller-coaster second to none, with a libretto so fine that, enhanced by this marvellous Lehnhoff production, all the violence and misery is entirely believable. By the end I felt as if I'd been hit by a truck. I can think of few other works quite as upsetting as Jenufa, other than the Mahler Kindertotenlieder, which I now refuse ever to attend because I am so gutted by it.
Nor was there a single weak link in the performance - and this was just the dress rehearsal. Marcus Stenz makes his Glyndebourne debut in the pit - he told me it's not only his first Glyndebourne but his first Jenufa too. It's a huge achievement and I'm sure he'll be back for more. Orla Boylan is enchanting and convincing as Jenufa, a bright girl horribly betrayed by those closest to her; Kathryn Harries as Kostelnicka managed to make this monstrous woman completely human, showing that she acts out of love for her step-daughter and genuinely believes she is doing the right thing until the guilt drives her mad. The men are excellent, the mayor looks like Alf Garnett and the leader of the orchestra, Pieter Schoeman, plays his big Act 2 solo with a beauty and intensity that wouldn't disgrace Pinchas Zukerman.
I adore Janacek but don't know nearly enough about him. That has to change, because this evening begged one question: what on earth drives someone to create an opera like this? Time for a trip to the library.
Unconnected note for UK readers: get The Independent tomorrow... and if you're overseas, have a look on-line after lunch UK time.
Showing posts with label Glyndebourne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Glyndebourne. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
From Seville to Warsaw in 22 hours
Musically, an intense little patch is going on, so here's an assessment of my weekend.
Saturday I gatecrashed the first night of Carmen at Glyndebourne. It's a revival of David McVicar's production from a couple of years ago, created for von Otter, but now rethought considerably for its new cast. The Guardian's review comments on its naturalism and mentions Zola, and I share Tim Ashley's opinion on a number of its aspects. Rinat Shaham deserves special mention, however, as her Carmen develops as the opera goes along, more than many. When she flounces out of the cigarette factory, plunges her head into a trough of water and then flings back her wet hair in an abrupt fountain to drench her colleagues, she's gorgeous, she's a sexpot and she bears no small resemblance to Carrie in Sex and the City. There's little sense at this point of her power or pride; these appears gradually, as if hewn into her as her self-defence against Don Jose's increasing violence. By the final scene she has grown into a full-blown Carmen - poised and centred, with stubborn integrity and independence, strong enough to stay outside the bullring to face her likely death. As Jose, Paul Charles Clarke is magnificent, both vocally and in characterisation - he seems to be the one stunning everyone, which is why I wanted to give 'Rinni', as they call her at G/b, more of this write-up. Paolo Carignani does some nice things with the score - it's a no-nonsense reading and the up-tempo of the prelude to the final act is wonderfully Spanish - but I did prefer Philippe Jordan last time, as his conducting had an extra edge of thrill about it. Tom & co seem to like this new guy, though.
On Sunday afternoon Rustem Haroudinoff gave his recital for the Chopin Society, which holds its salon concerts at the Sikorski Museum in Kensington, opposite Hyde Park. It's the most extraordinary place. You walk up the stairs towards the concert room only to find yourself faced with suits of armour on the walls; Rustem and the piano were surrounded by Polish military paintings, ancient Polish flags and glass cases full of medals. Had he been playing any of the Chopin Polonaises ('guns buried in roses' - Schumann) this might have been appropriate - as it was, there was a slight sense of political irony about this Russian blowing everyone sky high with his Rachmaninov B flat minor Sonata. I had a strange experience, listening to this piece. I closed my eyes and was somewhere else. I was listening intently to every note, but somehow when I looked out again at the end I didn't quite know where I was. I think this is called 'being transported' and it is rare and special.
A word too for the Chopin Society itself - a delightful bunch of pianistic eccentrics, who announced the incipient event with a speech full of apologies for one thing or another (come on, guys, this is 2004!) and provided the most fabulous spread of sanis, cakes and wine afterwards. They have an excellent programme of monthly recitals - you can hear Benjamin Grosvenor on 5 September (the BBC Young Musician of the Year piano finalist, who may be 12 by then), Artur Pizarro in October and many more. A deeply civilised way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Saturday I gatecrashed the first night of Carmen at Glyndebourne. It's a revival of David McVicar's production from a couple of years ago, created for von Otter, but now rethought considerably for its new cast. The Guardian's review comments on its naturalism and mentions Zola, and I share Tim Ashley's opinion on a number of its aspects. Rinat Shaham deserves special mention, however, as her Carmen develops as the opera goes along, more than many. When she flounces out of the cigarette factory, plunges her head into a trough of water and then flings back her wet hair in an abrupt fountain to drench her colleagues, she's gorgeous, she's a sexpot and she bears no small resemblance to Carrie in Sex and the City. There's little sense at this point of her power or pride; these appears gradually, as if hewn into her as her self-defence against Don Jose's increasing violence. By the final scene she has grown into a full-blown Carmen - poised and centred, with stubborn integrity and independence, strong enough to stay outside the bullring to face her likely death. As Jose, Paul Charles Clarke is magnificent, both vocally and in characterisation - he seems to be the one stunning everyone, which is why I wanted to give 'Rinni', as they call her at G/b, more of this write-up. Paolo Carignani does some nice things with the score - it's a no-nonsense reading and the up-tempo of the prelude to the final act is wonderfully Spanish - but I did prefer Philippe Jordan last time, as his conducting had an extra edge of thrill about it. Tom & co seem to like this new guy, though.
On Sunday afternoon Rustem Haroudinoff gave his recital for the Chopin Society, which holds its salon concerts at the Sikorski Museum in Kensington, opposite Hyde Park. It's the most extraordinary place. You walk up the stairs towards the concert room only to find yourself faced with suits of armour on the walls; Rustem and the piano were surrounded by Polish military paintings, ancient Polish flags and glass cases full of medals. Had he been playing any of the Chopin Polonaises ('guns buried in roses' - Schumann) this might have been appropriate - as it was, there was a slight sense of political irony about this Russian blowing everyone sky high with his Rachmaninov B flat minor Sonata. I had a strange experience, listening to this piece. I closed my eyes and was somewhere else. I was listening intently to every note, but somehow when I looked out again at the end I didn't quite know where I was. I think this is called 'being transported' and it is rare and special.
A word too for the Chopin Society itself - a delightful bunch of pianistic eccentrics, who announced the incipient event with a speech full of apologies for one thing or another (come on, guys, this is 2004!) and provided the most fabulous spread of sanis, cakes and wine afterwards. They have an excellent programme of monthly recitals - you can hear Benjamin Grosvenor on 5 September (the BBC Young Musician of the Year piano finalist, who may be 12 by then), Artur Pizarro in October and many more. A deeply civilised way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Thursday, July 15, 2004
...yes, Yes, YES, !!!!!!YES!!!!!!!
See AC Douglas on Historically Informed Performance, or what isn't...
I was going to write something just like this, but ACD has got there first! SO glad I'm not the only one who feels this way, because enduring 4 years of the Cambridge music faculty in the mid-Eighties left me wondering if I was. But not any more. The turnround has arrived, and about time too. You want to hear some good Bach playing? Try Harold Samuel in 1931, playing Bach on the piano as if it's great music - not a sharpener upon which to grind the blade of yet another axe.
Another cause for celebration is the double bill at Glyndebourne of Rachmaninov's The Miserly Knight and Puccini's Gianni Schicci. Sergei Leiferkus stars in the former, Sally Matthews in the latter, Vladimir Jurowski is the red-hot conductor, production is absolutely spectacular and it's a clever pairing of works about the Evil Of Money - in front of the stonkingly well-heeled Glyndebourne-goers! Marvellous evening out. Get down there, PDQ.
I am wiped out by my last day of examiner training right now, so will sign off while I can still see straightish, if not spell.
I was going to write something just like this, but ACD has got there first! SO glad I'm not the only one who feels this way, because enduring 4 years of the Cambridge music faculty in the mid-Eighties left me wondering if I was. But not any more. The turnround has arrived, and about time too. You want to hear some good Bach playing? Try Harold Samuel in 1931, playing Bach on the piano as if it's great music - not a sharpener upon which to grind the blade of yet another axe.
Another cause for celebration is the double bill at Glyndebourne of Rachmaninov's The Miserly Knight and Puccini's Gianni Schicci. Sergei Leiferkus stars in the former, Sally Matthews in the latter, Vladimir Jurowski is the red-hot conductor, production is absolutely spectacular and it's a clever pairing of works about the Evil Of Money - in front of the stonkingly well-heeled Glyndebourne-goers! Marvellous evening out. Get down there, PDQ.
I am wiped out by my last day of examiner training right now, so will sign off while I can still see straightish, if not spell.
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Pelleas premonitions
Attention everyone who wants to go to Glyndebourne: there are tickets =still available for Pelleas et Melisande. It's an extraordinary production with world-class singing by John Tomlinson et al and the LPO at its absolute finest under Louis Langree. And you can picnic in the interval. Book NOW - more info on the website, link on the sidebar.
What I want to know is why there are tickets. Usually you can get into Glyndebourne for neither love nor money. (Well, sometimes love, but not always - Tristan was chockablock last year and I only saw the dress rehearsal.) This year, Carmen and The Magic Flute are sold out. But not the Debussy. Nor, I believe, Jenufa or Rodelinda.
Pelleas is not easy listening. It's unbelievably beautiful, detailed, hypnotic, magical, but it's not strong on The Big Tune. It doesn't get played on Classic FM. Pelleas is like no other opera on earth, despite a few wisps of Tristan and Parsifal creeping in on occasion. It's haut-Symbolism, in which every image represents a range of unspoken allusions. That is partly why I love it so much: every time you hear it you can hear something new, something you didn't quite get a handle on before. Could it be that it is entirely lost on 85 per cent of Glyndebourne-goers?
In our consumer age, it often seems to me that people like to sit in an opera house and consume the opera. They pay their money and they take in the returns. Heaven forfend that they should do any spadework to make sure they get the most out of what they see. Why should anyone have to make an effort after paying £100 for a ticket? "I don't think the producer has read the synopsis," was one haughty comment I heard on the way out of the show the other day (Vick's circular flashback trick works wonders on Pelleas, but you can only see that if you have heard the word Symbolism before). I remember going round a spectacular Art Nouveau exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum a few years ago and hearing a woman complaining to her companion about the use of the word 'sensibility' in one of the commentaries on the wall. She didn't know what it meant - worse, she didn't see why she should.
With music education stripped to bare minimum, hundreds of TV channels offering nothing worth watching and, hovering over everything like great vultures, the mind-numbing curses of the Cool and the Correct, a masterpiece like Pelleas doesn't stand much chance. Cultural 'Sensibility' - that word one shouldn't use because someone mightn't know its meaning - is under a general anaesthetic. If I have the chance to see this production of Pelleas again, I shall do so - because God alone knows when there will be another opportunity. Are operas like this going to vanish from our stages because of audience indolence?
What I want to know is why there are tickets. Usually you can get into Glyndebourne for neither love nor money. (Well, sometimes love, but not always - Tristan was chockablock last year and I only saw the dress rehearsal.) This year, Carmen and The Magic Flute are sold out. But not the Debussy. Nor, I believe, Jenufa or Rodelinda.
Pelleas is not easy listening. It's unbelievably beautiful, detailed, hypnotic, magical, but it's not strong on The Big Tune. It doesn't get played on Classic FM. Pelleas is like no other opera on earth, despite a few wisps of Tristan and Parsifal creeping in on occasion. It's haut-Symbolism, in which every image represents a range of unspoken allusions. That is partly why I love it so much: every time you hear it you can hear something new, something you didn't quite get a handle on before. Could it be that it is entirely lost on 85 per cent of Glyndebourne-goers?
In our consumer age, it often seems to me that people like to sit in an opera house and consume the opera. They pay their money and they take in the returns. Heaven forfend that they should do any spadework to make sure they get the most out of what they see. Why should anyone have to make an effort after paying £100 for a ticket? "I don't think the producer has read the synopsis," was one haughty comment I heard on the way out of the show the other day (Vick's circular flashback trick works wonders on Pelleas, but you can only see that if you have heard the word Symbolism before). I remember going round a spectacular Art Nouveau exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum a few years ago and hearing a woman complaining to her companion about the use of the word 'sensibility' in one of the commentaries on the wall. She didn't know what it meant - worse, she didn't see why she should.
With music education stripped to bare minimum, hundreds of TV channels offering nothing worth watching and, hovering over everything like great vultures, the mind-numbing curses of the Cool and the Correct, a masterpiece like Pelleas doesn't stand much chance. Cultural 'Sensibility' - that word one shouldn't use because someone mightn't know its meaning - is under a general anaesthetic. If I have the chance to see this production of Pelleas again, I shall do so - because God alone knows when there will be another opportunity. Are operas like this going to vanish from our stages because of audience indolence?
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