Nemorini X 2 for Danni's dazzling Donizetti

Wet, wet, wet. We nearly drowned at Glyndebourne on Sunday - so much for the drought - but I had quite a treat, being assigned to review L'elisir d'amore (photos by Bill Cooper/Glyndebourne): http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/reviews/lrsquoelisir-drsquoamore-glyndebourne-lewes-2297043.html

It's hard to believe this was Danielle de Niese's first Adina - she doesn't half hold the stage, seemed to relish every coloratura whoosh, twirl and ping, and even made the taming of this shrew into a reasonably palatable and believable tale. She's not only a tremendous singer, but a born performer in every respect.

I really have some problems with this production, though, and wouldn't mind explaining why at more length. And now I can also offer you two tenors for the price of one...

The relationship between Adina and Nemorino is beautifully staged, but to counterbalance that dramatically you also need to believe that she could be intending to go off with Belcore. I mean, come on, she nearly marries the guy. She even gets a wedding dress. And in this 1930s take he's a Blackshirt, so the situation shouldn't be all that funny. But that relationship is staged more or less as a comedy revue and tends to be subsumed in all the fussy goings-on around - which rarely stop and, while occasionally amusing, do leave you wishing they'd just keep still even for five seconds (Nemorino does 'Una furtiva lagrima' alone and in comparative quietude beside the water pump. That's about it.) As for Dulcamara's phenomenally annoying mute, tattooed sidekick - what is he for? What's he doing, miming childbirth and other such fun and games? Why? Perhaps some wire extracted from the innards of the recreated authentic fortepiano in the pit would sort him out.

So, what happened to Stephen Costello? He was off with a sore throat and apparently had been poorly for a while. UPDATE: He has just dropped me a line saying this is the first time in his career he's ever had to cancel. I blame our British summertime...certainly on Sunday the best place a singer with a sore throat could possibly be was: tucked up somewhere warm and dry with a steam bowl.

I heard him at the dress rehearsal, though missed the first night (below, Costello as Nemorino, with Danni as Adina). Do have a read of this interview with him.

We expected him not to "sing out" for the dress, but if that wasn't singing out, and he wasn't feeling well, you wonder what it's like when he's on top form. He's an all-out, in-yer-face romantic lyric tenor: big sound, lots of overtones and undertones, bags of character and a predilection for that mannerism that starts a note some way under and swoops up to target, producing an Italian-broken-heart sound-effect while so doing. The trick is pleasingly Golden Age-ish, though it felt over-used. Glyndebourne is a small house, of course, but in this setting Costello's tone, throat problem notwithstanding, comes over as big and reasonably tough - a sound that might be more at home in Verdi than Donizetti, though in scale, projection and vibrato his seemed a more seamless match with Danni's voice than was Lee's lighter, slenderer instrument. Of the two, Costello won in 'Una furtiva lagrima', by a breath-control whisker; Lee won for charm and purity of style. Costello is to sing Alfredo at Covent Garden next season; that should suit him down to the ground. Watch that space. I reckon we'll be hearing a good bit more of both of them in the years ahead.

Puffing Hough!

Tonight I'm interviewing Stephen Hough on stage at the hallowed Wigmore Hall after his recital. Very excited about this. Do please come & join us:
http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/productions/stephen-hough-focus-27814

Stephen is opening the recital with Beethoven's 'Moonlight' Sonata, followed by the premiere of his own Sonata for Piano, 'Broken Branches'. After the interval he'll play two Scriabin sonatas, followed by the mighty Liszt Sonata in B minor. After that we'll be discussing Stephen's life, work and compositions - don't be too surprised if the issue of blogging rears up at some point! If possible and practical we may try to take some audience questions, so if you are itching to ask something, please come and sit at the front so you're easily visible and audible. Finally The Prince Consort will give the world premiere of Stephen's Other Love Songs, an ensemble song cycle conceived as a companion piece to Brahms's Liebeslieder Walzer and hence not containing any waltzes. Read about his Sonata on his blog, here.

Copies of the Sonata score will be on sale in the foyer, so if you want to follow it while Stephen plays, you'll be able to.

Today & Tomorrow

Please come and say hello today and tomorrow:

1. Today it's The Road to Jericho at Spitalfields Festival opening night! We're at Shoreditch Church. I'll be introducing the work of those amazing Aldeburgh Young Musicians in the 6pm pre-concert event and will read one of my poemy things. At 7.30pm Fifth Quadrant and Dal'Ouna perform a Dvorak Quartet, traditional Palestinian music and the world premiere of Who is my Neighbour? by Antony Pitts, composed specially for both groups and the R2J project.

2. Tomorrow the one and only Stephen Hough is at the Wigmore Hall & will perform some of his own music. I'm interviewing him on stage afterwards and the post-concert event will also contain a world premiere of one of his vocal works!

Meanwhile, enjoy "When Scott Walker met Poulenc" in today's Indy, and in Cocteau Voices at the Linbury Studio ROH from Friday. Gotta run now, busy day ahead...

"This is not music!" Viola heckler raises hell

UPDATE: There's much more going around now about this story & you can see Mr Zaslav's explanation of his protest, as well as some thoughtful commentary, at conductor Kenneth Woods' blog, here: http://kennethwoods.net/blog1/2011/06/08/avoiding-amplification/. The reason for the 'heckling'  was in fact one of my own favourite bugbears: the amplification level. In Mr Zaslav's position, I'd have done exactly the same. Excessive noise absolutely is painful and can cause us permanent damage - and we value our hearing. I refuse to go into a situation where the decibels are beyond tolerable; it hurts & it's not worth the potential consequences.



If you don't like the music, how far will you go to say so? This astonishing story from the blog Music vs Theater by Brian M. Rosen (which I found thanks to a tweet from Toby Deller) is kind of extreme. 

Is there a point at which les bourgeois grow sick of avant-garde composers wanting to épater them and decide to jolly well say so? After all, shocking the middle classes out of their supposed smug complacency has been one of the key driving forces of new art for around a century. In response, maybe just not buying tickets is no longer enough...

It turns out that the heckler wasn't even a smug bourgeois, but a respected musician, viola player and former member of a seriously wonderful string quartet. See what happened here: http://blog.musicvstheater.com/2011/06/06/violagate-mini-riot-erupts-during-piece-for-viola-and-electronics/

Still, I'm not sure the poor old performer need really have smashed his own viola in response. 

When Jess met MARTHA ARGERICH

Happy Birthday to someone who is often voted World's Greatest Living Pianist - and who, from what I've seen, probably is. Martha Argerich turned 70 yesterday. And back in February a call from Olly Condy at BBC Music Magazine assigned me the prize task of interviewing her for a cover feature, or trying to.

Martha and interviews are a bit of a contradiction in terms - she doesn't like them, and I don't blame her. I imagine she has enough to contend with already, without silly journos pitching up asking her how many hours a day she practises. Anyway, they dispatched me to Rome to trail her, clutching BlackBerry to report in case of emergency...

Rome should be a favourite destination, but sadly isn't - it can feel as if everyone is out to rip you off, from taxis that won't do the fixed-rate trip from the airport because you're staying just outside the city walls, to restaurants that overcharge, then say there was a misprint in the menu. (Amazing how the 'trickle-down effect' works perfectly in politics and morals, but not cashflow - but that's another matter...) The bonus, though, was that in one day I met not one great pianist I hadn't talked to before, but two. After the concert I was having my camomile tea in the hotel and in walked Alfred Brendel.

And Martha? I got the interview - with a little help from the lovely Yannick Nezet-Seguin, who fortuitously was conducting and knows me from the LPO, of which he's principal guest conductor. And after I explained to Martha in a preliminary chat post-rehearsal that I trained as a pianist myself, but stopped because I couldn't stand the nerves, the great Argerich became the kindest person in all Italy.

I'll never forget sitting just about underneath the piano while she rehearsed Prokofiev 3 - the sounds that came out of it were elemental, the sort of music you imagine that a mountain range or a wide, wise ocean would produce, could it play the piano. But there is absolute method to the 'Argerich sound'...

The interview is in BBC Music Magazine's June edition, which came out a few weeks ago. Get at a copy via this link: http://www.classical-music.com/issue/june-2011

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARTHA! AND NOW FOR SOME MUSIC: