A little celebration of insomnia?

Er, no, it's Nessun dorma ("None shall sleep"). Known affectionately among some aficionados as Nissan Dormer. Here is my little celebration of Puccini's last stand, to kick off Turandot at the Royal Opera House (opens Monday).

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/features/a-spellbinding-soundtrack-to-love-life-and-loss-8797000.html

And here, to prove the points, are a few samples of what's happened to the thing over the years.

1990 World Cup Grandstand (those were the days...)


Jackie Evancho (oh help)


And if you watched that, you've earned the real thing: Joseph Calleja at the Last Night of the Proms last year:

Meet the new New Generations

Very fine line-up for the BBC New Generation Artists' latest intake, announced yesterday evening. For 15 years BBC Radio 3 has been busy nurturing selected stars of the future on this scheme and they've often proved astute choices. Among those who've graced its portals are Benjamin Grosvenor, Alison Balsom, the Belcea String Quartet, Simon Trpceski, Khatia Buniatishvili and many more. The young musicians - already the bearers of fine track records - stay on the scheme for two years, during which time their concerts and broadcasts are very much in the spotlight. Here's the new bunch:

Danish String Quartet – String Quartet (Denmark)

In 2009 the Danish String Quartet not only won First Prize in the Eleventh London International String Quartet Competition, but their performance was so convincing that it was awarded four additional prizes: the 20th Century Prize, the Beethoven Prize, the Sidney Griller Award and the Menton Festival Prize. In January 2012 the quartet were appointed to the prestigious Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two programme beginning with the 2013-2014 season.  

(I've heard these guys, and they are terrific.)

Kitty Whately – Mezzo Soprano (UK) (pictured right)

Kitty Whately studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the Royal College of Music International Opera School. Kitty was the winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Award 2011 and the 59th Royal Overseas League Award for Singers, and in 2012 she was chosen to be a member of the prestigious Verbier Festival Academy in 2012. 

(Have been hearing rumbles about how excellent Kitty is for quite a while)

Olena Tokar - Soprano (Ukraine)

Soprano Olena Tokar was a finalist in the 2013 Cardiff Singer of the World competition. In 2012 she was awarded 1st Prizes both at the Lortzing Competition in Leipzig and at the renowned ARD International Music Competition in Munich. 

(Olena gave a wonderful performance in the Cardiff final and was a hot favourite for the prize.)

Lise Berthaud - Viola (France)

Lise Berthaud was a prize winner of the European Young Instrumentalists Competition in 2000 and won the Hindemith Prize at the Geneva International Competition in 2005. In 2009 she was short listed by the Victoires de la Musique Classique as “Révélation de l’Année” (Newcomer of the Year). 

(Hooray! A violist! Looking forward to hearing her.)

Louis Schwitzgebel – Piano (Switzerland) (pictured left)

Pianist Louis Schwitzgebel secured 2^nd prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition, where his performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Hallé Orchestra under Sir Mark Elder in the final round was broadcast live on BBC Four and BBC Radio 3. At the age of 17 he was the winner of the Geneva International Music Competition.

(We loved his performance in the Leeds final and are delighted to hear he's been picked here.)

Zhang Zuo - Piano (China)

Zhang Zuo has garnered a host of awards, including first prizes at the 3^rd Shanghai International Piano Competition, the 7^th International Franz Liszt Piano Competition, and a ‘Vendome Virtuoso’ award from Vendome Prize competition. In 2013 she won 5^th prize at the 2013 Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition. (Fine track record, that: again, looking forward greatly to hearing her.)

Watch 'Don Pasquale' from Glyndebourne

It's a wet Sunday and - while not denigrating what I'm sure will be a fabulous Prom tonight - some of us have already seen Parsifal three times this year. So it's time for something cheery. The visually gorgeous, emotionally sophisticated production from Glyndebourne of Donizetti's Don Pasquale is just the ticket. Directed by Mariame Clément with designs by Julia Hansen, it plumps this masterpiece of bel canto tragicomedy into the heart of a world none too far from Dangerous Liaisons.

It does so by asking one vital question about the drama's essence: why is Dr Malatesta doing this? What's in it for him? Answer: he has a thing going with la bella Norina. Could it be that he's out to trick poor old Pasquale so that Norina can marry the sweet, wimpy Ernesto, be comfortably off and assure her future on the side with Malatesta, an arrangement which appears to suit both of them rather well?

Danielle de Niese stars as an irrepressible and satisfyingly complex Norina, kind-hearted yet determined, caring about Ernesto yet in sexual thrall to Malatesta. Vocally she is strong and colourful, infusing each whirl of coloratura with expressive purpose. Here, in the Independent the other week, she told me about why the bathroom scene presented a few challenges for the cinema relay...

Alessandro Corbelli is perfect as the duped Pasquale - and it is nice that he isn't left wholly in the lurch at the bittersweet conclusion. In the theatre,w hen I went there last week, Alek Schrader's Ernesto seemed beautiful in tone but a tad lacking in amplitude, while Nikolay Borchev as Malatesta proved a baritone full of suitable smoulder and streetwise assurance. Ernesto Mazzola - a glory of a bel canto conductor - creates an atmosphere satisfactorily replete with bubbles. And listen out for Kristine Blaumane's gorgeous cello solo.

It takes a lot to make a Glyndebourne audience clap a tableau upon curtain up; the all-white 18th-century chorus costumes did the trick last week. But - thought for the day here - wouldn't it be wonderful if productions that were not set in the distant past could sometimes produce the same effect? Intriguingly, I have just met and interviewed a cutting-edge opera director - more of whom very soon - who admitted to having a blind spot about bel canto. Chacun a son gout...

The opera is available to watch on the Guardian website, from which I have borrowed it, until 31 August.  

Off to Manchester

Please come to the Messiaen project at Chetham's Summer School for Pianists if you're in Manchester this evening! My talk is at 5pm, my play A Walk through the End of Time is at 7pm starring Dame Harriet Walter and Guy Paul, and the complete Quartet for the End of Time will be performed by pianist Kathryn Page and friends at 8.30pm. Do say hello if you're there. Box office: 07814 989913.

Stop dumbing down Debussy!

Google has a Clair de lune doodle to celebrate Claude Debussy's birthday today. Somehow I have the feeling that our beloved Claude's 151st anniversaire is receiving almost more attention than his 150th. I doubt, though, that he really did ride a pennyfarthing. (We know Chausson had a bicycle, but we wish that he hadn't.)

Here's a quick birthday high-horse moment: at some stage we need to leave behind, once and for all, the notion that Debussy was "an impressionist composer". He inclined more towards symbolism: the hushed world of ideas in which nothing can ever be taken at face value, but stands as an encapsulation of something else. La Mer, for instance, is at core not about the sea... Listen to Simon Rattle conducting it: this becomes clear, for is it not rather the deeper forces of nature within ourselves that are undergoing those changes of light as time passes, the dialogue with our counterparts (wind/waves - not), and the refulgent storms in the heart and blood...

Still, attaching any -ist or -ism to Debussy is to reduce him to a fraction of his real significance. Would you do that to Flaubert, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Zola? No fewer ideas exist within Debussy, but his language happens to be that of music...

The continual dumbing-down of Debussy - the all-too-widespread view of him as pretty impressionist, fine colourist, hot lover, etc - does not even begin to scratch the surface of his life and work, let alone his intelligence, his wide cultural references, his continual willingness to explore and experiment and move forward. His sophistication of thought, language, structure, finesse, texture, instrumentation and sheer imagination is second to none.

Meanwhile, our changing times are highlighted in fine fashion by a glimpse of this 1965 movie by Ken Russell, The Debussy Film. I doubt anyone would make a film like this now, yet there's a charm and a vividness about its vision that might just be irresistible, given half a chance. See it here: http://youtu.be/KsdAIYmSHAg.

And my top ten Debussy recordings? Difficult, but here's a selection...:

La Mer - Berliner Philharmoniker/Simon Rattle

Etudes pour piano - Mitsuko Uchida

Images pour piano - Zoltan Kocsis

Preludes pour piano, complete - Krystian Zimerman

Pelleas et Melisande, complete opera, DVD - Welsh National Opera/Pierre Boulez, directed by Peter Stein

String Quartet - Quatuor Ebene

Violin Sonata - Philippe Graffin (violin) and Claire Desert (piano) (in the disc that inspired my Hungarian Dances...)

3 Nocturnes, Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune, etc - various, conducted by Pierre Boulez

Children's Corner - Alfred Cortot

Songs - 'Clair de lune' (Verlaine) et al - Natalie Dessay (soprano), Philippe Cassard (piano)