31/7/10, Glyndebourne
The night of the bats. There was one flying round the auditorium when we entered which remained throughout the first act, flitting occasionally across the lights and adding considerably to the atmosphere. And when we got back to our (rather grand) B & B there was another flitting around in the hallway and landing which the landlady's son finally got rid of with the aid of a gigantic butterfly net.
The production itself was rather dominated by its set, an extravagant affair of hydraulics and walls (which became sloping playing areas) all turning on the revolve, which caught fire at the end of Act 1. Designed by Paul Brown. Surely, one thought, they cannot take that on tour but apparently they will. Though undeniably impressive it often gave the singers difficulty and limited movement.
Directed by Jonathan Kent, who chose to reimagine the Commendatore as a kind of B movie zombie (which worked well enough) but otherwise played this rather puzzling piece pretty straight.
The setting was 1960s Italy, Fellini-style. Luca Pisaroni was an engaging comic Leporello, played as a rather cringing character (though some of his music suggests a rather more self-confident character), a seedy paparazzo-style figure with a Polaroid camera (cf the version we saw at BAC a year or so ago). Gerald Finley sang his umpteenth Don Giovanni, looking a dead ringer for Marcello Mastroianni. It occurred to me that he doesn't have as much to do as you might expect: Leporello has more stage time.
Kate Royal (sigh) sang Donna Elvira in a belted raincoat: there is something gawkily restrained and rather English about her which suited the slightly loopy Elvira.
Anna Samuil as Donna Anna got the biggest cheers, which made me wonder who the star is meant to be. Donna A and Donna E have one big aria apiece in the second half. Zerlina (Anna Virovlansky) has more to sing and do: she was a sparky little thing in a ghastly blonde wig. Presumably Mozart's original cast included a first-rate omic actress who got the Zerlina-Susannah parts and a couple of stand-and-belters who couldn't act. Masetto (in shiny wedding suit) and Don Ottavio are rather thankless parts.
The plot really is very problematic. It relies on all the women being in two minds, up for it but then again not up for it (or instantly regretting it). Donna Anna's screams at the start in this production are not because Giovanni is raping her but because he's leaving and refuses to stay. Zerlina succumbs (in a nice touch when she and Don G first meet and she is easily seduced her high note comesas he runs his hand up her skirt) and willingly goes off in the party scene (another touch of Fellini, with everyone moving very slowly in a kind of three a.m. torpor) only to cry rape off-stage. It's not clear why.
You're left wondering what on earth all these women actually see in him. And you feel if women were as changeable and unreliable as this plot suggestsm Don G would have come a crashing cropper long, long ago.
At one point the party band (and chorus) went to the back of the circle, invisible from our seats, and created an intriguing stereo effect which was only partly spoilt by the fact that the party itself was very distinctly taking place on stage in front of us, not behind us.
I liked the quote from Figaro, and Leporello's "I know this".
David Hockney was sitting immediately in front of us. Norman Lamont was there with a tall and striking blode. Danielle de Niese was at the dinner but not, so far as I could see, at the show.
Showing posts with label glyndebourne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label glyndebourne. Show all posts
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
MACBETH
26/6/10, Glyndebourne
Written by Penelope
Macbeth has been staged countless times, as a play and as an opera. So coming up with new ideas and interpretations isn't easy. But director Richard Jones has ideas by the bucketload and they all seem to work, and add something to our understanding of the story. This is a very Scottish Macbeth with everyone, except the witches, wearing tartan. The witches themselves were splendid, though possibly not as scary as past incarnations. One was dressed as a babuska, complete with headscarf, one looked like a grungy teenager, with bright orange tights and the third bore a striking resemblance to Myra Hindley in a royal blue gilet. They certainly held your attention.
Of the main parts, Erika Sunnergardh was in strong voice as Lady Macbeth. Determined and sure in the early scenes, she fell apart in fabulous style and the sleep-walking scene was wonderful. She went back and forth on stage to a large washing machine, changing from one pair of white gloves to another trying to make her hands clean of Duncan's murder. It was mesmerising and moving. Andrzej Dobber was an effective Macbeth but the best voice of the night by a mile belonged to bass, Stanislav Shvets, who played Banquo. Whenever he was on the stage, you couldn't help but pay attention, as that deep, rich tone added to his authority. There was some fun too - Banquo's ghost was a radio controlled cardboard box, which I enjoyed but did detract from the horror of the moment when Macbeth realises his actions will haunt him. The staging was imaginative and the acting was solid. There were some moments (the slaying of Madcuff's family, when corpse after corpse is wheeled onto the stage) which will remain in my memory. Verdi's music is lovely but it’s the story which is centre stage.
Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's shortest plays and the action rattles along at a fair pace. Which gives you the opportunity to enjoy everything else Glyndebourne has to offer. The grounds and gardens are beautiful and a lovely setting for a picnic. It's all seriously posh and and unashamedly elitist which provides a contrast to the football fever which has gripped the nation for the past couple of weeks.
Written by Penelope
Macbeth has been staged countless times, as a play and as an opera. So coming up with new ideas and interpretations isn't easy. But director Richard Jones has ideas by the bucketload and they all seem to work, and add something to our understanding of the story. This is a very Scottish Macbeth with everyone, except the witches, wearing tartan. The witches themselves were splendid, though possibly not as scary as past incarnations. One was dressed as a babuska, complete with headscarf, one looked like a grungy teenager, with bright orange tights and the third bore a striking resemblance to Myra Hindley in a royal blue gilet. They certainly held your attention.
Of the main parts, Erika Sunnergardh was in strong voice as Lady Macbeth. Determined and sure in the early scenes, she fell apart in fabulous style and the sleep-walking scene was wonderful. She went back and forth on stage to a large washing machine, changing from one pair of white gloves to another trying to make her hands clean of Duncan's murder. It was mesmerising and moving. Andrzej Dobber was an effective Macbeth but the best voice of the night by a mile belonged to bass, Stanislav Shvets, who played Banquo. Whenever he was on the stage, you couldn't help but pay attention, as that deep, rich tone added to his authority. There was some fun too - Banquo's ghost was a radio controlled cardboard box, which I enjoyed but did detract from the horror of the moment when Macbeth realises his actions will haunt him. The staging was imaginative and the acting was solid. There were some moments (the slaying of Madcuff's family, when corpse after corpse is wheeled onto the stage) which will remain in my memory. Verdi's music is lovely but it’s the story which is centre stage.
Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's shortest plays and the action rattles along at a fair pace. Which gives you the opportunity to enjoy everything else Glyndebourne has to offer. The grounds and gardens are beautiful and a lovely setting for a picnic. It's all seriously posh and and unashamedly elitist which provides a contrast to the football fever which has gripped the nation for the past couple of weeks.
Monday, 6 July 2009
FALSTAFF
4/7/09, Glyndebourne
I take it all back about Falstaff. Saw it once, at Covent Garden, with Bryn Terfel, and thought it tuneless and humourless.
Actually it's really quite funny, especially in this production by Richard Jones, and it's not entirely tuneless: it's just that the tunes are rarely developed, explored or reprised.
You get the impression that by the time he wrote Falstaff Verdi was bored with conventional opera, a form he'd clearly mastered completely, and was anxious to try new things. And by and large succeeded.
I'm writing this up weeks after the event, so recall very little of the detail. Christopher Purves in a fat suit and safari suit was funny as Falstaff; some of the other visual memories include the mock-Tudor pub, the rows of cabbages and lettuces outside the 1930s semi where the Fords lived (designer Ultz); and some genuinely funny farcical business with people rushing on and off at the end of Act One, before Falstaff is tipped into the river. Act Two began with him being fished out of the orchestra pit (aka River Thames) and producing a spurt of water from his mouth.
Few clear memories of the last scene but it was effective.
Reviews here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/reviews/verdi-falstaff-glyndebourne-festival-opera-london-1689414.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/may/23/review-falstaff-glyndebourne
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/opera/article6354537.ece
I take it all back about Falstaff. Saw it once, at Covent Garden, with Bryn Terfel, and thought it tuneless and humourless.
Actually it's really quite funny, especially in this production by Richard Jones, and it's not entirely tuneless: it's just that the tunes are rarely developed, explored or reprised.
You get the impression that by the time he wrote Falstaff Verdi was bored with conventional opera, a form he'd clearly mastered completely, and was anxious to try new things. And by and large succeeded.
I'm writing this up weeks after the event, so recall very little of the detail. Christopher Purves in a fat suit and safari suit was funny as Falstaff; some of the other visual memories include the mock-Tudor pub, the rows of cabbages and lettuces outside the 1930s semi where the Fords lived (designer Ultz); and some genuinely funny farcical business with people rushing on and off at the end of Act One, before Falstaff is tipped into the river. Act Two began with him being fished out of the orchestra pit (aka River Thames) and producing a spurt of water from his mouth.
Few clear memories of the last scene but it was effective.
Reviews here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/reviews/verdi-falstaff-glyndebourne-festival-opera-london-1689414.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/may/23/review-falstaff-glyndebourne
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/opera/article6354537.ece
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
HAYDN SYMPHONIES AND ARIAS
12/3/09, King's Place.
Two Haydn symphonies, No 26 Lamentatione and No 45 Farewell, plus half a dozen solo arias for tenor and soprano, played by a period band we hadn't heard of called the Orchestra of the Classical Opera Company founded and conducted by a chap called Ian Page. Around 20 musicians, two-thirds women, dressed in black, augmented by a harpsichord for the songs. The tenor a chap called Joshua Ellicott whose voice G especially liked; the soprano a rather self-satisfied lady called Gillian Ramm with an ill-judged dress and fringe but a cracking voice.
Five days later I can of course remember almost nothing in detail about the music (mark you, I could remember almost nothing in detail five hours later).
So let's review the venue instead. It's a basement concert hall, rectangular, pale wood (as at Glyndebourne, and presumably for the acoustic), with a narrow balcony running round the back and sides and a surprisingly high ceiling. The chairs are uncomfortable (according to G) but have individual heating/air conditioning in the base, again as at Glyndebourne. There are clever but understated lighting tricks: when the performers enter or exit the stage they do so through wooden doors that open to reveal a blue-lit area behind them; there are drapes hanging from the back wall lit by subtly changing lighting.
The public areas are exceptionally spacious: a large entrance hall which seems to occupy half the building's footprint, with box office, sandwich bar, bar-and-restaurant-with-canalside-terrace at the far end, and a great well in the middle through which you travel on an escalator down to the concert hall (Hall One: there's also a Hall Two rehearsal space) past a gallery floor on a semi-basement balcony or mezzanine. Ceiling heights are everywhere generous. Off the ground floor is an entrance to the offices of musical organisations like the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and another to the Guardian offices which occupy the lion's share of the building. The Guardian has another entrance on the corner as you approach from King's Cross: more escalators, this time going up. As you stand in the ground floor atrium you can look up through the glass walls of the newspaper's offices to see signs like "arts and culture" and "interview room two" and "society".
Like a lot of modern buildings it's a pleasant contrast to the penny-pinching, cramped and often surprisingly dark developments of past decades, especially the 60s and 70s. Compare the National Theatre, whose public areas get much more crowded more quickly and which has to deploy plush carpets to fight the oppressive quality of the bare concrete walls. Or the Barbican, which is also in a basement and more spacious than the National but much gloomier than King's Place. Perhaps it's the plain white walls and pale wood; perhaps we're just better at lighting these large spaces. (Whichever it is the environmental implications are probably horrendous.)
As for the music... I'm ashamed to say I hadn't realised Haydn wrote any operas. Perhaps they're rarely done; several are lost with only isolated arias surviving. L'infidelta deluso was his fifth, but the earliest to survive in completed form. The arias we heard were spectacular, tuneful and charming by turns.
Of the symphonies I remember little of the first except its generally plangent tone. The last was introduced by the conductor, who said he hoped there were at least some people in the audience who didn't know how this symphony ended, and explained it was a kind of coded message to Prince Esterhazy that his musicians, who had been away from home in Eisenstadt at the prince's new palace at Esterhaza throughout the summer of 1772, wanted to go home now please. Since I had no idea how it ended this merely reinforced the impression I often have at classical concerts that everyone else there is far more familiar with what we're about to hear than I am, can hum the music backwards and knows exactly when to applaud.
(Look away now if you don't want the ending spoilt.)
In fact the symphony bowls along merrily for three movements. Then, during the fourth, the musicians leave the stage one by one until only the leader and the principal second violin are left. It's very effective.
There seem to be lots of non-musical hooks like this in Haydn's music, or what I know of it: jokes, gimmicks, back stories. He seems to have been a rather engaging as well as remarkably hard-working fellow. His stuff is tuneful, long on musical variety etc etc. So why don't I know it better? Why do I dismiss him as a rather boring composer who wrote too much and whose music all sounds the same? You could say the same about Handel, and I adore Handel. Perhaps the problem is that, unlike the earlier Handel, he was oveshadowed by the romantic composers who came after him and who found a musical language (helped by the development of larger ensembles and more advanced instruments, perhaps?) to express heightened emotion that Haydn couldn't quite manage, trapped as he still was in the polite conventions of 18th century music.
Either way I should find out more. Memo to self: listen to more Haydn. Read a biography.
Two Haydn symphonies, No 26 Lamentatione and No 45 Farewell, plus half a dozen solo arias for tenor and soprano, played by a period band we hadn't heard of called the Orchestra of the Classical Opera Company founded and conducted by a chap called Ian Page. Around 20 musicians, two-thirds women, dressed in black, augmented by a harpsichord for the songs. The tenor a chap called Joshua Ellicott whose voice G especially liked; the soprano a rather self-satisfied lady called Gillian Ramm with an ill-judged dress and fringe but a cracking voice.
Five days later I can of course remember almost nothing in detail about the music (mark you, I could remember almost nothing in detail five hours later).
So let's review the venue instead. It's a basement concert hall, rectangular, pale wood (as at Glyndebourne, and presumably for the acoustic), with a narrow balcony running round the back and sides and a surprisingly high ceiling. The chairs are uncomfortable (according to G) but have individual heating/air conditioning in the base, again as at Glyndebourne. There are clever but understated lighting tricks: when the performers enter or exit the stage they do so through wooden doors that open to reveal a blue-lit area behind them; there are drapes hanging from the back wall lit by subtly changing lighting.
The public areas are exceptionally spacious: a large entrance hall which seems to occupy half the building's footprint, with box office, sandwich bar, bar-and-restaurant-with-canalside-terrace at the far end, and a great well in the middle through which you travel on an escalator down to the concert hall (Hall One: there's also a Hall Two rehearsal space) past a gallery floor on a semi-basement balcony or mezzanine. Ceiling heights are everywhere generous. Off the ground floor is an entrance to the offices of musical organisations like the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and another to the Guardian offices which occupy the lion's share of the building. The Guardian has another entrance on the corner as you approach from King's Cross: more escalators, this time going up. As you stand in the ground floor atrium you can look up through the glass walls of the newspaper's offices to see signs like "arts and culture" and "interview room two" and "society".
Like a lot of modern buildings it's a pleasant contrast to the penny-pinching, cramped and often surprisingly dark developments of past decades, especially the 60s and 70s. Compare the National Theatre, whose public areas get much more crowded more quickly and which has to deploy plush carpets to fight the oppressive quality of the bare concrete walls. Or the Barbican, which is also in a basement and more spacious than the National but much gloomier than King's Place. Perhaps it's the plain white walls and pale wood; perhaps we're just better at lighting these large spaces. (Whichever it is the environmental implications are probably horrendous.)
As for the music... I'm ashamed to say I hadn't realised Haydn wrote any operas. Perhaps they're rarely done; several are lost with only isolated arias surviving. L'infidelta deluso was his fifth, but the earliest to survive in completed form. The arias we heard were spectacular, tuneful and charming by turns.
Of the symphonies I remember little of the first except its generally plangent tone. The last was introduced by the conductor, who said he hoped there were at least some people in the audience who didn't know how this symphony ended, and explained it was a kind of coded message to Prince Esterhazy that his musicians, who had been away from home in Eisenstadt at the prince's new palace at Esterhaza throughout the summer of 1772, wanted to go home now please. Since I had no idea how it ended this merely reinforced the impression I often have at classical concerts that everyone else there is far more familiar with what we're about to hear than I am, can hum the music backwards and knows exactly when to applaud.
(Look away now if you don't want the ending spoilt.)
In fact the symphony bowls along merrily for three movements. Then, during the fourth, the musicians leave the stage one by one until only the leader and the principal second violin are left. It's very effective.
There seem to be lots of non-musical hooks like this in Haydn's music, or what I know of it: jokes, gimmicks, back stories. He seems to have been a rather engaging as well as remarkably hard-working fellow. His stuff is tuneful, long on musical variety etc etc. So why don't I know it better? Why do I dismiss him as a rather boring composer who wrote too much and whose music all sounds the same? You could say the same about Handel, and I adore Handel. Perhaps the problem is that, unlike the earlier Handel, he was oveshadowed by the romantic composers who came after him and who found a musical language (helped by the development of larger ensembles and more advanced instruments, perhaps?) to express heightened emotion that Haydn couldn't quite manage, trapped as he still was in the polite conventions of 18th century music.
Either way I should find out more. Memo to self: listen to more Haydn. Read a biography.
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