Musical Opinion back issues from May 2007:
Obituary: Edgar Evans
May 01, 2007; ... Robert Little pays tribute to the Welsh opera singer whose career spanned the re-birth and development of opera at Covent Garden after the Second World War and taught into his nineties. Timothy Edgar Evans' life story would make an acceptable plot for an opera in its own right. He was ...
From the Editor's Desk
May 01, 2007; ... Sadly we were unable to deliver our Proms preview this time as our deadline arrived before the press unveiling of the programme. We will however carry extensive coverage of some of the concerts in a later issue. For readers unable to wait you can buy the The Proms Guide 2007 via ...
Highnotes
May 01, 2007; ... General News The Parkhouse Award has been withheld for the first time in its 15year history. The Finals Concert was held at Wigmore Hall on 24 March. The four finalist ensembles were the Morgenstern Trio, Leibniz Trio, Rautio Piano Trio and the cello/piano duo Giovanni Gnocchi and ...
Ailish Tynan talks to Fiona Baile
May 01, 2007; ... Since Ailish Tynan won the Rosenblatt Recital Prize at Cardiff Singer of the Year in 2003 her feet have hardly touched die ground. Having been in tile Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, she then became a BBC New Generation Artist. On the morning I was due to interview ...
Restoring Purcell's favourite Ode
May 01, 2007; ... Musicologist Dr Rebecca Herissone of the University of Manchester recounts her researches to clear up a 24 1 -year-old muddle and restore one of Purcell's best-loved works Come ye Sons of Arts was written to celebrate the birthday of Queen Mary on 30 April 1694 at the Royal Court in ...
Death of Brahms
May 01, 2007; ... The great German composer died in 1897 after a long and prolific career This obituary was carried in our May 1897 edition. Brahms, perhaps the last survivor of the great composers of the 'classical' school of the nineteenth century, and for many years the foremost musician in Germany, ...
NICOLE CABELL
May 01, 2007; ... Thank heavens my mother was home ... Winner of the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition in 2005, Nicole Cabell nearly didn't make it. As a child her ambition was to become a serious writer. During her early teens she and a friend used to mess around at home pretending to be opera ...
Britten's Death in Venice
May 01, 2007; ... A personal consideration Anew production of Britten's Death in Venice by English National Opera opens at the Coliseum on 24 May, with Ian Bostridge as Gustav von Aschenbach. Robert Matthew- Walker suggests that the composer may have portrayed a hidden meaning in the ...
MP3, IPod, Digital, Downloads: Podcasts and Bluetooth
May 01, 2007; ... Where is classical music in all this? Judith Monk investigates new listening technologies What would Mozart or Beethoven have made of the technological revolution? Would they have embraced it, rewriting vast swathes of their music to suit it or would they have said: "Just make ...
Summer Music and Drama at Uppingham
May 01, 2007; ... Uppingham Summer School, based at and using the superb music and drama facilities of the prestigious Uppingham School in Rudand, is adding a fantastic new modern music course this summer to its existing range of music and drama summer courses. Total Music Powerhouse (16-20 July) is aimed at 12 ...
ROMAIN DESCHARMES
May 01, 2007; ... Christie Morgan caught up with the busy 2006 AXA Winner in Paris Romain Descharmes has a lot to be content with as 2007 gets underway. Since winning die AXA International Piano Competition in Dublin in May 2006 it's been pretty much non-stop for this charismatic young French ...
LIBOR NOVACEK
May 01, 2007; ... Talks to Christie Morgan There seems to be an unalloyed enthusiasm for the possibilities of die future associated with the AXA International Piano Competition and Libor Novacek proved no exception when I spoke to him as he looked ahead to die challenges of 2007. His Wigmore Hall ...
MARCO FATICHENTI
May 01, 2007; ... The exuberant young Italian pianist has been chatting to Christie Morgan "Amazing ... amazing ... incredible!" is all /Xpianist Marco Fatichenti had to say about his Birmingham Symphony Hall debut in December 2006. As the culmination of a busy year which saw him participating in the AXA ...
LUCERNE: Switzerland's City of Music Festivals
May 01, 2007; ... Judith Monk attended the Piano Festival Attending the Lucerne Piano Festival in late November of last year was undoubtedly one of the highlights of my year. The nature of magazine publishing leaves little time between issues for pleasure so I was restricted to only staying a couple of ...
ERIC HIMY
May 01, 2007; ... Judith Monk found the American Pianist deep in the Kent countryside On stage, I will take a chance.There has to be an element of daring in great music making. These younger ones, they are too cautious. They take the music out of their pockets instead of their hearts." Artur ...
ENO's Agrippina
May 01, 2007; ... The holy triumvirate of Handel, David McVicker and Sarah Connelly came down to earth again so that we might worship at their shrine in the Coliseum on 5 February. The three last came together for Guilio Cesare at Glyndebourne in 2004. This time, no less successful, was another Latin tale, also ...
L'Orfeo at the Banqueting House
May 01, 2007; ... Celebrations of the 400th Anniversary of Monteverdi's landmark opera L'Orfeo were launched in fine style on 7 February when Lina Lalandi, the legendary Founder of the English Bach Festival, revived her revelatory staging in the Palace of Westminster's Banqueting House. This magnificent setting, ...
Dicapo Opera's 2007 Season in New York
May 01, 2007; ... Everyone outside New York, even peripherally interested in music, knows about the Metropolitan Opera, although inside New York the term 'the Metropolitan' is more likely to refer to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, while 'the Met' is pretty much reserved for the opera company and its opera house ....
The Royal Opera's Madama Butterfly
May 01, 2007; ... This co-production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly with Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu and the Royal Opera, which I saw on 14 February, was having its third revival. Returning to the role of Cio-Cio-San was ChineseCanadian soprano Liping Zhang, who first played the role in Raymond Gubbay's ...
Jacques Fromental Halévy's La Juive in Paris
May 01, 2007; ... Jacques Fromental Halévy's La Juive which I saw at Paris Opéra, Bastille on 20 February, is one of the grandest of French Grand Operas. It was composed in 1835 when London was the world's financial and colonial centre whilst Paris was the cultural capital. Culture meant Grand Opera which ...
Madam Butterfly at the Royal Albert Hall
May 01, 2007; ... Raymond Gubbay's visually stunning Madam Butterfly delivered 'in the round' at the Royal Albert Hall was a splendid spectacle. The matinee on 24 February found the Hall packed to the rafters and Gubbay's website indicates that more than 300,000 people have so far seen this production, directed ...
ENO revives La Bohème
May 01, 2007; ... In a production dating from 1993, sung in English to a translation by Jeremy Sams, English National Opera revived Puccini's La Bohhne to a not entirely full Coliseum when I saw it on 22 February. Steven Pimlott, who originally directed this production, died in mid-February, so the performance ...
Orlando at Covent Garden
May 01, 2007; ... It's surprising that it has taken a foil four years for Orlando to return to Covent Garden, which it did on 26 February. In 2003 it was nominated for an Olivier Award, which many felt it should have won. The original Director, Francisco Negrin, has returned along with Associate Director Ana ...
ENO revives The Gondoliers
May 01, 2007; ... On 2 March Martin Duncan's December 2006 production of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Gondoliers had die first of what promises to be a legion of revivals at the Coliseum. Indeed, English National Opera's singers obviously relish the neat vocal sidestep from the traditional world of opera into the ...
Iolanta and Gianni Schicchi at the RAM
May 01, 2007; ... Tchaikovsky's lolanta and Puccini's Gianni Schicchi offered a well paired double bill providing roles for some two dozen students of Royal Academy Opera in the Jack Lyons Theatre on 5 March, plus a further ten to fill the principal roles in the alternate cast on 7 March. The only link between ...
The Tempest at the Royal Opera House
May 01, 2007; ... The Royal Opera revived Thomas Ades' The Tempest under the composer's baton on 12 March, following its successful 2004 Premiere, with many of the original cast members returning to the roles they created. The work is, of course, based upon Shakespeare's play, although very litde, if any, of the ...
RNCM Opera's Eugene Onegin
May 01, 2007; ... For the last night of their Spring run, die Royal Northern College of Music put on a bold production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at the College's Bruntwood Theatre on 29 March. With a host of impressive performances, this satisfied in most areas. I particularly liked the absence of ...
L'heure Espagnole & Gianni Schicchi at the Royal Opera House
May 01, 2007; ... On paper, the double-bill of Ravel's L'heure Espagnole and Puccini's Gianni Schicchi looked particularly attractive, an attraction which was compounded by uniformly excellent performances and staging of both works. It was sensible to begin with die Ravel, which is indeed a fine score, yet which ...
Satyagraha at the Coliseum
May 01, 2007; ... Written in 1980 and premiered diat year in Rotterdam, Philip Glass' Satyagraha finally reached Britain on 5 April at the Coliseum. Quite why it has taken so long is uncertain as its precursor, Einstein on the Beach, took only two years to get to Sadler's Wells and its successor Akhnaten only ...
Pegasus stage Delius' Koanga at Sadler's Wells
May 01, 2007; ... At die time of marking the 200th Anniversary of the outlawing of slavery in the United Kingdom, it was doubly appropriate that the Pegasus Opera Company should mount a new production of Delius' opera Koanga at Sadler's Wells Theatre, where I saw the second of three stagings, on 13 ...
Clive Barnes on the NYCO's new Director and reviews their Winter productions
May 01, 2007; ... The big news this Spring at New York City Opera was not any new production but the appointment of a new Director. It had been known for some time that Paul Kellogg, the General and Artistic Director, was retiring at the end of this present Season: what was not known was who was going to be his ...
The Pirates of Penzance
May 01, 2007; ... In a Volksoper mode, New York City Opera has always held its brief to occasionally embrace rather lighter operatic fare than customarily encountered at die Met. As with the English National Opera this has resulted in a long-standing affair with Gilbert & Sullivan. At once let me betray my ...
Puccini's Madama Butterfly
May 01, 2007; ... City Opera on the afternoon of 1 1 March unveiled, for the first time this Season, its venerable, but still remarkable, staging of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. It was also Butterfly that opened Gelb's Met régime last September in that spectacularly spare co-production with the English National ...
Rossini's La Donna del Lago
May 01, 2007; ... One of City Opera's virtues is its willingness to explore operatic by-ways often otherwise unknown except from the guidebooks, as it were, of the seemingly almost limitless repertory of the CD Catalogue. Rather to my astonishment I found that I had a very serviceable 1983 recording of Rossini's ...
Handel's Flavio
May 01, 2007; ... Not long ago in New York at least one Handel opera in a week would have been a happy treat but two an unprecedented bounty! But two it was when New York City Opera staged Flavio on 4 April, to be followed just 48 hours later by Giulio Cesare at the Met, to be reviewed later. Flavio was ...
Verdi's La traviata
May 01, 2007; ... A great death scene is not the only diing you need as Violetta in Verdi's wondrously touching La traviata. But it never hurt. Very properly it provided one of the highlights of the young French soprano Anne Sophie Duprels' debut with New York City Opera on 1 1 April, when Verdi's heart-breaker, ...
Songs from the Vienna Tradition
May 01, 2007; ... Songs from the Vienna Tradition Ralph Kohn: Baritone Graham Johnson: Piano Raphael Records RAPHCD003 62' 14'' This is the First Volume of what promises to be a fascinating collection of songs which drew their inspiration from the unique character of the ...
Live at Restoration House
May 01, 2007; ... Live at Restoration House Jill Crossland: Fortepiano Divine Art DDD 25036 57'40'' Jill Crossland proves herself a keyboard player of conspicuous quality. She is playing a fortepiano by Jirikowsky built in 1 824. It is almost a pianoforte but not quite. On this ...
Silhouettes
May 01, 2007; ... Silhouettes Warren Mailley-Smith: Piano Quartz QTZ 2033 57' 25'' Warren Mailley-Smrth's first CD is dedicated to the many facets of love, the early pieces plucked from the virtuoso's best loved favourites, played with immaculate technique and consummate musicianship while ...
The Human Nature of the Singing Voice: Exploring a Holistic Basis for Sound Teaching and Learning
May 01, 2007; ... The Human Nature of the Singing Voice: Exploring a Holistic Basis for Sound Teaching and Learning By Peter T Harrison Dunedin Academic Press ISBN: 1 903765 54 4 £16.95 Perer Harrison, a trained singer and teacher, examines the intricacies of singing and for some the need to sing in this ...
Pirouettes and Passions Growing up Behind the Curtain
May 01, 2007; ... Pirouettes and Passions Growing up Behind the Curtain By Mia Nadasi Xlibris Corporation ISBN: Paperback 978-1-4257-3967-6 £14 ISBN: Hardcover 1-4257-3968-7 £23 Mia Nadasi was born in Hungary in 1941, a child of the Second World War, yet despite the restrictions and privation which many ...
American Ballet Theatre at Sadler's Wells
May 01, 2007; ... American Ballet Theatre * Dido and Aeneas American Ballet Theatre at Sadler's Wells I saw American Ballet Theatre on 14, 15, and 16 February at Sadler's Wells: a very welcome return to London after nearly seventeen years, with their programmes of one-acters and pas de deux which ...
Sasha Waltz's Dido and Aeneas at Sadler's Wells
May 01, 2007; ... Sasha Waltz's Dido and Aeneas at Sadler's Wells Occasionally a performance is so good that it makes up for the other, mediocre evenings. However, the Dido and Aeneas which I saw at Sadler's Wells on 14 March was so dire that nothing could make up for its awfulness. Sasha Waltz, her real ...
Welsh Roundup
May 01, 2007; ... Rian Evans on two new works by Wales' leading composer and David Gedge's retirement from Brecon Two World Premieres in the space of three weeks suggest that Alun Hoddinott is hardly letting up on his ever-prolific output. In the case of these new pieces, die contrast in settings could ...
Midlands Roundup
May 01, 2007; ... Very much the composer of the moment, Tansy Davies had two important Premieres in Birmingham late in the Winter. Birmingham Contemporary Music Group's imaginative Sound Investment scheme enabled supporters to buy a share in her Falling Angel, which received its first performance at the CBSO ...
Charles Owen at the Wigmore
May 01, 2007; ... Talent, like spring is flowering across our concert halls. . . The very large audience, which attended Charles Owen's piano recital at the Wigmore Hall on 3 February, was treated to an exceptionally interesting and well-planned programme, which had as an underlying theme the subject of ...
Evelina Puzaite at the Wigmore
May 01, 2007; ... Evelina Puzaite, the Lithuanian pianist and winner of many prizes, began innocently enough on 6 February with a light, deft account of Mozart's Sonata K576. It was exactly to scale, with no undue emphasis on the Alleg, ro's contrapuntal learning. ^The Adagio was finely shaded and the concluding ...
Young Artists' Platform at the Wigmore
May 01, 2007; ... The Young Artists' Platform, in a recital given as part of the Monday Series at Wigmore Hall on 5 February, brought three outstanding Prize-winners together in a programme very much of two halves, which began with the French-born pianist Amandine Savary, whose distinctive keyboard manner at once ...
Fusion in the Bolivar Hall
May 01, 2007; ... Fusion was an unusual and imaginative recital for Cello and Piano Duo linked to the simultaneous projection of film footage echoing the mood of the music. It took place at the small Bolivar Hall in the Venezuelan Embassy on 8 February and the performers were the cellist Lesley Shrigley Jones and ...
BBCSO at the Barbican
May 01, 2007; ... A new BBC commission from Simon Bainbridge was a highlight of the concert by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under David Robertson at the Barbican on 9 February. This ; was Diptych, the two parts of which, so the composer told us in his Programme Note, can be performed either together or, as on this ...
The English Concert at the Wigmore
May 01, 2007; ... Symphonies Nos 6, 7 and 8, tided Le Matin, Le Midi and Le Soir, were Haydn's first commissions when in 1761 he was appointed Vice-Kapellmeister to Prince Esterhazy. Indeed, they may have been prompted by the Prince himself. All three were performed with much elegance and distinction by The ...
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at the Barbican
May 01, 2007; ... The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra was a welcome visitors to the Barbican on 10 February under their Director Mariss ansons, in a programmade up of two Symphonies, by "Schubert and Bruckner. The Schubert, a product of r his teenaged years, was a favourite of Sir Thomas Beecham, whose accounts and ...
Jack Liebeck at the Wigmore
May 01, 2007; ... Violinist Jack Liebeck and pianist Katya Apekisheva played to a virtually full Wigmore Hall on 11 February. Their superbly co-ordinated part- X nership became immediately appar ent in the Allegro of Mozart's B flat major Sonata K 454, where the exchanges between the two instruments were timed ...
BBCPO at the Bridgewater Hall
May 01, 2007; ... Before the airwaves saturated BBC's listeners with Tchaikovsky, I caught up with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra at the Bridgewater Hall on 10 February for the first of their current Tchaikovsky Experience concerts, which linked him with Stravinsky. Gianandrea Noseda chose Stravinsky's ...
John Tomlinson at St John's
May 01, 2007; ... Avery large audience turned out on 13 . February, a wet and windy night in London, to hear Sir John Tomlinson's performance of Schubert's Der Winterreise at St John's, Smith Square, partnered by David Owen Norris. This singer's voice has been a model throughout the musical world in every ...
Ophélie Gaillard at the Wigmore
May 01, 2007; ... The Franco-Swiss cellist Ophelie Gaillard held the Wigmore Hall audience rapt on 13 February with her programme devoted exclusively to Bach's Suites for Unaccompanied Cello. A champion of the solo cello repertoire, she revealed the depth and breadth of the composer's invention in her searching ...
Ismo Eskelinen on the South Bank
May 01, 2007; ... Latest in the long ine of outstanding (guitarists to be introduced to London by the Latin-American and Caribbean Cultural Society's , Juan Monroy is Ismo EskelI men, who appeared at the Purcell Room on 16 February. Eskelinen is a native of Finland, not a country greatly associated with the ...
Daniela Lehner at the Wigmore
May 01, 2007; ... In the current Kirckman Concert Society's series of presentations of outstanding young musicians at the Wigmore Hall few performers could match the consistent excellence of the mezzo-soprano Daniela Lehner, whose programme on 12 February proved to be a notable experience. She began with three ...
Peter Katin's all-Chopin recital at the Wigmore
May 01, 2007; ... Avery large audience . attended Peter Katin's all-Chopin recital at e Wigmore Hall on 18 February and they were rewarded with playing of the highest calibre. This sterling artist has lost none of the consummate technique and poetry which have attended his playing for half a century and more, ...
Nicole Cabell at St John's
May 01, 2007; ... Such being the appeal of the Rosenblatt Recital Series at St John's, Smith Square, and the attractions of the 2005 BBC Singer of the World winner, the lyric soprano Nicole Cabell, that her recital on 21 February was given before a virtually sold-out audience. She presented a remarkable ...
Ensemble Na Mara at the Wigmore
May 01, 2007; ... The programme by the unusually named Ensemble Na Mara at Wigmore Hall on 16 February, given under the auspices of the Kirckman Concert Society, proved to be a particularly interesting one. It began with two String Trios by Sibelius. These are very early works and the first, a Suite in A major ...
Mayuko Katsumura at St John's
May 01, 2007; ... Last April, the Tokyo-born violinist Mayuko Katsumura gave a very good account of Beethoven's Violin Concerto at St John's, Smith Square, which I was pleased to report favourably in these pages. On 25 February at the Wigmore Hall she presented a challenging programme of music for Violin and ...
Alasdair Beatson & Iain Farrington in Bishopsgate
May 01, 2007; ... The presentation by Sounds Underground Concerts at the Bishopsgate Institute in London on 27 February proved to be a remarkable piano duet recital by Alasdair Beatson and Iain Farrington. They began with two new works receiving their World Premieres. The first, Dance Craze by Iain Farrington, is ...
Chaplin Operas at The Coronet
May 01, 2007; ... Nineteen years ago, Benedict Mason wrote rhree scores suggested by diree of Charlie Chaplin's silent films, to be performed whilst the films were being shown. Mason's music takes the form of brief one-act operas, and on 28 February at The Coronet, a South-East London one-time cinema at the ...
Charities Philharmonia at St John's
May 01, 2007; ... The inaugural concert by the Charities Philharmonia on 3 November last year was in some ways an impressive occasion, as readers may recall from my notice of the event, the programme ending with Hoist's The Planets. The Orchestra's second concert on 3 March, which also took place at St John's, ...