Month: September 2024

Wellington City Orchestra’s mix of enchantment and exoticism at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington City Orchestra presents:
MOZART – Overture “Cosi fan tutte” K.588
MOZART – Concerto for Flute and Harp in C Major K.299
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV – Symphony No. 3 in C Major Op.32

Karen Batten (flute)
Michelle Velvin (harp)

Wellington City Orchestra
Andrew Atkins (conductor)

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington
Sunday, 22nd September. 2024

To the title of this review I was tempted to add the word “enterprising”, in referring to the inclusion in Wellington City Orchestra’s programme of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s little-known and until recently rarely locally-performed Third Symphony (“You mean there are two others?” someone quipped to me at the concert during the interval!). I was therefore amazed when a search of on-line recording catalogues revealed no less than five recordings featuring the work, and in most cases as part of a set of all three symphonies – until recently only “Antar”, the Second Symphony, had any kind of recorded history. So, while not exactly a neglected and forgotten work per se, the Third Symphony had been something of a rarity in Aotearoa’s concert halls up to the present, and certainly deserved its airing on this occasion, thanks to the advocacy of conductor Andrew Atkins.

The concert’s other two works needed no such special pleading, though of Mozart’s instrumental concertos perhaps K.299, the Flute and Harp Concerto has a special place because of its attractive instrumental combination. It obviously needs a harp, an instrument less prolific than others in the composer’s “concerti canon”, but somehow its “specialness” seems an extra drawcard, adding to the beauty of the sounds generated by both the instrumental combination and the composer’s music.

As for the concert’s opening item, another work by Mozart, the Overture to “Cosi fan tutte” perhaps is the least “known” in concert-hall performance of the composer’s “big four” operatic overtures (it was the one of the four that didn’t make the “cut” in a recent Classic FM list of “Ten greatest Opera Overtures”) though it’s still a work of immense distinction, and one that has its own challenges. I liked conductor Andrew Atkins’ overall projection of the music, the introductory fanfare chords snappy and alert and the flowing oboe solo characterfully shaped (both gestures are repeated), before the whole orchestra stated the opera’s “signature phrase” emphatically sung by the male principals at a later stage in the opera – “Co-si-fan-tu-tte!” – and the mischievous allegro theme skips in, alternating with emphatic syncopated chordings and repeated perky phrases from the various solo woodwinds, which continue throughout the overture until the return of the “signature phrase” and a coda whose ending signals the “opera proper” to begin. While keeping the trajectories alive and bubbling, Atkins still gave the strings plenty of space in which to articulate their phrases with those tricky, syncopated opening entries, something that was less troublesome for the wind-players, whose chattering solos invariably began ON the beat!  It all set the ambiences tingling for the delightful Flute and Harp concerto to follow.

A bright, freshly-voiced opening paved the way for the soloists’ unison entry, scintillations of colour and energy whose interplay gave as much active stimulation as more passive enjoyment, thanks to both the composer’s inexhaustible invention and his soloists’ spontaneous-sounding relishing of so many details, whether in individual exchange, or in tandem with the orchestra – the sense of delight at times over-rode my duties as a reviewer, so that I had to often break the spell and remember to write a comment regarding this and that felicity! I particularly enjoyed the first-movement cadenza which began slowly an almost suggestively and teasingly wrought between the players – Karen Batten’s flute was well-nigh vocal at times with her turns of phrase, and Michelle Velvin’s harp sparkled and glistened in response, her concluding flourish before the orchestra re-entered a wonderful irruption of tongue-in-cheek temperament!

Conductor Atkins got a most charmingly poised and gracious opening tutti from the players at the slow movement’s beginning, to which the soloists brought episode after episode of enchantment, after which the finale danced in, the sprightly opening getting even livelier as the figurations took on even greater excitement! The harp took the lead, showing the flute the way, with both soloists then relishing Mozart’s unfailingly ear-catching invention in their exchanges. A lovely “where have we got to?” shared cadenza concluded with another spectacular harp flourish and the final tutti an “all-in” affair with the soloists at the forefront of the “payoff” chords – splendid! I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it so much!

An interval allowed time and space for the resplendent harp to be spirited over to one side, and for musicians and audience alike to prepare for the second half, and the eagerly-anticipated Rimsky-Korsakov Symphony. The work got off to an atmospheric start with horns calling across the orchestra soundscape to firstly winds and then strings, everything lovely and rhapsodic, with Atkins then encouraging plenty of momentum and muscle for a well-managed accelerando into the allegro  – this was classic “Russian festival” stuff with the reprise of the big, prancing tune especially invigorating. Some beautiful wind-playing then introduced a second subject, begun by the clarinet and forwarded by the oboe and strings, then a solo violin and flute, all poignantly sounded before Atkins danced everybody into the  development section, with firstly the strings and then the winds having a lot of fun with all kind of variants of both of the themes we’d so far heard. The brass and timpani then  called things together resplendently for a massive return of the allegro’s main tune – stirring stuff, here! – after which the winds, led by the clarinet, brought back (for our pleasure) the lovely second subject, commented on by various other winds and the solo violin. And then, Instead of the “great peroration” method of finishing a movement, conductor and players wound it all down quietly and poetically, concluding with gentle, po-faced pizzicato-and-wind notes.

Something of a challenge was posed by the composer’s 5/4 rhythms in the quixotic scherzo (marked “vivo”) which followed – unlike the stately step-wise processional of Tchaikovsky’s Allegro con grazia 5/4 movement in his “Pathetique” Symphony, these rhythms conjured up a positively mercurial momentum, whose trajectories I thought the players did a fantastic job of maintaining. I did wonder while listening whether it was out of mischievous intent towards or something akin to dislike of  orchestral players that led Rimsky-Korsakov to set them such a task, but on this occasion, to the WCO’s credit (and their conductor’s), the players kept those handfuls of semiquavers simmering for our delight – and at least the Trio’s contrastingly languorous melody gave all and sundry a bit of a rhythmic breather!

I thought the Andante  movement lovely, with horns and winds creating a gorgeous introduction here, from which the strings elaborated the melody, repeating its opening in different keys (a “soaring aloft” set of phrases made a particularly fetching impression) – the theme continued to draw in responses from all sides, alternating more excitable moments with the previous “soaring” mode – though largely monothematic, the mood had an enchantment of its own which held one’s interest to the point where the pulse quickened more purposefully and drove the sounds into a celebratory finale. Though the opening martial melody was perhaps over-worked, it all certainly demonstrated the composer’s skill as an orchestrator, and managed to weave in fragments of counter-themes by way of contrast, with playing sufficiently committed and colourful from all sections of the band keeping us mightily entertained right to the end. In all, I felt it was definitely worth a listen, and may well even be tempted into further symphonic investigations, having been reminded earlier that “there are two others!” So, definite kudos to Andrew Atkins, his soloists and supporting players for an absorbing and rewarding afternoon’s listening!

Poetry and drama at the keyboard from pianist Quang Hong Luu

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Quang Hong Luu

St.Andrew’s 2024 Lunchtime Concert Series presents:

QUANG HONG LUU (piano)
– a programme of 19th Century Romantic Piano Music

FRANZ LISZT – “Funérailles” from Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses S.173
ROBERT SCHUMANN – Kinderscenen (Scenes from Childhood) Op.15
JOHANNES BRAHMS – Piano Sonata No. 3 in F Minor Op.5

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington
Thursday, 19th September, 2024

Vietnamese-born Quang Hong Luu began his early music studies in 1997 at the Vietnam National Academy of music in Ha Noi before completing a Bachelor of Music with Professor Kyunghee Lee at the Australian Academy of Music and Performing Arts, and going on to study his Masters degree at Montreal University in Canada with the great Đặng Thái Sơn, winner of the 1980 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw.  He’s now in Wellington at Te Kōkī School of Music at Victoria University, pursuing his Doctorate of Music under the guidance of Dr. Jian Liu.

I unfortunately missed an earlier recital given by Quang at St. Andrew’s in June this year, at which he played the music of Debussy and Liszt, the latter a composer whose work Annees de Pelerinage (“Years of Pilgrimage”)  is the research topic of Quang’s doctoral thesis. On that occasion he played the first of the work’s three “years” – the Premiere Annee: Suisse (“First Year: Switzerland”). This time round we were given a single-movement work of Liszt’s, Funérailles, taken from a different set of pieces, the Harmonies Poétiques et Religeuses. Quang’s recital was in fact a kind of “19thCentury Romantics” collection, which included works by Schumann and Brahms, all of which were connected with one another by subject, circumstance and personality.

In this programme’s case, however, the “chronology” of the individual pieces had to give way to temperament and circumstance.  Beginning the recital with the earliest of the three works, Robert Schumann’s enchanting Kinderscenen, though an attractive prospect in itself, would have pitted two “heavyweight” pieces in a cheek-by-jowl confrontation, works moreover whose respective creators were fated, it seemed, to be at odds with each other right from the beginning of their short-lived association! Schumann’s work seemed, therefore, the perfect “rainbow bridge” by which both Quang Hong Luu and his audience could traverse the yawning gap between the worlds of Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms.

So, the recital began with Liszt’s Funeráilles (“Funeral”) – a piece dated October 1849, though it related as much to the events of 1848 in Hungary, an uprising against Hapsburg rule that failed and resulted in the deaths or banishment of three of Liszt’s friends involved in the proceedings (one of these being the former Hungarian Prime Minister, Count Lajos Batthyány, executed in October 1849). No blacker nor more fraught and dread-laden sounds could have been conceived at the outset as Quang’s remorselessly-delivered opening bell-tones intensified the music’s menacing tread and gradually tightened its grip in an upward vortex of attenuated alarm. The sombre funeral-march that followed eventually emerged in the pianist’s hands as a tender, upwardly beseeching lagrimoso, before reaching a brief climax which prompted a passage as distinctive as that of Liszt’s great contemporary, Frederic Chopin in his famous Op.53 A-flat Polonaise’s depiction of “the thunderous hooves of the Polish Cavalry”, here as powerful, heroic and cataclysmic in itself up to its fortissimo peak.

Quang Hong Luu

A furious flourish led to an angry restatement of part of the funeral march, Quang allowing a broken, haunted rendition of parts of the lagrimoso theme and a defiant restatement of the climax of the “thunderous hooves” section to at once “reawaken” and unify one’s sensibilities, a “wringing-out” of the emotions to devastating effect at the stark, muted end of the piece.

After such travails, how even more appropriate the insertion of Schumann’s “Kinderscenen” now seemed in the scheme of things! And its opening, with the perfectly suitable title Von fremden Ländern und Menschen (Of Foreign Lands and Peoples) seemed in itself to help reframe the experience of the Liszt work we had just heard to a kind of profound “imagining” – of course Schumann was at pains to emphasise that his pieces were impressions of an adult looing back on childhood, summed up at the end by the piece Der Dichter spricht (The Poet Speaks).

Quang’s playing was simple and unaffected at the outset, giving the brief hesitation of wonderment at each “rounding off” of the second subject its due without exaggeration. An eager and bright-eyed Curiose Geschichte (A curious story) tumbled into a vigorous Hasche-Mann (Catch me if you can), while the beautifully “echoed” phrasings of Bittendes Kind (Pleading child) found an almost Dickensian contrast in the following Glückes genug (happy enough). Quang maintained the pomp and ceremony of Wichtige Begebenheit (An Important Event) right through to the end, rather than observing a diminuendo leading towards the final chord, as some interpreters do, anticipating the onset of the contemplative (and justly-famous) Traumerei (Dreaming), its reprise here under Quang’s fingers especially tender.

A gentle awakening “at the Fireside” (Am Kamin) was followed by a roisterous Ritter vom Steckenpferd (Knight of the Hobbyhorse), whose exertions may have been too much of  a good thing, leading as they did to the world of wonderment and anxiety in itself that Fast zu Ernst (Almost too serious) so touchingly portrayed, and even went on to suggest the presence of  phantom-like shadows in the following Fürchtenmachen (Frightening). Quang allowed the first few measures of the following Kind im Einschlummern (Child falling asleep) to melt the E minor anxieties into a central major-key section of ravishing beauty, a magical transformation of time and consciousness becoming music. And magical, too, was the full-circle epilogue Der Dichter spricht (The poet speaks), the voice warm, dreamy, confiding, philosophical, at once confidential and candid, Quang sensitively evoking the composer’s voice recognising and paying retrospective homage to his own world.

Appropriately, the pianist left the platform for a moment, but was soon back with us, ready to once again “reimagine” with us the territory about to be explored via the last, and most epic of Johannes Brahms’s three sonatas for piano, the mighty Op. 5 in F Minor, a work amazingly wrought by a twenty year-old (surely among the most prodigious compositional feats of musical history!). Brahms took the work to Düsseldorf when first meeting Robert and Clara Schumann and presented it to the by-then-ailing Schumann, who nevertheless roused himself sufficiently to pen his famous “New Paths” article (his last) in his influential periodical “Neue Zeitschrift für Musik”, in which he heaped effusive praise on the embarrassed younger composer, writing of one who was “fated to give expression to the times in the highest and most ideal manner, who would achieve mastery, not step by step, but at once, springing like Minerva fully armed from the head of Jove. And now, here he is, a young fellow at whose cradle graces and heroes stood watch…..his name is Johannes Brahms….”

After briefly leaving the platform in the wake of the Schuman Quang Hong Luu came back in galvanised for action. His attack at the Sonata’s beginning had everything, strength, power, focus and vigour, the music flung towards us unapologetically, with both ends of the keyboard activated in the manner born, and with the opening flourish countered by a louring, grimly-voiced theme underpinned by reminiscences of Beethoven’s “Fate” motive from his C Minor Symphony, and later a grandly lyrical theme whose extended variant climbed gloriously up the keyboard and proclaimed its majesty, before Quang reiterated the challenge and plunged the music into as combatative a development as one could imagine, the four-note Beethoven theme insistently underpinning the reiteration of the work’s opening. It was as visceral an encounter between elements of the classical sonata as could be imagined, evoking the same kind of titanic forces as those of Beethoven’s in his “Hammerklavier” Sonata.

Having spent his energies battling the forces of fate in this first movement, Brahms then evoked a different world of poetry and recaptured sentiment in a second movement, Andante expressivo, which pianist Claudio Arrau once described as “the most beautiful love music after Tristan”. Quang’s playing was gorgeously poetic and gently-flowing, the second episode in particular here made absolutely enchanting, with beautiful timing of those Schumannesque bass notes that seemed to conversely “float” the music in celestial waters, eventually reaching a magnificent climax whose depth of tone and variety of colour seemed positively orchestral in its impact. It was no Quang Hong Luu

wonder that Brahms seemed at the piece’s end to have difficulty in relinquishing his hold on such a spellbinding mood.

Quang then tore into the Waltz-Scherzo movement with unbridled energies, more muscular and rapier-like in its cut-and-thrust than various heartier, more bucolic renditions I’ve heard. How beautiful and hymn-like, by contrast, was the Trio, still with an occasional Beethoven-motif presence, but stressing the song aspect over the dance for a few fleeting moments, even if the return of the scherzo’s main theme brought with it something more of a wild ride in Quang’s hands than a waltz-dance!

The Beethoven motif all but dominated the next movement, an Intermezzo with the title Rückblick (“Looking back”) something which obviously recalled the first movement’s Beethoven quote, though Quang’s voicing of it brought to my mind a reminiscence from another work, the slow movement of the “Tempest” Sonata, which Brahms would surely have known. And the frequent repetition of the opening ‘descending’ motif engendered something almost Faustian, its evocation of solitude and wandering from Part Two of Goethe’s work, a kind of “passage” towards a truly heroic final-movement scenario.

That’s what this last movement built up to from a series of brusque-sounding statements at its beginning, which Quang then contrasted with a beautifully-flowing-in-tempo major key sequence, before returning to the brusque opening, and ANOTHER beautifully contrasted rejoiner – this time, an even richer and nobler contrast, with characteristic Germanic woodland harmonic touches at the end – so nostalgic for all their fleeting quality. Quang then took up the composer’s invitation to pick up handfuls of the notes and run with them, whirling us through the excitement of, firstly an accelerando, and then a vertiginous coda which, after a few breathtaking moments solidly and heroically proclaimed the piece’s conclusion – what a work, and what a pianist!

 

A “Tosca” to be relished – Wellington Opera in full cry

Posted on by Peter Mechen
PUCCINI – Tosca  Act One:  Teddy Tahu Rhodes as Baron Scarpia                                                                                        Photo credit: Stephen A’Court.

Wellington Opera presents:
GIACOMO PUCCINI – Tosca (opera in three acts)
Libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa & Luigi Illica

Cast
Cesare Angelotti – Samson Setu (bass)
Sacristan – Wade Kernot (bass)
Mario Cavaradossi – Jared Holt (tenor)
Floria Tosca – Madeleine Pierard (soprano)
Baron Scarpia – Teddy Tahu Rhodes (baritone)
Spoletta – Manase Latu (tenor)
Sciarrone – Morgan-Andrew King (bass)
Jailor – Brent Allcock
Boy – Ivan Reid

Wellington Opera Chorus
Chorusmaster – Michael Vinten
Orchestra Wellington
Conductor – Brian Castles-Onion
Director – Jacqueline Coats
Set Design – Michael Zaragoza
Costume Design – Rebecca Bethan Jones
Lighting Design – Rowan McShane

St,James Theatre, Courtenay Place, Wellington

Wednesday, 11th September 2024
(also September 13th, 14th, 15th)

This was, I thought, a “Tosca” from Wellington Opera to be relished. Giacomo Puccini’s three-act melodrama, has since its appearance fronted up to and triumphed over certain critical attitudes struck towards it that were, to say the least, less-than-positive. Critics both contemporary and retrospective have castigated the work with phrases like “three hours of noise”, “disconcerting vulgarities” and with a “tiresome, silly and gullible” heroine – and Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich once replied to being asked about “Tosca” with the words “A great opera, but terrible music!”  The invective surely reached its peak more than thirty years after the composer’s death via musicologist Joseph Kerman’s 1956 publication “Opera as Drama”, in which Tosca is summarily dismissed by the author as “A shabby little shocker”!

However, singers, conductors, directors and the general opera-going public have regularly defied and confounded such judgements, with the work recently ranked as the fifth most-performed opera in the world by the global opera data-site Operabase. Even if popular opinion and response hasn’t always necessarily reflected critical opinion, Tosca has flourished with flying colours thanks to its plot’s readily melodramatic scenarios, its vividly-wrought characterisations of the three main protagonists, and the enduring emotional “tug” of its two great arias, “Vissi d’arte” for the soprano and “E lucevan le stelle” for the tenor.

Director of this production, Jacqueline Coats, described the work as essentially a love story with a tragic outcome, one determined by outward forces which ultimately over-ride the personal concerns and aspirations of the protagonists. And on a wider political level one of those forces exerts his power to maintain a status quo of tyranny while simultaneously seeking to manipulate the fate of the two lovers for his own ultimate gratification. It’s an interplay of situation that feels both Homeric and Shakespearean, not to mention more recent contemporary resonances.

The joy of Coats’ direction was, for me, its unswerving focus on the interplay of these ruinously conflicting circumstances, in which the conflicting strands of the drama were allowed their full-blooded resonances. Everything was amply voiced and energised by the focused commitment of the singers, conductor and orchestral forces, and (particularly in the first two acts) the powerful simplicity of the stage settings, beautifully and atmospherically placed and lit for maximum effect. Nothing was allowed to distract from the essential fatalism of the work’s unfolding, even if I was initially nonplussed by the mysterious corpse who appeared at the Third Act’s beginning, thinking it belonging perhaps to a prisoner who’d fallen from the tower of the Castel Sant’Angelo while unsuccessfully attempting to escape (my sharper-eyed companion whispered the name “Angelotti” in response to my inquiring sideways look!). I was also surprised by the unexpectedly onstage “shepherd-boy” singing his folksong (admittedly rather beautifully) before being led away by his companions, and by groups of what seemed like various prisoners either in transit or allowed the freedom of a few minutes of fresh air before being reconfined.

The production maintained the story’s “Roman” setting throughout, from Act One’s traditional church interior scenario through Act Two’s depiction of the iconic image of a wolf feeding the twins Romulus and Remus surmounting the scene. This image presided over a more twentieth-century “look” to the headquarters of Baron Scarpia, the Chief of Police, its walls alternating iron-grey and blood-red pillars with menacing intent. Costumes reinforced a more contemporary, if non-specific sense of time, with Floria Tosca’s suitably beautiful and florid, her lover, Mario Cavaradossi’s casual and workman-like, and Baron Scarpia’s austere and business-like, with the latter’s minions (Spoletta and Sciarroni) suitably institutional.

The opening church interior scene with its “ecclesiastical” lighting amply engendered a kind of timelessness, reinforced by the contrasts with a near-contemporary-art Madonna statue, and the modern dress of the congregation who came to enact the concluding Te Deum. Here, the interplay between voices, bells and intermittent cannon-fire made by turns a splendidly celebratory and disturbingly remorseless impression – at once a kind of reminiscence of and antithesis to the exuberant energies of the conclusion to the Second Act of the composer’s “La Boheme”. In this very different résumé, it was all brought off superbly!

Vocally and dramatically, the work got an appropriately atmospheric start with the wonderfully black-voiced Samson Setu as the recently-escaped prisoner Angelotti seeking concealment in the church, the orchestra properly conveying his “flight” with urgent, desperately-voiced impulses. The subsequent appearance of the Sacristan, Wade Kernot, provided much comic relief in complaining of having to run around after his charge, the painter, Cavaradossi (currently at work in the church) and keep his brushes clean and his paints in order – a lovely, amusingly “holier-than-thou” cameo portrayal.

As Mario Cavaradossi, Jared Holt “warmed” and filled out his voice as the evening progressed – his early “Recondita armonia” I found precise and accurate but a touch effortful, as he seemed in places throughout this first scene when duetting with Tosca. What a change, however, had come over his delivery by the time he reached his second-act “Vittoria! Vittoria!” outburst of defiance of Scarpia – he was like a man possessed, completely inhabiting his energized person – a terrific performance! And he then realised with equal force the spectrum’s opposite and despairing end with a heartfelt “E lucevan le stelle” in the third act, when facing his execution and the loss of Tosca. It all made his tender “Amaro sol per te m’era il morire” to his beautiful would-be rescuer all the more poignant.

Tosca : Act Two:   Teddy Tahu Rhodes (Scarpia) and Madeleine Pierard (Tosca) Photo Credit: Stephen A’Court

No greater contrast could be imagined than with the Baron Scarpia of Teddy Tahu Rhodes, a portrayal which sated all of his scenes with the character’s essential brutality. I could have imaged a suaver, more vocally charming (and perhaps, therefore, even more dangerous) Scarpia –  but his was a character obviously accustomed to getting what he wanted, and the unrelenting coruscating quality in the voice purely and simply gave tongue to that same quality In his character. Those wonderful soliloquies in both the First and Second Acts which revealed to us his remorseless drive and his insatiable desire for the thrill of sexual conquest made their mark with absolutely no doubt or misgiving, no skerrick of a qualm.

Against this rock, this seemingly immovable object, was cast the irresistible force of his adversary-cum-object-of-desire, Floria Tosca. I have to say that, in experiencing Madeleine Pierard’s astonishing portrayal, I was so taken up with the whole-heartedness of her characterisation I never once gave a thought of any other Tosca I’d seen or heard – from her very first entrance after her off-stage cries of “Mario! Mario!” when seeking her lover, Cavaradossi in the church, she gave to us as intense and all-encompassing a character as was her adversary-to-be, but in her case one filled with so much light-and-shade that one found oneself revelling in her sheer presence – her humour, her quixotic changes of mood, her passionate utterances, her tenderness and her moments of both desperation and resolve.

To pinpoint everything she did to bring the manifold aspects of the character to life would require an essay for which there would be no time or space here, and, certainly, in places produce a “words fail me” result. Suffice to say that for me it was an utterly memorable performance, one whose heart-melting “Visi d’arte” represented for a few precious moments a kind of entering into the apex of the dramatic soprano’s art. But also, it was an undertaking which in itself paid tribute to the quality of interaction between her and her two principal onstage partners. As much as did any of the individual performances discussed above, it was a give-and-take quality which helped make this “Tosca” such a special musical, theatrical and dramatic experience.

Tosca:  Act Three:  Madeleine Pierard (Tosca) and Jared Holt (Mario Cavaradossi)  –  Photo Credit : Stephen A’Court

I hadn’t encountered the well-rounded voice of the Sciarrone, Morgan-Andrew King, before, but I had of course, previously heard the Spoletto, tenor Manase Latu, in a completely different operatic world, that of Rossini’s “Le Comte Ory”, the juxtapositioning of the two roles in my head alone giving me a kind of refracted pleasure in having such a different experience from a voice this time round! I’ve already mentioned the “shepherd boy” and his lovely folk-song at the beginning of Act Three – a young man, Ivan Reid, whose beautiful tones could well take him places. The choruses played their impactful parts in the awe-inspiring “Te Deum” that closes the opera’s first Act, as well as mellifluously underpinning the first part of Cavaradossi’s fateful interview with Scarpia in Act Two.

Heroes of a similar “cut” were conductor Brian Castles-Onion and his players, Orchestra Wellington, supporting all the singers up to the hilt, and responsible for some equally stirring and heart-melting sequences throughout the evening – what springs to mind are, of course, the “Scarpia” moments, delivered by the brass with the utmost vehemence, and the contrasting episodes of tenderness from strings and winds – playing in my head at the moment is the clarinet theme which introduces Cavaradossi’s third-act “E lucevan le stelle”, for instance – and alternating with the ominously-cheerful early-morning strains of winds and bells heralding the new day, which begin the same third act. All was part of that overall impression of an embodiment of something special.

I dips me lid in gratitude to Jacqueline Coats – her sensitive overall direction resulted in a production which seemed to me to enable the work to speak its own innate character (which is increasingly rare in an operatic world bedevilled by, in the words of Michael Flanders of “At The Drop Of A Hat” fame, the impulse of “Anything to stop it being done straight!”). Her team of Michael Zaragoza (set design), Rebecca Bethan Jones (costume design) and Rowan McShane (lighting design) were all obviously on the same wavelength, with a result that, as I’ve indicated above, gave us what seemed like “the real thing”.

All the more reason to rail against the news, contained in a note in the programme, that Creative New Zealand has declined funding for Wellington Opera for 2025. It will be no surprise, of course, to the politically aware who read this, considering that the arts in general seem more-than-usually under siege via the present Coalition Government’s current strictures. Creative New Zealand will, of course have its priorities within the framework of its own limited resources – the problem is a much bigger picture which poses the question in (and towards) our society of “What’s important?” Let’s hope we can convince more of those who need convincing that among what constitutes the right answers to that question are the arts! – and Wellington Opera’s Tosca has just furnished palpable proof that such is very much the case!

“A feather on the Breath of God” transports us all… Baroque Voices’ 30-year anniversary concert September 2024

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Baroque Voices – From Hildegarde to JS Bach –
Sacred German Music for one to eight voices spanning seven centuries
Music by Hildegarde of Bingen, “The Tannhauser”, Wizlau von Rügen, Caspar Othmayer, Johannes Walther, Johannes Eccard, Heinrich Schütz, Johann Michael Bach, Johann Ludwig Bach, Johann Sebastien Bach, Pepe Becker

Baroque Voices: Pepe Becker (director), Kate Lineham, Jane McKinlay, Andrea Cochrane, Katherine Hodge, Toby Gee, Samuel Berkahn, Simon Christie, David Morriss
Additional BV singers: Jo Hodgson, Milla Dickens, Nigel Collins, Herbert Zielinski, Roger Wilson – Nota Bene Choir: Katie Chalmers, Tina Carter, Vicki Mabin, Lindsay Groves – The Bach Choir: Jonathan Lane

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Hill St., Wellington
Sunday, 1st September 2024

One had only to close one’s eyes at the beginning and one was back in an imagined, but definitely different time – the Middle Ages. Such was the power of evocation generated by singer Pepe Becker with her voice, the musical instrument she was playing while singing, and the actual words and music created nine hundred years before by the renowned composer Hildegarde of Bingen (1098-1179). The sound itself, too, had a transcendental, other-worldly quality, the interior of the newly refurbished Catholic Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Hill St providing a properly spacious ecclesiastical setting which “gave back” a feeling of a distant source being tapped and revitalised both regarding the performer and all who were present at those unique sounds’ inception.

This conjuration began a presentation by Wellington’s Baroque Voices directed by soprano Pepe Becker, which featured aspects of the previous thirty years’ activity by the group, and included a reappearance (where possible) of past members of the group to present a final item. The range of repertoire included pieces featuring from one to eight voices, and spanning seven centuries, reflecting a number of styles associated with different eras of composition.

A glance at the programme’s history of Baroque Voices’ activities detailed the range and scope of the group’s repertoire in some depth, bringing to mind a number of highlights people would readily remember by dint of the bold adventurousness, committed zeal and remarkable excellence, both technical and musical, of these undertakings. Everybody will have favourite memories of certain occasions, mine being of the Monteverdi projects, the delightful explorations of the Books of Madrigals over the years and the absolutely stunning 2010 (can it be so long ago?) performance of the Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 at St. Mary of the Angels Church whose sound’s burnished splendour still stays in my memory!

Whether one chose to close one’s eyes and experience the intrinsic exquisiteness of the sounds alone, or gaze about the visual splendours of the building to augment the music’s “time-and-place” experience it was a feast from the very first aforementioned moment of presentation, in this case Pepe Becker’s performance of Hildegarde’s O Euchari, complete with the singer’s own shruti box drone accompaniment, not, as one might at first think, a musical glorification of the Eucharist, the celebration of bread and wine becoming the body and blood of Jesus Christ during the Mass, but a tribute to a 3rd-Century missionary Eucharius who became the bishop of the city of Trier. The second of two single-voice pieces was a Spruchdichtung (song/poem) sonorously sung by bass Simon Christie, a moralistic piece emphasising freedom from sin and guilt with God’s help and grace. The contrast between the two solo items nicely encapsulated the intrinsic variety of mood, moralistic tone and spirituality throughout the remainder of the concert, as the presentation moved through a sequence which gradually increased the number of voices, and with one or two exceptions during the first half preserved a chronological composer order.

This had the effect of frequently enticing one’s ear with variation – it was, in fact, a beautifully worked-out programme in all respects, with even the instances of leap-frogging chronologies giving pleasure rather than confusion, as with the later Caspar Othmayer (1515-1553), his 2-part songs rightly taking their place with the other 2-part pieces, ahead of three- and four-part polyphonic hymns of Nikolaus Apel (1475-1537).

Inevitably there were pieces which especially charmed my ear, even though another person’s reaction could well single out different things for different reasons. For instance I particularly relished the somewhat “didactic” atmosphere created by the interval between the two voices (Pepe Becker and Jane McKinlay) in Wizlaw von Rügen’s “Ich warne dich” (I warn you), and also the following “Kyrie magne Deus potentie” (Lord, great God of power) from the two “vocal heavyweights” (Simon Christie and David Morriss). And a little later I found myself particularly drawn to, firstly a two-sectioned hymn (“A solis ortus”) whose first unison part featured five voices, and then a polyphonic reworking of the theme by Nikolaus Apel for three voices (Pepe Becker, Samuel Berkahn and David Morriss) the words beautifully describing something of the visible physical boundaries of creation, with Christ as ruler of all.

The leadup to the interval had something of an irresistible “rolling” quality as well, beginning with the beautiful four-voiced hymn “Nova veniens” describing the city of Jerusalem, from a melody collected by Nikolaus Apel in 1494, and the buoyantly irresistible five-voiced motet by Johannes Walther beseeching the protection of the Holy Ghost “Nu bitten wir”, which I found so invigorating! While it might have seemed strange to then flip-flop back to Hildegarde, Pepe Becker obviously wanted something a bit out of the ordinary for a “first-half closer”, which she was able to organise by pairing the famous Hildegarde solo-voiced “O ignis spiritus” (the sound-world similar to that for “O Euchari” which opened the concert) with a new composition-cum-arrangement by her drawing from the “spiritual fire” of the solo-voiced sequence, and “re-orchestrating” the piece for eight voices and hand-held rock percussion effects – all of which worked sensationally well! (Pepe’s idea was that the theme of “life, light and wonderment” of the original text could be augmented by extra voices and percussion to push the “blissful pleasure” of the text into more extreme realms “verging on pain”) – it all indubitably typefied the questing spirit of its instigator to what seemed to this listener as remarkably appropriate effect!

Baroque Voices 2024
Left to right: Jane McKinlay, Andrea Cochrane, Katherine Hodge, Pepe Becker (director), Toby Gee, Simon Christie, Kate Lineham, Samuel Berkahn, David Morriss

Interval gave us a time of shared discussion and delight before we were returned to what was for the presentation venturing into a new era, the Baroque, beginning with the beautiful motet by Johannes Eccard “Christ ist erstanden” (Christ is risen) for five voices (including soprano Kate Lineham and alto Andrea Cochrane, whose work for Baroque Voices  I’ve not mentioned until now, and whose contributions helped to enhance the work’s delight.) The two Schütz motets which followed gave us by turns beauty (“So fahr ich hin”)  and strength (the more declamatory “Herr, auf dich treue ich”), though I was particularly  “taken” by the six-voice work of the next composer, Johann Michael Bach (whom I’d never really heard of beforehand!), and whose more vigorously homophonic style produced an engaging and decorative “bubbly” effect in places in his motet “Sei Lieber Tag willkommen!”

Two more motets by Heinrich Schütz, both for seven voices, brought more singers into play, alto Katherine Hodge in both and counter-tenor Toby Gee in the second of the two (both had of course previously contributed at various stage of the concert) – in the case of the first motet with the well-known text “Ich Weiss, das mein Erlöser lebt” (I know that my Redeemer liveth), and an Advent text for the second, “Der Engel sprach zu den Hirten”, the first an urgently expressive statement of belief familiar, of course, to Messiah-buffs, using the contrasts between lower and higher voices to both lyrical and dynamic effect. No less celebratory was the second, with (again precursing “Messiah”) all those resonant descriptions of the newborn baby Jesus announced to the shepherds in the fields resoundingly bringing forth “Alleluiahs” at the piece’s end.

Appropriately, the great Johann Sebastien Bach’s music was part of the “closing ceremony” at the concert, being the last item but one, and certainly the most challenging to bring off – this was the eight-voiced double-choir motet “Komm Jesu, komm”, requiring all of the virtues on display throughout the afternoon rolled into one! I found the music intense and “exposed”, the one-to-a part giving each voice nowhere to hide, and making the journey by turns enchanting and tremulous, exhilarating and daunting, and playful and harrowing, all of which characteristics came and went in this incredible performance – there were beautiful, heart-warming and stirring moments, with just the occasional sense of strain, all defining the journey in both individual and collegial ways. The sense of pilgrimage was palpable, and the feeling of arrival at the journey’s conclusion treasurable. Bach had obviously conceived and crafted it as an experience for performers and listeners alike, and here, the achievement of those ends was tangible and well wrought.

Having completed its “Odyssey” the group deemed it time for a celebration, with past BV members still within coo-ee, and ready and able to revisit what director Pepe Becker described in the programme as “the memories of joyous times singing together”. Tributes were also paid to singing colleagues who have since died, and to whom the presentation’s final item, a motet by JS Bach’s uncle, Johann Ludwig Bach’s “Das ist meine Freude” was specifically dedicated. Both the declamatory opening and the swirling, melismatic responses were tossed backwards and forwards with terrific elan, before a “duelling banjos” contrapuntal exchange and a final declamation concluded the joyous work.

Little more need be added to the above, save for expressions of pleasure and gratitude towards Pepe Becker and Baroque Voices for this “coming together” of history with the present in such a richly-wrought and life-enhancing manner for us all to enjoy.