Tag: opera

Handel’s Xerxes from New Zealand Opera in brilliant period orchestral setting

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Handel: Xerxes, an opera in three acts, sung in the original Italian with English surtitles.

NBR New Zealand Opera with the Lautten Compagney conducted by Wolfgang Katschner, directed by Roger Hodgman

Xerxes: Tobias Cole; Romilda: Tiffany Speight; Arsamene: William Purefoy; Atalanta: Amy Wilkinson; Amastre: Kristen Darragh; Ariodate: Martin Snell; Elviro: Stephen Bennett; Chapman Tripp Opera Chorus (chorus master Michael Vinten)

St. James Theatre

16 March 2011 (season in Wellington: 15-16, 18-19 March)

It was very satisfying to see a fully-staged performance of Xerxes, unusually with two counter-tenors singing lead roles, rather than at least one being a woman, and to hear the arias at the original pitch.

A further bonus was to have an experienced and professional baroque orchestra accompany in the pit. There were some rumblings about using an imported orchestra when this was first announced, but it is unlikely that New Zealand has enough baroque players who could be available to play a professional season in both Auckland and Wellington. Certainly the decision to employ this orchestra (whose name means ‘company of lutes’) was fully vindicated, even if the lute and theorbo could seldom be heard.

While the stalls were almost full, and presumably the circle, I understand the upper gallery was less than half full that day.

The printed programme was careful on the point of this being the first fully staged professional production of a Handel opera performance in New Zealand (as opposed to concert performance). The newspapers and the Listener have not been so careful, referring to ‘the first fully-staged performance of a Handel opera in New Zealand’, which is simply untrue. Less than two years ago the New Zealand School of Music put on Handel’s Semele in a delightful production, as fully staged as you like. Several decades earlier, Victoria University School of Music performed a fully staged Julius Caesar of Handel, in the university’s Memorial Theatre. There were earlier semi-staged performances of Julius Caesar, Alcina, Ariodante and Rinaldo in Christchurch by Academy Opera. There may have been other staged productions of Handel operas of which I am not aware.

Another point about the printed programme was its readability. It was sumptuously produced with gorgeous photographs. But please, programme designers, don’t have white print on a black background! It is too hard to read, especially for that substantial portion of your audience that is over the age of 55. Even, worse, all the print was in Arial, or similar sans-serif font, which readability tests have shown is not nearly as readable as fonts with serifs. People think sans-serif looks modern; actually the serifs carry the eye forward and aid reading.

Now to the performance itself, on 16 March. The opening overture was a delight: the orchestra’s crisp rhythms, fast tempi and detached playing set an energetic mood that continued for the whole opera. A feature was lovely recorder playing.

The colonnaded set designed by John Verryt, with projected distant scenes behind, reminiscent of Italy, was most handsome, especially under the lighting by Matt Scott, with its frequently changing colours to reflect situations and moods (a little too frequently, I thought).

Costuming was a little more problematical. Xerxes, Romilda, Atalanta and Amastre (the latter as a soldier) wore gorgeous costumes by Trelise Cooper. But the other principals and the chorus wore extremely dull outfits. Why would a general in what appeared to be early nineteenth-century times, wear a khaki -coloured uniform? Surely camouflage hadn’t been invented then (whenever ‘then’ was)? And why did the chorus and those fulfilling acting rather than singing roles, and the remainder of the chorus, wear dull grey and black bits and pieces of body-clinging modern casual garments?

The opera was sung in very good Italian; the surtitles only occasionally moved too fast to read. Some opera-goers thought the translations should have had been repeated on the screens during the repetitions of the da capo arias .

Xerxes (Tobias Cole), in a costume featuring white trousers and a purple (kingly) jacket with a gold and be-jewelled peacock embroidered on the back, sang his famous ‘Ombrai mai fu’ beautifully, in a flexible, high counter-tenor voice. His was the less mellifluous voice of the two counter-tenors – appropriate for the nastier character. It seemed ludicrous to sing in praise of the shade and protection of the tree when the tree was tiny, sitting in a pot. Perhaps it was a token gesture, in irony. The stage business of Xerxes tending the tree, assisted by sundry silent servants, was good fun.

Soon we saw Arsamene (William Purefoy), surprisingly dressed in very dull costume, and with short hair, as opposed to Xerxes’s flowing shoulder-length ringlets.  One might have supposed that the royal brother would also look royal, but perhaps his more active life-style precluded that. Purefoy’s voice is different in quality from that of Cole  rather warmer, fuller and more mellow, but equally flexible.  His lower notes were beautiful.

Then Romilda arrived (Tiffany Speight) in a glorious bright pink floating long coat over a gold dress.  Speight’s voice is splendid, and carried even from the back of the stage (which wasn’t true of all the singers); naturally, it was even better from the front  clear and fluent.  Her wonderful aria about the brook flowing to the sea showed Handel’s skill with word-painting, trills describing the water.

Romilda’s sister Atalanta (Amy Wilkinson) revealed a rich, flexible, expressive voice, along with an expressive face, and excellent acting ability.

Next on stage was Amastre, Xerxes’s fiancée, dressed as a man. Although her attire was obviously military, she boasted white trousers and a red jacket – was this intended to show that she was of higher birth (a princess, indeed) than Ariodante, the general, in his sombre dress? Amastre was sung by Kristen Darragh, the first of the New Zealanders to come on stage. Her mezzo was not as strong as the other soloists voices, particularly from further back on the stage, but she carried off her role extremely well. In her suicide aria she was clearer, and the full beauty of her voice was revealed.

The General, Ariodante (Martin Snell), was next to arrive, and immediately his sonorous bass made an impression. His conversation with Xerxes had its funny side, since Xerxes’s apparently heavily jewelled crown did not inhibit small movements of his head at all!

A florid bass aria for Ariodante was splendidly sung, the low notes quite thrilling. The orchestral accompaniment varied between legato and staccato, maintaining interest, as did the excellent lighting, and the projected images.

An extended aria from Xerxes was well-sustained; the florid singing superlative. Just one or two shrieks at the very top, and the occasional flat top note here and elsewhere marred the performance. The humorous production details were enjoyable; acting was almost universally good.

The most humorous character was the servant, Elviro, who, not to be outdone by Xerxes and Arsamene, got to sing falsetto as well. Stephen Bennett invested this character with slapstick, particularly when dressed as a woman flower-seller, where his impersonation was achingly funny, as he switched between falsetto and his usual voice. His costume was a bright note.

Acts 1 and 2 were continuous, which made for a rather long first session, in which my attention occasionally flagged.

‘Opera Exposed’ in the interval consisted of Aidan Lang, the General Director of New Zealand Opera interviewing several of the participants in a light-hearted but informative way. Conductor Katschner talked briefly about the orchestra, and had the theorbo, lute and violin demonstrate their instruments – and the last, the baroque bow. Purefoy spoke about his role and his voice, with a few jokes about counter-tenors thrown in, and Kristen Darragh was interviewed about playing trouser roles.

Another attractive overture preceded the third Act, but the violins were too loud for lute and theorbo, which became indistinguishable from the harpsichord, though soon after I was able to hear the lute, accompanying Atalanta.

Purefoy gave us a lovely liquid sound in his aria in this Act. The chorus, which Handel allowed only a couple of outings, had a lively, fresh sound, and were perfectly balanced; their movement, too, was admirable.

Elviro entertained us again, demonstrating that Xerxes’s bridge across the Hellespont was not a thing of any permanence – accompanied by very jolly orchestral music. A very decorated aria for Romilda revealed Speight’s consistent excellence. Her characterisation and acting were always of a high order. She made singing Handel, even the many florid passages, seem so easy, not least in her duet with Purefoy.

Ariodante returned, delighted to have married his daughter (Romilda) to Arsamene (misunderstanding Xerxes’s intentions to have her for himself), and between delicious low notes, executed a couple of amusing jubilant dances.

Kristen Darragh had another opportunity to show off her attractive contralto register; with cello and recorder accompaniment, this aria was exquisite.

Tobias Cole again displayed the power of his voice, and showed that he is athletic both vocally and bodily. Not to mention his ability to express humour in both voice and acting, as well as the rage he delivers variously to most other principals. Some of his stage movement in ‘Soak me in the vile abyss’ echoed that of Atalanta when her deceit is found out. The third chorus number was very good indeed.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable production. Handel’s marvellous long lines in the arias were outstandingly performed by singers and orchestra, and the humour and fallibility of the characters endeared them and the music to the audience to the extent of a partial standing ovation at the end, and much applause greeting each aria and ensemble.

Whanganui hosts a sell-out opera school gala concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Seventeenth New Zealand Opera School at Whanganui. Director of the school: Donald Trott; Performance director: Sara Brodie

Royal Wanganui Opera House

Thursday 13 January 2011

For the first time, the gala concert to end the summer opera school was a sell-out. A brilliantly contrived TV item may have been partly responsible, with a rehearsed ‘ad hoc’ performance in a street market a couple of days before featuring the brindisi from La traviata.

In recent years a group has become established, Wanganui Opera Week, which helps popularise and make visible and audible the school’s activities in the city. And year by the year appreciation of the rare distinction that Whanganui enjoys in the survival of its Victorian opera house grows. A house not only of considerable architectural interest but also with excellent acoustics.

The last four summer opera schools have had the benefit of staging and, shall we say, dramaturgical embellishment by choreographer and opera and theatre director Sara Brodie. And it was this element, in addition to the widely acknowledged rise in vocal skills, that dominated audience conversations. In contrast to last year’s concert which comprised a series of tableaux each with something of a common theme, this concert was guided by two ideas.

The first was an audition session from the inside, with Sara Brodie playing the key role in the assessments. The first candidate, Bianca Andrew, sang a vivid ‘Parto, parto’ from La clemenza di Tito, all the taxing roulades cleanly delivered, and she was rewarded with an immediate, ‘You’re hired!’.

The auditioning process recurred from time to time throughout, but it was overlaid by a French cabaret or revue setting, and the colour blue seemed to be a constant image, along with the sensuous use of large feather boas; they became a sort of trade mark. The joint MCs of the revue scenes were Bianca Andrew and Cameron Barclay; he later sang the aria from Les Troyens.

Nothing could have been more French than the four excerpts from Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann and the panel’s conferring about the singer led to the Students’ drinking song from the Prologue to that opera, sung by the men – I counted nine. Was this a record? I don’t think there have been so many excellent male singers at the school before.

The first ‘Act’ closed with the Barcarolle – the duet from the Giulietta act, with the surprise inclusion of the Sri Lankan counter-tenor Stephen Diaz, who had attracted wide attention last year. He took Nicklausse’s mezzo role, inauthentically, as a female mezzo normally sings the part of Hoffmann’s male friend. His performance was immaculate and authoritative. Bryony Williams sang Giulietta, well, though the two voices seemed to inhabit quite different acoustic spaces; was it a quirk of the theatre or was there some subtle amplification taking place?

Diaz had earlier sung an aria by one of the great composers of the castrato era – Riccardo Broschi, the brother of Carlo, more famous as the castrato Farinelli, from his opera called Idaspe (Venice, 1730). Though this year’s aria (‘Ombra fedele anch’io’) was unknown, it made no less impact than Handel’s ‘Ombra mai fu’ did in 2010. Though Diaz made his performance with its dazzling embellishments look easy, it was not merely the uncommon vocal register that made him stand out, but also his musicianship and lyrical gift, his natural expressive powers, the penetrating strength and subtlety of his singing that placed him in a class of his own.

Bryony Williams’s solo aria was in the second half – Catalani’s greatest hit, ‘Ebben? Ne andrò lontana’ from La Wally. Here, in a long blue gown, Wally enters being chased from her father’s house because she persists in her love for the son of her father’s enemy. Her polished voice and arresting stage presence did full justice to this evocative aria.

The second offering from The Tales of Hoffmann was the Kleinzach chorus, sung in English, with the final sound of both that name and the Bach town of Eisenach pronounced ‘k’; no need to anglicize to that degree. However the singing was spirited. It was followed as if there was some narrative connection, by ‘Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix’ from Samson et Dalila; Elisha Fai sang it in French, showing a few flaws though hers is a pleasing and promising voice.

A Samson presented himself at her feet during her performance, which was followed by the metamorphosis from Samson to Hoffmann to a continuation of Kleinzach. Darren Pene Pati’s voice exhibited colour and real beauty as well as impressive control.

We did not hear him in an extended aria till his beautiful performance of ‘Che gelida manina’ (Bohème) near the end of the concert. His was one of the highlights of the concert and it received a well merited ovation. His Mimi, Xing Xing Wang, followed it naturally with ‘Si, mi chiamano Mimi’ in a perfect interpretation that was vocally affecting and histrionically poised and moving. Applause for her was hardly less enthusiastic.

The third piece from Hoffmann was the above mentioned Barcarolle; the fourth, fittingly, was the septet that brings the opera to an end, as it did the concert itself, with the entire assembly singing with huge gusto and enjoyment. Bruce Greenfield accompanied all the Hoffmann excerpts, lending the spirit of the fantastic and the recklessness that characterizes the story of Offenbach’s hero.

Other French pieces included a lovely aria that is familiar but whose provenance is probably obscure: ‘Oh! Ne t’éveille pas encore’ from Jocelyn by Benjamin Godard, a contemporary of Fauré and Chausson. Oliver Sewell did not altogether avoid the danger of allowing its charming sentiment from sliding towards the sentimental; a good voice but as yet little stage presence.

In ‘Act II’, the first French aria came from a rather neglected quarter: Berlioz.

Cameron Barclay repeated his successful recipe from last year, with something very unfamiliar. In 2010 he sang an aria from Copland’s The Tender Land; this time it was Iopas’s aria ‘O blonde Cérès’ sung to console Dido in Act IV of Les Troyens. His French was good and the quality of his voice promising as he found the right idiom and phrasing for Berlioz’s sometimes unusual metres.

There followed two familiar arias from familiar operas, Carmen and Faust, but first, and most remarkably, the final scene from Poulenc’s devastating opera Dialogues des Carmélites. (Note the proper title of the opera is without the definite article). Here, in the opera based on Georges Bernanos’s novel, all 11 women in the school took the parts of the nuns, falling dead in full view on stage as we hear the swoosh of the guillotine, in one of the many terrible acts of fanaticism perpetrated during the Terror following the French Revolution. In the only live production I’ve seen, the nuns are led out one by one to be executed out of sight; the effect is, as always, far more chilling and powerful than for violent acts to be portrayed graphically, a fact to which most theatre and film directors today seem oblivious.

It was perhaps the most dramatic and memorable item on the evening.

School director Donald Trott reminded those of the audience unaware of the career of founder tutor of the school Virginia Zeani, that she had sung the major role of Blanche de la Force at the La Scala world premiere of Carmélites in 1947 – the opera made such a remarkable impact that productions followed in the same year in Paris, Cologne and San Francisco.

Kieran Rayner followed that with Valentin’s aria from Faust pleading that God watch over his sister Marguérite while he is away at war. As with his brindisi from Thomas’s Hamlet in 2010, aria Rayner showed his flair in the French repertoire, striking presence and a robust attractive voice. Oddly, I found some of his French vowels a little eccentric.

From fifteen years later, Carmen made its appearance in Micaela’s second aria, ‘Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante’.Rachel Day chose it well for it lay comfortably for her even though her top notes were a little shrill.

Other nationalities were represented in a few items.

American operas had interesting exposure, starting with Bernstein’s Candide. Here was a splendid vehicle for promising coloratura Olga Gryniewicz who sang a Rimsky-Korsakov aria in 2010. In truth, some of the high notes in ‘Glitter and be Gay’ showed her at a little below the polished and assured brilliance of some earlier performances, but there is both fine musicianship and vocal virtuosity here; and she is a vivid actress.

Menotti is American rather than Italian and the aria from The Old Maid and the Thief opened ‘Act II’; Bridget Costello sang the droll ‘Steal me, sweet thief’ with clear diction and straight-faced irony; her voice is well schooled, has excellent dynamic control and she inhabited the role well.

The third American opera was Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah from which Amelia Berry sang ‘The trees on the mountain’. She sings with skill and confidence, her voice firm, accurate and expressive. In choosing this aria she demonstrated both adventurousness and a musicality that should take her far.

Two singers had chosen Britten.

Rose Blake sang the Embroidery aria from Peter Grimes, a long and difficult piece to interpret musically and with lyricism, yet her well-supported voice and secure high notes complemented her musicality.

Considerably less familiar is Britten’s Rape of Lucretia though its first appearance just after World War II led to many productions. The former Wellington Polytechnic produced it about a decade ago. It was not the title-role we heard – made famous by Ferrier and Baker – but the part of Tarquin, as he contemplates the sleeping Lucretia. Thomas Barker’s baritone was beguiling and attractive rather that expressing the violent lust that drives him.

Stravinsky’s The Rakes’s Progress can also be classed as English for Stravinsky set this operatic interpretation of Hogarth’s set of engravings in English. Imogen Thirlwell sang Anne’s poignant aria, ‘No news from Tom’ with clarity and some sensitivity.

Since the last gala concert of the opera school, several of these singers were heard in one or both of the operas in Rhona Fraser’s Days Bay garden: The Marriage of Figaro and Rossini’s The Journey to Rheims. There they all demonstrated their ability to handle not just individual arias but sustained performance in a real opera.

Mozart in fact out-numbered Offenbach, with six singers in a variety of well-known arias from four operas. There were two arias from Figaro.

Isabella Moore sang the Countess’s ‘Porgi amor’, her first appearance at the beginning of Act II. I thought her red dress offered the wrong image for the betrayed wife, but her singing showed her understanding nevertheless.

A little later in Act II the young page Cherubino, a mezzo trouser role, seeks the help of Susanna and the Countess in understanding his unrelenting priapism: ‘Voi che sapete’, and Ceit McLean sang it well enough; as yet she has not developed the flair and confidence to carry such an aria off with real elan.

I mentioned Bianca Andrew’s ‘Parto, parto’ from Tito, which opened the concert.

Tavis Gravatt sang the baritone role of Guglielmo from Così fan tutte: ‘Donne mie, la fate a tanti’, in a sturdy, capable performance, not yet invested with much charm.

Another baritone, Anthony Schneider, sang the first of two arias from The Magic Flute: Papageno’s ‘Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja’, natural seeming; the by-play seemed a little de trop, as the Three Ladies made their appearance which would have made sense only to those familiar with the story. There were glosses on several other performances that would have had meaning only to the initiated. Schneider carried it very well.

The tenor ‘hero’ Tamino in the Flute is less funny than Papageno, and so makes quite different demands. A somewhat rapturous reaction is called for as he looks at a vignette of the princess Pamina, and neither Jamie Young’s costume nor his demeanour quite met the requirements; the by-play was again a little distracting but his actual singing portrayed Tamino effectively.

Accompaniments were uniformly splendid; in addition to Greenfield, they were Greg Neil, Iola Shelley, Evans Chang, Travis Baker, Mark Dorrell, and Philippa Safey. Michael Vinten conducted choruses. The tutors were Prof Paul Farrington, Margaret Medlyn, Barry Mora, Richard Greager; Flavio Villani tutors in Italian and Kararaina Walker was production assistant and delivered the opening Karanga.

In a country so isolated from the musical, especially operatic, resources and performances available in Europe and even in North America, more than usual efforts need to be made to provide opportunities to hone skills and cultivate talents and interpretive insight as well as taking part in live performance. This now 17-year-old opera school at Whanganui provides some of the scarce experiences of the first kind.

The Whanganui project is the result of extraordinary efforts on the part of a few dedicated enthusiasts, led by Donald Trott, dependent on huge fund-raising efforts which ought to be taken up to a far greater degree through the state-assisted tertiary education system.

We need both advanced training and journeyman experiences for our rising singers, plus professional companies that can stage more than two productions a year to provide a basic livelihood in their own country.

While New Zealand often seems content to congratulate itself for producing gifted musicians and others in the arts, little attention is paid to the stark fact that this country is right at the bottom of the OECD in terms of arts funding at all levels and in all the serious genres. What initiatives the Government does take seem, extraordinarily, to be devoted to energy and money-wasting ‘reviews’ and consultative processes, to cutting and imposing ever-increasing barriers and demands on poverty-stricken, already struggling enterprises.

Days Bay Opera triumphs with Rossini rarity: The Journey to Rheims

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Opera in a Days Bay Garden. Il viaggio a Reims. Producer: Rhona Fraser.

Musical director: Michael Vinten; stage director: Sara Brodie. Singers as named in the text; an orchestra of piano (Richard Mapp) and flute, oboe, clarinets, bassoon, horn and double bass

Canna House, Moana Road, Days Bay

Wednesday 1 December (repeated on 2, 3 and 4 December)

This production, announced as the Australasian premiere, was staged in the enchanting garden of soprano Rhona Fraser and her husband Professor Campbell McLachlan, where The Marriage of Figaro was so brilliantly staged in March. It lies in a natural amphitheatre in the beech-clad hills behind Days Bay. Rhona had sung in a production of the opera when she was a student at the Guildhall School of Music and she had filed away its potential for use somewhere else.

This was it.

It was in Andrew Porter’s English translation; director Sara Brodie (who had directed Figaro) had brought it into the present day, and had given her cast licence to turn their roles into something that suited their personalities and their own particular styles of humour and their histrionic strengths. There was much that seemed, reading the libretto, to have been invented, and the accretions were always to the point – however you might see that.

A Frankfurt performance

In Frankfurt two and a half years ago, I happened upon a production of this Rossini rarity, and naturally got myself a ticket. I had not spotted it till a day or so before arriving and so had little chance to find a synopsis, though I did have a rough idea of it. It was in its original Italian with German surtitles which was some help, though my German does not really afford full comprehension at surtitle speed. It was not one of their major productions, conducted by Johannes Debus and directed by Dale Duesing; nor did I know any of the dozen principal singers.

Instead of being stranded in the absence of horses for their onward journey to Rheims for the 1825 coronation of Charles X, the party of travellers found themselves on an island without canoes.

I found it moderately amusing, as the direction seemed not to have sparked any infectious sense of the ridiculous in the cast. It was the kind of comedy that the English, or the French, might be better at. That was convincingly proved by the production at Days Bay.

Background

The opera was the first that Rossini wrote for Paris, and accordingly he set great store by it. He employed the greatest voices of the time, including Giuditta Pasta as Corinna. The story was put together by the Italian librettist Luigi Balochi for the Théâtre Italien in Paris to celebrate the coronation of Charles X in 1825 (one of the lack-lustre French kings who followed the defeat of Napoleon; he survived till the July Revolution of 1830 when he was supplanted by Louis-Philippe).

Balochi was later responsible for the French versions of two earlier Italian works that Rossini adapted for the Opéra in Paris: Le siège de Corinthe and Moïse et Pharaon.

It is based in part on a novel, Corinne, ou L’Italie, by Madame de Staël,  the famous littératrice, thorn in Napoleon’s side, mistress of Benjamin Constant, friend of Byron and August Wilhelm Schlegel.

It was performed four times in Paris and then withdrawn by Rossini because he recognised that the essentially ‘occasional’ character of the piece would militate against its lasting success. It was never again performed till recent decades. Rossini may also have had in mind, from the beginning, to cannibalised much of it in another opera. Thus about half found its way into his next Paris opera, Le comte Ory, (which was produced by Canterbury Opera in 2004) and the rest seemed simply to have disappeared and was presumed lost, till the 1970s when manuscript sources were found in the library of the St Cecilia Academy in Rome, as well as in Paris and Vienna, allowing the entire work to be reconstructed.

First: where are we? At Plombières-les-bains; as the name suggests, a spa town, in eastern France. It’s in the département of Vosges, about 60km west of Colmar and 100km south of Nancy at the southern edge of Lorraine. About 250km south-east of Rheims.

The Southern premiere in Days Bay

See a full synopsis of the opera, with names of this cast members inserted, taken from the website of La Scala, Milan, at the end of this review.

The Days Bay version could hardly have been more different from what I saw in Frankfurt; and almost all of it much more successful and entertaining.

The story gathers together aristocrats of several nationalities who exhibit national stereotypes as seen from Paris, none of them too cruel. The 1825 occasion was seen as some kind of return to a normality desired by conservative monarchical forces, in which Europe would be peacefully ruled by enlightened monarchs: it suggested to the production team a shift to a contemporary Europe united by the EU.

The stranded guests never make it to the coronation because no horses can be found to take them the rest of the way to Rheims. While they wait for something to happen, various amusements are devised; the first, which I do not see in the libretto, is a book-signing of a slim volume of verse entitled EU Poetry by Roman poetess Corinna, Amelia Berry, one of the three prime donne.

These volumes then have attached to them, names of things as if for sale: ‘nuclear power’, ‘relics’, ‘orphans’, ‘mail order brides’, ‘watches and chocolate’, ‘minerals’… I didn’t get it, nor could I find a clue in the libretto.

Excellent use is made of the amenities of the house, the swimming pool, the terrace the various doors from the terrace into the house, while the small piano and winds orchestra fits comfortably in a broader extension of the deck on the right. Though without strings other than double bass, they provided a very apt accompaniment.

In spite of the large number of singers, most had succeeded in engraving a personality before the end of the first act, a tribute to both the singers’ accomplishment and the clear and witty characterisation achieved in the brilliant libretto and it present-day glosses.

Rhona Fraser herself sang the role of the hotel manager, Madama Cortese: while never seeking to ape her aristocratic guests, she is confident, unpretentious, with a natural dignity; she sings the part excellently.

The majority of the cast are or have been students at the New Zealand School of Music, and their training at the hands of Emily Mair (till recently), Flora Edwards, Jenny Wollerman and Margaret Medlyn shows. Rachel Day has the small part of Maddalena yet it becomes a quite conspicuous role, vocally and in presence: bossy, impatient. The same goes for another of the hotel staff, Antonio, sung confidently by Charles Wilson, and the local doctor, Don Prudenzio (Thomas Barker), another promising theatrical singer.

Perhaps the most vivid character, as she was in the New Zealand School of Music’s Semele by Handel in 2009 (where many of these singers also performed in a comparably large cast), was Olga Gryniewicz. She seems to have overcome a tightness in her upper range to deliver a performance of the Contessa di Folleville that was strong, funny, sexy and full of character.

Bianca Andrew could have taken a bigger role than that of Folleville’s maid, Modestina (someone needed to display a touch of modesty in this company, though her ultimate purpose was revealed as something entirely different). Don Luigino, a cousin of Folleville, has taken on the job of organising things, and Jonathan Abernethy carried that off effectively.

Among the bigger roles was that of the German Baron Trombonok, who’s a music lover and is responsible for organising the singing of national songs at the end. Michel Alkhouri’s accent makes him no more suited to his role than any of the others (after all they are all foreigners except the English ‘Lord’; but should foreignness be heard through Italian ears in this piece?); with an attractive baritone voice he was an adornment.

Roger Wilson found himself with the scholarly, antiquarian role of Don Profondo that seemed to suit both his vocal range and style as well as his flair for mimicry and droll posturings. He relished its big patter aria in which he delighted the crowd as he compiled an inventory of the travellers’ baggage, leaping unerringly from one accent to the next – one of his famous talents.

There’s a Spanish grandee, Don Alvaro, sung by Orene Tiai, a promising voice but not yet fully confident in such a role, though the quintet in which he sings with his rival in love, the Russian Count Libenskof (Benjamin Fifita Makisi) and their object, the Polish Marchesa Melibea (Maaike Christie-Beekman), along with Roger Wilson and Rhona Fraser was an early high point.

Makisi’s performance had all the expected confidence and polish, which might well have set him far above most of his colleagues; happily, the brilliant line-up of so many less experienced singers but vocally impressive and theatrical gifted, made for a surprisingly even cast.

A duel between the Russian and the Spaniard over Melibea is narrowly averted by a voice from an upstairs window. It is Amelia Berry as Corinna who arrives in time to calm things, and she soon gains the limelight besporting herself provocatively on the garden wall. Her voice too is as captivating as her legs. She becomes something of an EU symbol with blue gown and the EU circle of stars.

Fresh travellers continue to arrive. Englishman Lord Sidney, sung by baritone Kieran Rayner, is garbed with a Union Jack, caricatured punk-style as an eccentric under-cover agent, delivering cryptic reports into his wrist and manipulating a cellphone. If he’s an ineffective lover and generally insensitive to what’s going on, Rayner’s performance, vocally and histrionically, was one of the best of the evening.

Though formally in one act, this production was divided into two. The second opens with the arrival of the French Chevalier Belfiore (tenor Michael Gray). Sure of his amatory prowess, he makes a protracted and unsuccessful attempt on Corinna’s carefully managed virtue: Gray’s is a most polished performance.

After news that all attempts to find transport have failed and there will be no journey to Rheims, a great ensemble in rollicking rhythm develops, each traveller opining in turn that he/she will die of grief. But there’s still love interest to come with a long duet between the Russian (Makisi) and the Pole (Christie-Beekman), which ends this time, in capitulation. Though it’s modern times – witness Lord Sidney’s electronic paraphernalia – the Russian is still represented by the Soviet flag rather than the Russian tricolor.

A final directoral flourish was the unveiling of Modestina’s role as suicide-bomber (motive not explained), who’d evaded discovery by the vigilant punk Lord Sidney.

Delia, Corinna’s maid, was a small role but one that Rose Blake made an impact in. And the rest of this extraordinary cast comprised hotel staff, all of whom exhibited individual talents of a high order: Clarissa Dunn, Simon Harndenm Peter King, Thomas O’Brien and Imogen Thirlwall.

That Rhona Fraser, Sara Brodie and Michael Vinten have demonstrated so convincingly, now for a second time in nine months, how much talent rests under-exploited in Wellington, should alert the city to this wonderful enterprise. It is shameful that the daily newspaper refused to cover it, where a review would perhaps draw attention to it more effectively than does a website (though we say so ourselves).

It is of course too much to expect Creative New Zealand to support something as singular and spectacularly successful as this.

A Postscript

That so many highly accomplished young singers with such well-developed stage skills are available in Wellington is remarkable; and it makes one lament that there is almost no professional work for them in the city.

And it’s to be noted that only four of the eleven on stage for the March Marriage of Figaro were again to be seen in this production; further evidence of the large number of singers ready (or nearly) for a professional career.

Since the merger of the opera companies of Wellington and Auckland, there has been no company based in Wellington for a decade: NBR New Zealand Opera presents fewer productions than Wellington City Opera used to do on its own. Till 2000, Auckland and Wellington, between them, were seeing five or six different opera productions a year (generally three in Wellington and two in Auckland). So the amount of work for singers is now much less.

Perhaps it’s time for some clear-sighted promoters, backed by the city council and its many enlightened, wealthy arts patrons, to restore Wellington’s own company, which would aim at three or even four economical yet stylish and appropriate productions annually in Wellington, employing New Zealand singers, musicians and production staff.

A synopsis from the La Scala website, with the cast of the Days Bay production inserted

The housekeeper of “Il Giglio d’Oro” hotel, Maddalena (Rachel Day), urges the staff to prepare diligently the visit to Reims which her guests are about to undertake, that same evening, to go to the coronation of Charles X, the new king, which will take place – according to tradition – in that city.

After Don Prudenzio (Thomas Barker), the hotel doctor, has closely examined the meals prepared for the guests, to make sure that they conform to his directions, and Madama Cortese (Rhona Fraser) has once again reminded her servants to maintain the reputation of the inn, the Countess of Folleville (Olga Gryniewicz), a pretty Parisienne who is “mad about fashion”, mistress of the handsome French official, the Chevalier Belfiore (Michael Gray), voices her concern because her clothes for the great celebration have not yet arrived.

Don Luigino (Jonathan Abernethy), the cousin of the Countess of Folleville, who is in charge of the arrangements, announces that the coach carrying the personal effects of the noble lady has overturned, damaging its precious cargo of boxes and cases.

At this news, the Countess faints and all the other guests at the hotel crowd around her and try to revive her.

The arrival of Modestina (mezzo Bianca Andrew), the Countess’s surly maid, with a trunk which has been miraculously salvaged from the ruinous road accident, revives the anguished gentlewoman, who is satisfied at having recovered a precious little hat to wear at the celebration.

In the meantime, the Baron of Trombonok (Michel Alkhouri), a German official and music fanatic, elected treasurer for the voyage by the hotel guests, makes the final arrangements with the “hotel manager” Antonio (Charles Wilson), to take care of the baggage and to the eventual needs of the voyagers.

Don Profondo (Roger Wilson), a learned member of various Academies and fanatical collector of antiques, and Don Alvaro (Orene Tiai), a Spanish Grandee, enter and present the beautiful Polish widow of an Italian general, the Marchesa Melibea (Maaike Christie-Beekman), with whom Don Alvaro has fallen in love, to the Baron of Trombonok. She wants to go to Reims together with the other illustrious members of the company.

The arrival of the Count of Libenskof (Ben Fifita Makisi), a Russian gentleman, also in love with Melibea, makes Don Alvaro jealous, and their rivalry is openly expressed in the presence of Melibea and Madama Cortese until the singing of another guest at the “Giglio d’Oro” hotel, Corinna (Amelia Berry), who comes from Rome (in this version, Greece) and whose art is to improvise songs and poetry, is heard from behind the scenes and calms down the heated exchange of jealous rivalry.

Madama Cortese is worried about the delay of Zefirino, the courier sent in search of horses for the journey. She is also thinking about the reciprocated but undeclared love of the English guest, Lord Sidney (Kieran Rayner), for Corinna.

Lord Sidney arrives, lamenting over his woes as a lover. Corinna, having received a letter by hand from Don Profondo, reads it and reassures Delia (Rose Bake), her Greek orphan friend, about the fate of her country and invites her to join the company on its way to Reims. She finally notices the flowers arranged in her room: Lord Sidney’s daily love token.

The Chevalier Belfiore (Michael Gray), finding the poetess alone, tries to seduce her, convinced of his proven prowess, but Don Profondo interrupts him and makes fun of him. He begins to compile the list of valuable objects belonging to the voyagers which the Baron has asked him for.

After a quick exchange of words between Don Profondo and the Countess of Folleville, who has intuited the courtship between the Chevalier Belfiore and Corinna, many of the guests become impatient to leave but the arrival of the Baron and Zefirino creates an atmosphere of gloom: the voyage cannot be undertaken because, in the whole of Plombières, there is not a single horse to be hired or bought because of the vast number of voyagers who are also going to Reims for the grand ceremony.

Madama Cortese raises the spirits of the company by showing her guests a letter from Paris sent by her husband which announces the great festivities being prepared in the capital in honour of the king and to welcome his return: an extremely pleasurable way to console themselves for the unaccomplished voyage to Reims. The Countess of Folleville offers everyone hospitality at her home in Paris.

The proposal is accepted which enthusiasm and they decide to leave the next day with the daily coach for the capital. With part of the money put aside for the voyage to Reims, they will organise that very evening a feast, open to all, to celebrate, in any case, the coronation of the king, and the rest will be given to charity.

Everything is resolved and the Baron tries to settle the quarrel between the Count of Libenskof and the Polish Marchesa, caused by Don Alvaro.

The two lovers are reconciled ant the next scene opens on the illuminated gardens of the hotel in which a rich table has been laid.

The hotel manager Antonio learns from Maddalena, the governess, that the Baron has engaged a company of roving musicians and dancers, passing through the area, to liven up the feast. They soon appear and, with their songs and dances, they commence the festivities.

The Baron announces, in accordance with the rules already agreed, a series of toasts in the musical styles of the various countries of origin of the guests, in honour of the king and the royal family.

At the end, everyone presents request for a poetic performance from Corinna as a fit ending to the feast. The guests therefore propose various themes for the poetess’s improvisation, mainly deriving from the history of France and out of which Melibea draws by lot that of «Charles X, King of France».
After Corinna’s musical celebration and among general acclaim to the king and to France, the performance ends with the praising of the royal family.

Macbeth triumphant in Wellington

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Verdi’s Macbeth: NBR New Zealand Opera, conducted by Guido Ajmone-Marsan, directed by Tim Albery. Vector Wellington Orchestra and the Wellington Opera Chorus (original production by Opera North in 2008)

St James Theatre, Wellington

Saturday 9 October, 7.30pm

There is an unwritten convention that critics don’t expose themselves to the professional comments of other critics till they have nailed their own thoughts to the hard-drive. I try to adhere to this but pollution of the pristine impressions are sometimes unavoidable.  I heard the remark that Antonia Cifrone’s voice was not beautiful, and another that it had been described as ‘serviceable’.  These kinds of remarks are usually the refuge of the over-confident or the critic with a limited view of acceptable musical styles.

From her opening lines I was struck by Cifrone’s vigour, and by the very qualities that Verdi had prescribed for the role. He’s on record saying he did NOT want a beautiful voice; he wanted a ‘harsh, strangled, grim’ voice that depicted a domineering and ruthless woman. No one could so describe Ms Cifrone, who had sung the role in Opera North’s original production in 2008, but her vocal attributes allowed gave her performance all the dramatic and musical power called for.

Her acting conveyed the essential features of Lady Macbeth; it was both commanding in gesture and movement, and surprisingly balletic (the ballet, as usual, was dropped) in scenes such as the Banquet, where she produced an impressive coloratura display in the brindisi; in the sleep-walking scene her voice was stretched like a taut wire by the power of her conscience and her subconscious, yet singularly beautiful.

As usual, the stage director employs the prelude to entertain us with the witches, perched on little ledges on a sloping back-drop, suggesting the opening scene of Rheingold; they are soon seen as midwives to Lady Macbeth in labour, delivering a still-born baby, that they neatly drop in the bin. Psychologist Tim Albery lighted on this embellishment, derived from a cryptic line in the play, though not in the libretto, to explain the childless lady’s nasty obsessions. I thought it contributed less than nothing.

The related, near omnipresence, of a bed in almost every scene was a close relative of the obstetric adornment. It came in handy as the bed on which Duncan was murdered, for the royal couple’s copulation scene, for a later multiple birth scene (six this time, tossed about by the attendant witches/nurses), and for Lady Macbeth’s eventual expiry.

I do not mean to suggest that these efflorescences got in the way of the story; they were just a slightly wearying example of the director’s (all directors’) compulsive intrusiveness.

Finally, I have to say how silly, even distasteful, I found the publicity images. It seems to be accepted, in spite of years of criticism, that you can present images purporting to be of opera principals that are actually of models. If they reflect the characters with a little integrity, it’s not quite so bad, but the couple used on posters and on the programme cover are simply ridiculous: nothing could be more at odds with anyone’s notion of what Macbeth and the Lady are like.

Otherwise, the dramatic glosses were unobtrusive, entertaining and usually acceptable.

The second immediate impact was of the splendidly prepared chorus, particularly the women – usually as witches. Their singing was swift, tautly rhythmic, excellently balanced and punchy; and their disposition and movement, as that of the cast as a whole, was conspicuously natural, meaningful with dramatic force, lively or static as appropriate; they sit in rows on either side, knitting – like the Norns in the Prologue of Götterdämmerung? Though Albery was in Auckland for four weeks and staged the performance in Auckland, the programme credits assistant director Maxine Braham as ‘movement director’, and I’m told that Steven Whiting directed the Wellington chorus*.

The first appearance of principals is of Macbeth and Banquo – baritone Michele Kalmandi and bass Jud Arthur – two excellent low voices, of well contrasted timbres, the former exhibiting a little more polish, but the latter with striking vocal colour and personality.

The arrival of Duncan, the king, is always dramatically odd for his role is negligible (acted by Barry Mawer); the ubiquitous bed is already there on stage, beset with screens as the King retires, soon to be killed by Macbeth whose subsequent anguish was well depicted. It all takes place as courtiers lie asleep on the floor in the same hall: no one wakes during the commotion. A propos of which Julian Budden’s great study of the operas quotes a letter from Verdi to the first Macbeth (Varesi) stressing the need to sing sotto voce, and pointing to the careful orchestration that would be very quiet beneath his voice.

Dinner jackets are de rigueur most of the time: everyone rises the morning after, black ties and dinner jackets intact; the assassins hired to kill Banquo, too, are properly dressed. And after that contract has been fulfilled, Banquo returns during the banquet scene, in the proper tenue de ville of any self-respecting ghost.

Macduff gets little exposure till the fourth act when he follows the Scottish exiles’ restrained but moving ‘Patria oppressa’ with his own lamenting, ‘O figli, o figli miei … Ah, la paterna mano’. Russian tenor Roman Shulackoff’s performance attracted the biggest ovation of the evening. But it’s a long way to travel for one aria….

Other comprimario roles were excellently filled. Morag Atchison used her large, attractive voice to excellent effect as Lady-in-waiting; Derek Hill sang Malcolm, whose presence is important in the last act, most convincingly and the Doctor’s part was strongly taken by Matthew Landreth.

Then came the oddest interpolation: we saw another unidentified woman on the bed, giving birth to a succession of six babies which the encircling witches joyfully tossed about like footballs. Who was she? Who was the father? Were they live or still-born? And what was that all about? One speculation was that they were Banquo’s children whom the witches prophesied as kings, as little crowns were held over them.  It’s not really satisfactory for a director to introduce people or events not in the libretto, without explaining himself in the programme book. That it misfired was shown by audience laughter.

Macbeth’s killing by Macduff takes place on stage, as in the 1847 version, and the two bodies laid side by side are conflagrated with petrol in best terrorist style.

The production as a whole however was continuously absorbing. The stage designs by Johan Engels were obviously far from medieval Scotland, vaguely of an east European dictatorship, but consistent and helpful to the singers. The music director, Guido Ajmone-Marsan, managed soloists, chorus (rehearsed by Michael Vinten) and orchestra with great energy, getting precision, dramatic colour and variety from the playing of the Wellington Orchestra.

This is one of the most arresting and brilliantly performed opera productions seen in Wellington; I had not a moment’s inattention and must recommend it unreservedly.

*The details in this sentence contain clarifications provided by the company on Monday 1 October.

Opera Scenes at New Zealand School of Music

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Opera Scenes: Passionate Choices: Love & Duty from Purcell to Britten via Mozart and Strauss (with a dash of Offenbach)

Fifteen Voice Students

Adam Concert Room, Victoria University

Saturday, 2 October, 7.30pm

While it is a pity that there was no university opera this year, after the brilliant Semele last year, the concert in which 10 opera scenes were performed was quite an ambitious undertaking.  There was considerable variety, but enough of each opera to give more than a taste, and to allow the singers to really get into the characters.  It is good news for music in this country that there are so many singers who are capable of performing these roles.

The audience were placed facing towards the southern end of the Adam Concert Room.  Behind the area used as a stage were two beautiful red and black shot- silk curtains of ample proportions; the performers entered through the space between them.

The evening began with the quintet from Act I of Così fan tutte, by Mozart.  This contains the famous and beautiful trio for Fiordiligi, Dorabella and Don Alfonso ‘Soave sia il vento’.  The singers were very assured and the men, particularly, were excellent – Norman Pati, who had a nice turn of comedy, and Joshua Kidd, who was not quite so confident.  Dorabella (Elitsa Kappatos) produced a more mellow tone than did Angelique MacDonald as Fiordiligi (perhaps to be expected since the former is a mezzo role), but both knew their parts and their movements well, and were able to enter into the story fully.  Indeed, this was true of all the performers throughout the concert.  The placing of Don Alfonso (Thomas Barker) behind the two women for most of the trio was a disadvantage for his projection, and the ensemble between the three singers.  Costumes of 1920s appearance were excellent, and fun.

The sextet from later in Act I followed.   Now Fiordiligi was sung by Bryony Williams, while the other parts were taken by the same singers as in the quintet.  All the singers were powerful, and the parts were well characterised. 

It is wonderful what can be done with minimal sets, minimal props, beautiful costumes and beautiful, well-trained voices.  Bruce Greenfield accompanied.  I did not think he was up to his usual very high standard – perhaps it was the piano?   I found the Mozart over-pedalled, and much of the accompanying too loud.  This is probably largely due to the polished wooden floor and wooden ceiling.  I have seen, both here and at St. Andrew’s on The Terrace, heavy fabric placed under the piano to achieve a quieter tone.

Two scenes from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and two from The Turn of the Screw by Britten, were directed by one of the performers, post-graduate student Laura Dawson.  She appeared first as the Sorceress in ‘Wayward Sisters’, that wonderfully chilling witches’ incantation.  The ensemble singing with her fellow witches (Emily Simcox, Amelia Ryman, Joshua Kidd and Isaac Stone) was superb.  I would have found a deeper voice better for the Sorceress; Dawson sang much better where the music was in the higher register.  Imaginative stage business was a tribute to her invention.

The famous Dido’s Lament scene followed, after Bruce Greenfield had played (as happened elsewhere in the programme) some of the orchestral music between the scenes, which not only gave more of the feeling of the operas, but gave time for the crew (the singers themselves) to change the props, while two cloaked characters walked through with large placards stating the names of the operas and the locations of the scenes.

Laura Dawson sang Dido, Thomas Barker, Aeneas, and Belinda was very well acted and sung by Emily Simcox, who was in fine voice.  The whole scene was very effectively done, including the use of props.  The famous Lament was beautiful, except for the pronunciation of the word ‘earth’, which cut off the sound quite unnecessarily, and overdone ‘t’s – there is no need for this in a small auditorium.

That brings me to another point: it is a pity that the students do not have a ‘proper’ auditorium in which to put on opera, or scenes from opera.  They have all learned to project their voices and their words well (although some singers needed more vocal support), but projecting as if in an opera house in the Adam Concert Room leads to quite unnecessarily loud volume.  It is to be hoped that the planned new School of Music on the Ilott Green will go ahead, and include a theatre.  In the meantime, is the Theatrette at Massey University (the former National Museum Theatrette) not suitable?

The scenes from the Britten opera were, of course, something completely different; Britten was a great admirer of Purcell, and is regarded as the best English opera composer since Purcell.

The spooky mood of the opera came over well, partly due to excellent projection of the words.  The performers made the scenes thoroughly involving.  Bridget Costello as the governess and Laura Dawson as Mrs Grose, the housekeeper, were very believable characters in ‘The Window’ from Act I, and again in Act II’s scene about the ghost of the former governess.  It was very well directed, and Costello was outstanding both vocally and in her acting.

After the interval the mood changed completely, with three excerpts from Offenbach’s La Vie Parisienne.  What was innovative here was that the libretto had been devised and written by the cast and director.  Therefore they gained experience in developing characters.  There were two tables at a café in Paris (presumably out-of-doors, since one man was wearing a hat – I’m always puzzled by New Zealand operas having men wearing hats indoors, a no-no in polite society of former times).  At one table sat an English family on holiday; at the other, two extravert young French women.

These were stereotypical characters: the English in tweeds and cardigan, the French in mini-skirts, smoking and chatting volubly and expressively.  Three scenes, ‘Paris c’est l’amour’, ‘Poor Fellow’ and Septet (not Sextet as in the printed programme) ‘And there will be a Lighted Candle’, involved seven singers in funny lyrics to Offenbach’s music, and amusing stage business, to make a thoroughly enjoyable little story. 

Particularly outstanding was Emily Simcox as Gertrude, the mother in the English family.  Her husband George was sung by Simon Harnden.  He opened proceedings speaking – and what a resonant speaking voice he has!   This little piece of theatre was so involving and so well done that it would be hard to isolate any one or two singers as outstanding over the others.  The emphasis was very much on clarity of words and acting, and all passed with flying colours.

The other characters were performed by Angelique MacDonald, Isaac Stone (whose acting was very amusing), Thomas O’Brien, Bridget Costello and Amelia Ryman.  The names of the two French girls were the French forms of the singers’ names – the last two in this list.

The final scene was more problematic.  Surely the final trio and duet from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier are too demanding on the voices of singers as young as these?  Not only is Strauss opera generally a hard sing, this must be one of the most difficult. 

Whether it was done to give the impression of an older woman I do not know, but I thought Bryony Williams as the Marschallin had too much vibrato for a young singer.  Bianca Andrew as Octavian was in great voice, and thoroughly convincing.  Imogen Thirwall was a very competent but somewhat anxious Sophie.  The duet was quite lovely.  Nevertheless, the volume was overpowering in the trio; singers should moderate their dynamics to suit the resonance and size of the venue.  The small role of Faninal was sung by Isaac Stone.

Set changes were very well done, and the whole production was achieved in a professional manner.  Everyone knew their parts thoroughly, and musically, the performances were enjoyable, aside from my reservation about the level of sound in some items.

How fortunate we are to have so many promising singers – and so many experienced, competent teachers at the School of Music!

Magnificent Tudor Consort in Schütz and Domenico Scarlatti

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

The Tudor Consort: A German Requiem

Schütz: Musikalische Exequien, Op. 7
Domenico Scarlatti: Stabat Mater

St. Mary of the Angels Church

Saturday, 4 September, 8 pm

Despite the programme stating that the concert was at Sacred Heart Cathedral, it did take place in the suitably more ornate and comfortable (though cold) St Mary of the Angels, with its excellent acoustics.  There was a large and appreciative audience.

A small instrumental ensemble (Emma Goodbehere, cello, Richard Hardie, bass, Steve Pickett, theorbo, Douglas Mews, organ, and Donald Nicolson, harpsichord) accompanied the choir; the conductor was Matthew Leese (brother of Anna), who is currently studying and working in Illinois.  He is in New Zealand to conduct what is probably the first production in this country of  Monterverdi’s  Orfeo, widely considered to be the first genuine opera.  It is to be performed in Dunedin, where Matthew studied for his undergraduate music degree, as part of the Otago Festival, next month.

Before the concert began, Michael Stewart (the regular conductor of the Consort) gave a short talk about the works to be performed.   He discussed Luther’s reforms, and the difference between the latter’s view of death and the Catholic view (this in a Catholic church!).  He referred to the possibility that Brahms had modelled his Ein Deutsches Requiem on this work of  Schütz, the score of which Brahms apparently had in his library.

The Musikalisches Exequien were composed for the funeral of Count Heinrich Posthumous Reuss in 1635. The work intersperses Biblical verses with poetic meditations, alternately utilising chorale settings and solo passages with continuo.  The work consists of Kyrie and Gloria, Motet (‘Herr, wenn ich nur Dich habe’) and the canticle Nunc Dimittis.  The work was entirely in German,  including the introductory plainsong.

The work opened with the instruments, whose sound was quite gorgeous.  However, in this movement it took a little time for the ten singers to penetrate through the instrumental sound.  When they did, they produced a lovely sound.  A few notes were not quite spot on, but as the concert progressed, intonation and timbre were mostly perfect.  An unusual feature was that the conductor also sang, as one of the basses.

A solo section in the Kyrie, ‘Siehe, das ist Gottes Lamm’, was beautifully sung by tenor Dan Carberg.

The Gloria did not sound particularly gloryifying, being made up mainly of texts contemplating the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  Variety in expression was achieved by solos interspersed with choral sections, and some solos having organ and cello accompaniment only.

Another fine tenor solo, ‘Ach, wie elend ist unser Zeit’, was from Dan Carberg  from the United States, although there were a few rum notes.  (He will sing the main role in Orfeo.)

The motet, ‘Herr wenn ich nur Dich habe’ had the choir reformed into two choirs.  This was a lively rhythmically and harmonically strong piece, quite in contrast to the previous more contrapuntal music, that wove its way beautifully around the space.

The last part of the canticle ‘Nunc Dimittis’, (which in English would be ‘Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord’) was set for a main five-part choir, while two sopranos, one bass and the theorbo removed to the side-chapel to create a antiphonal effect, though their music was no mere echo.  It was inevitable that one would think of Brahms’s beautiful setting of these same words.

The choir was accomplished as always, but there was not a lot of dynamic variation in the music, compared with the Scarlatti that followed.  Matthew Leese’s beat was clear, and the blend of the voices excellent.  I felt that some of the bass parts were a little low for his voice and also for that of the other bass, meaning that the sound was not the best quality that they were capable of.

The Stabat Mater was surprisingly cheerful, given its subject, compared with those of Pergolesi and others.   The second movement, ‘Cujus animam’, featured gorgeous harmonies and a lovely organ part played by Douglas Mews.  The balance of the instruments was somewhat of a difficulty throughout the work.  I could sometimes hear the cello when all instruments were playing, because often its part was doubled on the bass, but not always.  The harpsichord came through quite well (it was not used in every movement), but despite my sitting almost at the front of the church, I very seldom heard the theorbo.   Its quiet timbre simply did not penetrate through the sound of the other instruments and the singers – or through the music stand.

The choir produced superb tone in the third movement, ‘Quis non posset’, depicting the feeling of the words, describing Mary seeing her son scourged and dying.  This was especially true of the tenors.  Soaring contrapuntal lines seemed to weave in and out of the architecture of the church, with its arches and pillars, in the fifth movement ‘Sancta mater’; it ended with an exquisite cadence.

The ‘Inflammatus’ eighth movement excitedly demonstrated the theme.  Tenor Carberg and soprano Erin King were very accomplished, singing these fast passages.  The complex final movement was a tour de force of 10 solo singers rather than choir.

Balance was good through most of the concert, though in the last two movements, two sopranos were a little too strong for the rest of the choir, at least from my position.  Another disadvantage was that since Matthew Leese was both conducting and singing, his position meant he had his back to people on the right-hand side of the church a great deal of the time.

Heartfelt applause greeted the end of the concert; one could only say ‘Bravo!’ to another magnificent performance by the Tudor Consort.

Mozart, da Ponte and Figaro ride again – NBR New Zealand Opera

Posted on by Peter Mechen

MOZART  – Le Nozze di Figaro (Opera in Four Acts)

NBR New Zealand Opera 2010 Wellington (May) and Auckland (June)

Cast: Wade Kermot (Figaro), Emma Pearson (Susanna), Gennandi Dubinsky (Dr. Bartolo), Helen Medlyn (Marcellina), Wendy Dawn Thompson (Cherubino), Riccardo Novaro (Count Almaviva), Nuccia Focile (Countess Almaviva), Richard Greager (Don Basilio), Richard Green (Antonio), Derek Hill (Don Curio), Alexandra Ioan (Barbarina), Helen Lear, Polly Ott (Bridesmaids)

Lionel Friend (conductor)

Chapman Tripp Opera Chorus (Michael Vinten – chorus-master)

Vector Wellington Orchestra

St.James Theatre, Wellington

Saturday 15th May

NBR New Zealand Opera’s most recent production of the perennial favourite, Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” looked and sounded splendid on the opening night in Wellington. Despite one or two modernist quirks of production, this was definitely a “period” setting, with costumes, surroundings and ambiences that mostly sat well with the music and the drama. Onstage, behind an initially overbearing, almost fortress-like latticed wall which opened and closed at will were rooms with largely bare, elevated walls and tall doors, the spaces expanding, contracting or dividing to suit whatever scene. Interestingly, a friend was reminded by the clear lines and cool, austere spaces of Vermeer’s paintings; while another remarked upon the scale of things creating a kind of dolls’ house scenario. Generally designer Robin Rawstorne’s spaces and David Eversfield’s lighting nicely reflected nearly each scene of the drama’s business at hand, though I felt the extreme height of everything took away some of the conspiratorial drawing-room ambience of many of the goings-on, especially in the First Act. And while I appreciated (perhaps slightly voyeuristically) the luxury and spaciousness of the Countess’s bourdoir, I thought the window stylistically out of keeping with the design of everything else, as well as being too high for Susanna to plausibly announce to us that she could view the progress of the errant pageboy Cherubino, once he’d made his escape by jumping out of the same opening.

It would follow from this that I had misgivings regarding the final act’s setting – instead of a “garden”, there were stylised Mediterranean-like marble terracings, sensuously curved and almost aromatically lit, but in my view out of keeping with the more naturalistic environments of the previous three acts of the drama. If the intention was to create a kind of dream-sequence of denoument and resolution, then well and good; but one would have thought Mozart and da Ponte wished the motivations of thought and action as earthy and driven in this scene as in any other. Having made my complaint I feel bound to report that the acting and singing of the characters, as well as the orchestral playing (with especially beautiful winds!), transcended any visual incongruities, and, with the great moment of the Countess’s forgiveness of her errant husband making as tear-inducing and lip-trembling an encounter as ever, the drama’s point of fulfilment was triumphantly reached and borne aloft during the sparkling finale that followed.

The aforementioned medieval fortress-like curtain which greeted us upon our arrival was in direct contrast to the sparkle of the overture and the saucy exchanges between Figaro and Susanna during the first scene (rather TOO cramped a space, even with the high walls, it seemed to me). Wade Kermot’s Figaro was handsomely sung, with the occasional note richly upholstered, giving us ample notice of his voice’s expressive potential. The only thing I felt underdeveloped in his portrayal was true wit, the kind of joviality that would have set him up so well in his previous career as Seville’s most famous factotum, and enabled him to be more than a match this time round for his employer-cum-adversary, the Count. This quality his on-and-off-stage partner Emma Pearson had in abundance as Susanna, in a sense, her “lightness of being” acting as a foil to her lover’s seriousness of purpose, but always suggesting depth of character and whole-heartedness – a lovely performance, deliciously sung.

Their noble counterparts, Riccardo Novaro as Count Alvaviva and Nuccia Focile as his Countess Rosina, each presented a richly-wrought stage character. Riccardo Novaro’s elegantly-sung Count possessed a focused suavity, through which flickered the fires of his restlessness and sexual appetite, a portrayal finely calculated save for what I thought an unfortunately gratuitous kick which he aimed at a servant girl at the beginning of the Third Act. As for his “predatory spider” aspect in the “dream-garden” at the end, it was, by that stage in the proceedings, a case of “desperate people doing desperate things”, and acceptable as such, rather like the hilarious “coitus interruptus” scene involving the noble couple and Susanna earlier, in the Countess’s bourdoir. Nuccia Focile’s gorgeous Countess readily brought to mind the humanity and girlishness of Rosina, the ward of Doctor Bartolo, amid her stylish grace and nobility of bearing. Although less “pure” than I remembered, her voice and delivery possessed the power to move one to tears, as with the hushed reprise of her “Dove sono” in Act Three, and the rapt beauty of her reconciliation with her husband at the end.

One of the comedy’s main catalysts was the testosterone-laden pageboy Cherubino, here played with real comic flair by Wendy Dawn Thompson. She nicely contrasted her two important solos, a breathless, somewhat tremulous “Non so piu”, describing the driven desperation of the boy’s libidinous urgings and besotment with womankind in general, and a rather more considered and ritualistic “Voi che sapete” (variations on a similar theme). In both of these sequences I thought the singer brought less “body” to the voice than I would have expected from such expressions of post-pubescent excess, but her acting fleshed the character out nicely each time. However, I thought the Act One sequences of the page’s concealment and discovery by the Count awkwardly handled, and the somewhat muddled consignment of the hapless youth to the glories of military life didn’t here really take up the cues Mozart’s music was giving to the stage action.

Better done were the scenes involving the plotters and schemers, with Helen Medlyn’s ripely-drawn and cracklingly-well-sung Marcellina leading the charge, richly aided and abetted by a cherubic-faced Gennandi Dubinsky as Doctor Bartolo, occasionally uneven of voice in his “La vendetta’ aria, but investing his character with requisite surges of ill-humour and malicious glee. As good were Richard Greager as an oily, supercilious Basilio, adding his vituperative counterpoints to the ensembles with brightly-lit focus and relish; and Richard Green’s bluff, rugged Antonio, the gardener with a snitch against Figaro for trying to make a fool of him over Cherubino’s escape from the window. Derek Hill’s engaging cameo of the notary Don Curio did without the usual disfiguring stutter, while Alexander Ioan as the gardener’s daughter Barbarina sang her “lost pin” aria most fetchingly, acting “for two” throughout with quick wit and charm, her pregnancy wonderfully pronounced, and brought to bear most embarrassingly for the Count regarding his past interactions with her.

Although the chorus doesn’t have a great deal to sing in this work, the servants and their families are a kind of omnipresence, seen or unseen, embodying the underclass dominated by the likes of the Count and Countess and the system that supports the feudal relationship. Their few appearances were striking, almost Breughel-like in their deployment and their variety of colourings, thanks  in part to Elizabeth Whiting’s adroit juxtapositionings of work and festive costumings. Their singing had plenty of bright tones and engaging rusticity. It was also good to hear the Wellington Orchestra sounding in better all-round shape than when I heard them at the opera last, in Tchaikovsky’s “Eugen Onegin” the previous year. All credit to conductor Lionel Friend for securing such lively and well-upholstered playing, with some deliciously-delivered wind cameos accompanying some of Mozart’s most beautiful operatic arias.

If there was justification for yet another “Figaro” from our opera company, it was here amply-realised by Aidan Lang’s thought-provoking and highly entertaining production.

Viennese Connections – Dame Malvina Major and the NZSO

Posted on by Peter Mechen

MOZART – Symphony No.41 “Jupiter” / J.STRAUSS Jnr. – Overture and Czardas from “Die Fledermaus”, “Thunder and Lightning” Polka / LEHAR – “Meine Lippen, sie kussen so heiss” from “Giuditta”, “Liebe, du Himmel auf Erden” from “Paganini”, “Vilja” from “Die Lustige Witwe”, Waltz “Gold and Silver” / SIECYNSKI – “Wien, wien, nur du Allein”

Dame Malvina Major (soprano)

Tecwyn Evans (conductor)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, 15th May,2010

(A “guest review” by Peter Coates of this concert appears at the end of this article)

Enthusiasts for fine orchestral playing would have been thoroughly diverted by the chance to compare the NZSO’s playing of the Mozart “Jupiter” Symphony in this concert with that of those recent visitors to this country for the International Arts Festival, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. Unfortunately I didn’t get to the concert at which the latter played this particular work, although I did hear the “Prague”, and thus was able to glean something of the orchestra’s style and their particular sound. What struck me with the NZSO’s performance with Tecwyn Evans was how stylish everything sounded, given that the timbres weren’t quite as “characterful” (an authenticist’s euphemism) as those of the Freiburg Ensemble. The key to everything was in the balance between orchestral sections – here winds, brass and timpani were given every opportunity to “speak”, both with solo lines (the playing of both oboist Robert Orr and timpanist Larry Reese a constant delight) and in ensemble, for once properly counterweighting Mozart’s superb string-writing. It made for an absorbing narrative of interaction, especially during the first and last movements, and enhanced by the decision to play all repeats, the amplifications making the symphony truly “Jupiter-like”.

That word “characterful” kept reappearing in my notes hastily scribbled during the performance, referring to various felicitous detailings – the pair of deliciously-played bassoons in thirds during the first movement development, the extra depth of sound asked for and got by the conductor for the second movement’s minor-key episode (and such tenderness in the phrasing of the strings at the recapitulation!) – and the enlivening of the opening melodic lines of the finale by those urgent, scampering accompaniments, already suggesting the fugal ferment to follow. Again, the repeats enlarged the music’s span, properly suggesting vast, imperious orbits of energy around which conductor and players readily danced that joyous cosmic dance proposed and then led by the composer. Life-enhancing stuff!

After the intoxicating draughts of the symphony, it seemed to me the champagne flowed more fitfully during the second half, though there were good moments, especially with Dame Malvina Major, again, the concert’s true centerpiece. Her voice seemed on fine form once again, though again in certain places I found it difficult to “place” her tones as a soloist to those of the orchestra’s. For that reason I enjoyed her singing more the previous night, because we seemed to actually hear more of her – in places the voice seemed subsumed by orchestral textures as if a wind instrument in an ensemble. Oddly enough I sat a lot closer to her on this occasion, but such are the vagaries of concert-hall acoustics!

Best were the Dame’s Lehar items – from “Giuditta” we got a finely-spun “Meine Lippen, sie kussen so heiss”, the voice sustaining the line of the introduction, and then melting us with the awakening of the main tune, including a lovely hushed ascent at the end of the first verse. Finely-honed, sinuous wind accompaniments supported the singing to near-perfection. Again, in “Liebe, du Himmel auf Erden”, from “Paganini”, the voice had a silvery, wonderfully-focused aspect throughout, enhanced by the hushed orchestral playing – a lovely cushion of sound for a singer.

Inevitably, and rightly, the programme finished with one of Malvina’s calling cards, the “Vilja” from “Die Lustige Witwe”, sung in English, the voice slightly masked by the orchestra throughout the verses, but clear and lovely for the soaring tune and reprise, the singer treating us to a brief, skilfully floated stratospheric ascent the second time round, during which time itself seemed to pause and listen.

Again, the more strenuous items seemed to suit the voice less well – the “Czardas” from “Die Fledermaus” (Johann Strauss Jnr.) ultimately required more power, despite moments of lovely detailing (some skilful high trumpet work in the “friss” section), and the balance again seeming to over-favour the orchestra in Sieczynski’s popular “Wien, Wien nur du Allein”. It will be interesting to read reports of the concerts featuring this same programme from further up the island over the touring week – in different venues, the voice-and-orchestra balance may well shift, hopefully towards the side of the singer.

The programme was “fleshed out” a little with some purely orchestral items – and I wish Tecwyn Evans hadn’t agreed to conduct such a horribly truncated version of one of the greatest of all concert waltzes, Lehar’s “Gold and Silver”! Shorn of all repeats, and with at least one important reprise completely excised, the work became a trite collection of pretty waltz tunes, one meaninglessly following the other. Thank goodness for Strauss’s “Die Fledermaus” Overture – spirited and theatrical – and for the rumbustions “Thunder and Lightning” Polka, though anybody who’s played this music in an amateur orchestra, as I have, might just have found themselves wanting a bit less finesse and a touch more “abandonment” from the NZSO percussion!

A QUESTION OF BALANCE – Malvina’s Second NZSO Concert

Guest review by Peter Coates

It is 12 years since Malvina Major appeared in concert with the NZSO, 25 years since I worked with her on a series of television “specials”. Hearing her sing again with the orchestra is a long awaited pleasure. To hear her creamy soprano once again brings back many fond memories to me, and at least two sad ones. These are the two recordings I made with her with conductor John Matheson and New Zealand casts of Puccini’s “Tosca” and Mozart’s “Il Seraglio” for TVNZ that have never been completed. Malvina is special. She holds a place in our hearts because she primarily stayed in New Zealand during her career to entertain us, raised large sums of money for charity and has over the past twenty years worked hard to train and offer opportunities to New Zealand’s growing number of talented young operatic singers.

A goodly number of “grey haired” supporters – like me – came to see our popular “Lady of Song” at the Michael Fowler Centre double concerts last week. The first,a recital featuring the more dramatic arias in her repertoire I did not see, but I certainly saw and enjoyed her second venture into the Viennese. What never fails to impress me is the ease that she can sung those difficult pianissimo high notes, displaying the flawless technique that always has been a feature of her singing.Sadly there were problems though in the balance with the orchestra during the softer passages of her arias, which made her voice difficult to hear.Having recently spent time with Sir Donald McIntyre during the Simon O’Neill Wagner concert, and Donald Munro during his recent visit to Wellington, I have been reminded constantly about the importance of the words in performance. When you find the accompaniment preventing you from hearing the words clearly it is very frustrating, whether it be German or English. A recent performance of “Miss Saigon’ was spoilt for me for example by the distorted amplification of the singers, so the problem of not being able to hear accompanied vocal performances doesn’t occur just with the NZSO.

This contrasted greatly with the  Mozart 41st Symphony that began the concert, where the smaller orchestra gave the chance for the audience to hear the wonderful Mozart orchestration in all its glory. The beautiful interplayof the woodwind was great to hear so clearly, with Robert Orr starring on the oboe. Sadly Malvina’s softer passages were not given the same courtesy. Part of the problem appars to be the accoustic of the  Michael Fowler Centre .A position beside the conductor does not appear to be as accoustically good as the back of the choir stalls. I remember how clearly one could hear the singing of Martin Snell from that position during the wonderful “Parsifal” production in 2006. Having a reflective surface so close behind you certainly helps. Perhaps a position further in front of the orchestra might help? Links with the conductor these days can be provided by monitor. The audience in the past has been ignored by the use of “space stages”, bad stage position and heavy absorbent costumes that affect the ability of the human voice to project to the back of the hall.

The trouble is that it is the singer who tends to get blamed for lack of projection rather than the other accoustic elements involved. Should one blame the excellent conductor of the concert, New Zealander Tecwyn Evans – “ the first New Zealander to hold a conducting position in a major European Opera House for over 30 years”? Not if his wonderful Mozart 41 is anything to go by. Speaking to Malvina following the concert I got the impression that he tried manfully to get the softer passages sung by Malvina properly exposed.

I congratulate the NZSO for two very good operatic programmes this year, but I would like to see further exploration of the accoustics involved with vocal performance at the Michael Fowler Centre.

Dame Malvina Major and the NZSO – a concert of commitment

Posted on by Peter Mechen

ANTHONY RITCHIE – French Overture

GIUSEPPE VERDI – I Vespri Siciliani “Merce dilette amiche”

GIACOMO PUCCINI – Tosca “Vissi d’arte”, Madama Butterfy “Un bel di vedremo”, Gianni Schicci “O mio babbino caro”

VINCENZO BELLINI – Norma “Casta Diva”

EDWARD ELGAR – Symphony No.1

Dame Malvina Major (soprano)

Tecwyn Evans (conductor)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday, 14th May, 2010

I was originally going to “roll two reviews into one”, as Dame Malvina Major was performing on consecutive days with the orchestra in Wellington; but after thoroughly enjoying the first of the two concerts I made an executive decision to write about the two events separately, so as to properly “place” the tumbling profusion of impressions that the first event alone landed upon me. What struck me most forcibly about this concert was the sheer commitment shown by all concerned to the task of getting the music across to us. From the opening strains of Anthony Ritchie’s beguiling “French Overture”, through the beautifully-delivered operatic arias bracket by Dame Malvina Major, and finally to the stirring blaze of Sir Edward Elgar’s first, epoch-making symphony, I thought the musical responses had a whole-heartedness and sense of purpose that drove to the heart of each of the works presented. Even when one could quibble with this detail here and that emphasis there, the sense of everybody’s involvement in the music-making carried the day, resulting in a most successful and heart-warming concert.

Centrestage was Dame Malvina Major, bringing to her performances of several well-known and much loved operatic arias an amalgam of stylishness and simplicity of utterance that  served the music well throughout. Backed to the hilt by stellar playing from the orchestra, expertly guided by New Zealand’s most prominent and currently successful overseas-based conductor, Tecwyn Evans, Dame Malvina successfully brought each of the operatic heroines to life on the concert platform for us. Perhaps she struggled at the very beginning of the recital to produce enough tone and heft to project the vigorous aria sung by Elena in Verdi’s I Vespri Siciliani, “Merce, dilete amiche”; and her rendering of Tosca’s “Vissi d’arte” which followed, ideally also needed a bit more juice at its climax. But in other ways the latter was so well-focused, so detailed and heartfelt in depicting the character’s desperation, that we forgave the lack of amplitude at one or two cardinal points.

One registered the beautiful phrasing and sensitively-weighted line in Bellini’s “Casta Diva”, singing which seemed to expand naturally and unforcedly into golden outpourings at the big moments, that same elegance of vocal production shaping the lines of “O mio babbino caro” so unerringly as to melt the stoutest paternal heart. Only in the more strenuous moments of Madama Butterfly’s famous “Un bel di vedremo” did one sense a voice having to be content with less that what the music seemed to require; but the sheer musicality of Dame Malvina’s more subtle delineations of Cio-Cio San’s character revealed for us the artist that she remains.

Framing the Dame, so to speak, were two orchestral excursions, the concert beginning with Anthony Ritchie’s intriguingly-titled “French Overture”, a work which the composer wrote while on study leave in Paris in response to a commission by conductor Tecwyn Evans. Ritchie modelled his work on the form of a French baroque overture, with its slow-fast-slow scheme, as well having recourse to characteristic dotted rhythms and fugato form to strengthen the traditional connections. What struck me about the work (as with Ross Harris’s two pieces in the recent “Made in New Zealand concert) was the music’s overall surety of shape and focus throughout, allied with its splendidly-modulated use of detail, leading the ear ever-onwards in a more-or-less continuous exploration of melody, rhythm and colour. The opening brass-and-percussion flourishes set the scene splendidly, as if proclaiming a kind of historical pageant to follow, the mood of the introduction by turns stern, epic, lyrical (a beautifully soaring theme on the violins over the lower strings’ dotted rhythms), and noble (golden horn tones warming the textures).

Throughout the work I felt that forms such as fugue were being used in ways that related to what had come before, either by osmotic transition or well thought-out contrast – here the fugal impulses which seized the strings mid-work seemed to have been waiting in the wings since the beginning, and so were readily integrated into the later “workings-out” of revisited and enriched material. Thus the return of the imposing opening music’s mood is enriched with a darker, grander statement of the fugal subject, after the winds had earlier roared out a somewhat livelier version, again in tandem with or in close proximity to a soaring string tune shedding stratospheric light on a tattooing timpani rhythm. I loved the folkish “slur” on the lowest reach of the flute-and-strings tune, repeated by the lower strings when they had their turn – and the strings-and-timpani conclusion to the work, with the sounds slowly emptying out through the ether, felt profoundly satisfying.

As well as with this performance, conductor Tecwyn Evans had amply demonstrated earlier in the month his commitment to contemporary New Zealand composition with his directorship of both the NZSO/SOUNZ Readings, and the “Made In New Zealand” concert to his credit. Now, to set beside his skills as an operatic accompanist, Evans then gave notice of his abilities as a symphonic conductor with a stirring performance of one of the great late-romantic symphonies, Sir Edward Elgar’s 1908 Symphony in A-flat. Right from the beginning of the work one could sense the care with which the “great tune” was shaped and nurtured, with beguiling touches of wind counterpoint brought out in a sensitively colouristic way and the “pomp and circumstance” of its repetition on the full orchestra splendidly hurled forth, if just missing that final touch of swagger in evidence on the very greatest performances on record. Especially notable in the first movement was the conductor’s balancing of the music’s purposeful energies with its more lyrical and winsome aspects (such an intensely beguiling grace given to that repeated melismatic phrase which sits at the top of a solo violin’s upwardly striving tendrils – on each occasion a moment of real orchestral frisson, catching the sllghtly “wind-blown” effect to perfection).

Terrific playing from all concerned gave the scherzo real bite and colour (received wisdom has it that Elgar’s writing for orchestra is an exemplar for any budding composer wanting to study instrumentation). The trio section in this performance conjured up sound-worlds of evocation in line with the composer’s description of the melody as “something one hears whistled down by the river”. And the transition from this to the slow movement was a sequence to die for, as much for what it promised as what was fulfilled, the string textures warming and ripening, as the players found themselves given plenty of time to “breathe” their lines deeply and richly. A Brucknerian horn chord introduced the movement’s main theme, with its characteristic falling interval, whose sigh of contentment or regret or both is goosebump-making when played, as it was here, with sufficient heartfelt intensity. Even more heart-rending was the strings’ soaring transformation of the opening theme towards the movement’s end, the rhapsodisings melting back regretfully into a final, beautifully rapt clarinet phrase. At the risk of sounding like a musical Pooh-Bah I confess to cursing the gaucheries of that section of the audience which applauded during the silence that followed, and had to stop myself springing to my feet and “shushing!” in response to the outburst, well-meaning though the show of appreciation undoubtedly was.

Nevertheless, the finale’s brooding, rather sinister opening “got back” the atmosphere quickly and surely, the allegro urgent and strong, perhaps the tiniest bit splashy ensemble-wise, but settling to allow the violas to dig into their striding theme with plenty of outdoor vigour. Perhaps the conductor pushed the staccato theme too quickly when it first appeared (it slows down anyway as it peaks), but the ensuing bustle and tumult of “working out” were extremely exciting, and the ennobling of that same theme by the strings had all the romantic sweep one would wish for. When the symphony’s motto theme returned at the end, after fighting its way through the various agitations and galvanic irruptions, the effect was thrilling; and at the detonation of the very last chord, we in the audience were able to at last express our pent-up excitement and pleasure at witnessing such a brilliant and committed performance.

Figaro’s marvellous marriage in Day’s Bay garden

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Marriage of Figaro
Produced by Rhona Fraser; Conducted by Michael Vinten, directed by Sara Brodie.
The Count – Matt Landreth, The Countess – Rhona Fraser, Susanna – Barbara Graham, Figaro – Daniel O’Connor, Cherubino – Bianca Andrew, Marcellina – Annabelle Cheetham, Don Basilio – John Beaglehole, Dr Bartolo – Roger Wilson, Barbarina – Sophie Mackie; village girls – Olivia Martin and Rose Blake

Canna House, Moana Road, Day’s Bay

Monday 15 March 2010

I was at the third of the three performances of this startling and brilliant staging of Mozart’s great comedy.

It was at the initiative of Rhona Fraser who was both producer and the Countess, as well as owner of the property in a natural amphitheatre against the beech forest behind Day’s Bay.

Her own background, as a singer of some enterprise, made this project look inevitable.
Music graduate of Victoria University, studies in England and several years performing small roles at English National Opera and big roles in small companies such as theatre designer and impresario Adam Pollock’s. Every summer for 30 years from 1974 he brought his English opera company to perform in an abandoned convent at his famous Batignano Festival in Tuscany. It was that that persuaded Rhona of the special fruitfulness of such intimate productions, not in the conventional opera house. Since returning to New Zealand and buying the property, she has organized charity concerts and now for the first time, an opera.
No opera could have been more right.

Rhona had met opera director Sara Brodie, when she too worked at Batignano; she was the natural choice as stage director. Her hand was alive to all the possibilities offered by the house and garden and she would have encouraged and offered creative ideas to the cast, most of whom seemed overflowing with theatrical instinct.

The weather intrudes
The Friday (first) performance was the victim of the extraordinary storm that struck that evening; those who arrived were greeted, nevertheless, with a glass of wine and an aria before turning back into the storm; and most were able to come on the ‘rain day’ on Monday. There was enough interest to have mounted another performance.

Monday was, reportedly, the best evening for the weather, with the lightest of breezes, warm temperatures, and a western sky seen through the proscenium of trees that slope down to the bay and the harbour beyond, streaked with light clouds in a beautiful sunset.

It started at 5pm, with a dinner break at 6.15 after Act II, and resumed about 7.20 so darkness fell about the start of the garden cavortings in Act IV, when charming lighting made the natural setting even more entrancing.

Setting and preparation
There’s a lot of preparation involved with a production of this kind. A major task was the preparation of an orchestral score for a much reduced instrumental ensemble. That was the task of music director Michael Vinten who has had much experience. There was a piano, played by Richard Mapp, to flesh out the sound, especially the bass, sometimes even suggesting an orchestra; Mapp also played an electronic harpsichord for the recitatives. There were one each of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn but no strings apart from a double bass. The result was musically admirable and entirely adequate to the task.

And there was no chorus apart from the principals themselves, including the two nubile Village Girls.

The way the house and garden are disposed on the property allowed the ‘stage’ and the audience to change places between the first two and the last two acts. Thus the terrace in front of the house served as Figaro’s and Susanna’s room and then the Countess’s chamber while, after the dinner hour, alterations to seating moved the performance space to the lower lawn terrace while the audience was on the upper terraces, facing west toward the harbour and the setting sun. Visibility was excellent, and the sound even more so, every word clear. For while in Acts I and II the performers had the house behind them to reflect the sound, in Acts III and IV, they sang with nothing but the view at their backs; the natural amphitheatre did the rest.

The different levels allowed for stunts like Figaro leaping over the little hedge of the top level to land on the one below; and Cherubino’s escape, not into the garden, but into the adjacent swimming pool, wet tee-shirt and all.

Then there was the libretto, in Shirmer’s English translation, apart from one of Cherubino’s arias, ‘Voi che sapete’, which Bianca Andrew sang in Italian. It was witty at times, a bit laboured at others, but helped by occasional up-dating with local, contemporary references such as Seatoun as the generalized ‘elsewhere’ and where the Count goes surfing.

My only quarrel with the translation was with Figaro’s threat, after Susanna makes him understand the Count’s intentions, that ‘he may go dancing but I’ll play my guitar’; in my head, ‘…I’ll call the tune’, has always seemed the perfect English equivalent.

The performance
Let me comment at this point about the absence of a review in Wellington’s daily paper. If this were London, one might forgive The Times or The Independent for overlooking it, but for the only daily in a small city that boasts of being a ‘cultural capital’ to ignore such a large-scale, elaborate and brilliant enterprise is lamentable. In total over 600 people saw it, far more than most Fringe Festival events that the paper has been covering.

The overture began with the accompaniment of comings and goings of those who would be identified later, ending with the two who we could assume were about to become Figaro and Susanna, kissing. As their scene was about to begin, with them preoccupied, Vinten tapped his baton on the desk to call them to order. It set the tone.

Figaro, Daniel O’Connor,  is suitably young, perhaps a little too young – for this is the man-of-the-world who, in The Barber, was the engineer of the Count’s winning of Rosina against extraordinary odds. He can afford to be more mature than his master. Never mind.

Bianca Andrew, the Cherubino, was no less vivid; she will be remembered as Ino in last year’s Semele from the New Zealand School of Music, as one of Wendy Dawn Thompson’s companions in her recital and in January at the New Zealand Opera School at Wanganui. Her delivery was stylish and coloured with nice emphases on some words.

The Count’s other obsession is surfing; his (Matt Landreth’s) arrival in wetsuit and surfboard at two points titillated as he stripped to a body stocking. He displayed a stage confidence, looks and vocal style that fitted the role splendidly, though it might be unlikely that a surfie would be named as ambassador to London; there was little outward dignitas  of which even less remained after the succession of shameful revelations starting in the first act with Cherubino’s overhearing the Count’s plans involving Susanna, a scene alive with adroit movement and timing.

Costumes were ‘period’ apart from the Count.

Susanna was sung by Barbara Graham who has been attracting attention in the past couple of years. With a well-formed, excellently trained soprano and vivid stage presence, she was a model Susanna: pretty, bright, daring. She’s shortly on her way to Paris for coaching and for auditions.

To get a performance of little over two hours many cuts were needed. One I particularly missed was the spunky duet between Susanna and Marcellina; we had only the preliminary foretaste. Marcellina was far from being a Katisha. Annabelle Cheetham, her voice full of character, created a woman of uncertain years, lively, prickly, but not ultimately uncharitable; thus her role in the first act was not inconsistent with the reconciliation in the third.

Rhona Fraser as the Countess gave an exemplary performance; a voice in good shape, the right demeanour, sad disillusionment born with dignity, yet the ability to see through the last act with a warm sense of humour and spirit. She had cast herself very well and her two big arias were serious, impressive singing.

The two roles of Dr Bartolo and the gardener, Antonio were distinctly delineated by baritone Roger Wilson, voice splendid, and costumes outlandish. Tenor John Beaglehole was a very well cast Don Basilio, at once weasely and sympathetic, his voice now of good operatic proportions.

Sophie Mackie sang Barbarina pertly, and intentionally, no doubt, without too much polish.

It all ended as darkness enveloped the garden, and the always chaotic disguises, dissemblings, revenges, misunderstandings, umbrages, and the final exposure and irredeemable humiliation of the count, enacted in a real garden, with people emerging from bushes and escaping down gravel paths, had the audience entranced as they could not possibly have been in any ordinary opera theatre.

I’m sure there are other Rhona Frasers and Sara Brodies around New Zealand who could help transform the starved, struggling opera scene in New Zealand, given some resources. It’s time Creative New Zealand woke up to its real responsibilities towards the real arts and got behind initiatives such as this in a serious way.

For this was the sort of performance that contributes, not merely to the great pleasure of the audience, but also to the process of training talented singers in the business of opera. It did all these things superbly well.