Brian Dickie

Ristretto!

I got back on Sunday evening from four beautiful days in Provence - with the Ristretto Summer Academy, as a spectator only I should add! And here they all are above, after the Saturday night concert, the result of seven days hard work with Errol Girdlestone (front and centre!).  

Any enthusiastic experienced amateur chorister would have a terrific time in the enchanting Lumierès.  People go back there year after year and enjoy the work, the sun, the pool, and the food.  But above all the company of like minded people.

The church and the rehearsal rooms are all attached to the hotel, and the little village is blessed with three restaurants, an epicerie, a pharmacy, and a splendid cave for your wine purchases. You can get there by bus route 15 from the Avignon TGV station.  And a direct train from St Pancras to Avignon runs through the summer avoiding a change of station in Paris.  An easy and relaxed journey avoiding the agony of summer in our airports.

Lumières main street!

I am back in London briefly now - Rameau at the Arcola Theatre this evening!

Provence

I am sitting in the shade where the temperature is 34 - in the delightful Hotel Notre-Dame de Lumières. I am here for just four days to join Errol and Susie Girdlestone at the Ristretto Summer Academy. This place is a paradise with the hotel attached to the chapel and as I sit here the sound of the chorus rehearsing for the concert tomorrow evening has a unique magic.

This is a good way to get away from some apparently ghastly weather in England this week.  The chorus come from all over the world, even from northern Alberta in one case!  But certainly the majority are enthusiastic amateur chorus singers from England including members of the Bach Choir and similar outstanding British choruses.  With a programme at the concert tomorrow including music by Arvo Pärt, James McMillan, Robert Schumann, J.S.Bach and others, we are in for a delicious evening - followed by a delicious dinner!!  It is France after all.......and then I will be back to London on Sunday evening on the Eurostar from Avignon.  A perfect break.

My week began with two visits to Glyndebourne, my last of the season.  Monday was the dress rehearsal of Robert Carsen's 2011 production of Rinaldo, its second revival.  I did not see it on either previous outing so was delighted to be able to get to see it at last - with an outstanding cast and exceptional young conductor, Maxim Emelyanychev, the production was beautifully revived by Bruno Ravella in Robert's absence.

The cast included three old friends, one from Chicago Opera Theater, Tim Mead, and two from Neue Stimmen, Kristina Mkhitaryan and Jakub Józef Orliński.  Jakub auditioned for me in Warsaw in 2013 at the age of 22 and it was already clear that this young man was set for stardom.  He was one of the very rare countertenors that we brought to the finals and, although he did not win in 2013, he has gone on to be one of the most sought after young people in his field.  He sang the title role and I have little doubt that he will have had a great success with this at the opening last night.

The Almirena was a terrific Italian soprano Giulia Semenzato - lovely singing from her, not least in Lascia io pianga.  Good for Glyndebourne to have unearthed an Italian - only too difficult these days sadly!

The following evening I was at the controversial Zauberflöte. It must have been a hugely expensive production - it had its moments and I greatly enjoyed Brindley Sherratt's singing of Sarastro. But I have to say that I found that much of it was buried under a mountain of "production". But I guess that Mozart can survive pretty well anything - almost!

More from here tomorrow!

A typical London summer week

Paco Peña and company at Cubitt Sesions, Kings Cross Saturday July 27 2019

The last eight days have been mainly social catching up with friends after such busy weeks all over the place! But it was a huge pleasure to go to the 2019 Cubitt sessions at the excellent new space that they are using at King's Cross - the Coal Drops Yard.  Paco Peña is of course a living legend - to have him and his troupe for two hours in King's Cross on a summer evening, and all for free, is a miracle!

© Ali Wright

Natalya Romaniw and David Butt Philip in Iolanta

On Thursday evening I was able to get to one of the other miracles of summer in London, Holland Park Opera in absolutely top form with their delightful double bill of Wolf-Ferrari's Segreto di Susanna and Tchaikovsky's Iolanta. The Wolf-Ferrari little one act farce is of course a bit of a trifle - but an ideal curtain raiser for pretty well anything. And so it was on Thursday with Clare Presland and Richard Burkhard the troubled couple.

Iolanta is of course another more substantial piece of work and given its 85 minute length always somehow needs a pairing.  It was premiered in 1892 at the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg together with the premiere of The Nutcracker!  Well Holland Park does not have a ballet company so that idea would not have worked! It is interesting to note that Iolanta apparently achieved the greater public acclaim on that night - whereas The Nutcracker has subsequently become the most performed ballet of all and Iolanta is something of a rarity!!

Hats off to James Clutton and his team for having put together a remarkable cast.  Natalya Romaniw and David Butt Philip were truly thrilling throughout, and hitting the "money notes" with ruthless aplomb to electrifying effect.  Wow factors all round!  And the musical leadership of Sian Edwards in the pit brought real quality to the whole ensemble with the excellent Opera Holland Park Chorus and the City of London Sinfonia turning in top notch performances.  It was a hugely enjoyable evening and wildly applauded by the full house.  It is on our door step in London at one end of bucolic Holland Park - no need to make the expedition to Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire or the Chilterns to get an unusual operatic fix!

I was back at Coal Drops Yard again yesterday evening for a nice programme from four of the English National Opera's Harewood Artists. They sang most of their items in the original language in defiance of the ENO policy!  But all the more welcome for that. Nadine Benjamin, Katie Coventry, Elgan Llŷr Thomas and Matthew Durkan were the wholly admirable quartet genially accompanied by Chris Hopkins on a Clavinova. Which made me question whether it really is impossible to do events like this with a piano and natural unamplified sound.......

Anyway again there was a full house and enthusiastic applause and a good time was had by all - including me!

I am at Glyndebourne tomorrow for the dress rehearsal of Rinaldo, and again on Tuesday for a performance of Die Zauberflöte.  On Wednesday I am on the Eurostar to Avignon for a four day visit to Errol and Susie Girdlestone in Lumières - about which much more anon!

Out of Africa

Nelson Mandela and the Union Buildings, Pretoria July 19 2019

My trip to Cape Town was a huge success with no less than 4 singers being selected for the final rounds in Germany in October. We were already short of men so I was particularly pleased to choose two baritones and a tenor, as well as a very thrilling soprano. All we have left now is for my colleague Evamaria Wieser to go to Asia to find the last few to make up the total of 44 finalists. 

Cape Town University opera school is in very good shape with their new director Jeremy Silver following hugely successfully in the footsteps of Kamal Khan who himself took the school to new heights.  The last five years have been amazing for the development of South African singers, and I am very proud that Neue Stimmen has been able to make a valuable contribution to that. And I think that we have another good vintage in 2019!

I was very happy then to proceed to Pretoria where I had last been back in 1999. We did not add any further singers to the list for the finals, but I heard a dozen or so singers including a prodigiously endowed 25 year old Ghanaian bass who had made the trip from his home country.  He is not ready yet but if he can develop over the next four years in a good school (perhaps even in the University of Cape Town) he could very well be a serious contender in 2023.

Before leaving for London on Saturday I went to the Pretoria Zoo - no time for a safari!  It was a glorious sunny day in South Africa's capital city, nice and fresh at 4,000 feet up in the Highveld. A two hour walk around with the animals free to roam in most cases.  It was pretty well deserted even though it was a Saturday - and a good two mile walk was easy with my wonderful new knee behaving perfectly!

Back in London I had a couple of days to recover before the joy of the Monteverdi Vespers at Garsington on Wednesday - a glorious evening and we were all in Garden Party casual rather than black tie.  What a difference that makes!  This 8:30 pm performance was an inspired idea to round off a tremendous Garsington 2019 season.  Thank you the Bevan sisters, Ben Hulett, Rob Murray and James Way, the English Concert and the English Cornett and Sackbutt Ensemble, and of course the Garsington Opera Chorus, all welded together for magical music making by Laurence Cummings. A happy day indeed.

I am looking forward to a quieter few weeks but there is good stuff coming up nevertheless - watch this space!

South Africa

The Table Mountain 6:15 pm Tuesday July 16 from downtown Cape Town

I am now in South Africa for what I fully expect to be a fruitful series of auditions.  In recent years we have found some outstanding talent here, as have other prospectors for vocal gold. I already had a most encouraging evening on Tuesday at Artscape and today, Thursday, I am set for further riches in Baxter Hall at the University of Cape Town.

It is winter still here and the advantage of that is that there are few tourists.  And so a visit yesterday to the Groot Constantia vineyard and winery was a peaceful pleasure, as was a magnificent lunch in the Jonkershuis Restaurant.

It was good to wind down from the long journey from London.  This time I flew via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines - but I was unprepared for the nightmare of connecting at Istanbul's colossal new airport.  I had a 40 minute walk from the F gates to the gate A10.........look at the photo below and imagine the walk from the top distant right to the bottom left. There were some very unhappy confused people.

I will have to pass through there on Saturday night on my way home.  I have two hours to make my connection - I will need every minute!

But for now I am concentrating on my auditions today and looking forward to getting to Pretoria this evening, my first visit to South Africa's capital since 1999. It is a short 90 minute flight to Johannesburg and an easy transfer from there.  And it will be nice and warm!

Double Bill!

A week of Fantasio - two performances, two casts. And what a pleasure it was to be at Garsington twice this week.  I had been at a piano run of Fantasio last month, then the first stage and orchestra rehearsal. And I was at the understudy show case last week.  But I had not seen the complete show until Monday. And last night I returned for the wonderful OperaFirst event - a full performance with all the trimmings with the understudy cast to a house full of unbelievably attentive and enthusiastic school age children from 8 to 18.  Most heart warming.  Above you see the understudy cast acknowledging wild cheers!

I arrived on Monday and parked near the cricket field looking its pristine manicured best.  From there it is a very short walk to pick up tickets from the Box office but before that cream tea in the dining tent beside the cricket pavilion.  I have never managed to get there early enough before to enjoy this quintessentially English ritual - the scones, the clotted cream and the raspberry jam! On a warm sunny afternoon it adds to the bliss of being in this beautiful place.

Fantasio is a rarity, but a perfect choice for a country house summer festival - and utterly charming it was in Martin Duncan's light hearted production. There were four exceptional central performances from Hanna Hipp in the title role, Jennifer France and Princess Elsbeth, Huw Montague Rendall as her suitor Prince from Mantova and Timothy Robinson as his long suffering sidekick Marinoni. Impeccable each of them, and supported by the usual exceptionally strong team of Garsington singers in chorus and smaller roles. And the light touch conducting of Justin Doyle completed the picture.

The smartly suited and booted audience enjoyed it hugely - another success for Garsington 2019.

But last night was an altogether more informal occasion and all the more fun for that. There was no long interval, just a 30 minute break with whatever picnic snacks and drinks one brought along. And the performance had a freshness which thrilled the young people in the audience and their enthusiasm infected us all.  And truth to say the understudy cast and conductor yielded nothing to their senior principals, delivering a hugely enjoyable show which somehow for me gave me even more pleasure than Monday evening's! 

In the title role, Bianca Andrew grasped the part with all her soul and was indeed remarkable.  I was so proud of our Neue Stimmen alum! Fellow Kiwi Kieran Rayner took on the not insubstantial responsibility of understudying Huw Montague Rendall and, like Bianca, delivered a totally confident singing and acting performance. That a another distinguished New Zealander was in the audience was no doubt an additional bonus!

Furthermore the Princess and Marinoni, Catriona Hewitson and David Horton far exceeded all reasonable expectations. And Harry Sever took charge in the pit with calm authority......altogether a joyful evening.

And so our London summer goes on.  This evening something completely different - Noye's Fludde at the Theatre Royal, Stratford. 

Quick week!

Garsington Understudy Showcase line up!

I had slightly shortened week as a result of a stupid minor accident that landed me in hospital for two nights! I am just fine now so do not worry.  But it ,meant that I missed the opening of Garsington's Turn of the Screw on Monday evening but returned to duty on Tuesday for a most enjoyable showcase of the season's understudies at the RADA studios on Tuesday.

The Garsington Alvarez Young Artists' Programme gives many of its members the opportunity to understudy main stage roles. And inevitably each season one or more of them my have the experience of standing in at the last minute. In recent seasons the Alice Ford and Pamina have distinguished themselves by stepping in, and this year the Jenik was indisposed for two performances and his understudy scored a huge success. One opera each year is given a performance with the understudy last - this year it will be Fantasio next Wednesday.

So this is serious stuff!  And it was a huge pleasure to see the emerging talent on Tuesday evening delivering twenty minute excerpts from each of the four operas in the season's repertoire.  With Seán Boylan in the title role Don Giovanni got the evening off to a flying start, we then changed gear to Britten with an impressive Prologue from Robert Forrest and an imposing Governess from Nardus Williams.  I will write more about Fantasio after I see the full show on Wednesday - but it looks and sounds very good indeed for this OperaFirst performance.

The evening ended with the popular hit of the Garsington season, the Bartered Bride. Those of us not having been able to see an actual performance by the Jenik Oliver Johnston has to be satisfied with what was on offer - he is a formidable talent. Another excellent tenor Alexander Aldren was a splendid dead pan Vasek.  In a world so short of tenors this quartet on display on Tuesday was indeed impressive!

© Johan Persson

Sophie Bevan(Governess), Leo Jemison (Miles), Ed Lyon (Peter Quint) in Garsington's Turn of the Screw

I got to the second performance of the Turn of the Screw on Thursday - so much has been written about this extraordinary evening in the press, with all those 5 star reviews, that I am not going to go on about it! The company is hugely proud of this production so meticulously prepared in every detail. A sample review can be seen here - but they all say very much the same thing!

© Richard Hubert Smith

Danielle de Niese in the title tole of Cendrillon at Glyndebourne

It was good to get down to Sussex again last night for Cendrillon, exceptionally well conducted and played by John Wilson and the LPO.  And there was a splendid trio of ladies with the always enchanting Danielle de Niese, Kate Lindsey as her Prince Charming and a remarkable Fairy Godmother from the Armenian Nina Minasyan. She sure is something and well on the way to top career. This was impeccable!

I am punishing myself this evening by watching the livestream from Villach of the finals of the Belvedere competition.  They have 15 finalists so I guess it will be just one aria each..........will be a long evening nevertheless! This competition has been going for 37 years.  I was on the jury back in 1983 - the second year of the competition. This year they have 15 jurors - what a handful to wrangle!!

I'll give my verdict later - but it will have no effect!!

Two wonderful evenings

© Clive Barda

Bryn Terfel (Boris) and Matthew Rose (Pimen) at Covent Garden

After a really enjoyable week at the Aldeburgh Festival I returned to London for more epic treats! I do not think that you can do much better these days with Bryn Terfel, John Tomlinson and Matthew Rose in Boris Godunov. The cast at Covent Garden du jour in the 1970s was Boris Christoff, Joseph Rouleau and Michael Langdon - not shabby at all!  And I was fortunate enough to have seen them in full cry. But this was something very special too, and despatched for good and all the notion that "the good old days" were better - well in this case anyway! So thank you Bryn, John Tom and Matthew for a very great evening.  And also the splendid supporting players not least David Butt Philip, Roger Honeywell, Harry Nicoll, Fiona Kimm and the wonderful Boris Pinkhasovich whose Shchelkalov was as good as it gets. And well done to the magical treble Fyodor, Joshua Abrams - no more mezzos needed for this!

The ROH's superb chorus completed the vocal package, and conductor Marc Albrecht propelled Richard Jones's simple effective and compact two hours or so production with unerring judgement.  Thank you Covent Garden for a great evening!

© Mark Allan

Gerald Finley (Forester) and Lucy Crowe (Vixen)

And yesterday I went, somewhat on the spur of the moment, to a hugely enjoyable evening at the Barbican where Simon Rattle and the LSO produced one of the pieces which is of immense importance in the Simon Rattle story, Janacek's Cunning Little Vixen. Simon joined the music staff at Glyndebourne in 1975 t the age of 20 and one of his first assignments was working as Raymond Leppard's assistant on the new production of the first Janacek to be produced at Glyndebourne, the Vixen. He had already fallen for the piece when working on it with Steuart Bedford as a student at the Royal Academy of Music.  And this sealed the deal for him!

In 1977, at the age of 22 Simon with Vixen became the youngest conductor to take charge of a Festival production at Glyndebourne.  And the rest is a little history as Simon went on to conduct so much for tour and festival in ensuing years.  Now as the hugely eminent and distinguished conductor of the LSO, after his years in charge of the Berlin Philharmonic, it would be nice to think that he might return home to Glyndebourne.......out of my hands now!!

Yesterday evening was also special for me with Gerald Finley, a Glyndebourne chorister in the 1980s, wonderfully warm and sympathetic as the Forester, and Sophia Burgos, one of our 16 year old kids from After School Matters in Chicago 12 years ago, as the Fox.  What a great journey Sophia has made in no small part due to her participation in our education and outreach programme with COT.

And Peter Sellars, who directed this effective semi staging of the Vixen, is also a child of Glyndebourne - so what a lovely reunion!  One final point - Trevor Nunn showed up - the Porgy and Bess team reunited!  So all round a special evening for sentimental old people like me!!

Now for a weekend off with family - and the opening of Garsington's Turn of the Screw on Monday.

Orford, Snape and Aldeburgh

Orford Castle

Five days in East Anglia with the Aldeburgh Festival and so many other delights is an annual pleasure these days.  I had always struggled to get here during my years in Canada and the US but now there is no excuse!  So I will make up for lost time.  The Festival is in the immensely creative hands of Roger Wright and his exceptional team.  And they can do things that only a festival can contemplate.

A perfect example of exactly that was the fascinating recreation of Schubert's legendary program of March 26 1828, the year of his death. With Mark Padmore, Roderick Williams, and a delightful mezzo soprano Fleur Barron, as well as horn player Richard Watkins, the Trio Isimsiz, the Diotima string quartet, and the Chamber Choir of London on hand doing other things in the festival, this delicious program brought a packed house to the Maltings on Monday evening.

View from the Maltings - concert interval Monday 17th June 2019

Mark Padmore is one of the artists in residence during this second week of the festival packing in Masterclasses on Britten song with the young artists as well as curating themed poetry and music events. One of these was Britten's Songs and Proverbs of William Blake sung, with his customary sensibility and insight, by Roderick Williams with pianist Andrew West - again a full house on Tuesday afternoon in the Britten studio. 

On Wednesday I took a day off, away from the festival programme, to enjoy some other delights of Orford and its surroundings. The sea is always present and this week it has been in a benign mood, providing perfect relaxation after my last five weeks of over exertion around Europe!

But we were back in action again on Thursday beginning with a delightful breakfast party with dear Humphrey Burton who lives a frenetic social life up here in Aldeburgh, gathering around him so many friends and colleagues from his decades in our world of music.  Then to a lunch with an old friend at the Butley Oysterage in Orford before an excellent quartet concert by the Ardeo Quartet in Orford Church. Beginning with a short piece by Toru Takemitsu we were then treated to K 464 - one of Mozart's quartets dedicated to Haydn.  Thomas Larcher's mightily impressive and hugely enjoyable IXXU followed.  Larcher has been a presence throughout the festival - a considerable composer in residence in the finest traditions of this wonderful festival.  His new opera, The Hunting Gun, alas I missed - it was a centre piece of the opening week of the festival.  But it was a pleasure to hear this fine quartet delivering such a persuasive performance of IXXU.  They ended their recital with Beethoven's last quartet, Op 135. A fine afternoon of music making......

Thursday evening was a huge event - The Rakes Progress conducted by the multi skilled and uniquely gifted Barbara Hannigan.  Her Equilibrium Young Artists project provided the core cast for this performance, and the inspiration provided by Barbara Hannigan during the whole process drew some remarkable performances from these young people.  Monday evening's mezzo, Fleur Barron was a Baba who could hold the stage at the highest level and Elgan Llŷr Thomas and the extraordinary Aphrodite Patoulidou were fired into wholly convincing performances, and very well sung too.  The passion and commitment of Hannigan is an only too rare thing it seems........these lucky young people, and lucky us to have enjoyed the fruits of some extremely hard work.

And last night more Hannigan!  She conducted a passionate performance of Verklärte Nacht by the Ludwig Orchestra, then after the interval sang Gérard Grisey's Quatre chants pour franchise le seuil.  I am left speechless!! And this amazing evening was bookended by performances of two of JSB's cello suites by Alisa Weilerstein.  It really can not get better than this - and only at Aldeburgh.

I am back in London this afternoon, have a trip to see family in Somerset tomorrow and overnight, then back in London until I leave for Cape Town on July 15.  Lots of good stuff coming up including performances at Glyndebourne, Garsington and Covent Garden......summers are really busy - no let up!

Munich

It was a particular treat to have our auditions in Munich last week in the Prinzregentheater.  This was the home of the Bavarian State Opera after the war until the Nationaltheater reopened in 1963.  And it was where I saw performances of Arabella, Meistersinger, and Parsifal in the Munich Festival in 1961.  So to sit in that auditorium where I heard Jess Thomas for the first time, and performances conducted by Robert Heger and Joseph Keilberth - not to mention Fischer Dieskau and della Casa in Arabella -  the time machine kicked in!

We had an excellent two days with richer pickings than in either Berlin or Frankfurt, the other two German cities in our itinerary. We really have a major contest building up.  In 2017 it was the battle of the mezzos.  This year the sopranos are on the march again! Whilst we acquired an excellent tenor in Munich it remains a fact that first class men are thin on the ground. But we are not done yet - with my colleagues likely to discover good stuff in Moscow and Vienna.  I am in South Africa next month and Evamaria Wieser is off to Japan and China in September.

Back in England before my German trip I had a busy weekend.  The National Opera Studio gave us their last show of the year at the RADA studios - an interesting program of excepts from largely 21st century operas including those by Adams, Benjamin, Turnage, Weir, Glass et al.   There were opportunities for the dozen young artists who have spent a remarkable year at the NOS to show how much progress they have made - and they took it.  It was great to remember the early showcase last September and watch them over the months at various events.  I was just sad that I was not able to be at their graduation recital last Wednesday when I was in Germany.

And so on Sunday I was at the first stage and orchestra rehearsals of Garsington's Fantasio.  It opened on Friday but I will not be able to get to see it until July.  Meanwhile it was clear that Jenni France, Hanna Hipp, Huw Montague Rendall, and Tim Robinson are going to be star attractions - more when I see the finished article!

This week I will be in Suffolk..............

Returning home.........

The last week has been one of some considerable nostalgia - first on Sunday a wonderful evening at Glyndebourne where I spent the first twenty seven years of my working life, and then three nostalgic days in Dublin where I studied law at Trinity College - not altogether successfully, but with great enjoyment of student life and the discovery of what I really wanted to do, not law but something in the musical world. I spend more time singing, playing in various orchestras, and taking part in a production of The Beggar's Opera at Dublin's famous Gate Theatre. The theatre was made available to us by the generosity of Edward, Lord Longford who presided over this theatre for thirty years until his death in 1961.

© Richard Hubert Smith

But Glyndebourne first - Berlioz is a great passion and hero for so many British music lovers and I am delighted that Glyndebourne has followed up their production of Béatrice et Bénédict with a superb version of La Damnation de Faust. This was a treat at every level - Glyndebourne's superlative chorus and the London Philharmonic in top form and elegant and beautifully sung performances from Julie Boulianne, Allan Clayton, and Christopher Purves - all seen above.  And all this within the effective framework devised by that magician Richard Jones.  Altogether deeply satisfying.

Of course the main purpose of my trip to Dublin was for the first ever Neue Stimmen auditions in the fair city. But I could hardly fail to revisit Trinity where I had spent two happy years, following the tradition of so many of my family members, including my father who by an extraordinary coincidence had rooms on the same staircase as me, in Number 2, forty years before. Walking through the front gate (above) was as magical as ever!

The Dublin auditions produced one of those rare Eureka moments, a remarkable young singer which made the journey all the more worthwhile. We were hosted with the usual fabled Irish Fáilte (welcome) by Mairead Hurley and the DIT Conservatory.  And there was the opportunity also to spend some time with Dearbhla Collins of the Royal Irish Academy and London's National Opera Studio, my old friend from RTE Jane Carty, and the amazing Ronnie Dunne, as active a 92 year old as anyone could hope to be. Four amazing women who encapsulate everything that is magical in Irish musical life.

I have busy days ahead.  This evening The National Opera Studio have a show at the RADA studios, I am at Garsington tomorrow for Fantasio rehearsals, and on Monday off to Munich for Neue Stimmen.

Garsington's Don

© Johan Persson

Jonathon McGovern a charismatic Don Giovanni at Garsington

I hugely enjoyed Don Giovanni at Garsington last night. Jonathan McGovern in the title role and David Ireland as his long suffering Leporello were a perfect match, Michael Boyd's production making perfect sense bringing clarity to their relationship. And this clarity informed Boyd's production throughout, something that is important to a theatre director which so often eludes so many of their purely operatic brethren.  But while this was a great evening of theatre the musical pleasures remained dominant - Prima la musica, dopo le parole - the old argument!  We had that last year with Capriccio and don't need to pursue the matter further!

© Johan Persson

Finale Act 1 - the great escape!

The male cast was completed by the most elegant young Mozartian of the day, Trystan Llyr Griffiths, the imposing young bass Thomas Faulkner as Masetto, and the hugely experienced and imposing Paul Whelan as Commendatore. Sky Ingram was a splendidly angry Donna Elvira - most impressive, Camila Titinger a deeply traumatised Donna Anna, and Mireille Asselin a convincingly defiant Zerlina.  It was a wonderfully prepared and well balanced cast delivering top notch music making under the increasingly authoritative Douglas Boyd - who is also Garsington's Artistic Director.

This was not your everyday Don Giovanni production - much much more interesting than that.

Yet another week of Neue Stimmen gone!

The days go zooming by and it is 5 days since I left Madrid after an afternoon of auditions which yielded one exciting qualifier for the finals plus some strong candidates for the wait list which we will be reviewing in depth after the Munich auditions which are June 11-12.  Meanwhile we have Dublin next week, there has been two days of auditions in Bologna conducted by Evamaria Wieser, and Evamaria is in Riga next week where we have done very well indeed in past years.  In the USA next week Alexander Neef will hear the candidates who have applied to sing in Santa Fe.  Following Munich Evamaria will take in Moscow and Vienna and that will be that for Europe.  South Africa comes in July and China and Japan in September......

This week we did London at the Royal Opera House - the longest list ever here so we spread it over two days.  And there was some good pickings.  At this stage we are still setting the bench mark quite high so as ever there were more waitlisters than qualifiers.  But there four of the latter which is a very fruitful outcome indeed........

Meanwhile there was some actual opera - last Friday evening in the Teatro Real a Hauptprobe of Christof Loy's very beautiful and interesting new production of one of my top favourites Richard Strauss's Capriccio. It seems that Swedish sopranos have a particular affinity with the role of the Countess.  Elisabeth Soderstrom was glorious in the role at Glyndebourne in 1963, and then again in the 1970s. Miah Persson was stunning in the part last year at Garsington - and now Madrid has the huge treat of the magical Malin Byström - just wonderful, and well worth a special trip to Madrid just for this!  It is a co-production with Zurich and Gothenburg so maybe you can catch it there in due course.

And now I have an orgy of opera this week, with Garsington's 30th anniversary season opening last night with a delicious production by Paul Curran of Smetana's Bartered Bride.  Tonight is the opening of Don Giovanni and on Sunday I am at Glyndebourne for Berlioz's Damnation de Faust.

There was wonderful singing from the four main Bartered Bride principals and a terrifically strong cast overall, not to mention the remarkable Garsington Chorus and the acrobats and jugglers! Natalia Romaniw and Brenden Gunnell as the young lovers were immaculate vocally, thrilling indeed.  And Stuart Jackson and Joshua Bloom each gave rounded and splendidly sung comic performances as Vasek and Kecal. And there was the additional luxury of the Philharmonia Orchestra in the pit playing immaculately and idiomatically for Jac van Steen.  A joyous evening indeed.

And when you go to Garsington this year do not forget to pick up the 2019 edition of the Garsington mug, designed as in most previous recent years since 2013, by my talented nephew Zeb Helm!  This year's will make it six - a very nice collection to have!

Hectic week

Since I arrived in Amsterdam last Friday I feel as though I have been sprinting non stop and by the time I got home briefly on Tuesday just before midnight I was thinking "there has to be a better way"!  Well there is - I am now in Madrid for some well earned leisure. The auditions are this afternoon and we will be done in time for me to go to the Capriccio Pre Dress at the Teatro Real, followed by a late Spanish dinner.  And yesterday evening some refreshment at sun down with Justin Way, a much loved colleague from Chicago days, and a pillar now of the Teatro Real. Madrid is deliciously warm - 28C which is around 83F. 

We had a really good day in Amsterdam last Saturday - rich pickings indeed with two qualifiers and no less than seven really excellent young people on the waiting list which we will be diving into after the Munich auditions which are on June 11 and 12. We were delighted to  find one candidate out of nowhere - it is usually the case that at least the names of the best ones are familiar to us.  So it is is always a treat to have a Eureka moment - they are few and far between and wonderful!

Our long day in Amsterdam ended with a dinner with our hosts at the Dutch National Opera, Sophie de Lindt and Rosemary Joshua, at the lovely and excellent Plantage Restaurant (seen above).  Delicious in all respects and a great opportunity to celebrate Sophie's first season as the director of the DNO. She is on the Neue Stimmen finals jury so we are looking forward to seeing her in the peace and quiet of Gütersloh for a whole week in October!

Next stop was Frankfurt where we took in a performance of Rodelinda and a recital by Cecelia Hall in addition to two very intensive days of auditions. 

Claus Guth's very beautiful production of Rodelinda originated in Madrid - and it was a pleasure to hear and see Lucy Crowe on top form as well as two former successful Neue Stimmen finalists, Jakub Józef Orliński  and Božidar Smiljanić making distinguished contributions to a great evening of Handel singing.  

Following the auditions on Monday Cecelia Hall gave a delicious short recital of Mahler and Schoenberg songs, followed by a ravishing performance of Les nuits d'été.  How wonderfully Cecelia has blossomed as an artist since I first heard her as an undergraduate at De Paul all those years ago, then in Juilliard, and then in the title role in COT's Teseo back in 2012. She has some great assignments coming up in Frankfurt where she is currently singing Marguerite in their Damnation de Faust.  If you are in Frankfurt in the coming year you may well be lucky!!

Of course the main purpose of my Frankfurt visit was the auditions - and the great pleasure was being with Bernd Loebe, director of the Frankfurt Opera, and a formidable companion on the audition panel.  His track record of hiring remarkable young singers before anyone else is second to none. We found some finalists but I am not sure that there were any of those Eureka moments that I always hope for!

And so on Tuesday I returned to London arriving home in Battersea just before midnight. A day off, then yesterday to Madrid. 

Our auditions today are in the Teatro Real, seen here yesterday evening, as every evening, with lots of people around in the warmth at the end of the day.  I am so happy to be in this wonderful city again!

 

Onward to Amsterdam.......

The two days in Berlin yielded some finalists, as expected.  Nevertheless it was a little disappointing.  But this year we are in Frankfurt for the first time - on Monday and Tuesday coming up and a good many of the best will be auditioning there.  Meanwhile in Gothenburg on Thursday there were a couple of terrific sopranos but unavoidably at theirs stage we have to wait to see what the soprano picture looks like by the time we have finished with Amsterdam and Frankfurt.  And there should also be rich pickings in Munich and Vienna in June.

Today we have an excellent list in Amsterdam where we are hosted by the Dutch National Opera whose new director is Sophie de Lint who is also on our jury for the finals in Gütersloh in October.  We are looking forward to seeing her, as well as Rosemary Joshua who is director of the Opera Studio at DNO, also Damià Carbonell Nicolau who is the new Head of Artistic affairs.  This is a great team!

View from the Gothenburg Opera House!

In Gothenberg it was a treat to see a revival of Stephen Langridge's production of Le nozze di Figaro, with splendid designs by George Souglides.  The standout in a largely Swedish cast was the Cherubino, the Norwegian Adrian Angelico. And Rory McDonald presided in the pit with the formidable combination of energy and precision.  

Walking along Herengracht 8:30 pm Friday May 17 2019

Yesterday evening Ines Koring, Sophie Joyce and I, after a quick cocktail with Rosy Joshua, enjoyed a really excellent and relaxed dinner in the terrific Restaurant Harmsen. It is in  Utrechtsestraat half a block from Herengracht, and you can buy unique boots from a store in the same block, as well as other stuff not available legally in London.  But don't try to bring it home!

Now for a long day of auditions.  It looks promising!

Berlin

Off I am now on a quick tour over the next ten days - starting in Berlin yesterday and today with auditions at the Staatsoper.  We have two heavy days from 10 am to 8 pm with eight singers an hour if they all show up. Yesterday just 54 made it to the audition - it was tough!  And I guess today will be the same.

I have joined two other colleagues, Evamaria Wieser and Sophie Joyce, so I am able to share the stress of listening to more than 100 singers over the two days.  Berlin ought to yield four or five finalists and produced soprano winners in 2007 (Marina Rebeka) and 2015 (Elsa Dreisig).  So we look forward to great quality here.  After day 1 we seem to be on target. 

I had a busy last week.  On Thursday I was at the Orange Tree in Richmond for a new play by Zoe Cooper - Out of Water. The Orange Tree is consistently providing top notch theatre at affordable prices in a magical small space.  Richmond is easy to get to whether by train or tube, and the theatre is two minutes walk from the station with a Carluccio and the excellent Bacco next door for refreshment. If you haven't been there give it a try and you will be thrilled - and if has been some time since you were there its good news that it is on top form.

On Saturday morning I was at the piano run of Garsington's new Don Giovanni.  We are in for a treat - I will be back in time for the dress rehearsal on May 26.  Until then..........

And Saturday evening was a visit to the Barbican for the excellent programme by the BBC Symphony.  We had Augusta Read Thomas, Osvaldo Golijov, and John Adams.  It was a treat to see Joana Carneiro in charge of the BBCSO.  She was with us in Chicago for John Adams' Flowering Tree back in 2008 since when her conducting career has blossomed.  She is Principal Conductor of the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra in her home town of Lisbon with a busy calendar throughout Europe as time allows.  In fact she is in Gothenburg this week when I am there after Berlin but my audition schedule and Figaro at the Gothenburg Opera will prevent me being at her concert.

My final report from Berlin may have to wait - there is an early start for Gothenburg tomorrow morning - 7:15!

National Opera Studio's "Devotion and Desire"

NOS Young Artists, pianists and director Emma Jenkins at Regent Hall Wednesday May 8 2019

The National Opera Studio presented a most enjoyable evening at the Regent Hall in Oxford Street yesterday evening. It was an opportunity to showcase the product of the young artists' residency at the Welsh National Opera in Cardiff - with a themed programme devised and directed by Emma Jenkins.

It is fascinating to watch the progress of the National Opera Studio artists during the course of their year long stint at the NOS - from the introductory recital programme that I saw back in September at Bob Boas's Mansfield street house through the various other events subsequently, and last night as they draw to the close of their time there.  Each has, it seems to me, come on in leaps and bounds so it is gratifying to see how well this advanced development and training programme is working.

We were treated to Donizetti (Lucia and Anna Bolena), Handel with a splendid Crude furie from JungKwon Jang, Ping Pang and Pong from Turandot with Jake Muffett, Ben Smith, and Adam Temple-Smith showing off their varied skills in singing acting and dancing, an extended sequence from Figaro Act 2 including a charming Voi che sapete from Margo Arsane, and the delicious final duet from Poppea with JungKon Jang a ravishing Nero to Charlie Drummond's beautifully balanced Poppea.

The slightly shorter second half allowed the two baritones Nicholas Mogg and Jake Muffett to show off the huge development in their work in the last eight months - so gratifying.  And I was particularly delighted that the evening ended with a snippet from Shostakovich's Moskva, Cheryomushki, a piece that we did in Chicago to great applause in my last year there 2012.

I am looking forward their contemporary opera program, "Voices of Now", in June at the RADA Studio Theatre.  Do try to get there to hear these exceptional emerging artists.

Another week gone!

Oh how time flies!  It is a week since I got back from my lovely trip to Chicago and I am now going to be off again on Monday for ten days of Neue Stimmen auditions in four cities, starting in Berlin. But more about that as it happens.

Meanwhile I had a tooth extracted, dinner with Tom Graham, and family time with two of my children and three of my grandchildren.  However, there was a huge pleasure on Sunday afternoon at the Wigmore Hall where Irish mezzo Paula Murrihy delighted us with Lieder by Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, and Robert and Clara Schumann - a lovely idea impeccably executed by Paula and Malcolm Martineau.  I first heard Paula when she was an undergraduate at the New England Conservatory.  She was a finalist in Neue Stimmen in 2007 and joined the Frankfurt Opera on a Fest contract.  But she was also with us in Chicago as Annio in Christopher Alden's beautiful production of Tito in 2009.  She is a real star now, a marvellous singer who brought tears to my eyes often enough, particularly in the Schumann - but even more so in her magical unaccompanied performance of an Irish song which she gave us as an encore. A perfect Sunday afternoon interlude indeed.

© Tristram Kenton/Guardian

Bill Pullman, Colin Morgan, Sally Field and Jenna Coleman in Arthur Miller's All My Sons at the Old Vic

Last night I was at a stunning performance of All my Sons at the Old Vic - a play written in 1947 but with some shocking topicality.  All Boeing executives might be advised to attend......There were devastating performances from Bill Pullman and Sally Field, and quite splendid ones from Colin Morgan and Jenna Coleman. After we had composed ourselves after the shattering last 15 minutes there was a rare standing ovation.  A great night in the theatre so do try to beg borrow or steal a ticket.

I have some opera this evening, more theatre tomorrow, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican on Saturday.  Life is far from boring!

Home to Chicago!!

© Michael Brosilow

First thing first - Chicago Opera Theater has turned a corner with a transforming change of leadership.  And the evidence was there for all to see yesterday afternoon on the stage of the Harris Theater - a magnificent performance of Jake Heggie's Moby Dick.

The company is now led by an exceptional trio of women - Susan Irion as Board President, Ashley Magnus as General Director, and Lidiya Yankovskaya, the charismatic new Music Director who effectively defines and leads the whole creative process, the heart of what COT is all about. Th omens are good and they are making the transition after a few difficult years.  But they have the skills that are needed and are that rare thing, a leadership team clearly working in total harmony with each other.  The future of COT is in the best possible hands.

It is almost exactly 20 years since I was appointed to lead the company in April 1999. We did, if I may say so, do remarkable things during my 13 years thanks to my wonderful team and the clearly defined artistic goals.  It was great to be with some of that team during the last few days - Roger Weitz who is now General Director of Opera Omaha, Colleen Flanigan now Chief Marketing Officer at the Auditorium Theater, Dorothy Osborn, who was my board president and remains on the COT board as a valuable source of accumulated wisdom, and the last remaining member of my team still at COT, Linden Christ, who has achieved so much in education and outreach.

Back to Moby Dick - one of the extraordinary things about the performance was the fact that the role of Captain Ahab, a huge role and extremely taxing vocally (it was first sung by Ben Heppner) was sung at the last minute by Alex Boyer, a tenor voice of almost Helden size, and most certainly heroic in every other respect.  It is true that he has been the cover for Ahab in other productions of Moby Dick during the last 8 years, but here he was at a few hours notice singing the role for the first time without any orchestral rehearsal.  You would never have guessed.

Starbuck was taken on by baritone Aleksey Bogdanov - definitely someone to watch - and Greenhorn by tenor Andrew Bidlack, an exceptionally accomplished young artist.  The strength of the casting demonstrates so clearly the ability of Yankovskaya to assemble top class people - and this was demonstrated again and again by the choices made down to the smallest roles. That is so important in a company of limited financial resources - discover them before they become too expensive!!

The chorus, male only, is one of the principal characters as well, and the 35 strong chorus was impeccably prepared by the chorus master A J Keller.  This was top notch! 

Chicago's finest free lance musicians, clearly hand picked, made up the large orchestra and Lidiya Yankovskaya drove the whole enterprise with huge authority and skill.  She is destined for great things.

The really excellent production by Kristine McIntyre (another valuable name to watch) must have given composer and librettist, Jake Heggie and Gene Sheer huge satisfaction.  They were there on Sunday, also for the fundraiser afterwards at the Blackstone Hotel.

So as you may have gathered I have had a wonderful time in my dear Chicago these last few days.  I spent yesterday catching up with old colleagues and friends, and the same today.  I leave for London on the day flight tomorrow, Wednesday, and remain in London for a couple of weeks before resuming Neue Stimmen activity.

Beautiful Izmir!

It is so perfect to start my Neue Stimmen year in Izmir, a jewel of a place populated by a wonderful team of warm hearted enthusiastic music and opera lovers, who work tirelessly to support and promote the gifted young Turkish singers who come from all over Turkey to participate in Izmir's on competition in February each year. And many of them have auditioned for me yesterday in the very pretty Izmir Opera House.

However, being the first stop on a tour undertaken by me and other colleagues over the coming weeks and months, there are special problems presented.  The fact is that we do not yet know what the overall standard will be.  Between us we will hear more than a thousand singers and have to select just 44 to come to Gütersloh for the finals in October.  My next stops are in Berlin, Amsterdam, Gothenburg and Frankfurt - closely followed by Madrid, London, and Dublin.  There should be clarity by this point.  Let's hope!

Meanwhile we have a "wait list" - and there will be six on that list from Izmir.  I feel sure that two, or even three, of these will make it - but it all depends.......by the time I finish up in London I will have heard 500 of the 1,000 candidates so ought to have a good feel for what is going on.  But we have to leave spaces for the South Africans I hear in Cape Town and Pretoria in July, as well as for those from Japan and China that Evamaria Wieser will be hearing in September.  It will be getting late!!

This may very well be my last Neue Stimmen - I will be doing less this year, leaving out Asia and North America where my dear colleagues Alexander Neef, Sophie Joyce, and Evamaria Wieser will be taking the decisions.  It is 20 years since I first embarked on this great adventure - and I managed to combine it with my 13 years in Chicago.

Speaking of which, I am off to Chicago on Saturday to meet old friends and colleagues, see Jake Heggie's Moby Dick, and attend the Chicago Opera Theater fund raiser on Sunday evening.  I'll report from there - and will be back in London on the evening of May 1.

Suffolk and other things.......

Suffolk, the birthplace and long time home of Benjamin Britten, has a magic that I find irresistible so I try to get there as often as I can.  I was there again last week for a couple of days (only) and attended two performances by English Touring Opera at Britten's remarkable concert hall, the Snape Maltings (seen above when I was there last December).  This company serves a valuable purpose in bringing opera to the places which otherwise are seriously deprived.  I saw their Rossini Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra, an odd pastiche of music Rossini recycled from other works, including the overture already used twice before and now just famous as the overture to Barbiere.  Rossini was a genius, but also a business man and this was clearly a bit of a con!  It is rarely performed and I can now cross it off my list!

Verdi's Macbeth however is another kettle of fish, a masterpiece that I adore - it has been an important part of my life with productions at Glyndebourne during my many years there.  It was the one Verdi seen at Glyndebourne before the war in the famous production by Carl Ebert designed by Caspar Neher. So it is a piece "owned" by the great Sussex opera house!  I am delighted that ETO are bringing around the UK to introduce this marvellous work to the widest possible audience.  It is a challenge but they meet it gallantly, and it has clearly given great pleasure to many, including the full house at the Maltings on Friday.

Other pleasures of being in Suffolk was a lunchtime string quartet recital by the Idomeneo Quartet in Aldeburgh's Jubilee Hall - a place forever planted in the history of the Aldeburgh Festival and Britten's life.  It was just an hour - of Haydn and Mendelssohn's extraordinary last quartet, written in the shadow of the death of his beloved sister Fanny.  Remarkable stuff, and superbly played.

It was then a short walk to the excellent Lighthouse Restaurant for a little lunch party with Humphrey and Christina Burton in fine form, as well as my dear friends Michael and Phyllida Flint!

I have been lax in keeping up with the blog - but there are many other pleasures in life!  And in the ten days these have included Athol Fugard's Blood Knot and the delightful Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, and All about Eve in the West End - very contrasting theatrical experiences.....

I am starting Neue Stimmen next week - in Turkey.  May will take in Berlin, Gothenburg, Amsterdam, Madrid and London.  A busy time ahead.  I will try to keep you all up to date.

Two evenings at ENO

© Alastair Muir

The Women of Whitechapel: Janis Kelly, Marie McLaughlin, Natalya Romaniw, Susan Bullock and Lesley Garrett

Last Saturday I was at the first performance of a new opera by Iain Bell - Jack the Ripper: The Women of Whitechapel - the finale to the 2018-19 English national Opera season. And it was a starry evening indeed - as illustrated by the picture above.  But the photo does not include perhaps the greatest star of all, Josephine Barstow who presided over the business with scary authority and astonishing vocal power.  To think that the first time we met professionally was when she was the understudy Mimi at Glyndebourne in 1967 - 52 years ago.  Help!!!!!!  And there was another old friend and colleague from much the same time in the cast - Alan Opie.  Such durability.......but there is constant renewal, and this was exemplified by the remarkable performance by young Natalya Romaniw, herself a recent Mimi at ENO, as well as a delectable Tatyana in Garsington's Eugene Onegin, who dominated the proceedings vocally with glorious singing and extraordinary stamina.  She goes from strength to strength.

In a dark evocative and extremely effective production by Daniel Kramer the substantial strengths of the English National Opera as a company were on full display - chorus and orchestra also stars and Martyn Brabbins in the pit with his usual master touch and authority.  The full house cheered and it will eventually be seen in Leeds where the co-producer Opera North will produce it next year. 

© Donald Cooper

Rupert Charlesworth (Tamino) and Lucy Crowe (Pamina) in their trial by water

And last night I managed to catch up with Simon McBurney's production of the Magic Flute - already seen in this house and also at Aix and Amsterdam.  I missed the opening as I was recovering from knee surgery but was delighted to be there yesterday evening at one of the most enjoyable performances of this piece that I have seen in all the sixty plus years since I first saw it.  How many hundred since?  Goodness knows........

With such distinguished artists in the cast as Lucy Crowe and Brindley Sherratt, both on magnificent form, it was destined to give pleasure.  And there was a young man in the pit clearly set for great things in the future, Ben Gernon.  This piece is a trap for young (and indeed older) conductors......he passed with flying colours, pacing it perfectly and getting outstanding playing from ENO's fine orchestra. 

And in between these two happy events I was at the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday evening for the Philharmonia Orchestra's concert - Brahms (the violin concerto) and Shostakovich's 5th Symphony.  The conductor was the rather spectacular Chinese Xian Zhang and a Russian/German soloist in the Brahms Alina Pogostkina. These two women produced high order music making - an invigorating end to the weekend. What pleasures there are to be had in London - too many I guess to take them all in.....

Meanwhile my knee is progressing well and I can walk properly for the first time in 12 months!  Yay!!

Big back log!!

I am really sorry to have seemed to have deserted you.  I'm still here but have been distracted by the psychodrama of Brexit on the one hand, and by the installation in my right leg of a new knee - or to be precise a "half" knee, also known rather elegantly as an "Oxford knee".  Both distractions have been painful.  The first continues but I think that the knee is making progress, certainly in comparison.....I started with Oxycontin, transitioned to Tramadol for 5 days, then to Codeine, and I now can rely on Paracetamol!  They have no impact on Brexit pain however!

© Clive Barda

Puck and Oberon in the Guildhall's Dream

Operatically it has been the month of the opera schools' major productions. The Guildhall kicked off with a really excellent production by Martin Lloyd-Evans of Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream.  The strength of the vocal department at the Guildhall was there for all to see with an array of gifted performers announcing their arrival.  An extremely enjoyable evening. I am reluctant to pick out an individual - but who could not be struck by the young bass William Thomas?

The Royal College of Music followed with a rare chance to see Offenbach's Robinson Crusoe in the excellent Britten Theatre - a huge benefit for the students to work in such a space. In a fun English version by one of the co-founders of Opera Rara, Don White, the irrepressible Bill Bankes-Jones and his designer Sarah Booth hit the spot perfectly, and the long evening (three hours) dragged for me not one bit.  Now Offenbach's operetta is not one of his most memorable, but I was interested in some pre-echos of the Hoffmann bacarolle.  He didn't quite manage to get it out first time round!  Anyway a lovely evening if, as I do, you like this sort of thing!  And there was a most promising young tenor in the title role for good measure - Glen Cunningham.

© Robert Workman

The child & the cats - Ravel: L'enfant et les sortileges - Gabriele Kusyte, James Geidt, Olivia Warburton

The Royal Academy Opera wrapped it up with an enjoyable double bill of Tchaikovsky's Iolanta and Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges. In the Tchaikovsky there were striking appearances from Ossian Huskinson as René and a splendid Marta - Stephanie Wake-Edwards (due to join the Jette Parker programme at the Royal Opera House next season) - watch her! And then we had a totally captivating performance of the Child in Ravel's magical one acter from Olivia Warburton.  A real and rare treat to see a young artist of such accomplishment.

And now something very special for your diaries - on Sunday evening April 14 on BBC4 you must tune in for a remarkable film - Janet Baker In Her Own Words - by the film maker John Bridcut.

I was fortunate enough to have been invited to a preview screening last Wednesday evening - and you can get a flavour from the short clip on John Bridcut's website linked to above. Under no circumstances are you permitted to miss this.

Next up is the opening of Jack the Ripper at the Coliseum this evening!

Glorious Janáček

© ROH/Clive Barda

Amanda Majeski as Kát'a Kabanová at the Royal Opera House February 2019

Janáček's Kát'a Kabanová has been a very special piece for me over the years, with productions in Wexford in 1972, in Glyndebourne in 1988, and in Toronto in 1994.  I would dearly loved to have brought it to Chicago Opera Theater while I was there since it would have been perfect in the Harris Theater.  But that would always have been a difficult one with Chicago Lyric having the leasehold on Janáček!  But had we done so, then it is very possible that the Royal Opera's Kat'a Amanda Majeski would have sung the title role.  When she returned to Chicago in 2009 from her spell at Curtis she was our Vitellia in Tito, and then went on for a hugely successful spell in the Lyric's Ryan Center. I had heard her first as a twenty year old while she was an undergraduate at Northwestern, so for me she was a marked woman!

Well at last the dream was realised at Covent Garden on Thursday evening with Amanda remarkable in the title role, with a superb cast in a new production by Richard Jones at his finest, and superbly conducted by the unstoppable Edward Gardner.  The concise concentrated score without a superfluous note has a crushing emotional impact. The last scene with Kát'a and the remarkable Boris of Pavel Černok is devastating.........and they are accompanied by a scary Kabanicha from Susan Bickley, an enchanting Varvara from Emily Edmonds, and excellent contributions from the Tichon Andrew Staples, Andrew Tortise (Kudráš) Clive Bayley (Dikoy) and a notable new voice Dominic Sedgwick making the most of his brief appearance as Kuligin.

Beg for a ticket somehow for this remarkable evening - not to be missed.  The Royal Opera at its very best.