Brian Dickie

The Hard Problem

Photo ©Johan Persson / National Theatre

Damien Moloney (Spike) and Olivia Vinall (Hilary)

It is always a delight, too rare alas, to get to the theatre and dispense with singers and music for a change. So an evening at the National Theatre at the final preview of a new play by the mercurial witty Tom Stoppard - directed by the NT's outgoing director Nicholas Hytner, and a superb cast led by the magnetic Olivia Vinall and Damien Moloney - it was a treat indeed.

The press night is tonight and the play is sold out.  But it is to be extended with tickets on sale from February 12, and will no doubt go to the West End in due course.  But try to grab it now while still in the perfect little Dorfman Theatre at the NT.

Royal Academy Opera scenes

Photo: Royal Academy of Music

Gwilym Bowen (A novice) and Henry Neill (Billy Budd)

Royal Academy Opera put together a varied and challenging programme for their "scenes" evening this week.  I was there last night.  So early in the term it is quite a task to prepare such a thing - but the large and enthusiastic audience, which always attends such events at the performance rich Royal Academy of Music, were treated to a good sampling of the talent in the Royal Academy Opera with excerpts from Elektra, Hänsel und Gretel, Don Carlo, Carmen, Billy Budd, Eugene Onegin, Iphigénie en Tauride, Maria Stuarda, and La clemenza di Tito - an impressive range by any standard!

For me the most successful of these was a really impressive pair of performances from Gwilym Bowen and Henry Neill in Billy Budd - perfect casting of two very gifted young artists.  And one could not help noticing again the exceptional Chinese baritone Haobin Wang who impresses on each apprearance with RAO.  His Rodrigo and Cecil showed off a very valuable "Italian" baritone in the making.

The show was directed with imagination and skill by Victoria Newlyn and Julian Reynolds took charge in the pit with piano, occasional harpsichord, and sundry woodwind and horn for the Tchaikovsky, Humperdinck, and Mozart. 

Next week the RAM vocal faculty have a scenes programme.........it is non stop for singers at the Royal Academy!

French song in Wandsworth

The National Opera Studio is just down the road from me in Wandsworth - well a 15-20 minute bus ride door to door.  So its relative distance from central London is not an issue for me.  But for others it is - nevertheless there was a splendid turn out in Wandsworth yesterday evening for an excellent and fascinating evening of French song, curated by the distinguished authority on all art song matters Iain Burnside.

The benefit to budding opera singers of having opportunities for detailed work on the song repertory is firmly understood now and needs no further advocacy from me.  It is particularly gratifying that the NOS pursues the French repertoire so seriously, and it is here that the benefits of working on mélodie are so striking.

With groups of songs by Debussy, Honegger, Fauré, Chabrier, Ibert, Messiaen, Bizet and Poulenc, there were few notable stones unturned.  And there was distinguished work showing much understanding of the importance of this repertoire from the young opera singers.  Chosen as they are from the very best talent around nationally and internationally, the vocal quality was exceptional throughout.  And there were particularly striking contributions in this magical but elusive repertoire from Matthew Durkan, Katharine Crompton, Roisín Walsh and Gyula Nagy. But there were revelations from all, and it is truly pleasing that the NOS director, Kathryn Harries, displays such passionate commitment to the French musical landscape.

There was an intriguing partner for the evening, the Rimbaud & Verlaine Foundation - they could become a valuable player in the noble mission of promoting knowledge and understanding of French poetry and song.  This is an excellent start!

This evening I will be at the scenes programme of the Royal Academy Opera..........another opportunity to keep an eye and ear on the abundant emerging talent.

Looking back......

It was a huge pleasure yesterday evening to be at the Royal Academy of Music where Ryland Davies was the star attraction of a "Henry Wood Lecture" - actually an interview by Raymond Holden about Ryland's life and career followed by a masterclass.......

It was advertised as marking the 50th anniversary of Ryland's professional career.  However I was there at Glyndebourne in 1964 when he was already in the chorus at the age of 21 - so strictly speaking it is now 51 years.  And anyway he also made his Welsh National Opera debut in Cardiff in 1964 at the age of 21 as Almaviva (I was there for that too!) - he was a prodigy!

And he is also a dear friend, and godfather to my eldest child (born 1969). He remains an extraordinary person and an inspirational teacher.  He is a pillar of the Royal Academy of Music and also teaching in Madrid where I have no doubt that he is making an enormously valuable contribution.

Yesterday evening Ryland revealed the full range of his warm and passionate personality - and gave us his brilliant impressions of Georg Solti and John Pritchard. Rory Bremner needs to watch out!!

Yesterday morning was a more orderly affair - a meeting of the Garsington Opera Artistic Committee, an advisory group which I am delighted to serve on. It marked the debut of a very important new staff member, Laura Canning, a seasoned professional in the field of artistic administration, a graduate of both Glyndebourne and the Welsh National Opera, who has joined Garsington after half a dozen years in Houston. She is a most valuable and transforming acquisition!

We are freezing here, but the sun is shining!

Diversity........

Two days, two very different events - on Thursday evening there was a full house at the Barbican for Simon Rattle and the LSO.  And in the Wigmore Hall yesterday afternoon there was a sparse audience for a no less remarkable an occasion - a Masterclass with François le Roux.

The LSO first - and it was not all about Rattle and the LSO.  There was the spectacular Canadian singer/actor, conductor Barbara Hannigan in Berg and Ligeti - you will remember her from George Benjamin's Written on Skin at the ROH two seasons ago. And she brought the house down with Ligeti's Mysteries of the Macabre (seen below!) as well as bringing her insights to fragments from Wozzeck. And then Rattle and the LSO delivered the Rite of Spring. It continues to have the power to astound and even shock after 100 years. A terrific evening of the highest quality.

Photograph: Simon Jay Price

Yesterday was an altogether quieter but no less intense an affair.  François le Roux is an old colleague from Glyndebourne days so it was a particular pleasure for me to see him again.  But the real treat of the day was the inspirational guidance he gave to the four fortunate singers who exposed themselves to his unique knowledge and understanding of French mélodie. And they all did really well, having clearly prepared themselves meticulously for such an important occasion.

I was particulalry struck by the abilities of the young Irish soprano Sinéad O'Kelly and her accompanist Tom Primrose.  We should be hearing a good deal more of both of them in the coming years.

As I look out on Battersea Park from my desk the morning sun is golden on the bare trees against the background of some menacing grey.  We are expecting some snow within the hour.

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Round House Orfeo

It is great that the Royal Opera is performing Monteverdi's Orfeo this month - but be warned it is in English!  Is this the first time that the Royal Opera has performed an Italian opera in English in living memory?  It may very well be. I of course find it strange, given that it was the production of this opera in Chicago in 2000 that enabled me to persuade our public there that they might appreciate the piece more in Italian.  And from then on, a company which had made its name as an alternative, in English, to the Chicago Lyric delivered much Mozart, Handel, Monteverdi and Cavalli in the original language.  It was a huge success.......

Yesterday was the dress rehearsal - a "work in progress" (the words of the Royal Opera's director Kasper Holten) for the opening this evening.  And there were some lovely performances, notably from the excellent Romanian-Hungarian Gyula Orendt in the title role, a young baritone whom I had noted as someone to watch when I heard him in the Berlin Staatsoper last year.  And it was so well worth waiting for Callum Thorpe and Rachel Kelly, the Pluto and Prosperpina, who brought us considerable style and vocal distinction in their important scene towards the end.

It is getting colder in London.......and there is a bus strike so I am not sure how I will get to Barnes for dinner this evening!

Gloomy London!

Notwithstanding the grey depressing weather, cold and windy, I bravely walked from Battersea, over Chelsea Bridge, to Sloane Square yesterday afternoon - excellent exercise and good for feeling good (and smug!). Today there is more of the same gloom, but I will have the pleasure of making my way to Chalk Farm and The Roundhouse where the Royal Opera have their dress rehearsal for their new production of Monteverdi's Orfeo.

Michael Boyd is making his opera directorial debut with this, the earliest of all operas in regular repertoire - an excellent choice for him to make.  And if he does as well on his operatic debut as Diane Paulus did with this same opera at COT, nearly fifteen years ago now, then we are in for a thrilling afternoon.  Diane went on to direct the other two full length Monteverdi operas with us, as well as the three Mozart/da Ponte operas.........they were good days indeed.

The issue of the week

These are the best of the many words that I have seen so far around the issue of the week which may very well be the issue of the century. You will find it rewarding if you take the time to read this piece.

Quercy

View from a house in La Masse

I am now back in London after three refreshing days in the countryside of South Western France.  It is a world apart and there can hardly be a better place to revive the spirits and calm the brain!  Christopher lives in the village of La Masse (part of Les Junies just 1 km away) - a 100 minute drive from Toulouse, an easy run by car but far enough away to appear to be a journey way back in time.

L'Eglise St-Pierre-ès-Liens, Les Junies

The delightful village of Les Junies is a jewel amongst so many in the Lot.

There is a church (above) and a Château (below), but neither shop nor bar........(it is enough) - and scarcely ten score residents.  

There is a good week ahead - a highlight being Simon Rattle and Barbara Hannigan with the LSO on Thursday.

Happy New Year!

Here I am again after a lazy period with next to no blogging.  The musical highlight of the "holiday season" was the Rodolfus Choir concert at St Martin-in-the-Fields on Tuesday 30 December - with the participation of one of my great-nieces, the younger of the two girls who now at York University studying music, and from where her elder sister graduated last Summer.  These are the two musicians in the next generation of my family.......and the elder one actually has a job in an opera company of all places!!  She is very happy about that, and so am I.

But 2015 is to be an exhausting year.  It is Neue Stimmen time of course.  And the application process began yesterday - there are already a dozen applications in - a good start towards the 1,000 plus we will be getting..........

I will be doing the auditions in Asia, South Africa, North and South America, as well as a good many Europena cities.  I am giving Moscow and Kiev a miss this year but am looking forward to being back in Tbilisi and Vilnius, also to be having auditions in Gothenburg, Amsterdam, and Prague for the first time.

But today I am off to France until Friday evening to visit my old friend Christopher Hunt in Quercy.  A lovely way to start the year!