The world's first "Twitter opera", Twitterdammerung, has been given its premier at London's Royal Opera House. Opera critic Igor Toronyi-Lalic gives his verdict Telegraph.co.uk.
I wasn't holding out much hope for Twitterdammerung: the Twitter Opera. The dubious pun in the title didn't help. And I'd passed my eye over the few extracts that the Royal Opera House had offered up with pride as a preview, and the word 'cod' doesn't really do it justice: "It is a curious story – hear my tale,/Although my name was never Ishmael."
Yikes. Add to this only three days of rehearsal and not much more time for the musical composition, and you might understand why I brought a big, baggy jumper deliberately to hide my head for the moment when I died of empathetic embarrassment.
But the jumper proved of no value, as what unfolded before me was actually not that bad at all. I mean actually watchable, listenable and rather funny. Don't get me wrong; madness and messiness, in the main, did dictate the tone.
You had a duck of destiny, a bird-infatuated nihilist, a falsetto-singing ginger cat called Tobermory and gratuitous references to Deloitte the sponsors, all of which tumbled along in the foyer – note: not the main stage – with little rhyme or reason.
Remember, not only was this libretto confected from the tweets of 900 minds, the offering we heard was but a mere extract of this mad confection. All of which is water off a duck's back for anyone used to the truly mad operas of Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein.
Besides, hidden amid the nonsense were some great moments: a tiny but pretty duet, some carefully-crafted musical sequences from Marc Teitler and Helen Porter, and humour by the bucket load.
The format lent itself to gags and what resulted was a decent operatic sketch show: a sequence of often-surreal, Vic and Bob-like skits, most of which fell flat, but some of which had the audience – mostly thirty- and fortysomethings – roaring with laughter.
Compare it to its contemporary competition and the work fared surprisingly well. Hannah Pedley and Andrew Slater's acting and singing were exemplary, as was Lindy Tennent-Brown's piano accompaniment.
Philip Herbert's narration did the pompous trick. And, while the competition is admittedly pretty weak, the gags were some of the best I'd ever heard on the opera floor, proving that it's not the art form that's unfunny, merely the minds of our ageing composers and librettists.
Of course, in the end, one could not block out the noxious premise of this stunt. Accessible opera for the masses? Why not try a performance of Carmen?
And, ultimately, Twitterdammerung couldn't transcend or hide that fact that it was little more than a cheap gimmick. But as cheap gimmicks go, this was a good 'un.
As Neil Fisher (The Times 4.9.09) says in his fascinating article: "There is only one composer who incites as much repulsion as he does reverence, as much adulation as he does suspicion: Richard Wagner". It sems a shame that the man's name should have become synonymous with Nazis when he died in 1883! But I guess that has as much to do with the fact that Wagner was the führer's favourite composer; and the rather questionable relationship between the composer's grandson, Wolfgang and his mother Winifred, with Hitler. Still, can't wait to see The South Bank Show on ITV1 on Sep 13th. And, whatever the fate of the two new directors of Bayreuther Festspiele, Wagner's glorious music will live on - forever.
"With Jenufa at the Coliseum and Katya Kabanova in Hackney, Londoners have been enjoying the chance to compare what Janácek's friend Max Brod called the “budding flower” and the “ripe fruit” of his operatic output. Katya, the harvest of the composer's 66th year, has been chosen to celebrate English Touring Opera's 30th birthday and, with Michael Rosewell in the pit, it resonates with all the rapture, anguish and verdant life of Janácek's score", reports Hilary Finch in The Times with four-star rating.
"A cobwebby cross-etching of shadows forms the backdrop to the earthy browns, greys and slate-blues of Adam Wiltshire's period costumes. And in James Conway's quiet yet intense staging, the villagers ebb and flow like the waters of the river in which Katya will drown herself. The body language of this production is its great strength. You can feel the ache within Katya, sung with impassioned radiance by Linda Richardson: the voice can certainly spread its wings, even if the yearning body cannot fly. Jane Harrington's free-spirited Varvara sings in a soprano glowing with sensuousness and sympathy.
The three tenors in their lives are sharply drawn: Michael Bracegirdle's forthright Kuryash, a real match for his Varvara; Colin Judson a tormented and more than usually sympathetic Tichon; and Katya's beloved Boris, not yet totally invigorated, but ardently sung by Richard Roberts. The dark sterility of superstition and moral rectitude is embodied in the gimlet-eyed Kabanicha of Fiona Kimm and the monstrous presence of Sion Goronwy's Dikoy.
David Alden’s searing production of Jenùfa receives its first revival since winning two Olivier Awards in 2007, including one for Outstanding Achievement in Opera for Amanda Roocroft, who returns in the title role. Jenùfa is Janáček's most popular work. Ostensibly bleak — a stepmother commits an unspeakable act of cruelty — this nonetheless remains an opera where love and forgiveness triumph. After her success in Philip Glass’s Satyagraha at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, Michaela Martens plays the role of the Stepmother, while the outstanding Norwegian Eivind Gullberg Jensen conducts what is undoubtedly one of the greatest operatic scores of the 20th century.
"It's not hard to see why bel canto is making such a comeback. The fantasy of the winsome diva, the suggestiveness of those sweet-scented melodies, the outlandishness of those extraordinary vocal runs. As the economic climate turns ever grimmer, the fragrant reveries of Bellini and Donizetti will become ever more attractive. Economic imperatives demand it. And bel canto should profit", so according to Igor Torony-Lalic in The Times. He goes on: "As if the unlikely return of the Royal Opera's aged Capuleti wasn't enough, Welsh National Opera is touring a sunny 1950s-inspired take on Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore. Opera North produced its own version of Capuleti, normally a rarity, last year. And English Touring Opera is shortly to take one of the genre's undisputed masterpieces, Bellini's Norma, on the road, choosing to perform it in concert and dispense with the distraction of a plausible staging altogether".
"Why will the audiences be flocking in? Bel canto is all about candy for the ear and the eye. It is, in many ways, the escapist pursuit par excellence, relying on the oldest fantasy in the book: beauty. As the name implies, bel canto refers to those Italian operas written between 1805 and 1830 mainly by the likes of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti. They put a premium on a vocal style that favoured smoothness, lightness and agility above everything else. The focus is vocal beauty over dramatic profundity. Or, as the venerable Grove Dictionary of Music puts it, on 'vocalisation devoid of content' ”.
Gramophone magazine has compiled its list after asking 11 critics worldwide to rank their favourite orchestras. The following is the result:
1. Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam
2. Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
3. Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
4. London Symphony Orchestra
5. Chicago Symphony Orchestra
6. Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
7. Cleveland Orchestra
8. Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra
9. Budapest Festival Orchestra
10. Dresden Staatskapelle
11. Boston Symphony Orchestra
12. New York Philharmonic Orchestra
13. San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
14. Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, St. Petersburg
15. Russian National Orchestra
16. Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra
17. Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
18. Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
19. Saito Kinen Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo
20. Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Do you agree with this list? Who do you think should replace any of these? Is there a bias?
Have you beem to a gig with the Concertgebouw? What is it about them that makes them officially the greatest orchestra in the world?
Just for fun, I'm setting out my favourite operas. What are yours and why?
1. Don Giovanni (Mozart) Surely on everyone's list? Lovely duets and a darker side.
2. La Traviata (Verdi) Heart-wrenching tragedy full of misunderstanding and emotional turmoil.
3. Tristan und Isolde (Wagner) One of Wagner's greatest operas? A tale of a Cornish knight and Irish princess with enchanting orchestration.
4. Carmen (Bizet) No one can resist this! Something for everyone: catchy tunes, lush orchestration and another love triangle.
5. La Bohème (Puccini) Set in 1830s Paris and with one of opera's most tragic endings.
6. Die Zauberflöte (Mozart) Wolfgang's final opera and a fairytale with sub-plot. Gorgeous music and memorable arias.
7. La fille du régiment (Donizetti) A delightful comedy with terrific numbers.
8. Norma (Bellini) Wonderful bel canto. With inspirational arias and duets. A joy.
9. Madama Butterfly (Puccini) One of the best known operas of all.
10. Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini) Charming opera love-story with the usual mess of disguises, mistaken identities and emotional entanglements. A perfect introduction to the world of opera.
Sucking on a Fisherman's Friend! Rupert Christiansen's review in the Daily Telegraph of this fabulous Royal Opera House production was marred by the incessant coughing of the audience - surely one of the most infuriating and distracting things. Some European opera houses present the audience with boiled sweets as they enter the auditorium.
Rupert (surely one of the most readable opera critics around) goes on to say: "
Only a week after Bryn Terfel and Anja Kampe had brought the house down in a new production of Die Fliegende Hollander, the Royal Opera offers us another sensational pairing of a rather different musical and dramatic kind. Elina Garanca and Anna Netrebko sing Romeo and Juliet in Bellini's version of the story, and they prove to be as wonderful live as they are on their just-released Deutsche Grammophon recording of the work.
Perhaps they wouldn't score straight tens with those who insist on the purest bel canto style: neither of them being native Italian (Garanca is Latvian, Netrebko Russian), their articulation and colouring of the text is imprecise. Netrebko lacks a firm trill, and Garanca's lowest register is relatively weak. But what fabulously healthy voices they both have, and how thrillingly they wield them, through melancholy aria, dramatic declamation and warmly blended duet.
Garanca's Romeo, looking good in principal-boy wig and tights, is a creature of swaggering bravado, vibrant in tone and confident in style. The audience rightly went wild for her. Netrebko presents a Juliet of naivete and ardour, her fearless spirit reflected in red-blooded singing irradiated by some ethereally floated top notes. You don't look to Netrebko for subtleties of interpretation – she's not a sensitive musician – but there's a passion and commitment in her artistry which charges her with electric star quality.
The performance was fortunate in having Mark Elder as its conductor. Having got off to a cracking start with a fiery account of the overture, he never let the pace sag thereafter, moulding the long expressive melodic lines with a firm hand. The orchestra played exceptionally beautifully for him, and even the rum-ti-tum episodes had dignity and purpose.
As long as people perceive Opera as stuffy and for snobs it will always be diffficult. However, recent work at ENO has made inroads into popularising the genre, and the Met's high definition live broadcasts on a Saturday evening are a wonderful way of bringing opera to the movies.
The last time EMI Classics brought out a studio recording of a full-length opera - perhaps the most expensive thing that any record company can produce - the label swore that it really would be the last. So it's terrific news that EMI has changed its mind and put out this lavish Madama Butterfly, particularly given that its chief rival, Universal Classics, is busy diverting all available budgets to crossover and jazz-lite. Even recent purely classical recordings from its stable have sounded less like they were produced in a studio than in somebody's garden shed, reports Neil Fisher in The Times.
This Butterfly, however, is immaculately recorded, spacious and evocative. Best of all, it gives maximum impact to Antonio Pappano's magisterial conducting of the Santa Cecilia Orchestra. The whole is ravishingly played and beautifully detailed; it might be a cliché, but this Roman orchestra have Puccini's swelling melodies in their blood. Worth singling out the ladies of the Santa Cecilia Chorus, too, whose featherlike touch builds magic out of Cio-Cio-San's first entrance.
And Angela Gheorghiu, who sings that fearsome role? When they record together, Pappano says, they're like “ham and eggs”. And she's certainly not hammy here: banished are any diva-like mannerisms. Instead, she makes the most of what opera buffs neatly call her “morbidezza” (and we clumsily call her “vocal softness”) carefully to etch out Butterfly's passionate vulnerability.
There's a but. She spends far too long applying fluttery Japaneseries, the downfall of any Butterfly who tries to get too native. Puccini's heroine has never been and never will be a convincing portrait of a 15-year-old geisha, so when Gheorghiu tries to apply the teenage make-up it just sounds artificial. And, at the other end of the opera's expressive range, she doesn't have the heft - or perhaps the gravitas - to deliver the full impact of Butterfly's self-sacrifice; come the end, and she hasn't quite nailed the ascent from duped innocent to heroic tragedienne.
Still, you can't fault her diligence, nor the rest of the cast's dramatic flair. Jonas Kaufmann's husky Pinkerton is excellent; if he skimps on ardour, that's because Butterfly's fake husband is more in lust than love. Enkelejda Shkosa contributes a moving Suzuki; Fabio Capitanucci a more spontaneous and less censorious Sharpless than usual. But Pappano is the icing on the cake. The cost: just £13.70 from EMI Classics.
I was so sad to read, in the Royal Opera House About the House, of the most untimely death of Phyllida Ritter, for so long the Director of the Friends of Covent Garden which she took over upon the retirement of Ken Davison twenty, or so, years ago. I first met Phyllida when she was working at E.N.O and was privileiged to organise the very first, inaugural tour, which was run by the Friends of Covent Garden when she joined in 1988. She was a lovely, kind and gentle woman with whom it was a pleasure to work and who will be very deeply missed
Have you seen that, according to the Guardian, the ROH is putting on the life of Anna Nicole Smith. She, you will recall, is the glamour model best known for marrying a (pre-Madoff revelation) billionaire 63 years her senior, who died of a drug overdose aged 39. OperaSocial understands that Elaine Padmore, Covent Garden's director of Opera coments: "It is not going to be a horrible, sleazy evening. It is not going to be tawdry". Why not we cry! Perfect ingredients for a contemorary opera. Padmore goes on: "it is going to be witty, clever, thoughtful and sad. In broad outline, iot will tell the story of her life, the people who influenced her, her progress. Clearly the story is about a woman who met and ancient gentlemen in a wheelchar, but it's not going to be a straight narrative; choices have to be made about significant moments, selecting which incidents in her life are to be built up."
One of the most celebrated names in British contemporary music, Mark-Anthony Turnage is scoring the music with the libretto being created by Richard Thome (co-creator of the controversial Jerry Springer the Opera).
Final word to Padmore who compars the story to the plot of Donizetti's classic, Lucia di Lammermoor, adding: "It is not just a documentary about her, but a parable about celebrity and what it does to people."
British orchestras have made little impression in a list of the world’s best. The London Symphony Orchestra, in fourth place, is the country’s sole representative among the twenty finest bands, according to a panel of leading international critics.
Seven American orchestras, four German and three Russian make the list, which is topped by the Royal Concertgebouw of Amsterdam.
The mighty Berlin Philharmonic and the refined Vienna Philharmonic are second and third respectively.
Both institutions will be unhappy with their ranking, having contested the unofficial title of world’s greatest orchestra since the mid-20th century, when they were under the batons of the conductors Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein.
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BEGIN: Comment Teaser Module END: Module - M63 - Article Related AttachementsThe Berlin Philharmonic’s second place is at least a fillip of sorts for British music. The orchestra is now conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, a Liverpudlian, although this is rather cancelled out by the nationality of the LSO’s principal conductor. Valery Gergiev is a fiercely proud Russian and also musical director of the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra in St Petersburg, at number14 in the list.
The poll was put together by Gramophone, the classical music magazine, and limited to modern romantic orchestras (so period bands such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment did not get a look in). The eleven-strong panel included three British critics from the magazine, two Americans, two Asians and one each from Le Monde (France), Die Welt (Germany), De Telegraaf (the Nether-lands) and Die Presse (Austria).
James Inverne, the editor of Gramophone, said that the aim had been to compile a selection that was not “patriotic or parochial.
The full survey is published in the December issue of Gramophone, which will be available today.
High notes
1 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
2 Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
3 Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
4 London Symphony Orchestra
5 Chicago Symphony Orchestra
6 Bavarian Radio Symphony
7 Cleveland Orchestra
8 Los Angeles Philharmonic
9 Budapest Festival Orchestra
10 Dresden Staatskapelle
11 Boston Symphony Orchestra
12 New York Philharmonic
13 San Francisco Symphony
14 Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra
15 Russian National Orchestra
16 Leningrad Philharmonic
17 Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
18 Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
19 Saito Kinen Symphony Orchestra
20 Czech Philharmonic
Source: Gramophone
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What do you think of Il Divo? This is the pop-opera crossover band of four attractive tenors and baritones who are managed by, yes, you guessed it - Simon Cowell. So, what palce do they have in the world of opera? They are immensley popular in the Classic fm version of pop-classic. Purists, of course, snipe at the kind of music they perform - with microphones (God forbid). But surely it's great that a wide audience adores their performances and stage act?
What do you think?