Photo Clive Barda from Opera Britannia
I’ve had a very slow start into the new season, more miss than hit, and since it is going to be quiet for a little while longer I decided it is never too late to talk about the old season after all. And don’t fret too much about the new one, it is not like I am in a state of abstinence from music ;-) But I have had a busy summer and am not going to be much around London unfortunately all the way until Christmas, so I catch what I can. Or remember what I saw and heard.
Because I probably have some organisation and categorisation complex ( too much report writing! P*ke!) I feel the need to assign categories to memories as well. I mean I think back of the last season and I feel I have done 10 in one. I’ve experienced, learned, heard and felt more in the last season than ever before in my life in such a short period of time. I am enjoying a bit of temporary peace because I actually feel like sitting back and smiling with a weird sense of accomplishment.. I have done all that and been there!! I did feel at times almost like I was being bulldozered over. And I was afraid of forgetting things, of not taking them in fully, or overloading senses and breaking some kind of barriers in experience which would never allow me to go on and enjoy normal things. I mean this was my musical season 2009-2010 in no particular order of importance:
- My first ever Tristan and Isolde live with Stemme, Heppener and Pappano ( I’ve had one more of that since…);
- My first ever Werther live (yes, the Paris one with Plasson and the bunch) and I still feel I’ve had far too little of that one!
- My first time seeing and hearing Abbado conduct live – Fidelio in Luzern .. really O namenlose Freude!
- My first time ever (I know, I know….) seeing and hearing Placido Domingo live!!!!!!! and sounding just like on the shelves of CDs back home…
- Don Carlo at the ROH!! Yes, that one, every single bit of it!
- Meistersinger- the longest love at first sight in history! And it was Bryn’s first Sachs :-) and this was also my first time at the Proms;
- My first time hearing Matthias Goerne live :-) surprisingly, I can like Schubert after all;
- Jonas sang his first and my first Wintersturme live in Dusseldorf and I was there;
- Simon Keenlyside sung his first Rigoletto in Cardiff ( I love the WMC!);
- Celebrating b-day with Requiem at la Scala, weird, still love and hate the place, but Verdi would love how they play his music :-);
- My first Konigskinder/Humperdinck live and please please please don’t let these be the last!!!!
- Pappano does Boccanegra ( I know it’s kind of twice on the list but believe me this score never sounded so good!) and THIS IS VERDI!
- The Weimar Voices LA at King’s place – I adored those Lieder!
- Fille du regiment at ROH with Natalie and Juandi – he is JDF!! And she is even more fantastic than I imagined!
- Mozart rocks!!!!! Cosi, Turco and Nozze with Schrott and Kwiecien at ROH!
- I want to be a kid in school in music class and Pappano to be the teacher.. Operaitalia!!! Or just one more reason to love Tony :-)
- My first Salzburg festival and it turns out I like it, hope to do this again some time :-)
- Mariss Jansons and Shostakovich 4th at the RFH, what a buzz!
- Jonas sings Kindertotenlieder in Munich (you can cherish and connect even with things that scare you profoundly….. )
- Lohengrin love story still going strong, it’s something different when it is from Bayreuth;
- Old tales in new frocks, Aida and Manon get a make over at the ROH and not surprisingly I disagree with most people on both by liking the Aida production and most of the musical bits of it as well and not being that bowled over like most with the Manon;
- And in all this confusion of new things the comfort of oldies, but goldies! More Carmen and Tosca! I’ve lost count of how many, but every time I think “ok, enough of these” I end up sitting and listening at 3am to some radio broadcast ;-)
But It’s not all been glory, I missed the Requiem at Pleyel, which I always wanted to go to because Dinu Lipatti played there, I missed Abbado in Berlin with the Rinaldo, I missed the Carmen at la Scala and most of all I missed Lohengrin in Bayreuth…
Maybe one is just not meant to be indulging quite so much :-)
In any case, closing the season with Mozart was wonderful. His work is full of conflicts, but human ones, every day life stuff, good and bad and loads of humour, irony. Coupled with his music it always gives me peace and balance and also a positive feeling about music and life in general :-)
So, although months have passed, I still want to remember this Nozze I saw at the ROH, two performances of it, and I would have loved to see more! I was lucky to catch both conductors and both countesses.
I can’t imagine a better match between Mozart’s domestic tangles story and David McVicar’s production! It’s not a big secret that I quite a fan of his work. I really think he can make a good actor out of any singer. And he managed to make the productions modern without taking the illusion away. I mean I like to connect with the stories and the people, I don’t necessarily look for fairy-tale pretty on stage, but I’d rather not have CNN/policy report on stage if you know what I mean :-) You can be real without being necessarily and purposefully depressive or ugly. With McVicar I never have the feeling of looking into a fake world or where things are on display on a stage, on the contrary, you have a feeling of intimacy, of actually observing a slice of real life, with real people going about their business. Of course this implies work of extreme detail, but it is not the kind of stage-crowding detail, but rather the character detail you otherwise rarely get to experience in an opera.
And he couldn’t have found better singers /actors to fit into the production. It has been already written several times what kind of a great pairing of voices and characters Schrott and Kwiecien made! Vocally and in stage presence they commended attention as soon as one of them was in front of you and they made for strong and quirky Figaro and count. Each so in character and at the same time negotiating the score with such easy it makes one envious! Had I not heard them live I would have probably not believed had anyone told me what a good fit Mozart is vocally for both! Mariusz elegance and agility is formidable and I hope he will continue singing Mozart for a while! Schrott has a full and distinctive voice and one would not think Mozart would be his thing, but it so is! And the way he drops from singing into speech and back is amazing indeed. He made not be as convincing musically with other composers, or not yet, but he is very very good in Mozart!
And I am so looking forward to both of them coming back to the ROH to do Don Giovanni :-)
Eri Nakamura held her own as Susanna and it was funny how her petite self managed as much charisma on stage as to convincingly wind Figaro around her little finger as appropriate :-)
On the countesses I was more split, those extra long arias Mozart tends to write for sopranos usually grind down my patience… that is until you discover somebody who tells the story and is a good enough singer to make you forget about the thrills and ups and downs. And Soile Isokoski is one such wonderful lady! I’ve not heard a countess live to charm me like she did and to make “Dove sono” into something soooo beautiful! I really hope I get to hear her again sometime soon.
Annette Dasch probably was coming down with a cold or something while she sang at the ROH and I was very pleasantly surprised at her Elsa from Bayreuth. I am glad she sounded better and sang better than I heard her in the Nozze :-)
The entire cast in fact made the evenings complete and musically it was on both evenings a well rounded experience, with my personal preference in terms of conducting tending towards David Syrus more alert and perky version. I’m afraid I don’t like my Mozart quite as placid as Colin Davis did it the evening I went to ;-)
Nozze ROH 2010
Conductor Colin Davis/David Syrus
Figaro Erwin Schrott
Susanna Eri Nakamura
Count Almaviva Mariusz Kwiecien
Countess Almaviva Annette Dasch/Soile Isokoski
Cherubino Jurgita Adamonyte
Bartolo Robert Lloyd
Basilio Peter Hoare
Don Curzio Christopher Gillett
Marcellina Marie McLaughlin
Barbarina Amanda Forsythe
Antonio Nicholas Folwell
The start of the new season with Mozart was not quite as good as the Nozze which ended it. Probably in part because we just had Cosi not many months ago,. But also because with good singing alone this opera can become easily boring of the characters don’t have their own personalities to entertain us with. And I couldn’t help sitting though it and thinking how much more fun the cast in the previous season had been… Maybe sometimes revivals shouldn’t follow each other that closely.
But lucky for me I have some more Nozze to enjoy, thanks to the wonderful production in Paris just a few days ago broadcasted on F3:
Mozart's LE NOZZE DI FIGARO
Filmed at the Opera national de Paris (Bastille)
Philippe Jordan (Cond.)
Giorgio Strehler (Stage & lights)
Ludovic Tezier : Il Conte di Almaviva
Barbara Frittoli : La Contessa di Almaviva
Ekaterina Siurina : Susanna
Luca Pisaroni : Figaro
Karine Deshayes : Cherubino
Ann Murray : Marcellina
Robert Lloyd : Bartolo
Robin Leggate : Don Basilio
Antoine Normand : Don Curzio
Maria Virginia Savastano : Barbarina
Christian Treguier : Antonio
So I am looking forward to sitting down and watching this during the coming days, I have a feeling it is going to be quite the treat ;-), which I have every reason to enjoy, especially this week.
