House music: classical critics’ watching and listening picks
Two concerts live-streamed from the Philharmonie de Paris have profoundly touched me in the last few days. Both marked the beginnings of a return to live music, albeit with an online audience, as lockdown restrictions begin to be eased across Europe. And both focused, tellingly perhaps, on works by Strauss, written during the second world war – music, in other words, which asserts a common humanity in dark times. Last Wednesday, players from the Orchestre de Paris juxtaposed the string sextet from Capriccio with Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll and a transcription for brass and woodwind by Andreas N Tarkmann of the Good Friday music from Parsifal. The following evening was given over to a single work, with Renaud Capuçon and Friends performing Strauss’s Metamorphosen.
The first concert suggested a release into hope, with the elegance of Strauss’s sextet flowing into the serenity of Wagner’s Idyll and the redemptive majesty of the Parsifal extract. Metamorphosen, in contrast, felt like a communal act of mourning, overwhelming in its impact, and quite astonishingly filmed by Nathan Benisty, his camera capturing the players’ concentration and emotions in often unsparing closeup. It’s one of the most moving things I’ve seen in ages.
This is the time of year, meanwhile, when many opera-goers would usually be thinking about heading to summer festivals and country house theatres. Covid-19 has, of course, made such forays impossible for now, but since opera online has been my mainstay during lockdown, I’ve been looking at some of the streams that have taken their place.
Glyndebourne Open House kicked off the weekend before last, with Michael Grandage’s 2012 staging of Le Nozze di Figaro, the first instalment of a Mozart/Da Ponte series, which regrettably only allows us a week in which to catch each opera. The current offering, available until Sunday, is Jonathan Kent’s controversial 2010 staging of Don Giovanni, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, with Gerald Finley in the title role. A thing of fire and ice, influenced by film noir and surrealism, it’s a hard-edged take on the work, darkly disquieting if at times short on humour. It’s followed, until 14 June, by Nicholas Hytner’s sad, subtle Così Fan Tutte from 2006, conducted by Iván Fischer.
Garsington Opera, however, have been doing things differently, with Music for the Eyes, a series of insightful documentaries presented by Johnny Langridge and art historian Imogen Tedbury, examining operas from the company’s repertory in relation to painting and literature. Britten’s Turn of the Screw and Tchaikovsky’s Onegin are among the episodes available, though the best to date, I think, is a fascinating analysis of Smetana’s The Bartered Bride in the context of 19th-century nationalist and realist artists such as Ilya Repin, as well Seurat’s circus paintings.
And finally don’t miss Walter Sutcliffe’s 2018 Grange festival production of Agrippina, Handel’s great 1709 satire on sleaze, spin and the lies politicians tell. Anna Bonitatibus is terrific in the title role, with Raffaele Pé as Nero, and Christopher Ainslie as the put-upon, noble Ottone. It’s as good online as it was in the theatre.
Tim’s pick for the coming week
I’m looking forward to Verdi this week. On Thursday afternoon (4 June) Radio 3 is broadcasting a period instrument performance of Il Corsaro, given in Warsaw last year by Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante and a striking cast. And on 2 June, what should have been the festival’s opening night, Opera Holland Park is streaming Rodula Gaitanou’s engrossing production of Un Ballo in Maschera, with Anne Sophie Duprels and George von Bergen excellent as Amelia and Anckarström.
