Art Nouveau Ho

On Tuesday I went with a friend to the late Prom to hear the King's Singers.

For non-Londoners: the late Prom is a fantastic idea. When they have one, it starts around 10pm, after the earlier evening concert has ended. They tend to schedule quite mellow things for this slot: chamber music, choral stuff, etc.

I wouldn't necessarily have gone to hear the King's Singers if my baritone friend Peter hadn't invited me. Their technique is immaculate, but in the past I've found them a little bland, a little soulless. The founding members were six Cambridge choral scholars, and it shows. Still, it was an entertaining programme, with a couple of real highlights:

Scenes in America Deserta, by John McCabe. I loved this, because I love composers who aren't afraid to sound beautiful. McCabe uses harmony in all kinds of strange and imaginative ways-- it kind of reminded me of hearing In The Nursery this spring in Leipzig. It's worth listening to the BBC iPlayer broadcast just for this piece.

La Guerre by Janequin. Anyone who thinks early music is boring should be forced at gunpoint to listen to Janequin, who was fucking insane. A Janequin chanson usually follows this pattern:
Opening: Totally normal madrigal stuff.
Middle bit: Janequin gets bored and has everyone start making weird noises, which somehow fit together into a work of stunning brilliance.
Ending: A nod to normalcy, a resolution, and off to the pub.
La Guerre celebrates the victory of François I over a bunch of Swiss mercenaries in the battle of Marignano in 1515, and it does so by recreating the battle in sound: the flight of arrows, the thunder of guns, the clash of arms. It ends with the French proclaiming victory and a despondent Swiss voice crying "All is lost, by God!"
Here it is on YouTube; go listen. (That version's in modern French, but at the Prom the King's Singers earned extra language-nerd points by making a passable attempt at Old French.)

So next Tuesday's late Prom is the Rachmaninov Vespers, sung by an Estonian choir (which hopefully means proper Slavonic basses.) Sadly we probably won't be able to persuade the Albert Hall to turn off all the lights and provide cushions for us to lie on, but notwithstanding, I am so there. Who's with me?

Having just watched Harrison Birtwistle's new opera The Minotaur on BBC2, all I can say is John Tomlinson is having a GREAT year.

I blogged a bit about his Wotan in the Ring last winter. That went to some dark, disturbing, fucked-up places-- good preparation, in other words, for playing a half-man-half-beast with a permanent hardon stitched onto the front of his leather trousers. This makes me doubly sorry I missed his Baron Ochs (Ochs= Ox, get it?) in ENO's Der Rosenkavalier. As the Minotaur, there are solo scenes in which he waxes poetic and philosophical, and set pieces in which he can only bellow like a beast. Birtwistle is said to have based the Minotaur's death scene on that of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, but to me it recalled the death of Fafner in the Ring: the dying, deep-voiced monster uttering prophecy.

The other miracle that occurred tonight is that I voluntarily watched something by Harrison Birtwistle. I tuned in fully prepared to switch off if things got boring in the usual "assorted percussion instruments being dropped on an angry soprano" way, but no-- Birtwistle, in his dotage, is getting positively lyrical. I'd call The Minoutaur discordant, now, rather than outright atonal. It's still not the sort of thing you'd rush out and buy the CD of, but onstage it works well. Plus, leading role for a mezzo (beautifully sung by Christine Rice). And Philip Langridge being sinister, and a countertenor with breasts. I don't really see what more you could ask from an evening.

I can see where this is leading. I'm going to have to find the DVD of Gawain, aren't I? And watch Birtwistle voluntarily. Again. WTF.

Recently I was lucky enough to step out with a friend to Covent Garden for the opening night of die Zauberflöte.

The ROH and ENO have both staged revivals of The Magic Flute this year; ENO publicised theirs as the last-ever outing for Nicholas Hytner's 1988 production. The thing is: ENO have no cash, and that production's been a stalwart of theirs for years. I can't really see them daring to retire it unless they're very confident of whomever they've got lined up to do a new one (Jonathan Miller? Zandra Rhodes again? Who the hell knows?)

Covent Garden's production isn't as stark as ENO's: there's more colour, more adornment, a little more gilding. Nothing like the glitz of some American productions, but a restrained, understated beauty (with occasional horrible lapses, such as the awful costume they stuck Papagena in. That's her in the top photo. What were they thinking?)
( Come have a seat in the gods )

Last night I was lucky enough to attend the dress rehearsal of Britten's Billy Budd, to be done in concert this weekend (Dec 7-9) by the LSO under the fiery baton of Daniel Harding. (During the rehearsal, he broke a baton about a third of the way into Act I and carried on bare-handed, scarcely a break in his stride.)

If what I saw is any indication, this is going to be something very special. Billy Budd is an opera of tremendous emotional impact in any case, and in concert it's hardly less stunning. I say unhesistatingly: go see it this weekend if you can.
( Thoughts and mini-review below )

Just came back from seeing Beowulf. They could have saved a lot of time by rolling it and 300 into one movie called LOUD NAKED GUYS GET STABBY IN MONOCHROME.

Still, bonus points for bringing back the verb "to swive."

While in York yesterday, velvetdahlia, speedlime and I noticed some amazing colourful projections on the facade of York Minster. Hell, even the test patterns looked cool... but later the entire thing blossomed into a psychedelic glory of moving colours.

So I got chatting to the guys setting it up, and it turns out it's an interactive art installation by Usman Haque. "Interactive??" I said, intrigued. They explained that they have four microphones suspended from nearby trees to pick up sounds from the crowd, and the projected patterns of light will respond to those.

Obviously the next question was "So what happens if I sing?"

The mikes weren't connected yet, but they let me sing into the little Mac laptop they were running it from. I sang a few phrases of plainchant, and watched the falling rainbow-coloured drops of light grow into bright slow-moving rivers. I love stuff like this-- light, art, interactivity-- and the fact that this installation, with its newly written software, was projected on the centuries-old facade of York Minster just made it that much cooler.

The guys from the council invited me back to sing for the opening tonight with TV cameras and such, but the bus and train schedules didn't allow it, so I declined with some regret. Instead I'm blogging it, saying: If you're at all near York, this lovely installation runs from 26 October to 3 November, between 6pm and 11pm every night. Go, look, make sounds and marvel.

So I went to see Das Rheingold last night at Covent Garden. Having now seen two out of the four Ring operas, I can now categorically state that this production contains a lot of sexual weirdness.

In fact, it contains a lot of weirdness in general. This director makes dark, disturbing, disgusting choices-- which tend to work perfectly, because they're based on a true understanding of the story and its world. That is so rare that it's worth celebrating when we find it, I think. I'm disturbed and disgusted and I love it.

On Thursday evening I dragged my mother to Covent Garden for Die Walküre. I don't know what I was expecting, but it was beautiful.

For those who haven't been keeping track: Wagner's Ring cycle consists of four operas. For this latest production, Covent Garden has premiered one opera each year for the past four years, and this year they're finally staging all four in order. Bryn Terfel, who sang the role of the god Wotan (Odin) for the first time in this production, had to pull out earlier this year due to a family crisis-- which is ironic, since the Ring is basically an enormous family crisis in itself.

So this time round, Terfel has been replaced by Sir John Tomlinson, who has been Britain's stalwart Wagnerian bass for many years. I've heard him sing many times, including Wotan twice before. Trust me when I say that to my knowledge he has never sung better than in this production.
( Come with me to the opera )

I'm back from the RSC costume sale with an armload of shiny Things for the adornment of myself and friends. It was great fun, and I ran into the lovely lorralie whom I'd met at the ENO sale, and met her partner dr_locrian and nineveh_uk. It's a small world, but it seems cyberspace is even smaller.

While in Stratford, I saw the RSC's new Twelfth Night. I went in with jaded expectations, since this play is so often done, but no: it was fresh and beautiful, with extra gender-bending: Viola is played by a man; Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Fabian by women. All of which speaks to something I believe deeply: that an actor is an actor, no matter the gender. (And that in Shakespeare, women shouldn't be denied all the good parts.)

John Lithgow (of Third Rock From The Sun fame) is a FANTASTIC Malvolio, and he proves the glorious exception to the general rule that British and American actors can't do each other's accents. Other standouts are James Clyde as a skulkingly louche Feste and Justine Mitchell as Olivia, in a jet-beaded polonaise that would make pvcdiva flip over backwards. Kudos, too, to composer Simon Deacon for some ace music. The whole thing is sort of Edwardian-country-house, but there's no set except a grand piano and some large standing mirrors-- which sounds incredibly RSC and pretentious, but in this case it actually works.

The only thing that grated on me slightly was some loose memorisation resulting in a few line-misreadings. Otherwise, this is a Twelfth Night worth seeing.

Meanwhile, I'm plotting and planning:
The Ring at Covent Garden. Musssst sssseeee the Preciousssss!
Pink Martini at the Hammersmith Apollo, Sat 10 Nov: anyone want to go?
Lastly, something fracture_242 and I were discussing: if a small, relaxed Halloween party were held at my place on the evening of the 31st, would this be a Good Thing?

The year tilts toward autumn: tomorrow's the Equinox. Is it me, or has this summer flown by? Where did all those long warm lazy days go?

Cool things I have done recently:

Attended the Royal Opera's Iphigénie en Tauride with a friend from France, Peter. (Confusingly, I now have two friends named Peter: both baritones, both gentlemen-of-a-certain-inclination, and both delightful. If they ever meet, the Universe will explode.)
Anyway, Iphigénie: the production was very minimal, with a starkness suited to Greek tragedy. The chorus were very choreographed, but the principals' acting remained naturalistic (and very good). Susan Graham as Iphigénie and Simon Keenlyside as Oreste are both excellent. Also worth a mention is Paul Groves as Pylade; a fine voice, and his scenes with Keenlyside are very moving indeed.

While in America, I saw Delia, my Sophie from the Rosenkavalier excerpt in Scotland. She was kind enough to let me come to her singing lesson, where we sang through the Flower Duet from Lakmé. We're tentatively planning a concert for spring; I believe it will be a good one. (Also, we went to the Renaissance Fair. Yay!)

Received a Vision from the Whitby Clothing Muse. Now she will give me no peace until her will is done. There goes my relaxing weekend.

Attended spyinthehaus's birthday drinks and there saw the ever delightful slightlyfoxed. Many happy returns to the fast talkin' font of all eclectic knowledge. (For example, did you know there's a website devoted to artistic renderings of dragons having sex with cars? Neither did I, until last night. Now I want those braincells back.)

(NO, I'M NOT GOING TO LINK THERE. If you're bored enough to Google "dragons having sex with cars," then frankly you are beyond my help.)

So how are you? Are you having a good September? I hope so. If you're reading this, I send you a hug.