“Agency” is a present buzzword in opera, well-worn however nonetheless legitimate and normally preceded by “feminine”. Girls, abused, managed, dying, have been lengthy assumed to haven’t any free will. A radical rethink, of historical past in its entirety, and of opera, has put this expectation within the dock. One of many sharpest cross-questioners, scrutinising each hardened perspective, is the British director Katie Mitchell, whose work has been seen (different wording: “has divided audiences”) throughout Europe for the reason that mid-Nineteen Nineties.
Her manufacturing of Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), as troublesome as it’s unnerving and perceptive, has returned to the Royal Opera Home for a second revival. The soprano Nadine Sierra excels within the title position (her fellow American Liv Redpath will give three performances). Sierra alone, main a uniformly sturdy ensemble, can be a motive to see this present. Giacomo Sagripanti carried out, with refrain and orchestra on passionate type and a notably beautiful solo flute obbligato within the celebrated mad scene.
Whereas the lads on this opera are preoccupied with historic rivalries and future fortune, the tragic Lucia is right here proven to behave, in methods normally unseen and regardless of oppression on all sides, with an impartial thoughts. Lastly her sanity, maybe all the time frail, collapses. Based mostly on Walter Scott’s novel of 1819, the work is a major instance of Italian “bel canto”, which solely means stunning singing however encapsulates a whole Nineteenth-century Italian operatic type constructed round vocal fireworks, trilling decoration and class. Sierra’s fearless, gold-silver excessive notes and super-rapid trills are matched with answering grace and depth by the younger Spanish tenor Xabier Anduaga, as Edgardo, the enemy she loves. The Polish baritone Artur Ruciński is rich-toned and convincing as her bullying brother Enrico.
Mitchell’s Lucia reminds us, unequivocally, of the etymology of hysteria (origin, uterus). The fated bride’s bloodied midriff, her abdomen clutching and vomiting, could point out a shameful being pregnant or, merely, if that adverb is allowable, menstruation, each lazily related to feminine insanity. Designed with immense element by Vicki Mortimer, the staging splits the motion into two: private and non-private, outer and internal, unfolding in parallel. Typically the simultaneous goings on are distracting; simpler to comply with if you happen to’ve purchased a programme and studied, upfront, the second column of the double synopsis. Mitchell’s seriousness is past query, if ultimately the outcomes are overemphatic. This revival (directed by Robin Tebbutt) reveals us, many times, the ability of sensible singing. On opening night time the viewers felt like a fourth primary character, alert to each vocal triumph, cheering, ebullient, beneficiant. It might be an opera of prime notes, however this manufacturing, for all its minor frustrations, reveals it as way over that.
Two chamber concert events I went to final week acted as unwitting preludes – of which extra shortly – to this 12 months’s BBC Proms, launched on Thursday. Within the first, at Wigmore Corridor, Lawrence Energy, viola participant supreme, led the Nash Ensemble for the final programme in an all-day occasion dedicated to the Australian composer-violist Brett Dean (b.1961). Dean’s hallmark is his particular reward for creating musical ambiance: a remodeling of music by William Byrd, in Dean’s Byrdsong Research (2021), transported us to a ghostly Tudor previous, the sound of a tender, zigzagging harpsichord (Xiaowen Shang) whispering down the centuries and assembly the current. Dean’s Strategy (Prelude to a Canon), written to guide straight into Brandenburg Concerto No 6, is a busily disputatious trade between soloists out of which Bach’s music abruptly emerges, liberated. Dean and Energy additionally confirmed their virtuosity (Dean used to play within the Berlin Philharmonic) in George Benjamin’s Viola, Viola (1997), a succinct invention described by the composer as a “really wild and ecstatic trip”. It really was.
The second chamber live performance, at Milton Court docket, featured Anthony McGill, principal clarinettist of the New York Philharmonic and a Barbican artist in residence. A consummate participant who can flip a blizzard of notes into a protracted, poetic, lyrical line, McGill was joined by Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective for Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet and Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Neither work, although filled with rewards, felt fairly bedded in, with some slippage in ensemble, however McGill’s enjoying was a mannequin of poise, freedom and creativeness. The clarinet motion within the Messiaen, Abîme des Oiseaux, was a masterclass within the expressive vary of a single line of music.
And so to the Proms. Each Energy and McGill will play concertos this 12 months – Cassandra Miller’s for viola, Mozart’s for clarinet. The spine of the season, on a headline perusal of the 73 concert events on the Royal Albert Corridor, is centenary Bruckner and epic Mahler. You possibly can write that off as conservative or you possibly can hope that, as with final 12 months, the enchantment of orchestral and choral extravaganzas will draw the crowds. They exhibit the perfect of the Albert Corridor, and of the Proms. For the quirky and authentic, look to the broader UK concert events in Gateshead, Nottingham and Bristol.
Visiting orchestras embrace the Czech Philharmonic and the West-Jap Divan. The must-see heavyweights, every giving two concert events, would be the Berlin Philharmonic with Kirill Petrenko, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra with their new chief conductor, Simon Rattle. The Final Night time, after perennial head-scratching, will embrace Rule, Britannia! The additional Britain will get from ruling the waves, the thought fantastical, the much less it appears to matter if Thomas Arne’s nice tune turns into an viewers sing-song. However sensitivities run excessive and questions are rightly requested. The soprano Angel Blue and pianist Stephen Hough are the Final Night time celeb soloists. Sakari Oramo will conduct.
The Proms announcement got here days after the demise of Andrew Davis, 80, a long-serving, musically open-minded and widespread chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He was on account of conduct at this’s 12 months Proms. Let’s dedicate the whole 2024 season to Davis’s witty and sensible reminiscence. If somebody can do the first rate factor and reprise his unforgettable Final Night time modern-major-general parody, he may relaxation in peace, his spirit honoured.
Star scores (out of 5)
Lucia di Lammermoor ★★★★
Nash Ensemble ★★★★★
Anthony McGill and Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective ★★★★
Fiona Maddocks’s decide of the 2024 Proms
In chronological order. Make sure you guide early; tickets go on sale at 9am on Saturday 18 Could.
Promenade 4
Hallé/Mark Elder (21 July)
Mahler Symphony No 5
Promenade 6
BBC Nationwide Orchestra & Refrain of Wales, Crouch Finish Competition Refrain/Ryan Bancroft (23 July)
Verdi Requiem
Promenade 15
The Swingles, BBC Philharmonic/ Nicholas Collon (30 July)
Messiaen: Turangalîla Symphony
Promenade 21
Sinfonia of London/ John Wilson (4 August)
John Adams: Harmonielehre
Promenade 31
West-Jap Divan Orchestra/ Daniel Barenboim (11 August)
Schubert “Nice” C main Symphony No 9
Promenade 37
London Symphony Orchestra and choruses/Antonio Pappano (17 August)
Britten Warfare Requiem
Promenade 42
Aurora Orchestra/Nicholas Collon (21 August)
Beethoven’s Ninth by Coronary heart
Proms 55 & 56
Berlin Philharmonic/Kirill Petrenko (31 August & 1 September)
Smetana: Má vlast/Bruckner Symphony No 5
Proms 61 & 62
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Simon Rattle (5 & 6 September)
Bruckner Symphony No 4/Mahler Symphony No 6
