Article published in Manchester Evening News 19th August 2016

AS Manchester’s classical music goes into summer holiday purdah for the next three weeks or so, I’m taking a long view of the coming winter-spring season’s highlights – starting today with the big battalions of orchestral and choral music.

Both the BBC Philharmonic and Hallé have choral works to offer at the Bridgewater Hall early in the season: Haydn’s Die Schöpfung (The Creation) from the BBC Philharmonic under Juanjo Mena on September 24, and Beethoven’s Choral Symphony from the Hallé on October 6, conducted by Sir Mark Elder (with scenes from Verdi’s Macbeth to precede it – quite a contrast). The BBC Phil employ the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus – and they’re doing The Creation in the German version – and of course the Hallé have the Hallé Choir.

At the end of the season the two symphony orchestras join together for one of the biggest Romantic blockbusters in the repertory: Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder. It comes on June 4, and the Hallé and BBC Philharmonic will combine with the Hallé Choir, Sir Thomas Allen as narrator and five top soloists under Sir Mark Elder’s baton. It’s just after Sir Mark’s 70^th birthday, and billed as ‘a celebration for one of British music’s most treasured figures’.

That birthday is one he shares with composer Edward Elgar, and in March he presents an Elgar festival with the Hallé including the first symphony, ‘Enigma’ Variations and The Dream Of Gerontius (March 9 to 12).

There’s much more to be excited about, of course – I’d point to Tippett’s A Child Of Our Time, performed alongside Britten’s nearly-contemporary Sinfonia da Requiem, by the Hallé under Ryan Wigglesworth (October 27), an evening featuring virtuoso organist Jonathan Scott collaborating with conductor Cristian Mǎcelaru and the Hallé (February 9), and the BBC Philharmonic in Bach’s St Matthew Passion, with Manchester Chamber Choir and Nicholas Kraemer (April 14, Good Friday).

And each of the big two has a world premiere to share with us: the Hallé on April 20, with Huw Watkins’ Symphony, and the BBC Philharmonic on May 26, with Mark Simpson’s NOX – a concerto for cello and orchestra (soloist Leonard Elschenbroich).

Visiting orchestras at the Bridgewater Hall include the St Petersburg Philharmonic (always wonderful) on January 27, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the complete Bach Brandenburg Concertos on May 11.

Then there’s the Hallé’s performance of Wagner’s Das Rheingold on November 27 – but that’s next week’s subject: opera.

Article published in Manchester Evening News 12 August 2016

SYMPHONY orchestra concerts are thin on the ground in the north west in the summer months (and that’s an understatement!), but Buxton Opera House is boldly going where few others venture and putting on the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra on August 20.

The theatre also hosts the Hallé Orchestra with its ‘Pops’ conductor Stephen Bell, on September 18, in a gala fund-raising concert for the Blythe House Hospice, and the RLPO will be back in November. Links between Buxton and the Liverpool musicians have been built up and are set to continue.

I talked to Carol Prowse, a New Mills resident and chairman of the High Peak Theatre Trust, which runs the Opera House in Buxton. She’s been involved with it for more than 30 years, previously as assistant company secretary, company secretary, director and deputy chairman.

“Balance in our programmes is important,” she said, “and to me providing high-quality classical music is an essential part of the programme we offer.

“The RLPO had a weekend residency in the town last November, including a performance by Ensemble 10/10, its own contemporary music group, and that was very well received. For it we introduced the concept of a ‘gardens ticket’ – you buy a ticket for the central dress circle or upper circle and also get pre-show and interval drinks – which went very well.

“Our other classical commitments are to English Touring Opera and of course the annual Buxton Festival, which is the heart of everything for us.”

The RLPO’s programme next week is a tribute to Johann Strauss, the ‘waltz king’. It’s introduced by Classic FM presenter and author John Suchet and directed from the violin by James Clark, the orchestra leader, in the style of Strauss himself.

Its visit on November 9 is in a concert conducted by Cristian Mandeal, the brilliant Romanian who was the Hallé’s first chief guest conductor and remembered with respect and affection by Manchester audiences.

The programme includes Brahms’s third symphony, Debussy’s Prélude á l’Après-Midi d’un Faune, and Mozart’s clarinet concerto (soloist is Benjamin Mellefont, the RLPO’s own principal clarinet).

The RLPO is proud of its history, going back to the formation of a private concerts society in 1840 (not very long after the Manchester equivalent), and justly proud of its present chief conductor, Vasily Petrenko. Ensemble 10/10 is conducted by the Royal Northern College of Music’s top maestro, Clark Rundell.

Article published in Manchester Evening News 5 August 2016

MUSIC has long been a part of the life of St Ann’s Church in city centre Manchester, and on August 9 there’s a visit from Spanish pianist Maite Aguirre, assistant conductor at Grange Park Opera and director of the Academia de Musica in London.
Her programme at St Ann’s includes music by Granados, Ginastera and Ernesto Lecuona.

I talked to Simon Passmore, St Ann’s director of music, and his colleague, James Hume, who are responsible for the concert programme there – including not just the long-established Tuesday lunchtime organ recitals, and regular piano and chamber music recitals provided by the Royal Northern College of Music, but also performances on Tuesday evenings, Saturday lunchtime and evening concerts, and other events.

The free organ recitals were a feature of the music directorship of the late Ronald Frost, who gave over 1,000 of them, and Simon Passmore is continuing that tradition – currently working through the entire organ works of J S Bach, alongside other music.

Concerts by guest performers have been promoted for around two decades at St Ann’s: recent ones have included performances by the Pleyel Ensemble, Manchester Chorale, guitarist Frederick Lawton and organist Jonathan Scott.

Simon Passmore, who took up his post a year ago after being organ scholar, said: “James and I decided it was now time to have tickets, print brochures and make St Ann’s a proper concert venue.

“We produced a brochure listing everything. Our audience is mainly older people, but in term time there are a lot of students, too, and they get special prices just like at the Hallé and BBC Philharmonic.”

James Hume (who became the assistant music director in 2010) added: “As a venue St Ann’s is pretty wonderful. The organ is one of the best in the north west, and we have a Steinway B grand piano on loan from the RNCM.”

Their programme for autumn and winter includes the Gravity Percussion Duo (October 11), the RNCM Jazz Collective (November 15), and Handel’s Messiah (on December 3), with a chorus based on the church choir and soloists and orchestra mainly from recent RNCM graduates. That’s conducted by Simon – who points out that St Ann’s, as a setting, is probably the only remaining church in Manchester built during Handel’s lifetime. It even has some stops in the organ with pipes in them from the period, too!

Article published in Manchester Evening News 5 August 2016

MUSIC has long been a part of the life of St Ann’s Church in city centre Manchester, and on August 9 there’s a visit from Spanish pianist Maite Aguirre, assistant conductor at Grange Park Opera and director of the Academia de Musica in London.
Her programme at St Ann’s includes music by Granados, Ginastera and Ernesto Lecuona.

I talked to Simon Passmore, St Ann’s director of music, and his colleague, James Hume, who are responsible for the concert programme there – including not just the long-established Tuesday lunchtime organ recitals, and regular piano and chamber music recitals provided by the Royal Northern College of Music, but also performances on Tuesday evenings, Saturday lunchtime and evening concerts, and other events.

The free organ recitals were a feature of the music directorship of the late Ronald Frost, who gave over 1,000 of them, and Simon Passmore is continuing that tradition – currently working through the entire organ works of J S Bach, alongside other music.

Concerts by guest performers have been promoted for around two decades at St Ann’s: recent ones have included performances by the Pleyel Ensemble, Manchester Chorale, guitarist Frederic Lawton and organist Jonathan Scott.

Simon Passmore, who took up his post a year ago after being organ scholar, said: “James and I decided it was now time to have tickets, print brochures and make St Ann’s a proper concert venue.

“We produced a brochure listing everything. Our audience is mainly older people, but in term time there are a lot of students, too, and they get special prices just like at the Hallé and BBC Philharmonic.”

James Hume (who became the assistant music director in 2010) added: “As a venue St Ann’s is pretty wonderful. The organ is one of the best in the north west, and we have a Steinway B grand piano on loan from the RNCM.”

Their programme for autumn and winter includes the Gravity Percussion Duo (October 11), the RNCM Jazz Collective (November 15), and Handel’s Messiah (on December 3), with a chorus based on the church choir and soloists and orchestra mainly from recent RNCM graduates. That’s conducted by Simon – who points out that St Ann’s, as a setting, is probably the only remaining church in Manchester built during Handel’s lifetime. It even has some stops in the organ with pipes in them from the period, too!

Review of The Yeomen of the Guard, Buxton Opera House

THE YEOMEN OF THE GUARD, Buxton Opera House

It’s good that the Gilbert & Sullivan festival, though now removed from Buxton to Harrogate, lets its old home in on a bit of the action by sending its National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company there, at least for a few days.

I saw The Yeomen Of The Guard, my favourite of all the standard G&S operas. What I love about it is the sense that Sullivan is trying out some ideas for a model of English vernacular opera – more Romantic than most of his other collaborations with Gilbert – seeking the Holy Grail of a popular lyric style based on ‘traditional’ English music, as identified by Macfarren and others, but bringing in some of the qualities of his own time. At times it sounds almost like Dvorak. He took it a stage further with Ivanhoe, shortly afterwards (the opening production at what we now know as the Palace Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, then the new English Opera House), but alas found no real successor.

It’s also got a superb book in which Gilbert produces mock-Tudor dialogue that is still perfectly comprehensible, and a storyline with pathos – tragedy, even – mixed with comedy on an almost Shakespearean level. It’s a long way from the topsy-turvydom of much of the rest of popular G&S.

The result is a very fine series of second act numbers, and slightly grander operatic features in the overture and two act finales, than you get elsewhere. Director John Savournin responds to these with imagination, darkening the stage and stilling the silliness from time to time, and ending the opera with a curtain-call line-up minus bows or curtseys. The tears – and death – of a clown (in this case, the jester Jack Point, who finally loses his longed-for love, Elsie Maynard) are moving indeed when you’re forced to look them in the face.

Richard Gauntlett is a class act as Jack Point, though not quite the master of the patter song that some of his predecessors have been, but superb in the final scene. Jane Harrington, too, has a fine voice and presence as Elsie. Bruce Graham, a seasoned veteran of the G&S tradition, brings his clarity and stage sense to Shadbolt the jailer (who eventually gets his prize in Phoebe, beautifully acted and sung by Fiona Mackay). And the noble English tenor role of Fairfax is very well taken by Nicholas Sales, fitting it like a glove in Free From His Fetters Grim and elsewhere.

One thing Yeomen needs is a generous collection of principal talent, as there are two quartets with only the tenor role in common (Strange Adventure – beautifully sung with  English Vocal Union seriousness – and When A Wooer Goes A-Wooing) . Here they had the resources for it, and conductor David Steadman paced and phrased the score with a sure hand.

Article published in Manchester Evening News 29 July 2016

THERE are some highspot events this weekend and soon after for those who know what they like in classical music: the Hallé’s open-air extravaganza at Tatton Park tomorrow, their Last Night of the Proms at the Bridgewater Hall on Sunday, the Gilbert & Sullivan  Opera Company completing a visit to Buxton Opera House, and – more high-minded – the Lake District Summer Music festival getting going in Cumbria.

But I’d like to look back to an outstanding opera performance of the immediate past. You never quite know what’s coming in the context of established annual routines, but this year’s full-length summer production from Clonter Opera of La Traviata (by Verdi) was of very high quality.

It had an intelligent and imaginative production by Christopher Cowell, with design by Eleanor Wdowski, placing the story in early 20^th century Vienna – and two very gifted singers in the principal roles.

Cowell’s re-timing worked well: early 20^th century Vienna was as much a place of surface glitter and underlying sickness as Dumas’ Paris in The Lady of the Camellias, the novel on which La Traviata is based.

It was also a society in which you could expect to meet the poet or artist alongside members of the moneyed minor aristocracy, social butterflies and ladies of ill repute. The story was told fairly straightforwardly against this background, and Wdowski’s glistening golden backdrop accompanied every scene, with a change of stage properties enough to show each shift of location.

The small cast – Clonter Opera is essentially a training ground for young singers – provided excellent ensemble sound, with music director Clive Timms and his small but top-quality orchestra in the pit backing them up with skill and style.

The stand-out was the soprano Marlena Devoe (Violetta). She has everything a young opera star needs: lovely tone in every register, flexibly and sensitively used to serve her role, and outstanding acting ability.

And Peter Aisher, as Alfredo, is a tenor with that powerful top sound that Italian operatic heroes need. He, too, is an instinctive actor who made the diffident young man swept up in passion seem real.

Christopher Cowell no doubt contributed much to these performances – I loved the way the ‘false start’ introduction to the Act One toast song was made into Alfredo nearly bottling out of doing it altogether, and then finding his courage – but it takes top performers to make these things live.

Manchester Evening News article 22 July 2016

THE Buxton Festival is almost over, but now is a good chance to look back on the outstanding events of the only home-producing opera festival we get in the north west of England. Under artistic direction by conductor Stephen Barlow (who happens to be married to Ab Fab star Joanna Lumley), it’s achieving remarkable things.

There were three in-house opera productions this year: Beethoven’s Leonore, Bellini’s I Capuleti E I Montecchi, and Handel’s Tamerlano (the last a co-production with The English Concert).

I talked to Stephen about Leonore, Beethoven’s first version of what we know as Fidelio, a few weeks ago, and he was thrilled to be presenting a work he says is on fire with inspiration. It’s longer than the later score, so there’s music in it we never normally hear, and much of that is very beautiful – but is it better? I think the answer is a mix of yes and no … but it was well worth the trouble of mounting what is a pretty big opera in any terms, and director Stephen Medcalf and the whole team should be thanked for it.

The Bellini was more straightforward in that it’s a singers’ show – find really good voices and forget dramatic realism (it’s Romeo And Juliet, but an economy version with a greatly simplified plot and a duet for the star-cross’d lovers before they die). But – as well as fabulous singers – it had an imaginative production by Harry Fehr and a sure hand in conductor Justin Doyle.

Best of all, however, was the Handel. It’s a remarkably modern opera story, about an inhumanely merciless and capricious warlord and the defeated Turkish leader and his daughter whom he plays off against another vassal prince. Treachery and murder hover constantly in the air, and if you have a convincing couple of young hero and heroine, and a strong cast all round, it works powerfully despite two high men’s voices (to our ears).

With Paul Nilon as the defeated sultan, Marie Lys as Asteria, his daughter, and Owen Willetts as her lover, this was classy casting and the stand-out of the festival.

The whole production, by Francis Matthews, was distinguished by a restrained use of baroque performance techniques in movement as well as musical realisation, which for me made it all the more interesting.