'This could become a theme song for our time': conductor Simon Rattle puts John Adams on stage after the world premiere of the composer's new work Frenzy. Photo: Mark Allan
If you're feeling helpless in the face of world events and battered by the 24-hour news, you're in good company: America's greatest living composer, John Adams, feels the same way. His latest work, Pleasuregiven its world premiere by his devotees Sir Simon Rattel and the London Symphony Orchestra last week is Adams' pulsating reflection on our hectic times, a leap away from his Short Ride in a Fast Machine (1986), yet packed with the same excitement and energy. He says: "For me, 'madness' captures the sometimes overwhelming feeling of thinking about the modern world around us, especially as it is presented in our daily dose of digital news and information."
To achieve the requisite level of agitation in his 18-minute 'short symphony', he jettisons minimalism to explore the development of a single motif, a motif that worries and weaves its way into many different guises, sometimes finds relief, but always with a hint. of fear running underneath. Celeste, vibraphone, harp and piano send lightning bolts of unease across a sometimes dark and eerie orchestral landscape, and woodwinds chatter menacingly until a sustained drum beat drives the strings and brass into a desperate, panicked finish. This could become a theme song for our time.
The audience voted on which arrangement they wanted to hear; a fun way to build a program
It was the centerpiece of a star-studded, all-American program, surrounded by resolutely jaunty overtures from Gershwin and with his irresistible piano concerto, featuring the formidable Kirill Gerstein as soloist, and all his whimsical jazz references on display. A five star evening.
Madness is not a word you would associate with Tom Rakewell, the doomed protagonist in The progress of the rake, Stravinsky's neoclassical opera from 1951. Lazy, dissatisfied with his fate and driven by material desires, he is wide open to manipulation on his path to ruin. Stravinsky sought inspiration for his solid score from across the musical spectrum, drawing mainly on the model of Mozart's operas and introducing a harpsichord to accompany the recitatives, something that had not been used for 200 years.
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English Touring Opera (combining this work with that of Puccini Manon Lescaut during their spring tour) make a nice part of this by placing harpsichord and player Satoko Doi-Luck on stage, an additional character among the pagan mummers, dressed in designer April Dalton's straw and animal mask costumes, dancing around a brightly colored maypole . These are Tom's rural neighbors, whom he quickly abandons for the promise of fortune and the temptations of London, much to the dismay of his beloved Anne Trulove.
Polly Graham's production makes full use of the company's experienced ensemble singers, although this is sometimes to the detriment of the story. They are a constant parade of country folk, outlaws, con artists, whores and frantic auction bidders, overcomplicating what is essentially a simple but devastating story. Musically, things are on firmer ground, with astute conducting from Jack Sheen and lovely singing, especially from baritone Jerome Knox, a suave, plausible Nick Shadow, who lures Tom to his doom. Soprano Nazan Fikret touches deeply as the fragile but determined Anne. Frederick Jones, like Tom, became unwell on opening night, so his understudy, the elegant tenor Brenton Spiteri, sang the last two acts from the wings.
Tim Albery's 2009 production of Wagner The Flying Dutchman returns for its third revival at Covent Garden, extensively conducted by Henrik Nánási. Michael Levine's designs startle under David Finn's dramatic lighting; the chorus, alert and virile, is in great form, but some soloists are too vocally subdued for this high drama.
The Dutchman, condemned to sail the seven seas forever unless he can find redemption in a faithful bride, has been a signature role for Bryn Terfel since the beginning of this production. There is a hollowness in the voice today, but that serves him well in his portrayal of the exhausted, mythical wanderer. Swedish soprano Elisabet Strid, making her Royal Opera debut as Senta, the Dutchman's alleged bride, sings with creamy intensity, but is sometimes overwhelmed by the waves of Wagner's swelling orchestra, a fate that also affects her hapless lover Erik, tenor Toby Spence, has undergone.
But riding high above the waves are American-Finnish tenor Miles Mykkanen, making an impressive ROH debut as the helmsman, Danish bass Stephen Milling as Senta's father, Daland, Ukrainian mezzo Kseniia Nikolaieva as Senta's nurse Mary, and the hard-working orchestra . , which floods our ears with Wagnerian brilliance.
When the lockdown came into effect in 2020, pianist Tom Poster and violinist Elena Urioste was planning to play a new piece online every day "for a while". During the event they performed for 88 days, while #UriPosteJukebox went viral. At the request of fans, Poster made dozens of arrangements of jazz standards, pop songs and film music, which they placed among the more conventional violin and piano repertoire.
The couple's venture won them an award from the Royal Philharmonic Society and now they're taking their merry jukebox on the road, appearing at the imaginative Classical Vauxhall festival earlier this month and bringing the house down with stylish arrangements from Gershwin, Lili Boulanger, Nat King Cole and even favorite Disney themes. The audience pushed the buttons on their imaginary jukebox by voting which arrangement they wanted to hear; a fun way to put together a program.
But the point is, each was played with the same meticulous care that the duo brought to the pieces that opened the evening. Urioste and Poster found an astonishing level of delicacy in Mendelssohn's solemnly beautiful Sonata in F major, and then unveiled an expansive, restless but immensely rewarding sonata by Mel Bonis (1858-1937), a French female composer who consciously chose to be non-gendered. -gender-specific nom de plume.
Star ratings (out of five)London Symphony Orchestra/Rattler The progress of the rake The Flying Dutchman ★★★Elena Urioste and Tom Poster ★★★★