Il re Tony

You can truly be called a king of music if, having nurtured every aspect of the Royal Opera's work for an incredibly long and unstintingly successful time, you move on to take up the post of the London Symphony Orchestra's chief conductor (in 2023-4, a season in which Antonio Pappano will be at the helm of both institutions). We may be losing Simon Rattle to Munich, but we keep Pappano (pictured above at the most recent of the Royal Opera Jette Parker Young Artists concerts). And I'm glad to say that the three LSO concerts I've heard him conduct have been five-star unforgettables. 

All three have asserted British symphonies as blazing masterpieces (which we knew, but when done at this level, the impression is indelible). There was an Elgar Two with an incredibly refreshing interpretation of Beethoven's Violin Concerto from Nikolaj Znaider back in May 2016. More recently, the two hardest-hitting Vaughan Williams symphonies had knockout impact under very different circumstances: the Fourth in mid-December 2019, when its angry mood chimed with election night anxiety (merited, as it turned out), the Sixth on 15 March 2020. Consider that date: it was the last evening before all concert and theatre venues were shut down the following afternoon at 5.30pm. Those of us still foolhardy to turn up knew the blow would fall shortly; everybody, audience and players alike, felt the dying falls of Britten's Violin Concerto and the symphony's eerie epilogue as metaphors to what was to come. 

When Pappano visited my Opera in Depth Zoom course on Madama Butterfly and stayed for over two hours, having arrived in Italy and about to set off from home in the Val d'Orcia to Rome's Parco della Musica for the first rehearsals of an Accademia di Santa Cecilia Beethoven cycle, he had much to say about the three livestreamed Royal Opera events and that last full-orchestral concert. I've transcribed his comments about it.

It’s funny you mention that because we were all wondering why we were still performing; it was clear what was going to happen, but it was scheduled and people came out to hear us and see us. There was just this special feeling on stage throughout the evening, and also a sense of defending one’s right to make music at such an exalted level, like 'we're going to show whatever negativity is out there, whatever devil, whatever scourge, that we have the fight in us'. People from the orchestra came up to me right after the concert and said how extraordinary it was.

The LSO Live disc of those Vaughan Williams 4 and 6 performances is shortly to be released. I asked Michael Beek, reviews editor of BBC Music Magazine, if he'd let me cover it, and I was delighted that he said yes. I thought I'd put this up before listening, because although I know what I thought of the concerts, it's only fair not to pre-empt the CD review. 

At the same time I sent Pappano a congratulatory message about the new appointment, also still needing his address for the gift I wanted to send him as thanks for his generous Zoom time - Yoko Kawaguchi's Butterfly's Sisters (Yale), which a previous visitor, Ermonela Jaho, was very happy to receive. I thought there was no harm in mentioning that I could only think of one successor who would pay as much attention to every department of the Royal Opera as he does, Mark Wigglesworth. His very friendly reply didn't comment on that - it would have been undiplomatic to do so - but I hope that in 2024 we have two great conductors in place in London.

Six bests in nine days

Namely as good as it can get in theatre (Simon Stone's radical adaptation and production of Medea for Internationaal Theater Amsterdam at the Barbican); in concerts (the two London Symphony Orchestra stunners to celebrate Bernard Haitink's 90th birthday - Mozart and Bruckner on Sunday, Dvořák and Mahler on Thursday); in fiction (putting my thoughts together on Robert Menasse's polyphonic masterpiece The Capital as well as meeting him last Friday); and in opera, stupendous results at the highest level of performance in Birmingham Opera Company's site-specific Shostakovich Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk in the Tower Ballroom on the edge of Edgbaston Reservoir. To which I should add the perfection of a small gallery - major collection, handsome surroundings - in the shape of the Barber Institute on Birmingham University's campus. The below is merely the atrium to the superb deco concert hall; most of the masterpieces are in the rooms on the next floor, but even here we have a famous Rodin and a Chola bronze of Natarajan.

Much to say about the Barber collection, but now now. I need to take a break and simply digest after all that writing for The Arts Desk, and as there were too many good production/concert/rehearsal pics around that would otherwise go to waste, why not use some of them? The one below by Sanne Peper, of the stupendous Marieke Heebink as Anna, a contemporary Medea of excess vitality, and Aus Greidanus Jr as Lukas (Jason) with their two sons, is one I couldn't use in the review because the boys were different. And perhaps it's a bit of a spoiler as to how the ash which starts falling on the blindingly white stage two thirds of the way through gets deployed.

Haitink was photographed at the first of the two 90th birthday concerts by Robert Allan. You'd need to watch the film formerly on the LSO website to observe his superb control and vigilance - my friend Joe Smouha beautifully described 'the architecture spun from those tiny movements at the end of the baton' - but there's a sense of that here, albeit in a more genial moment.

The Khovanskygate experience of 2014 told me that Graham Vick's Lady Macbeth would be opera at its communicative best. Sure, every production of it I've seen - Pountney's twice at ENO, followed by Tcherniakov's, Jones's twice at the Royal Opera - has hit hard; but the closeness of one's promenading self to the action, the involvement of all strands of Birmingham society in the chorus and acting group, make this an unrepeatable experience. I got there early because they'd asked if I would prep a group of young volunteers on how to blog their experience (it actually turned out to be how they'd present their enthusiasms about the project on camera, but we quickly adapted and I got something very different out of each - to be blogged about here very soon). This shot I took of a warm-up gives some idea of the venue, which they'd further deconstructed. The orchestra platform is left, the first stage for the action, the Izmailov kitchen, to the right.

And we need a couple more production photos, by Adam Fradgley/Exposure, of the amazing Chrystal E Williams as Katerina/'The Wife'. Up top, she's despatching her inopportunely arrived husband Boris (Joshua Stuart). Here she is again, first liberated,

then deserted by that shit Sergey/'The Lover' (Brenden Gunnell).

I'm more and more drawn to Birmingham, even if it did vote for Brexit by a narrow margin (would it now, I wonder?) , and however messed up the city centre. There are so many hidden delights, and each time I go I discover one or two more. It has one of our most vibrant cultural scenes, that's to be sure. Now, if only BOC could think of Prokofiev's War and Peace...problematic, I know, because Part One is largely chorus-free. Maybe that could be done in a smallish theatre and then Part Two could be theirs in another extraordinary big venue, both with the CBSO. Or perhaps The Fiery Angel with Williams, whose upper range could certainly handle the crazy role of Renata. Anything is possible with this company.

Berlioz's tender masterpiece

The more I hear L'enfance du Christ, the more I love it. So I'm glad to have taken the chance of the BBC Symphony Orchestra's latest performance - the previous one, six years ago, was also miraculous - to hold a class on the afternoon of the concert. One thinks of Berlioz as a lopsided master in the larger-scale works - or at least I do when it comes to Roméo et Juliette, still the high watermark of his most futuristic orchestration, and La Damnation de Faust - but there is structural perfection in this 'sacred trilogy in three acts and seven tableaux' (the score, surprisingly, is peppered with revealing stage directions, though I wonder if that has to do with the belated 1911 staging mentioned on the title page).

Its force turns out to have been centripetal. The anecdote of how the Shepherds' Farewell originated in a few bars of organ music inscribed in a friend's visitors book when Berlioz was bored by the others playing cards is well known. Bang at the centre of the work, it acquired movements either side for the little miracle that is now Part Two, 'The Flight into Egypt'.

Then, with the encouragement of Leipzig success, followed a sequel; and finally a prequel, the daring idea to start in darkness with the psychology of Herod, the uneasy ruler, adumbrated by three trombones and then two trumpets and two cornets for a brief climax of violent fanfaring before all the brass bar the horns disappear for the rest of the drama. Matthew Rose was at his most engaged in the Barbican performance (in the second of three photos by Mark Allan), and sounds very handsome indeed in the broadcast, unmissable on the BBC Radio 3 iPlayer.

I love especially the idea, realised in both BBCSO performances, that the worst, the bass role of Herod, should be doubled up with the best, the Ishmaelite carpenter who welcomes in the refugee family in Sais, Egypt, when all others have turned away the 'vile Jews'. Isn't this, even more than the Bethlehem story, the ultimate message for our time, compassion for strangers in need? Musically, it's underlined by the most anguished movement, with Berlioz's hallmark wail of diminished sixth to fifth, giving way to the beautiful bustle of the Ishmaelite household orchestral fugato and the exquisite ease of the trio for two flutes and harp which is especially striking in concert when, their labours nearly over, the rest of the performers can just enjoy the virtuosity and grace of a consummate handful?

And then that final, unaccompanied chorus, in which the fourth dimension - the angel choir that concludes each part - begins a descending-scale Amen twice completed by the tenor and the onstage chorus before the last benediction, pppp. This is Berlioz's gift to be simple in his own unique way; and how much he adds, in this most delicately scored of his works, to give a twist: the F to F flat within the A flat serenity of Mary's first apostrophe to her child, the orchestral coda of that number which reminds us of the bitter undertow to all the sweetness.

How wonderful, then, that the last major concert of the year I heard should have been Ed Gardner's loving performance. This work brings out the sensitivities of those singers who have a special dedication - especially true of Karen Cargill (I'll say it again, the great Berlioz interpreter of our time), Robert Murray and Matthew Rose. You felt that all three were tapping into the essence, and in that the BBC Symphony players, that exquisite woodwind department especially, were their equals. The interpretation will be in my 'best of concert year' for The Arts Desk tomorrow; meanwhile, here's the opera retrospective.

Representations of the Flight into by Bassano, Giotto and Carpaccio

Auguries of Spring

That alien visitor the sun shone yesterday, but not on Wednesday when I essayed a grand walkabout in town, from BBC Broadcasting House at midday to the Barbican at night. I felt the liberation was justified because recording the Building a Library on my now-adored Berlioz Romeo et Juliette - listen on Saturday morning at 9.30am or on the iPlayer for the following week - meant it was properly done; I can't relax the weeks of adrenalin-fuelled work until I can be sure that the voice has held out long enough to record the script.

It did, I had fun, so after a bite to eat at Leon's and a necessary purchase of Bronnley's lemon soaps from Liberty's (Leopold Bloom did the same at Sweny's of Dublin in the 'Lotus Eaters' episode of Ulysses, I learnt long after taking a fancy to them) I took the Nash way to St James's Park. Where the first snowdrops were finally out.


A park worker asked me if it was true that a snowdrop had fetched £300 on eBay. I said I had no doubt, because galanthophiles will pay that much for a rare species - though I feared these were not in that category. Saluted a black swan


the pelicans on the island


and the first blossom


and went to meet the diplo-mate at Europe House where a new Slovenian exhibition requring 3D specs had just gone up. Through the park by the Houses of Parliament, peppered with grotesque Mexican statues


and then via Southwark to Borough Market, where I did my favourite shop - beans from the Monmouth Coffee Company, salami from the Piedmontese stall and crabmeat from the fish stand, where Whitby is queen of the seas.



And so eventually to the Barbican to be exhausted by Belohlavek's Mahler 6, where there were two divas (at least) in the audience - Linda Esther Gray (my guest, and now dear friend) and Anja Silja (Jiri's guest). The one thing I didn't manage to enlarge upon in the Arts Desk review was why I think the Allegro energico should always be followed by the scherzo, which it wasn't that evening:

1) It's a 3/8 replay of the opening march, in the same instrumentation;
2) The second subjects, Alma and the children respectively if you believe what she says, appear in the same keys - first F major, then D major;
3) The Andante is really only won when you've been through the two ordeals, and if you buy the children-in-the-sand image of the Scherzo, then the quotation from the Kindertotenlieder in the slow movement can only come after their Grimm-like annihilation;
4) The half-hour finale is too much after the grim scherzo.


Belohlavek - pictured above by Chris Christodoulou - made the best possible reasons (2 versus my 4, see the review) for the reverse order, but I'm still not convinced. But no matter, it was a shattering evening. What with that and the Jacobi Lear screened live on Thursday, I've been reeling. Which I can't exactly say about Weinberg's The Portrait at Opera North in Leeds tonight. But I'm jumping ahead of myself - more anon.

Music by the finchload

What a weird week: paralleling the unpredictable course of bereavement, I've seen and heard Thomas Ades in fabulous recital, Myaskovsky well done by Jurowski with a dazzling performance by cellist Danjulo Ishizaka in Prokofiev's heartbreaking Symphony-Concerto, Debbie Reynolds strutting her stuff at the Apollo Theatre last night, and guitar-twanging zebra finches. As has half the rest of London by now, I know, but since it's the one I didn't get to write about over on The Arts Desk, let's give a word to these little darlings (pictured above and below by Lyndon Douglas; strictly no photography allowed in the sanctuary).

It's Celeste Boursier-Mougenot's gift to the Barbican's great Curve space, where I've never so far seen a dull happening. CBM's leads you through a strobed dark zone covered in video projections to the bit that everyone wants to see: a flock of zebra finches flitting between 'islands' of eletric guitars, basses and cymbals. As they land or perch, the sounds they make are amplified - and they don't seem to bother the birds at all, which sit there seemingly happy, staring at you and chattering away. Two have even made a nest in one of the guitars.


Seems like the perfect show for the Barbican, which of course played host to the most successful of all the BBC Symphony Orchestra's composer weekends, the one devoted to John Cage which included assorted pals and 'special guests' rotating through piano performance of Satie's Vexations in the conservatory all night long. Boursier-Mougenot, trained as a musician and composer, is very much in the Cage line, and shows there's plenty of mileage still to be got from this sort of thing. I took visiting Lottie to see it just before the Ades recital, since for the first time when I passed it there were only a handful of people queueing to get in.

And if I weren't against cageing birds, I'd want a couple of those heavenly creatures to keep me company at my desk. Here they are al fresco in a fun little film.

Stars and shoes of the BBC

Strictly speaking, every player of the BBC Symphony Orchestra is a star, but we've been privileged to discover how many of these modest souls shine in chamber music thanks to my BBCSO course at the City Lit. Following top soloists, two string quartets and two different viola ensembles, we had a visit on Tuesday from one of the orchestra's two leaders, Stephen Bryant, along with viola-player Mary Whittle and cellist Mark Sheridan, regular course visitor (pictured above Emily Kershaw's shoes, of which more below).

After a long rehearsal sawing away at Wolfgang Rihm, whose taxing, tiring music I couldn't quite face yesterday, and a couple of hours' practice in a Keeley Street rehearsal room, these dauntless heroes of the musical world treated us to two movements from Mozart's E flat String Trio. They were tackling it for the first time and it was tough work, they told us, playing in E flat, though the key does bring out special qualities and certainly Mozart at the peak of his powers would have known what he was doing.

All three had interesting things to say about playing Rihm and his colleagues, who interfere with the line they need for the classics. I think they were just as interested to know what the students thought; it turns out these players really want the feedback, and even intend to set up a BBC Symphony club with two of their number taking the initiative. Self-effacing Stephen is, I'm told, as adored and respected a leader among his fellow musicians as Andrew Haveron. And just as Andrew had the chance to shine in Korngold's Violin Concerto a couple of weeks back, his colleague will be giving the UK premiere of a new work by Detlev Glanert in the 2010-11 season (curiously, he did exactly the same for the Korngold). He's promised to come back and take us through its demands, so we'll hold him to that.

Over at the Barbican two nights later, Sir Nick Kenyon and colleagues unveiled plans for their forthcoming season, which means more of the same with a few new superstars thrown into the mix. I have to say I was most intrigued by the shoes of a very glamorous lady standing in front of me, before I realised she was that vivacious Radio 3 producer Emily Kershaw. I explained I was no foot fetishist, and the name 'Manolo Blahnik' meaned nothing to me until I watched Sex and the City, before snapping at her heels.

The fluorescent lighting of the Fountain Room showed them up in their best possible light. The above, ever so slightly fuzzy, was taken senza flash; using it reveals a still quite colourful reality. Em has just pointed me in the direction of many more shoes of this ilk and others in quite a different style on the United Nude website. May come in useful if I seek presents for the goddaughters (though haven't even glanced at the prices).


Oh, that Barbican carpet. Anyway, Emily's shoes were the highlight of the evening along with sparky Jeremy Denk in the Stravinsky Concerto for Piano and Wind. Denk-by-nature's durchgespielt Prokofiev Visions fugitives had been the highlight of what I heard at the 2008 Bard Festival, and this was no less challenging.


A shame the baton of John Adams, photographed above by Margaretta Mitchell, is not as accomplished as his poetic pen, and really doesn't need to be used to beat time so much. But his City Noir was entertaining and luminous enough; it's more of the same, but with Adams that's usually a beguiling same, as I wrote in my Arts Desk review.