Planet Hugill

The young German conductor Patrick Lange announced as Opera North's next music director

2026-09-09T11:23:03.509+01:00

Patrick Lange

Opera North's forthcoming Autumn season has an interesting element of compare and contrast to it. Patrick Nolan's new production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin will be conducted by the company's music director, Garry Walker, whilst the revival of Femi Elufowoju Jr 's production of Verdi's Rigoletto will be conducted by the young German conductor Patrick Lange. Now it has been announced that Garry Walker will be stepping down as music director in 2028, when he will have been in post for nine years, and Patrick Lange will then take over as music director.

The company's Board of Trustees also has a new chair as Merran McRae takes on the role. Previously Chief Executive of Wakefield Council, she is now Chair of Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Deputy Chair at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. She was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant in the West Yorkshire Lieutenancy in 2024.

Patrick Lange made his debut with Opera North in 2025 conducting The Magic Flute to both critical and audience acclaim. As music director, he will conduct opera productions in Leeds and on tour, and symphonic concerts as part of the Kirklees Concert Season, as well as supporting the many other aspects of Opera North’s work, including its community and education initiatives.

Patrick Lange began his musical career as an eight-year-old in the Regensburger Domspatzen boys’ choir. After graduating from high school, he studied conducting at the conservatoires in Würzburg and Zurich. As assistant conductor of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra he assisted Claudio Abbado, as well as Herbert Blomstedt, Myung-Whun Chung, Sir Colin Davis, Philippe Jordan and Ingo Metzmacher. In 2007, Patrick Lange received the European Cultural Award in the Advancement Award for Young Conductors category and, in 2009, was awarded the ﬁrst-ever Eugen Jochum Scholarship of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. He began his opera conducting career in Zurich and Lucerne, he has subsequently become a regular guest conductor at leading opera houses worldwide, including the Vienna State Opera, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and the Opéra National de Paris.

Superbly realised: Elements from saxophonist Huw Wiggin & harpist Oliver Wass

2026-09-09T09:28:53.659+01:00

Elements - Charlotte Harding, Yshani Perinpanayagam, David Wallace, Simon Rowland-Jones, Laura Bowler, Andy Scott, Couperin, Purcell, Vivaldi, Bach, Corelli; Huw Wiggin, Oliver Wass, Leander Kippenberg; Orchid Classics
Reviewed 4 September 2026

Using the four classical elements - Earth, Air, Fire, and Water - as inspiration, this vivid and varied recital pairs new works with transcriptions of Baroque works to showcase the unusual but superbly realised duo of saxophone and harp

This recent(ish) disc on Orchid Classics, Elements combines the talents of harpist Oliver Wass and saxophonist Huw Wiggin. Saxophone and harp are not an obvious combination but here the two make it work wonderfully. The disc is themed around the elements, with new pieces by Charlotte Harding, Yshani Perinpanayagam, David Wallace, Simon Rowland-Jones, Laura Bowler, and Andy Scott, paired with adaptations of Couperin, Purcell, Vivaldi, Bach, and Corelli.

You only have to listen to the first track, the duo's transcription of Francois Couperin's Le Rossignol en Amour to get a feel for the rather seductive soundworld of the disc. The two bring enormous clarity and a sense of style to the music, along with a rather spare feel. Wass does not overfill the harp accompaniment and the contrast between the two soundworlds - saxophone and harp - works well.

Next comes Charlotte Harding's intriguingly titled Euphotic. According to the notes "The ‘euphotic’ or ‘sunlight’ zone is the upper layer of a body of water where there is light energy sufficient for photosynthesis to occur". The piece presents a fluidly engaging saxophone line sparkling of the harps running watery figures. The whole has a sense of impetus which is very modern, yet manages to be haunting too.

Next we return to the Baroque for the aria from Bach's Goldberg Variations in an elegant transcription by Wass where the discreet harp support allows Wiggin's saxophone to sing. There is more singing in the next track too, the duo's transcription of Purcell's Dido's Lament where they are joined by cellist Leander Kippenberg. It is Kippenberg who gets the famous sighing ground bass line, and again Wass's contribution on harp is discreet support. Wiggin keeps his saxophone close to the voice making for an elegant and moving transcription.

Yshani Perinpanayagam' s The Weary Soil and the Greedy Shoot is based on an imaginary and salutary fable about consumption of natural resources. This begins almost from nothing, intimate concentrated and thoughtful the two instrumental parts contrasting in material and timbre. Growing in intensity, Perinpanayagam tightens the harmonic screw without ever allowing things to become too demonstrative.

The Largo from Vivaldi's Spring from The Four Seasons is given in a transcription by French composer Bernard Dewagtere. The result here is something rather thoughtful, and again Wiggin gets to show off his wonderfully singing line.

David Wallace describes blowing a gale as beginning with something of an Irish jig in triple time though it is well disguised and the music quickly moves to a depiction of wind. It is a bravura and rather engaging piece, the jig elements providing rhythmic and melodic motifs within busy whole. Yet however dense the writing, however busy the notes, the piece retains something of a Celtic air to it.

The well-known Air from Bach's Orchestral Suite No.3 is heard in a transcription by Iain Farrington that proves to be stylish yet quietly meditative. Simon Rowland-Jones's Silent Air begins quietly and intensely with use of silence. Rowland-Jones builds the piece out of short fragments which gradually coalesce, he describes them as seeming to be plucked from the air. The two instruments developed a sort of dialogue, yet one where the silence between is important.

Next comes a solo moment for Wass with his transcription of the Sarabande from Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3. Wass manages to evoke the Baroque but seen through the rather sound of the modern pedal harp, elgant and rather magic. The duo is joined by Kippenberg for Corelli's La folia in Wass and Wiggin's transcription. The managed to move from the stylishly elegant to something more bravura. Wiggin's virtuoso moments are often echoed by Kippenberg, and the result is rather an engaging tour de force.

Laura Bowler's Caesium was intended to evoke fire. She describes herself as 'drawn to caesium as a highly reactive soft silvery-gold metal that reacts explosively with water and catches fire spontaneously in air'. The work begins a vivid swirl of material, edgy and vivid yet gradual dies down to material that makes time stretch. But as with all good fires, it catches again at the end.

We return to Bach for his Two-Part Invention No. 8 in F major for something wonderfully elegant and palate cleansing.

Andy Scott says of Sussurros Brasileiros that his "concept was to combine grooves and musical rhythms that I love from Brazil with the many sound worlds that are available to the saxophone and harp via contemporary classical music". The result is glorious catchy, full of snappy rhythms and delightful grooves. We return to Corelli and to the same set of sonatas that La folia comes from with the Allegro from Sonata Op. 5 No. 4 in F major with Wiggin, Wass and Kippenberg, again for something elegantly palate cleansing yet vivid too.

A further piece by Laura Bowler, With You was in fact written for Wiggin to play at Bowler's mother's funeral. A haunting, spare piece for solo saxophone that ends the recital with an element of touching uncertainty.

The Elemental nature of the music is not always obvious at first sight, but Wiggin and Wass have assembled a rather engaging mix of new and old. The new pieces vividly varied, displaying the wide rather that the duo have, and their engagingly elegant Baroque transcriptions providing both palate cleansers and a chance for Wiggin's saxophone to show its fine singing quality.

Highly recommended

Oliver Wass & Hugh Wiggin

François Couperin (1668-1733) - Le Rossignol en Amour
Charlotte Harding (b.1989) - Euphotic
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) - Goldberg Aria - Aria mit versheidenen Veränderungen, BWV 988
Henry Purcell (1659-1695) - Dido and Aeneas, Z. 626, Act 3: Lament. When I am laid in Earth
Yshani Perinpanayagam (b.1983) - The Weary Soil and the Greedy Shoot
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) - Largo from The Four Seasons, Concerto No. 1 in E Major, Op. 8 RV 269 Spring
David Wallace (b.1982) - blowing A gale
Johann Sebastian Bach - Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3, BWV 1068 4.35 Arranged by Iain Farrington
Simon Rowland-Jones (b.1950) - Silent Air
Johann Sebastian Bach - Sarabande from French Suite No. 3 in B Minor for solo harp, BWV 814
Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) - La Follia, Op. 5 No. 12
Laura Bowler (b.1986) - Caesium
Johann Sebastian Bach - Two part invention in F Major, No. 8, BWV 779
Andy Scott (b.1966) - Sussurros Brasileiros
Arcangelo Corelli - Allegro from Sonata No. 4 in F Major
Laura Bowler - With You
Huw Wiggin (saxophone)
Oliver Wass (harp)
Leander Kippenberg (cello)
Recorded at All Saints Church, Dunsden Green, Oxfordshire on 7-9 July 2025
ORCHID CLASSICS ORCD100457

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The blog is free, but I'd be delighted if you were to show your appreciation by buying me a coffee.

Elsewhere on this blog

Reinventing the semi-opera: Vache Baroque & Out of Chaos turn The Tempest into an evening of fun, modern theatre - opera review
Here Comes Everybody: Alastair White begins Finnegans Wake project with an overture at London Irish Centre with Ensemble Exposé & Roger Redgate - concert review
BBC Proms: By turns illuminating & compelling, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra on terrific form in Britten & Vaughan Williams - concert review
A highly intelligent & rather imaginative recital: Handel's Italians - Italian castrati in the London oratorios from Carlo Vistoli - record review
BBC Proms: By turns ravishing & spine-tingling, period instrument orchestra Les Siècles is the star of the show in Berlioz's La damnation de Faust conducted by Jakob Lehmann - opera review
Drawing you into the drama: David McVicar's production of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail returns to Glyndebourne - opera review
BBC Proms: Intriguing connections in Anja Bihlmaier & BBC Philharmonic's Prom including Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde - concert review
BBC Proms: Stripped back drama & strong musical values in Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos from Glyndebourne Opera - opera review
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The groundbreaking collaboration between the National Children’s Choir of Great Britain & learning disability charity Soundabout is now in its fourth year

2026-09-08T09:47:16.991+01:00

National Children’s Choir of Great Britain's Blue Choir & Soundabout in workshop (Photo: Milly March)

A collaboration between the National Children’s Choir of Great Britain (NCCGB) and Soundabout is now in its fourth year. The collaboration brings the two organisations together for workshops: the NCCCGB, an auditioned choir for talented young singers aged 9 to 19 from all over Great Britain, and Soundabout, a UK charity that uses music to create meaningful opportunities for Learning Disabled people of all ages, particularly those with complex support needs [see my article on Soundabout].

The workshops have taught valuable lessons to the next generation of young people. Both organisations discovered common ground in their respective missions: feeling strongly that working together in a shared space that is equitable for everyone taking part is key to success.

NCCGB's Blue Choir (those of secondary school age) take part each year in a workshop with Soundabout whilst they are on a week-long residential course in the Easter school holidays. Many children who are in the NCCGB have little or no experience of interacting with Learning Disabled people with complex support needs, and yet the impact of this unique partnership - one of the first of its kind in the UK - is clear to the young singers in NCCGB.

Soundabout’s person‑centred approach to accessible, interactive, and creative music‑making is easily transferred into a mainstream setting. The workshop begins with Soundabout’s Hello song, and closes with their Goodbye song, which helps create a sense of structure and familiarity to the workshop for everyone involved, and helps everyone connect and feel part of a group. The content of the workshops includes favourite songs from both groups, singing games, hand-held percussion, sensory toys and plenty of interaction between music practitioners and participants. At the end of the workshop, plenty of time is given for socialising afterwards.

Verity, who has been in Blue Choir for two years, said: "We don't have many people with disabilities in and around my community at home, so I was a bit nervous before my first session with Soundabout. But seeing so many amazing people in a room all singing together was so much fun! It is such an enjoyable and inclusive experience, I don't know what I had to worry about. This is my second year with NCCGB and Soundabout is now one of the highlights of my week; it's the first thing I tell my family about when I get home!"

The partnership is set to continue in 2027. It is currently being funded by Soundabout and the National Children’s Choir of Great Britain, however in order to grow it in future years, the organisations are actively seeking funding.

Support Soundabout [link]
Support NCCGB [link]

On the 50th anniversary of Britten’s death, Britten Pears Arts is staging a weekend of events honouring his life, music and legacy.

2026-09-08T09:12:27.925+01:00

The Red House, Aldeburgh (Photo: Britten Pears Arts)

Highlights of this very special weekend (Friday-Sunday, 4th-6th December) honouring the 50th anniversary of Britten’s death include performances of the composer’s Lachrymae, Saint Nicolas and the Oboe Quartet together with a special study session by Dr Lucy Walker and an opportunity for a moment of stillness and reflection with a service of remembrance at Aldeburgh Church.

Two outstanding artists Timothy Ridout (viola) and James Baillieu (piano) offer what promises a spirited start to the weekend with a noonday performance (Friday, 4th December, Britten Studio) of Schubert’s highly popular Arpeggione Sonata and Britten’s Lachrymae, a lovely and inviting piece comprising variations on music by John Dowland. Completing the programme is Schubert’s Sonatina No.1, an attractive piece reflecting the graceful and lyrical influence of Mozart.

The evening show (Britten Studio, 7pm) features cellist Guy Johnston and pianist Melvyn Tan performing a recital featuring Britten's Cello Sonata (written for Mstislav Rostropovich) heard alongside Mendelssohn's Cello Sonata No.2. The programme also includes Beethoven’s Sonata No.4 and a new work from Matthew Kaner, a composer known for his emotionally direct and poetic music.

An expert on the life and works of Britten, writer, researcher and speaker, Dr Lucy Walker, chairs what promises to be a fascinating study session (Saturday, 5th December, 11am, Britten Studio). She’ll be joined in conversation by Alice Coote and Timothy Ridout exploring the profound impact and performance that Britten’s music has had upon them.

And performing Schubert’s great and inspiring song-cycle, Winterreise (Saturday, 5th December, 4pm, Britten Studio) falls to mezzo-soprano, Alice Coote, accompanied by pianist, Christian Blackshaw. The work highlights the composer’s gift of transforming poetry into music combining them into an artform of intense emotional resonance. Written to poems by Wilhelm Müller, the scenario tells the painfully sorrow and emotional story of a rejected lover who wanders alone through a cold, harsh winter landscape.

Under the baton of Owain Park, the joint forces of Britten Sinfonia, BBC Singers, Britten Pears Chamber Choir and London Youth Choir / LYC Boys (Saturday, 5th December, 7pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall) combine to perform Britten’s cantata, Saint Nicolas, a tender and uplifting work featuring some of the composer’s brightest and boldest music with the scenario telling the tale of the saint that inspired Santa Claus.

The programme also includes Britten’s tribute to fellow composer and teacher, Frank Bridge, as well as Arvo Pärt's Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten, a mournful, six-minute piece for string orchestra and tolling bell. Written in 1977 after Britten’s death, the piece uses a descending A minor scale and a bell toll to create a profound sense of inevitable, cascading grief.

The following day (Sunday, 6th December, 12 noon, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh) oboist Nicholas Daniel teams up with Jaqueline Shave (violin), Judith Busbridge (viola) and Caroline Dearnley (cello) for a performance of Britten’s Phantasy Quartet written in 1932 when the composer was just 19 years old studying at the Royal College of Music garnering him early critical attention while stamping his professional reputation. The programme also includes Mozart’s Oboe Quartet plus a couple of relatively new works: Huw Watkins’ Oboe Quartet, which received its première earlier this year and Jacqueline Shave’s haunting and thought-provoking take on traditional tunes.

Benjamin Britten & Peter Pears at Snape Maltings (Photo courtesy of Britten Pears Arts)

A celebration of East Anglia’s young musicians promises to light up the Snape Maltings stage in an inspiring end-of-term showcase (Sunday, 6th December, 7pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall) highlighting the region’s upcoming musical talent. Therefore, one can expect vibrant performances by some of the region’s finest young bloods.

The following weekend (Saturday, 12th December, 7pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall) Britten’s Canticles, comprising five miniature cantatas modelled on Purcell’s divine hymns, contrasting and blending religious and secular poetry, were written for Peter Pears and close collaborators.

They’ll be performed by a superb roster of singers and instrumentalists of the likes of Allan Clayton (tenor), Iestyn Davies (countertenor) and Peter Brathwaite (baritone) with James Baillieu (piano), Olivia Jageurs (harp) and Richard Watkins (horn). Intimate and spiritually-charged pieces reflecting Britten’s interests in poetry, religion and the human condition, they chart his musical evolution over an almost thirty-year period.

As a curtain-raiser to the Britten Weekend (20th-21st November), the Master of The King’s Music, Errollyn Wallen, premières her new work at Orford Church entitled A Christmas Miracle inspired by Britten’s unrealised community opera, A Christmas Sequence.

A dramatic story of lives that transcend time and generations, the work hosts a plethora of well-loved Christmas carols for audience members to participate in. Described by the composer as an ‘all-embracing musical adventure’, A Christmas Miracle (developed by Mahogany Opera and co-produced by Britten Pears Arts with support coming from Jubilee Opera and Orkney Music and Culture) sees Britten’s plans for an intergenerational performance of the Christmas story come to fruition.

Director Frederic Wake-Walker collaborates with Errollyn Wallen for the third time following The Lighthouse Wave and Dido’s Ghost and together they have created a piece that combines high levels of community participation with more complex material for professional artists.

Taking the role of the Angel Gabriel are sopranos Hilary Cronin and Emma Tring while countertenor Andrew Watts is seen as Herod with mezzo-soprano Idunnu Münch (Melchior), baritone Robert Gildon (Balthasar) and actor/singer Nick Mercer (Preco/MC).

Conducted by John Andrews, A Christmas Miracle, scored for ten instrumentalists, will be performed by musicians from Ensemble X on Friday 20th November 6.30pm with a couple of performances on Saturday 21st at 3pm/6.30pm.

Further information from the Britten Pears website. See also their Remembering Britten website.

An artist without the slightest spark of genius? Your chance to judge as Gothic Opera revives Fromental Halévy's rarely performed La Dame de Pique

2026-09-08T07:38:58.607+01:00

Fromental Halévy (1799-1862) was one of the mainstays of French opera in the 19th century. A pupil of Cherubini, his opera La Juive (1835) would inaugurate the new Paris Opera at the Palais Garnier in 1875. He wrote more than 30 operas for both the Opéra and Opéra-Comique in a wide variety of genres. Yet apart from La Juive, his works have not made it onto the operatic stage in the present day. I am not sure when La Juive was last performed in the UK, but we travelled to Antwerp to see it in 2019 [see my review].

Berlioz admired his scores, and Richard Wagner held up Halévy as an example for German composers to follow, "His vocation is to write music springing from the most intimate and powerful depths of human nature". But for Heinrich Heine, Halévy was an artist, but "without the slightest spark of genius".

As for his other operas apart from La Juive, well, you will be lucky to even encounter them on CD, though his grand opera La Reine de Chypre (1841) is available from Bru Zane, whilst La Tempesta (1850) was performed in Wexford in 2022 [see my review]. The good news for London-based opera lovers is that at the end of October, coinciding with Halloween, Gothic Opera will be performing Halévy's La Dame de pique (1850).

Based on Pushkin but with a libretto by the doyen of the French operatic stage, Eugène Scribe, La Dame de Pique premiered at the Opéra-Comique in 1850 and ran for 47 performances. As might be expected, the plot has little to do with Pushkin, Scribe's libretto getting a mixed response, being described it as a hybrid of drama, comedy, opéra-comique, tragédie lyrique and féerie. Musically, the piece is accessible and seductive, and contains some exquisite vocal and instrumental writing, showcasing Halévy’s gift for melody, and contemporary critics praised the music's scale, vitality, and orchestral brilliance.

Gothic Opera's production will be directed by Jonny Danciger (who directed Strauss's Die Fledermaus for St Paul's Opera in 2024) and by staging the piece in the crumbling architecture of Battersea Arts Centre’s Grand Hall they will transport the audience to a time of decay and dissolution at the end of the Ancien Régime in France. Tussles of power are played out between the ruling and the working classes, like a card game being reshuffled. Leon Haxby, a composer who worked with the company on Donizetti's Maria di Rudenz, has created a new chamber orchestration of the opera for seven instruments. The opera will be conducted by Hannah von Wiehler, with designs by Celeste Langrée, and lighting by Luca Panetta.

Rather intriguingly the opera's settings range from aristocratic settings to subterranean mines, and Act 2 features a duet that erupts into a turbulent miners' chorus which some of Halévy's contemporaries thought to be the most remarkable piece in the score.

Interesting side note: In 1869, Halévy's daughter Geneviève married the composer Georges Bizet, who had been one of Halévy's pupils at the Conservatoire. After Bizet's death and an alliance with Élie-Miriam Delaborde, the son of the composer Charles-Valentin Alkan, Geneviève married a banker and became a leading Parisian salonnière. Amongst the guests at her soirées was the young Marcel Proust, who used her as one of the models for the Duchesse de Guermantes in In Search of Lost Time.

Gothic Opera in the Grand Hall, Battersea Arts Centre. Photo: Craig Fuller

Gothic Opera's production of Halévy's La Dame de Pique will be at Battersea Arts Centre's Grand Hall from 29 October to 1 November.

Full details from the company's website.

Beyond Authenticity: The many voices of Period Performance at the Lammermuir Festival, some thoughts from joint artistic director James Waters

2026-09-07T10:53:22.895+01:00

Concerto Copenhagen (Photo: Mathias loevgreen)

One of the pleasures of programming the Lammermuir Festival is the opportunity to place different musical personalities alongside one another and invite audiences to listen for both connections and contrasts. And that is particularly true of the Festival's period performance strand.

Historically informed performance has long ceased to be a niche activity. The movement's pioneers transformed our understanding of everything from Baroque opera to Classical symphonies, changing the way musicians, scholars and audiences hear familiar repertoire. Yet perhaps the most interesting development over the last two decades has been the increasing diversity within the movement itself.

Today there is no single historically informed style. Instead, there are many approaches, shaped by differing views on scholarship, rhetoric, sound, theatre and communication. Lammermuir Festival 2026 brings together a group of artists and ensembles who share a fascination with historical repertoire whilst often taking very different paths through it. Among them are Concerto Copenhagen, Dunedin Consort, The English Concert, The Marian Consort and Ensemble Jupiter.

Taken together, these performances offer not a survey of preserved early music but a snapshot of a living and evolving art form.

A useful place to begin is with Concerto Copenhagen, whose residency centres on Haydn, including the composer's celebrated ‘Morning’, ‘Noon’ and ‘Night’ symphonies. Widely regarded as one of Europe's leading period orchestras, Concerto Copenhagen exemplifies a style of performance that embraces colour, energy and theatricality. Their performances remind us that historical awareness need not lead towards restraint or caution. Instead, it can release a sense of freedom. Haydn's music is full of wit, surprise and invention, and Concerto Copenhagen have built an international reputation for bringing those qualities vividly to life. Their playing often feels spontaneous, almost conversational, as though the music is unfolding in the moment. That spirit of risk-taking and discovery lies at the heart of their artistry.

Alongside this stands a different but equally compelling tradition represented by ensembles such as Dunedin Consort and The English Concert. Both have helped shape the modern period-performance landscape, and both demonstrate the enduring value of rigorous engagement with historical sources. Yet what makes these groups so significant is not scholarship for its own sake. Rather, they have shown how scholarship can become a route towards heightened dramatic expression.

In their hands, questions of articulation, phrasing, orchestral balance and historical context become tools for storytelling. Audiences may not consciously notice every informed decision behind a performance, but they feel the results in the clarity, momentum and sense of narrative purpose that emerge. This is one reason why historically informed performance now appeals to audiences far beyond specialist circles. The aim is not authenticity as an abstract concept, but as communication.

The vocal programmes in this year's Festival offer another perspective. The Marian Consort's celebration of Palestrina and Bach places two towering figures of sacred music alongside one another, inviting audiences to hear the enduring power of contrapuntal writing across different centuries and traditions.

For vocal ensembles, historically informed practice often involves questions that extend beyond instruments and performing editions. It touches on language, text, rhetoric, acoustics and the relationship between music and space. Sacred choral music was rarely conceived for the concert hall. It was created for churches, chapels and communities of worship, and hearing it within East Lothian's remarkable historic buildings can offer a powerful reminder of those origins. The challenge for modern performers is not simply to recreate the past but to understand how these works communicate in the present.

A similar spirit informs the appearance of Ensemble Jupiter, led by the outstanding lutenist Thomas Dunford, whose programme marks the 400th anniversary of John Dowland's death. Here the emphasis falls on expressive immediacy. Dunford and his colleagues belong to a generation of performers who move effortlessly between scholarly understanding and artistic individuality. Their performances bring an unmistakably contemporary energy to historical repertoire without losing sight of its roots.

Perhaps that balance is what makes period performance so compelling today. The most successful artists are not attempting to recreate an imagined past. Rather, they are engaging in a creative dialogue with it. Historical knowledge provides the foundation, but imagination, curiosity and personality shape the final result.

That idea sits at the heart of Lammermuir Festival's wider artistic vision. The Festival has always sought to bring exceptional artists into meaningful conversation with exceptional places: creating encounters that illuminate familiar repertoire and reveal unexpected connections. The period-performance strand exemplifies that ambition. By presenting a range of voices, approaches and philosophies, the Festival encourages audiences to hear not only the richness of the music itself, but the richness of the interpretative possibilities that surround it.

Far from producing a single answer about how music of the past should be performed, these artists show that the most exciting performances often begin with a willingness to ask new questions. And for audiences, that continuing conversation remains one of the great pleasures of musical discovery.

Article by James Waters (CEO / Joint Artistic Director of Lammermuir Festival)

The Lammermuir Festival runs from 8 to 20 September - 41 concerts - 13 venues - 10 locations - over 450 artists. Full details from the festival website.

Never miss out on future posts by following us

The blog is free, but I'd be delighted if you were to show your appreciation by buying me a coffee.

Elsewhere on this blog

Reinventing the semi-opera: Vache Baroque & Out of Chaos turn The Tempest into an evening of fun, modern theatre - opera review
Here Comes Everybody: Alastair White begins Finnegans Wake project with an overture at London Irish Centre with Ensemble Exposé & Roger Redgate - concert review
BBC Proms: By turns illuminating & compelling, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra on terrific form in Britten & Vaughan Williams - concert review
A highly intelligent & rather imaginative recital: Handel's Italians - Italian castrati in the London oratorios from Carlo Vistoli - record review
BBC Proms: By turns ravishing & spine-tingling, period instrument orchestra Les Siècles is the star of the show in Berlioz's La damnation de Faust conducted by Jakob Lehmann - opera review
Drawing you into the drama: David McVicar's production of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail returns to Glyndebourne - opera review
BBC Proms: Intriguing connections in Anja Bihlmaier & BBC Philharmonic's Prom including Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde - concert review
BBC Proms: Stripped back drama & strong musical values in Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos from Glyndebourne Opera - opera review
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Reinventing the semi-opera: Vache Baroque collaborates with Out of Chaos to turn The Tempest into an evening of fun, modern theatre

2026-09-07T10:30:04.910+01:00

The Tempest (the masque in Part Two) - Vache Baroque (Photo: The Photography Shed)

The Tempest - Shakespeare, Matthew Locke, Henry Purcell & others; Tim Delap, Leah Haile, Hannah Barrie, Tré Medley, Stephanie Hershaw, Isabelle Peters, Camilla Seale, Conor Prendiville, Ross Cumming, director: Paul O'Mahony, Vache Baroque, musical director: Jonathan Darbourne; Vache Baroque at The Vache
Reviewed 6 September 2026

An engaging reinvention of the semi-opera provides a vividly engaging evening in the theatre though without solving all the genre's inherent problems, but with a stunning versatile and engaged cast.

The Tempest - Stephanie Hershaw (Ariel) - Vache Baroque
(Photo: The Photography Shed)

Fully sung opera never seemed to stick in Restoration England. During the Interregnum, fully sung operas had been produced in lieu of plays to get around government restriction. But after the Restoration, with the vibrant springing to life of the playhouses, opera never flourished. A French opera company under the direction of Robert Cambert, in 1674, though sponsored by the king proved short-lived. What was popular, however, was the semi-opera (what was called dramatick-opera at the time), a strange combination of spoken play and music. The first ones arose in the early 1670s with music often by Matthew Locke, and then Purcell would famously be involved. Semi-operas were produced with some regularity from 1673 (Macbeth) to 1712 (The Tempest). [See my article The Invention of English Opera]

Few modern opera companies essay the semi-opera genre in its entirety, though Glyndebourne did so with The Fairy Queen some years ago, and King Arthur occasionally makes an appearance. For a modern audience, the form is unwieldy with its mix of spoken drama along with music, yet the leading characters do not sing. Allied to this the original semi-operas would have had spectacular (i.e. expensive) sets.

For its Summer opera festival, Vache Baroque at The Vache bravely decided to collaborate with Out of Chaos theatre company to present a semi-opera version of The Tempest inspired by the production of The Tempest performed in 1674 (with libretto by Thomas Shadwell after John Dryden and William Davenant's adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest and music by Matthew Locke, Giovanni Battista Draghi and Pelham Humfrey).

Vache Baroque's version was directed by Paul O'Mahony (artistic director of Out of Chaos) with Jonathan Darbourne as musical director. They chose to base their version directly on Shakespeare and to the music by Locke, added pieces by Purcell, Pelham Humphrey, John Weldon, Dowland, Thomas Morley, Robert Johnson, Kapsberger, Couperin and Marais.

The company featured the actors Tim Delap (Prospero), Leah Haile (Miranda), Hannah Barrie (Caliban), Tré Medley (Ferdinand) and Dom Swain (Sebastian), and the singers Stephanie Hershaw, soprano (Ariel), Isabelle Peters, soprano (Alonso), Camilla Seale, mezzo-soprano (Stephano), Conor Prendiville, tenor (Antonio), and Ross Cumming, baritone, (Trinculo).

Jonathan Darbourne directed an ensemble of nine from the harpsichord - Naomi Burrell and Christiane Eidsten Dahl, violins, Charlotte Fairbairn, viola, Gavin Kibble, bass violin/viola da gamba, Carina Cosgrave, bass, Oohagh Lee and Joel Raymond, oboes/recorders, Toby Carr, theorbo/lute/guitar, Louise Anna Duggan, percussion.

Designs were by Caitlin Mawhinney, choreography by Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster, and lighting by Ben Pickersgill. The performers (actors, singers, instrumentalists) all used microphones and the sound included work by sound artist Dan Samsa that used found noises as a backdrop to evoke the isle being full of noises.

I am unfamiliar with the Shadwell/Dryden/Davenant text for The Tempest , butI suspect that it would have created rather more excuses for musical display in the form of masques interpolated into the action (as with The Fairy Queen). As it was, the music was applied to songs for Ariel and the comic figures, Stephano and Trinculo plus occasional moments when the vocal ensemble sang something commenting such as the end of Part One when Prospero blesses Ferdinand and Miranda's union. The largest masque-like insertion was in Part Two with Ferdinand and Miranda's wedding, whilst the vocal ensemble sang a touching final number at the end after Prospero resigned his powers.

Semi-opera remains a challenge and in Part One it was nearly half an hour before anyone sang, though Darbourne and his ensemble used instrumental music as a commentary on the action too. Also, the musicians took part in the action making this very much a dynamic ensemble piece. All concerned were hard-working, with Darbourne doubling as musical director and Gonzalo, and soprano Isabelle Peters taking the non-singing role of Alonso with tenor Conor Prendiville in the non-singing role of Antonio.

Frankly, Part One felt a little undercooked, as if we were seeing a cut-price version of The Tempest with a few songs and I wondered whether using the original text might have been better. Also, the sound design meant that in the relatively intimate confines of the tent used for performance, the actors felt over-amplified, and you sensed they hardly need microphones at all. The result was Part One felt a bit shouty.

Things came together in Part Two, partly because of the extended masque featuring Cupid (Stephanie Hershaw), Bacchus (Ross Cuming) and ensemble (Isabelle Peters, Camilla Seale and Conor Prendiville). Also, this part featured more musico-dramatic events in the play. Stephanie Hershaw as Ariel got the lions share of the work, and she proved an attractive, engaging and highly active Ariel. The other singers also provided backdrop to moments like the fake feast, but the instrumentalists got in on the action when tormenting Trinculo (Cumming) and Stephano (Hershaw).

Tim Delap made a compelling and rather fierce Prospero, though his final speeches were touching. Leah Haile and Tré Medley made an engaging pairing as Miranda and Ferdinand, with Hannah Barrie almost making you feel sorry for Caliban. What the production did was subtly highlight the way Prospero imposed himself on others. Isabelle Peters made a striking and rather moving Alonso, with fine support from Dom Swain (Sebastian), Conor Prendiville (Antonio) and Jonathan Darbourne (Gonzalo).

The Tempest - Camilla Seale (Stephano), Ross Cumming (Trinculo) - Vache Baroque (Photo: The Photography Shed)

This was an evening of fun, modern theatre, reinventing the semi-opera form for today and performing it almost in the round (audience on three sides) with the sort of physical theatre that made for an engaging performance. The way everybody did everything (though only Hannah Barrie's Caliban sang) was impressive, though I feel that they missed a trick by not finding a suitable musical vehicle for the entire company to sing at the end.

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Elsewhere on this blog

Here Comes Everybody: Alastair White begins Finnegans Wake project with an overture at London Irish Centre with Ensemble Exposé & Roger Redgate - concert review
BBC Proms: By turns illuminating & compelling, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra on terrific form in Britten & Vaughan Williams - concert review
A highly intelligent & rather imaginative recital: Handel's Italians - Italian castrati in the London oratorios from Carlo Vistoli - record review
BBC Proms: By turns ravishing & spine-tingling, period instrument orchestra Les Siècles is the star of the show in Berlioz's La damnation de Faust conducted by Jakob Lehmann - opera review
Drawing you into the drama: David McVicar's production of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail returns to Glyndebourne - opera review
BBC Proms: Intriguing connections in Anja Bihlmaier & BBC Philharmonic's Prom including Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde - concert review
BBC Proms: Stripped back drama & strong musical values in Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos from Glyndebourne Opera - opera review
Fiordiligi to the fore: Korean soprano Soyeon Shin shines in Scherzo Ensemble's trimmed yet still full-fat performance of Cosi fan tutte - review
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Here Comes Everybody: composer Alastair White begins his Finnegans Wake project with an overture at London Irish Centre with Ensemble Exposé & Roger Redgate

2026-09-06T11:00:43.618+01:00

A drawing of Joyce (with eyepatch) by Djuna Barnes from 1922,
the year in which Joyce began the 17-year task of writing Finnegans Wake

Alastair White:Here Comes Everybody: an overture to Finnegans Wake; Ensemble Exposé, Roger Redgate; London Irish Centre
5 September 2026

"riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs."

How to approach James Joyce's Finnegans Wake in music? This is the question that husband and wife team of composer Alastair White and producer Gemma Williams have been asking as they create a new musical treatment of the novel. They launched the project last year at Irish Design Week [see my article] and the first instalment of White's musical adaptation was presented at the London Irish Centre on Saturday 5 September 2026. White's overture was performed by Ensemble Exposé - Rowland Sutherland, flute, Christopher Redgate, oboe, Heather Roche, clarinet, Chris Brannick, percussion, Caroline Balding, violin, Bridge Carey, viola, Clare O'Connell, cello - conducted by Roger Redgate. (Alastair White studied with Roger Redgate at Goldsmiths.)

The full project is planned to last 13 years and come to completion in 2039, the centenary of Joyce's publication of the complete novel. For the long timescale and fragmentary approach, White and Williams take inspiration from Joyce's work on the novel as he published fragments over a period of 17 years only publishing the complete novel in 1939.

As anyone who know's White's music will understand, his approach to writing an overture is distinctive and what we heard at the London Irish Centre was approaching an hour of music, challenging in its complexity and refreshing in White's desire to go his own way. There is a distinct didactic element to the project as White and Williams take a view of Finnegans Wake (and other modernist texts) that is at odds with modern interpretations. White argued at the post-concert Q&A that commentators err in trying to dig into the work and that we should treat it as a surface. White pointed out that people can enjoy music without being musically literate, and that a similar analogy should be taken with Finnegans Wake, we enjoy the surface without the need to explore every allusion.

The music began with something that could almost have been mid-century English, but then the three strings erupted into contrapuntal violence. There were moments when violinist Caroline Balding seemed to be holding a line against the other two strings. The overall tone was that of jagged violence though the opening material did return. The moment when the wind finally joined the ensemble made a highly dramatic point, and the six indulged in multi-layered complexity with six highly independent and complex lines.

The piece included two readings from Joyce performed by Cathal Murray. In the run up to the first, the music quietened to a mix of silence and gestures, with subsequent free counterpoint leading to a more conventional sustained climax. The ensemble continued with sustained chords during Murray's vivid reading.

Then sharp violence erupted, and percussion was added to the complex layering. An interweaving of long expressionistic lines led, finally to a sustained climax with lots of cymbals. The music wound down to a single repeated tone for Murray's final reading.

At the Q&A Williams explained that having collaborated on several operas - WEAR (2018), ROBE (2019), WOAD (2020), RUNE (2021) - she and White wanted to continue creating operas. There was also a wish to do something in Ireland (Williams is Irish) and both are big Joyce fans. This led to Finnegans Wake. Too big for a single project, the idea led to emulate Joyce by working in fragments.

For reasons of running time, none of White's earlier operas used an overture so writing one of Finnegans Wake was a novelty for him. He sees the operatic overture as an interesting form, being adjacent to the story. He found it a perfect way to begin Finnegans Wake, after all the novel starts in the middle of things.

White's interest in Finnegans Wake also held structural implications. He feels that Joyce has already solved a problem that besets modern composition. The difficulty of choice between writing where this happens then that happens, or a return to the developmental line of earlier classical music. White's reading of Joyce means it has helped him with the development of his own music. White's works for Institut Abeceda in Slovenia, including Fields of Vision, explored these ideas.

White writing in Finnegans Wake owes something to fractals, which occur throughout the work and are ever-changing. He feels this links to relationships with Joyce's work, and White relishes the tension between clarity and obscurity, and the use of repetition. White rejects a one-to-one identification between the music and what is happening in the novel, after all that is what Joyce rejects too. But White has used the language itself as the rhythm of the music.

Ensemble Exposé was formed in 1984 by the composers Richard Barrett, Roger Redgate and Michael Finnissy. Originally, the three created the ensemble because their music was considered too difficult to be played! And the ensemble has continued to be associated with complexity.

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Elsewhere on this blog

BBC Proms: By turns illuminating & compelling, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra on terrific form in Britten & Vaughan Williams - concert review
A highly intelligent & rather imaginative recital: Handel's Italians - Italian castrati in the London oratorios from Carlo Vistoli - record review
BBC Proms: By turns ravishing & spine-tingling, period instrument orchestra Les Siècles is the star of the show in Berlioz's La damnation de Faust conducted by Jakob Lehmann - opera review
Drawing you into the drama: David McVicar's production of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail returns to Glyndebourne - opera review
BBC Proms: Intriguing connections in Anja Bihlmaier & BBC Philharmonic's Prom including Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde - concert review
BBC Proms: Stripped back drama & strong musical values in Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos from Glyndebourne Opera - opera review
Fiordiligi to the fore: Korean soprano Soyeon Shin shines in Scherzo Ensemble's trimmed yet still full-fat performance of Cosi fan tutte - review
BBC Proms: Thrilling moments, terrific theatre, intimacy & transcendence as Sir Antonio Pappano conducts Berlioz's Requiem - concert review
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By turns illuminating & compelling: the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra on terrific form in Britten & Vaughan Williams at the BBC Proms

2026-09-05T11:20:02.580+01:00

Britten: Violin Concerto - Simone Lamsma, Andrew Manze, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic - BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou)

Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis, Britten: Violin Concerto, Carmel Smickersgill: A Brick Thrown with Love, Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 9; Simone Lamsma, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Andrew Manze; BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall
Reviewed 4 September 2026

From early Britten and Vaughan Williams through to RVW's last symphonic utterance, an evening that was by turns illuminating and compelling, with the RLPO on terrific form and a finely focused yet emotional solo from Simone Lamsma in the Britten

In 1938, Ralph Vaughan Williams (then aged 66) began writing his fifth symphony whilst in the USA, Benjamin Britten (then aged 25) was beginning his Violin Concerto. Britten's concerto would be premiered in 1940, whilst Vaughan Williams's symphony premiered in 1943. But the senior composer showed no sign of slowing down, and his symphonies continued right through to the Symphony No. 9 which he composed during 1956/57, and it premiered in 1958 when he was 86.

It was this fascinating confluence that was at the heart of Andrew Manze and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra's BBC Prom at the Royal Albert Hall on Friday 4 September 2026. They began with Vaughan Williams's Tallis Fantasia, then came Britten's Violin Concerto with soloist Simone Lamsma, the premiere of Carmel Smickersgill's A Brick Thrown with Love and finally Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 9 in E minor. Another link in the programme is that both the concerto and the symphony conclude with a passacaglia.

When it comes to Vaughan Williams's output, his Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis which premiered at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester in 1910 is very much an early work even though the composer was then in his late 30s. Something of a late starter, the piece is his first major work that is unquestionably his. It is hard to regard the work as revolutionary now, but in 1910 after the premiere the young composers Herbert Howells and Ivor Gurney were so shaken by the piece they spent the night roaming the streets of Gloucester talking about it.

Andrew Manze, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic - BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou)

The Royal Albert Hall certainly is not Gloucester Cathedral so we lacked that building's distinctive ambience. But Manze presented the work using the same large body of strings that he used for the Britten and the Vaughan Williams symphony. The result was an opening that was lush yet barely there, leading to a big tune with a fine sense of rubato and orchestral tuttis that were full of rich details. The nine players in Orchestra II (placed behind the main body of strings) seemed to be performing with minimum vibrato, to striking effect, and the solo quartet produced some sweet violin and mellow viola sounds. The ending, when it came, was wonderfully effective and the fine string sound only lacked that extra glow from Gloucester Cathedral's acoustic.

Britten's Violin Concerto was premiered in New York (where the composer was living) with John Barbirolli and the Spanish violinist Antonio Brosa. In a touch which must resonate with modern orchestras, Brosa only just made it to the performance as he had been detained at Ellis Island as a 'doubtful visitor'. Brosa seems to have always been the planned soloist in the work, he and Britten had performed Britten's Suite for violin and piano in Barcelona a few years earlier. The strong rhythms of the concerto can be seen as Spanish, and it seems likely the work was conceived as a lament for those who died in the Spanish Civil War. Though this aspect of the work did not seem to be at the forefront of Manze and Lamsma's performance. She has been playing the piece for decades, having won the 2004 Britten International Violin Competition with it in 2004.

At the opening, Manze brought out the strong rhythms and major/minor conflict in the piece, over this Lamsma spun a lovely singing line, her slim, elegant tone making it almost haunting. Throughout the movement, you were conscious of Manze bringing out the darkness underneath the work with edgy and vivid moments from the orchestra allied to Lamsma really digging in at times. However, when the main tune returned in the orchestra, with the soloist's strummed accompaniment, the music almost swayed like a dance. The second movement was all engaging rhythms and strong textures, recalling Shostakovich's more sardonic pieces, and Lamsma followed this lead. The sardonic edge was muted at times, but returned in time for the furious climax that led to the cadenza. Here, the references to material from the first movement were given a strong edge by Lamsma. The trombones bringing in the opening material of the passacaglia final movement before Lamsma's violin had finished the cadenza gave it a disturbing element. The orchestra's contribution was sustained and intense, gradually twisting the harmonic screw. Lamsma's first entry in the movement had a strange, disturbed echo of Vaughan Williams's lark to it, though her solo line became intense and urgent. Moments were surprisingly quiet and tender, and at one point the orchestra was almost swaying. The final orchestral tutti presented the passacaglia in all its glory before Lamsma's intense final solo, powerful yet somehow uncertain. A remarkable triumph.

Carmel Smickersgill acknowledging applause after the premiere of A Brick Thrown with Love
BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou)

Carmel Smickersgill has a long relationship with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, having won their Rushworth Composition Prize in 2018 and then writing for the orchestra's Ensemble 10/10 the following year. Her A Brick Thrown with Love has distinct didactic philosophical element to it, the work explores the contrast between intention and action, in this case a brick being thrown. In three movements, The Why tries to introduce the disturbing element of that thrown brick, in this case a perky clarinet motif which developed into vivid chaos in the orchestra. Though Smickersgill's writing was perhaps not quite disturbing enough to damage. Construction, Compassion, Community, Consequence drew a large-scale construction out of dispersed fragments, the music being multilayered becoming more intricate and gradually faster. The final movement The Voice that Says 'DO IT' was fast and furious to a vivid end.

I was not really sure about the didactic philosophical element to the work, and for me this did not really come over. Would we have been better not knowing the substructure of the work? What is undoubtedly true was that Smickersgill has a talent for writing for large orchestra (essentially the same as for the Vaughan Williams symphony). She likes multi-layered textures, each going at different speeds and with different rhythms. Here the results were highly effective and crowd-pleasing.

When Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 9 premiered at the Royal Festival Hall with Malcolm Sargent conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra the critical response was rather cool. The composer's commented that "I don't think they can quite forgive me for being able still to do it at my age" (he was 86). Yet in August that year, when Sargent conducted it at the Proms the response to the composer's appearance on the platform was overwhelming. That was his last public appearance and he died three weeks later.

The symphony continues the composer's late career fascinating with unusual timbres - concertos for harmonica, tuba, and the large percussion section ("all the 'phones and 'spiels known to the composer") for the Eighth Symphony. For the ninth, he returns to the saxophone (there are solo saxes in the Sixth Symphony and the ballet, Job) but here there is a trio of them, and a flugelhorn. The sound of the three saxophones oozing out of the orchestral textures is an important colour throughout the symphony.

The opening here was highly atmospheric, the ominous held E in the orchestra and the saxophones almost emulating Job's comforters (from the sax in the ballet from 1930) to create something rather disturbing. Manze's approach was very much full on, the tutti urgent and uncompromising, yet the more tender, lyrical moments had a backwards looking feel, evoking the composer's earlier pastoral style. The solo violin also returned us to the pastoral idyll except here, Thelma Hardy was duetting with Tom Fountain's flugelhorn. This instrument opened the second movement, alongside a threatening bass section in the orchestra. The tuttis were rhythmically intense, but the flugelhorn solo was never far away. Whilst there were consoling strings, the ominous music was present too, the result tonally restless and yet ending with flugelhorn alone. There are hints that Vaughan Williams might have had Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles in mind when writing first the symphony, and certainly Manze brought out the sense that the second movement had an unwritten narrative underneath. The third movement had a sharp edge to the opening, the rather satirical sound of the three saxophones again evoking Job. There was also a distinct sense of the dance, the music becoming more intense (and less satirical). Violence returned only for the textures to thin and at the end, just the three saxophones presaging a different harmonic world. Ursula Vaughan Williams wrote of this moment, "I thought, well, that is the end of Ralph's life and I can see a turning point. It is leading out into another place."

Andrew Manze, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic - BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou)

This was not the most obviously crowd-pleasing of concerts and Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 9 has not always been as highly regarded as the other symphonies, but the hall seemed very full indeed (more so than for Glyndebourne's Ariadne auf Naxos).

The concert is on BBC Sounds for 37 days

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The blog is free, but I'd be delighted if you were to show your appreciation by buying me a coffee.

Elsewhere on this blog

A highly intelligent & rather imaginative recital: Handel's Italians - Italian castrati in the London oratorios from Carlo Vistoli - record review
BBC Proms: By turns ravishing & spine-tingling, period instrument orchestra Les Siècles is the star of the show in Berlioz's La damnation de Faust conducted by Jakob Lehmann - opera review
Drawing you into the drama: David McVicar's production of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail returns to Glyndebourne - opera review
BBC Proms: Intriguing connections in Anja Bihlmaier & BBC Philharmonic's Prom including Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde - concert review
BBC Proms: Stripped back drama & strong musical values in Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos from Glyndebourne Opera - opera review
Fiordiligi to the fore: Korean soprano Soyeon Shin shines in Scherzo Ensemble's trimmed yet still full-fat performance of Cosi fan tutte - review
BBC Proms: Thrilling moments, terrific theatre, intimacy & transcendence as Sir Antonio Pappano conducts Berlioz's Requiem - concert review
Salzburg Festival:

Il viaggio a Reims, Cosi fan tutte, Ariadne auf Naxos, Carmen, & Messiaen's St Francis of Assisi - reviews

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A new way of listening to the harpsichord: Katarzyna Kowalik's Meditations for Harpsichord

2026-09-04T07:52:05.245+01:00

With Meditations for Harpsichord, British-Polish harpsichordist Katarzyna Kowalik will gather together nine newly commissioned works by five British and four Polish composers.

The project will receive its world premiere at Colet House in London on 20 October 2026, followed by the Polish premiere on 24 October in Hashtag Lab, Warsaw, as well as performances in the UK and Poland throughout 2026–27, including events for the New College, Oxford, National Centre for Early Music, The Confraternity of Polish Artists in Great Britain & POSK, Warsaw Music Encounters Festival, among others.

Written for harpsichord, Tibetan singing bowls, gongs and electronics, the works explore the instrument from radically different perspectives, incorporating contemporary techniques, resonance, silence, improvisatory elements and immersive sound. The programme will be framed by an unmeasured prelude by Louis Couperin and Froberger’s Méditation sur ma mort future. The nine contemporary composers featured are Rolf Hind, Janet Oates, John Palmer, Kevin Raftery, Nicola LeFanu, Anna Ignatowicz-Glińska, Andrzej Karałow, Dariusz Przybylski and Anna Maria Huszcza.

The October performances coincide with the release of the project’s recording on Prima Facie Records. An accompanying book, co-edited by Katarzyna Kowalik and John Palmer, published by Vision Edition, will feature contributions from all nine composers, offering further perspectives on the music, the commissioning process and the ideas behind the project.

Tickets for 20 October from TicketTailor.

ORA Singers' Graduate Composers: five young composers have their work showcased at Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama

2026-09-03T07:33:33.961+01:00

ORA Singers' Graduate Composers' scheme forms a core part of their Composers' Pathway - their work to support composers at any stage in their careers. The Graduate scheme champions early-career composers by offering them a professional commission with ORA Singers and regular mentorship with Artistic Director, Suzi Digby.

The third Graduate Composers' scheme culminates in a Graduate Composers Showcase at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama on 2 October 2026. The five Graduate Composers - Evie Atkin, Eluned Davies, Marcello Palazzo, Sarah Henderson, and Harry Rees - have been set the task of 'reflecting' a renaissance original, in line with many of ORA Singers other commissions featured in their 100 Commissions Catalogue. The Showcase will see ORA Singers premiere each new work alongside its renaissance counterpart at the Dora Stoutzker Hall at the Royal Welsh College.

Evie Atkin is a composer, musical director, and performer based in London. She studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Julian Phillips, Laurence Crane and Hollie Harding
Sarah Henderson is a freelance composer, cellist and soprano based in London. Her formal training in composition began at the Junior Department of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, and she later studied with Masahiro Ishijima when she was a student at Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo
Marcello Palazzo is completing a doctorate at the Royal Academy of Music, and graduated the University of Oxford (MPhil, Composition). He has written music for the London Symphony Orchestra, Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Thomas Allen, CHROMA Ensemble, Ligeti Quartet, Merton College Choir (Oxford), Britten-Pears Contemporary Ensemble
Eluned Davies is a Welsh composer currently based in London, with a background in singing as well as a passion for poetry and words. She is currently completing her MA in Opera Making at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama as Jane Ades scholar, under the tutelage of Julian Philips. Davies also studied with Laurence Crane and Paul Newland in her MMus in Guildhall and with Jonathan Cole and Catherine Kontz in her undergraduate studies at the Royal College of Music
Harry Rees is an emerging Irish composer from Enniskillen. They graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in 2025 studying under Ceri Tippetts, Mark Boden, Michael McCartney, Owen Lloyd, and Tic Ashfield. In 2024, Harry was shortlisted by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales for Composition: Wales 2025, culminating in March 2025 with a recorded performance by the orchestra of Harry’s original work, Nine Times to Die, conducted by Jac van Steen.

Full details of the Graduate Showcase from the RWCMD website.

moon landing: composer Helen Caddick & textile artist Margo Selby's immersive cross-genre piece

2026-09-03T07:24:55.408+01:00

Composer Helen Caddick and textile artist Margo Selby collaborated on an immersive cross-genre piece, moon landing, for Collect 2024 at Somerset House. [see my article]

As part of the exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery (which closes on 8 September), The Sun and Moon - Art inspired by the Celestial the work has been on display again.

Margo Selby and Helen Caddick had long been fascinated about the crossovers between music and textiles, mathematics and science which sparked their initial conversations and desire to collaborate. The music of moon landing is inspired by the little known story that it was Navajo women and women at the Raytheon Plant who wove the integrated circuits and memory cores on the Apollo 11 which enabled the moon landing. By creating moon landing Helen Caddick wish to bring their story to greater public consciousness.

Caddick's moon landing is written for 2 harps, 2 cellos and 2 violins and the music can be downloaded from Bandcamp. But hearing the piece in the context of Selby's astounding piece of weaving is definitely worthwhile.

Further details from Saatchi Gallery.

Inside the Orchestra: the chance to find out what an orchestra sounds like when you are sitting inside it.

2026-09-02T10:38:47.489+01:00

Just as the Philharmonia Orchestra is using VR to enable people find out what it is like to join a live orchestra [see my article]. Another project is doing something similar but with a real live orchestra. With its event Inside the Orchestra, the Pavel Kushnir Scholarship is offering audience members the chance to find out what an orchestra sounds like when you are sitting inside it.

On Wednesday 16 September 2026 at Annunciation Church, Marble Arch, W1H 7AH, conductor Bogdan Skrypka lead the Willow Orchestra in a live rehearsal of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1. For the first part of the evening, audience members will be invited to sit inside the Willow Orchestra, among the musicians. Rather than hearing the orchestra from the conventional distance of a concert hall seat, the audience will experience the rehearsal from within the ensemble to observe at close range how an orchestral performance is created.

The rehearsal is deliberately presented as a working process rather than a polished performance. Then after the interval the audience will return to traditional seating and hear the complete Beethoven's Symphony No. 1, experiencing the finished performance from the outside after having witnessed its creation from within.

The project aims to bring audiences closer to the process of orchestral music-making and to offer an experience that goes beyond the traditional relationship between performer and listener.

The Pavel Kushnir Scholarship was established in London in memory of a brilliant pianist and educator. Arrested for speaking out loud against the Russian invasion of Ukraine on his YouTube channel with only five subscribers, Pavel Kushnir died in a Russian detention centre [see my article]. The scholarship is aiming to help students from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus to begin or continue their music studies across the UK, Europe or the US.

Full details of Inside the Orchestra from EventBrite.

A highly intelligent & rather imaginative recital: Handel's Italians - Italian castrati in the London oratorios from Carlo Vistoli on Harmonia Mundi

2026-09-02T09:16:06.134+01:00

Handel's Italians: Italian castrati in the London oratorios - music from Handel's Esther, Deborah, Athalia, Belshazzar, Messiah, Theodora; Carlo Vistoli, Giulia Semenzato, Le Concert d’Astrée, Emmanuelle Haïm; Harmonia Mundi
Reviewed 1 September 2026

This rather imaginative recital focuses on music from Handel's oratorios sung by Italian castratos, including arias specially Italianised for them, here benefitting from suavely stylish performances from Italian countertenor Carlo Vistoli

Handel's move from writing Italian opera to English oratorio did not happen immediately, and for some ten years the two genres ran almost simultaneously in Handel's output. So, whilst we might emphasise the role of English singers in oratorio with names like Anastasia Robinson, Susannah Cibber, John Beard and others, Handel's Italian singers also played an interesting role in oratorio's genesis.

This new disc from Carlo Vistoli, Handel's Italians: Italian castrati in the London oratorios on Harmonia Mundi (release 4 September 2026) sees the countertenor join with Le Concert d’Astrée, conductor Emmanuelle Haïm, and soprano Giulia Semenzato, for a programme exploring the music from Handel's oratorios written a range of Italian castratos. Vistoli is no stranger to Handel's English oratorios having recently performed in Semele at Covent Garden. [see my review]

Handel presented a new version of Esther at the King's Theatre in 1732, hurriedly assembled in order to keep Handel's interest in the work after rival performances (following a gap of some 12 years since Esther's previous outing). The cast inevitably included a selection of Italian singers who had given Flavio, re de’ Longobardi just a few weeks earlier including soprano Anna Maria Strada, the castrato Francesco Bernardi, known as ‘Il Senesino’, contralto Francesca Bertolli, and bass Antonio Montagnana. From then on, oratorio would be presented with a mix of nationalities, depending on who was available. When presenting Athalia in 1733, Handel had an all-English cast except for Strada and his later oratorios would also use Italian sopranos Giulia Frasi and Caterina Galli alongside other English singers.

Senesino first worked for Handel in London in 1720, and he would be a regular feature of Handel's London seasons until 1733. We have to assume that Senesino had a relatively robust grasp of English, but one anecdote suggests that his pronunciation left something to be desired, rendering the line ‘I come my Queen, to chaste delights’ into ‘I comb my Queen to chase the lice’.

In 1733, the castrato Carestini was in London to sing in the premieres of Arianna in Creta, Ariodante, and Alcina, some of Handel's finest mezzo-soprano hero roles. Carestini also performed in revivals of Deborah, Esther, and Athalia. Carestini, a difficult character at the best of times, seems to have balked at singing in English and for the oratorio revivals Handel created Italian arias for him, including transposing them to suit Carestini's (modern) mezzo-soprano range. Some of these arias use Italian translations of the original words whilst others were created anew. For the 1735 revival of Athalia, the arias include a reworking of an aria from the motet Silete venti.

By the 1740s, though Handel's oratorios were largely sung by English singers he used Italians where available. So for Giovanni Battista Andreoni, who sang in the operas Imeneo and Deidamia, Handel
prepared for him a translated and transposed version of the part of David in the 1741 revival of Saul.

Rather different were Handel's relations with Gaetano Guadagni. Guadagni arrived in London singing comic operas with a visiting Italian company. He seems to have found a niche, evidently studying with Garrick and working with Handel so Guadagni created the role of Didymus in Theodora (alongside Giulia Frasi and Caterina Galli) and had some virtuoso arias (in English) created for Messiah.

After the overture from Concerto Grosso Op.6 No. 10, the disc works its way through the music for these various Italians. One thing to say is that the English pronunciation from both Vistoli and Semenzato is excellent so we never have to wince the way the original London audiences might have.

We begin with Esther, as performed by Senesino with 'How can I stay when Love invites' and the duet 'Who calls my parting soul from death?' which introduce us to Vistoli's attractively warm tone, easy lyricism and distinctive way with coloratura. We then move on to Deborah. Fascinatingly we hear both Senesino's vividly bravura 'All danger disdaining' and as well as Carestini's beautifully lyrical 'Più bella spoglia sarà fral' which transports us directly to Italian opera, so presumably Carestini was happy.

Moving to Guadagni, we first hear Cyrus's 'Great God! Who yet but darkly known' from Belshazzar. This role written for Anastasia Robinson but Vistoli's assumption shows the way it has been taken over by countertenors today, and the aria represents Handel writing directly for Guadagni as it was inserted into the 1751 revival.

From Theodora, we have the aria 'The raptur’d soul defies the sword' and the duet (with Frasi) 'To thee, thou glorious son of worth'. Vistoli is engaging and dramatic in the aria, then he and Semenzato rise to suitable heights for the duet, which is preceded by a fine accompanied recitative. And the final Guadagni contribution is the more familiar 'But who may abide the day of His coming' from Messiah with its vivid contrast between the gorgeous lyricism (one of Guadagni's strengths, evidently) and busy virtuosity, Handelian oratorio looking back towards Italian opera, and Vistoli reflects this with discreet ornamentation.

Andreoni's Italianisation of Saul is represented by 'Di Jonathan lo stral portò', and striking to hear 'Brave Jonathan his bow ne’er drew' in a different form. And the disc ends by returning to 1735 for a pair of arias from Athalia Italianised for Carestini. It is fascinating to hear 'Cor fedele' based on Silete Venti, yet rendered with complete conviction and beauty here. Then 'Angelico Splendor' brings things to a fine bravura conclusion.

Carlo Vistoli clearly has great feeling for Handel's music, yet the premise for the recital means that this is far more than a greatest hits compilation. Vistoli is at his best in the more lyrical music, displaying beauty of line allied to warm tone. Another credit to him is the range of the arias, as the original singers were both alto and soprano castratos. He is finely paired with soprano Giulia Semenzato and the two make lovely balanced and blended duet partners. Throughout Haïm and Le Concert d’Astrée make superb supportive contributions.

Would anyone ever think of reviving a complete polyglot Handel oratorio such as Athalia or Saul? Probably not! But in the crowded market of Handel recital discs, Vistoli here brings suave and stylish performances to a highly intelligent and rather imaginative recital.

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Elsewhere on this blog

BBC Proms: By turns ravishing & spine-tingling, period instrument orchestra Les Siècles is the star of the show in Berlioz's La damnation de Faust conducted by Jakob Lehmann - opera review
Drawing you into the drama: David McVicar's production of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail returns to Glyndebourne - opera review
BBC Proms: Intriguing connections in Anja Bihlmaier & BBC Philharmonic's Prom including Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde - concert review
BBC Proms: Stripped back drama & strong musical values in Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos from Glyndebourne Opera - opera review
Fiordiligi to the fore: Korean soprano Soyeon Shin shines in Scherzo Ensemble's trimmed yet still full-fat performance of Cosi fan tutte - review
BBC Proms: Thrilling moments, terrific theatre, intimacy & transcendence as Sir Antonio Pappano conducts Berlioz's Requiem - concert review
Salzburg Festival:

Il viaggio a Reims, Cosi fan tutte, Ariadne auf Naxos, Carmen, & Messiaen's St Francis of Assisi - reviews

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Celebrating the eclectic life of pioneering crystallographer Dame Kathleen Lonsdale: Electric Voice Theatre at Conway Hall for Bloomsbury Festival

2026-09-01T10:18:19.160+01:00

"For a married woman with children, to become a first class scientist she must first of all choose, the right husband"
Dame Kathleen Lonsdale

Crystallographer Dame Kathleen Lonsdale (1903–1971) was the first female professor at UCL and the first female Fellow of the Royal Society. Her pioneering science led to breakthroughs in organic chemistry and medical treatments. Beyond science, Lonsdale was a prison reformer, women’s rights activist and pacifist, warning of the dangers of nuclear physics and wealth inequality in her book Is Peace Possible?

As part of the 20th Bloomsbury Festival, Electric Voice Theatre will be returning to Conway Hall on 15 October 2026 for The Peaceful Crystallographer - and other songs celebrating the life of Dame Kathleen Lonsdale.

Electric Voice Theatre will be joined by UC8 - young acappella singers from University College London, and Clerkenwell Community Choir to perform music which reflects Lonsdale’s eclectic life, ranging through Irish folk song, music-hall, stirring anthems and ethical hymns, including works by Judith Weir and Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Lonsdale’s contemporaries like Elizabeth Maconchy, Shena Fraser and Clara Novello Davies and Conway Hall’s radical thinkers, Eliza Flower and Emily Josephine Troup.

There will be a post-performance discussion featuring science historian Dr Patricia Fara and Zoë Waller, Professor of Drug Discovery, Pharma & Bio Chemistry at University College London, and some of today’s women in science at UCL in the year of its 200th anniversary.

Full details from Electric Voice Theatre's website.

Manuel de Falla, Bell's telephone, rockets & Winnie the Pooh: The London Song Festival is 'Reaching Out...'

2026-09-01T09:41:50.901+01:00

E. H. Shepard - Illustration to page 3 of Winnie-the-Pooh (1926)

Nigel Foster's London Song Festival is back this autumn with nine concerts from 5 November to 11 December under the banner of "Reaching Out to...." or "Reaching Back to..." a place or time in which imagination and longing flourish.

Anniversaries celebrated include the 150th anniversary of Alexander Graham Bell’s patent for the telephone, the centenary of the publication of A. A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh, the centenary of the launch of the first liquid propelled rocket and the 150th anniversary of the birth of Manuel de Falla. Other themes include Ancient Greece, Fantasy & Magic, The Seven Ages of Man, and the Mystic East

Performers at the festival include Ellen Pearson (mezzo-soprano), Laurence Kilsby (tenor), Rachel Munro (soprano), Lotte Betts-Dean (mezzo-soprano), Harriet Burns (soprano), George Robarts (baritone), Katie Bray (mezzo-soprano), Archie Inns (tenor), Lorena Paz Nieto (soprano), Michel de Souza (baritone), Erika Baikoff (soprano), Jonathan Eyers (baritone), Natalka Pasicznyk (soprano), Sian Sulke (mezzo-soprano), along with winners of the 2025 London Song Festival Schubert Song Prize, Siri Bengtsson Marklund (soprano) and Bohdana Ravliuk (piano), and the winners of the inaugural SWAP’ra Rebecca Clarke Pianist Prize, Jasmin Alpress and Alfred Fardell who curate a programme with the singers with whom they won the prize, Gabriella Noble (mezzo-soprano), Archie Inns (tenor).

Music included moves between the known and the unknown, including Erich Wolff, Arthur Somervell, Florence Price, Harold Fraser-Simpson, Nadia Boulanger, Albert Roussel, Marguerite Canal, Armande de Polignac, Rebecca Clarke, Constant Lambert, Granville Bantock and Charles Griffes, along with contemporary composer Edward Picton-Turberville.

A particular highlight is the focus on Manuel de Falla on 26 November, when his songs will be paired with songs inspired by Spain, but written by non-Spanish composers including Wolf, Schumann, Adolf Jensen, Ravel, Jacques Ibert, Honegger, Louis Albert, Delibes, William Walton, Frederick Keel, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich.

Full details from the London Song Festival's website.

The virtual orchestra: the Philharmonia's new VR game allows participants to join the orchestra in a live performance of Rossini's William Tell

2026-09-01T09:02:59.524+01:00

Philharmonia Orchestra's Virtual Orchestra: Play Along (Photo: Marc Gascoigne)

The Southbank Centre's Creative Intelligence festival (11 to 13 September 2026) takes its inspiration from the Festival of Britain 75 years ago by exploring how artists, digital innovation and AI are reshaping the world we live in as part of a celebration of art, imagination and technology.

The Philharmonia's contribution to the festival will build on the orchestra's digital innovation to present Virtual Orchestra: Play Along, a virtual game which allows users to pick up a virtual instrument, learn through guided tutorials, and perform as part of the orchestra. Designed with children and young people in mind, participants can choose percussion instruments including cymbals, timpani and triangle, building skills before joining a full orchestral performance in a packed concert hall setting.

Through a series of interactive challenges and tutorials led by Philharmonia musicians, participants wearing VR headsets learn to read their part in the score, rehearse, and then “join the orchestra” in a live concert for the exhilarating finale of Rossini’s William Tell Overture.

The live performance in the experience was filmed at the Royal Festival Hall in April 2025 and conducted by Principal Conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali, using an array of 3D 360 cameras for ultra-high 12.5k resolution and cinematic quality. Live audio was recorded and mixed using object-based spatial audio techniques and converted to higher-order Ambisonics, to render the full acoustic depth and geometry of the performance space. Every instrument occupies its true position in three-dimensional space, captured at the highest spatial resolution currently possible.

The Philharmonia Orchestra was among 272 recipients to benefit from the Innovate UK/ DCMS Create Growth Programme in 2025. The £99,284 grant enabled research and development and the pilot programme with a Year Seven cohort from 11 schools from Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire. Alongside the VR experience, the Philharmonia has developed a curriculum-linked programme for Key Stage 3, with resources and CPD support for teachers. The project responds to growing concerns around declining music participation in schools, with GCSE Music entries falling significantly in recent years.

Marta Génova, the Philharmonia Orchestra’s Head of Digital Product and Experience, says, "For over a decade, the Philharmonia Orchestra has pioneered immersive musical experiences, and Virtual Orchestra: Play Along takes that work into a new phase where we ask audiences to participate rather than observe. For the first time in our VR work, users can take up a virtual instrument, develop skills through guided practice, and perform with the orchestra onstage, among the musicians, in concert. Through R&D collaboration with percussionist Tom Edwards, Meta Camera and Schallgeber, we have developed new ways to connect artists and audiences, reducing barriers to engagement and making cultural spaces more welcoming to participants."

By turns ravishing & spine-tingling: period instrument orchestra Les Siècles is the star of the show in Berlioz's La damnation de Faust at the BBC Proms conducted by Jakob Lehmann

2026-08-31T10:39:01.187+01:00

Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust - Les Siècles - BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/Mark Allan)

Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust; John Osborn, Véronique Gens, Gerard Finley, Chœur de Radio France and Maîtrise de Radio France, Les Siècles, Jakob Lehmann; BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall
Reviewed 30 August 2026

A welcome visit from Les Siècles allows us the luxury of a period instrument performance of Berlioz's quirky masterpiece, with Jakob Lehmann and his players holding us spellbound with the orchestral detail

The French period instrument orchestra Les Siècles has gone through some significant changes in the last couple of years. Founded by François-Xavier Roth in 2003, the orchestra found itself in a similar position to the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras when their relations with their founder soured. Allegations of inappropriate behaviour on Roth's part led to his stepping down from Les Siècles last year and the orchestra introducing a new management structure. In June this year (2026), Italian conductor Antonello Manacorda was announced as their new artistic director and conductor. Manacorda won't be working with the orchestra again until December 2026, but in the intervening period a range of conductors have been stepping up to the podium, including Jakob Lehman who directed Beethoven and Dvorak with them last month.

Last autumn, Les Siècles and Jakob Lehmann [see my 2025 interview with him] presented Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris in a staging by Silvia Costa. Rather luxuriously, the orchestra brought the whole performance to the BBC Proms on 30 August 2026. At the Royal Albert Hall there was no staging and a new group of soloists: John Osborn as Faust, Véronique Gens as Marguerite and Gerald Finley as Méphistophélès, but we still had the Chœur de Radio France and Maîtrise de Radio France along with a very large orchestra (though 'only' four harps rather than the eight to ten that Berlioz asks for!)

Berlioz never did get the great Parisian theatrical success that his talent and temperament seemed to deserve, probably because Berlioz's distinctive genius led him to run on different lines. None of his theatrical works quite fits the norm and La damnation de Faust is a case in point. Originally written as Eight Scenes from Faust in 1829, Berlioz decided to rework the material and in 1845 created his légende dramatique as he called it. Berlioz did not envisage the work being staged, it was a concert piece which of course meant that his imagination could run free. The first performance at the Opéra-Comique was not a success, and it was only following the first successful complete performance in concert in Paris, in 1877 that the work took off.

Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust - John Osborn, Jakob Lehmann, Les Siècles - BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/Mark Allan)

The complete work was only heard at the Proms in 1962, when Colin Davis conducted the London Symphony Orchestra. Prior to that, the work had been reduced to orchestral excerpts - the Hungarian March, the Dance of the Sylphs etc. The performance this year brings the total to eight full Proms performances (including one conducted by Mark Elder in 1985 which featured me in the chorus, and that one did have a ridiculous number of harps!).

A chance to hear La damnation de Faust on instruments of the period was not to be sniffed at, despite the Royal Albert Hall not being quite ideal. Certainly, the orchestra and choirs filled the stage and for much of the work it was the orchestral detail that held us spellbound. The noisy moments, from the Hungarian March through to the spine-tingling evocation of Hell at the end, were brilliantly done and always vivid. But Lehmann seemed to relish the ability of the orchestra to be quiet, to produce a web of sound. The Dance of the Sylphs was one such moment, where the ravishing orchestral textures made you forget that the movement feels dramatically redundant! There were strong solos too, notably the viola in 'Autrefois, un roi de Thulé' and the cor anglais in 'D'amour l'ardente flamme'. In fact, there was so much orchestral detail that Lehmann and his players held you spellbound.

Dramatically, however, we were on more uneven ground and I rather regretted that we were not hearing the soloists who had put together a dramatic staging last autumn. As Faust, John Osborn sang with heroic and tireless tone, producing long, admirable lines. For the opening scenes, however, (that is until Méphistophélès first appearance), Osborn never quite managed the necessary focused intensity. Allied to Lehmann's attention to detail this meant that the large-scale structure and philosophical underpinning of the work did not quite come over. Osborn was stronger in the more conventionally operatic scenes, and he developed a nice rapport with Gerard Finley's Méphistophélès. In Part Three, Berlioz seems almost determined to not write a love scene, but Osborn and Véronique Gens managed to set the stage alight briefly. In Part Four, Osborn felt too careful in 'Nature immense, impénétrable et fière', but responded vividly to his transportation to hell. Overall, this was a slightly disappointing account of the title role, one that was musically careful and did not bring out Faust's underlying mal d'isolement (and credit to the Proms for commissioning David Cairns' superb article in the programme book laying out in wonderful detail the magic of this work).

Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust - Gerald Finley, Jakob Lehmann, Les Siècles - BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/Mark Allan)

Gerard Finley was clearly having a great time as Méphistophélès, and it is indeed a gift of a role. His theatricality was carefully modulated, we never veered towards the pantomime. But from his first entrance, Finley's attention to text and dramaturgy kept us on our toes. Finley did his set pieces with a nice twinkle in his eye, so that 'Song of the Flea' was vivid, despite the song's inconsequentiality. And his summoning of the will o' the wisps and his serenade in Part Three were just the right side of sarcasm. In Part Four, Finley was more chilling and successfully anchored the drama. All in all, a vivid performance and one that even managed to convey across the wide open spaces of the hall.

As Marguerite, Véronique Gens was a magical piece of casting. She sang with lovely velvety tone and her flexible phrasing had a subtle rubato to it (not for nothing is Gens known for her espousal of 17th century French opera). That said, perhaps the performance was a bit too subtle for the Royal Albert Hall, and there were moments, in her second aria for instance, when I wanted a bit more edge and fire. Overall, she brought a tremulous quality to the music which highlighted Marguerite's youthful naivety. 'D'amour l'ardente flamme' was subtly melancholic rather than being a romantic operatic hymn.

Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust - Véronique Gens, Jakob Lehmann, Les Siècles - BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/Mark Allan)

Thomas Dolié made the most of his small role as Brander, singing the song of the rat with suitable relish. The chorus was on strong form and made each of their moments into something vivid and characteristic. It was lovely hearing the French text sung with the right amount of French precision. The choral writing in the work is full of little moments and awkward details, all of which were brought off with elan with the singers making themselves part of the ensemble. The men in the scene in Hell were suitably strong, whilst the children added an aetherial element to the final scene (complete with the magical sound of the four Erard period harps).

Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust - Jakob Lehmann, Les Siècles - BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/Mark Allan)

The performance is on BBC Sounds for 42 days.

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Elsewhere on this blog

Drawing you into the drama: David McVicar's production of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail returns to Glyndebourne - opera review
BBC Proms: Intriguing connections in Anja Bihlmaier & BBC Philharmonic's Prom including Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde - concert review
BBC Proms: Stripped back drama & strong musical values in Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos from Glyndebourne Opera - opera review
Fiordiligi to the fore: Korean soprano Soyeon Shin shines in Scherzo Ensemble's trimmed yet still full-fat performance of Cosi fan tutte - review
BBC Proms: Thrilling moments, terrific theatre, intimacy & transcendence as Sir Antonio Pappano conducts Berlioz's Requiem - concert review
Salzburg Festival:

Il viaggio a Reims, Cosi fan tutte, Ariadne auf Naxos, Carmen, & Messiaen's St Francis of Assisi - reviews

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Drawn to stories that intersect the political & cultural worlds: Anthony Davis's opera The Central Park Five released on disc by Long Beach Opera

2026-08-29T10:49:42.593+01:00

Anthony Davis: The Central Park Five - Long Beach Opera 2022 (Photo: JJ Geiger)

I first came across the case of the Central Park Five when I read Joan Didion's essay Sentimental Journeys first published in the New York Review of Books in 1991 and collected in her book After Henry. In the essay she considers the case of the Central Park jogger from 1989 to examine the way the city's sentimentality for the narratives it tells about itself, whether they are true or not. No-one reading the essay could have doubted that those indicted for the crime, the Central Park Five, were innocent. Though it took time for justice to truly be served.

It might seem a strange subject for an opera, but then operas have been long fascinated with the excesses of human emotion and frailty. The Central Park Five by composer Anthony Davis and librettist Richard Wesley premiered at Long Beach Opera (LBO) in 2019 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2020. And the work was released by LBO this week on Platoon.

LBO is Southern California's oldest opera company, founded in 1979. Under artistic director James Darrah Black and music director Christopher Rountree, LBO creates immersive work that blends film, dance, new music and more.

The assault and rape of a woman who was jogging in Central Park took place in 1989 and five teenagers were sentenced. It would only be in 2002 that another perpetrator entirely, a serial rapist, confessed to the assault and said he was the only actor, with DNA evidence confirming his confession.

Composer Anthony Davis explains what drew him to the drama:

"1989. A group of predominantly Black and Hispanic teenagers enter Central Park in New York City. They turnover garbage cans, throw rocks, harass people on bicycles. A young woman is sexually assaulted in the Park and six teenagers are detained and questioned about the assault. Five of the teenagers, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, Yusef Salaam and Antron McCray become the center of a criminal case that would polarize New York City. The Exonerated Five were falsely accused and convicted of the crime with no physical evidence. Condemned publicly by the press, the Exonerated Five were victims in a culture war waged against Black and Hispanic communities. A politically ambitious real estate mogul condemns the teenagers with a full page add, proclaiming “Bring Back the Death Penalty. Bring Back Our Police!” The persecution of the Central Park Five marks the beginning of Donald Trump’s political career, built on racial animus and the exploitation of the deep rooted racial divide in America."

As a composer, Davis seems to be drawn to stories that intersect the political and cultural worlds. His operas explore political moments and movements that are reflected in the dynamic of music. X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, premiered by New York City Opera in 1986, is based on the life of the civil rights leader Malcolm X. A new production starring Davóne Tines premiered at Detroit Opera in 2022 and was performed at New York's Metropolitan Opera in 2023 and Seattle Opera in 2024. Amistad, premiered by Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1997, is about a case of an 1839 slave mutiny on a Spanish ship that reached the US Supreme Court, which ruled in favour of freeing them. The Chicago performance was released on disc by New World Records. Davis revised the work in 2008 creating a leaner version which was premiered at the Spoleto Festival USA. Wakonda’s Dream premiered by Opera Omaha in 2007. The opera is about a contemporary Native American family, affected by the historical events and court case of 1879 in Nebraska, in which American Indians were recognized as “human beings under the law” for the first time in U.S. history.

The Central Park Five traces the five protagonists' arrests, coerced confessions and unjust trials against a backdrop of racial prejudice – weaving an intimate, nuanced and deeply human portrait of justice and perseverance. Musically, Davis draws on jazz, contemporary classical, R&B, and hip-hop to underscore the drama and create a portrait of Black American music that stretches across time and genre.

Davis was born in New Jersey and studied at Yale. He has received acclaim as a free-jazz pianist, a co-leader with various ensembles. His music incorporates several styles including jazz, rhythm 'n' blues, gospel, non-Western, and African, as well as European classical and Indonesian gamelan. He is professor of music at the University of California, San Diego.

Davis's interest in The Central Park Five began with his and Wesley's opera Five, premiered by Trilogy: An Opera Company in New Jersey in 2016 [see YouTube]. In 2019, Long Beach Opera commissions The Central Park Five which develops out of Five and the opera is premiered by LBO, with Davis winning the Pulitzer Prize the following year. In March 2022 Portland Opera presents The Central Park Five, then LBO returned to the work in June 2022 with a new production. Following this, cast and conductor are brought into the studio to create the recording which is issued by Platoon. In March 2025, Detroit Opera presented Davis's expanded orchestration of The Central Park Five.

LBO's recording of The Central Park Five features Cedric Berry (Yusef Salaam), William Powell III (Antron McCray), Bernard Holcomb (Kevin Richardson), Orson Van Gay II (Raymond Santana), Ashley Faatoalia (Korey Wise), Justin Ryan (The Masque), Lacey Jo Benter (District Attorney), Todd Strange (Donald Trump), Joelle Lamarre (Ensemble / “Antron's Mother” / “Kevin's Mother” / Others), Lindsay Patterson Abdou (Sharonne Salaam / Others), Corey Estelle (Ensemble), José Luis Maldonado (Ensemble / Raymond's Father / Matias Reyes), conducted by Anthony Parnther.

Further information about The Central Park Five recording from LBO's website. [streaming links]

The power of music: Christopher Glynn, Rowan Pierce & Julia White in concert in aid of Music in Hospitals & Care

2026-08-28T08:04:05.047+01:00

St James Garlickhythe Church

On Thursday 24 September at St James Garlickhythe Church in central London, pianist Christopher Glynn will perform and host an evening of live music in support of the charity Music in Hospitals & Care, being joined by soprano Rowan Pierce and oboist Julia White.

Music in Hospitals & Care is a charity that improves the health and wellbeing of children and adults through the healing power of live music, and funds raised from the event will help the charity continue reaching people in hospitals, care homes and community spaces across the UK, where live music can make a meaningful difference.

The programme brings together classical works and film music, with Purcell's Music for a while alongside Schubert’s An die Musik, Howells’ King David, Morricone’s Gabriel’s Oboe from The Mission, and music from The Sound of Music and Amélie.

Christopher Glynn explains: “The programme is a celebration of music in its many different roles, moving between songs and melodies in which it is praised, imagined, remembered and shared. We begin and end with ‘Music, for a while, shall all your cares beguile’. The opening line of one of Purcell’s most famous songs gives this programme its starting point: the idea that music can console, delight, stir memories, lift spirits and bring people together.”

Music in Hospitals & Care believes live music needs to be part of everyone’s health and social care. Why? Because research shows that live music heals. It helps people feel relaxed and confident, and can relieve frustration, stress and isolation. Music can also reduce the perception of pain. It brings back memories and helps create new ones. When you move your body to music – even just tapping a finger – it’s natural physiotherapy.

Further details and tickets from their website.

The first ever turbaned Sikh conductor? Jashandeep Reehal & Holland Park Sinfonia in Rachmaninoff

2026-08-28T07:45:42.958+01:00

The Adagio from Rachmaninoff's Symphony no. 2 performed by the Holland Park Sinfonia and conductor Jashandeep Reehal.

Jashandeep Reehal, Holland Park Sinfonia
19 June 2026 (Photo: Marc Tunguz)

Jashandeep Reehal is a self-taught musician from Punjab, India who moved to London three to four years ago. He never studied music and taught himself how to play guitar, piano, compose and arrange. Growing up in a small town in India, classical music was never something that existed and as a culture, Sikh people never ever ventured into that world, and he speculates that he is most probably the first ever turbaned Sikh conductor.

After moving to London, Jashandeep went to see an orchestra performing for the first time, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Vasily Petrenko in February 2024. He decided he wanted to be a conductor. With absolutely no knowledge, skill, or network, he managed to convince an amateur orchestra last year to let him do a concert, performing Nielsen's Helios Overture, and he went on to conduct two more concerts with them.

Needing to find a way to stay in the UK to study conducting (his visa runs out next year, and he needs to apply for the Global Talent visa), Jashandeep decided to take risks and started his own orchestra—the Holland Park Sinfonia.

Their first concert was in February 2026, performing Korngold's suite from Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Warsaw Concerto, Casablanca suite, and more. They returned for their second concert on 19 June 2026 with a programme including Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2 and Barber's Violin Concerto with soloist Charlie Lovell-Jones.

Read more about Jashandeep and the orchestra on their website.

I don’t think though that I have ever let go of words & thoughts: mezzo-soprano Camilla Seale on her role in Vache Baroque's modern recreation of the 17th century semi-opera The Tempest

2026-08-27T07:57:43.799+01:00

As part of Vache Baroque's 2026 summer opera festival they are performing a version of Shakespeare's The Tempest based on the 1674 show produced by Thomas Betterton, what has become known as a semi-opera but which in the 17th century was referred to as a dramatick opera. Singers Stephanie Hershaw, Isabelle Peters, Camilla Seale, Conor Prendiville and Ross Cumming will be joining forces with actors from Out of Chaos, directed by Paul O'Mahoney with Jonathan Darbourne directing the Vache Baroque Band.

Dorset Garden Theatre depicted in 1673
where The Tempest was presented in 1674

Much of the music included in Vache Baroque's production was originally composed by Henry Purcell, Matthew Locke, Pelham Humfrey, and others for the 1674 version of The Tempest. To this has been added works by other European composers of the period as well as shanties, improvisations, and a full masque by Purcell.

In this article we chat to mezzo-soprano Camilla Seale who will be playing Stephano in the production.

You are currently rehearsing for Vache Baroque’s new production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest as a semi-opera which opens at the Vache on Saturday 29 August and runs to 6 September. This hybrid version of Shakespeare’s play has seen you collaborate with Paul O’Mahony’s theatre company. How have you found working with Paul and the actors from Out of Chaos? What are the synergies and tensions in the difference of approach between the actors and the singers, and what effect do you feel this has had on the rehearsal process?

It’s such a pleasure to be in a room with open, curious performers from different creative backgrounds - from the actors, to the band, to the singers. I can’t really say that any one person is only really of one discipline, and that’s how it should be. The actors bring so much intelligence and authenticity, and I think the music brings them a different kind of emotional input that has definitely provided some surprises in rehearsal.

In your role as Stephano in this semi-opera, do music and words have equal prominence? How are they melded together so that music and words intermingle seamlessly?

Yes, the role definitely feels like it’s 50:50. Even within the (musical) masque, Purcell as a composer has a very text-led musical imagination, so even for the instrumentalists, they are speaking and dancing rather than just playing beautiful musical lines. I don’t think though, even when singing pure opera, that I have ever let go of words and thoughts. Specifically in The Tempest, music has a clear role as magic on the island, so it fits like a glove here.

What do you want audiences to take away from this production and the experience of watching The Tempest by the lake on a summer night?

Shakespeare loves a metatheatrical reference; Prospero tells Ferdinand ‘Be cheerful, sir. Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air […] And - like the baseless fabric of this vision […] shall dissolve’. Everything that we conjure together, players and audience, on Prospero’s island is created inside a bed of nature in the Vache grounds. The way the stage is constructed allows the audience to see across the lake and the surrounding trees through the back of the stage, as characters stumble through the island trying to find their way, with the second half gorgeously lit in the tent as the sun sets. It’s Shakespeare’s last play - he was thinking a lot about legacy and what we leave behind. And I think he was concerned with what it means to be mortal, and where joy can be found, and I hope that the audience catch something of that when they come to see the play.

Last year you performed with Barokksolistene singing the role of Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at Longborough Opera Festival. This was a production complete with audience participation in true Barokksolistene form. How does baroque repertoire allow more flexibility to experiment and create more innovative productions?

Something that Barokksolistene do so well is traverse between baroque and folk music, and both forms by their nature are meant to be shared within communities - whether through communal singing or dancing. Baroque music at its core comes from dance, which is a shared activity, expressively and socially. Personally when I go to see baroque concerts, I enjoy the grooviness in a way I don’t quite experience with later periods of classical music. And maybe other people are experiencing the same thing.

As part of the New Renaissance Collective, you co-created and performed in productions including an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Venus & Adonis. How did that prepare you for this production at The Vache?

I think the time I spent with friends in research and development with New Renaissance Collective and putting on the shows allowed all of us to fearlessly and idiotically explore and create theatre in a way that I’ve surely held on to in every creative environment I’ve been in since. I can remember laughing so hard in some workshops that it hurt. I’ll be forever grateful for those experiences and friendships and perhaps both the empowerment and fearlessness it - and those people - inspired in me.

Purcell: Dido and Aeneas - Camilla Seale as Dido with Barokksolistene at Longborough Festival Opera, 2025

Vache Baroque's production of The Tempest opens at The Vache, Chalfont St Giles, on 29 August with further performances on 30 August, 5 and 6 September 2026. Full details from Vache Baroque's website.

Beautiful music, beautiful places - Lammermuir Festival 2026

2026-08-27T07:51:03.498+01:00

The Lammermuir Festival returns for 13 days of intimate and ambitious music-making in East Lothian from 8 to 20 September. It continues to be a festival shaped by place and by long-standing relationships, and builds its reputation through thoughtful programming, deep artistic relationships and a setting in which music feels inseparable from place.

Royal Northern Sinfonia return to the festival, providing a significant thread. Dinis Sousa and the Royal Northern Sinfonia are bringing their first concert performance of a Mozart opera, Così fan tutte to Lammermuir with soloists Christina Gansch, Alexandra Oomens, Jonas Hacker and Cody Quattlebaum as the lovers, plus Rebecca Evans and Neal Davies. Pianist Jeremy Denk also joins Royal Northern Sinfonia, directed by Maria Włoszczowska for a three concert series of Mozart piano concertos exploring the full range of the composer's output with concertos nos. 9, 14, 17, 20, 24, and 25 alongside music by Janacek, Stravinsky and Britten. The concert series also highlights Denk's strong relationship with the festival.

Scottish Opera also have an ongoing relationship with the festival and this year, Douglas Boyd and the Orchestra of Scottish Opera are joined by sopranos Charlotte Kennedy and Charlotte Clapperton, and mezzo-soprano Avery Lafrentz for three of Britten's works for solo voice, Les Illuminations, Our Hunting Fathers and Phaedra.

On a smaller scale but no less dramatic, tenor Nicky Spence and mezzo-soprano Victoria Simmonds are joined by Jeremy Denk for Janacek's Diary of One who Disappeared. Denk also joins forces with tenor Nicholas Mulroy for Schubert's Winterreise.

Another exciting thread in the festival is the residency from Concerto Copenhagen with sequence of programmes exploring Haydn’s symphonic world, including the vivid triptych of the ‘Morning, Noon and Night’ symphonies.

Pianist Javier Perianes makes his festival debut with a Chopin recital and then directs the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in Ravel, Haydn and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3. Violist Timothy Ridout makes a welcome return to the festival for a programme centred on Brahms's Viola Sonata No. 2 and Bloch's Suite for Viola. Other visitors include Scottish-Indian guitarist Samrat Majumder and the Fibonacci Quartet.

Lucy Crowe sings Strauss's Four Last Songs, soprano Ailish Tynan joins the Hebrides Ensemble for music by Judith Weir, Thea Musgrave, Helen Grime, and Stuart MacRae, soprano Claire Booth and violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen perform Kurtág’s intense Kafka Fragments, Matthew Brook joins Dunedin Consort for solo cantatas by Buxtehude and Bach.

Choral contributions include Tenebrae, The Marian Consort, and The Binchois Consort, whilst the female voices of National Youth Choir of Scotland’s Chamber Choir join Scottish Ensemble in a programme which includes David Fennessy’s Blood, based on a vocal melody by Hildegard of Bingen.

Full details from the Lammermuir Festival website.

Charpentier's tragédie en musique David et Jonathas, staged in London & the South for the first time by New Sussex Opera

2026-08-26T12:24:57.708+01:00

New Sussex Opera's (NSO) 2026 autumn touring production will be Charpentier's tragédie en musique David et Jonathas. In five acts and a prologue, the work was written in 1688 for the Jesuits at the Collège Louis-le-Grand, Paris. This dark jewel of the French Baroque opera with its achingly beautiful score will be staged in London and the South for the first time, performed in a new English translation by Christopher Cowell.

NSO will collaborate for the second time with the period-instrument Bellot Ensemble, the New Generation Baroque Ensemble for 2025-27, a scheme run jointly by BBC Radio 3, the RCM and the National Centre for Early Music. This follows their celebrated production of Lampe's The Dragon of Wantley in 2024 [see my review]. The production reunites the creative team responsible for NSO’s acclaimed staging of The Dragon of Wantley and The Silver Bell in 2025, director Paul Higgins, designer Mollie Cheek, choreographer Namiko Gahier-Ogawa, and dramaturg Benjamin Poore.

A cast of promising singers with burgeoning careers stars includes tenor Harun Ellis Tekin and countertenor Tom Lilburn in the title roles, with baritone Massimo Modoni as Saul, bass Daniel Chomiak as Achis and Samuel and Ukrainian mezzo Nadiia Chaichenko as the Witch. The principals will be supported by the New Sussex Opera Chorus, who remain at the heart of the company's work.

Dance and movement, which play an essential role in French Baroque opera of this kind, are choreographed by Namiko Gahier-Ogawa, who will also appear onstage. As a celebration of the ingenuity and spectacle of Baroque stagecraft, the opera will be punctuated by dramatic use of stage percussion.

The tour sees the launch of the Chalk Cliff Trust NSO Emerging Artists programme, and is supported by funding from the Laidlaw Opera Trust. NSO's Emerging Artists will play the many smaller named roles in David and Jonathan, and support the singing of the chorus elsewhere in the opera; this professional development programme will also include one-to-one coaching with NSO's Music Director and Director. This programme is an exciting further step for NSO in its longstanding aim of supporting artists at the start of their careers and of acting as a bridge between the world of community-run opera and the professional one.

The production opens at the Windmill Theatre Hove on October 11 and tours to Holy Trinity, Cuckfield, The Devonshire Park Theatre Eastbourne, and The Theatre Royal Winchester. The performance at Cadogan Hall on 20 October is preceded by a pre-concert talk from the creative team with broadcaster Donald Macleod.

Full details from the New Sussex Opera website.

Drawing you into the drama: David McVicar's production of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail returns to Glyndebourne

2026-08-26T10:56:10.758+01:00

Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail - Franck Saurel, Liv Redpath - Glyndebourne (Photo: Bill Knight)

Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail; Liv Redpath, Anthony León, Michael Mofidian, Julie Roset, Thomas Cilluffo, Franck Saurel, director: David McVicar, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conductor: Evan Rogister; Glyndebourne Opera
Reviewed 25 August 2026

The surprising thing about Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail is the way productions of the work seem to adhere more or less to original period setting. This applies to Stephen Medcalf's 2019 production of English Touring Opera [see my review], John Copley's 2018 account for the Grange Festival [see my review] or Elijah Moshinsky's production with its Sidney Nolan designs at Covent Garden which was last seen in 2001, right back to David Pountney's 1978 production for Scottish Opera which introduced me to the work.

The work's politics are complex and whilst aspects of the story chime with the modern world, producers seem to find the period setting allows the best exposition of the issues, which is fascinating considering the fondness for putting other Mozart operas into modern dress.

So, it is no surprise to find that David McVicar's 2015 production of Die Entführung aus dem Serail for Glyndebourne to be gloriously picturesque. We caught the 25 August performance of this summer's revival of the production (assistant director Greg Eldridge). Evan Rogister conducted the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with Anthony León as Belmonte, Michael Mofidian as Osmin, Thomas Cilluffo as Pedrillo, Franck Saurel as Pasha Selim, Liv Redpath as Konstanze and Julie Roset as Blonde.

Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail - Michael Mofidian, Julie Roset - Glyndebourne (Photo: Bill Knight)

What distinguishes the production, perhaps, is the sheer picturesque beauty of Vicki Mortimer's sets and costumes. Though, as a 2015 interview with her in the programme explains, these do have a purpose as the production presents Pasha Selim's household, with its harem, as a genuine alternative. Konstanze's dilemma is real. We see Selim's wives and his children, including his own warm relationship to the children. Mortimer's set, made up of myriad screens and walls, successfully allows the setting to move swiftly and provides lots of opportunities for eavesdropping and overlooking.

The work was presented with a pretty full account of the spoken dialogue. No dialogue editor was credited, but it was clear that adjustments had been made and that much work had been done with the singers. The result was a coherent and compelling musical drama. In this work, Mozart does not yet get to project the plot via the music, and much of the dramatic impetus remains in the dialogue. Though there are moments, such as the opening when the opening scene for Belmonte and Osmin moves easily from aria to duet. One fascinating aspect of the work is the way that Osmin, in that opening scene, and Konstanze in Act Two both get pairs of arias.

Despite being ostensibly a comedy, the production takes the work seriously as drama and reveals multiple layers of complexity in the drama. Though there were moments, such as the drinking scene in Act Two, when the production seemed to get a bit carried away with itself.

Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail - Pasha Selim (Franck Saurel), Children and Actors (Sirena Tocco and Darryl Mundoma) - Glyndebourne (Photo: Bill Knight)

From the opening notes of the overture, it was clear that conductor Evan Rogister pulled no punches. This was vital music, the detail crisp, the accents punched out, and the Turkish elements relished but not over done. Throughout the evening, we were able to enjoy not just the fine solo elements from the orchestra, but the way different timbres and textures were brought out. And this is a work which does push boundaries, even to having basset horns.

In theory the opera presents us with two pairs of contrasting protagonists. The aristocratic Konstanze (Liv Redpath) and Belmonte (Anthony León) and the more humble servants, Blonde (Julie Roset) and Pedrillo (Thomas Cilluffo). Though being a Viennese opera there is little that is subservient in these servants. But the cleverness of the libretto is that these pairings don't happen properly until the end of Act Two (which is a quartet more about the men's mistrust of what the women have been doing). Instead, we are offered two alternative pairings, Konstanze and Pasha Selim (Franck Saurel), and Blonde and Osmin (Michael Mofidian). Neither ultimately works but in presenting these, Mozart and his librettist Johann Gottlieb Stephanie are able to examine conception of what freedom actually means even though Blonde and Osmin's main scene at the beginning of Act Two is played almost entirely for comic effect.

The production emphasises this in various ways. Presenting Pasha Selim as having a rich and satisfying family life, making Konstanze's doubts continue until her very departure, and by casting with voices which are almost balanced. The leads could just about swap roles without too much violence to the music, rather than Konstanze and Belmonte having the more dramatic voices.

Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail - Pedrillo (Thomas Cilluffo) and Belmonte (Anthony León) - Glyndebourne (Photo: Bill Knight)

Liv Redpath made a stylish and sympathetic Konstanze, clearly taxed by her dilemma and attracted to Franck Saurel's hunky Pasha despite herself. Redpath brought a lovely cleanness and accuracy to Konstanze's three taxing arias. She could spin a superb line, yet articulated the coloratura finely making it a constant pleasure to listen to. As Belmonte, Anthony León was charmingly over-active and excitable which was a nice way of making the character's mooning into something more engaging. León could also spin a lovely line and in each aria his winning way with the music was beautifully sympathetic. However, with both singers there came a moment when I really wanted something more. For Konstanze's final aria, 'Martern aller Arten' I would have liked a bit more dramatic meat to the tone to make the coloratura into something less decorative, and similarly with Belmonte's Act Three aria, 'Ich baue ganz auf deine Stärke' I wanted a little more drama.

As Pasha Selim, Franck Saurel (who played the role in the original production in 2015) made a believable anti-hero, a convincing alternative to Belmonte. Saurel looked and sounded tempting, but when agitated Saurel had a tendency to over do things which made the character a bit shoutier than desirable. Yet, all the wooing between Selim and Konstanze was done in speech and gesture, and the two performers brought this out brilliantly.

Julie Roset was a pert and charming Blonde, demure when it came to her mistress Konstanze and the Pasha, but giving as good as she got with everyone else. Roset brought and engaging charm to the music and great style, making you wish Mozart had created more developed music for her. Her Pedrillo was Thomas Cilluffo, who brought great physicality to the role. He managed to combine dramatic heft with wry charm. There was strength in his musical performance, but he made sure this Pedrillo was wryly manipulating when it came to his master. As for Roset's Blonde, their relationship was engagingly physical with Roset leaping up onto him.

Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail - Blonde (Julie Roset), Pedrillo (Thomas Cilluffo), Belmonte (Anthony León), Pasha Selim (Franck Saurel), Osmin (Michael Mofidian) and actors (Jake Barton, Jamie Campbell and Samuel Morgan-Freeman) - Glyndebourne (Photo: Bill Knight)

Michael Mofidian made a fierce, highly dramatic Osmin. In the opening scene he was wonderfully bad-tempered with a real sense of attitude. Mofidian made the music vividly reflect this giving Osmin a real edge. Whether singing or speaking Mofidian allied voice and gesture, this Osmin was all sharp edges and vibrant intolerance for other attitudes. There was nothing funny per se, the comedy came from the situation rather than making fun of Osmin. In Act Two, Mofidian made Osmin's fierce attitude contrast with Julie Roset's vibrant liveliness (and both were physically active) so that their scene together was comic because of the contrast.

What this production emphasised was that in the alternative love pairings I mentioned above, the Pasha learned and showed his love by freeing his beloved (Konstanze). But his Osmin was unable to learn and could not imagine wooing 'his' Blonde. It is to Mofidian's great credit that when he put down his sword and stalked off at the very end, the gesture had a comic aspect to it but we were also profoundly sorry for Osmin.

The chorus don't really get a lot to do, but McVicar's production kept the stage busy for much of the time with adult chorus and children having plenty to do. Chorus member Marcus Swietlicki played the small, spoken role of Klaas, the sea captain engaged by Belmonte, whilst Rian Wunderlin was physically impressive and expressive in the silent role of the harem eunuch.

Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail - Pasha Selim (Franck Saurel) and children - Glyndebourne (Photo: Bill Knight)

This was one of those performance which drew you into the drama whether it be orchestral music, singing or spoken word. The joy of this production was that it welded all three into a whole in a way that does not happen too frequently. And there was a lightness of touch which was wrapped around the serious issues that the piece contemplated. On paper, the work can sometimes seem rather schematic but McVicar's approach here was far more nuance.

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Charpentier's tragédie en musique David et Jonathas, staged in London & the South for the first time by New Sussex Opera

Drawing you into the drama: David McVicar's production of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail returns to Glyndebourne

"For a married woman with children, to become a first class scientist she must first of all choose, the right husband"
Dame Kathleen Lonsdale