Prima la musica

Peter at the Proms

I shall leave most of the raving and effusing to the slightly more objective press, but it has to be said that the Peter Grimes Prom on Friday was, well, huge. In every way. The semi staging (by Donna Stirrup, based on David Alden's 2009 ENO production) was incredibly effective, as were the black and white costumes (trivia: Peter Grimes supplied his own jersey) and the carefully selected props. If anything the action was intensified by the restrictions of a concert performance, and what movement there was stood out even more boldly. (More trivia: Grimes's dive after the rope was wholly spontaneous, and probably caused minor cardiac arrest in an occupational health and safety warden somewhere.) 

The dream cast did their sensational thing. I'd seen a lot of them in Oviedo earlier this year and all– Leigh Melrose, Gillian Ramm, Michael Colvin, Rebecca de Pont Davies, Darren Jeffery – remained in fabulous form. Those I'd not seen were uniformly excellent. I want to make particularly special mention of three of them: Amanda Roocroft, for breaking my little heart; Felicity Palmer for the curdled hilarity (and still powerful voice) of her Mrs Sedley; and most of all Iain Paterson, whose role début as Balstrode found him in ridiculously good voice. He was a wonderful Amfortas at the ENO last year, but he's somehow even better now, and it made my week to hear him blitz this great role so completely. But you know, it's such an ensemble piece that I need to namecheck everyone. Mairead Buicke, Mark Richardson, Stuart Kale, the amazing ENO chorus and orchestra, and to the man in charge of them all, the masterful Ed Gardner. Massive kudos to all of you.

As for Grimes himself, what can I say? The comments I made before I'd even met the man are partisan enough; now that I've lost all objectivity and used up most of my adjectives, all I'll say is that he's a wonder in this role. How he does it, I still don't know; you could meet him backstage half an hour beforehand and still not quite see the hurricane coming. For the gory (glorious) detail, see the review links below. As for me, I was bursting with pride.

And then this happened...

 

It was even louder in person of course, especially when the folks in the arena started stomping. If you were there on Friday, or in London or Sydney in 2009, then I know you'll understand the response. 

Now, some reviews. They're all raves.

Tim Ashley in The Guardian 
Melanie Eskenazi for MusicOMH 
Edward Seckerson 
Robert Beattie for Seen and Heard International 
Julia Savage for Bachtrack 
Daily Mail (not many words but some wonderful images) 
Simon Thomas for What's On Stage 
Mark Valencia for Classical Source
And possibly my favourite, Dominic Wells for Opera Britannia 

A few blog posts, too: Mark Ronan; Recitative; Harriet Cunningham (who came to the sitzprobe); and from the ENO's own blog, a great round-up of all the action on Twitter, before, during and after.

This wasn't my first Prom, but it was only my second, and it was certainly my first introduction to the full Proms experience: I took my increasingly famous pig down to the arena queue, and met for the first time a lot of people I'd previously known only via Twitter. It seemed like everybody was there: it actually took until the night before the show to find a home for the spare ticket I had, because everyone I could think to take was already going. The pig went and prommed in the arena, even meeting Henry Wood himself, and I sat up in the stalls being awestruck. Peter Grimes is possibly my favourite opera of all and I couldn't have asked for better circumstances in which to hear it. 

The BBC radio broadcast of the concert is still available online until the end of the month. If your heart's up to it, have a listen. 

A few thoughts on OA 2013

Dull as it may be, perhaps I should start with a sort of disclaimer. For the first time, I'm attempting to write honestly about an Opera Australia season which includes my own Significant Other, and as ever, I'm cautious – probably excessively so – about what I should or shouldn't say. I don't want to come across like a Pollyanna or a mouthpiece, but nor do I think it would be right for me to whinge and moan, even if I wanted to do. It's a weird balance to strike, and I fear I still haven't entirely figured it out, which frankly is one of the reasons why I don't blog as much as I used to. I'm trying to think of ways to fix this; in the meantime, just let me say outright that the opinions I express here are still mine and mine alone. Informed, no doubt, by a certain personal bias; but then that's hardly new.

Anyway. Opera Australia have announced their 2013 season, and while it's not a bad one, all in all, I can't help wishing – in a masochistic sort of way – that the company were doing even more to make me seethe with jealousy. It might break my heart to miss a new production of Les Dialogues des Carmélites, or a Lorina Gore Zerbinetta, or a six-opera Britten Festival, but it would also make me glad that my adopted home opera company was busy being so exciting. None of those are happening, alas; at least, not in 2013. It's a season very heavy with Italian opera – particularly Verdi, who, like Wagner, celebrates his bicentenary next year – and mostly free from oddities, rarities and modernities. 

None of which is intended to condemn. Opera is still opera, and spectacularly subjective, and let's face it: if I were living in Sydney next year, I'd probably still go and see pretty much every show anyway, lack of heart palpitations notwithstanding. Maybe I'd give Bohème a miss, but that's not Opera Australia's fault. But I expect it's a season which will elicit widely disparate reactions among subscribers and regular attendees, because it's an all or nothing season in a way: if you love grand Italian opera and managed to nab Ring tickets, then 2013 will be heaven. If you don't, and didn't, then the pickings are a little slim. 

Repertoire aside, what strikes me about this season is the names on (and off) the roster. The core of regular singers (whether ensemble members or, as I believe many have recently become, freelance artists) has changed over the last few years. Some singers are getting more work than ever with OA, some markedly less, and a few names seem surprisingly to have disappeared altogether. I don't have much more insight than anyone else into the reasons for this; I just hope that those reasons are good ones. There will always be more singers in Australia than there is available work, but the company – and the country – have a proud tradition of fostering fantastic local talent, and I hope that even those whose names seem to have slipped off the radar for now have not been lost to us for good. 

I've just said that I don't want to be a Pollyanna, but now I'm going to contradict myself completely by playing a short round of the Glad Game. Maybe this isn't my Dream Season but there's still some fodder for envy. I'm devastated, for instance, to be missing the new production of Tosca with Cheryl Barker in the title role. Above anything else in 2013 line-up, that's the show I wish I could fly over for, and the return of John Wegner as Scarpia just makes it all the more tempting. If only Seattle were closer to Sydney. Also seriously appealing is Rachelle Durkin's star turn as Norina in Don Pasquale. Not an opera I'm wildly keen on – I always find it just a little too cruel – but Rachelle + bel canto + comedy = unmissable, in my book. And I have a feeling Warwick Fyfe's début as Falstaff could be one of the year's cleverest pieces of casting. The La Fura dels Baus production of Ballo in Maschera is also a very intriguing prospect, and certainly a canny move by OA in terms of its international standing. 

I won't, alas, be in the right city – or even the right country – to see any of the above. I will be in town for the Melbourne Ring, of course; but ticket sales have gone so incredibly well that the policy on complimentary tickets is tighter than ever: artists and their partners will receive tickets to the final dress rehearsal of each opera, but not to the shows themselves. Happily, some who knew about this policy in plenty of time were able to apply for full price tickets in the normal manner, but this didn't pan out for us. So I shall just have to get my Wagner fix in those dress rehearsals, and rely on vicarious thrills when it comes to the actual performances. Disappointing, I agree, but such is life; and it's hard to truly begrudge the Melbourne Ring for selling out.

There you have it, then. My take – or parts thereof – on a season in which I still feel strangely invested, despite the likelihood that I will see very little, if any, of its offerings. I still hope, for everyone's sake, that it's a well-attended and well-received season, and that it might set the company up for a 2014 season which really will turn me green, and maybe even require a few flights to and fro. I'd also very much like to hear from you – yes, you – about your feelings on this season: the highlights, the lowlights, the surprises both pleasant and un. Go on: make me jealous.