Tag Archives: britten

Turn of the Screw in Aldeburgh

Posted on by
Reply

The death last week of Dame Felicity Lott had me thinking about English singers of that generation who featured a lot in the first live opera and recordings that I experienced back in the 1970s. A bit of digging around led me to a 1993 recording of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw with Philip Langridge (who died in 2010) as Quint and Felicity Lott (not yet a Dame) as the Governess. It also, perhaps surprisingly, features American Wagnerian Nadine Secunde as Miss Jessel. Less surprisingly, it was recorded in Aldeburgh with Steuart Bedford conducting.

Continue reading →

In Terra Pax

Posted on by
Reply

The last Soundstreams concert of the season took place at the Jane Mallett Theatre on Saturday evening. In Terra Pax: Lamenting the losses of war was curated by Anna Pidgorna. While by no means only about the Russian invasion of Ukraine that was a strong thread running through the concert.

Continue reading →

Is it all? – UoT Opera’s The Rape of Lucretia

Posted on by
2

I have a very ambiguous relationship with Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia.  Britten’s music I love and there’s a pretty dramatic story (albeit nonsense historically) trying to escape from Ronald Duncan’s weird Christo-prophetic and somewhat overripe libretto.  Centaurs casting their seed among the stars?  Anyone?  So I was most interested to see what Anna Theodosakis would do with it in her production for UoT Opera currently playing at Harbourfront Centre.

Continue reading →

Britten from Monaco

Posted on by
Reply

The Orchestre Philharmonique de Monaco and their conductor Lawrence Foster recently recorded a collection of Britten works to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the composer’s death.  It’s a bit of an odd mix but it’s nicely done.  The first piece is The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.  This was composed for a commission by the British Ministry of Education to accompany an educational film for schools showcasing the various instruments of the orchestra.  I find it hard to imagine that happening now.  Anyway, it’s performed here, as it often is, without narration.  It’s quite a sprightly and satisfying performance. Continue reading →

Amidst the Shades

Posted on by
Reply

Amidst the Shades is a new album from British soprano Ruby Hughes accompanied by Jonas Nordberg on lute and archlute and Mime Yamahiro Brinkmann on viola da gamba.  It’s a very beautiful record starting, as one might expect, with a selection of English song from the 16th and 17th century plus some pieces for solo lute.  There are songs by John Dowland, including the well known Can She Excuse My Wrongs (possibly to a text by Robert Devereux; if so clear who “she” is).  Robert Johnson makes an appearance with three songs including two Shakespeare settings.  John Danyel also features along with instrumental music by Anthony Holborne and Tobias Hume. Continue reading →

Skelton as Grimes

Posted on by
3

Continuing the theme of all Grimes, all the time… The only commercially available recording of Britten’s Peter Grimes with Stuart Skelton in the title role is a Chandos SACD recorded in Bergen in 2019 with Edward Gardner conducting and it’s really good.  These two though had been captured on video in 2015 in a David Alden production at ENO.  That had formed part of the ENO Live series of cinema transmissions but it was rebroadcast in August last year on Sky Arts in the UK.  That version (at least my copy) is 720p video and AAC 2 channel 48kHz audio; so not quite Blu-ray standard but very tolerable.

Continue reading →

Langridge’s Grimes revisited

Posted on by
Reply

Almost fourteen years ago I reviewed the DVD of the 1994 ENO production of Britten’s Peter Grimes.  The DVD was so bad technically that it was quite hard to decide much about the merits of the performance although it was obvious that Philip Langridge’s Grimes was something special.  On June 1st this year the BBC rebroadcast the recording in HD on BBC4.  I have a copy of that broadcast and it’s way better than the North American DVD release and so I wanted to clarify and, where appropriate, correct what I said in that earlier review.

Continue reading →

Alexander Capellazzo at Met United

Posted on by
Reply

I don’t pay as much attention to the free concert series at Metropolitan United as I should but yesterday I made it there to hear tenor Alexander Cappellazzo and pianist Narmina Afandiyeva in a programme of 20th and 21st century song.

Continue reading →