This year’s fall opera offering from the Glenn Gould School was a double bill of short chamber operas. It played at Mazzoleni Hall on Friday and Saturday evenings with Liza Balkan directing and Jennifer Tung conducting.
GGS double bill
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The Journal of Helène Berr
Helène Berr was a student at the Sorbonne in the 1940s. She was musical, well read and kept a journal. One looks at her photograph and one sees exactly what one expects; regular features, not too much makeup, nicely cut hair. All in all a typical young middle class Parisienne of the period. But she was Jewish and, ultimately deported to Auschwitz and then Bergen-Belsen, where she was killed just days before British troops liberated the camp on 15th April 1945.
Imani Winds and Michelle Carr
The opening concert of this year’s 21C festival was given by the Imani Winds (Brandon George Rule – flutes, Toyin Spellman-Diaz – oboe, Mark over – clarinet, Kevin Newton – horn and Monica Ellis – bassoon) and pianist Michelle Carr in Mazzoleni Hall on Saturday evening. It was a programme of 20th and 21st century works with a kind of French/jazz theme.
Tapestry x GGS
The Glenn Gould School’s Fall Chamber Opera offering this year was four short pieces from Tapestry Opera’s back catalogue. First up was Ice Time by Ka Nin Chan and Mark Brownell. It’s the story of a has been ice skater and her futile attempts to get her daughter, who wants to be a civil engineer, to follow in her footsteps (or icy equivalent). The music is in much the same vein as other works by this composer such as Dragon’s Tale. It’s a pretty light hearted piece and it got a lively and credible account from Emma Pennell as the daughter and Alexa Frankian as the mother. As with the other pieces direction was by Dana Fradkin with accompaniment by chamber ensemble conducted by Peter Tiefenbach.
Unruly Sun
Unruly Sun is a song cycle in 19 parts with music by Matthew Ricketts (left) and words by Mark Campbell (below). It’s inspired by Derek Jarman’s Modern Nature and was performed last night in Mazzoleni Hall by tenor Karim Sulayman accompanied by piano and string quintet. I was much more affected by this piece than I expected to be. The text covers a lot of ground; Jarman’s cottage at Dungeness with it’s bleak shingle beach and nuclear power station, AIDS and the loss of friends, a bad porn movie and, of course, Jarman’s garden (which also of course inspired Tm Albery’s Garden of Vanished Pleasures), and anger at Thatcher’s Britain and her indifference to those suffering from AIDS (c.f. Jarman’s The Last of England). These ideas are linked together by sections about plants and flowers and quotes from (I think) John Donne. So, the AIDS crisis and the burning tire fire of Thatcherism meets the Georgian tradition that links the Elizabethans to Edmund Blunden and beyond. It’s beautifully constructed and the somewhat minimalist, evocative and rather beautiful music supports without imposing itself. And the performance was stunning; beautiful singing, beautiful playing and cool projected images. Continue reading
Kronos+
The Kronos Quartet played Mazzoleni Hall last night along with the three young string quartets they have been working with this week. First up was the Dior Quartet (Noa Sarid, Tobias Elser, Caleb Georges and Joanne Yesoi Choi); the Glenn Gould School’s Quartet in Residence, with Soon Yeon Lyuh’s Yessori. They were followed by the Taylor Academy Quartet (Nicholas Vasdilakoupolos-Kostopoulos, Ophit Strumpf, Angelina Sievers and Ethan Jeon) with Yotam Haber’s rather meditative From the Book. The Glenn Gould School Quartet (Tiffasny Tsai, Tiffany Yeung, Tristan Macaggi and Shun-Nin Yand) closed out the student part of the evening with Aleksandra Vrebalov’s semi-improvisatory My Desert, My Rose. The standard of playing by all three groups was really high.
Kronos Quartet perform at the Roskilde Festival.
Rebanks fellows
Last night at Mazzoleni Hall we were entertained by the Royal Conservatory’s Rebanks fellows. The programme was, to say the least, varied and very enjoyable. It began with a movement from Mozart’s Piano Quartet in G minor played by Isobel Howard – violin, Caleb Georges – viola, Joanne Yesol Choi – cello and Sejin Yoon – piano. It was a pleasant, if conventional, start to the evening. There were rather more fireworks in the “Allegro ma non troppo” from Strauss’ Violin Sonata in E flat major. There was some seriously virtuosic playing here from Aaaron Chan – violin and Ben Smith – piano.
from L to R: Michael Bridge, accordion; Caleb Georges, viola; Isobel Howard, violin; Sejin Yoon, piano; Hannah Crawford, soprano; Daniel Hamin Go, cello; Tim Beattie, guitar; Jonelle Sills, soprano; Aaron Chan, violin.
Venus and Adonis
This year’s fall opera production from the Glenn Gould School is John Blow’s 1683(?) masque Venus and Adonis. For those not familiar with the genre the masque was a court entertainment combining music, dance, poetry and drama. Here the framing story is the brief love affair between Venus and handsome young Adonis who is unfortunately gored to death by a boar. The main sub plot concerns Venus giving sage advice to Cupid and his band of little cupids. In between there are hunting choruses, dance and extracts from Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
An afternoon with Adrianne
There’s something very special about a song recital by a really good singer at the top of his/her game in a space conducive to song. The stars conjoined yesterday to yield a recital by Adrianne Pieczonka with pianist Rachel Andrist in the song friendly acoustic of Mazzoleni Hall, as part of the Mazzoleni Songmasters series.
Hello sailor!
Jonathan Dove’s 1994 one act opera Siren Song is a twisted little piece and very enjoyable. Apparently it’s based on a true story which just makes it weirder. Its the mid 1980s. Davey Palmer is an Able Seaman on HMS Ark Royal. He answers an ad in Navy News from a young woman, Diana, seeking a pen pal. Diana is a model and the relationship gets quite steamy but somehow whenever Davey gets shore leave there is some reason why Diana can’t meet him. Soon Diana’s brother Jonathan is showing up to make the excuses. Diana has throat cancer and can’t make phone calls and on it goes until the nature of the phone calls between Davey and Jonathan leads the MOD police to investigate a possible homosexual relationship. Surprise! There is no Diana and Jonathan is a con man. It’s very cleverly constructed with Diana appearing as a character though, we realise eventually, only in Davey’s imagination and the the pacing is such that our suspicion builds rather than the denouement being a huge surprise.
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