I like Despina, she’s not quite as stupid as Dorabella.

I visited the Royal Opera House last week to interview Helene Schneiderman about her role as Despina in the upcoming revival of Jonathan Miller’s Così fan tutte. She has sung Dorabella in the same production, so she is going from victim to collaborator in Don Alfonso’s scheme. In this production, Despina is not in it for the money, she just wants to have fun. In fact, the whole production sounds like a lot of fun. It opens on Friday (29th Jan at 7pm). In the mean time, you can read the interview here.

34 Year Old Opera Fan: a Demographic Anomaly?

Reading Rupert Christiansen’s review of the Royal Opera’s newly revived Rake caused me a few concerns. Firstly, I thought the review itself is grossly unfair: ‘a superficially bright idea’, ‘precise to the point of being pedantic’, ‘no fun at all’. I have my own issues with Stravinsky’s score, but in my view the fault is his alone. And it takes a stern sole indeed to miss the fun in this production.

But on a more personal note, I was even more worried by the demographic that the Telegraph’s dating service has allotted for me on the basis on my online reading. My possible mates, as selected for the page on which the review appears, are lined up above. Am I exceptional in enjoying opera in my early-(OK, mid-)thirties? Of course, none of these gentlemen would seem out of place in a Covent Garden audience, Alf1 is even suitably attired. But with no disrespect to him, Seabirdsailor or John555, you guys are just not my type.

The Rake at Covent Garden: Too Spectacular for its own good?

Just a few despatches from the opening night of The Rake’s Progress revival at Covent Garden. Most readers will already have seen the spectacular production stills from the previous staging (the concept is Hogarth’s London transferred to 1930s Hollywood), though I have to say it is even more breathtaking in the flesh. The revival has a new cast, and all put in excellent performances. Top honours go to Kyle Ketelsen as Nick Shadow, followed at a hair’s breadth by Toby Spence in the title role. Spectacle is the key to this production, and the staging of each scene combines jaw-dropping visual innovation with a loyalty to the essence of the story. And the direction is impeccable, with every potential visual gag or sly interaction exploited to the full.

But there is one serious flaw in the whole conception, and it’s the music. I don’t want to come over all Adorno about Stravinsky’s neo-classicism, but the music in The Rake’s Progress really is at the workaday end of his Mozartian spectrum. Certainly, it is skilfully crafted, and his arias and recitatives do everything the story needs. But that’s all they do, and the work is functional to a fault. In more modest stagings, the composer’s lack of ambition is less glaring, but in a spectacular production like this, you begin to wonder why so much effort was put into making something so visually powerful out of such a slender musical offering. Bizarrely, the scene changes become the focus of the audience’s attention. Cast and orchestra do everything they can for Stravinsky, but the uncharacteristic modesty of his score puts his music in an unusually subsidiary position to the spectacle.

New Album from Amy Dickson

If you haven’t yet heard of classical saxophonist Amy Dickson, you’re about to, and in a big way. She is on the front cover of at least one leading music magazine next month, and her new album has been singled out as an ‘Editor’s Choice’ in another. On it, she plays the Philip Glass Violin Concerto, a movement of John Tavener’s The Protecting Veil and Michael Nyman’s Where The Bee Dances, the first two works in her own transcriptions. I met Amy last week to discuss the project. Read the interview here.

NYJO approaching stop time?

It is perhaps unsurprising that arts funding in the UK is approaching a precipice, especially if Jeremy Hunt has anything to do with it. Even so, it is distressing to hear that the National Youth Jazz Orchestra is on the ropes. The coverage of the story in the Times doesn’t inspire much confidence either. According to them, NYJO’s primary claim to fame is that Amy Winehouse used to sing with them. I can’t help wondering how much they make out of their regular, and always successful, Ronnie Scott’s residencies. But don’t worry, salvation is at hand, the campaign to raise the funds needed has the support of the all-party parliamentary jazz appreciation group. That’s a relief.

Maurice Murphy MBE

A great concert by the LSO yesterday evening, Elektra with Gergiev (you can find my review here). Something interesting caught my eye in the programme: Maurice Murphy, the orchestra’s former principle trumpeter has been awarded an MBE in the New Year Honours.
Last year I was doing some research on brass bands in the late 1950s, and looking though back issues of British Bandsman from the time, I repeatedly found photographs and articles about the new star signing by the Black Dyke Mills Band, a very young Maurice Murphy on solo cornet.
Fast forward to the late 1970s, and to the title sequence of Star Wars. That’s Maurice Murphy at the top of the brass section through all those riveting fanfare sequences. He deserves his MBE for that session alone in my opinion. Congratulations Maurice!
You can listen to an interview with Maurice, produced by the LSO for his retirement in 2007 here.

CSO EMBRACE SACD

After my grumble last week about the lack of Mahler available on SACD, I notice that the Chicago Symphony own label has finally embraced the technology and released an SACD Mahler 2 with Bernard Haitink. Judging by the Urlicht on the cover CD of this month’s Gramophone, it could be something special. It’s probably fairly ponderous, if Haitink’s track record is anything to go by, but as Simon Rattle has repeatedly shown, there is nothing wrong with a steady pace when it comes to Mahler 2.

Speaking of which, an article by Tom Service in today’s Guardian gives a run-down of ‘Must-have Mahler’ recordings. Rattle’s 1987 2nd Symphony account is there, and I’d certainly agree that it is a must-have. A nod to Bernstein is inevitable in such exercises, and Service has plumped for the Vienna Philharmonic 5th recording. While I would grudgingly agree, I can’t help the feeling that his 1963 2nd Symphony with the New York Philharmonic would have shown his Mahlerian talents to better effect. And then put Zinman in for the 5th?– that’s a must-have too.