(Two years ago I tried to make a blog about my passionate involvement with the relays of the BBC Proms concerts - a yearly reminder of the life as a Londoner which I briefly attained as a college student. Ever since 2004, I don't miss a single broadcast relay. Unfortunately, I wrote pages and pages of reviews and fell further and further behind. This year, I'm going to write reviews of every one, but at a manageable size and display them for all to see the true extent of my classical music wonkery....I'm uncomfortable with it too.)
First Half of Week 1 Synopsis
Prom 1: Mahler Symphony no 8 - Symphony of a Thousand
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Assorted Choirs, Eight Soloists and the RAH Organ
Conducted by Jiri Behlolavek
Any performance of Mahler 8 is an event. Even a conductor as boring as Jiri Behlolavek can theoretically make something incredible from it. The result unfortunately was an intermittently inspiring performance that needs much more help from the podium. Behlolavek tried to take a middle course between the sturdy structural grip of Gielen, Horenstein, and Boulez and the proactive bar-by-bar tempo fluctuations of Rattle, Bernstein, and MTT. The problem with this approach is that no performance involving 674 musicians can be done by half-measures, and most of Behlolavek's attempts at an interpretation sounded as effectual as a traffic cop in rush-hour Piccadilly. The result was a solidly musical performance that refused to take a stand and came off sounding far too polite for the largest statement ever made in a symphonic work. But excellent work from all those choruses, the amazing Royal Albert Hall organ and the BBCSO strings (however small, they sounded excellent on the relay) made this a performance worth listening.
B-
Prom 2: Die Meistersinger by Richard Wagner
Bryn Terfel as Hans Sachs (does anybody care who else?)
Welsh National Opera conducted by Lothar Koenigs
When Beckmesser sounds like the best singer of the lot, Die Meistersinger has a big problem. Christopher Purves is a wonderful lyric baritone who of course isn't as well known as he should be (I'd never heard of him :)). But nobody was listening to Purves, everybody was wondering about how Bryn Terfel would fair as Hans Sachs. The answer is, not bad at all. Nobody's going to forget about Hans Hotter any time soon, but Terfel has voice to spare for this strenuous role, and he got through the five-hour marathon with minimal fatigue. The problem remains that Terfel's personality is simply unsuited to the Wagner hoherbass repertoire. He's too extroverted and he doesn't 'do' brooding. The famed Wahn monologue sounded downright cheery. Part of the problem no doubt was Lothar Koenig's conducting, which was positively perky. I couldn't shake the feeling that this is a conductor far more comfortable in Rossini than Wagner. This is Wagner's only comedy, but it's still Wagner, and if you're uncomfortable with Wagner's stodgy heaviness (as I often am), you should stay away from it (as I often do). Nearly all the other soloists were professional and dramatically competent, but real Wagner singers are rare and rarer today than ever before. Der Meister simply asks too much of them. By the end of the opera there was a disturbing level of barking and wobbling. Still, not terrible and a good effort from most everybody. My guess is that this troup(e) was a lot more fresh-sounding at the beginning of their run in Cardiff than by the time we heard them. Now back to my ol' faithful Jochum recording.
C+
Prom 3: Simon Boccanegra by Giuseppe Verdi
Placido Domingo as Simon Boccanegra (nobody cares about anyone else)
Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Conducted by Antonio Pappano
At this point, to find an equivalent to Placido Domingo's greatness as a tenor, you'd have to go far back in time - past Gedda and Konya, past Bjorling and Vinay, past Tauber and Melchoir, even past Caruso. To find an equivalent, you'd probably have to go back into the 19th century to a tenor like Jean De Reszke, and even De Reszke didn't have Domingo's long-term stamina. No tenor in living memory has worked so hard, challenged himself so much, and stayed at the very top of his game for half-a-century. Domingo will be turning 70 next year, and is now beginning to take on the baritone repertoire! Is Domingo a great Baritone? Not a chance in hell, but he's Domingo, and even if he still sounds like himself his commitment is absolute. Even so, it's a little hard to take his new venture seriously. This opera, Verdi's darkest tragedy, is not quite one of his masterpieces. Hard-core Verdi-philes always make a case for Boccanegra as his most underrated opera, but the plot is incomprehensible and that's when it's not ridiculous. As with all Verdi, a lot of the music is magnificent, but there are significant dull patches in the first two acts brought on by a refusal by Verdi to allow for anything but unremittingly grim melodrama. Reservations aside, this was as great a performance as this imperfect opera will receive on today's stage. The opera's title notwithstanding, this is an opera with six principals and no clear star. None of the six acquitted themselves with performances any less than stellar, and any operaphile who sits through lots of Verdi can testify to what a miracle that is. With standards flagging at the Met and La Scala, the Royal Opera now gives unquestionably the best Italian Opera show on the international scene. Tony Pappano gave a flexible reading of Verdi's score that played the drama for all it was worth. Somewhere out there, Victor De Sabata is smiling.
B+
Proms Chamber Music 1
Mark Padmore tenor and Imogen Cooper piano
Schubert songs and Schumann Dichterliebe:
Philip Langridge and Anthony Rolfe Johnson are now dead. It's been a bad year for English Tenors. In case you're wondering what an English Tenor is, it's basically an Irish Tenor when he's sober. English Tenors have the same high oboe-like sound, utterly without the piercing squillo (trumpet-timbre) of their continental brethren. English singers always give the impression of being sensible people who like sensible music. Mark Padmore does not have a voice that will launch a thousand ships, nor does he sound like he gives much thought to how one should pronounce German. But he invariably gives no-nonsense musical readings of some of the greatest music ever written. His phrasing is always thoughtful, his dynamics always sensitive, and his characterization always vivid. That Padmore did not sing quite so handsomely only added to the power of these performances. The same might be said of Imogen Cooper as a pianist, who provided accompaniment that seemed of one mind with her singer. What a relief after the marathons of the first three concerts.
A-
Prom 4: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
conducted by Vassily Petrenko
Schumann, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky
Vassily Petrenko is going to be a superstar conductor, all that remains to be seen is if he spoils his incredible gifts as many young conductors have before. No conductor is recording more than he currently is with Naxos, and nobody is getting better press for it. By all accounts he's revived the fortunes of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the perrenial sick man of British orchestras, and this concert displayed ample evidence. The concert began with a scorching performance of Schumann's Manfred Overture, in Mahler's re-orchestration. Unlike Riccardo Chailly, Petrenko understands that Mahler's re-orchestrations have to be performed more in Mahler's style than in Schumann's, and I'd have sworn it was Leonard Bernstein on the podium if the quality of the playing were slightly sloppier. The performance was enormous in every way: dynamics, tempo fluctuation, and spirit. It was followed by a performance of Rachmaninov's gorgeous and ever-so-slightly overplayed second piano concerto with Simon Trpceski as soloist. The performance was big-boned, romantic, and Russian in the best sense. Unfortunately, either I've heard this piece too often or this approach to Rachmaninov leads to as much diabetic shock as many others. Parts of the middle movement were exquisite, but composer's very carefully wrought architecture in the outer movements sounded turgid and distended. The second half of the concert was taken up by the most visceral, committed and idiomatic performance of Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony I have ever heard. A work that is by turns masterful and problematic, Manfred never gets the attention equally problematic Tchaikovsky works get all the time. But Manfred couldn't possibly receive finer advocacy than these performers gave, it was simply an overwhelming, magnificent performance. Please VP, stay in Liverpool a while. You've got a great thing going there.
B+ (Schumann and Tchaikovsky get an A)
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