Reviving Giles Havergal’s 2013 production from its “Festival of Britten” of that year, Opera North have an Albert Herring that’s both immersive and intimate, to quote their own publicity.
Andrew Eldritch, vocalist and convent leader of the Sisters of Mercy, is a famously obtuse character. This may have made him seem somewhat mysterious over the years, but it has also meant that he has missed a few open goals too.
Sir David Pountney’s creation of a “masque” performance for our times, recycling music Purcell wrote for his, is downright good entertainment even if the plotline’s a bit incoherent.
Now that’s a virtue, if you look at the 17th century models he’s starting from. Shows with masques never were designed to have much narrative logic, and the music – even when it had words attached – could as easily fit one story as another.
In an interview following the release of Pale Saints’ March 1992 second album In Ribbons, the band’s Ian Masters expressed his admiration for Eyeless in Gaza, Laura Nyro and Television. He told Option magazine “I find it incredible how much I am moved by Laura Nyro’s songs and how much of the emotional input that she has translates. I find it quite disturbing – it’s uplifting and depressing and really has the full spectrum of feelings.”
There’s a charmingly retro feel to Opera North’s new Falstaff, which comes from it being done as part of their new “green”, i.e. ecologically conscious, season.
Leslie Travers’ set is made of bits from other productions and – most notably – shows Falstaff’s home as a worn-out little 1970s caravan, actually found unwanted in the grounds of a pub on the north side of Leeds by resourceful operatic bargain hunters.
Purcell came very early to me. When I was a chorister at St. John’s Cambridge “Jehova quam multi sunt” was a perennial favourite and we were thrilled by the evenings when George Guest brought in some string players to accompany Purcell’s verse anthems. These were special occasions. Then, since no management had the wit to invite me to direct Purcell, I finally engaged myself to direct The Fairy Queen at ENO.
“Keeping Control” were the watchwords adopted by The Manchester Musicians’ Collective, an organisation founded in April 1977 to bring local musicians together and give them platforms. On 23 May 1977, it put on its first show – also the first live show by The Fall. Instantly integral to Manchester and its music, the Collective went on to put out two compilation albums, 1979’s A Manchester Collection and 1980’s Unzipping The Abstract.
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever.” Replace a few of George Orwell’s words in 1984 and most musicians right now would find alarming resonance in the statement: “If you want a picture of the present, imagine a boot stamping out classical music – for ever.”
The Pearl Fishers is very much a mid-19th century Romantic opera, with a plot that’s basically a love triangle set in an exotic location. Its writers, Michel Carré and Eugène Cormon, were not the greatest of plot inventors, and after hearing the opening scene alone, you might think much the same about the inspiration of the music, beautifully crafted though it is.