Diary of a Culture Hedonist

Gurrelieder needs to be big and punchy. Esa-Pekka Salonen certainly did that with an enlarged Philharmonia at the Royal Festival Hall. The cast was strong, but the star of the performance was the orchestra which responded to each and every nuance of this at times eclectic piece. The sun rise at the end was particularly good.  The "stage direction" of colour lights worked reasonably well. Though the choir could have been at least 50% bigger - it just needed that Mahler 8 choral sound which Philharmonic Voices and the choir of CBSO lacked.

I went to see a revival of Rigoletto at the Royal Opera. Leo Nucci as Rigoletto was sensational - he sang with vermin (in the company of the courtiers) and plea (with Gilda), coupled with years of experience. Francesco Meli's Il Duce was fine with an air of innocence. Ekaterina Siurina (as Gilda) gave a fine portrayal of the role. It was also a delight to see Kurt Rydl as Sparafucile. 

It is a rare event when I go to a chamber choir concert - somehow the slots are taken up by grand operas and other big choral gigs. Anyway, upon a friend's recommendation ("what do you mean 'you don't like Debussy'" as the punch line) I trotted along to listen to Londinium to perform an eclectic programme of a cappella pieces. The highlight was Holloway's "He-she-together" - a rarely perform work by this living composer. The high voices wailed convincingly and the men seemed subdued by them! The two Howells pieces (Take him, earth, for cherishing) was sung with gusto and precision. Not sure whether the Elgar worked (Go, song of mine). The Debussy (Trois chants de Charles d'Orléans) was well sung - though I still didn't get it. All in all an enjoyable night out listening to fine choral singing in St Mary-le-Bow.

I was not sure what to expect at Royal Opera's production of Die tote Stadt and I liked what I heard. The sound world of Korngold was mostly lush, with shades of Strauss, Mahler and Puccini thrown in. Yet at other times, it's Hollywood. The pit couldn't fit the entire orchestra, so un-tuned percussion was put into Stalls Circle, and extra brass was in one of the Balcony boxes. The stage set was very clever - with a boxed design portraying a fairly nondescript sitting room. The dream sequence was a replica of the same room just smaller and placed right behind the "real" room with all characters in clown costumes. It definitely worked. Stephen Gould (as Paul) and Nadja Michael (Marie) were giving their best but you could tell they were at times overwhelmed by the enormous orchestra. Gerald Finley was Frank - though perhaps he shouldn't have sung bare-chested.

It must have been an atmospheric show when the current production was first seen in 1984 in Los Angeles. Nearly a quarter of a century later, this production of Turandot at Covent Garden is looking dated: highly stylised masks, mock pagodas, and a dark shadowy tone. It's definitely time for a change. Last night's performance was ok. José Cura was supposed to be Calaf, but he got ill and was substituted by Fabio Armiliato whose singing was fine but somewhat wooden on stage. Turandot was Iréne Theorin who added Wagnerian omph to the role. The chorus was dreadful, at best it was a beat late, at times half a bar late. Even the final climatic chorus was shambolic. Surely everyone had good line of sight to the conductor and the beats were clear - so what's the excuse?

I have known the existence of Kau Kee for a few years. It even has its own entry in Wikipedia. Since it takes lunch and dinner breaks and doesn't open on public holidays, it has been rather difficult to check this place out. Until last night when we were so inclined (or desperate) to eat out there. The positive thought of seeing it open (see above picture) was quickly countered by its sign (you see, we got there at 7:55pm): I could definitely see some posturing going on here. Anyway, we went up to The Cheese Room on Hollywood Road for a beer and duly returned at 8:30pm. We managed to squeeze our party of 4 sharing with a party of 2 into a round table that could practically accommodate 3. So never mind our close proximity to fellow diners. Given the place was jam packed at 8:35pm, the food had better be good. The menu was short (see below) and straight to the point - braised beef brisket, braised beef brisket with noodles, braised beef brisket with rice noodles, braised beef brisk...

Having  seen Hänsel und Gretel only a few months ago at Glyndebourne , I was looking forward to see how the Royal Opera will bring this fairytale opera to life. Christian Fenouillat  pastoral set worked well. Like many operas with a small cast, he added a bounding box to reduce the size of the stage without losing perspective. Angelika Kirchschlager and Diana Damrau were believable Hänsel and Gretel respectively. Their stage acting (how they walked, jumped and cuddled) conveyed a real sense of innonance. Thomas Allen (their father) was on good form. The Dew Fairy (by Anita Watson) was fabulous with an orange duster and a yellow squirty spray cleaner. All in all, the creative team managed to strike a good balance between serious opera and fairytale. Colin Davis also did real justice to Humperdinck's lush Wagnerian score. It would be nice for this lovely work to remain in repertory around this time of the year to counter-balance the sickly sweek Nutcracker.