Diary of a Culture Hedonist

Sarah Kane's Cleansed exposed the dark world of torture. If it was shock and awe, then the direction from Katie Mitchell did the job. The cast delivered an intense performance. I've even heard of other punters fainting during the play. The plot, however, I found very thin - making the torture scenes somewhat gratuitous.

I've never seen a Chabrier opera. One hears the odd aria on the radio or at recitals, but seldom sees his works staged now. So it was a real delight to go to the Royal Opera's first performance of L'étoile. The set (by Julia Hansen) was crazy and fun. The cast delivered bagfuls of humour and wit under the watchful eyes of Sir Mark Elder (who took part in some of the comic moments). Please bring it back soon.  

I have sung bits of Cavalleria Rusticana before, but never seen it, nor Pagliacci. The set and the production was really clever, weaving these two operas in quite ingenious ways. Eva-Maria Westbroek was a larger than life Santuzza. Perhaps Alfio could benefit from a bigger voice. Aleksandrs Antonenko gave it all as Canio (in Pagliacci). The chorus was great. Needless to say, Pappano milked every musical moment.

Superb patience on my part to have sat through Morgen und Abend - a contemplative and introspective work by Georg Friedrich Haas. I think if one was in the mood, then one would find the work poignant and insightful. I wasn't. So I got very little out of it. Sigh.

Cultural nourishment was what I craved, and I got plenty of it at Ariadne auf Naxos.  Karita Mattila made a good Ariadne - her darker timbre worked most of the time. Jane Archibald was a flamboyant Zerbinetta - hitting all the high notes at the right places. Robert Dean Smith was an admirable Bacchus and he did beautifully along side Mattila. I thought Lothar Königs was a little unsteady at the beginning, but everything soon fell into place - especially the second half of the last act was superbly done.

I thought the on stage English Baroque Soloists played superbly (even though their platform moved up and down throughout the performance).  Juan Diego Flórez was on form, though I was not sure about Lucy Crowe as Eurydice - a little detached. Sir John Eliot Gardiner's reading and direction made the work come to life. Could someone explain the dancing to me please?

The Schoenberg 'Theme and Variations Op. 43b' opened this San Francisco Symphony concert under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT). It was a very tonal Schoenberg with a rich tapestry of sound, though we detected a bit of stiffness in the orchestra - not sure why. This was followed by Henry Cowell 'Piano Concerto' - its Proms debut. Well, the soloist Jeremy Denk did a lot of thumping and elbowing to the Model D on stage - interesting to have heard it. Denk then played a short encore 'Piano Sonata No2, 3rd Mov.' by Charles Ives (contemporary of Cowell) with much subtlety and finesse - arguably the best piece in the first half of the concert. Then it was Mahler Symphony No 1. MTT conducted without score and somehow the whole band was transformed. The mysteriousness of the opening movement, the slightly decadent dances in the middle movements, through to the visceral 'young' Mahlerian sound world of the last movement were all beautifully played. The ...