The first of the two Proms by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra featured an all-Mendelssohn programme. The orchestra has a long tradition of performing Mendelssohn’s music, as he was their Music Director from 1835 until his early death in 1847.
Every year, Glyndebourne brings an opera from their festival to the BBC Proms and adapts it to the Royal Albert Hall stage. This year they brought their hottest production of the summer, The Marriage of Figaro (directed at Glyndebourne by Michael Grandage and adapted for the Proms by Ian Rutherford), and it was wonderful to see the Albert Hall packed to rafters.
The baritone Thomas Hampson is a popular figure at the Salzburg Festival, having appeared there regularly since 1988, and at his Lieder recital with pianist Wolfram Rieger at the Haus der Mozart, one sensed a warm rapport between him and the audience. His programme consisted of Schumann’s Liederkreis, Op. 39, Dvořák’s Zigeunermelodien and Mahler’s songs based on the text of Des Knaben Wunderhorn.
The new Zauberflöte at this summer’s Salzburg Festival is a visually brilliant production with sets tailored to the atmospheric venue of the Felsenreitschule (for people not familiar with Salzburg, this is where the singing contest was held in the film The Sound of Music).
The second in the Proms Saturday Matinee series featured French Baroque music from the period of Louis XIV, performed by Les 24 Violons du Roy and conducted by Roger Norrington. Interestingly, there was some common ground with the Concert Spirituel concert I reviewed earlier in the Proms season in that they were both projects attempting to recreate 18th-century orchestras.
The first-ever free Late-Night Prom on Wednesday was a Handel extravaganza for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year. Flamboyant French conductor Hervé Niquet and his group Le Concert Spirituel have made a speciality of performing Handel’s Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks with the huge outdoor forces that would have been employed at the royal occasions.
Although I never had the pleasure of attending Garsington Opera in its original setting in Garsington Manor, I was very impressed by their new premises at Wormsley, Buckinghamshire, with their spectacular-looking and also comfortable opera pavilion.
In Pierre Audi’s new production of Handel’s Orlando, currently running at La Monnaie in Brussels (until 12 May, and thereafter available free online on their website for three weeks), the knight Orlando is portrayed as a modern-day fireman who in his fascination with fire has become an arsonist – “pyromane” as Audi explains in the programme.
Lieder recitals at the Wigmore Hall are usually very popular, so I was quite surprised at the number of empty seats at Monday’s BBC Lunchtime Concert by the distinguished tenor Christoph Prégardien and Christoph Schnackertz.
Gustav Leonhardt, who died in January this year, was a great pioneer in the early music movement – as harpsichordist, organist, conductor and teacher – and he influenced all subsequent musicians in the field whether directly or indirectly. Nicolette Moonen, founder of the Bach Players, was one such musician who, while growing up in Amsterdam, took up the baroque violin inspired by his playing.
Riccardo Primo, Re d’Inghilterra (or in English, Richard I), is Handel’s only opera based on the story of an English monarch, and it was premiered in the coronation year of King George II in 1727 (although in fact it was composed the year before but postponed).
The final of this year’s Handel Singing Competition, which opened the 2012 London Handel Festival, was a rare occasion when the winner of the First Prize matched the winner of the Audience Prize, giving satisfaction all round.
In the UK, chamber orchestras these days have a slightly old-fashioned image: groups such as the English Chamber Orchestra, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and the London Mozart Players – who played a vital part in our musical life of the 1970s and 80s – have recently been struggling to maintain their profiles.
Ian Page and the Classical Opera Company have made a specialty of performing early Mozart operas and at the weekend, they gave two performances of his two-act serenata, Il re pastore as part of the series “Mozart Unwrapped” at Kings Place.
In anticipation of Nicolaj Znaider’s London conducting debut with the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), I had been pondering about which solo violinists have made successful transitions to a conductor. The most obvious name would be Menuhin, although he was perhaps more a great musician than a technically great conductor.
Glyndebourne has a great track record with staging Handel’s works. In recent years, there have been great productions of Theodora, Rodelinda and Giulio Cesare, all of which have proved equally popular at subsequent revival and Glyndebourne on Tour (GTO) productions as well.
Violinist Alina Ibragimova and pianist Cédric Tiberghien formed their duo partnership when they were both BBC New Generation Artists and have since been hailed as the up-and-coming duo, but Thursday’s recital at Wigmore Hall showed the amazing maturity of their partnership.
Thursday Live at Handel House (the museum is celebrating its tenth anniversary this autumn) is a popular series for early music afficionados. The hour-long concert is held in the intimate space of the Rehearsal Room, where Handel himself rehearsed his many operas and oratorios, giving it a special atmosphere.
