CD Reviews (The Straits Times, November 2014)

BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata Op.110

SCHUBERT Piano Sonata D.960

MENAHEM PRESSLER, Piano

BIS 1999 / *****

Who is the world’s oldest living active concert pianist today? That has to be Menahem Pressler, 91 years young, better known as the founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio. Born in Eastern Germany in 1923, he is more active these days as a soloist, pedagogue and competition juror. This recital programme recorded in 2012 shows no diminution of his abilities, instead a demonstration of how music makes the soul eternally young. If Beethoven’s Sonata in A flat major Op.110 sounds plain-speaking, but that is because he lets the music speak for itself. The 2^nd movement’s Allegro molto is on the slow side, but the finale’s fugue is voiced with total clarity, bringing the late work to a glorious fruition.

Even better is Schubert’s final Sonata in B flat major D.960, where its longeurs find a kindred spirit. The expansive opening movement never sounds draggy even with the exposition repeat, and he leaves the best for the Andante sostenuto slow movement. Here is Schubert at his most magnificently haunting, and Pressler’s pacing makes time stand still, before ascending into happier climes of the last two movements. He also offers a sublime encore with Chopin’s posthumous C sharp minor Nocturne in its alternative version. Such hallowed pianism is all too rare these days. 

MUSIC FOR A WHILE

Soloists with L’Arpeggiata

Christina Pluhar, Director

Erato 463620 3 (CD + DVD) / *****

Crossover albums these days tend to be mind-numbingly dull, but this one is an exception because of the quality of the music and the performers. The English composer Henry Purcell (1659-1695) with his pretty sacred and secular music might seem an unusual choice, but it is this simplicity and purity that is fertile soil for improvisation.

The form he favoured in many of his arias was the ground, a repetitive bass rhythm over which melodies and harmonies are layered, such as When I Am Laid In Earth from Dido and Aeneas, Music For A While from Oedipus and O Let Me Weep from The Fairy Queen. The arrangements, mostly by Christina Pluhar, retain the original words and harmonies but jazzes up the melodic line and instrumentations, with period instruments augmented and “updated” by jazz clarinettist Gianluca Trovesi, acoustic and electric guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel and pianist Francesco Turrisi.

The singers is an A-list of baroque voices with countertenors Philippe Jaroussky and Dominique Visse, soprano Raquel Andueza and the strikingly feminine alto voice of Vincenzo Capezzuto. That the opening track ‘Twas Within A Furlong from The Mock Marriage sounds like country and western gives a clue of the liberties taken. To close, Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah is given the baroque treatment with similarly beautiful results, proving that Purcell was way ahead of his time and a unique voice for the ages.   

MY NIGHTS WITH DIDO AND MY DAYS WITH AENEAS / New Opera Singapore / Review

 

DIDO AND AENEAS

New Opera Singapore

SOTA Drama Theatre

Friday & Saturday (26 & 27 July 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 July 2013 with the title "Baroque breakthrough".

Given that Singapore has no tradition of performing Baroque opera, it was a massive leap of faith by New Opera Singapore to attempt English composer Henry Purcell’s classic Dido and Aeneas, rather than yet another version of La Traviata. It is this spirit of adventure and experimentation that makes the company founded by Korean soprano Jeong Ae Ree (right) relevant and vitally necessary.

The cumbersome title My Nights with Dido and My Days with Aeneas may have confused some. Virgil’s Dido and Aeneas was a classical tragedy where Love and Fate conspired to clash with disastrous results. Updating the setting to modern newly-weds settling in their HDB apartment  with Ikea bags and kaypoh neighbours might also have given the mistaken impression this was another of the company’s opera comique farces. Thus the realisation that this was opera seria (serious opera) came rather late in the evening.

Whoever thought that the Brit Purcell
could blend so well with the Yank Ives?

As the original opera lasts under one hour, this production was padded up to about 100 minutes with songs by the 20^th century American composer Charles Ives. This was an inspired stroke of juxtaposition and innovation by director Mathias Behrends, even if the words alternated between old and modern poetic English (and in one song, French). While the musical accompaniment segued from the orchestra conducted by Chan Wei Shing to a barely-in-tune piano valiantly mustered by Thomas Ang, the transitions were almost seamless.

As some singers were unused to the Baroque style of singing, there was going to be a struggle to adapt. It was not a surprise that some of the Ives songs and choruses came off better than the Purcell. There were parts when the production resembled a high school musical, something out of the School of the Arts perhaps. However New Opera Singapore is our nation’s de facto opera school, as none of the tertiary institutions of musical education have opera programmes in place. So if there are going to be trials and errors, this is probably the best place to begin.   

The pivotal aria, Dido's When I Am Laid In Earth.
Teng Xiang Ting's Dido is foiled in numerous suicide attempts.

New Opera’s A-list cast, past and present students of Jeong, stole the show. Soprano Teng Xiang Ting (left) as Dido, was the face of ultimate pathos, and a force to be reckoned with. Her final aria, When I Am Laid in Earth, evinced so much sympathy that it stood out as the evening’s finest and most gut-wrenching moment. Opposite her, the Sorceress sung by mezzo Rebecca Chellappah was a most natural and experienced hand, exuding a malevolent charm that was wholly apt.

The supernatural forces of Lim Yanting and Moira Loh
haunt Teng Xiang Ting's Dido.

This opera, first performed in 1688 at Josiah Priest’s Girl’s School in Chelsea, was to be a girl’s night out. Soprano Rebecca Li was supportive as Belinda, Dido’s BFF, while Thai Lehlin, Moira Loh and Lim Yanting hovered around adding mischievous spice (including what must be the first-ever getai and lesbian scenes portrayed on the local operatic stage). Even the women in the boisterous choir of busybodies were the driving force. The men, David Tay’s Aeneas, Jonathan Tay’s sailor and Shaun Lee’s spirit cum solicitor, shone in their numbers but seemed almost peripheral. Do not blame them; their unintentional “bad guy” parts never had much of a chance.

The tone of this review may read like something of a qualified success, but that should not impede New Opera Singapore from further exploring uncharted territories of opera, and pushing the envelope with its own brand of guts and gumption. Singapore’s meagre and all-too-predictable opera scene really needs that kind of spark.

Production photographs by Eugene Soh.