' Gloriana '

Benjamin Britten wrote three ‘grand’ operas and Gloriana was the third. It’s first performance at Covent Garden in 1953 ‘was one of the great disasters of operatic history’ in the words of the Earl of Harewood, who had commissioned it to celebrate the coronation of the young Queen Elizabeth. Britten chose as his subject the first Elizabeth and the ageing Queen’s conflict between love for the Earl of Essex and her loyalty to the State. (Such conflict between heart and head is apparent in so much of Britten’s music, with it’s public face but often private emotion.)

It was perhaps not an entirely tactful theme to honour the new young Queen. Moreover the audience assembled to hear it’s first gala performance were the slightly great and the fairly good, not many of whom perhaps were natural musical enthusiasts. The reception was decidedly cool, though later more discriminating audiences and some critics had more positive responses. Harewood adds that if the audience applauded at all it was ‘with their kid gloves on and the press, critics as well as journalists, gathered next day to castigate composer, performance and choice..’ But for many years the opera was unperformed and under a cloud.

Apart from a concert performance at the Royal festival Hall to mark Britten’s 50th birthday in 1963 and three years later a production at Sadler’s Wells, it was not until the early nineteen nineties that Opera North – based in Leeds - mounted a superb production by Phyllida Lloyd. It was revived twice and eventually transferred to Covent Garden for a brief and highly successful season.

Josephine Barstow was the Queen and Thomas Randle Essex, with many of the regular soloists of the Company singing other roles. The Chorus and Orchestra of Opera North were conducted by its then permanent conductor, Paul Daniel. Barstow, though no longer in her best voice, gave an unsurpassable rendering of the main role with all of the passion and agony that the music demands. The production was recorded and I believe is still available.

I was so impressed by the work itself and moved by this production, that I saw it three times, the last of which was partly filmed for TV. That version is now available on DVD and I recently bought it. Only a proportion of the whole opera, centering on the main theme of the Queen’s divided loyalties, is included, and there is accompanying back-stage filming which I found unhelpful. However, the frisson of a stunning, one might say historic performance shines above the omissions and the distractions, and I shall play this many times.

B.R.

Last Night of the Proms

London’s Promenade concerts are an easy victim for criticism (see July 3rd!). My couple of moans this year are the almost total absence of British 20th century music and the massive 250th. Anniversary tribute to Mozart. Never my favourite composer, it seems really over the top to perform so much of his music, including eleven of his symphonies, ten of his concertos, three Serenades, Eine kleine Nachtmusik, two Masses, extracts from some of his operas and numerous other works. Programming anniversaries have become a trade-mark of the present B.B.C. Director of Music, and perhaps it’s a good idea to keep listeners up to date with musical history, but this is excessive. Recognition in the Proms this year of the Shostakovich centenary has been helpful to me in reappraising a composer I have always found difficult, but Mozart isn’t exactly a stranger to the concert hall and the air-waves.

The violinist Phillippa Ibbotson has a different criticism. She writes in today’s Guardian about her reservations with the entrenched ‘ indulgence in public-school jingoism’ of the Last Night (September 9th) . Many will share her feelings. She writes of the internationalism of music and yet ‘the very label of anachronism that classical music might wish to avoid, is here being perpetuated. It is the insularity of our lives that music helps transcend. And on this night, listened to by millions around the globe while the Middle East rages, we continue to celebrate our home-bred insularity’.

I sympathise with her view. Each time we watch the Last Night on TV, I say it will be my last, weary of the flag-waving enthusiasts, many of whom are party extroverts competing for the attention of the camera. Much of it is good fun, but the ‘Rule Britannia’ nonsense –drowning all sensibilities in a tidal wave of soggy nostalgia - has nothing to contribute to the national consciousness. The brilliant conductor, Mark Elder, who has returned the reputation of his Halle Orchestra to the remembered excellence of John Barbirolli, conducts the last night this year and must surely have reservations about the concert’s second half carnival. But I see that the Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky is the soloist. How will he cope with the jingoism; or is this a sign that there are changes a-foot? We will see.

…meanwhile, I guess I shall be giving the Last Night just one more chance!

B.R.

Festival de Musica de Canaries 2007

The British on holiday think of the Canary Islands as the place to go for sun and sea, enthusiastically responding to its claims to have a constant temperature throughout the year. With splendid beaches of fine sand, the seven larger islands and a scattering of smaller ones, each has a landscape radically different from the others.The Greeks and Romans were aware of this archipelago of volcanic origins, and called it the Happy Islands, Garden of the Hesperides, Atlantida. Some historians (dubious ones?) have suggested that the legendary continent Atlantis was located here. The islands' original population, called ‘Guanches’, are taller and have a whiter skin than most Spaniards. The islands have been part of the Spanish kingdom since the fifteenth century, and the ships of Christopher Columbus stopped here on their journey to discover the New World.

I came across the annual Music Festival the other day and discovered that, well established over the years, it will soon celebrate its 23rd. year. From January 7th. to March 2nd 2007, the festival is mounting a rich programme of concerts, featuring some fine orchestras, eminent conductors and soloists from around the world but also from Spain itself such as the Orfeón Donostiarra, one of the most outstanding exponents of the Basque cultural scene. The Choir has a classical repertoire but at the same time, maintains strong folk roots, seeing itself as the voice of the Basque people. The Tenerife Symphony Orchestra and The Philharmonic Orchestra of Gran Canaria are joined at the festival by the Netherlands, Cologne, Helsinki, Munich and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras, with an impressive array of conductors and soloists at various venues on the islands.

The organizers say they have three basic objectives for the festival . Firstly to enrich a tradition of music which began when the European opera companies stopped at the islands on their way to South America to the great advantage of the islanders. Now 150 years old, the Las Palmas Philharmonic Society is the oldest in Spain, once having the privilege of Saint-Saens as its President. Secondly, the purpose of the festival is to give the Canary Islands a cultural and not just recreational image. Lastly, however, the festival does of course promote tourism and has the distinction of being the only international festival in the world that takes place in mid-winter!

B.R.