Renée Fleming at the Proms Barber Nielsen Oramo

Prom 61 : Renée Fleming sang Samuel Barber Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and Strauss with Sakari Oramo conducting the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra (Konserthuset Stockholm), , in a programme that included  Carl Nielsen's Symphony no 2 "The Four Temperaments" and Andrea Tarrodi's Liguria.  Though the Nielsen was the highlight of the performance - done with great verve - BBC marketing played up the diva, whom most of the audience had come to hear. And rightly so, for Fleming is more than just a singer, she's a personality of such stature that any opportunity to hear her now should be cherished.

For me, the draw was Samuel Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915 op 24 (1948), an astonishing beautiful piece which I love dearly. There's nothing quite like it.  It's a stream-of-consciousness reverie, heard through a haze of orchestration, evoking what it feels like to be young and protected, still within the embrace of loved ones.  It is high summer,in Tennessee, inn the cool of the evening after a long, hot day. "...It has become that time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street and the standing up into their sphere of possession of the trees, of birds' hung havens, hangars."  Note the melody with its sense of slow, rhythmic movement, as if the whole world was a cradle, rocking gently in the breeze.  Nothing much happens, and that's the beauty.  In the quietude, even the tiniest detail is lovingly observed, like the streetcar in this distance,  whose "iron whine rises on rising speed; still risen, faints; halts; the faint stinging bell; rises again, still fainter, fainting, lifting, lifts, faints foregone: forgotten."

Time itself seems to slow down and compress. The moment is so precious that the text lingers on images, trying to make them last as long as possible.  Thus the sudden exaltations, with inventive non-words created spontaneously.  "..They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet, of nothing in particular, of nothing at all. The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near.".   Eventually even the images shrink to their most instinctive essence. The poet is an infant again, the very idea of Self erased,nestledbackin the womb. .  "All my people have larger bodies than mine". But this nostalgia is doomed. The text takes on the semblance of prayer.  Time cannot stand still. These people will die. It's that sense of fragility and loss that makes Barber's Knoxville 1915 such a special piece.

This also makes it more difficult to perform than might seem at first.  The orchestration is deceptively simple - a  sensual woodwind melody, gentle strings, soft rocking rhythms, which need to be created with restraint yet deep feeling.   Received wisdom suggests that the singer should sound child-like, but I'm not so sure, for the protagonist is clearly someone who has grown old and learned what it means to lose what's closest and dearest.  Somehow the singer has to evoke both perspectives at once : artfulness, but without artifice.  There are many recordings, but very few get it right.  Better, I think, simple sincerity.  More than ten years ago, I heard a performance so self consciously over the top that I still shudder. (NOT Renée Fleming)  So  I'm so glad that Renée Fleming has at last commercially released a recording of  Barber's Knoxville Summer of 1915 (with Oramo and the RSPO) because the gap in the discography needs her.  Now, she's no ingénue and needs effort to project in the Royal Albert Hall. If that means sacrificing clarity of text,, for musical line, that's fine by me. She's  still good value.  She was on more familiar ground with the Transformation scene (Ich komme) from Richard Strauss Daphne.

Carl Nielsen's Symphony no 2 "The Four Temperaments" (Op 16, 1902)  describes the  four temperaments - Choleric, Phlegmatic, Melancholic and Sanguine. An interesting companion  piece to Barber's Knoxville the Summer of 1915.   Nielsen, though, defines each mood with greater expansiveness. With glee, even.  One can imagine Nielsen's exuberant high spirits poking fun at people taking themselves too seriously.  There's a famous set of photos for which Nielsen posed, squirming and grunting, twisting his face in exaggerated emotion.  Please see my post here for more photos)  Sakari Oramo is one of the top Nielsen conductors around.  Indeed, he did the Nielsen symphonies as a group in parallel to a similar set around the same time as did John  Storgårds.  Both conductors are good because they have distinctively individual approaches which highlight aspects of the composer's idiom. Oramo's positive-thinking geniality works extremely well, especially in this symphony where each Temperament needs to be defined with almost anarchic humour.  Earthy playing from the Royal Stockholm players, with lots of mischevious spark.  Definitely the high point of the whole evening ! 


The Prom began with Andrea Tarrodi's Liguria, a world premiere, an atmospheric piece evoking the moods of the landscape or seascape around Liguria. Rich, full bodied sounds, moving on multiple levels at once, as dense and teeming in detail as the ocean is.  A central passage where clarinets, flutes and oboes dance together before lively percussion and pizzicato figures. In a third section, the pace and textures build up before detumesence in sparkling figures, lit by tolling bells.  A very well written piece that deserves to be heard again in a programme that gives it more prominence.

La Diva delivers, Renée Fleming Barbican

Renée Fleming's recital at the Barbican London focused on composers active in Vienna in the decades spanning the 19th and 20th centuries - that "golden" epoch . And to her credit, she sang Schoenberg, Wolf, Mahler, Korngold and Zemlinsky with Strauss for encores. . Read the full review in Opera Today, it's the kind of musical analysis that's so good to read. But let's face it, many in the audience went for La Diva, who delivered.

"she deserved the adulation and the rapturous standing ovation: it was clear that she could ask her voice to do whatever she willed, confident that the result would be technically masterful yet seem effortlessly articulated. Just one tiny, humble, suggestion: if your feet can’t be seen beneath the taffeta fanfares, there’s no point crippling yourself in tottering, un-walkable Louboutins — when you sing this gloriously, flat pumps will do!"

Last Night of the Proms 2010

Renée Fleming, Prom Queen! Complete with helmet and flag! The BBC Proms are the biggest block party in the whole world, as well as the Biggest Music Festival, and the Last Night of the Proms is the biggest party of the whole season.

Imagine, 86,000 tickets issued for the various events, Hyde Park and other free open air venues and concert halls in the UK completely packed out. Millions more listening at home or with friends (where you safely quaff champagne). All over the world, online too. By tomorrow the repeat broadcast will be available on the BBC Site, and also more clips on youtube both official and pirated.

La Renée gave us a Rule Britannia with genuine baroque flourish: nice change! She knows how not to take herself too seriously, though, which is a saving grace. In any case, no-one comes to the Last Night for High Art. That's why I loved Sergei Leiferkus singing Edward German's Who were the Yeomen of England? with heavy Russian accent at the 1910 Proms Last Night reconstruction last Sunday. (There is a special clip of this on the BBC listen again site)  This should become a classic!

No English singer could sing German without Heavy Irony. When a Russian sings it, it's hysterically funny. As a historian friend told me apropos this Prom, that London in 1910 was full of exiles, Russians, Polish, Jewish and Indian. Good point! One thing the British should be proud of is that London was a world city, even then, a haven for progressive thinkers. This is one aspect of Britishness that's worth remembering, which right-wing bigots forget.

At the Last Night of the Proms in 1946, my mother was in the arena, a penniless refugee, recently liberated from a camp, in England for the first time. To her, Land of Hope and Glory really meant something. Flag waviing is fine, jingoism isn't. A few years ago showing off got out of hand, and some people were more interested in hogging attention than the musical spirit of the Proms. Thank goodness BBCTV crews don't focus on these types anymore, but linger on ordinary members of the audience. Ban vuvuzuelas, someone! They're intrusive and fascist, the sonic equivalent of a fart.

One of the pleasures of the Proms is the "ordinary people". Wonderful to spot friends in the audience, having fun, not playing up for TV. And watch around 48 minutes into part 2. There's a celebrity in the crowd, but the cameraman doesn't notice, so it's a fuzzy group shot. He's completely unassuming, no airs. The people around him probably didn't realize he's a star. Bet HE sang nicely.

Jiří Bĕlohlávek was lovable, because he. too, is unpretentious. His English is odd ("Gent-lemen") but it's much better to have a conductor who expresses himself through music than through showmanship. The speech is one tradition we could do without. It's unnatural, as it creates unnecessary stress on a conductor who isn't that way inclined. Most of them haven't the guts to say, let me do music not clown. Bĕlohlávek's genial, and you can see his nerves, and the relief on his face when he starts to do what he's much better at.

Post mortem on the 2010 Proms season is now up.  It's been wonderful, extremelty well planned and balanced, spectaular flourishes, many good moments and only a few duds.

La Traviata London and cinemas beyond

La Fleming's back in town ! Her presence alone made this La Traviata an absolute must-see for everyone, including people who never go to opera. And of course, she was a star. Read a sensible proper review by Claire Seymour HERE.

But if you want to read off the wall you'll have to do it with me. Not at Covent Garden but in the cinema behind my local supermarket. Cinema opera is "interesting" in the sense that it's nothing like the real thing and yet very different to watching a DVD. The scale, for one thing, so in your face that you can see tears – or perspiration? we're all human – running out the corner of a diva's eye. Then there's the overpowering volume of being in a venue designed for Star Wars effects.

On the other hand it's like a Glyndebourne experience on the cheap as you can bring cola in and munch popcorn through lachrymose moments. My local being where it is offered no pop or popcorn but 32 different wines by the glass, which made me suspicious. How can 100 people drink one glass each without most of it going off ? Perhaps it's better consuming your opera mega screen outdoors with a real picnic and more laidback ambience. But I dunno. I go to opera for the music not the social aspect, so cinema is a compromise. And I can get my groceries and be home in 15 minutes.

Luckily La Traviata (and most Italian opera) is ideally suited for big screen and social pleasure. Everything about this production was entertaining eye candy and fun, like glamour magazines come alive. The last scene, though, was dramatically strongest. She can hear the crowds celebrate Carnival, their shadows thrown up against shutters the full height of the stage: in contrast, Fleming looks small and frail. As she should be, Violetta is broke and dying.

Very strong singing too. La Fleming doesn't disappoint and Joseph Calleja was vocally very convincing. We often forget how physically demanding it is to sing, so watching on big screen lets you see muscles twitch and chests expanding before florid legato. These are arias everyone knows well, so it's good to follow how much technique goes into producing familiar sounds. Singers of the calibre of Fleming and Calleja make it look easy, but it isn't.

But Thomas Hampson, wow! That is what serious vocal authority is, and in Hampson's case warmed by sensitivity and depth of characterization. Papa Germont is not a sympathetic role and could be played veering towards cardboard, but Hampson's Germont was a fully rounded personality with real, complex motivations. No wonder Violetta's friends think she might be better off with father than son. Were Calleja more of an actor, there might have been deeper frisson to their relationship. When Hampson blows up at Alfredo for demeaning women you want to shout "Yes!!!!". Alfredo's a pup, Dad is the Real Thing.

Praise for other roles too, especially Haoyin Xue who has natural presence. Richard Wiegold as Dr Grevil is frequently placed centre stage but the costume really doesn't work : the silly glasses, wig and beard make him look like someone in uncomfortable disguise. He doesn't get to sing much til the end so the part really needs to be fleshed out by good acting and movement. If not, place him on the sidelines, the character's natural territory.

Orchestrally, this was magnificent. I have a lot of respect for Tony Pappano, though in some repertoire he's better than in others. Verdi is one of his fortes, so he let rip with fulsome Romantic surges. Music, after all, is all-important in La Traviata. The plot is so melodramatic it's embarrassing and action is introduced with little sense of build-up. But when you follow the musical line it all makes luscious sense.

After the movie we were all given a satin goodie bag with a bottle of "La Voce", Renee Fleming's own brand perfume. To her credit it was created as a fundraiser for the Met. You bet a classy lady like that doesn't wear celebrity perfumes.

Photo credit : Andrew Eccles/Decca from IMG Artist Management