Tag: opera

CAN MUSIC MAKE THE WORLD GO ROUND?

We talk with Andrew Given, Development Director of the English National Opera company in London, about the new ENO Breathe project that has taken both healthcare COVID support, and music markets by storm.

The answer to the above is yes, and no. It is not music per se but it is opera, and the deeper answer is; yes, – very possibly, and in ways that we could not have imagined.

Even more curious, is that – it is not like Opera is a household accepted musical item. It has that bourgeois middle class image which even ENO, the common man entry point for opera, inhabits. And yet here we have a project that is open for all and has to be so, regardless of musical ability or background.

ENO Breathe is a joint project that is a fully structured, thought-out, and managed collaboration, between the ENO, and Imperial College NHS Trust, that delivers a programme of breathing exercises, and participation in singing routines and soft lullabies – to help long term COVID suffers get over their condition.

It is a brilliant concept that astonishingly has no public funding – its initial pilot of 12 patients back in August was crowd-funded to the tune of £12K, by ENO Members, in just seven days. And Imperial College cover their own costs.

It is a marriage of expertise that can make, and is making such a difference already, across a divide that would not have been visible or noticed a year ago. You could say ENO Breathe was an accident, the result of perhaps an even more strange accident – where the seamstresses and costume teams at ENO – plus an increasing army of ENO staff and volunteers, produced the Scrubs for various hospitals, due to a national shortage of protective workwear.

From there, it is a short step to ask – “well, what else we can do?”

From those initial conceptual discussions in early June 2020 – ENO Breathe now has a network of regional NHS Hospitals all signed up to registering their COVID Patients into the scheme. Hospitals include all the main London hospitals, plus Liverpool Royal Infirmary, Manchester, Newcastle, and Oxford. Patient entry into the scheme has to be by referral only, from one of the above hospitals, or from a medical practitioner.

This is no singing group or roll-up choir practice. ENO Breathe is a medically based process that uses opera expertise at its highest level – for the good of patients who need help and who probably have never inhabited an opera house in their life.

And whilst Andrew would be supremely comfortable if patients in return, all became ENO Members, his more urgent need is to continue the funding process.

ENO is currently looking for corporate sponsors, who wish to be visible in their COVID support and also by implication, support for the Arts. It is a truism that every patient is somebody’s employee. You could argue there is a vested interest in corporates protecting their employees in a wider sense.

We finish our discussion. Andrew is sitting in white T-Shirt, in his pristine white lounge area at his home. He has other calls to make, One of the ENO mantras, is that opera is open to all – but I don’t think even he imagined how this would work out.
 
If you are interested in supporting ENO Breathe, please contact Andrew at agiven@eno.org and if you like to know more visit https://eno.org/eno-breathe/’
 

Lucia Di Lammermoor. A Story for Our Times


We review the English National Opera first night of this dramatic Donizetti masterpiece and say that – in the “MeToo” current world,  this is a production you have to see.

There are academic articles and opinions of the role of women and heroines and Prima Donnas in Opera, into which the creation of “Lucia” as an Opera, is designed to play a part.  This comment is not one of those. If you “get” that the fusion of music, and drama, is the key entry into deeper areas of  our soul – then the standout performance of Sarah Tynan as “Lucia” is one of the most phenomenal performances I have ever seen in all my years of watching opera.  This is a performance that you have to see, and you must say to your grandchildren that “you were there”.

How so?

Because Sarah’s interpretation rises above the protagonists around her, the wall of never decreasing orchestral and chorus support. It is a tour de force because right from the start, there was never any gentle introduction. There is angst even from the first scene. There was never going to be a happy ending.

This feeling of tragic helplessness, is enhanced by the oversized dimensions of the staging, with Lucia deliberately petite, vulnerable.

This “Lucia di Lamermoor” is drama supported by music. In many ways, the music never reaches the heights of melody of Mozart – or better insight into human nature of say Puccini, or Berlioz – and at times I just wished there was a melody that I could remember on the tube train back to my hotel. The music frequently pauses and moves into one aria after another, but it is not until the last Act does Lucia’s aria steal the show, so to say.

But this misses the point.

This production, particularly with Eleazar Rodriguez complementing Sarah with visible chemistry, is about drama and human emotion. It is riveting. At no point does the intensity ever stop, and at no time does audience appreciation ever waver. 

If you asked random people in the street, who would be their favourite composer – the name of Donizetti would hardly figure. And this is a pity. “Lucia” portrays humanity and the female situation, in a way that has hardly changed even now. I am going back to see this again – and so should you.

ENO SCORE ANOTHER HIT!

We look in wonderment at one of ENO’s best productions yet of this classic modern masterpiece.

Alexander Soddy strides into the orchestra pit, waves and encourages his team, and then there is silence for a full five seconds. And then we are off! And its a strange, curious, beginning…

This is redolent of the performance of Wagner’s ”The Mastersingers” a few years earlier; the feeling somehow that this will be the epic performance – when everything goes right. That night, at the end of five hours, all the orchestra hugged each other at the finale. And so it was last night. From whatever opera or music background you come from, this is a performance you have to see.

The secret sauce of this production is the fluidity, sensibility, and sheer forcefulness and continuation of the orchestra – which allows the drama to experiment, to be funny, aggressive, romantic, and convey sincere emotion – without ever losing sight of the fact that essentially, this opera is a dream.

The whole stage is one giant bed. The production relies on the singers/actors/actresses hopping from bed to stage, from awake to asleep, from fantasy to reality. The melodic lines of the music never give away anything you can hum along to, no nice chord progressions and cadences; there is this sense of being suspended somewhere and indeed the third act is precisely that – the three beds suspended in mid air.

And then there is the humour which is less rather than more, – subtle at its best. My standout performance was Eleanor Dennis as Helena, very similar to Mary Bevan some years earlier, also a former Harewood Artist.

But this is to be picky; all of the singing, the characterisation, the direction, was spot on, an integrated whole. Sometimes, particularly at the end of the second act, the drama and clever direction took your breath away

The humour reached its peak at the finale. This was the nearest we got to traditional Shakespeare productions and slapstick humour. It reminded me of the last time I saw this, in Devon – just a couple of years ago.

The difference here – is that the music adds the extra dimension, at times searing, to force the drama.

And then Puck wraps it up… we are back to the original Shakespeare lines…

Was I dreaming? I have no idea. But I am still rubbing my eyes. I can’t believe it.

Friendship is a Wonderful Thing

We look at the English National Opera friendship programme, and ask; why did it take us so long to find this?

As concepts go, – friendship is a valued treasure. Apparently, we only have no more than five “real” friends, in our entire life. The people that put up with us, the people where we feel comfortable. It’s an overused term.

There was this girl I used to know, who wanted me to become her “friend” on Facebook. Why sure – I said – tell you what; “ “give me your number and we can have a chat”. “Oh no”, she said; “I only give my number to my friends”.

You could say that friendship, is hard to find. In that case, the ENO Friends Programme, ticks that box. It takes at least six clicks to even start the process of becoming a Member, and that’s assuming you actually know where to start.

But when you get there – it is the best value for money we have found in London. Nowhere else can you have a face to face chat with a West End star, listen to them talk about their work, and get a glass of wine, for no more than a few quid.

It’s an irony because Opera per se has an image of being elitist and rarefied – and yet here I am sitting in my jeans, with other people who are both elegantly dressed and equally laid-back, and we talk and share experience because we value the opportunity to share that experience. It is part of the ENO philosophy of reaching out across cultural boundaries, but it does so in a non-political way. If you value what it does, then you will take the trouble to find it.

The ENO Friends Programme in essence is a meeting of minds. Who needs Facebook anyway?