'A real show-stopper' - Review: Suor Angelica at Perth Festival
St Ninian's Cathedral, Perth
Keith Bruce
four stars
The three steps up to a specially-constructed performance platform created in the middle of Perth Cathedral could not compete with the grand staircase that dominated Sir David McVicar's recent Scottish Opera staging of the central opera in Puccini's Il Trittico trilogy, but they were emblematic of the more compact success of Opera Bohemia's version in partnership with Amicus Orchestra.
Douglas Nairne's production makes the fullest possible use of the venue, which is a new one for the festival with more open sight-lines than St John's Kirk and ample room for the orchestra, which was placed beyond the stage, with the singers often making their entrances from behind the audience.
That device made the most of the reverberant acoustic for the choruses, while the instrumentalists, under the very attentive and often exuberant baton of Alistair Digges, always sounded in focus, with well-balanced wind soloists and a rich string sound. A couple of keyboards provide crucial extra sonic colour when required.
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With simple costuming, stylish stage blocking, and minimal props, the tragic tale of Sister Angelica, rejected by her family for falling pregnant and estranged from her son, unfolds in classic story-book fashion, much of the work done by Puccini's masterly scoring. In soprano Jenny Stafford, who covered the role for English National Opera, Bohemia have a fine new recruit to the more familiar faces in the company. Absolutely on top of the part vocally, she avoids any melodrama in a performance of affecting sincerity, her aria when she learns of the death of her child a real show-stopper.
Around her the women swiftly create the impression of a strict but mutually-supportive community into which Angelica's aunt, The Princess, steps as the embodiment of moral severity. Mezzo Louise Collett's nuanced approach to that role is as impressive, the latest of a series of fine performances for the company.
Sioned Gwen Davies, Cheryl Forbes and Monica McGhee add important solo voices, and the ensemble of the ten women is the production's heart, suggestive of more rehearsal time together than was probably actually available.
Although it is being seen elsewhere – including a performance on the Isle of Bute on Saturday - this is a contribution to Perth Festival of the Arts truly in the tradition of the bespoke opera productions of the event's earliest years, and it should set a template for the future.
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The Herald Scotland
2 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
'A real show-stopper' - Review: Suor Angelica at Perth Festival
St Ninian's Cathedral, Perth Keith Bruce four stars The three steps up to a specially-constructed performance platform created in the middle of Perth Cathedral could not compete with the grand staircase that dominated Sir David McVicar's recent Scottish Opera staging of the central opera in Puccini's Il Trittico trilogy, but they were emblematic of the more compact success of Opera Bohemia's version in partnership with Amicus Orchestra. Douglas Nairne's production makes the fullest possible use of the venue, which is a new one for the festival with more open sight-lines than St John's Kirk and ample room for the orchestra, which was placed beyond the stage, with the singers often making their entrances from behind the audience. That device made the most of the reverberant acoustic for the choruses, while the instrumentalists, under the very attentive and often exuberant baton of Alistair Digges, always sounded in focus, with well-balanced wind soloists and a rich string sound. A couple of keyboards provide crucial extra sonic colour when required. Read more With simple costuming, stylish stage blocking, and minimal props, the tragic tale of Sister Angelica, rejected by her family for falling pregnant and estranged from her son, unfolds in classic story-book fashion, much of the work done by Puccini's masterly scoring. In soprano Jenny Stafford, who covered the role for English National Opera, Bohemia have a fine new recruit to the more familiar faces in the company. Absolutely on top of the part vocally, she avoids any melodrama in a performance of affecting sincerity, her aria when she learns of the death of her child a real show-stopper. Around her the women swiftly create the impression of a strict but mutually-supportive community into which Angelica's aunt, The Princess, steps as the embodiment of moral severity. Mezzo Louise Collett's nuanced approach to that role is as impressive, the latest of a series of fine performances for the company. Sioned Gwen Davies, Cheryl Forbes and Monica McGhee add important solo voices, and the ensemble of the ten women is the production's heart, suggestive of more rehearsal time together than was probably actually available. Although it is being seen elsewhere – including a performance on the Isle of Bute on Saturday - this is a contribution to Perth Festival of the Arts truly in the tradition of the bespoke opera productions of the event's earliest years, and it should set a template for the future.
The Herald Scotland
2 days ago
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A masterly synthesis of old & new: Review: Perth Festival, Ora Singers
St John's Kirk, Perth The opening concert of this year's Perth Festival of the Arts was a festival debut for the Ora Singers, 18 unaccompanied voices under the direction of Suzi Digby, but the choir made such varied use of the fine acoustic of St John's Kirk they might have been based there. The programme, which drew an excellent first night audience for this year's event, was the now-familiar mix of Renaissance polyphony and contemporary responses to such early music, framed by the Miserere settings of Allegri and Sir James MacMillan. The former began the programme in a transept of the building with most of the choir then processing around the audience while an unseen quartet of voices answered them. Ora Singers conducted by Suzi Digby at St John's Kirk in Perth (Image: free) The theatre of that opening found further echoes throughout the evening, especially a central sequence where male voice plainchant, Alma Redemptoris Mater, preceded a sextet singing Cecilia McDowell's setting of the same text. That mirroring technique also ran through the programme, an Ave Marie by Victoria followed by Mark Simpson's, which is full of arresting chords and interesting rhythms and showcased the bedrock of lower male voices that is a real strength of this ensemble. Among the more familiar Marian Latin words, two settings of the Song of Solomon's Sicut Lilium, from Renaissance France (Antoine Brumel) and by John Barber were more unusual offerings, and they were preceded by Francis Poulenc, whose voice was, as always, singularly distinctive. Another outlier was the recent commission in the programme, An End Without End by Electra Perivolaris, who is based on the Isle of Arran and was mentored in Ayrshire by MacMillan. Her setting of 17th century Scots poet William Drummond was more fragmentary in style, using solo voices, duet, trio and quartet as well as larger ensemble. Read more Digby's direction of these details was light-touch, while she was very old-school in her conducting of works like Palestrina's Assumpta est Maria, which was all the better for her rigorous time-keeping. David Bednall's setting of the same text was another highlight, with ear-catching syncopations and a rich choral climax. The MacMillan, however, could be the only choice to end the concert, its masterly synthesis of old and new in a class of its own, and the point at the evening when the six sopranos of the Ora Singers demonstrated a sectional solidity not always evident earlier.
