Wine expert Oz Clarke played master of merriment at West Green with a four act programme that crossed England and Europe before leaving us in South America. Each themed set of music matched a drink, with Oz guiding us through the nuances of both taste and sound. Beer and Britannia matched a sharp, hoppy ale from Basingstoke’s Long Dog brewery with a lot of Purcell, who would take the starring role at Longborough at the end of the week. Hildegard Von Bingen … who, ironically, turned up in a totally different context in my last article, was a logical contributor of her tune O Happy Roots thanks to her status as the first scientific writer to note the antiseptic properties of hops.
Next to the Rhine, where a Riesling was as sweet as the sounds of Handel, Gluck and Bach that matched it … though probably a little too sweet for enjoyment without some spicy food to counter it. (Or desert to complement it.) The reds of the second half were more successful. A 2021 Valpolicella from Allegrini and the Monteverdi, Vivaldi and Grandi that Oz selected to go with it combined for my favourite set of the evening. Far more surprising was a Chilean Carmenere Reserva paired with 17th century church music; both the results of missionary zeal in South America. A particular high point was Zespedes’ Convidando esta la noche, given a faster pace and a backbeat of maracas to transport the tune into a modern toe-tapper.
Lovers of wine and music don't need scientific studies to tell them that one enhances the other, even though the clever clogs at Cambridge have proven it. Evidently your joy will escalate 15% with the right paring. It’s just surprising that I’ve run across so few people making more of this fact. West Green’s promotions didn’t even make a big deal of it; the specifics of the tasting … complete with matching local cheeses … were a surprise to us on arrival. We’d booked for Oz and the music and totally missed this added benefit. To be honest, I’m not sure how anyone made any profit out of the generous pours they were serving up, something they should be thinking about as the backing Armonico Consort was raising money for a music education charity. I’d love to see more of this concept, and think it would be an excellent gateway for many into less-familiar areas of music.
Up at Longborough, I suspect “less familiar” covered most audience members when it came to Purcell’s Fairy Queen. Though interest in early opera has been growing, and Glyndebourne did a much-publicised version of this musical take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2017, it’s not a typical part of the opera repertoire. I expect we were not unusual in that we’d heard snippets, but not seen the whole thing.
Purcell wrote it for William III’s birthday celebrations in 1692, mashing up the beloved Shakespeare comedy with a series of mostly-unrelated court masques on topics of love and nature. The loose affiliation gives modern producers a chance to get creative. Longborough has pushed the boat out, turning the fairies into young activists protesting climate change, the Athenians into the old, besuited establishment and the enchanted forest into a music festival. This shift works, and becomes magical, because they also play around with Purcell’s music. Some songs slide into a folk adaptation, while other pieces sound like the trance-inducing club classics you get at the end of a long night on the dance floor. The young performers, and the orchestra who spend much of the time playing on the move as they interact with our “festival”, dance and sway exactly as they would to those modern genres, making the adaptation all the more credible. It’s the first time I’ve emerged from a Longborough production wishing there was a recording; I’d love to hear this unique adaptation again.
Purists might have been a bit less keen on the updating. One of our companions, who is almost completely blind and therefore entirely focused on the music, was a bit disappointed not to hear a pure delivery of the original. Unable to follow the visual clues, the musical adaptations made less sense to him. I’m not sure what Purcell or William III would have thought of it. But I loved it, and the updates managed to avoid the gloomy dirges that Purcell can sometimes devolve into, even when he’s writing cheerful scenes.
I also thought that the parable on climate change was probably as close to a real court masque as we’re likely to get in the modern world. This was heavily carried out during the masque of the god Phoebus where the music takes us through the four seasons … notably the death of the world in winter. It wasn't masque-like in magnificent scenery, special effects or royalty appearing as divinities, but rather in the idea that masques of the 17th and 18th centuries used Baroque music and classical stories to get contemporary political points across. Here, as the music sings of Mother Earth’s bounty dying in winter, young activists with faces painted as skeletons bring a giant balloon of the Earth onto a hospital gurney and put it on life support. Unsuccessful, they remove the tubes and bury it with funereal gloom. Happily, the globe comes back at the end and is passed about like those giant beach balls so common in festival crowds.
This was the season’s production for emerging artists and featuring Longborough’s Youth Chorus, and I can’t think of a topic more appropriate for them.
The planet’s funeral makes the whole thing sound grim and tediously political; which it’s not. This is, after all, an adaptation of one of the funniest plays in the Western repertoire. It’s almost impossible to do A Midsummer Night's Dream without bringing joy to the audience’s heart. This production demanded not only top voices but a considerable amount of acting. The whole cast delivered.
Special shout outs go to George Robarts’ swaggering Bottom with a particularly amusing descent to an ass; Anne Reilly’s Helena, swinging through a range of extreme emotions with tremendous clarity of voice; and Rhydian Jenkins’ Snout, playing “the Wall” with one of those Welsh accents and tenors that turns the listener to jelly. One of the delights of Longborough is the intimate nature of the experience. We returned to our hotel to find Jenkins’ gregarious family and friends celebrating his success in the garden. I hope the story is one I’ll tell after he’s turned into the next Bryn Terfel.
There are any number of climate-engaged, festival-going under-35s in my life I would have loved to take to this performance. None of them have any particular interest in classical music, but I instinctively know they’d appreciate this Longborough production. I might turn to a slightly different list for music and wine tasting, but the result is the same. Sadly, neither audience shifted the dial much on the average age of listeners. But the potential is there. Experiences like this make me optimistic about the future of classical music.
_________________
Speaking of youth and classical music, the past fortnight also brought the sad news of the death of pianist André Watts. André shot to fame in the 1960s on a televised Young People’s Concert series and was a protege of Leonard Bernstein. A few years later he was touring the United States, still being managed and accompanied by his mother, when my father organised a social outing to the symphony for the local Bar Association. (That would be lawyers, not tavern keepers). This included a reception for André, who by that point wasn’t that much younger than my fresh-out-of-university parents. My parents went out to dinner with André and his mother, they all hit it off, and I grew up with a famous classical pianist in my life.
Should that happen to a modern kid, there’d be a video trail, a soundtrack and social media posts. All I have are memories. And a lovely vase with a Japanese-style glaze André gave me when I moved into my first house in Dallas. A vase that’s become a lot more precious this month.
No comments:
Post a Comment