by Hair with a blue, facial bubble cushion pink, the eyes highlighted in yellow, Andy Warhol paid homage to Botticelli’s Birth of Venus With joyful freedom to create a lively dialogue between Italian Renaissance -high art and American mass culture. His revision illustrates a growing trend for musicians to try something similar: a Handel -Aaria that is built into a microphone with pulsating keyboard, turns into an even more passionate soul song. The same instrumental concert of the composer, op 6 No. 10, is reinvented as a vocal piece-with ai trading bot-generated texts (bfjjfid ooooh eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee III GHDJRR) for those who are trill together.
Three events in the past week presented versions of this type of Baroque-Updat experiment. Two were in Stone Nest, the ex-Welsh chapel, ex-Nightclub in the London Shaftesbury Avenue: Arias redesignedPart of the London Handel Festival, not classic with the independent plate label; And Rhythm of the seasonsPresented by the local group of the event location, which included an interpretation of Vivaldi Four Seasons on percussion.
In Arias, the Mezzo-Sopraner Lotte Betts-Dean, a singer of rich and fearless versatility, has changed freely between arias from trade Theodora And pop from the past 35 years, including Britney Spears and Cocteau Twins. The common thread was emotional intensity and the overwhelming keyboard and the invention of the harpsichordist Xiaowen Shang.
In a second set was accordion baroque, a duo inspired by accordionists that Baroque played in Berlin’s subway stations. The radical singer composer Loré Lixenberg and the accordionist Lore Amenabar Larrañaga, who brings to every sentence she plays, dignity and melancholy worked with Handel, JS Bach and John Cage (Sound by Isa Ferri).
The night ended in a more remote area, with the several talents of Bianca Scout (music, movement, electronics, voice and more) and her little ensemble, the short, creepy mini dramas with titles like “We are the lost ideas that dance back from death”. I admit to be amazed, but nothing new there.
Vivaldi’s to say Four Seasons Percussion was simply not true in comparison. The dazzling soloist James Larter, who attributed the arrangement with the director Frederick Waxman, withdrew the score back into his bones and with coordinated percussion – vibraphone, marimba – and a series of drums, bongos, gongs, triple cows, forest lock, castatets, castanets, castanets, castanets, Castatets, castatets, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chops, chopps.
Vivaldi’s Soli were used between a five-member string group, an almost ghostly harpsichord-covered Waxman, and occasionally his sleeves used to crown the sound of damping all over the wilderness and jumped the virtuosity of Larter itself. Each of Vivaldi’s imitations, from the barking dog to bird song to drunk dance, sounded different, new Exposed, each vertebrae taped and rattled and yet lovingly authentic. The next event of the figure at Stone Nest is Lament on April 10th: Easter music by Couperin (Leçons de Ténèbres) with readings by Donald Macleod from Radio 3.
Also in the mood, Vache Baroque’s From the depthIn the Smith Square Hall, combined bump music by Wilbye, Purcell, JS Bach and Zelenka with readings that were delivered by Oscar Wildes’s De profundisWritten during his detention in the Reading prison. This form -changing group of young musicians was founded during pandemic. Her mission includes children’s shows, opera, all types of public relations, cooperation with some of the best aspiring Star Talents -here, Countertenor Alexander Chance and Tenor Guy Cut -to achieve the highest standard of historically informed performance.
Brahms’ chorale prelude for organ, sincerely, did me, arranged by Vache’s director Jonathan Darbourne for votes, was a memory of the fluidity of the music to honor the past: back, in this case, to a secular song about a Lutheran hymn about JS Bach (and finally, forward to Paul Simon). The short farewell “in Pace” by John Sheppard ended an extraordinary evening.
Easy to forget Puccini, also based on a predominantly baroque form – that of the Italian Commedia dell’arte – for his last opera. Turandot. Archetype and myth are dressed in some of its harmoniously daring music, which was unfinished at the time of his death in 1924. The classic staging of the Royal Opera of 1984 by Andrei șerban with designs by Sally Jacobs has returned to his 16th revival (director Jackness), which in the areas of fun, which is in lightness, in the relaxation, in the relaxed fun, in the loose, in the entire noticeable, in the whole, in all, loosely, in all endings Throughout the entire economical, in the entire economical, in the loose, passionate, passionate, loose -thespectacle -Aggressible -to -to -the -The -The -Tacle -Tacle -Tacle -Tacle -Tacle -Tacle -Tacle -Tacle -Tacle -Tacle -Tacle -Tacle -aggassen, so ridiculous, all over the whole endings. Porcelain-white masks, purple banners, suspended tableau threshold, as well as the choir and orchestra panoply that are so important for this opera. There were shabby moments, but Rafael Payare conducts this spirited revitalization with such an impetuous enthusiasm that nobody has anything against.
The character development is hardly the point. The Arabic and Italian history tells of a murderous princess and a self-calming hero who tries to exceed the other with their merciless puzzles. Only the tragic former slave Liù (Anna Princeva) has a lot of chance of nuance. The American-Canadian soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, an international Puccini star and a worldwide leading Turandot, has a coarse-grained, speaking response and can climb over an orchestra in full inclination. As Calaf, the South Korean tenor Seokjong Baek tends to spectacle to generics, but its persistent, shiny stress is incomparable, exciting and only slightly longer than Puccini. And yes, his nessun Dorma is just as good as everyone else in a few minutes, but it is worth waiting. See Turandot Live in cinemas on Tuesday or repeat from next Sunday.
Star reviews (from five)
Arias redesigned ★★★★
Rhythm of the seasons ★★★★
From the depth ★★★★
Turandot ★★★★
