Jonathan Dove’s new opera of Mansfield Park has been touring stately homes in the north of England, bedding in gently before a big premiere. But a sudden cancellation at the Grimeborn Festival in Dalston, a mile downwind from the Tottenham riot zone, has parachuted it into the capital.
The premiere is on Monday. If you’re free, it should be worth a look. Dove’s airport opera, titled Flight and staged at Glyndebourne, sticks in my mind as an ingenious modern drama.
Here’s what they say about Mansfield Park:
Thanks to a last-minute cancellation, and the incredible generosity of some lovely angels, there will be a single performance of MANSFIELD PARK in the Grimeborn Festival this coming Monday.
The opera was commissioned by Heritage Opera and has been touring stately homes in the north of England, out of reach of most Londoners.
Accompanied by a piano duet, a cast of ten tell the story of Fanny Price, a Cinderella-like heroine, who quietly negotiates her way through the moral perils of early nineteenth century high society, from landscape gardening and amateur theatricals to balls and arranged marriages, and wins the hand of the man she has loved all her life.
A cast of unforgettable characters: the shrewish Aunt Norris; the indolent Lady Bertram and her pug; the beautiful but morally flawed Mary Crawford and her charming brother Henry; the bickering sisters Maria and Julia, make Mansfield Park the most subtly comic and moving of all Jane Austen’s novels.
Alasdair Middleton deftly compresses the narrative into an evening’s sparkling entertainment, in which Jane Austen’s voice can be clearly heard. Subtly evoking Regency manners, Jonathan Dove’s music catches Austen’s wit and pathos, giving a voice to her most private heroine.
ARCOLA THEATRE
24 Ashwin St
Dalston
London
E8 3DL
Tickets £15
Box office 020 7503 1646 or www.arcolatheatre.com
One of Britain’s best orchestras has been wrestling with the likely effects of a 7 percent reduction in its Arts Council grant and 9 percent from the local authority, a loss of around £300,000 ($500,000).
After careful, collective deliberation between the players and administrators, the musicians agreed to trim 2 percent off their salaries. Together with a recruitment freeze in certain areas and some changes to working patterns, that ought to cover the deficit.
The enlightened band is the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Simon Rattle’s former organisation. I hear from both players and management that they are content with the outcome and enjoying their summer break.
Over the past decade, base salaries for players in UK regional orchestras have risen from £18,000 to almost £30,000. In that context, a 2 percent cut is a modest, exigent adjustment.
Elsewhere, there’s a rumour going round that the London Philharmonic Orchestra has cut player fees by 3.5 percent. It is strongly denied by a string player’s spouse, who’s in a good position to know what’s what.
Let me know if you hear more of cuts in other orchs.
I have just heard from the pianist Alberto Portugheis that the graceful violinist José Luis Garcia has died in London after a long illness.
He was, for more than 20 years, the leader and soloist of the English Chamber Orchestra, named on many recordings, most notably Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and the Mozart violin concertos. The funeral will be at 14.30 on Thursday 25th August, at St Paul’s, in Onslow Square, SW7.
I will post further details as they become available.
Here’s a short biography from his niece’s website:
Born in Madrid , Spain , Garcia began his violin studies at the age of six with his father. Upon winning First Prize in the 1960 Sarasate Violin Competition he moved to London to study at The Royal College of Music under the direction of Antonio Brosa. One year later he won the Stoutzker Prize, the College’s senior violin award.
In 1966, at the age of 22, he was appointed Professor of violin at the Royal College of Music in London , the youngest professor ever appointed to any British senior music school. In 1967 he was honoured with the prestigious Harriet Cohen International Award, given annually in England to musicians of distinction.
During a substantial part of his life, Garcia studied with the great conductor Sergiu Celibidache, who became the strongest influence in his music making and with whom he had the privilege of appearing as soloist several times.
Mr Garcia was Leader-Director of the world famous English Chamber Orchestra for more than twenty years. During this time he made hundreds of recordings with the ensemble, many of them as soloist and director. Some of his best known recordings have been those of the of the Mozart violin concertos, two versions of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and many others.
Over the last thirty years he has appeared as soloist with many of the major orchestras in Europe with distinguished conductors such as Sergiu Celibidache, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Colin Davis, Leonard Slatkin, Garcia-Asensio and others. However, since the mid 1980s he has increased his activities in the USA and Canada , appearing frequently as conductor and soloist with the St. Louis Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the Washington National Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Toronto Symphony, the Fort Worth Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, the Utah Symphony Orchestra and others. He has performed many times in Japan and other countries in the Far East , and has done several tours in Israel conducting the Israel Chamber Orchestra and the Sinfonietta.
In 1992 he joined the faculty of the Queen Sofia School of Music in Madrid where he spends as much time as possible as Violin Professor. From 1992 to 1999 he was also Music Director and Conductor of the orchestra. With the orchestra he has toured all over Spain , appeared in several Festivals in Portugal and conducted the orchestra’s debut in Paris .
He participates every year in numerous Summer Festivals and Courses in the USA and Europe as conductor, violinist and chamber music coach
During the last few years he has also appeared as Conductor-Soloist with most of the Spanish orchestras.
In 2007, Mr. García suffered a severe stroke which stopped his brilliant musical career.
At this moment, Mr García has made such amazing progress in his rehabilitation that we will be able to enjoy his knowledge and talent in two Master Classes. His communication abilities, which go beyond speech, will add musicality and inspiration to all of us who will have the privilege to assist to this event.
After a long white night in a Finnish sauna, Gergiev sat down with me again the following afternoon beside a lake for what he described as ‘the longest interview I have given in ten years’. We recorded two hours and would have kept going but he was late, as ever, for rehearsal and he needed to change out of the casual Arsenal shirt he was wearing (gift from an oligarch, ‘I hardly know him) into something less distracting.
No topic was off limits. We discussed the precise nature of his relationship with Vladimir Putin, his casual attitude to time-keeping, his core human and musical relationships and, fundamental to all else, his driving motivations.
You can hear it on the Lebrecht Interview this Monday at 10.15pm London time, and streamed all week on site.
A longer cut of the conversation may run later in the year.
No reason was given last night for the removal of Eric Dingman as head of EMI Classics other than the pusillanimous excuse: ‘He’s moving on’. It’s a line from the Beatles, but you wouldn’t expect Citibankers to know that.
Actually, the figures at EMI Classics have been quite good since Eric was hauled off the clothes rail and hired to run a music business. He ran foul of a few classical artists whom he offered to make famous – they thought they were already – but astute exploitation of back catalogue brought a good bottom line and the bonus hunters at the idiot bank were kept happy, for a while.
The problem was, as ever, creative. EMI was signing no new artists and losing prime assets.
Nigel Kennedy, once a major profit centre, swung off to Sony. The Belcea Quartet, among the best of its generation, felt neglected and withdrew. Others down the line have been seeking other outlets. Apart from the ever-loyal Antonio Pappano, EMI’s talent cupboard has been looking as bare as a post-riot phone shop.
If the bankers care about EMI as an asset, that’s a priority they need to address without delay. Sign some artists, summon a sense of renewal. But they can’t, and they won’t. All they want to do is get the bloody label off their books. But before they manage to do that, more heads will be hired and fired, more payoffs will be made and more ridicule will fall upon Citibank for its imaginative impotence.
Why would anyone trust such a bank with their money?
