Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s great opera The Passenger received its US premiere in Houston last night and we await first reviews. In the meantime, here’s how the production felt like from the inside by the young Welsh soprano, Natalya Anna Romaniw, exclusive to Slipped Disc.
I first saw The Passenger as an audience member at ENO in 2011. As I watched, I knew then it was a special piece and as luck would have it, the opera world is small enough that I am able to be a part of it now in 2014 as HGO premieres Weinberg’s masterpiece in the USA.
From a performer’s perspective the show is extremely challenging, not only musically but emotionally too. We, as singing actors, know that we are telling someone’s story, perhaps not by name, or character but someone who once existed and experienced these terrible things that burdened the victims of Auschwitz every second of every day.
We are going home after the performance and we have warmth, food, clothes and even water, at our disposal. It’s hard not to get emotional when singing this beautiful piece and I know it is something I’ve watched us all struggle coming to terms with. It really makes you think about todays society and how much we all take so many things for granted. It also makes you think about the stories of the lives of the SS officers, how they were affected and did they want to do their jobs? Did they have a choice? Did they have souls at all? The Passenger takes the audience into those characters’ lives. Certainly as performers, it is an incredibly exhausting emotional journey that leads us all into feeling slightly uncomfortable in taking a curtain call. This is something that I vividly remember at ENO, as an audience member. My eyes, filled with tears and my heart, aching with sympathy, didn’t know whether to clap or not … because it is so real and it is told and painted so well by Weinberg that we all find it very hard to take both as audience members and performers.
Would someone like to translate the Russian monologue? And supply a date?
The semi-official Russian newspaper has received its official tip-off. The new Bolshoi music director is, as we predicted yesterday, Tugan Sokhiev. The official announcement will be made Monday morning. Sokhiev, 36, is music director in Toulouse and principal conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.
In the session below, newly posted on Youtube, one musician is transfixed by his iPad, another is sending an urgent text, a third is reading a magazine and a fourth is wondering if he needs a haircut. All the while, the conductor, strings and some of the woodwind are working their socks off.
No need to name the band, but we can vouch that you don’t see this sort of attitude any more with the London orchestras at Abbey Road.
The Court of Appeal has overturned the conviction of a former music teacher, Sir Peter Newson-Smith, for alleged assaults on a ten year-old boy at Clayesmore Preparatory School in Dorset three decades ago. It ruled the alleged victim had misled the court over his intentions to sue for damages.
Sir Peter has spent six months in jail. The case was an isolated one, unconnected to any other abuse investigation in the UK. It attracted tabloid attention due to the alleged perpetrator’s aristocratic background.
The Russia-Britain Cultural Exchange Year kicks off on Tuesday with nothing out of the ordinary.
A programme of Prokofiev Cinderella excerpts, 3rd piano concerto and Rachmaninov’s second symphony could be heard any time, anywhere.
The timing of the exchange, coinciding with Putin’s Winter Olympics and his anti-gay rampage, is suspect. The content is mundane. The UK end is in the hands of Ensemble Productions, run by Julian Gallant and Olga Balakleets. Doesn’t feel much like a celebration.
Riccardo Chailly has pulled out of the annual Vienna Philharmonic Ball ‘for family reasons’. The orchestra are presently on tour with Chailly and the Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos. They have taken the brave decision to invite the soloist to lead the ball in place of the maestro.
It’s back to the good old days of Willy Boskovsky…
The ball is on January 23 at the Musikverein.
Here’s the press release:
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren!
Maestro Riccardo Chailly sah sich aus familiären Gründen gezwungen, das Dirigat der Eröffnung des Balls der Wiener Philharmoniker am 23. Jänner 2014 zurückzulegen.
Wir freuen uns bekanntgeben zu können, dass sich Leonidas Kavakos in liebenswürdiger Weise bereiterklärt hat, die Leitung der Eröffnung zu übernehmen.
Herr Kavakos, der soeben mit den Wiener Philharmonikern das Violinkonzert von Jean Sibelius mit überragendem Erfolg aufführte, tritt – erstmals in der Geschichte des Balls – sowohl als Solist als auch als Dirigent auf.
Er wird Fritz Kreislers „Schön Rosmarin“ spielen und die Ouvertüre zu „Oberon“ von Carl Maria von Weber dirigieren.
The following statement came in late Saturday night:
Please be advised that Judith Clark has relinquished her post as General Manager with the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra and will be pursuing a number of independent consultancy projects in music and the arts. The Board wishes to record their thanks to her for her past service and, in particular, to the important part she played in making the recent appeal a success.
Karen Platt
Chairman
