Favorites of 2021: Streamed performances

Soprano Mary Bevan. Photo: Victoria Cadisch

In this second year of the pandemic, streaming enabled us to see concerts happening across the country or across the world at a time of our choosing; return to a specific moment in a concert if we were interrupted, or rewatch it in its entirety; or pause to get up and pour refills of our adult beverages. Of course it's not the same as an in-person performance: the view is better, while the sound doesn't compare. But for much of the past year streaming has been the only possible experience, and it definitely has its own advantages. Many thanks to the relative who gave us a gift subscription to Boston Baroque, which inaugurated our streaming explorations.

Two streamed concert series in particular showed how it could, and should, be done: keep the cost of tickets closer to that of a movie than an in-person concert, give viewers not a specific time or only one night but rather several days or weeks over which they can view the event, and make the technical side as straightforward as possible. Boston Baroque, the Voces8 Live from London Festivals, and the Boston Early Music Festival continue to get it right, providing models for how artists, companies and audiences can benefit from the streaming format.

FAVORITES

Voces8: Live from London Festivals

Live from London is a series of hybrid online/in-person festivals of (chiefly) vocal groups and singers. Among the many participating groups and singers this year were I Fagiolini, the King's Singers, Stile Antico, and Dame Emma Kirkby. Each program included at least one collaboration with members of Voces8, the festival organizers and hosts. While the three concerts listed below were highlights, every program we saw was filled with wonderful music. The Live from London Christmas 2021 festival is now underway.

Johann Sebastian Bach: Mass in B Minor
Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Iestyn Davies (countertenor), Jeremy Budd (tenor), Matthew Brook (bass-baritone), and VOCES8, with the Academy of Ancient Music, Rachel Podger, guest leader; Barnaby Smith, conductor. Premiered 4 April 2021.

Performed on Easter Sunday, Bach's monumental Mass in B Minor offered solace and uplift after a pandemic year of separation, isolation and loss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G08GdMXOcg8

All Shall Be Well
ORA Singers with Zeb Soanes; Suzi Digby, artistic director. Premiered 11 July 2021.

In 1349 the Black Death arrived in Norwich, England, about 120 miles (200 km) northeast of London, and may have killed half the population; the plague returned periodically over the next four decades. The anchoress later known as Julian of Norwich, who was six years old at the first appearance of the plague, and who over the course of her life witnessed mass death and social disruption, nevertheless would write, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

Inspired by Julian's affirmation, Suzi Digby and ORA Singers juxtaposed Renaissance works with contemporary pieces inspired by them, interspersed with texts read by BBC presenter Zeb Soanes that spanned the centuries in between.

Roxanna Panufnik's "Kyrie after Byrd," a reflection on the "Kyrie" of William Byrd's Mass for 5 Voices, commissioned and performed by ORA Singers directed by Suzi Digby:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaD5R28R_Qs

Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

George Frideric Handel: Heroes and Heroines (arias and duets)
Mary Bevan (soprano) and Barnaby Smith (countertenor and artistic director of Voces8) with the Illyria Consort, Bojan Čičić, director. Premiered 8 August 2021.

This program presented arias and duets ranging from Handel's very first oratorio, Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (The Triumph of Time and Disillusionment, 1707) to his last, Jephtha (1751), and included three of his greatest operas: Rinaldo (1711), Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Julius Caesar in Egypt, 1724), and Rodelinda (1725). The selection functioned as a kind of "Handel's greatest hits," but with music this ravishing no more overarching theme or specific focus was necessary. Bevan has an immensely pleasing soprano with a hint of darker color that was showcased in her more pensive or plaintive arias, and which blended beautifully with Voces8 director Barnaby Smith's countertenor in the duets.

"Tu del Ciel ministro eletto" from Il trionfo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3YVC58vYM8

Tu del Ciel ministro eletto non vedrai più nel mio petto voglia infida, o vano ardor. E se vissi ingrata a Dio tu custode del cor mio a lui porta il nuovo cor.

You, the chosen minister of Heaven, shall see no more in my heart a faithless wish or vain passion. And though I lived without offering thanks to God, may you, my heart's guardian, bring to Him a new heart.

Boston Early Music Festival and Festival Fringe

The Boston Early Music Festival has been presented every other year (with one exception) since 1981. BEMF also offers an annual concert season; the BEMF 2021-22 season is currently ongoing, and is highly recommended.

As with Live from London, we enjoyed every concert we saw as a part of the 2021 Boston Early Music Festival and Festival Fringe. I selected the following three concerts as favorites, though, because their programs seemed especially thoughtful.

Perpetual Night: 17th-century Ayres and Songs
Lucile Richardot (mezzo-soprano) with Ensemble Correspondances, Sébastian Daucé, director. Premiered 24 April 2021.

Programs of 17th century English songs often focus on a few major figures such as John Blow and Henry Purcell. While of course they are included here, one of the many excellences of this concert is that Richardot and Ensemble Correspondances director Sébastian Daucé have constructed a varied program that also includes less often performed music by composers such as John Banister, Robert Johnson, and William Lawes, as well as songs for both solo singer and vocal ensemble. Richardot has a striking voice with an especially rich lower range, and the accompaniments and instrumental pieces are sensitively performed. This program has also been released as an album on Harmonia Mundi, is available on YouTube or your favorite audio streaming service.

"Care-charming Sleep" by Robert Johnson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI3DJSEH1rE

Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes, Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose On this afflicted prince; fall like a cloud In gentle showers; give nothing that is loud Or painful to his slumbers; easy, sweet, And as a purling stream, thou son of Night, Pass by his troubled senses; sing his pain, Like hollow murmuring wind or silver rain; Into this prince gently, oh gently slide, And kiss him into slumbers like a bride.

Jean Richafort: A Requiem for Josquin
Cinquecento: Terry Wey (countertenor), Tore Tom Denys and Achim Schulz (tenor), Tim Scott Whiteley (baritone), Ulfried Staber (bass), with Bernd Oliver Fröhlich (tenor). Premiered 8 June 2021.

Filmed in the Vienna Imperial Chapel and marking the 500th anniversary of the death of the composer Josquin Desprez, this illuminating program by the all-male vocal group Cinquecento is filled with gorgeous polyphony. A 16th-century document names Jean Richafort as one of the numerous 'students' of Josquin, probably meaning that he took Josquin's music as a model for his own. This program illustrates that process by presenting Richafort's haunting six-voice Requiem in memory of Josquin along with the music by Josquin that is quoted in the Requiem. This program has also been released as an album on Hyperion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBD_sMOxlbk

Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Circumdederunt me gemitus mortis, dolores inferni circumdederunt me: Te decet hymnus Deus, in Sion, et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem: exaudi orationem meam; ad te omnis caro veniet. Circumdederunt me gemitus mortis.

Give them eternal rest, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. Laments of death surround me, pains of Hell surround me. A hymn befits you, O God, in Zion, and the vow will be repaid to you in Jerusalem: hear my prayer; all flesh will come to you. Laments of death surround me.

New World Polyphony: Treasures from the Cathedral of Mexico City
Byrd Ensemble: Margaret Obenza, Danielle Reutter-Harrah, Ruth Schauble (soprano); Sarra Sharif, Joshua Haberman, Willimark Obenza (alto); Orrin Doyle, Sam Faustine (tenor); David Hoffman, Jared White (bass). Markdavin Obenza, director. Premiered 16 June 2021.

A well-conceived program of works drawn from a single source, the two choirbooks dated 1717 from the Cathedral of Mexico City. The concert opens with compositions by the Old World composers Palestrina, Victoria, and Lobo. The second half introduces works by the 17th- and 18th-century Mexican composers Antonio Rodriguez de Mata, Antonio de Salazar, and Manuel de Sumaya, who were trained in, continued and extended the tradition established by the earlier composers.

Markdavin Obenza selected the program (along with Margaret Obenza), directed the accomplished performances of these beautiful and moving works, and acts as our engaging and informative host. He also directed the concert video itself: amazingly, all of the performers recorded their parts separately and were seamlessly combined by Obenza to make it appear as though they were singing together in the beautiful setting of Trinity Parish Church in Seattle.

"Adjuva nos Deus" by Manuel de Sumaya:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5Jsy63sQ5k

Adjuva nos, Deus, salutaris noster, propter gloriam nominis tui. Domine, libera nos, et propitius esto peccatis nostris propter nomen tuum.

Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name. O Lord, deliver us, and forgive us our sins for your name’s sake.

The full 45-minute-long program can be viewed on YouTube.

Cal Performances

In Spring 2021, while the UC Berkeley campus was still closed, Cal Performances made concerts available as live or recorded streams. Oddly, given the summer and fall surge in cases due to the delta and now omicron variants, it has not offered that option for performances in its 2021-22 season. For the safety of artists and audiences, I hope that decision will soon be reconsidered.

Claudio Monteverdi: Madrigals of Love and War
La Capella Reial de Catalunya and Le Concert des Nations, Jordi Savall, director. Premiered 3 June 2021.

In this concert Jordi Savall revisited Monteverdi's Eighth Book of Madrigals, Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi (Madrigals of war and love, 1638). Savall recorded excerpts from this collection in 1995 with his wife, the soprano Montserrat Figueras, and La Capella Reial de Catalunya; that album is now a classic. His interpretation of this glorious music has not changed greatly in the intervening years, nor is there any reason for it to do so.

Since video of the concert is no longer available, in its place I offer an excerpt from the 1995 album. "Lamento della ninfa" (Lament of the nymph), sung by the late Montserrat Figueras accompanied by La Capella Reial de Catalunya:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBZYy4qo0tU

"Amor," dicea, il ciel mirando il piè fermò "dove, dov'è la fé che 'l traditor giurò?" Miserella. . . "Fa che ritorni il mio amor com'ei pur fu, o tu m'ancidi, ch'io non mi tormenti più." Miserella, ah più no, tanto gel soffrir non può. "Non vo' più ch'ei sospiri se non lontan da me, no, no, che i suoi martiri più non dirammi, affé!" Miserella, ah più no. . . "Perché di lui mi struggo tutt'orgoglioso sta, che sì, che sì se 'l fuggo ancor mi pregherà?" Miserella, ah più no. . . "Se ciglio ha più sereno colei che 'l mio non è, già non rinchiude in seno Amor si bella fé." Miserella, ah più no, tanto gel soffrir non può. "Né mai si dolci baci da quella bocca havrai, né più soavi; ah, taci, taci, che troppo il sai."

"O Love," she begged, gazing heavenward, rooted to the earth, "What happened to the vow of faithfulness that the traitor swore?" Unhappy girl. . . "Let my love return to me as he was before. Or kill me, so that I no longer bear this torment." The poor girl, ah, no more can she suffer so much coldness. "No more will I listen to his sighs, Unless he is so far from me, That he cannot say the things That torture me." The poor girl, ah, no more, no. . . "The more I destroy myself for him, The more satisfied he becomes. But if I were to flee, Would he then come begging?" The poor girl, ah, no more, no. . . "That woman’s eyes May be more limpid than mine, But within my breast, O Love, Lives a faithfulness more fair." The poor girl, ah, no more can she suffer so much coldness. "And that woman’s mouth will never Give him kisses as soft nor as sweet as mine! Hush! What good does it do to say more?"

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Boston Lyric Opera

Philip Glass: The Fall of the House of Usher
Chelsea Basler (soprano), Jesse Darden (tenor), Daniel Belcher (baritone), Christon Carney (tenor), Jorgeandrés Camargo (bass), with a special appearance by Sheila Vand. Boston Lyric Opera Orchestra, David Angus, conductor.

When the pandemic hit many opera companies delved into their archives and provided videos of past performances. In some cases (Glyndebourne) this was done extremely well, and in some cases (the Metropolitan Opera and San Francisco Opera) it was done poorly.

But a few companies took the pandemic as a creative opportunity. Boston Lyric Opera was one. When the planned stage production of Philip Glass and Arthur Yorinks' The Fall of the House of Usher was cancelled, BLO commissioned a film version involving hand-drawn and stop-motion animation as well as a live framing narration featuring actress Sheila Vand and a montage of found footage.

The strongest element of this mélange is the hand-drawn story of Luna, a child refugee who, together with her mother, is fleeing violence in Central America and trying to make it to the United States, an imagined place of safety. Luna's story and the found footage bring home, as it were, the United States' continuing history of racism, exclusion, fear, exploitation, environmental destruction, and injustice: the Return of the American Repressed, the sinister twin of the American Dream.

The weakest element of the whole is Arthur Yorinks' clunky libretto for the opera, which misrepresents Poe's Gothic horror story as a therapeutic narrative. The libretto regularly jarred this viewer out of Poe's doom-laden world, and is the reason this project is an honorable mention rather than a favorite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgC-aS_u8m0

Other Favorites of 2021:

• Live performance
• Recordings
• Movies
• Books