Heart and Soul of the Knowlton Festival - Kent Nagano

by Paul E. Robinson

Le Chapiteau was filled to capacity and the sun was shining brightly on Sunday morning when Kent Nagano gave the downbeat for Brahms’ Symphony No. 1. Two hours later, after the closing chords of Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, it was clear that the Knowlton Festival had ended twelve days of fine music-making in triumph. Several hundred audience members stayed after the concert to enjoy an excellent buffet lunch served in the Chapiteau lobby. From the comments I overheard, the combination of beautiful music, good weather and tasty food had made believers of nearly everyone.

Brahms Symphony # 1 Concludes Cycle
In this final concert of the Knowlton Festival 2009, Kent Nagano and the OSM concluded their Brahms cycle with the magnificent Symphony No. 1. Today's performance was of a piece with those which had preceded it. Nagano likes his Brahms lyrical and transparent. In all his readings, one notices a wealth of detail often passed over by other conductors.

That said, to my mind, Nagano’s approach to the first movement of this particular symphony was a little sleepy. The second movement began extremely slowly and I wondered whether it could be sustained. It was! The OSM strings adjusted their bowing and, in the case of the solo wind players, dug deep for extra breath to carry them through the long lines. The horn and violin solos were exquisite.

The last movement is really the heart of this masterpiece and Nagano shaped it beautifully. The whisper-soft pizzicati were perfectly coordinated. Scarcely a sound was heard from the wholly attentive audience. The performance ended in a blaze of sound with particularly vigorous contributions from the OSM timpanist.

June Anderson, Sumi Jo and Susan Platts Sing Strauss
Every festival concert this season featured vocal music. On this occasion, we heard soprano June Anderson in Beethoven’s Ah! Perfido Op. 65, and in the "Marschallin’s Monologue" from Act I of Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss. To cap the evening, Anderson was joined by soprano Sumi Jo and mezzo-soprano Susan Platts for the final scene from the same opera. Anderson and Sumi Jo are seasoned veterans, and Canadian Susan Platts held her own in this distinguished company. Nagano accompanied the artists with characteristic sensitivity, giving the audience music-making on a consistently high level.

Kudos to Maestro Kent Nagano
I had the privilege and the pleasure of attending nearly every concert in this year’s festival. It became obvious to me early on that much of the success of the Knowlton Festival depends on the artistic vision and energy of one man - Kent Nagano.

My own rough analysis suggests to me that, during the twelve days of the festival, Nagano must have commuted from Knowlton to Montreal and back at least a dozen times. Conducting seven concerts, Nagano must have been involved in at least twenty rehearsals of one kind or another, and yet, at each festival performance, he appeared fresh, involved and in total command. And let’s not forget that just days before the Knowlton Festival began, Nagano flew into Montreal from Germany, after an arduous series of opera performances – with very different repertoire - in Munich. And right after the Knowlton festival, he heads to Italy for performances of Don Giovanni with Canada’s Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.

There’s more than energy and artistic breadth to admire about Nagano. From a musician’s perspective, his technique is exceptional. You may notice that while many conductors keep both arms in motion doing pretty much the same thing, most of Nagano’s conducting is done with his right hand. You may also notice that the right hand moves in very carefully circumscribed motions. Most musicians prefer a conductor who is not flailing his arms all over the place, one whose gestures are clear and precise. In this respect Nagano is the ideal conductor. He gives the musicians what they need to give the best of themselves. In addition, he is - in his quiet and diplomatic way - absolutely insistent on getting what he wants. Musicians don’t mind being pushed and disciplined to a certain extent, as long as the person doing the pushing is well-informed and confines his pushing to musical matters. Again, this is an accurate description of Nagano.

Knowlton Festival Here to Stay?
The Knowlton Festival was launched last year by Kent Nagano and local businessman Marco Genoni to celebrate the glories of bel canto. Nearly all the concerts were given on successive weekends. This year, the repertoire was broadened and many more concerts were added to give music-lovers something to enjoy every night of the almost two-week long festival. Perhaps the expansion was a little too ambitious - the weeknight concerts drew smaller audiences; on the other hand, the festival certainly maintained a presence in the community it didn’t have last year.

As much as I enjoyed this new and expanded Knowlton Festival, I harbor some lingering concerns regarding its sustainability:

Maestro Kent Nagano is clearly the heart and soul of the Knowlton Festival; what will happen if he decides to leave the OSM? Would he continue his affiliation with Knowlton? Remember that the Lanaudière Festival lost Nagano and the OSM to Knowlton because Nagano is committed to being in Munich in July. How tempted will Nagano be to take on opportunities that will limit his appearances with the Knowlton Festival in the coming years?

And how long can anyone operate a summer festival featuring a major symphony orchestra in a small hall seating 850? I can’t think of any festivals anywhere in the world that can pull this off. Most successful festivals utilizing a small hall engage a student or training orchestra. A full-sized professional orchestra typically increases festival operating costs, to the point where halls seating thousands are required to balance the budget. Of course private donations and government grants are always required to make up the difference, but the fundraising challenge the Knowlton Festival has given itself appears almost insurmountable. Hopefully, festival organizers are already busy developing a sustainable long-term concept.

Festival Programming Too Many Missed!

On the penultimate day of the festival I heard some fine singing by soprano Marianne Lambert and tenor Juan Noval-Moro. Unfortunately, only about 50 people attended this ticketed concert at Chapelle St-Édouard.

I also took in part of an excellent - and well attended - master class by conductor and coach Massimiliano Muralli in West Brome. Muralli walked some young singers through excerpts from Mozart’s Don Giovanni and the expertise he shared with them (and the audience) was invaluable. He emphasized the importance of language in opera – accenting Italian correctly and really understanding the meaning of the words; the need for singers to respond to the harmony in the music and to what the orchestra is “saying”; and the importance of controlling volume to produce a more beautiful sound.

Finally, I had the pleasure of seeing a wonderful children’s opera called Orfea and the Golden Harp. This was a Jeunesses Musicales Canada presentation featuring a Toronto-based group called Theatre Cotton Robes. The two performers smoothly alternated French and English and their singing and costume changes kept the children in the audience enthralled. Much of the music was taken from well-known operas. This was a fine introduction to opera and should have been seen by more people. Again, there were fewer than fifty people in the church. Perhaps a greater effort could have been made encourage parents and children in the area to attend. It would be wise, both in terms of music education and audience development, to invite this nifty little troupe back to the festival again next year. But next time make sure that local schools are alerted! Who knows? Perhaps the local school board would even consider sharing some of the cost!

Paul E. Robinson is the author of Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar, and Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music, both available at Amazon.com.

Knowlton Festival 2009: Operalia Winners Showcased in Bellini and Tchaikovsky

by Paul E. Robinson

One lesson to be learned from Thursday night’s concert is that great singers can make even the worst music sound important - lesser singers not so much. On this occasion, we heard some talented young singers struggling with the inanities of Bellini’s I Capuleti e I Montecchi, second-rate music that should never have been inflicted on them. On the other hand, in the second half of the concert, excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Eugen Onegin showed other Operalia winners to great advantage.

Murrali and Ensemble Undone by Bellini
As one of its missions, the Knowlton Festival celebrates the art of bel canto and features some of its finest practitioners. But as with everything else in life, there is good and not so good. To programme an hour of excerpts from I Capuleti e I Montecchi, conscript some promising young singers to perform it and force – remember, one has been bussed to the site from one’s car - a festival audience to sit through it, is cruel and unusual punishment. The music isn’t worth it. The singers chosen to present this repertoire showed little affinity for it, conductor Massimiliano Murrali didn’t do much with the score, and the Festival Orchestra seemed ill at ease with the whole undertaking.

At last night’s performance, we had the usual absence of surtitles or translations but were at least offered a brief synopsis of the story behind the opera by Kelly Rice, who also pointed out that in this telling of the Romeo and Juliet story, Romeo is a ‘trouser role’. Rather important I would suggest – particularly for those coming to the opera for the first time. – to be alerted to the fact that in this Bellini opera, as in some other operas such as Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, one of the leading male parts is sung by a woman. Even more important in an hour without surtitles or translations.

To assist the audience further, Mr. Rice pointed out that mezzo-soprano Kremena Dilcheva would be instantly recognizable as playing the role of Romeo because she would in fact be wearing “trousers.” For all we know, there may still be members of the audience waiting in the Chapiteau for this mysterious trouser-wearing female singer. No such person ever appeared on stage during the performance I saw. What we did get was a Romeo in a glamorous shimmering blue (for “boy”?) low-cut gown.

As for this evening’s Juliet - dare I mention that Sumi Jo gave us a wondrous performance of Juliet’s aria, “O, quante volte” at last year’s festival?

Nagano and Company Bring Onegin to Life
So much for the first half of the concert. After intermission, we had music of real quality – from Tchaikovsky’s Eugen Onegin – and a conductor who knows his business and his music; Kent Nagano, no less, with an impressive cast of singers. Even the orchestra sounded a whole lot better.

The cast for the Tchaikovsky was headed by Ukrainian soprano Oksana Kramaryeva as Tatyana. I first heard her at Operalia in Québec City last September. At the time I was greatly impressed by the beauty of her voice and her command of phrasing, especially in an excerpt from Verdi’s Aïda. Last night, she was again impressive in the musical values of Tatyana’s great “Letter” aria. However, as we heard more of the opera, it seemed to me that she was underplaying the character. This is a deeply conflicted woman and her inner turmoil seldom bubbled to the surface in Kramaryeva’s performance. Baritone Christopher Magiera as Onegin also sang well and he was much more passionate. Tenor Dmitri Popov (photo: right) made an exceptionally heroic and ill-fated Lensky. Nagano kept it all flowing with total command of the score.

Cornucopia of Bel Canto Talent Presented at Festival
As Marco Genoni noted in his opening remarks, the Knowlton Festival celebrates three generations of singers. It features big stars like Sumi Jo, Ben Heppner and Thomas Hampson, but also artists at the early stages of their career who are creating excitement through their prowess at the Operalia competition created by Placido Domingo. Finally, there are the young singers from the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. This is an admirable concept and one hopes it will be an ongoing feature of the Knowlton Festival. The process, however, can be risky if young singers are entrusted with roles beyond their capacity, on the same stage where the stars have performed.

Audiences expect to pay a pretty price to see and hear proven internationally acclaimed artists. Tickets to performances by rising stars and students, on the other hand, should surely cost less.

For the record, it was a beautiful summer’s evening in Knowlton. Perhaps summer has finally settled in after weeks of below average temperatures and frequent rain. More of the same is expected through the final weekend of the festival.

Coming Next: the final performance of La Sonnambula will be given tonight (Saturday), and Sunday at 11 am Kent Nagano will conduct the OSM in the concluding concert. The programme includes the Symphony No. 1 by Brahms and the final scene from Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier. June Anderson, Sumi Jo and Susan Platts are the featured soloists. After the concert, patrons are invited to picnic on the hillside near the Chapiteau. Sounds like a great way to end an exciting festival. For more information visit the festival website.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar, and Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music, both available at Amazon.com.

Group Photo (above) left to right: Oksana Kramaryeva, Dmitri Popov, Ekaterina Lekhina, Christoper Magiera, and accompanist Doug Han after recital earlier in the week.

Knowlton Festival 2009: Nagano/OSM/Hampson Outstanding in Brahms/Strauss Programme

by Paul E. Robinson

Last night at the Knowlton Festival, Kent Nagano continued his Brahms cycle with the OSM playing the Symphony No. 3 in F major Op. 90. The evening’s guest soloist was American baritone Thomas Hampson (photo: right) in three songs by Richard Strauss. It was arguably one of the best concerts of the festival.

The Brahms Third opened the programme and from the first bars, Nagano’s ear for balance and beauty of sound was again evident. As the first movement unfolded, there was more. I wouldn’t say there was abandon – that quality doesn’t seem to be a part of Nagano’s artistic persona – but there was real intensity. This symphony is regarded as autumnal and reflective, and is the only one of the four Brahms symphonies to end quietly. In the first and last movements, however, there is excitement and grandeur and Nagano and his musicians captured much of it. I must say I have rarely heard the orchestra play better. The wind solos were not just accurate, but memorable. The string textures were rich and finely detailed.

Musicians know that the Third Symphony is very difficult as an ensemble piece. Nagano and the OSM players had obviously done their wood-shedding, and it paid off. The syncopations in the last movement were exceptionally precise. Much of the credit for the standard of playing must always go to the musicians themselves, but the conductor’s perception of sound is obviously crucial to the shape of the whole.

Nagano has an ear for both the big picture and the smallest detail. As far as the big picture is concerned, I was struck by his slower than usual tempo for the second movement. At this tempo, the lower strings had time to be expansive in their phrasing; they positively glowed. In the fourth movement, Nagano chose to maintain the quick tempo right into and through the second subject, where other conductors ease up. This strategy worked perfectly and added to the excitement without any loss of melodic grace.

Programming Major Work Before Intermission May be Wise
A minor point, but a significant one perhaps: at most of the Knowlton Festival concerts, the major work concludes the concert. At the final chord, a fair number of concert-goers – understandably – make a dash for the exits to make sure they don’t get caught up in the long lines to board busses.

Last night the Third Symphony, the major work on the programme, opened the concert. At its conclusion audience members stayed in their seats – or, more accurately, on their feet – to applaud Nagano and the OSM at the end of the performance. The ovation was warm, vocal, and sustained. Conductor and musicians clearly appreciated it.

Incidentally, in his opening remarks tonight, Knowlton Festival president and executive director Marco Genoni apologized for the transportation challenges and assured folks that these were being dealt with by management.

Baritone Thomas Hampson Beguiles Knowlton!
After intermission, one of the leading stars of the Metropolitan Opera took the stage to perform some rarely-heard songs by Richard Strauss. Thomas Hampson is by now a beloved figure in New York and around the world and everything he does is informed by scholarly preparation, intelligent phrasing and a ringing voice. He was in fine voice last night and I thoroughly enjoyed the repertoire.

Hampson sang three songs, written in the years 1897-99, around the time Strauss was composing works such as Don Quixote and Ein Heldenleben, but before the composition of his most famous operas.

For me, the most impressive of the songs presented was Notturno Op. 44 No. 1. The poetry is by Richard Dehmel, the same man who later inspired Schönberg in his Verklärte Nacht. Since these are orchestral songs and the composer is Richard Strauss at the top of his game, it is not surprising that something amazing happens in the orchestra in every bar.

The orchestration, with its use of trombones at the bottom of their register combined with double basses and contrabassoon, suggested a sort of dry run for Elektra or Salome. The sustained chords played by this combination of instruments were ominous and unsettling. On top of these chords were frequent violin solos – virtually the top and bottom of the orchestra playing together. The sounds were mesmerizing and gave Hampson the ideal framework for his rendering of the text. A great song and an ideal performance.

Hampson also sang Hymnus Op. 33 No. 3 and Pilgers Morgenlied Op. 33 No. 4. Even without the texts available to them, the audience loved what they heard and demanded an encore. Hampson obliged with Rheinlegendchen (Rhine Legend) from Des Knaben Wunderhorn. This is folk poetry rendered into Mahlerian folk song and Hampson sang it beautifully. With all the accompanying body language, it was obvious to the audience that Hampson was telling some kind of amusing story. One wished he had let the audience in on at least the outlines of this charming tale before he sang it.

Hampson is justly famous for his Mahler, having recorded most of the songs with Leonard Bernstein and written extensively about the composer and his music. Come to think of it, it was more than twenty years ago that he made the Bernstein recordings and Hampson sounds better than ever! Anyone wanting to know more about Hampson should visit his website. It is filled with information including titles and texts of all the songs in his repertoire.

Incidentally, the violin soloist in Strauss’ Notturno was Andrew Wan, one of the OSM’s two concertmasters. Wan just joined the orchestra last year and it is already apparent that he is a huge asset for his stellar playing and for the obvious energy and leadership he brings to the role.

Good Sound Might Go Further with Portable Shell
I have long thought that where one sits at a concert has a lot to do with one’s impression of the performance. This is probably less true in a great hall but critical in a poor or mediocre hall. Le Chapiteau (tent) at the Knowlton Festival is not a great concert hall nor does it pretend to be one. Last night I sat in the sixth row – for many of the other concerts I have been much further back and off to the side – and for the first time I really began to feel I was hearing the orchestra properly and well. I would guess that anywhere in the first ten rows one will have a similar experience. The problem is that these are also the most expensive seats. A great experience for those who can afford to sit there; for the rest of the audience, some work needs to be done to enhance the sound. A portable shell of some kind might help.

Coming Next: Today at 5 pm Susan Platts gives a free recital and tonight at 8 pm Massimiliano Muralli leads the Festival Orchestra with prize winners from Placido Domingo’s Operalia competitions in excerpts from Bellini’s I Capuleti e I Montecchi, and Kent Nagano conducts excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Eugen Onegin. Tomorrow (Saturday) morning the busiest day of the festival begins at 10 am with a children’s opera Orfea and the Golden Harp presented by Jeunesses Musicales du Canada, followed by a master class with Italian conductor Massimiliano Muralli. Marianne Lambert gives a recital at 2 pm. In the evening, there is a second performance of Bellini’s La Sonnambula led by Kent Nagano and featuring Sumi Jo. Finally, on Sunday morning at 11 am – note the unusual time for the concert – Kent Nagano conducts the OSM in the closing concert with soloists June Anderson, Sumi Jo and Susan Platts in the final scene from Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier. Nagano also completes his Brahms cycle with the Symphony No. 1. For more information visit the festival website.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar, and Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music, both available at Amazon.com.

Knowlton Festival 2009: Beethoven's Diabelli Variations Illuminated by Kovacevich

by Paul E. Robinson

American-born pianist Stephen Kovacevich has made his home for many years in England. He must like it there because he rarely visits North America these days. He made an exception with Nagano and the OSM last summer and last night again at Nagano’s invitation – and with Nagano and his family in the audience - he gave a recital at the Knowlton Festival in Québec. The performance confirmed Kovacevich’s reputation as the ‘thinking man’s pianist’.

For the first half of the concert, Kovacevich chose Bach’s Fourth Partita and Schumann’s Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood). In both pieces he appeared to be probing the music deeply, without necessarily inviting listeners to share his thoughts.

The dynamic range adopted in the Bach was extremely limited and in the Schumann, Kovacevich confined his playing to mutterings and murmurings. But there were compensations. I have rarely heard the two contrapuntal lines in the Allemande movement of the Bach played with such lyrical beauty in both parts. And in the Schumann one was reminded that these may be scenes from childhood but they are not intended for children. This is a man looking back on childhood with a great sadness; those dreams he had so long ago are gone now, crushed by the weight of the real world of adulthood. The piece is often played with a sense of nostalgia but rarely with the disheartening melancholy Kovacevich gave to it.

After intermission came the mighty Beethoven Diabelli Variations. Before playing this daunting piece, Kovacevich spoke briefly to the audience. He pointed to the work’s experimental quality, and suggested that this is a ‘mysterious’ composition in the sense that its meaning is not altogether clear. Does it end on a hopeful note or only an illusion of hopefulness?

Since this is a late work and as Kovacevich pointed out, Beethoven had lived a very unhappy life - especially with respect to the opposite sex - one might expect all the late quartets, piano sonatas and the Diabelli Variations to be full of sorrow and despair. This is not the case at all. What all these works do share is the experimental quality - evidence of the composer at the height of his powers, creating new forms and using the piano and other instruments in a myriad of new ways. One could argue that the older Beethoven was preoccupied with creativity rather than despair.

The Diabelli Variations have been at the heart of Stephen Kovacevich’s repertoire for his entire career. He made his European debut with the piece in 1961. He recorded it for Philips a few years later and just last year – forty years later – he recorded it again for Onyx Classics.

Kovacevich’s Knowlton Festival performance of the Diabelli Variations was far more extroverted than his Bach and Schumann. He does not dazzle the listener with his technique; rather he concentrates on tone quality and what one might call the soul of the music. Other pianists can play faster and louder. What Kovacevich gives us instead is a look inside the music and inside the composer’s psyche.

Many composers were invited to write variations on Diabelli’s banal little tune. Beethoven knew as well as anyone that the tune was superficial, but then went on to demonstrate that every element of it could be used as the basis for development, that one thing could lead to another, and another. Ultimately, as Beethoven showed us, one could end up with something rather profound. Put it all together and you have a master class in compositional technique and a window into Beethoven’s soul.

Many of the variations in this work are abrasive and some are downright gloomy. Some quote Bach (Goldberg Variations) and Mozart (Don Giovanni). As Kovacevich pointed out in his remarks, after the monumental fugue, Beethoven ends up with music resembling late Mozart. Was this an ironic commentary on Diabelli’s tune? Is Beethoven suggesting what a great composer like Mozart could have done with Diabelli’s mundane material? Or was this Mozartean minuet tacked on to leave the listener with classical repose after the storm and stress of what has come before? The mystery persists.

This is why works such as the Diabelli Variations are infinitely engrossing. No single performance can ever reveal all its facets. Stephen Kovacevich has spent a lifetime exploring the piece and it was a privilege to hear his latest thoughts. He is one of the supreme interpreters of the piece.

At the age of 69, Kovacevich remains a unique and important artist. Given the infrequency of his North American appearances – watch for a recital in Chicago next season – his recordings are invaluable. Many of his older Philips recordings are still in the catalogue and his traversal of the complete Beethoven sonatas for EMI is readily available. There is also a recent EMI DVD containing live performances of the Sonatas Op. 110 and Op. 111.

Coming Next: Tonight (Thursday) soprano June Anderson gives a master class at 5 pm and at 8 pm Kent Nagano conducts the OSM in Brahms’ Symphony No. 3. On Friday, prizewinners from Placido Domingo’s Operalia are featured with the Festival Orchestra under Nagano in excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Eugen Onegin.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar, and Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music, both available at Amazon.com.

Knowlton Festival 2009: Les Violons du Roi with Guilmette a Royal Treat!

by Paul E. Robinson
The excitement of the opening weekend has died down and the crowds have thinned but the Knowlton Festival (Québec) continues with music-making of the highest order. Our own period music specialist ensemble, Les Violons du Roy, based in Québec City, took the stage last night and filled the air with the sounds of Handel.

In a festival that focuses on bel canto, it makes perfect sense to give some exposure to vocal literature which was an important forerunner. With the participation of Les Violons du Roy, organizers have significantly broadened the repertoire covered by the Knowlton Festival. I hope we will hear more baroque music next year.

Historically informed performances are now fairly commonplace, but Les Violons du Roy have been at it for nearly twenty-five years and their authority in this repertoire is palpable. Much of the credit must go to its conductor Bernard Labadie (photo: right). He gives us not only scholarly work but joyous, exciting and often surprising performances. No wonder he is now in demand all over the world as a guest conductor.

In addition to his early music expertise, Labadie has served a long apprenticeship in the opera house and will make his debut at the Met later this year leading performances of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. He is a fine all-round musician and the whole world is now discovering how good he is.

In praising Labadie I don’t mean to underestimate the importance of his players. There were twenty-five of them in the Chapiteau (tent) and each one of them made important contributions. Best of all, they functioned as a well-rehearsed ensemble. They had obviously taken great care to coordinate their phrasing, dynamics, length of the notes and bow strokes. The heart of this orchestra is the string section and it demonstrated a whole range of musical virtues from subtlety to virtuosity. Yes, this is a remarkable band of musicians. One wished their names had appeared in the programme!

The major work this evening was Handel’s Water Music. This music was written in 1717 for King George I to enjoy as he sailed down the Thames. Some of it is appropriately regal and festive but there are also more intimate pieces. The orchestration is one of the glories of the work – actually three suites joined together – and Les Violons du Roy made the most of its opportunities. We had a sensuous oboe solo, a perky recorder solo, lusty horn fanfares and trills and exciting timpani riffs.

As Labadie pointed out in his introductory remarks, the Water Music is rarely played complete. The reason, one might suggest, is that it can wear out its welcome - but not in this performance. Labadie not only varied dynamics within movements; he also dared to speed up and slow down when he thought the music would benefit from such alterations. Handel left no such instructions for the Water Music, but by now Labadie feels so confident in this style that he can permit himself imaginative embellishments. It’s called ‘interpretive freedom’ and in going down this road, Labadie is following in the footsteps of early music pioneers of the order of Harnoncourt, Christie and Gardiner.

Incidentally, Labadie and Les Violons du Roy have made a recording of the Water Music for Analekta.

In the first half of the programme, we heard an orchestral suite from Armida and a group of arias from Handel’s operas Alcina and Giulio Cesare. The fine soprano soloist was Hélène Guilmette (photo: right). Her youthful, lyric voice was well-suited to the music and she tossed off the ornamentation with the greatest of ease. I must confess that I prefer a more darkly romantic interpretation of ‘Piangerò la sorte mia.” This performance was a little too artful for my taste and the choice of ornamentation ornate rather than expressive. Still, I came away from these performances looking forward to hearing more from Guilmette.

As an aside, I feel compelled to point out once again that in a festival, the focus of which is vocal music, it is a gross oversight not to provide the audience with texts and translations either in the printed programme or as surtitles.

Coming Next: Tonight’s concert in the Chapiteau features the wonderful pianist Stephen Kovacevich making a rare appearance in Canada. He will play Beethoven’s massive Diabelli Variations. Tomorrow night Nagano and the OSM resume their Brahms cycle with the Third Symphony. Joining them will be American baritone Thomas Hampson in a group of songs by Richard Strauss. For more information visit the festival website.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar, and Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music, both available at Amazon.com.

Knowlton Festival 2009: "Bel Canto Greatest Hits" with Young Singers from the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome

by Paul E. Robinson

One of the unique features of the Knowlton Festival (Québec) is the collaboration with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (ANSC), one of Italy’s leading music schools. The president of ANSC, Bruno Cagli, is involved in planning for the Knowlton Festival, and every year he includes performances by some of his outstanding students in the festival programme. Monday night we heard six of them accompanied by the Festival Orchestra directed by Carlo Rizzari.

The concert was a sort of “Bel Canto Greatest Hits”, similar to the one presented last year by June Anderson and some ANSC students. Without a star of Anderson’s stature on the bill, however, it lost some of its audience appeal. With this in mind, the festival organizers might have considered reduced ticket prices. After all, an average price of $100 a seat is a lot to pay for a concert by students - however promising – whether they are from Rome or Montréal.

Maestro Rizzari also has a connection with the ANSC. He is the assistant conductor of its orchestra. One might assume that the ANSC orchestra is a ‘student orchestra’ but one would be wrong. The Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Symphony Orchestra is one of the best orchestras in Italy. Its current music director is Antonio Pappano and conductors of the stature of Masur, Eschenbach, Temirkanov, Tilson Thomas and Nagano appear with it regularly. Bernstein was a frequent guest conductor and made several recordings with the orchestra.

Festival Orchestra, Rizzari & Sparkling Rossini Overtures
On this night, Rizzari was in charge of the Festival Orchestra, which had already distinguished itself in the previous night’s performance of La Sonnambula. Most of the musicians are Québec players, but the concertmaster is Riccardo Minasi, a well-known Italian soloist and early music specialist. Minasi teaches at the Conservatorio Bellini in Palermo and, earlier this year, took up a position as associate director of the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra. Presumably, the idea of engaging Minasi was to provide expertise in the area of bel canto style within the orchestra. So far the results have been impressive. Last night, the orchestra again gave us long singing lines and excellent precision, accompanied the singers with exceptional sensitivity and, on its own, contributed sparkling performances of two Rossini overtures.

Singers Delight Audience with Bel Canto “Hits”
With respect to the singers, I would say that they all displayed admirable training, but not much individuality – with one notable exception. And while this programme concentrated on bel canto repertoire, not one of the six seemed, in my opinion, outstandingly gifted in this idiom.

The notable exception was tenor Antonio Poli (photo: right). This young man has a voice of extraordinary natural beauty and he uses it with remarkable elegance and maturity. Poli and baritone Pedro Josè Quiralte Gómez sang beautifully in the famous duet from Bizet’s The Pearlfishers, and in the quartet from Verdi’s Rigoletto, Poli really came into his element. His breath control and phrasing were outstanding and even in the loudest passages, there was never any sense of strain. I suspect that Poli will go on to a major career singing lyric roles in Mozart and early Verdi.

For the record, the other singers taking part were soprano Paola Leggeri, mezzo-soprano Anna Goryacheva and baritone Sergio Vitale. Their performances were certainly competent, but generally too studied to really come alive; for example, soprano Rosa Feola’s traversal of an aria from Rossini’s La Donna del Lago. Other interpretations were so restrained that I began to suspect the teachers at the ANSC of having actively discouraged any expression of passion or personality. It’s all very well to insist on the purity of bel canto style but in the final analysis, what makes music come alive is the combination of discipline and individuality. There was not much of the latter on display last night.

That said, it’s always a pleasure to hear young singers. This extraordinary collaboration between Knowlton and Rome is at the heart of the Knowlton Festival, and gives audiences an opportunity to hear voices trained at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, arguably the ultimate authority in bel canto style. Therein lies the excitement and the appeal of last night’s concert. What will we hear? Tomorrow’s stars? Possibly! The joy of discovery!

The audience that turned up last night numbered about 300 in a tent which has been filled to a capacity of 850 at previous events. If applause and standing ovations are a gauge of the success of a concert, the evening was definitely a success.

Getting to the Festival Site
If you’re planning to join the music-lovers who have already discovered the Knowlton Festival, be forewarned; you’ll have a bit of a challenge getting to the festival site. You’ll be parking your cars in a central location in Knowlton – a big field next to the Brome Lake Duck Farm – then walking across the field to the school busses lined up to transport you (5-7 minute ride) along narrow winding gravel roads to the Chapiteau (tent) a couple of miles away. There is no parking at the site itself. For the most part, the system works well, and the Knowlton volunteers greeting and directing traffic on site are cheerful and engaging. The weather thus far has not been too problematic.

This odyssey becomes more challenging, however, if the busses are not running smoothly and if the weather is not cooperative. Last night, it poured rain and I suspect that the prospect of getting soaked on the way to the concert deterred many people from attending.

Coming Next: Tuesday night the period music specialists ensemble, Les Violons du Roy, plays Handel, and Wednesday night pianist Stephen Kovacevich gives a recital of works by Bach, Schumann and Beethoven. For more information check the festival website.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar, and Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music, both available at Amazon.com.

Knowlton Festival 2009: The Incomparable Sumi Jo in Bellini’s La Sonnambula

by Paul E. Robinson

Kent Nagano (photo: above) is music director not only of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM), but also of the Bavarian State Opera. His operatic interests are broad and all-encompassing, and he is always looking for new challenges.

For the Knowlton Festival, Nagano has chosen to focus on one particular aspect of operatic literature, the so-called bel canto composers who flourished in Italy in the early part of the nineteenth century. Nagano’s interest in this music paid great dividends last year with very good performances of Bellini’s Norma. This year we heard another Bellini opera, La Sonnambula (The Sleepwalker), dating from 1831. Again, Nagano delivered the goods.

La Sonnambula and much else in the bel canto repertoire has been mercilessly parodied by Gilbert and Sullivan. The stories are silly and the music too often begins to sound like the same simple-minded patterns repeated over and over. These operas also became corrupted by self-promoting divas who took the elaborate ornamentation to the realm of total absurdity with their own interpolations. In recent years singers of the stature of Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland and others showed that when one makes a real effort to get back to what the composers intended, many of these operas can be seen in a new and positive light.

Festival Celebrates Unique Beauty of Classic Bel Canto
Nagano is doing for the bel canto operas what the period instrument specialists have been doing for music from earlier periods. He is searching for the correct style of singing and orchestral playing. He has discovered that Bellini’s operas are less like early Verdi and more like what came before in Schubert and Mozart. This means toning down the bombast and easing up on the vibrato, especially in the string playing. It also means shortening the notes. The result is that the Bellini orchestra becomes a somewhat more robust classical or Mozart orchestra. Similarly, the singing is scaled back to become more lyrical and far more intimate.

The Knowlton Festival has become the summer home of the OSM but even this fine, hard-working ensemble has limits in the number of services it can provide. For La Sonnambula the OSM is replaced by a ‘Festival Orchestra,’ made up of some of Québec’s finest free-lance players. I have no idea how much rehearsal was needed, but the results were very fine indeed. The Festival Orchestra responded to Nagano’s meticulous direction as if they had been playing together for years.

Sumi Jo Heads Cast of Consummate Bel Canto Stars
Performances of La Sonnambula are usually mounted as vehicles for star sopranos. There is no doubt that without a first-rate singer in the role of Amina, the production is unlikely to be successful. At last year’s festival, Sumi Jo (photo: right) was sensational in a concert of operatic excerpts and this year she easily topped that appearance. Her virtuosity was nearly impeccable and her soft singing, exquisite. In the tradition of the finest bel canto artists, she is able to use the ornamentation to convey the feeling of the moment, whether it be joy or sadness or something in between.

She was not alone. Nagano had chosen a superb cast, each of whom was well-schooled in bel canto style. Tenor Barry Banks has technical challenges of his own in the role of Elvino and tossed them off without any difficulty. Riccardo Zanellato as Rodolfo was a commanding presence and cultivated a conversational style of singing perfectly suited to the role. There wasn’t a weak link in this fine cast and the OSM Chorus, functioning in the opera much of the time as a sort of Greek chorus – G & S had a field day with this kind of thing – were precise and animated.

Simple, Effective Staging and Surtitles Enrich Concert Version
This performance was a concert version of the opera with some effective bits of staging by François Racine. Another positive element was the surtitles system set up behind the chorus. The texts, in both French and English, were large enough to be easily read from the back of the tent and always related to what was being sung. We may take surtitles for granted in opera performances but in fact this job must be put in the hands of a highly-skilled professional. In so doing, the Knowlton Festival team enormously enriched the experience for its audience.

A second performance of La Sonnambula is scheduled for Saturday, August 15. Anyone with the slightest interest in opera, bel canto, and great sopranos should be there. At press time, there were a few seats available but when the word gets out about what Sumi Jo, Kent Nagano and their colleagues are up to in Knowlton, those who delay buying tickets may well be disappointed.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar, and Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music, both available at Amazon.com.

Knowlton Festival 2009: Rising Stars and Heroic Strauss

By Paul E. Robinson

Knowlton was awash with tourists and classical music-lovers this weekend. The tourists are a familiar sight in these parts, drawn by the beauty of the location, the antique stores and boutiques selling lavender products and a tempting variety of other country fare. The music-lovers, however, are a relatively new phenomenon, attracted by the Knowlton Festival. On the basis of what I have heard so far I don’t think they would be disappointed.

At its Saturday evening concert in the Chapiteau (photo above: bar area) the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM) under Kent Nagano offered another lyrical and transparent Brahms performance – this time the Fourth Symphony – and earlier in the day there was some fine singing to be heard in two different locations.

Cagli's Master Class an Education in Bel Canto Technique

The morning event was held in the charming Old Brick Church in West Brome. Bruno Cagli (photo: right), the president of the distinguished Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, presented a master class in bel canto with some young singers he had brought with him from Italy. In fact, these singers were already pretty accomplished in bel canto and Cagli spent less time teaching them and more time educating the audience of about 200 – a full house in this intimate setting – in the “rules” of bel canto.

Cagli took his captivated audience through the history of singing, with particular emphasis on nineteenth century composers, including Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini and Tosti, and some of the most renowned singers from that period. There was also considerable talk about breathing and ‘proper’ voice production. Each of the singers contributed very good performances. One of them, tenor Antonio Poli, sounded like a major talent. All of them will be heard again during the festival in a concert with the Festival Orchestra on Monday night.

Domingo's Rising Stars Take the Stage
Later, I dropped by the Saint Édouard Chapel in Knowlton to hear a recital by winners of Placido Domingo’s Operalia competition.

This concert was announced in the programme as featuring “Winners Operalia 2008” (Québec City). Only Ukrainian soprano Oksana Kramaryeva (photo: above left), who took “The People’s Prize” there, fits that description. The other soloists are fairly recent Operalia winners in other countries. All were well worth hearing and have deservedly advanced beyond the promising ‘student stage’ to become busy professional artists.

If I had to choose a favourite, it would Kramaryeva. She is a genuine Verdi dramatic soprano with presence, richness of tone and considerable dramatic skills. Kramaryeva and her Operalia colleagues will all be featured again during the festival on Friday August 15. Kent Nagano will conduct excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Eugen Onegin and Massimilliano Murrali will lead excerpts from Bellini’s I Capuleti e I Montecchi.

And From Ben Heppner - An Almost Perfect Set of Strauss Songs

The founders of the Knowlton Festival – Marco Genoni and Kent Nagano – based their new venture on the glories of the Italian bel canto tradition. While the content of the festival has shifted somewhat in the second season, singing in general and bel canto in particular remains a major component; it is, therefore, entirely within the concept of the festival that one of the world’s great heldentenors should be featured in orchestral songs by Richard Strauss.

Canada’s own Ben Heppner is in constant demand at all the top opera houses in the world and it was a coup for the festival to be able bring him here. He chose for his programme a group of six songs by Strauss, including the beloved Zueignung, along with some less popular pieces.

In the opening bars of Cäcilie we heard Heppner’s effortless purity of sound and beauty of phrasing. The darkly imaginative Ruhe meine Seele was also given a fine performance with Nagano taking care over every detail and the members of the OSM playing beautifully. We heard five Strauss songs presented as well as one is likely ever to hear them.

Then came Befreit. Suddenly, Heppner’s voice simply failed him. It was painful to hear and undoubtedly most painful for Heppner himself. One could only reflect on the vagaries of the human voice.

Texts, Translations, Projections?

As a festival grows, it learns from its mistakes and tries to improve things that need improvement. For any festival that makes vocal music the core of its mission, great care must be taken to provide the audience with texts for songs, operatic excerpts and complete operas being performed. This can be accomplished by means of texts and translations in the printed programmes or through the use of modern technology with projections on screens situated around the auditorium. Whatever the means used, it is not only important – some might add ‘respectful’ - to provide audience members a comfortable way into a full appreciation of the music they are hearing.

The Knowlton Festival continues on Sunday with the first of two performances of Bellini’s La Sonnambula starring Sumi Jo with Nagano conducting. More bel canto follows on Monday night, with an all-Handel programme by the period instrument orchestra Les Violin du Roy under Bernard Labadie on Tuesday night.

The concert on Tuesday will include, in addition to a group of opera arias featuring soprano Hélène Guilmette, Handel’s very popular Water Music.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar, and Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music, both available at Amazon.com.

Photos by Marita

Knowlton Festival 2009: Nagano, OSM and Idyllic Brahms

by Paul E. Robinson

The Knowlton Festival, which started life as Festival Bel Canto last summer, opened officially last night with an all Brahms program. Maestro Kent Nagano did his best, in a well-attended pre-concert talk, to make the case that one could legitimately see the music of Brahms as no less bel canto than the operas of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti. Basically, he was saying that all music is 'singing' or an attempt to emulate 'singing' using instruments. But such a broad definition obscures most of the very real and interesting differences between styles of music.

Nagano was on firmer ground when he took baton in hand and mounted the podium. His Brahms was decidedly lyrical rather than dramatic or rugged, as it is in the hands of some conductors. One didn’t have to agree with Nagano’s general approach to find his Brahms conducting refreshing and satisfying in its own way.

The concert opened with a musical but all too careful reading of the Academic Festival Overture. In this rousing piece based on German student songs, being careful doesn’t get the job done. Even in the big moments, the brass was kept on a tight leash and the extra percussion might as well have stayed at home.

On the other hand, the Alto Rhapsody Op. 53 was fascinating. It too was careful, but more appropriately so. This is a dark, brooding piece that can easily sound thick and ponderous. With his sharp ear for balances, Nagano made the piece exquisitely beautiful. He was helped enormously by mezzo-soprano Marie-Nicole Lemieux and the men of the OSM Chorus. I am sure the sound system had something to do it with it, but the balance between voices and orchestra was nearly perfect. Quite a feat in this piece in which voices and instruments alike are pretty much all in the same register.

Lemieux was even better in the Two Songs for Contralto with Viola and Piano. Her phrasing was remarkably expressive and she fully deserved the ovation she received.

The major work on the program was Brahms Symphony No. 2 in D major Op. 73. Over the course of the festival, Nagano and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM) will perform all four symphonies of Brahms and it was fitting to start this festival set in the Québec countryside with the symphony often called Brahms’ “Pastoral”.

This symphony also made the best case for Nagano’s bel canto approach. From the opening bars, each player was directed to ‘sing’ his or her part and did just that. But it was not only the singing quality in the music that Nagano captured; the transparency of the sound was astonishing. Nothing was covered in over-saturated textures. Even the trumpets managed to function as extensions of the woodwind section rather than as the aggressive intruders they often seem to be in this music. The final coda never fails to bring a crowd to its feet and Nagano and the OSM whipped up plenty of excitement. Some prefer a more ‘hell for leather’ approach, but Nagano showed that precision and taste work wonders too.

With this successful ‘official’ opening, the Knowlton Festival is off and running. This concert was sold out and the size of the crowd made for long waits for buses out of the festival site. Last night’s audience made the most of the camaraderie that standing in line can effect after a shared ‘good’ experience; nevertheless, if there are more big crowds – and there probably will be – something may yet have to be done to get the buses in and out much faster.

The festival tent is much larger than the one used last year. It is decidedly less claustrophobic and now has a bar area under cover. That it is still acoustically challenged should come as no surprise; it is still a tent and as such has no effective reflecting surfaces. Without amplification one guesses that very little sound would get to the audience.

When it comes to the amplification of classical music, I have serious reservations. On the other hand, music is meant to be enjoyed and it can be enjoyed in many different ways and in different settings. As executive director, Marco Genoni pointed out in his pre-concert talk there are very few concert halls where you can sit in your seat and see a sunset behind you and a little later a full moon rising in front of you. And I have to say that in quiet passages, the sound system works extremely well to give you not only more sound, but good quality sound. It is only when the music gets loud, that the lack of real resonance becomes an issue. And for the fine OSM musicians who have endured Place des Arts all these years, acoustical imperfection has become as way of life.

Everything considered a visit to the Knowlton Festival should be on every music-lovers list of things to do this year. The setting is beautiful and a conductor with refreshing ideas is leading a terrific orchestra in some of the greatest music ever written.

More Brahms Saturday night, with tenor Ben Heppner adding some songs by Richard Strauss, and Sunday afternoon a concert performance of Bellini’s La Sonnambula with Nagano conducting and Sumi Jo as Amina. And there are other weekend events too including a master class by Bruno Cagli and two recitals. For more information visit the festival website.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar, and Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music, both available at Amazon.com.

Photos by Marita

Knowlton Festival 2009: Youth Orchestra of the Americas

by Paul E. Robinson

Last August, the charming village of Knowlton, Quebec, 70 km east of Montreal, welcomed the Orchestre symphonique de Montreal (OSM) and the birth of Bel Canto, a summer music festival that focussed on music written for the human voice - more specifically, music composed by Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti.

This summer the OSM is back in Knowlton, with a new name - Knowlton Festival - in a new venue, with a more varied slate of programs, and bel canto still at the heart of it all.

The Knowlton Festival's opening event this season was an orchestra concert that started and finished with infectious South American rhythms, and after several encores, had musicians and audience members dancing onstage and off - in a conga line! What a party! Who would have guessed? Well, if you've been paying attention to South American conductor Gustavo Dudamel and his tours with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra (SBYO) you'll know what I'm talking about. The dancing and the party finish are typical Dudamel/SBYO. The Youth Orchestra of the Americas (YOA) – though less well-known than the SBYO, is definitely a relative, and it was this group that we had the pleasure of hearing in Knowlton this week.

The YOA, founded in 2001, is made up of young people from twenty-four countries and its artistic leadership includes the likes of Dudamel, Placido Domingo and the man who conducted the Knowlton concert, Carlos Miguel Prieto.

Selected via auditions throughout the Americas, 100 or so gifted musicians gather every summer as the SBYO in one of the member countries for intensive training, rehearsals and a tour. This summer Prieto is conducting most of the concerts, but Benjamin Zander and others are also lending a hand.

On the strength of the Knowlton concert, Prieto seems an ideal leader. He's young, personable, and has two professional orchestras of his own in Mexico City and New Orleans. He got the evening off to a rousing start with a virtuoso piece by Canadian composer John Estacio. Fast tempi and tricky rhythms held no terror for this band and Bootlegger’s Tarantella was a great success.

Next came pianist Gabriela Montero, featured earlier this year at the Obama inauguration with Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma. She played with power and passion in Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2. The orchestra played well too, especially the first horn. After the performance, Montero honoured a friend in the audience by not only playing Happy Birthday, but improvising an elaborate set of variations on the familiar tune. There was even a tango version!

After intermission, the YOA played Dvorak’s New World Symphony. In Prieto’s version, it was loud and fast, and a little rushed here and there. No matter. This was totally committed and joyous music-making. I couldn’t help but notice that four of the six bass players were female and that they played with both polish and pride. The principal player – also female – seemed to be in constant motion. Too theatrical? When she graduates to a full-time orchestra, she may have to rein in her terpsichorean tendencies. But many conductors and soloists love to literally strut their stuff. Why not orchestra players too?

After the Dvorak, the audience demanded an encore and Prieto and the YOA readily obliged. Not surprisingly, Prieto borrowed a Latin-American crowd-pleaser from the Dudamel playbook: Arturo Marquez’ Danzon No. 2. The YOA dug into the Latin rhythms with both authority and abandon.

Then came the topper. From out of the wings, wearing a dazzling white jacket, stepped trumpet virtuoso Mauro Maur, kicking off an exciting and infectious performance of Tico-Tico. Maur is principal trumpet of the Rome Opera Orchestra, a teacher at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and a YOA coach. Some members of the orchestra broke into dancing at the edge of the stage and before long half the audience had joined them. Inevitably, a conga line materialized.

This concert was not the festival’s official opening night – that's coming up Friday with Nagano conducting the OSM in an all-Brahms program – rather, it was billed as a “Special Preview Concert.” Some preview! Some concert! This night's audience certainly went home happy with the new face of the festival.

More about the Knowlton Festival’s new facility this year – bigger and better – after Friday’s concert.


Paul E. Robinson is the author of Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar, and Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music, both available at Amazon.com.