Prom 21 : The Voice II   Wagner, Henry, Barber, Gough/ Churchill, Prokofiev Elena Manistina (mezzo soprano),  Christine Brewer (soprano), The Shout, The Rabble, BBC Symphony Orchestra, David Roberston (conductor), Huddersfield Choral Society, Joseph Cullen (chorus master).  29.07.2006 (AO)

 

This Prom was ostensibly about voice, and featured both populist and high art music. Yet why then, start with the overture from The Meistersingers of Nuremberg ?The playing was somewhat dilatory. I wondered if neither conductor nor orchestra could see the point of committing too much energy in the circumstances.   It was followed by Michael Henry’s Stand, a new piece for a cappella voices.  It started off interestingly enough with muezzin like calls, but was more pop than impassioned protest.

Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is one of the most beautiful of song cycles, but this was not a good performance.  James Agee’s prose, to which the text is set, is impressionistic, stream-of-consciousness writing which projects a complex and quite specific frame of mind. Ostensibly, it’s about a child observing its family doing “nothing in particular, nothing at all” though notice, no child uses words like “aestival body”.  There are multiple levels of feeling and meaning, which Barber captures in a spare and almost minimalist setting.  Robertson conducted sensitively, picking up telling details, such as in the allegro which introduces a undercurrent of anxiety, like a sudden chill wind.  When the child asks God to bless her people, “in their time of trouble and in the hour of their taking away” the orchestra managed to evoke the tolling of bells. 

Brewer may have spent her childhood in similar circumstances, but her voice and style don’t lend themselves to this music.  She can be good in big bountiful roles, but the more refined prism of art song, like a magnifying glass, shows up interpretative and stylistic miscalculations.  This isn’t hoch dramatisch material.It needs a much warmer, intimate approach, a richer voice and a kind of inner stillness which is quite alien to vocalism for its own sake.  The beauty of this piece lies in tiny details of nuance.  For example, when the child sings, “my father, who is good to me”, Steber, Upshaw and McNair make the word “good” drip with abundant meaning.  Agee’s prose depends on imagery that comes from “beyond” the text, and therefore from thoughtful, intuitive singing.   Perhaps my disappointment comes from loving Knoxville too much and expecting better. However, listening to the performance on the radio only intensified my misgivings about this technique and interpretation.  Brewer may like the piece, but it really isn’t her natural stylistic territory.  

Orlando Gough’s We turned on the Light is a piece for vocal “Big Bands”, a mass collaboration for big orchestra, and various different types of choirs, ranging from the classically trained Huddersfield Choral Society to more pop oriented enthusiasts.There were even two contingents secreted in the Arena, picked out by searchlight, though, perhaps significantly, hardly anyone seemed to notice, despite their attempts to engage the audience.  It must be exhilarating to sing in such circumstances.  Ultimately though, this was a community event, rather than a musical experience.

In contrast, Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky cantata, was more of a challenge, but infinitely more satisfying.As if a light was suddenly turned on, Robertson and the orchestra burst forth with all the punch and attack they are known for.  They must have been saving up all evening, and it was a relief to at last hear some real, spirited music making.  Prokofiev’s music was meant to be a blockbuster, providing the soundtrack for Eisenstein’s first non silent film, itself a saga of epic proportions.  Nothing was spared to make this film spectacular, because it celebrated the victory of Russians over foreign invaders.   Then, as now, there was nothing so useful politically as whipping up nationalist fervour to distract the populace from the problems of every day life.  Nonetheless, Prokofiev’s music is stunning, designed to make maximum impact.  Epics like this are ideal for the Royal Albert Hall, making full use of its cavernous acoustic.  Experiencing  Nevsky live is magnificent : no mere recording can fully capture the momentous sense of occasion with massed choirs and huge orchestra going full blast.

Robertson was in his element, jogging on the spot, leaning into the orchestra and pulling back in an arc that reflected the musical form.    It’s his natural means of expression, like being a hands - on musician with himself as instrument. Moreover, it pays dividends with the orchestra, who respond to him enthusiastically.  Here they were giving their best, relishing the chance to let rip with what the programme notes wittily describe as “baleful brass and grinding dissonance”. In The Battle on the Ice, we can’t see the horses rushing into war but we can hear the violins replicate the pounding of hooves.  Sharp staccato creates an image, perhaps of ice breaking on the frozen river.  This is visual music, being written for film, and it’s meant to spark the imagination.   The young Shostakovich told Prokofiev that in Nevsky, “there’s too much physically loud, illustrative music”.  That’s ironic, since as Shostakovich himself made a living from film commissions.  In any case, Prokofiev here is depicting primal, primitive forces, and a sense of brutality beyond narrative alone.  It’s the spirit of Rite of Spring grafted on historic incident. 

The massed choirs from Huddersfield kept up with the driving pace, even though their accents were more Yorkshire than Russian.  Even then, that strange effect reinforces the idea that Prokofiev felt in Nevsky something more fundamental than the context of the film.  Less inhibition in the singing, and more savagery might have worked better, but that isn’t normally what choral societies get up to.  Still, it was a good performance.  In The Crusaders in Pskov, the choirs gave a convincing account, evoking an atmosphere of bizarre incantation.   The fact that the actual words they sang were nonsense, repeated over and over, added to the air of menace.

Then Elena Manistina materialised, up in the far corner, at the very end of the last row of the chorus.  The Field of the Dead depicts a woman in the battlefield, searching for lost soldiers.  Placing a lone singer among the massed forces of choir and orchestra is a piece of sheer theatre, much better than if she were singing, conventionally at the front of the platform.Many singers could not carry this off, but Manistina’s voice is magisterial, powerfully rich and sonorous.  Every word resonated with poignant dignity, enriched with beautifully modulated vibrato.  She coloured her voice with well judged nuance, breathing into lines to form great arcs of sound, then hold them floating into stillness.  It was as if Mother Russia herself were on stage, or Erda, or some other earth goddess.  This is what really good singing can be about , technically solid, interpretively profound.   Manistina is the genuine article, the real thing, a true Diva. 

 

Anne Ozorio