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SEEN AND HEARD UK CONCERT REVIEW
Tell Me the Truth about Love: Maria Jagusz (mezzo-soprano), Barrie
Cooper (piano) and others; The Playhouse, Cheltenham, 10.2.2011. (RJ)
As couples sit down for their romantic dinners by candle-light on February 14th,
some may be reminded of Lysander's words in A Midsummer Night's Dream:
βThe course of true love never did run smooth.β This was the underlying theme
of this intriguing miscellany of songs which encompassed the worlds of opera,
operetta, lieder and musicals and focused on all
aspects of love.
The evening took its name from a poem by W H Auden which Britten transformed
into one of his cabaret songs. Expressing a forlorn
quest to discover love, this is clearly a favourite of mezzo-soprano Maria
Jagusz who sang it with style and humour and followed up it with another
cabaret type number by David Baker entitled Someone is Sending me Flowers
which had a sting in its tail.
I was expecting to hear far more of Maria
during the evening, but this turned out to be less of a showcase for her
considerable talents than for those of a number of mainly young professional
and aspiring professional singers. While there were one or two performances
which lacked polish, overall the standard was so good that I was not
disappointed.
Louise Booker, for instance, gave a
heartrending account of Che faro senza Eurydice
from Gluck's Orfeo, and then changed in an
instant to the Olga's carefree aria from Eugene Onegin.
There was fine coloratura singing from Emma Burrows as the sorceress Morgana
in Tornami a vagheggiar from
Handel's Alcina β but even so,
I would advise chaps to avoid love entanglements with sorceresses.
Most German Romantic poets seem to have experienced passionate and unhappy
love affairs, as Richard Moore demonstrated so emphatically in Ich
grolle nicht from Schumann's
Dichterliebe. But Jonathan Hyde also
showed that love can have a calming effect in his quiet, gentle rendition of
Schubert's Du bist die Ruh. If
not, one always has recourse to the soothing power of music as Tabitha Haldane
Unwin reminded us so persuasively in Art thou troubled
from Handel's Rodelinda.
Most operettas and musicals have some
love interest, so it would have been perverse not to incorporate them into the
programme. It was especially pleasing to hear lesser known songs such as
Lily's Eyes from The
Secret Garden - a duet between two
brothers who have fallen in love with the same girl sung impeccably by Owen
Hopkins and Adam Treadaway.
Earlier Owen's magnificent tenor voice had led the company with
Anthem from the musical Chess.
Barrie Cooper kept the show on the road
with his masterful accompaniments. Maria Jagusz was
never far from the action
compering with warmth and good humour and bringing a occasional hint of
coquettishness to the proceedings β as in in Lehar's On my lips
every kiss is like wine,.
Just in case anyone in the audience was
becoming too cosy, she blazed back in the finale to remind us in the
Habanera from Bizet's Carmen
that love is a wild, untameable force.
So did I learn the truth the truth about love during the performance? I
have to confess I am more confused than ever about the whole business. Happy
Valentine's Day, everyone.
Roger Jones