The Classical Opera Company at the Wigmore Hall
Friday 18th April
I went to this ages ago when I had some free time, seriously who invented AS Levels? Barry hasn’t got any and it hasn’t done him any harm. I reckon we should do it like they do in Scotland where you do get exams in Year 12 but then you get to go to uni like a whole year early. Not that I’m spending like every spare minute on revising, obviously I’m going clubbing lots to get as much use as I can out of my fake ID before I’m too old to use it (if my mum’s reading this obviously I’m joking). For some reason having one girlfriend is more difficult than having 3 or 4, she was at this concert with me actually but we weren’t together like the whole two months but she takes up loads of my time. And then I’m having great trouble stopping myself from murdering my brother, you know how it is. You know that stupid review of X Factor he wrote on my account, apparently everyone thinks it’s wonderful and there’s links to it all over the web, I knew we should have deleted that but Barry says it’s important for young people to express themselves or something as if he doesn’t express himself enough at home but what I reckon is if he wants to express himself on some website he should get his own.
The Classical Opera Company performs operas mostly by Mozart and Handel as well as doing concerts of extracts. This one had Handel in the first half and Haydn and Mozart after the interval. I knew all of the Mozart and the Handel apart from the trio from Imeneo but the Haydn isn’t so well known. Ian Page who is the director of the company and usually conducts played the piano this time and introduced everything. He’s good at the introductions because he tells you interesting stuff but not too much of it and he’s usually funny. But I wasn’t so sure about his piano playing, he is good and everything but with arias you’re like the whole orchestra and I thought I heard some wrong notes but maybe I didn’t.
The performers were supposed to be Sophie Bevan, Rebecca Ryan and Allan Clayton who are Classical Opera Company’s Associate Artists. But Ian found himself in a bit of a situation when all three performers were ill. Andrew Staples who was an Associate Artist last year was able to take over from Allan but the girls just had to go on and do their best.
Their best was good though. Sophie’s dress wasn’t exactly protecting her throat, it hardly even protected her diaphragm but I only noticed because Sophie thought I was perving and told me off (my girlfriend Sophie I mean not the singer) and once she’d pointed it out to me I couldn’t help looking. Not that she looked slutty or anything, she looked really nice (the singer Sophie I mean not my girlfriend). Sophie (the singer) sings Mozart soubrette roles but she’s actually got a heavier voice than you’d expect. She started off a bit unsteadily maybe but she probably wasn’t sure what her voice was going to do and a lot of singers start off unsteadily anyway because even if they’ve practised in the venue it sounds different when there’s people there. The first thing they did was the Imeneo trio where Andrew and Sophie were fighting over Rebecca which was quite fun, Sophie was supposed to be a boy but she looked totally feminine to me (the singer I mean) so I just had to pretend it was a lesbian opera and it worked really well like that.
By the time she got to her second piece which was one of Rodelinda’s arias she sounded great. It’s usually a role that gets given to an older singer but Sophie (the singer) put lots of feeling into it, she’s a well good actress. But it was her aria from Semele that really made me think like wow. Ian Page said something about seeing how many notes Sophie could sing in a minute and seriously she can sing loads. The only thing about it that wasn’t brilliant was that even though she has quite a big voice like I said her coloratura does sound really light and like a soubrette so it was almost like 2 different singers doing it. But you can tell it’s all her and seriously there must be so many singers who can’t sing that fast in any voice.
Rebecca (the singer obviously, I did have a girlfriend called Rebecca but she wasn’t there) is more of a dramatic soprano and she was very dramatic and very forceful, you know the sort of girl you can’t say no to. She did a lesbian aria when she sang one of Radamisto’s arias. Some of her high notes were a bit dodgy but that must have been her throat infection I reckon. Then she did a bit from Giulio Cesare where Cleopatra thinks she’s done for, that was cool. I don’t really know much about how moving it was and I couldn’t tell from watching Sophie because she was already in a mood because I’d told her not to turn the pages during the singing (my girlfriend I mean). But Rebecca did really well with the slow and fast sections of the song.
Andrew’s first aria was one of Grimoaldo’s from Rodelinda, where he’s all stressed because the girl he likes has got another bloke who might be her husband but if he was it would be even worse because he’s supposed to be dead. Andrew’s voice is maybe a bit heavy for Handel but of course Allan Clayton was supposed to be the one singing it and he’s got a very light voice. I think Andrew did really well to learn all the music and get it ready for performance in a few days, respect to him for doing that. He used the music but I reckon that’s fair enough anyway in a concert.
I don’t know much about the second half because Sophie wanted to go home (my girlfriend that is) because she thought she was dying so I had to go home with her, not that I’m complaining or anything. So it’s mcmungo time, well let’s put it this way, it’s mcmungo time or Chemistry revision and I know which I’d rather do. The first thing in the second half was Andrew singing an aria from L’incontro improvviso which he was a lot more comfortable with vocally. But ‘O wie angstlich’ from Die Entfuhrung was just brilliant. This is a role he obviously knows really well, not just the music but the character too and he really showed that.
Rebecca’s first aria was from Armida, it was good but to be honest even though Ian Page chose some really good pieces there was a bit of an oh dear he/she doesn’t love me anymore, I wish I was dead sort of theme. This aria was good because it was more oh dear he doesn’t love me anymore, I wish HE was dead sort of thing which made a bit of a change. Rebecca really went for this one. Her next aria was one I knew, the concert aria ‘No no che non sei capace’. It’s not in an opera but it’s more or less the same theme again but maybe the worst aria of all to sing when you’ve got a throat infection and you’re not totally sure what your voice is going to do next. Even healthy experienced sopranos can have trouble with this because it’s just like impossible for nearly everyone so I wouldn’t have blamed Rebecca one bit if she’d decided to cut it. But she didn’t, she just went for it and like she can actually do it. Not naming any names but there are certain experienced sopranos out there who had better watch out, you’ve got a rival on the scene.
Sophie sang an aria from Die Feuersnot by Haydn, they thought it was totally lost but then they found the music. They couldn’t find the text (it had spoken dialogue) but what I reckon is someone should write some new words for it. I don’t know about the rest of the music but this bit’s really cool. Later on Sophie sang ‘Lungi d ate, mio bene’ from Mitridate, it's a bit slushy really but you can get something out of any half-decent song if the performer’s good. Sophie (the singer) did the original version which some people reckon is better than the version that’s usually sung but the singer singing Sifare was a right diva so Mozart had to change bits.
The diva theme was continued in the trio at the end where Mademoiselle Silberklang (Sophie) and Madame Herz (Rebecca) both think they’re like the best soprano ever and Monsieur Vogelsang (Andrew) is like getting in a state about it, it’s well funny. I don’t know who is the best though. Like Vogelsang says they’ve both got individual talents.
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