BBC Radio 3 is now well into its celebration of the Genius of Mozart, which involves playing every note he wrote over 12 days. I’m a devout admirer of Mozart, but I’m not sure that uninterrupted diet like this is actually a good idea. It is in danger of doing something that I wouldn’t previously have thought possible – making me bored of Mozart.
I’m a firm believer that you should just an artist, composer, musician (or scientist, for that matter) by his or her best work and by that reckoning Mozart is among the greatest of them all. But I have to say among the glorious masterpieces there’s also quite a lot of quite dull stuff. Take the symphonies, for example. Mozart wrote his First Symphony when he was only 8 years old. That fact on its own makes the work worth listening to. However, in my humble opinion, you can fast forward through at least twenty of the following compositions before finding one that’s really worth listening to, and even further before you find the really brilliant ones.
I’m not saying that the lesser works of Mozart shouldn’t be played. In a balanced programme, contrasted with works by other composers, they are interesting to listen to. It’s good to hear the rarely performed works from time to time, if only to understand why they are rarely performed. However, with only Mozart on offer day after day the effect is only to lessen the impact of the great works by surrounding them with hour after hour of lower quality music. I don’t think the BBC has done the Mozart legacy any favours by revealing that he actually wrote too much music, a lot of it not particularly good.
After that, I’m about to duck back down below the parapet but before I do, I thought I’d make my contribution to the ongoing Mozartfest with a piece from my favourite Mozart opera, The Magic Flute, in a version that’s itself very rarely heard. Fortunately. This is what Florence Foster Jenkins – the opera singer to end all opera singers – did with Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen. For some reason Sony admits to owning the copyright of this, so you’ll have to click through to Youtube to hear it in its full glory.
At the end of a very busy week I was wondering if I’d have the energy to cope with a Friday night at the Opera, but last night’s performance of The Magic Flute by Welsh National Opera was definitely worth making the effort. It was a revival of a production first performed in 2005, sung in English to a very witty translation by Jeremy Sams of the original German libretto.
I have actually reviewed the Magic Flute before (at ENO) and have also written about my theory that it’s all about particle physics (here). I’ll just repeat here that this gloriously silly piece is one of my absolute favourite operas and I’ve now seen (I think) nine productions of it in various locations. This one was a lot of fun, well sung and imaginatively directed. I particularly enjoyed the references to surrealist art; the main set consisted of wooden doors embedded in a cloud-flecked blue sky, a clear reference to Magritte; and the monster that assails Tamino at the start was a lobster, a symbol associated with many works by Salvador Dali although not usually such a large one as this!
The plot, such as it is, is as follows. A prince, Tamino, is rescued from a monster (a giant lobster) by three Ladies who work for the Queen of the Night. He then meets Papageno, a comical bird-catcher replet with feathery costume, nets and cages. The two are sent to find Pamina, the Queen’s daughter, whom they are told has been abducted and imprisoned by a chap called Sarastro. The unlikely pair are given a magic flute and a set of magic bells to help them. Guided by three boys they journey to Sarastro’s realm, where there lives a brotherhood of men ruled by wisdom. Tamino learns that Sarastro isn’t in fact the evildoer he has been portrayed and Sarastro convinces the dynamic duo to join the brotherhood by passing a series of trials. Papageno flunks, but succeeds in getting what he really wants, a girlfriend (Papagena). Tamino succeeds and is united with Pamina. Together they endure the final ordeals of fire and water and are united in love. The forces of light prevail over darkness, and they all live happily ever after.
Of course the plot doesn’t really make any sense by itself, but it’s not really supposed to – it’s full of Masonic symbolism and is rooted in a much older tradition of musical drama that provides context but which you don’t need to know about in order to enjoy the music. What is so very special about the Magic Flute however is that it is so unapologetically absurd that it somehow ends up seeming immensely profound. I’m reminded of the old proverb “If a fool will persist in his folly he may become wise”. I think it’s daft, but in the same way that life is daft and that’s why it’s so universally popular. As in his other great operas you also experience Mozart’s uncanny ability to produce moments of robust comedy bordering on the slapstick followed by moving expressions of the deepest emotion. Perfect examples of the former last night were provided by the hilarious scene in which Tamino’s magic flute charms a motley variety of animals, including a very tarty bird, and also the priceless moment when the magic bells turn away the evil Monostatos and his henchmen by making them dance off like ballerinas, which was a hoot. By contrast, Pamina’s solo aria in Act II where she thinks Tamino has spurned her, beautifully sung by Elizabeth Watts, was heartbreakingl in its sincerity.
I think all the principals were pretty good, although Tim Mirfin’s Sarastro was lacking in the gravitas that only a true basso profundo can supply. Laure Meloy as the Queen of the Night negotiated the difficult coloratura passages and duly hit her top F, although it was little more than a squeak if truth be told. At times her voice sounded like it was coming into and going out of focus, but she had real stage presence and looked fabulous in a wonderful frock. Neal Davies was a genial Papageno, Elizabeth Watts an outstanding Pamina. A special mention must be made of the three boys (actually played by two groups: Guy Roberts/Rory Turnbull, Robert Field/Henry Payne, and Erwan Hughes/Josh Morgan; I don’t know which was which last night). These parts are often considered too demanding to be sung by boys so are frequently done by female singers. I thought the boys last night were absolutely wonderful, although I suspect they may have been miked as they produced unusual power.
All in all, an excellent night out. I think I could do with some of those magic bells at the Board of Studies on Monday morning…
Once again the wheel of academic life has turned full circle. A year to the day since I blogged about the last graduation ceremony for the School of Physics & Astronomy at Cardiff University, here I am doing it again. Last night Cardiff experienced some of the heaviest rainfall I’ve seen for ages and I got a bit soggy on the way to St David’s Hall for this morning’s ceremony. Given that today is St Swithin’s Day this doesn’t bode well for the rest of the summer…
I confess it didn’t feel too comfortable sitting there on stage under the lights in a slightly damp suit, wearing a tie, and sporting mortarboard and gown but it went pretty well. Three Schools went through during the ceremony I attended: Earth & Ocean Sciences and Psychology as well as Physics & Astronomy.
We had by far the smallest group of graduands; the School of Psychology is particularly huge and is also notable for having such a small percentage of male graduates. In Physics & Astronomy we have about 20% female students whereas Psychology must be >95%. We often sit around at tea-time discussing how to persuade more girls to study Physics, but I wonder if anyone frets about how to get more boys to do Psychology?
It’s a very proud moment when the students you know receive their degrees. This year, in fact, produced the first set of BSc graduates that have completed their entire study period while I’ve been here since I only arrived three years ago.
It must be a nerve-wracking experience crossing the stage at St David’s Hall in front of your family and friends, especially in high heels as most of the girls did. I would have thought sensible shoes were a wiser option, but then what do I know?
If you want to see the ceremony you can do so by following this link. I’m in the front row on stage, to the right hand side, dressed in a blue gown and mortarboard but not visible on the cross-stage view.
The Honorary Fellowship presented during our ceremony was received by Professor Paul Harris, a distinguished psychologist. It’s worth mentioning that another such event earlier in the week saw the award of an Honorary Fellowship to Stephen Fry who has been involved in studies of bipolar disorder at the University. He tweeted regularly during his short visit to Cardiff, e.g.
Must say Cardiff is looking spankingly good in the late afternoon sunshine. Castle is gleaming, Town Hall glowing. Much to like here.
I’m sure the university press machine will make as much as they can of his comments. And why not? Cardiff does indeed have much to like. Even in the rain.
The ceremony ended on a high note or, in fact, on several. Mary-Jean O’Doherty, a wonderful young Soprano from the Cardiff International Academy of Voice, gave us a fine rendition of the Queen of the Night’s Act II aria from Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Die Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen is a tremendously difficult coloratura piece featuring a barrage of stratospheric high notes. I thought it was tremendously brave to take that on, coming into it completely cold, but she did it fantastically well and it fair brought the house down. I note that the opera from which this aria was taken is featured in Welsh National Opera’s forthcoming autumn season, where it is sure to prove popular.
I’m pretty sure not many people in the audience knew the Opera or could understand German, however, because although the music is wonderful the lyrics aren’t entirely appropriate. The first line translates as “The Rage of Hell is boiling in my heart….”. Perhaps that was a subliminal response to the fact that the Cardiff International Academy of Voice is closing later this year.
Anyway it was then back to the School for a lunch party – which was very nicely done, I think – and a speech of farewell from the Head of School ending with the award of prizes for students who had performed exceptionally well in their studies. I’m fortunate that the prize-winning student of the MPhys (4-year) cohort is staying on in Cardiff to do a PhD under my supervision.
Just in case any of the new graduates are reading this, let me add my congratulations to those of the Head of School and also repeat his encouragement to you to stay in touch. It’s always a delight when former students drop in for a chat, but if you can’t do that please do keep in touch on Facebook or the like.
I know the graduate job market is tough at the moment, but don’t be discouraged if you haven’t got anything sorted out yet. In the long run what you’ve learned will benefit you. I’m sure I speak on behalf of everyone who has had the pleasure of teaching you over the last three or four years when I say that we wish you all the very best in your future careers.
PS. The title of this post in in Welsh. It translates as “A nation’s strength is in its learning”.
I’ve spent most of today trying (and failing) to complete what’s left of my examination marking. Now I’ll have to finish it during the weekend, because I stopped this evening in order to catch a concert by the BBC National Orchestra (and, for the latter part) Chorus, of Wales at the splendid St David’s Hall here in Cardiff. It was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, in fact, so if you happened to listen in at 7pm this evening then I was among the applauds. The programme was introduced by Catherine Bott, whose voice I’ve heard many times on the radio but have never actually seen before in the flesh, so to speak. There she was on stage doing the intro, as large as life. And that’s really quite large, I can tell you.
The concert featured two uncompleted works. First we had a piece completely new to me, which was intended to be the first movement of Gustav Mahler‘s 10th Symphony.The composer died a hundred years ago in 1910 having only just started this work. I’ve never heard this music before and it both fascinated and surprised me. It’s quintessentially Mahler in many ways, but it’s a strange opening for a symphony because it’s a very long Adagio movement (lasting about 30 minutes). I wonder how long the entire symphony would have been if Mahler had finished it? And how would it have developed?
I thought the single movement we heard was extraordinarily beautiful but then ever since I was introduced to Mahler I’ve been a complete devotee. In fact, I think if I could listen to Mahler all day I probably wouldn’t bother thinking about anything else at all. Thank you, John.
After the interval we heard the Mozart Requiem, with four excellent soloists and a choir added to the orchestra. Mozart only really finished two sections of this work, and we heard the standard completion of the rest of it done by Süssmayr. I don’t think anybody knows for sure exactly what was done by Mozart and what wasn’t, but the opening section is so spine-tinglingly marvellous it just has to be authentic Mozart. On the other hand, the sections for four voices don’t seem to have the magic that Mozart managed to conjure up in his operas so perhaps they aren’t of the same provenance. There’ll always be a mystery about this work, and I guess that will always be among its fascinations. In any case, even a little Mozart will always go a very long way.
Just over £20 for seats so close that I could read the score of the first Cello too. And people ask me why I moved to Cardiff!
I’m about to set out on a short trip par avion and I’m not sure how good the wireless is going to be where I’m staying so I might be offline for a few days. Following on from one of yesterday’s comments about the wonders of Mozart’s writing for more than one voice, I thought I’d leave you with the exquisite duettino Sull’aria from Le Nozze di Figaro. You’ll remember this from the ShawshankRedemption if you’ve ever seen the film, but here it is in a lovely performance from the Paris Opera Garnier in 1980. It’s three minutes of absolute joy.
It’s been an unusually long time since I last went to the Opera, but now the spring season of Welsh National Opera has finally arrived I couldn’t resist the chance last night to see their brand new and wonderfully entertaining production of The Abduction from the Seraglio by Mozart. It was also nice to be accompanied on this occasion by fellow astrologists Ed and Haley, who I hope enjoyed the show as much as I did.
I was particularly glad to see this on the schedule for this season because it’s an Opera I haven’t seen staged before and didn’t know very much about. Mozart composed the music for it in 1781, when he was at the ripe old age of 25 , to a libretto in German and with the title Die Entführung aus dem Serail. The WNO production is sung in the original language, which is the way I like it.
Like The Magic Flute, which Mozart wrote about a decade later, The Abduction is a singspiel rather than an opera, in that the recitative is spoken rather than sung. The music is not through-composed as you find in a true opera, but a series of set-piece arias, duets, trios and quartets. Still, Mozart was pretty good at those. It’s also, in case you hadn’t realised, like the Magic Flute, a comedy which Mozart was also pretty good at!
The plot, such as it is, concerns the hero Belmonte’s search for his beloved Konstanze, her servant Blonde and his own servant Pedrillo, who have been captured by the Turk Pasha Selim who hopes to persuade Konstanze to join the harem inside his Seraglio. The Pasha’s heavy, Osmin, acts as bouncer, keeping Belmonte from getting into the place and releasing the captives but eventually, Pedrillo tricks Osmin into drinking some drugged wine; while he’s asleep the lovers are re-united. However, the attempt by Belmonte and Pedrillo to help Konstanze and Blonde escape is botched and they are captured by Pasha Selim and his guards. Contrary to all expectations, however, the Pasha doesn’t take his revenge, but allows them to leave. Osmin flies into a rage and suffers some sort of splenetic seizure. The Opera ends with the others celebrating their freedom, while Pasha Selim consoles himself with his other wives and a hookah.
It’s admittedly a bit thin, even by the standards of comic opera but, right from the fabulous overture, the music is lovely and there’s a great deal of good-humoured fun, especially during the Pasha’s attempt to shower Konstanze with gifts of jewelry, frocks and shoes, in Act 2, and the abduction itself, in Act 3, which is bungled in appropriately hilarious fashion.
Belmonte was played by Robin Tritschler, who has a tenor voice of exceptional clarity and beauty and who invested his role with an engaging wide-eyed innocence. Petros Magoulas played the psychopathic Osmin for laughs and provided the performance with some of its funniest moments. Pedrillo was played by local boy Wynne Evans and Blonde was Claire Ormshaw; both were excellent, musically and comedically. Pasha Selim was also very well played by Simon Thorpe. The Pasha has to appear a bit frightening early on, so that his later magnanimity comes as a surprise; this he did very well. The only weak point I felt was Lisette Oropesa as the heroine Konstanze. She didn’t sing at all well in Act I, perhaps owing to first-night nerves, but seemed to settle down by Act 2 where she coped with the coloratura a lot better. Her acting, however, was extremely disappointing and, at times, downright embarassing. It wasn’t enough to spoil the production – at least not for me – but it was a shame, as a really good night could have been a truly superb one.
Finally I should mention that all the action is set on the Orient Express, circa 1920, with costumes and props of that period too. The scenery is cleverly designed so that it can be slid to and fro along the stage to reveal cabins either side of the main saloon at its centre. The whole thing looks wonderful and the mobile set also provided comic moments of its own, especially during the abduction scene when Pedrillo is accidentally left clinging to the outside of the train.
I was left wondering to some extent why this Opera isn’t better known. It’s probably because it doesn’t have the subtlety of the famous da Ponte comedies, but the music is gorgeous especially in the passages for multiple voices, such as the quartet in Act II. In other passages the music sounds a bit like a parts of the Magic Flute. In many ways I think you can see this piece as Mozart on his way to perfecting the style he would achieve in these works. It’s pretty good, but perhaps doomed to lie in the shadow of his later masterpieces.
All in all, a great night out. There’s only one other performance of The Abduction from the Seraglio in Cardiff (next Saturday, 20th February) and then it goes on the road. I’m not sure there are any tickets remaining for next week: if there are, it’s well worth seeing but if not then all is not lost – it’s likely this will be in the WNO repertoire for some time to come.
After a week of miserable inclement weather it was a relief to have beautifully crisp sunny Saturday yesterday, capped by the prospect of a Night at the Opera. The “Spring” season of Welsh National Opera is now underway so I went to the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay to see their production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (italian name: Le Nozze di Figaro).
I’ve been going to the opera for quite a while now, and I’m definitely mildly addicted to it. It’s quite an expensive thing to get hooked on, but not compared to some things. For me, there’s a kind of excitement about opera that is almost childish. As we settled down into our seats last night, I had butterflies in my stomach and when the overture started, the hairs stood up on the back of my neck.
Here’s the overture played at a good lick by the English Baroque Soloists.
With that as your starter, who wouldn’t be looking forward to the rest of the meal?
The Marriage of Figaro, a classic Opera Buffa , was the first of three to derive from a collaboration between Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte that also produced Cosi fan Tutte and Don Giovanni. According to the programme notes, da Ponte wrote the libretto for Le Nozze di Figaro in less than six weeks, which is truly remarkable considering what a wonderfully polished work it is.
And of course there’s the music. Starting from the bustling ebullience of the briliant overture, the score is just beautiful from start to finish, the slapstick comedy punctuated by truly moving expressions of love and heartache such as the arias Porgi amor and Dove sono i bei momenti that make this piece much more than just a bit of fun. It also boasts one of the most beautiful duets in all opera, Sull’aria….Che soave zeffiretto, also known as the Letter Duet. Anyone will who has seen the memorable film Shawshank Redemption will recognize it because that’s what’s on the record Andy plays over the prison public address system after breaking into the warders’ office.
The lovely tunes wash over you one after the other in a way that’s so typical of Mozart; only Puccini had anything like his gift for wonderful melodies. With such sublime music and such a clever text, it’s very difficult to go very wrong. The one thing you have to make sure of in an Opera Buffa is to keep the pace going, much like a classic stage farce: if you dwell on it too much it’s no longer funny, just embarrassing to watch. The hectic pace only abates when the characters sing their wonderful solo arias, the surrounding comic context heightening their dramatic impact, but when these pieces are over we’re off again into the mayhem. The whole thing scurries along with never a dull moment and, by the end, you can hardly believe that it’s been the best part of four hours. The running time for last night’s performance, including one interval, was about 3 hours and 45 minutes but I never once looked at my watch.
This production is slick, beautifully sung, and keeps the momentum going in exactly the right way. The costumes are dated somewhere in the early 20th Century, with Susanna‘s French maid costume reminding me a little bit of the dress Kylie Minogue wore in Doctor Who. The sets are quite spare (although with sufficient props to hide behind, and there’s a lot of hiding behind things in this opera), with large mirrors at the side giving an extra sense of space. I was wondering how they would manage the garden setting for Act IV with this relatively simple set, but this was all done with mirrors too, this time with images of trees superimposed on them. It was quite effective, at least at first, although the mirrors kept moving around in a distracting and sometimes alarming way which spoilt it a little.
The cast was very good, especially Rosemary Joshua’s pert Susanna and Rebecca Evans as the Contessa Almaviva (both of them born in South Wales). The unflappably resourceful and charismatic Figaro was sung by David Soar, who played the part quite “straight” and let the libretto do the work. A good call, in my opinion. The Count Almaviva, Jacques Imbrailo, also sang very well and had considerable presence, but he wasn’t nearly pompous enough for my taste. Part of the joy of this opera is the subversion of roles, Figaro being so much smarter than his boss. I don’t think they quite made the most of this.
I should make a special mention of the stunningly beautiful Fiona Murphy as Cherubino. This character is a sex-starved adolescent boy, sung by a girl soprano, with definite shades of the principal boy in English pantomime. In fact, the English translation of the libretto seen in the surtitles cleverly uses the word pantomime in his/her scenes. In her Cherubino persona in the first Act, wearing a sports jacket and plus-twos, and with her hair cut short, Fiona Murphy had more than a touch of KD Lang about her. Later on Cherubino has to dress as a girl, and I found the result very interesting in all kinds of unexpected ways, not all of them comic…
Oh and I should mention that it is sung in Italian too. Call me old-fashioned but I always prefer things in the original language, especially when it’s Italian.
All in all, an excellent night out, and judging by the prolonged cheering and applause at the end, I don’t think I’m the only one who thought it so!
A new season is about to start at English National Opera and I’ve been spending a lot of time and money recently getting tickets for some of the operas, as well as organizing the logistics of getting to and from London. Among the forthcoming productions is a revival of Nicholas Hytner’s production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte, K. 620).
I can’t remember how many times I have seen this opera performed nor in how many different productions. It’s a wonderful creation because it manages to combine being utterly daft with being somehow immensely profound. The plot makes no sense at all, the settings are ridiculous (e.g. “rocks with water and a cavern of fire”), and the whole thing appears to be little more than a pantomime. Since it’s Mozart, though, there is one ingredient you can’t quibble with: a seemingly unending sequence of gorgeous music.
When I first saw The Magic Flute I thought it was just a silly but sublime piece of entertainment not worth digging into too deeply. I wondered why so many pompous people seemed to take it so terribly seriously. Real life doesn’t really make much sense, so why would anyone demand that an opera be any less ridiculous? Nevertheless, there is a vast industry devoted to unravelling the supposed “mystery” of this opera, with all its references to magic and freemasonry.
But now I can unveil the true solution of problem contained within the riddle encoded in the conundrum that surrounds the enigma that has puzzled so many Opera fans for so long. I have definitive proof that this opera is not about freemasons or magic or revolutionary politics.
Actually it is about particle physics.
To see how I arrived at this conclusion note the following figure which shows the principal elementary particles contained within the standard model of particle physics:
To the left of this picture are the fermions, divided into two sets of particles labelled “quarks” and “leptons”. Each of these consists of three pairs (“isospin doublets”), each pair defining a “generation”. This structure of twos and threes is perfectly represented in The Magic Flute.
Let’s consider the leptons first. These can be clearly identified with the three ladies who lust after the hero Tamino in Act 1. This emotional charge is clearly analogous to the electromagnetic charge carried by the massive leptons (the electron, muon and tauon, lying along the bottom of the diagram). The other components in the leptonic sector must be the three boys who pop up every now and again to help Papageno with useful advice about when to jangle his magic bells. These must therefore be the neutrinos, which are less massive than the ladies, and are also neutral (although I hesitate to suggest that this means they should be castrati). They don’t play a very big part in the show because they participate only in weak interactions.
Next we have the quarks, also arrayed in three generations of pairs. These interact more strongly than the leptons and are also more colourful. The first generation is easy to identify, from the phenomenology of the Opera, as consisting of the hero Tamino (d for down) and his beloved Pamina (u for up); her voice is higher than his, hence the identification. The second generation must comprise the crazy birdcatcher Papageno (s for strange) and his alluring madchen who is called Papagena (c for charmed). That just leaves the final pairing which clearly is the basso profundo and fount of all wisdom Sarastro (b for bass bottom) and my favourite character and role model the Queen of the Night (t for top).
To provide corroboration of the identification of the Queen of the Night with the “top” quark, here is a clip from Youtube of a bevy of famous operatic sopranos having a go at the immensely different coloratura passage from the Act 1 aria “O Zittre Nicht, mein leiber Sohn” culminating in a spectacular top F that lies beyond the range of most particle accelerators, never mind singers.
There’s some splendid frocks in there too.
The Queen of the Night isn’t actually in the Opera very much. After this aria in Act 1 she disappears until the middle of Act 2, probably because she needs to have a lie down. When she comes back on she sings another glass-shattering aria (Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen), which I like to listen to when I’m writing referee reports. The first line translates as “The rage of hell is boiling in my heart”.
The remaining members of the cast – The Speaker and Monostatos, as well as sundry priests, slaves, enchanted animals and the chorus – must make up the so-called Force carriers at the left of the table, which are bosons, but I haven’t had time to go through the identifications in detail. They’re just the supporting cast anyway. And there is one particle missing from the picture, the Higgs boson. This accounts for the masses of other particles by exerting a kind of drag on them so it clearly must be the Dragon from Act 1.
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Finally I should mention that all the action is set on the Orient Express, circa 1920, with costumes and props of that period too. The scenery is cleverly designed so that it can be slid to and fro along the stage to reveal cabins either side of the main saloon at its centre. The whole thing looks wonderful and the mobile set also provided comic moments of its own, especially during the abduction scene when Pedrillo is accidentally left clinging to the outside of the train.
In the Dark 
