Opera in Song has in the past few years become a staple and much appreciated feature of the summer season at Opera Holland. Coming as it does at the half-way point in the season it offers an opportunity for both adventure and reflection – adventure in the form of exploring the further recesses of the song repertoire in ways that even the Wigmore Hall does not attempt; and reflection in the form of a thoughtful examination of all the different ways in which the dramatic forms of opera interpenetrate the apparently more rarified world of lieder and chansons. This mini-festival therefore folds into the broader vision of Opera Holland Park in breaking down boundaries between categories of repertoire and demonstrating the accessibility and relevance of less well-known compositions that audiences would not otherwise encounter.
As an accomplished performer in the worlds of both opera and song Julien van Mellaerts is well placed to act as impresario. But to sustain such a project over a period of years requires great ingenuity and imagination as well as an encyclopaedic knowledge of the potential materials. This year is no exception, where Julien and co-director Dylan Perez presented a vast array of composers, moods and forms of expression spread over three concerts. It is therefore very appropriate that this entrepreneurial achievement was recently recognised in a special award from the Kiri Te Kanawa foundation.
The first concert ‘Ballads and Legends; focused on ballads of the sea and legends of the forest, including some well-known items alongside longer-form cantata-style works that are underperformed. These were delivered by Julien himself and mezzo Helen Charlston, with Dylan Perez and Aya Robertson as partner pianists. All four performers had opportunities to shine which they took with panache.
In the first section called ‘The Call of the Tide’, it was good to hear some less familiar items by John Ireland as well as the familiar ‘Sea Fever’, but even in the latter there was some exquisite dynamic shading which showed fresh thinking about a well-worn warhorse. The standout items were the two long contributions by Charles Villiers Stanford, marking the centenary of his death. These had real dramatic imagination in both the vocal and piano lines and made you wish that he had written more operas and fought against his pigeon-holing as a comfortable master of well-upholstered Anglican church music.
Next came an inventively imagined new cycle of three ‘Sea Songs’ by Ohed Zehavi, each setting a poem by a separate writer. The moods evoked included separation from home by the ocean, the integral and mysterious ways in water shapes all our lives, and the dangers and hopes inspired by sea journeys. There were echoes of the finest masters in this genre, such as Debussy, but these were original, evocative and mysterious interventions, where the lines of the voice and piano were often pulling in different directions before reuniting. One hopes this sequence will be heard again so that more of the many layers will register with audiences.
After some delicately delivered numbers by Tosti and Ravel, the highlight of the evening perhaps was Haydn’s cantata ‘Arianna a Naxos’, written for voice and piano in 1789. Here Helen Charlston demonstrated a huge spectrum of emotions focused on grief and abandonment in a piece that deserves to be heard as a regular part of a unique repertoire which has drawn inspiration from this legend of desertion – starting with Monteverdi and ending with Richard Strauss.
The concert ended with an exploration of encounters in the forest with potential to turn romantic or terrifying. Van Mellaerts and Charlston teased these out with charm and humour, but the revelation was Carl Loewe’s gripping take on ‘Erlkönig’, which managed to find a wholly original and engaging way through Goethe’s text without evoking any memory of Schubert.
We ended with a touching encore in the form of Clara Schumann’s ‘Gute Nacht’, another song that audiences should hear more often.
Opera Holland Park
18 July 2024
Performers: Helen Charlston, Dylan Perez, Aya Robertson, Julien Van Mellaerts