United Kingdom Cumbria Opera Festival 2025 [2] – Various, Opera by Candlelight: Ellen Mawhinney (soprano), Jamie Formoy (tenor), Chris Pulleyn (piano). St John’s Church, Keswick, 26.8.2025. (CK)
This fine trio of musicians were performing for the third night on the trot: they had entertained a packed Public Hall in Appleby the previous night, and Barrow Town Hall the night before that. If you draw a line connecting these three places, you will have enclosed most of the Lake District and some of the Eden Valley as well. Whoever does the logistics (Joe Davies, I suspect) deserves admiration: three great performances given to three big audiences must have made it all worthwhile. This Keswick audience made its appreciation loud and clear.
These concerts were designated ‘Opera by Candlelight’: the candles were arranged mostly on the floor of the main aisle, beside each pew – faintly reminiscent of the low-level lighting the Flight Attendants assure us will come on in case of aerial emergency, but a million times more magical. Both singers were excellent communicators, not only in their singing, but also in the relaxed and enjoyable rapport they developed with their audience: St John’s is a large and imposing church, but they seemed able to pull the walls in, to take the audience into their confidence, to create an almost cabaret-like intimacy.
As a glance at the programme will confirm, here were some of the usual suspects in such recitals: any audience would have a right to complain without a decent dose of Verdi and Puccini, and operetta too. Brindisi made a rousing opener, and the first half culminated in a Bohème bonanza: Ellen Mawhinney – already a multiple prize-winner and a rising star in opera – made an alluring Musetta in her Act II aria before we returned to the incomparable ending of Act I. Jamie Formoy – another rising opera star, emerging from choral into solo roles – was a committed Rodolfo: his tenor voice has a touch of baritonal heft which gave depth and resonance to his portrayal. The top notes in O soave fanciulla (and, later, in Nessun dorma) were a bit of a squeeze, but he got there. And both singers gave us full dramatic value at the end of the first half, walking together to the back of the church to deliver the final Amor! on a rousing unison top C.
Ellen’s first solo number, the Song to the Moon from Rusalka, is also familiar; but I could never tire of hearing it sung like this, or of Chris Pulleyn’s brilliant rendition of the aqueous piano accompaniment. And it was great that the first Puccini we heard was from a lesser-known opera, La fanciulla del West, stirringly sung by Jamie, while Chris was doing his best to replicate an orchestra on the piano. And then a real surprise: I had never heard of Giménez, let alone his opera El barbero de Sevilla, and I thoroughly enjoyed Ellie’s sultry Carmen-like performance. There was a palpable sense of an audience warming to both singers.
The second half was liberally sprinkled with golden operetta dust. Ellen sang the Vilja-Lied beautifully, in English (making sure we followed the story); she changed her style and demeanour for Can’t help lovin’ dat man, leaning languidly against the piano. Jamie introduced the aria from Martha – ‘Like most tenors, I’m singing about unrequited love’ – and built it movingly and magnificently: the same could be said of his aria from Macbeth in the first half, and his Dein ist mein ganzes Herz too. Together, in a rather touching finale, they danced to the Merry Widow Waltz.
The songs that set this recital apart, though, were by very young local composers: Tamsin Crook from Penrith and James Connolly from Kendal. Both songs were movingly personal, both rooted in place. Tamsin’s Memories on the Fells evokes a wistful sense of present and personal heartbreak set against – or in – the timelessness of a particular place (Borrowdale) – ‘These old stones’. Jamie sang it with great sensitivity; there is also a lovely piano part. Somehow it already sounds like a classic of English song. James’s The Path I have Walked is vivid and intense in its imagery (‘Becks and ghylls flowing down hills like cold tears’), and is, like Tamsin’s song, intensely personal: Ellen’s performance brought it to life, sounding more like a dramatic Scena than a single song. There is a lovely middle section (‘The storm has passed’) before it rises to a huge climax (‘a vision, of heaven on earth’) and a final, sobering realisation (‘The path I have walked must also walk with me’).
Both songs, in contrasting ways, made a powerful impression on us all. It was quite right – and true to this festival’s nature – that in addition to their solo bows they were persuaded to join the three performers to receive our warm applause at the concert’s end.
Chris Kettle
Programme:
Brindisi – Verdi (La traviata)
Song to the Moon – Dvorak (Rusalka)
Ch’ella, mi creda – Puccini (La fanciulla del West)
Me llaman le primorosa – Giménez (El barbero de Sevilla)
Ah! La paterno mano – Verdi (Macbeth)
Ah! Se fosse intorno al trono – Mozart (La clemenza di Tito)
Quando me’n Vo; Che gelida manina; O soave fanciulla – Puccini (La bohème)
Vilja-Lied; Love unspoken – Lehár (The Merry Widow)
Memories on the Fells – Tamsin Crook
Can’t help lovin’ dat man – Jerome Kern (Showboat)
Ach! So fromm, ach! So traut – Flotow (Martha)
The Path I have Walked – James Connolly
Dein ist mein ganzes Herz – Lehár (Das Land des Lächelns)
Nessun dorma – Puccini (Turandot)