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The Fifth Ealing Music & Film Festival – 8 to 12 February 2017
The Ealing Music & Film Festival returns in 2017 with a mix of music and film to entertain and lighten February’s dark days. Now in its fifth year the festival programme continues to celebrate Ealing’s cultural heart and to support the wealth of creative young artistic talent in the local area through outreach and scholarships.
Saffron Opera Group’s Ring continues on 12 February, 2017
Internationally acclaimed soloists in concert performance
Superb reviews for previous instalments
(Click for Jim Pritchard’s reviews of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre)
Having achieved a host of ecstatic reviews for the first two concert-performance instalments of the Ring Cycle, Saffron Opera Group (SOG) continues its triumphant journey through Wagner’s epic score with Siegfried in Saffron Hall on Sunday 12 February, 2017.
English National Ballet’s Giselle – the classic ballet by Mary Skeaping
Click here to read Jim Pritchard’s first night review
London Coliseum
Wednesday 11 – Sunday 22 January 2017
Performances at 7.30pm (mat at 2.30pm)
Tickets: £14 – £79
www.ballet.org.uk/giselle
Fighting Back From What Life Throws At You And Inspiring Others: Jim Pritchard Interviews The Soprano Elisabeth Meister
One of the highlights of the recent concert performance of Die Walküre for the Saffron Opera Group was Elisabeth Meister’s wonderful Sieglinde. Peter Reed in Opera magazine described how ‘gathering depth and brilliance’ she ‘built towards an orchestra-surfing “O hehrstes Wunder!” of pulverizing grandeur’. On this site I said she just ‘got better and better’ and how ‘Meister is an intelligent singer who knows how to project her voice, and she achieved extraordinary heights of passion in Act III without pushing the voice beyond its limits.’ (For full review click here.) I also mentioned how Elisabeth was – with this performance – returning to singing after something of a hiatus to her singing career, which was set to have a meteoric rise after leaving the Royal Opera’s Jette Parker Young Artists Programme. Elisabeth has a remarkable – and inspirational – story to tell which involves losing and regaining her singing voice.
THE BEST OF 2016 FROM REVIEWERS OF SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL
United Kingdom Wagner, Götterdämmerung Act II: Soloists; Mastersingers Chorale; Rehearsal Orchestra / David Syrus (conductor), Henry Wood Hall, London, 30.10.2016. (JPr)
MONICA HUGGETT IN CONVERSATION WITH GEOFFREY NEWMAN
If one wanted a broad picture of the evolution of historical performance, with intriguing little nuances revealed along the way, there would be few better musicians to talk to than Monica Huggett. She has been an unremitting force for four decades, well known from her early association with the Academy of Ancient Music and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, and these days as Artistic Director of the Portland and Irish Baroque Orchestras, and Adviser to the Juilliard Historical Program. This interview traces the violinist’s experiences from the time when the authentic movement was just gathering momentum. Most important are her insights about how historical performance has developed out of a number of contrasting approaches that have cross-fertilized each other. Equally interesting are her ideas on where historical scholarship and performance practice still have room to grow, what she wants to achieve from an orchestra in interpretation, and how she has maintained an undiminished inspiration all this time. The interview took place in conjunction with the Vancouver Bach Festival in August 2016, where Monica Huggett directed the Pacific Baroque Orchestra in the Complete Bach Orchestral Suites (review).
Italy Cremona Musica: Cremonafiere 30.9.2016 to 2.10.2016 Fiere di Cremona. Part Two of a two-part report. (JB)