Almost by stealth, paradoxically, Bold Tendencies’ summer series of art, words and music at a south London multistorey car park has grown from quirky, marginal event to inventive centre-stage activity, drawing the outside world into its magnetic field while remaining true to its experimental self. Leading musicians are jostling to perform in this brutalist concrete cathedral, open to the elements and to the sounds of a busy railway station, to name only the noisiest of the noisy noises off.
Colin Currie, the world-class solo percussionist who made his debut at Bold’s first 2021 concert last week, said he was “proud” to be making his debut at this “extraordinary creative endeavour”. With fellow percussionist Sam Walton (section co-principal of the London Symphony Orchestra) and Bold favourites Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy, Currie played Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (1938).
Given the work’s furious rhythmic intensity, and the restless contrast between pitched notes of the pianos and unpitched sounds of the seven percussion instruments, it might have been designed for such a raw, modernist space. Bartók insisted all four players should hold equal sway. One hazard is how to coordinate precisely with one another, but they succeeded brilliantly. The velvety musings of the two pianos in the second movement, in dialogue with the mysterious swishes, taps and rolls of cymbal and snare drum, were especially effective.
Currie, the preferred choice of performer for the composer Steve Reich, who knows a thing or two about drumming, also performed three virtuosic and absorbing solo pieces: Asanga (1997) by Kevin Volans, Realismos Mágicos (2014) by Rolf Wallin and Dark Ground (2005) by Tansy Davies, who was there to share the cheers. Later in the summer, the Philharmonia will perform an epic, two-piano-concerto evening of Brahms: good for the orchestra, good for Bold. There’s also a Mahler symphony in the pipeline. Keep an eye on Bold’s website.
The Royal Opera House turned to a winter favourite for its midsummer re-opening, if re-opening is the word in the confusion of on-off, off-on, open-closed season: La bohème, in Richard Jones’s arcade-dominated production, here scaled down on stage and in the pit to meet the latest Covid regulations. Puccini’s opera is already perfectly formed, shapely rather than lean. It remained intact here, but the music’s aural abundance is inevitably etiolated in comparison, with no one at fault.
A cast led by Anna Princeva as Mimi, wholesomely sympathetic rather than fragile, and Joshua Guerrero as Rodolfo had uniform strengths – as well as some wobbly tuning – but most notable performances came from supporting roles. Danielle de Niese created a voluptuous Musetta, comic, coarse, big-hearted, with Boris Pinkhasovich a fiery, macho Marcello and Gianluca Buratto’s Colline a gleaming cameo. The conductor (and former ROH chorus director) Renato Balsadonna cajoled superb playing from every section, strings sensuous as Rodolfo sings of Mimi’s tiny frozen hand, clarinet hurtling into flight as required, flute and harp duetting over cellos at the snowy start of Act 3. This was an occasion when watching Friday’s live stream may have had more impact than sitting in the auditorium, spaced out while actually longing to be in a capacity crush.
Song has been in the air. Or not, if you are a choir member still frustrated by the senseless government ban on amateur choral singing, a stigmatisation with no scientific evidence so far. Or not, either, according to the Welsh government, if you are a tenor. They fell for fake news advice (since withdrawn) that tenors spread Covid-19 more easily than other voice types. Go compare. If it wasn’t so shocking that a national government appears to have relied on a satirical internet meme for information, it would be funny. This year’s BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition only had one tenor – phew – and the winner was a safely deserving, radiant-voiced baritone, Gihoon Kim. There must be some explanation as to why the BBC found no way of admitting an audience, making for a sadly low-key TV event, however hard everyone tried, including its heroic hosts Petroc Trelawny and Josie d’Arby.
Leeds Lieder festival, devised this year by the pianist Joseph Middleton, managed four packed days with a live, socially distanced audience in Leeds Town Hall, as well as online relays. I watched (tenor, beware) Mark Padmore, with Middleton as responsive pianist, performing Britten’s five Canticles – spare, small forms packing grand emotional punches, written between 1947 and 1974. Padmore, perceptive, alert, incandescent, was joined by the countertenor Iestyn Davies, baritone Peter Brathwaite, horn player Ben Goldschneider and harpist Olivia Jageurs. When performers convince you that a piece you’ve somehow bypassed might well be a composer’s greatest work, they’re getting it right.
Star ratings (out of five)
Colin Currie ★★★★★
La bohème ★★★
Leeds Lieder festival ★★★★★
