Summertime with Opera North
The Hive, Nenthead - 16/07/22
Opera North’s full-time chorus is one of the company’s great assets. There are choir members of all ages with a wealth of experience in classical and modern works. Many of them have sung small named parts in traditional repertoire and have taken on larger roles in modern operas. Kurt Weill’s ‘Street Scene’, performed in 2020, with its large cast of neighbours in an apartment block was one of these. Some years ago, chorus members relished taking on the roles of various eccentric White House staff in the George Gershwin comic musicals about US politics, ‘Of Thee I Sing’ and ‘Let Them Eat Cake’.
This summer the Chorus have been taking their own show on the road for concerts in smaller venues in the north of England. I caught their last performance at Nenthead in Cumbria on Saturday night. Nenthead, the highest village in England, was once the centre of a thriving lead and silver mining industry. Two years ago the nineteenth century Methodist Chapel was restored to provide a community café and hub and rechristened the Hive. It’s a compact but comfortable and welcoming venue for Opera North’s concert, with the cannier members of the audience arriving in time to join friends for drinks around the tables in the café and later arrivals seated in the upstairs gallery – perhaps around 60 people in all.
Thirteen choir members, three sopranos, mezzos and tenors and four basses, form two rows beneath the organ. Martin Pickard, the Musical Director, introduces the first group of songs, and members of the chorus speak about later sections of the programme. We’re promised a wide selection of music for choir and for solo singers. There are well-known favourites here, but also some songs which are new to most of us.
The first group is for unaccompanied voices, starting with the earliest known song in English, ‘Sumer is icumen in’. The rest of the set are madrigals and pastoral songs from the fifteenth to the early seventeenth century, including tuneful standards like Morley’s ‘Now is the Month of Maying’, as well as the comic oddity, ‘El Grillo’, Josquin des Prez’s song which mimics the sound of the cricket. These were conducted by Martin Pickard who moved to the electric keyboard for a group of French songs. Two short songs by Poulenc, ‘Carte Postale’ and ‘Avant La Cinema’ are sung with verve and joie de vivre by Nicholas Butterfield and Aimee Fisk. Victoria Sharp’s fine soprano soars in Faure’s ‘Les Berceuse’, in which a mother contrasts her child in the cradle with her husband’s dangerous life in his vessel at sea. Another ship features in Tom Smith’s atmospheric account of a dream journey in Duparc’s ‘L’Invitation au Voyage’.
The first half concludes with German songs, performed by the women. Three songs from Mendelssohn’s ‘Lieder in Freien zu singen’ (songs to be sung outdoors) are unusually Lieder for an unaccompanied choir. They are lively and tuneful and deserve to be better known. Another unfamiliar serenade from Schubert, (Stanchen D920 – not the famous one) also for chorus, features Hazel Croft as the mezzo soloist. It’s a lovely free-flowing piece.
The concert tickets have been available free online with a request to pay what we want at the venue. There’s a good buzz in the hall at the interval and no hesitation in filling up the collection box as it comes round!
The second half features lighter music, starting with a selection by Arthur Sullivan. The first three numbers are from his partnership with W S Gilbert. ‘The Bridesmaids’ Chorus’ from ‘Ruddigore’ is followed by Yum Yum’s poignant solo from ‘The Mikado’, nicely sung by Kathryn Stevens. Then the men intervene to give us their version of ‘Three Little Maids from School’, Tom Smith, Nicholas Butterfield and Paul Gibson doing their best in their confined space to exhibit “girlish glee” by twirling under imaginary parasols! Sullivan’s collaboration with Edward German, a significant composer of operettas in his own right, is celebrated in an excerpt from ‘The Emerald Isle’.
Three of Britten’s arrangements of Folk Songs follow, ‘The Ash Grove’ from Wales, ‘The Sally Gardens’ from Ireland and ‘Waly, Waly’ from England – the Scots song on the printed programme, ‘The Bonnie Earl of Moray’ being omitted “because it’s too difficult to pronounce.” Hmmm! As ever Britten’s accompaniments accentuate the sadness of the words underlying the sweetness of their melodies. Richard Mosley-Evans, Paul Gibson and Aimee Fisk all do a splendid job of making these songs sound fresh.
In the last section, the Chorus are able to let their hair down properly. Cole Porter’s ‘Let’s Do It’ - in one of its less risqué versions – is followed by a jazzy arrangement of Gershwin’s ‘Summertime’. The singers obviously enjoy the jazz idiom, which gives the soloists, Kathryn Stevens and Tom Smith and the individual chorus members a chance for a little improvisation. Glenn Miller’s ‘Chattanooga Choochoo’ provides a rousing finale. There’s no space to dance in the aisles, but the gallery starts to clap along, and the reprise is greeted with much applause, and from those who have room to move a standing ovation!
