OPERA Headliners of the Year
Maria
Padilla at The Opera House, Buxton
Every opera festival needs its unique selling point: Wexford, for example, is always good for a surprise, Glyndebourne is good for a picnic and Buxton is usually good for a laugh. Over the past few years, the Buxton festival has forged a reputation as a restorer of dusty comic gems. But perhaps wishing to avoid over-association with the frothier end of the repertoire, the festival has chosen to celebrate its 25th anniversary with one of Donizetti's most mirthless late melodramas. Maria Padilla is an ambitious choice - one of those hefty, bel canto marathons that prizes vocal artistry over dramatic art - yet it feels like a reversion to the bad old days of Buxton biting off more than it can chew. There is nothing about Aiden Lang's production that is not perfectly adequate, but also nothing that would not be immeasurably improved by longer rehearsal and a more accommodating budget. The American soprano Brenda Harris has been brought over to deal with the fierce and florid coloratura of the title role, which she dispatches with steely attention to pitch but scarcely any deviation in emotional colour. In terms of tonal subtlety and dramatic engagement she is comprehensively outsung by the young British mezzo, Victoria Simmonds, in the far less gratifying role of Maria's confidante and sister, Ines. As the ruthless and charmless Pedro I of Spain, George Mosley is saddled with some of Donizetti's most perfunctory evil-baritone music. But what really elevates the opera above the routine is the strange and charismatic conception of Maria's father, Don Ruiz, a tremulous old-timer who loses his daughter, his honour and the skin off his feet in one of Pedro's particularly cruel and sadistic punishments. In a highly unusual twist, Donizetti scored the part of the old man for a high tenor, and Justin Lavender's fluting, querulous performance provides the complex heart of the drama. As the burden of humiliation tips Ruiz toward madness, the opera climaxes in a long father-daughter duet of King Lear-like intensity. The young Giuseppe Verdi must surely have been taking notes.-Alfred Hiking.
Richard Armstrong.
Since
taking up the position of Music Director with Scottish Opera, Richard
Armstrong has conducted many productions with the company, amongst others,
Billy Budd , lI trovatore, I due Foscari, Salome, Peter Grimes, Tristan und
Isolde, Fidelio, La forza del destino, Life with an Idiot ( also for English
National Opera ), The Jacobin, La traviata, Turandot, Inés de Castro, La
bohème, Ariadne auf Naxos, Rigoletto, The Queen of Spades, Hansel and Gretel,
Dalibor, Der Rosenkavalier, Delius' The Magic Fountain and Aida. He has also
conducted Scottish Opera regularly at the Edinburgh International Festival.
Overseas operatic engagements include Frankfurt, where he was, for two
seasons, Principal Guest Conductor, Geneva, Theatre de Champs Elysee in Paris,
Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Amsterdam,
Rome, Brussels, Nice, Canada, Australia, Los Angeles, Stuttgart and Berlin.
Richard
Armstrong made his debut at the Proms in London in 1989 and conducted Moses
and Aaron at the opening of the 1992 Edinburgh International Festival. He has
worked with many of Great Britain's leading orchestras including the London
Philharmonic, the Philharmonia, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra
of Wales, Hallé, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal
Scottish National Orchestra, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
Abroad he has conducted orchestras including the Japan Philharmonic, and the
Berlin Symphony Orchestra at the Konzerthaus Berlin. Recent achievements
include two world premières - James MacMillan's Inés de Castro at Scottish
Opera and Peter Maxwell -Davies' The Doctor of Myddfai at Welsh National Opera
- and David Hockney's production of Tristan und Isolde in Los Angeles.
Productions in Scottish Opera's 1999 - 2000 Season include: Macbeth, Katya
Kabanova, Parsifal and Salome.He has recently conducted Werther in Toulouse
with Roberto Alagna and From the House of the Dead for Welsh National Opera.
In May 1997, Richard Armstrong was awarded the United Kingdom Conductor of the
Year by the Royal Philharmonic Music Society. The award was given for: " His
unswerving commitment to Scottish Opera at a time of serious financial
uncertainty, and his outstanding conducting of two world premières: James
MacMillan's Inés de Castro with Scottish Opera, and Sir Peter Maxwell -
Davies' The Doctor of Myddfai with Welsh National Opera ."