Arts
The small island with Big Ideas …
Julia Lezhneva …
A few weeks ago I had a meeting in London with one of the executives of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. It was basically a courtesy call following the successful visit of the company in the inaugural visit to Australia earlier this year to prepare and perform in L’isola disabitata.
The director of international touring, Cormac Sims and I got to chatting about Hobart Baroque. He told me again what a wonderful time the team from London had when in Tasmania and asked what we were doing next year.
I mentioned several events, in particular one about which we are especially excited, the exclusive Australian debut of a dazzling young singer form Russia who is on the brink of a major career. ‘Good God,’ he said. You’ve got HER! We have too but not for two more years.” So Hobart music lovers will hear this phenomenal artist before their counterparts in London.
Part of the strategy for Hobart Baroque is to present exclusively the rare and the unusual in early music performance and thus to lure visitors to Hobart and surprise and delight them and our local audiences. Basically we look for artists and works never seen here before and do so wherever possible only in Hobart.
There are in the arts world some precious folk who mistakenly believe that the work they do is so irresistible that people will automatically flock to see it and there is no need to consider the impact on tourism.
Well I have news for them.
My colleague and executive producer Jarrod Carland and I share an unshakeable belief in intelligent programming, exclusivity and powerful promotion. We believe too that that this fledgling festival has the potential to be one of Australia’s most exciting and intriguing cultural attractions.
From a standing start this year we have moved into the fast lane with a cluster of exceptional and original ideas and events.
We have concentrated on youthful performers of high distinction and devised programs that we know will attract music lovers of all ages. Oldies get a thrill out of watching talented young people, young people enjoy watching their contemporaries.
In Hobart Baroque Mark One, we saw the first fully-staged production of an opera in Tasmania in a quarter of a century. Next March you’ll see the second. A whole generation of Tasmanians has grown up never having experiencing a professional opera production let alone a major international one. Nor have we seen too many young artists at the beginning of major careers.
Our centrepiece for Hobart Baroque 2014 is a ravishing production of George Frideric Handel’s opera Orlando, one of three operas he wrote to texts drawn from Ludovico Ariosto’s sixteenth century epic poem Orlando furioso.
Our production comes from The United States, specifically from the Glimmerglass Festival in upstate New York, a beautiful purpose-built opera house on the shores of Lake Otsego. Here to tell us a little about Glimmerglass is the famous American opera director Francesca Zambello who, in addition to being general director and artistic director there, is also the artistic director of both San Francisco Opera and the opera company at Washington’s Kennedy Centre.
(Video of Francesca addressing the Theatre Royal was then played)
Francesca’s work has been seen in all of the great opera houses of the world, Paris, Moscow, New York, London and she also directed La Traviata on Sydney Harbour.
But it was another talented director, the youthful Chas Raeder Sheiber, who originally staged Orlando at Glimmerglass and who will re-stage the production exclusively for Hobart.
Chas had worked with Sydney’s fine Pinchgut Opera company and is about to stage Giasone there with David Hansen who made such a sensational Hobart debut on this stage earlier this year.
For Orlando we have a stellar cast of superb young American singers including Kathryn Lewek who earlier this year won third prize in Placido Domingo’s Operalia contest in Italy and who took out the audience prize as well.
Here’s a sample of Kathryn’s knockout performance at that particular event in Verona.
(YouTube clip of Kathryn)
Kathryn makes her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Deutsche Opera in Berlin later this month singing the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. First Verona, then New York, then Berlin, then Hobart.
In the title role of Orlando we will hear the American countertenor Randall Scotting who shot to European fame in a notorious xproduction for the Spoleto Festival in Umbria of a rare Vivaldi work in which the hero Hercules appeared stark naked wearing nothing but a lion skin. Randall was more discreetly dressed.
(Clip of Randall played)
As we are not restricted by our charter to presenting only performers who come from other islands, Hobart Baroque 2014 will feature artists and musicians from Finland, Spain, the UK, Israel, Greece, Russia, New Zealand and Turkey. This is truly an international festival.
But that should not suggest that we are neglecting local artists. Perish the thought.
Thanks to Lord Mayor Damon Thomas and the Hobart City Council, we will have the Hobart Town Hall for the entire length of the festival as a sparking gilt and crystal showcase for local talent. Last year we had one performance there. Next year we have scheduled ten.
These recitals will feature compositions of three of the greatest composers of the Baroque era, Handel, Scarlatti and Johann Sebastian Bach, all three of them born, by some extraordinary coincidence, in the same year, 1685.
For young audiences we’ve created a special event called 5 x 5 x 5 @ 5, a series of five hour-long recitals at the Town Hall featuring five young Tasmanian musicians and ensembles, each at 5pm and with a ticket prices of five dollars.
And I’d like now introduce one of the artists who’ll appear in this series, a 23-year old award-winning countertenor from Launceston. Nicholas Tolputt (above). After Hobart Baroque, Nick will head to Switzerland to study with Andreas Scholl. This afternoon Nick will sing for us Dove sei amato bene? From another Handel opera Rodelinda. Nick is accompanied by Lynette Smith.
(Nick sings, live)
The 5pm series will be followed at 8pm each evening with another series with established musicians and ensembles playing music by our three featured composers, Bach, Handel and Scarlatti, sometimes with an unexpected twist.
Included in this series will be a return recital by Latitude 37, whose concert in the Town Hall was one of the highlights of the festival and completely sold out.
You will hear Epsom Brass, an ensemble of musicians, some from the TSO, named after Epsom House in Pontville, a southern Midlands venue for fine chamber music, excellently curated by the house’s owners Geoff and Jacqui Robertson.
A solo performance of three of the Bach cello sonatas by Timi Veikko Valve, the brilliant young Finnish player who is currently principal cellist with Richard Tognetti’s Australian Chamber Orchestra. Tippi was one of the stars of Monacello in our inaugural festival, another sold- out performance. This time he’ll be playing on his magnificent 1729 Italian baroque cello with gut strings to produce exactly the kind of sound Bach would have heard.
And we’ll hear a concert with two star keyboard players, Donald Nicolson and our musical director Erin Helyard. With tongue firmly in cheek and a nod in the direction of the film Deliverance, we’ve called this event Duelling Harpsichords and our virtuosi will play a choice selection of sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti who wrote no fewer than five hundred and fifty five of them. Don’t worry. They’ll only be playing about eighteen of the finest of these miniature masterpieces.
And from Greece comes Smaro Gregoriadou, a knockout guitar player. Her adaptations of the music of Bach, Handel and Scarlatti for baroque guitar are sensational.
Two immeasurably talented solo singers will give recitals.
Of the Barcelona-born Spanish countertenor, Xavier Sabata’s superb first solo CD. Entitled Bad Boys, Britain’s Guardian newspaper wrote “The beauty of Sabata’s singing is breathtaking.”
I have heard Xavier sing in Caen in Normandy and more recently in Athens and trust me, you are in for a treat. He has impeccable countertenor credentials, having performed as a soloist and recorded with the great early music group Les Arts Florissants and their second group Le Jardin des Voix.
This recital marks Senor Sabata’s first ever visit to Australia and he appears exclusively in Hobart.
And now to the young singer I alluded to at the beginning of this presentation. The 23 year- old soprano from Russia, Julia Lezhneva. Hers is a voice in a million. And she has an antipodean connection in that she is a protégé of Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and a pupil of the great Australian opera star, Yvonne Kenny. Julia has already garnered so many awards and prizes that she is probably contemplating a larger mantelpiece on which to display them. Just last month she won Europe’s most prestigious prize for a newcomer’s CD.
Here’s a sample of what may well be one of the loveliest voices you’ll ever hear. And you’ll be able to say you heard her first here in Hobart, her only Australian appearance with orchestra.
(Julia sings … … and here’s the link to Julia singing Alleluia … )
Julia will appear with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra conducted by Oliver Gooch, who conducted L’isola disabita in the inaugural Hobart Baroque earlier this year. Oliver comes fresh from directing two spectacular concerts in London’s Royal Albert Hall, one dedicated solely to the music of Handel.
There are many more events on our 2014 menu including another unique collaboration with MONA to tempt local interstate and even international audiences to Hobart next year. You will read about them in our beautiful brochure which will appear shortly in the Mercury.
I’ll conclude by reiterating that Jarrod and I are on a mission to present Tasmania as a small Island with big ideas. Hobart Baroque is one of them.
We are deeply appreciative of the support and encouragement earlier this year of Mr Graeme Wood of Wotif who has made and continues to make a major contribution to Tasmania’s cultural life. And to the Premier Lara Giddings who bravely announced at last year’s launch that Hobart Baroque would be an annual event and she has been as good as her word.
Grateful thanks too to our founding patrons and sponsors, many of whom have pledged continuing support this year and who, I feel sure will be joined by many more, such as the online critic who wrote on her blog:
It says something about Hobart that I’ve witnessed more wonderful singing here in six months than in my 12 years in Melbourne. This island state rarely sees our national performing companies, but makes up for this with a series of boutique festivals, often featuring international class acts.
This year we have two particularly generous individual donors to thank, the well-known local Greek family who will sponsor their compatriot Smaro Gregoriadou and Ms Julia Farrell who has made possible the appearance of her namesake, the other Julia.
Thank you very much for coming this afternoon. See you all back here in March.
• What Limelight says about Hobart Baroque
Lezhneva and Sabata help Hobart to Baroque and Roll in 2014
International superstars, the finest Australian Baroque ensembles and a fully staged Orlando are among the highlights.
Coming from nowhere, or so it seemed, last year’s inaugural Hobart Baroque Festival turned out to be a complete hit with a full scale production, courtesy of the Royal Opera House, of Haydn’s L’isola disabitata and a dazzling vocal display from David Hansen, known by many as simply “the guy who sings high”.
This year looks set to raise the bar even higher with the first presentation in Australia of a production from the Glimmerglass Summer Festival – in this case, Handel’s delightful Orlando. Known as “America’s Glyndebourne”, Glimmerglass, in upstate New York, have an enviable reputation for early music stagings replete with authentic period costumes et al. In this beautiful production by director Chas Rader-Shieber (also shown to great acclaim at New York’s Lincoln Center) the knight Orlando and his love-bewitched companions wander through a lush forest governed by both the wise counsel of the magician Zoroastro and the reckless arrows from Cupid’s bow.
• Hobart Baroque 2014 … TT Arts here
• Listen, read reviews of …
Julia Lezhneva
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cysUerSgnWc
Xavier Sabata
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/feb/06/handel-bad-guys-review
Kathryn Lewek – starring in Orlando
• How thecultureconcept circle covered the launch
MEANWHILE …
• Mercury: Time for action Tassie … says Jeff Kennett My question is whether the Tasmanian community understands the seriousness of its situation enough to support radical but exciting reform. Reforms such as abolishing payroll tax for all new businesses that move operations to Tasmania; abolition of the Upper House of Parliament; reduction of the number of Councils from 29 to five; investigating which Government services might be more effectively administered by other bodies or governments. The areas to build on include its natural wilderness attractions and other tourism assets; the promotion and sale of its quality agriculture, horticultural, viticultural and seafood products; the specific promotion and further development of innovation in the arts as led by MONA; the development around Barnbougle of three other world-class golf courses that generate international patronage; the long-term commitment and growth of opportunities that have been generated through Tasmania’s sponsorship with the Hawthorn Football Club. Tasmania has very little gravitas on the mainland. There is no champion of and for Tasmania and it must again punch above its weight to develop its new opportunities. • Mercury: HOBART Lord Mayor Damon Thomas has challenged former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett to stop “carping from the sidelines” and move to Tasmania and run for state parliament. And Premier Lara Giddings has warned Opposition Leader Will Hodgman: “I would be careful if I were you, Will: he is after your job from what I understand … he wants to run in Tasmania.”
• Placido, in Comments: As the culture wars gather pace… surely this is one creative future for Tasmania. When I say culture wars I mean the war between old ways of thinking and new ways of thinking: Dig-it-up, Chop-it-down mentality against 21st century thinking which capitalises on Tasmania’s uniqueness … not its current desire to be the Hi-Viz Capital of the World where the highest aim of its young is to be a truck driver for miners …
• Tourism Industry Council CEO Luke Martin: Strategy and Transparency needed in events funding “This is not a criticism of the Hobart Baroque Festival, but there would be a number of event organisers around Tasmania today scratching their head wondering why reportedly $400,000 has been committed to that niche event when their calls for additional support keep falling on deaf ears,” he said.
• Steve, in Comments: Slightly disturbing seeing Kennett appearing. Beats me why people place such importance on these ex politicians. Kennett took the Liberals to power in 1992, managed to win one more election before getting kicked out. Tasmanian Labor, for all their sins, have held power since 1998 and yet Kennett, the great slasher of jobs, considers he can hold forth on their failings? I’ve no affection for our current Government but I’ve even less for blow-ins who pontificate about terrible governance by the minority Labor/Green Government, whilst conveniently forgetting his own alliance with the National Party. Big on rhetoric, short on actual examples of what has been done incorrectly and how it could have been done better. If wanted to criticise Tasmanian Labor, there’s plenty of material but most dates from when Labor was well and truly in the majority.