Stephen Truelove News
Last update
2024-03-28
Refresh
2020-09-22 07:47:31
The Rakes Progress: Blackheath Halls Opera goes online with Nicky Spence, Ashley Riches, Francesca Chiejina
At a time when large-scale amateur music making is hardly possible, Blackheath Halls Opera, having cancelled plans for live performances of Verdi's Macbeth, has come up with a lively way to ensure that its members are able to continue performing, a 30-minute digested version of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, directed by James Hurley and film in Blackheath Halls and in the performers' homes. The film debuts on-line on Saturday 3 October 2020, and features a terrific cast with Nicky Spence (the company's patron) as Tom Rakewell, Ashley Riches as Nick Shadow, Francesca Chiejina as Anne Truelove, James Way as Sellem, Kitty Whately as Baba the Turk and Carolyn Williamson as Mother Goose, with musical director Christopher Stark and featuring Blackheath Halls Orchestra, Blackheath Halls Chorus, Royal Greenwich & Blackheath Halls Youth Choir. All orchestral and chorus music was recorded by players in their own homes, aided by recordings prepared by singers […]
Norman Lebrecht - Slipped disc
2017-06-20 14:01:26
Death of a Stockhausen authority
Richard Toop, former teaching assistant to Karlheinz Stockhausen and latterly professor at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, has died at 71 after a long illness. Richard was a fine writer about music – I commissioned his biography of Ligeti for the Phaidon composers series – and an inspiring teacher. Students complained of exhaustion at his lessons because his mind ran so much faster than theirs. Originally from Chichester, he studied at Hull before moving to Cologne as Stockhausen’s aide. He migrated to Australia in 1975. Richard Toop, Karlheinz Stockhausen & Stephen Truelove at The Stockhausen Courses 2002 photo: ingvar loco nordin/Stockhausen Estate
2017-06-13 00:02:31
Let me live by my wits and Trost to my luck
I finally get to complete my personal operatic Top Ten this week with Igor Stravinsky’s only full-length opera, The Rake’s Progress. Daniele Gatti leads a 2006 performance with the forces of Santa Cecilia starring Rainer Trost, James Morris, and Ellie Dehn. My cheap Italian coffee press shattered in my hand yesterday morning so this will be somewhat abbreviated and error-filled due to excessive bandaging. What do you need to know about this opera if you don’t already know it? Tom Rakewell, a regular dude, sells his soul to the devil (a/k/a Nick Shadow) to become rich and famous, abandoning his true love, Anne Truelove. In his progression to insanity, he manages to get out of the contract but first discovers love at Mother Goose’s whorehouse, marries the famous bearded lady Baba the Turk, and is coerced into believing he’s invented a machine that turns stones into bread. After his sad […]
2017-05-31 18:57:24
Das Süsses Mädel and the Boy from Berlin
Diana Damrau is a finished artist, the voice full-bodied rather than tinkling, pastel not metal, her agility well-schooled and the instrument of sufficient size to fill the Met. The range is extensive if sometimes a bit thin above the staff, and the core is strong. She does not sing around the note or touch on the note, as the watery coloraturas do; she sings the note. There is an ease and a weight to her passage work, runs are a pleasure but trills sometimes unclear or fudged. She always gives pleasure though one sometimes find her bland, lacking distinctive personality. A Viennese friend tells me, “We call Damrau ‘das süsses Mädel,’” and it is a whirling, Olivia da Havilland amiability that she tends to project, though her Violetta was touchingly acted. She is one of our reigning divas, and a reigning coloratura soprano gets to choose whatever familiar and […]