Anna Netrebko - The Tsar's Bride.

I first became aware of the beautiful Russian soprano, Anna Netrebko, when I saw her in a performance of Ruslan and Lyudmila which was broadcast some years ago, on BBC2, from the Kirov opera in St. Petersburg.  Since then she has become famous throughout the world of opera. In this recording which is conducted by Valery Gergiev, she is singing an aria from the Tsar's Bride, by Rimsky Korsakov.

Opera North perform Puccini's 'La fanciulla del West' - The Lowry!

Although the Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini, considered his opera 'La fanciulla del West' (The Girl of the Golden West), to be one of his greatest works, I wouldn't consider this opera to be one of my favourite Puccini operas even though it does contain some fine arias (see video - 'chella mi creda' by Jussi Bjorling).

Since first being premiered at the New York Metropolitan in 1910, this 'cowboy' opera has received a mixed reception from critics and opera buffs and has become one of the less popular opera's, within the composer's repertoire.

The opera itself is set in the American Gold Rush of 1849. Minnie a " plucky, gun-toting, saloon owner plays surrogate mother to the rough crew of miners who frequent her bar, whilst batting back the affections of the local Sheriff. But when a mysterious stranger comes into her life, everything looks set to change... A tale of true love and second chances set in a world of gun fights, poker games and stagecoach robberies, La fanciulla del West combines the suspense and action of a great Western with the emotional punch of Italian opera."

Next month, (5-7 March 2014), Opera North are performing 'La fanciulla del West' at the Lowry in Salford. Adult tickets cost between £15 -£65 and performances start at 7.30 pm.

Lasts approximately 2 hours 30 mins
Sung in Italian with English titles
Supported by the Friends of Opera North

Jim Pinkerton, 'Verdi Man' & opera buff

WHEN in the Autumn of 2001 the distinguished old Lancashire anarchist and former international secretary of the Syndicalist Workers' Federation, Jim Pinketon, had just suffered what was to be his first stroke and was speechless in bed in Ashton-under-Lyne General Hospital, Harold Sculthorpe produced a pair of headphones and played him some Puccini, Derek Pattison, another life-long friend said:  'Jim was more of a Verdi man, Harold!'.   This year is the bicentennary of both Verdi and Wagner and it caused a little consternation when last December the Teatro alla Scala in Milan opened its season with 'Lohengrin' in observation of Wagner's bicentennial rather than with an opera by Verdi, who was born in Roncole, Italy, in the Duchy of Palma, on either the 9th or 10th, October 1813 (the records are unclear). 

Wagner was born in Leipzig, Germany, on May 22nd, 1813 (no doubt the German records are clearer).  It seems they never met and had little nice to say about each other.  Yet in later life, in 1899, Verdi told a German newspaper that Wagner was 'one of the greatest geniuses' who left treasures of 'immortal worth', admitting that as an Italian, he could not claim to 'understand everything' in Wagner, but he declared before 'Trista und Isolde... I stand in wonder and terror.'  The scholar Richard Taruskin has suggested that though some of Verdi's praise may have been genuine there is 'sufficient evidence of leg pulling' in the old man's answer to the fawning German interviewer.  Anthony Tommasini, the journalist, writes:  'For the most part Wagner and Verdi existed as titans in their separate realms.' 

The Puccini music made Jim Pinkerton jerk briefly in his hospital bed when the head-phones went on his ears possibly showing some recognition, but he was never to converse again with any of us and died on March 9th, 2002 at the age of 79-years.  He was never again to listen to his 78rpm records of Caruso, Nelly Melba, Alfredo Kraus and a Zazuela from Spain or drink his fine Burgundy.

Since its excursion last year into Wagner the Teatro alla Scala has redressedv the balance in the months since with new productions of four Verdi operas, the latest being 'Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacto'.  'Oberto' was Verdi's first opera ever.  Tommasini writes:  'By midcentury Verdi had become the Italian opera composer best known and most performed in Europe' as 'commissions even came to him from St. Petersburg ('La Forza del Destino') and Cairo ('Aida').'  For Tommasini:  'He was a colossus who expanded on and experimented with the Italian tradition but never really moved beyond it.'

What did this mean for Verdi? 

Anthony Tommasini writes:
'Verdi was born to an Italian opera tradition that embraced tried-and-true procedures regarding recitative and aria, scene structure and the like.'  But, 'In letters he complained endlessly about the tyranny of the tradition... the ridiculous expectations of opera audiences for set-piece arias and ensembles could infuriate him as much as the absurdities of the Italian censors, who vetoed story lines and settings that were deemed incendiary.'

Stravinsky wrote in his book 'Poetics of Music' defending the oom-pah-pah aria in the style of Verdi:
'I know I am going to counter the general opinion that sees Verdi's best work in the deterioration of the genius that gave us "Rigoletto," "Il Trovatore," "Aida" and "La Traviata," ' but, 'I maintain that there is more substance and true invention in the aria "La donna è mobile" (The woman is fickle), for example, in which the elite saw nothing but deplorable facility, than in the rhetoric and vociferations of the "Ring," (Wagner) ' 

Jim Pinkerton, who retired as a copy-taker on the Sunday People in the 1980s, was a northern, working-class, anarchist intellectual who loved Verdi and took a dim view of the English anarchist movement.  Culturally he would have preferred to belong to the Italian middle-class as that would have given him greater access to the music he so passionately desired.  But politically he adored the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists of the CNT, particularly the Catalans, as compared to them, he observed: "we English are like shrivelled up prunes".  When one considers the the British left today, particularly the half-baked anarchist movement of this island one can't help but think that he was right in this insight.

Robin Hood: Bandits in Andalucia

WHEN reading The Guardian story below on the anarchist trade union militant Juan Gordillo, English readers ought to be aware of something of the history and tradition of this kind of thing in southern Spain.  Every time I go to Ronda in the province of Malaga, I visit a bar in the old part of town near the Roman Bridge and gaze at the black and white photos of around the room in which alongside local shots of  Francesco Rosi's 1984 film version of the Carmen opera with the tenor, Plácido Domingo, and Julia Migenes, are photos of a genuine bandit being arrested by the Guardia Civil in the local sierra. 
This bandit tradition continued in this part of Spain until at least 1951.  Julian A.Pitt-Rivers in his book 'The People of the Sierra' (1954) explains:  'Ronda is like a provincial capital to the pueblos of the sierra.  Like Jerez, it possesses a resident aristocracy.  The pueblos to the south, in the valley of the Rio Genal, are small, less than one thousand inhabitants in number, and situated in wild country.  The agricultural land of these pueblos and much of the low-lying forest is divided into small properties.  Large pastoral properties are owned by the state and by the aristocracy of Ronda who also own much of the better land round Ronda itself.'  Mr Pitt-Rivers then quotes from an article in Estampa, published in 1934, commenting on banditry in this region:  '(A Civil Guard speaking to the journalist says -)  "Just as in some regions there are pueblos which strive to produce the most and best bullfighters, so here they want to have bandits [and] all the folk of the sierra protect Flores (a bandit).  In Igualeja the pueblo is on Flores' side.  They are all spies who watch our every act.  Only by betrayal could we come to grips with him, and no one dares betray him for he would soon be avenged".'    

Pitt-Rivers describes the sociology of the bandit and his relationship with the pueblo thus:  '(A bandit must retain his confidential contact with the pueblo and in doing so) His opposition to the Civil Guard assures him the sympathy of a large part of the pueblo.  Theoretically, at any rate, a romantic and honourable figure, he is outside the law but he is not immoral.'  It is this ability of the Andalucian bandit to remain a member of the moral community, at least in relation to certain sections of it, that allows him to exist outside the law.  The danger is that when the shepherds and goat-herder's start to inform of him to the Guardia Civil and his friends in the pueblo fail him, then according to Mr. Pitt-Rivers, 'he has reached the end of his tether'. 

In the early 1950s, this is what led to the successful suspression of banditry in the sierra de Ronda.  Julian Pitt-Rivers writes: 
'The Civil Guard, unable to trap the elusive and well-armed "Reds", concentrated their efforts against their contacts in the pueblos.  Finding their supplies endangered, the bandits took to plundering the shepherds and the latter reacted by betraying them to their pursuers.' 

Recent local events have given this story is interesting and ironic topical twist, because at present the printed version of Northern Voices is under a similar heavy attack from two sides:  from the establishment organisation Link4Life that is an arms-length body led by gaffers that runs museums, art galleries and sports outfits, and from what, using George Orwell's terminology, may be described as a smelly little orthodoxy on the ultra-left of the political spectrum.  The Link4Life bosses withdrew one of our sales outlets because of an article in Northern Voices No.13 by Debbie Firth, a Touchstones Challenge campaigner in Rochdale defending the arts and heritage of the borough; at the same time a shadowy group on the wilder fringes of the of the crackpot left have been busy touring some of our outlets trying to discourage them from distributing Northern Voices.  All of this is interesting and deserves deeper research as an anthropological strange development both at a local level inside the relationship of Link4Life to the Rochdale Council, and inside the small-group dynamics of the more foolish factions of politics on the left in England.

Cultural North: 'Well I'll Go To Buxton!'

OBSCURE OBJECTS OF DESIRE IN DERBYSHIRE

THIS year's Buxton Festival that ends on July 25th, is a treasure trove of lesser-known works of opera.  Chris Draper, who writes in Northern Voices 13, never mentioned the Buxton Opera House in his feature 'Six O' the Best Northern Theatres'.   And yet, Buxton for these few weeks in July is the cultural capital of the North, even though it tends to be overshadowed by Glyndebourne and Edinburgh in Scotland.  Buxton describes itself as 'a happy marriage of music, opera and books'; it also includes talks on literary subjects together with recitals and chamber concerts.

The opera house, dating from 1903, has 900-seats and is in the centre of town near the central park.  The Festival is dominated by works of opera, and this year there is the Sibelius opera 'The Maiden in the Tower', the Strauss comedy 'Intermezzo', Handel's oratorio 'Jephtha', Mozart's 'Idomeneo' and Gluck's Iphigenia operas.  Handel's biblical drama is about the Israelite warrior Jephtha, who unwisely promises that if he is victorious he will sacrifice the first thing he sees on returning home.

There was a double bill chance to hear the Sibelious opera with Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Kashchei the Immortal'.  George Loomis in the Herald Tribune writes that the Sibelius opera 'lacks theatricality', but that 'Rimsky-Korskov's dramaturgical skills never seemed more potent than when "Kashchei" got going after the intermission'.  As well as these Buxton Festival productions there are some guest productions such as Metastasio's libretto 'L'Olimpiade', the plot of 'L'Olimpiade' involves a trick by an ancient Olympics contestant to get a better athlete to compete in his name with tragic results.
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The printed version of NORTHERN VOICES 13, with all sorts of stuff others won't touch and may be obtained as follows:
Postal subscription: £5 for the next two issues (post included)
Cheques payable to 'Northern Voices' at
c/o 52, Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.
Tel.: 0161 793 5122.
email: northernvoices@hotmail.com
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