![]() The blurring of fixed pitches – best expressed as what we think of, in western music, as being “in tune” – was explored in two world premieres, Harmonic Islands by the Lithuanian composer Juta Pranulyté (b.1993), and Natura Naturans by Irish-born Scott McLaughlin (b.1975). Nine musicians performed a programme entitled Harmonic Fields. This shape-changing ensemble, since 1995 a familiar presence in art galleries and alternative spaces such as Cafe Oto in east London, is now a welcome, and uncompromising, fixture at Wigmore Hall. The journey from the microtonal patterns characteristic of Indian ragas to the experiments of the group Apartment House is shorter than you might think. I would have liked to hear it all over again. Similarly Kirpal Singh Panesar, master of the bowed tar shehnai, offered the evening’s climactic finale in the singing role of Apollo/Guru, addressing words of comfort to the grieving Orpheus: “You will see each other in the sun and the stars.” The impatient may find this generous collaboration too long. Kaviraj Singh, who plays the santoor (a hammered dulcimer), left his place among the orchestral ensemble to sing, with fierce expression, the role of Caronte. Honouring the Indian tradition of singing as well as playing, Cummings leaves his keyboard and sings the part of Shepherd. They work in sympathy: Cummings conducts from the harpsichord, Degun from the sitar. © Tristram Kentonīoth Degun and the baroque authority Laurence Cummings are called music director. ‘A meeting of the waters’: Shahbaz Hussain on tabla, RN Prakash on ghatam, Mark Wagstaff on percussion, Sergio Bucheli on theorbo, Jasdeep Singh Degun on sitar and Andrew Long on violin. The contrasting soundworlds combined and separated, not only for the leading characters but for chorus and instrumentalists too, like a meeting of the waters. Sasikaran’s shimmering melismas could not be more different from the clean, pure sounds of Watts’s Monteverdi, yet for both, ornamentation is a key to expression. The music for her role was composed by the show’s co-music director, Jasdeep Singh Degun, in the Hindustani style of northern India. The role of Eurydice was taken by the young British Tamil performer Ashnaa Sasikaran, big on social media for her Carnatic singing. The Indian approach, meditative, intimate, is the opposite, made for close encounters. ![]() Being able to project above an orchestra and into an auditorium is part of his artistic armoury. In the title role, Nicholas Watts spun and embellished Monteverdi’s vocal line with the honed tones of an experienced opera singer. The musical styles were discrete and equal. Imagine a baroque dance suite played muted and whispered a few galaxies away The question posed is the biggest any human has to ask: how to deal with grief. The language of Greek myth and baroque opera has become the vernacular of modern family life in 21st-century Britain. Costumes display the bright, bejewelled colours of celebration. The designs by Leslie Travers and team achieve a clever union of real and surreal (makers of rugs, balloons, textiles, backcloth, as well as head gardener, are among the many credited). The event is the wedding party of Orpheus and Eurydice the musicians – whether playing violin or theorbo, tabla or esraj – are among the guests. The staging, by Anna Himali Howard, fixes the action in the lovingly nurtured back garden of an end-of-terrace house of the kind found in any UK town or city. ![]() The results, flowing seamlessly between Italian and Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Punjabi and Bengali, as well as between musical styles, were richer and more rewarding than even the most upbeat prophesy.īilled as a “reimagining”, the haunting story remains the same: Orpheus the musician tries to retrieve his dead wife, Eurydice, from the underworld, but looks back and in so doing loses her for ever. Any attempt to guess how Opera North’s collaboration with its Leeds-based neighbour, South Asian Arts, might work was destined to be wide of the mark. Handpick a cast of classically trained musicians of the western tradition and ask them to share Claudio Monteverdi’s 1607 opera, Orfeo, with British-born performers steeped in a wide-ranging classical Indian heritage. T ake one hallowed operatic masterpiece and mix, mash, fuse or, better, unite it with Indian ragas and tala, song and dance.
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