JOYCE DIDONATO SINGS BERLIOZ at the Royal Festival Hall

★★★★

“on to the stage walked Joyce DiDonato in a sheath of gold, her signature hair magnificent and a glittering of jewels – a true Egyptian Queen Cleopatra”

The opening concert of the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Autumn/Winter Season was entitled Joyce DiDonato Sings Berlioz, which might have been slightly misleading, if you had not read the music to be performed, as the mezzo-soprano performed in just one of the three pieces played tonight.

The evening opened with Samuel Barber’s Medea’s Dance of Vengeance (1955). This saw the large orchestra on stage playing rather brilliantly this tense and violent single movement. The piece opens with a sparse xylophone solo, joined by the harp through to violin and echoed by flute and oboe. The orchestra relish playing with full strength capturing the ominous drama of Medea as she moves onwards to her ultimate goal. The music continues to change tempos with each section of the orchestra throwing the themes between instruments. There is a strong piano staccato passage that repeats relentlessly and transforms as other instruments pick it up in different rhythms. It was a thrilling opening to the evening, with every instrument pulsating this dramatic work. Medea’s Dance of Vengeance is extracted from what had been Barber’s score for a full-length ballet choreographed by Martha Graham, unleashed with orchestra and dancer, that would have been a sight to behold.

Up next was another truly dramatic piece, Hector Berlioz’s The Death of Cleopatra (1829). And here on to the stage walked Joyce DiDonato in a sheath of gold, her signature hair magnificent and a glittering of jewels – a true Egyptian Queen Cleopatra. In just one act, The Death of Cleopatra has the depth and drama of a full opera with one solo performer and orchestra. As the orchestra played the poetical extended opening DiDonato’s strength and character is clear from her stance as to where she is going to take her Cleopatra. Her mezzo-soprano operatic tone is rich and powerful as she sings above the orchestra with a great feel for the French dramatic vocal style in the recitatives and arias, particularly when singing to her ancestors in the tomb as she prepares for death. In the final movement a strong plucking starts on the double bass (six of them), and on through the strings building the tension as the orchestra breaths with DiDonato, through to the piccolos slithering here as “the vile reptile” arriving to wrap around Cleopatra’s wrist and bite. Her final despairing utterances are joined by the double basses, in what can only be described as the heart beating and slowing. Picking up with the strings momentarily in a final quivering beat before stopping – silence. Death. Conductor, Edward Gardner, clearly relishes Berlioz’s twists and turns and creates an increasing sense of entombment through to the deathly silence. A strong debut for Joyce DiDonato with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Berlioz was just 26 when he wrote The Death of Cleopatra and Beethoven had been dead for only 2 years.

Which takes us neatly to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E flat major (Eroica) 1803-5, the final piece in tonight’s programme. This was Beethoven’s great breakthrough symphony, and music was never the same again. The stuff of symphonic legend, the symphony was originally written to celebrate the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. But when Napoleon showed imperial ambitions, Beethoven defaced the original dedication (to Bonaparte) in protest – and his musical revolution began with this glorious work. Once again Edward Gardner brings excitement and passion from the orchestra. The assured performance right from the first two bracing E-flat major chords to the dynamics in the first movement are intelligently paced. There is no mistaking one is hearing piano rather than pianissimo, or a forte instead of fortissimo. The second movement, Marcia Funebre, is a funeral march and always deeply moving. The Scherzo is well played, and the famous trio hunting-horn is beautiful. And then you trust Beethoven to take you forward to the fourth movement with yet more new themes. The final movement, Allegro Molto (very fast), does not quite pick up the tempo needed until towards the very end, when the symphony’s coda with horns at full throttle is thrilling.