What a start - Proms 2010

'"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents" grumbled Jo, lying on the rug' Little Women - L M Alcott

Substitute the words Summer and Proms for Christmas and Presents and now you will know what I feel about the Prom concerts which take place each summer at the Royal Albert Hall.  I started attending these when I was about 14 (difficult to do when the Beatles were driving all teenage girls to a frenzy so that my love of classical music was viewed as very odd to say the least), and for the next ten years or so, attended nearly every concert every night each season and it was there I learned my music, heard the first performance in this country of Shostakovitch's 5th Symphony conducted by Stokowski, my first Mahler 2 with Bernard Haitink and the Concertgebouw, my first Gerontius with Sir Malcolm Sargent and so many more I cannot list them all here, but it is a place that holds so many happy memories for me.

Last Friday was the first night with a simply stunning performance of Mahler's 8th symphony, the so called 'Symphony of a Thousand' with a huge orchestra, multiple choirs taking up all the seats way up high behind the orchestra, and multiple soloists.  It is in two parts and though I love Veni Creator Spiritus which comes first, my real love is saved for the second half which is based on Goethe's Faust and has the more glorious music (for me at any rate).  All the soloists gave it their all and it was lovely to see the soloists smiling and loving it when their colleagues  were singing.  The most sublime moment for me is when the tenor sings 'Blicket Auf' the orchestra soars away behind him, the choirs come in and from that moment on we have twenty minutes of the most beautiful and uplifting music you could hope to hear. It builds and builds and by the end always reduces me to tears and it did this time as well.

Prom Number two which I attended last night was the Welsh National Opera and Meistersinger with Bryn Terfle as Han Sachs and I have been waiting to hear him sing this for a long time.  Though there was no solo calls and the entire performance was very much a team effort, there is no disguising the fact that Bryn was head and shoulders above everybody else on the stage and of course, as a world famous opera  singer with a huge reputation, this was to be expected.  But, as with his Dutchman last year at the Opera House, which I reviewed here, there was no feeling of a superstar pinching the limelight and for this, I am most grateful having sat through certain performances in the past at an opera house where the Name jetted in, performed and jetted out not forgetting to collect his cheque as he/she left.

The Welsh National Opera, of which I am currently a friend, had two boxes in the Grand Tier and I was offered a place there for Saturday night.  Yes, it cost a bit but as I managed to return my previous inferior ticket and also had to return my ticket for the WNO in Birmingham when I was not well to my irritation and annoyance, the two of them added together more or less paid for this so that made me feel a bit better.  The box was to the left of the stage if you were looking out at the audience and only half way along the side so the view was terrific and to stand looking out at the Albert Hall and the prommers made me feel so nostalgic, but it was a good feeling.

As I said, Bryn was simply magnificent as Hans Sachs as I knew he would be, bringing warmth and nobility to the role of the Cobbler Poet. It is a wonderful part but so long and so wordy and it always amazes me that singers are able to commit everything to memory.  I feel it might be easier with say, Verdi or Puccini, which have more tunes and choruses, but Wagner is a different ball game altogether.  Takes me a little while to get into the Wagner idiom but once I am there I find as the evening wears on the music and the action slowly take me over and draw me in until I am totally engrossed.  Some of my friends recoil in horror that I will sit through something this long but when you love the music the time flies by.

As well as this seat, we also had supper laid on and very posh it was too, salmon, charcuterie, salads, fresh fruit platters, cheeses and good coffee and an endless supply of wine and soft drinks. I was most grateful for the coffee as by the last act I had been up since 6 am and was beginning to keel over.

The final act is quite quite glorious.   The writing of the Prize Song, the quintet at the end of the first half and then into St Johannes day when all the Meistersingers gather together to choose the champion singer.  The chorus came into its own here, the excitement building and the orchestra dancing along, the entrance of the Meistersingers and then THAT wonderful chorus 'Wacht Auf' at which every hair on my body stood on end and goosebumps appeared all over and from that moment on I sat on the edge of my seat on the verge of tears at listening to this simply marvelous and magical music.   And yes I know, Hitler loved Meistersinger, annexed it and used to have it performed at his Nuremberg rallies, and yes I know Wagner was not a nice man to put it mildly, but all this is forgotten when listening to his genius.

Standing ovation at the end and audience yelling and shouting, as was I and hope that the WNO revive this in the next year or so and I shall make sure I get to Cardiff to see it. In the meantime  Bryn is  singing Scarpia in Tosca again next year and shall make a point of seeing that - for the third time - which will keep me going even if his Tosca is Angela G again who I really find irritating.  No matter.

As I write this I am listening to Prom Number 3 which is Simon Boccanegra, the Covent Garden production which was shown on BBC 2 last week.  Talk about an embarrassment of riches, Mahler, Wagner and Verdi, Bryn Terfel and Placido Domings all in three days and if you queued and prommed you could see these marvelous performances for a total sum of £15. Unbelievable.  It is at this time of year, that I forgive the BBC for its arrogance, its total disregard for viewers thoughts and feelings, its dismissal of all criticism and feel that my licence fee is justified (come September when the Proms are over this feeling will, no doubt, fade....)

After the concert was over I headed off to stay the night with my family and so glad that the evening was not ruined by having to get the Vomit Comet home from Liverpool Street, always a most dispiriting experience.  I could curl up in bed in less than an hour and fall asleep just remembering this glorious evening and then drove home this morning with no traffic around and the sun shining .

And just to finish the weekend off nicely, I entered a comment on the Classic FM Facebook page in response to John Suchet (new programme on this station and he is excellent) asking what we were all doing and my response was 'I'm lying on the sofa enjoying thinking about Bryn in a wonderful performance of Meistersinger last night' and lo and behold, ten minutes later he played some Bryn and said 'and  I know this will please Elaine Simpson-Long' and I nearly fell off my sofa in shock.  

So tired but full of happy memories of a simply wonderful evening.  Now I will be drawing my horns in having spent more than I should recently but, as I have said before, I will happily live off baked beans for the chance to attend such performances which are uplifting to the soul and spirit.

Comments

[Thomas at My Porch]

I agree with you on the Blicket Auf moment. That is the point where I try and turn my baritone voice into a tenor. I love that bit. My intro to Mahler was when I was 18. I sang in one of the choruses in his 8th. It was unbelievable.

I have been listening to a lot of the Proms broadcasts online this year. Is it just me or are the audiences a little more clueless this year? There seems to be a lot of inter-movement applause. I am not opposed to that if it is a spontaneous response because of something so amazing one can't sit on one's hands. But this is more of the "I have never been to a concert" kind of applause. What are your thoughts?

[Virginia]

I was lucky enough in 2008 to be at the Eistedfodd (enough 'd's in the right places???) in Cardiff to hear the Verdi Requiem with Bryn Terfel (I am too in awe not to give him his full name), and not only the magnificent Mr. Terfel, but also, unknown to me until that night, Joseph Calleja. What glorious sound! (The women were good but not staggering - can't remember who they were, one was a last-minute ringer.) The performance was in a tent, packed with a glowing and enthusiastic almost entirely Welsh audience, and the rain drummed down in buckets - I'll never hear it again without going back to Cardiff. (And it was the first and last time my 'first' language would be Latin - the sub-titles were in Latin, just do-able, and Welsh - not so much.)

[SLK in SF]

Oh how I envy you the Proms! As it happens I just watched "Meistersinger" on DVD last week (a Vienna State Opera production), and although it wasn't the best I've ever seen, the orchestra was, unsurprisingly, superb, and I got that old familiar thrill in Act III that you describe. Hair-raising indeed. :-)

p.s. Angela Gheorghiu irritates me, too. Deeply. (So does her husband, but to a lesser extent.)

[Elaine Simpson-Long]

The memory of this is still lingering. Meistersinger is a work that leaves this listener anyway, totally uplifted, determined tobe good and kind to everyone and to love the whole world. On this particular occasion that feeling lasted until I had to fight my way onto the Central Line with a packed, drunken horde.

But I woke up the next morning feeling positively beamish and joyous and still feel that way now. Oh the transforming power of music.

[Margaret Powling]

Lucky, lucky you attending these wonderful concerts, and superb reviews.

[Sheila Beaumont]

Elaine, you did indeed have a wonderful evening! A magnificent performance by Bryn in Meistersinger, a great view, a posh supper, coffee to keep you awake during the last act, happy memories to cherish. I really enjoyed reading all about it!

Our classical station in Los Angeles broadcasts the Proms every year. We won't hear them for a while yet, though. They're recorded for later airing. But at least we get to hear them!

[Elaine Simpson-Long]

Yes I was truly saddened by the loss of Sir Charles, he was a delightful man and I remember attending his Janacek cycle at the ENO years ago. He always seems so enthusiasm and so kindly and there are very few of that kind of conductor around these days. He will be missed

[Lauren]

Sounds lovely. Alas, matched by the very sad news that Charles Mackerras has died - hopefully they'll make his planned concerts into some sort of tribute.