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REVIEWS:

Cosi FanTutte

Sage, Gateshead

Alfred Hickling
Saturday July 9, 2005
The Guardian

When Norman Foster's Sage concert hall opened last December, the people of Tyneside got an opera house into the bargain. This staging is the result of a collaboration between the Sage's resident ensemble, the Northern Sinfonia, and the Samling Foundation, an organisation dedicated to nurturing talented young singers early in their careers. Most notably it brings the foundation's patron, Thomas Allen, back to his native north-east to direct his first fully professional production.

Allen's intention is to stage all three of the Mozart-Da Ponte operas between now and 2009, and on this evidence the remaining productions will be unmissable. The staging is minimal, with the singers exposed on a platform denuded of everything but a few pieces of bland leather furniture. Allen introduces a few simple elements of lighting and costume (for what is Cosi if not an opera about the possibilities of dressing up?), yet this is all he needs to create a perfectly realised theatrical universe.

This is in no small part due to Thomas Zehetmair. An outstanding violinist, quartet leader and musical director, Zehetmair here proves that he's an exceptionally adaptable operatic conductor as well. And the line-up of young vocal talent he has to work with is not far short of outstanding.

Henriikka Grondahl produces eloquent, beautifully supported tone as Fiordiligi, well complemented by Carolyn Dobbin's richer, chestier Dorabella. Rafael Vázquez's Ferrando floats effortlessly above the stave, but encounters greater difficulty removing the safety cap from his bottle of poison. Amy Freston's Despina wields a frightening pair of garden shears rather than a magnet while masquerading as the doctor, though it seems to have the desired effect.

You could quibble slightly: what, for example, is a suite of sofas doing in the garden? But it doesn't really matter: Cosi is riddled with dramatic implausibility, yet Allen's experience makes it ring perfectly true.

 

 

 

Words and Music: St.Cuthbert’s Church, Carlisle : Saturday 6 November 2004

‘O for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention, --‘

With these words, from Shakespeare’s King Henry the Fifth, Richard Pasco opened the Gala Concert at the end of The Samling Foundation’s masterclass week.

‘Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;’ Shakespeare’s prologue continued. The imperfections were in fact visual – lack of stage and scenery – not those of performance, and to the title, Words and Music, might have been added Artistry as those who performed overcame the physical limitations.

Pupils and pros mix for prime performance: Hexham Courant 24.9.04

The Hexham-based arts charity, the Samling Foundation brought the Southbank Sinfonia, their music director Simon Over and soprano Fiona Duncan to the town for workshops with local schoolchildren during the festival. The project, supported by the Gillian Dickinson Charitable Trust, culminated in the concert that opened this year's Hexham Abbey Festival on Thursday, September 16, and produced such a feast of young musical talent.

Hexham Courant 24.09.04: Hexham Abbey Festival

Talented pupils from three Hexham Schools ensured that the opening of the 52nd Hexham Abbey Festival was an occasion to remember. The Samling Foundation concert, devoted to young musical talent, was sheer delight for the audience that packed into the Abbey.

Journal 18/09/04: Samling Foundation Concert, Hexham Abbey

The 52nd Hexham Abbey Festival opened with a resounding celebration of the work of the Hexham-based arts charity, the Samling Foundation, filling the centuries-old abbey with the joyous sounds of young musicians.

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