Prom 72 - 5.09.13: Verdi & Tchaikovsky

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

7.00pm – c. 9.30pm
Royal Albert Hall

Verdi
La forza del destino – overture (8 mins)
- overture
Verdi
Attila – 'O dolore! Ed io vivea' (3 mins)
Verdi
I vespri siciliani – 'À toi que j'ai chérie' (4 mins)
Verdi
La traviata – Prelude (Act 1) (4 mins)
- Prelude (Act 1)
Verdi
Simon Boccanegra – 'O inferno! ... Sento avvampar nell'anima' (5 mins)
- 'O inferno! ... Sento avvampar nell'anima'
Verdi
Aida – Triumphal March (Act 2) (6 mins)
Verdi
Luisa Miller – 'O fede negar potessi ... Quando le sere al placido' (6 mins)
Verdi
Rigoletto (3 mins)
- 'La donna è mobile'
INTERVAL
Tchaikovsky
Manfred (55 mins)

Joseph Calleja tenor
Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi
Xian Zhang conductor

The Orchestra Sinfonia di Milano Giuseppe Verdi under Chinese-American conductor Xian Zhang complete the season's Tchaikovsky Symphony series with his Byronic Manfred Symphony. And Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja warms up for the Last Night of the Proms by joining the orchestra for overtures and arias by Verdi.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The token tribute to Verdi 200, perhaps?

[LHC]

As Joseph Calleja sang in the Last Night last year, I don't think he really needs to warm up for it with this concert.

[BBMmk2]

Good to see the Manfred, but I am not sure about the Verdi miscellany?

[french frank]

The token tribute to Verdi 200, perhaps?

There was Prom 12 - Pappano with the Academy of Santa Cecilia - was it called Viva Verdi, or something? But this was considered Wagner's year as far as full-scale opera was concerned [and Britten's].

As Joseph Calleja sang in the Last Night last year, I don't think he really needs to warm up for it with this concert.

Maybe he'll turn up as a surprise guest singing Chief Hebrew Slave?

[Barbirollians]

Oh my goodness is that a woman conducting - can we concentrate ?

[Alison]

Thoroughly enjoying this slightly unconventional Manfred.

[Barbirollians]

Thoroughly enjoying this slightly unconventional Manfred.

Me too - it may not be Silvestri but I really feel that a story is being told .

I missed Calleja I am afraid as I was home late - how was the first half?

[ucanseetheend]

very good standard of playing in the Manfred, which to me was always PT best Symphony.

[Barbirollians]

That was a cracking performance of Manfred .

[Exonian]

That was a cracking performance of Manfred .

I agree and loved the fire and passion of Xian Zhang.

[johnb]

I only caught the last movement of the Manfred but thought some of the playing was pretty ragged, certainly in comparison with last year's Jurowski/LPO Manfred.

[Hornspieler]

Oh my goodness is that a woman conducting - can we concentrate ?

Well, I think that tonight's prom puts an end to the assertion Men make Better Conductors

Utter nonsense! If you are listening on radio or to a CD you would have no idea whether it was a man or woman wielding the baton.
I've played for several lady conductors (conductresses?) including the highly respected Kathleen Riddick and a visiting Bulgarian lady who looked like a Russian Tug Boat captain. (She certainly put the fear of God into us.)

Whose idea was it to pose this pointless statement?

[slarty]

I thought that the performance of Manfred went very well, except for the BBC engineers insistence on dumbing down the sound. The mix is really quite boring. I listen to the sound through some very heavy duty equipment, but it does not help. Every time the Horns had an important tutti the sound seemed to just drop a couple of decibels. The microphone for the trombones seemed to be permanently turned down.
I have noticed this kind of thing quite a few time on televised proms, but not on the radio broadcasts.
The Proms Tristan was a good example, I heard the broadcast live and found the performance totally enthralling with very vivid sound and a good balance, but the TV version last Sunday was differently balanced. The orchestra was much more distant . It is a shame that the Beeb still feel the need to do this. In case someone's TV blows up I suppose.

[Hornspieler]

Thoroughly enjoying this slightly unconventional Manfred.

Good evening Alison. Do you know the work?

I think I have almost certainly played in it as much as anyone in this country :-

Three times with Beecham and the RPO in 1956 and at least eight times with Silvestri in the 1960s, including in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.

So I was looking for the awkward corners and I thought that by and large, the woodwind acquitted themselves very well.
I did not like the way that Xian Zhang elected to slow down to a crawl in the second movement at one point and I felt that there were a few opportunities missed elsewhere, but the brass were fine, the horns adequate (but lacking soul in places) and the strings were superb throughout.

I make no judgement on the woodwind, because that second movement either comes off or it doesn't and it is fiendishly difficult. I recall that Beecham's famous RPO wind players had quite a struggle with it.

Borrowing from another thread: Do women make the best timpanists?

Well this one was superb.

All in all, a most pleasing concert and for me, one of the best proms so far (with not much left to go)

HS