14 Friday April 8 2022 | the times
first night
Igor Levit
Wigmore Hall, W1
{{{{(
classical
A
lmost the entire audience
stood up at the end of the
evening, clapping and
cheering after another
heroic recital by Igor Levit,
the artist billed on his website as
“Citizen, European, Pianist”. These
days the Russian-German musician
specialises in thinking big; he spent
lockdown polishing some of the
repertoire’s monsters, such as
Shostakovich’s set of 24 Preludes and
Fugues. He deserved an extra bout of
cheering simply for surviving these
dogged essays in the abstract form,
written in the early 1950s.
You could tell that Levit relished his
task by the passion and energy fuelling
his fingers and the poetic hovering
of a momentarily spare hand before
tracing a fugue’s theme. But for all
the grand panache of the composer’s
counterpoint, his mighty solemnities
and sarcastic spurts, there is
something grey and hollow about too
many of these explorations of the 24
traditional key signatures (including
novelties such as G-sharp minor).
By the final fugue’s clamorous last
pages I didn’t know whether to bask
in Levit’s majestically full tone and
sustaining of tension or emit a groan
at the posturing gestures Shostakovich
supplied as his cycle’s last hurrah.
Such passages brought to mind the
comments by the composer and critic
Robin Holloway about the composer’s
“threadbare music”, popular in
England, he wrote, only because of
a “revival of the old national vice,
pleasure masquerading as pain”.
But let’s end on the bright side. How
neatly and wittily Levit delineated the
cycle’s lighter moments, such as the
playful prelude and fugue in D major.
Apart from brilliantly engineering
tension, he was a wizard at defining
moods, from the aqueous textures
bobbing up during the C-sharp minor
prelude to the subverted simplicities
of the folk song in B major, one of
several preludes closely allied to the
disruptive whirlwinds scattered
through Shostakovich’s symphonies.
Geoff Brown
ELLIE KURTTZN
ot the Abba song, this was
Handel’s opera, fully titled
Fernando, re di Castiglia.
And if that name doesn’t
click, it’s because the
composer abandoned composition
near the end of Act II, revised the
libretto to soothe political sensitivities,
then lengthened it into a three-act
opera, Sosarme, not so familiar itself.
Byways are the London Handel
Festival’s meat and drink, and the
publicity for this spirited performance
by Opera Settecento, based on a newly
expanded scholarly edition, bore the
rare tagline “A Handel premiere”.
Entry into the plot’s cat’s cradle
wasn’t easy at first, but Handel’s
melodic flair and dramatic instincts
soon pulled us into the plight of these
kings, wives, sons and daughters from
14th-century Portugal and Spain,
tormented by rivalry, armed rebellion
and thwarted desire. Running
alongside was the panache of the
vocalists and the delightful bounce
of the Settecento orchestra, vividly
conducted by Leo Duarte and topped
off by two natural horns, thrillingly
played by Pierre-Antoine Tremblay
and Christopher Price.
It was the arias, many of great
beauty, that gave Duarte’s singers
their chance to shine. Just when you’d
pigeonholed Ciara Hendrick’s mezzo
as rather small-bore, out came her top
register, warm and ample, letting us
share every heartache felt by Isabella,
the Portuguese queen. The creamy-
toned counter-tenor Meili Li (the
king of Castile), blessed with his own
ringing top, was at his most beguiling
duetting with Susanna Fairbairn,
Portugal’s royal daughter, in Per le
porte del tormento.
Attractive notes emerged from
Frederick Long, Nick Scott and Jess
Dandy; the exception was the alto
Charlie Morris, muddy in sound as the
rebellious Alfonso. All was forgiven,
long before the evening’s appendix,
the grand final chorus from Sosarme.
Geoff Brown
The London Handel Festival runs to
Apr 18, london-handel-festival.comFernando
St George’s, Hanover Square, W1
{{{{(opera
The Fever
Syndrome
Hampstead Theatre, NW3
{{{((Robert Lindsay,
centre, plays an
IVF pioneerMy family from hell
Robert Lindsay
is a pleasingly
dyspeptic
patriarch inthis overloaded
drama, writes
Clive DavisT
he performances are sharp
and assured — let’s face it,
any play with Robert Lindsay
at its centre has a head start
over the competition. The
problem is that Alexis Zegerman has
set out to write not just a play, but
a Very Important Play about the
scientific method, illness and the
modern American family. Lots of
ideas and dysfunctional personalities
jostle for attention, but you find
yourself paying more attention
to Lizzie Clachan’s immensely
atmospheric multilevel set.
It’s particularly frustrating,
because Lindsay’s character, Professor
Richard Myers, a dyspeptic IVF
pioneer who has been struck down
with Parkinson’s, has the makings of a
memorable patriarch. As he prepares
to be given a lifetime achievement
award, he plays host to his adult
children at his careworn home on
New York’s Upper West Side. His
second wife, Megan (Alexandra
Gilbreath), cares for him and bears the
brunt of his anger and frustration, but
has she given enough thought to his
financial security? His flinty daughter,
Dot (Lisa Dillon), an editor on ascience magazine, is particularly
worried about what the future holds
because she needs to pay for the care
of her 12-year-old daughter (Nancy
Allsop), who has a rare condition,
periodic fever syndrome, that causes
debilitating fits.
Those ingredients alone ought to
be enough, but Zegerman crams in
much more, including Dot’s twin half-
brothers. Thomas (Alex Waldmann)
is an emotionally incontinent painter,
while the charismatic but wayward
Anthony (Sam Marks) works in
Silicon Valley. Meanwhile, Bo Poraj
plays Dot’s husband, Nate, a pedantic
teacher whose career as a scientist
was cut short by plagiarism.
These over-articulate souls are
constantly grating against each other;
the neurotic ambience reminded me
of that irksome Wes Anderson film
The Royal Tenenbaums. As the focus
shifts from one room to another in the
three-storey home, it becomes harder
and harder to keep track of the many
little wars being waged.
Instead of being the focus, Lindsay
becomes as peripheral as the others.
Our eyes stray back to the decor.
To Apr 23, hampsteadtheatre.comtheatre