Page 39 - Coverage Book_Aurora Orchestra Autumn 2020

Before the concert, Collon said this was a “sad year” for Beethoven’s 250th anniversary, perhaps
not so much for the composer, whose greatest music never falls from favour, but for musicians who

have lost so many opportunities to honour him. The Seventh Symphony is one of Beethoven’s most
jubilant works, sprung from its outset with a “wake-up” A major chord with a rhythmic elan that

inspired Wagner to describe the work as an “apotheosis of the dance”. A spirit of terpsichorean
delight certainly radiates from its pages, which perhaps explains why it was the most played of

Beethoven’s nine symphonies in Vienna during his lifetime. Its “slow” movement, a jaunty
allegretto passacaglia that could be a pavane for a lively enfant terrible, was encored at its 1813
premiere, and was often played separately as one of the composer’s greatest hits.

Here, the musicians’ joy in the music infected the audience. Aurora’s players are in their mid-

thirties or younger and, bereft of their scores, listen intently to their colleagues, like an enlarged
string quartet, with abundant eye contact and frequent smiles. Clearly they were having fun as
accomplices of their music director, rather than his minions.

Collon, on this showing, is an elemental Beethovenian, striking up brisker tempi perhaps than some

“classic” conductors on disc, but maintaining tension over a long arc. He phrases the music flexibly
yet never self-indulgently and encourages rich sonorities while preserving transparent, chamber-like
textures that one associates today with period-instrument performances rather than weighty

symphony orchestras. The orchestra brought a sense of discovery to this overfamiliar music,
revelling in countless details. It made one crave more — a Kings Place summer festival at this

address, perhaps.

Purcell’s mini-operatic masterpiece, Dido and Aeneas, appears to be the lockdown opera par
excellence, perhaps because it can be performed with relatively modest resources. At the Vache

Baroque Festival in Buckinghamshire, a simple alfresco staging was devised against one of the
timber-framed walls, adorned with golden streamers, for a picnicking summer opera audience
seated in socially distanced “bubbles”.

Thomas Guthrie’s straightforward production in Ruth Paton’s near-contemporary costumes proved
an apt vehicle for Katie Bray’s lean, sinewy account of the female title role, although it was hard to

tell whether her leather jacket — surmounted by a grand early Stuart collar — was power dressing
or for the chilly weather. Bray is a commanding, intense and ultimately tragic actor, but she had
excellent support from Jolyon Loy’s tall, handsomely sung Aeneas and Betty Makharinsky’s

diminutive but perky Belinda. Jonathan Darbourne kept his tiny instrumental ensemble on a tight
rein from the keyboard and the performance survived two “rain breaks”, both short and hardly

disruptive. A cold but musically rewarding evening.