In the first phase of the Covid pandemic in 2020, when all gatherings were prohibited, Scottish Opera set the pace with its response to the emergency, and its contribution to a necessarily online version of that year’s Lammermuir Festival was a staging of Janacek’s The Diary of One Who Disappeared, filmed at the Theatre Royal with tenor Ed Lyon in the central role.
The history of this niche work at Lammermuir acquired another fascinating chapter this year when Nicky Spence stepped in to perform the song cycle at Dirleton Kirk, replacing Joshua Ellicott and hot on the heels of his show-stopping turn at the Last Night of the Proms in the Royal Albert Hall. If that contrast of venues was remarkable, the same applies to his piano partner Jeremy Denk, who is as familiar with New York’s Carnegie Hall as he now is with Lammermuir’s tour circuit of East Lothian churches.
What a dynamic duo they made, in a performance that treated Janacek’s ambiguous tale as opera-in-concert, ably assisted by mezzo-soprano Victoria Simmonds as the seductive gypsy girl Zekfa with the chorus of villagers provided by Edinburgh’s Robin Chapel choir: mezzo Susan White and sopranos Virginia Wilson and Caroline Trutz.
Their music, with close harmonies predicting the Andrews Sisters as much as they resemble Wagner’s Rhinemaidens, is one of the delights of the piece, in which the combination of the tenor and mezzo is less opera duet than intimate conversation, and years ahead of its time.
That intimacy reaches its fulfilment, as it were, in the only section of the work without libretto, a piano interlude labelled Intermezzo erotico, and Denk’s playing of it suggested a robust and passionate liaison as clearly as he had delicately depicted glow-worms and swallows earlier in the cycle.
Spence, who has been awarded for his performances of Janacek in the Czech Republic, was in masterly control of the material throughout, even as his love-struck farmer’s boy character is far from master of his own fate. Hearing his powerful voice calibrated to this small venue, with the tonal variations he has available at the top of his range, was a remarkable experience, especially delivered in such a natural and unaffected way.
The tenor had even brought along a nifty encore of a Janacek folk-song arrangement that involved the full sextet and appropriately hymned the joys of being a musician.
The scope of that choice of career had already been well established by Jeremy Denk in the first half of the concert, when he played Beethoven’s late Sonata in A-flat Major, Op 110, in the captivating way Lammermuir audiences have come to enthusiastically appreciate. The combination of lightning fingering and moments of still, subtly altered phrasing in the repetitions of the central Allegro, and the propulsive shaping of the whole work were the pianist at his finest.
The extent of the repertoire he carries in his memory-banks was illustrated by his apparently last-minute decision to precede it with Bach’s A Minor Partita, rather than the advertised Prelude and Fugue. Whether this was a nod to the broader programming of the festival – the D minor Partita for Violin had featured in Wednesday’s Scottish Ensemble concert with NYCOS singers – or just a personal whim, it was a virtuosic delight. It is certainly possible to play Bach more slowly, but few pianists can apply such finger-power at such pace, and still be clear and distinct.
Nicky Spence has swapped the hustle and bustle of London for quieter family life in a Renfrewshire manse, but the versatile Scots tenor is still in global demand. Coming up, the London Proms and Lammermuir Festival, and a promise to pick and choose. KEN WALTON reports
At 43, Dumfriesshire-born tenor Nicky Spence has reached a point in his busy and successful career where he can call the shots. Not in an arrogant celeb-kinda way. Spence is unquestionably at the top of his tree, larger-than-life, cuts an ostentatious profile, and just as comfortable singing the noblest of Wagner in the world’s top opera houses as camping it up in popular music theatre. But in essence he’s a genuinely nice guy, enjoying family life with his pianist husband Dylan Perez, three-year-old son Baird and the assortment of pets that roam the former Paisley manse they now call home.
The recent move to Scotland was as much about work-life balance as Spence’s yearning to reconnect with the country of his birth. The time was right, he reckoned, to get out of London where he’d been for the past 25 years. “We wanted to find a big hunky building with some space to let animals and children roam free, idealogical images of my own childhood. We’d lived in Deptford which is quite gentrified but certainly still quite stabby, so we were quite happy to leave that behind and find somewhere where Baird will hopefully be reciting some Burns poetry.”
More importantly, it’s five minutes from Glasgow Airport, which means Spence’s international commitments remain perfectly viable in terms of juggling family life. “Opera companies are really family unfriendly so you often get your schedule at 7pm for the next day, then suddenly you might have a day off, so that’s when I can whizz home being so close to the airport.”
The move also opens up greater possibilities for Spence to throw some home gigs into the globetrotting mix. Take this month alone, where on Saturday (12 Sept) he’s starring in the Last Night of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, leading the nation (broadcast live on BBC television) in Rule Britannia. Fast forward seven days (19 Sept) and he’s on a rescue mission to East Lothian’s Lammermuir Festival, standing in for an indisposed Joshua Ellicott in Janacek’s dramatic song cycle The Diary of One Who Disappeared. Moreover, it’s only a few weeks since Spence was at the Usher Hall starring in the Edinburgh International Festival’s performance of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s epic curiosity The Song of Hiawatha.
With the Montreal Symphony at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival
When we met at his home last week he’d just returned in the nick of time from a fitting for Saturday’s Proms. Are we to expect a dazzling extravaganza for that ritually outrageous Rule Britannia moment? “It’s pretty hush hush,” says Spence, who’s everyday attire leans invariably towards the colourful. “Many people have tried to wriggle information from me. I could give you an exclusive, but I won’t!”
Saturday, he discloses, will involve five costume changes. “I was looking through the annals to see how previous singers have produced a flag in the past for Rule Britannia. It’s quite hard to come up with a novel idea. There are really only so many ways you can do it………..but we’ve come up with something!”
As to his wider brief for the evening, which also features pianist Yuja Wang, Spence says it’s like a little celebration of the person chosen to sing. “So it’s going to be a bit cheeky – some of it anyway. In the first half I’m doing some very noble, operatic Czech [now revealed as the Prince’s Aria from Dvorak’s Rusalka]. But for the second half there might be some Scottish stuff – weird if there wasn’t – and maybe something dance-related as well.”
Subsequent updates to the BBC Proms website confirm a newly commissioned Scotch Snap arranged by Stuart Calvert featuring “various artists”, and “Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat” from Guys and Dolls.
Where there’s capriciousness and mirth at the Last Night of the Proms, Spence’s Janacek in Haddington next week will demand (alongside mezzo soprano Victoria Simmonds and pianist Jeremy Denk) a performance soaked in theatrical intensity. It’s not a work that lies in the repertoire of many tenors, so the Festival (which began earlier this week and runs till Sunday 20 September) breathed a sigh of relief when they discovered that Spence knew, and had recorded, it and was available to step into the breach. “It’s something I’ve got in my back pocket, so I was really happy to do it,” he explains.
The Diary of One Who Disappeared is about forbidden love, a subject painfully close to Janacek, tortured in later life through his unrequited passion for a much younger woman, Kamila Stösslová. “It falls between the stools of song cycle and opera,” Spence argues. It’s got a lot of shame and vulnerability about it. Maybe that’s why I like Czech music, especially Janacek. It’s almost this kind of judgment of the outside world, which I kind of recognise from growing up in Scotland”. Suddenly our window view of the Paisley church, to which Spence’s manse was once spiritually attached, looms large. “It’s my echo chamber,” he confirms. Spence experienced his own vulnerability, deserted by his father at an early age and brought up by a doting mother.
In an operatic career that nearly never was – Spence embarked on a major, lucrative pop-classical crossover deal with Decca in his early twenties only to walk out mid-contract to return to serious opera studies – Janacek’s operas have proved a winner for him. “I’ve pretty much ticked all of them off apart from Osud,” says Spence. “I love that they’re not too operatic, but genuinely dramatic. There’s an economy, similar to Britten’s operas, that really appeals to me. I’d say to any first time opera goer, go see something like Jenufa rather than [Mozart’s] The Magic Flute, which is quite problematic in being bloody boring in the second half, all the trials and stuff, all the patriarchy shite.”
Singing Noel Coward with husband and pianist Dylan Perez (photo: Robin Clewley)
A busy schedule this season includes Janacek performances in Bamberg and at London’s Covent Garden. But what gives Spence the greatest satisfaction is that Czech directors keep calling him back. Later this autumn he’ll be in Brno to star in three Janacek productions: The Adventures of Mr Broucek, Jenufa and Sarka. “In the past I’ve even sung The Diary of One Who Disappeared in Hukvaldy where Janacek was born. So in that sense I’ve been selling ice to the eskimos.”
With Spence’s move to Scotland, however, there are clear signs he’ll be careful about what he says yes to in the pursuit of broader challenges. He recently pulled out of an engagement with Hamburg State Opera for the simple reason “I just wasn’t enjoying the ride”.
“I like to spread the joy wherever I’m going, but will probably try to be a bit more specific about it. I was president of the ISM [Independent Society of Musicians] where I learnt a lot about advocacy and governance, and that may come into play. I’d love to run a vocal department, equipping young singers with what they need to succeed. But mostly I’m keen to do more collaborating with people I really enjoy working with. It’s a daily challenge trying not to work with arseholes any more. There are still some conductors out there who act like they come from another century, That’s always interesting!”
There are, however, some operatic roles he has in his sights. “I’ve pretty much done the ones I wanted to, but I haven’t done Captain Vere in [Britten’s] Billy Budd and I think I’d make a really interesting Aschenbach in Death in Venice.” He also hopes to do more work with his husband Dylan, “if we can stop arguing about the dishwasher”. One 2027 date firmly in the duo’s diary is the May recital in Cumnock that traditionally launches the programme for that year’s Cumnock Tryst Festival.
Given his own challenging childhood, what aspirations does Spence have for young Baird? “We just want him to be a happy human being. He’s so friendly, loves dancing, and we learn so much from him all the time – such a great ballast amid the stormy seas of performing. He gives us context.”
Nicky Spence stars in this weekend’s Last Night of the Proms, broadcast live on BBC One & Two on Saturday 12 September. Full details atwww.bbc.co.uk/proms
There has been much understandable mutual congratulating on social media in Scotland after the announcement of the shortlists for the 2021 Royal Philharmonic Society Awards. The pioneering spirit of music-making in Scotland is well represented, and there are Scots in the running in many categories.
Conductor Paul MacAlindin, founder of the Govan-based Glasgow Barons orchestra, is up against veteran director of Ex Cathedra Jeffrey Skidmore and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland alumnus now at BBC National Orchestra of Wales Ryan Bancroft in his category.
Tenor Nicky Spence is nominated in the Singer category, where his rivals are mezzo Jennifer Johnston and Scottish Opera’s Alice Ford in Falstaff, Elizabeth Llewellyn.
Violinist Nicola Benedetti is nominated for the Instrumentalist award, and the concerto written for her by Mark Simpson is up for Large Scale Composition.
The Ensemble award boasts two nominees in the Dunedin Consort and the Nevis Ensemble and the Inspiration award includes nominations for Orkney Camerata and Orkney Winter Choir, and Aberdeen Saxophone Orchestra for its online partnership with the Phoenix Saxophone Orchestra of Market Harborough in Leicestershire.
The winners will be announced at a ceremony in London’s Wigmore Hall on November 1.
royalphilharmonicsociety.org.uk/awards/rps-awards
Pictured: Orkney Winter Choir and Orkney Camerata rehearsing in St Magnus Cathedral
Let us hope that the RSNO is re-energised by the move into the larger space of Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and the opportunity to perform with larger forces in its recently-announced new digital season, because there is a slight sense of fatigue in this final concert of the current one.
That is no fault of guest soloist Nicky Spence, who brings expressive commitment and an enthusiastic musicality to Britten’s Les Illuminations. These nine Rimbaud settings may have been written for, and dedicated to, a soprano, Sophie Wyss, but that was surely as much because of the restrictions of the time (1940) and the emotions behind both the verse and Britten’s music sound more powerful in the tenor voice. The specific dedication of the seventh of them, the bold and assertive Being Beauteous, to Peter Pears, meant that the composer himself was being neither coy nor particularly careful.
The Scottish Ensemble made a go-to recording of the work with Toby Spence (no relation) and there is a coherence to that group’s string sound – with all the percussive effects and imitation of other instruments in this score – that is often missing here. The current necessity for social distancing might be some explanation for that, except that string players in general, and RSNO ones in particular, have noted some benefit in sitting at individual desks.
The Britten is preceded by George Walker’s roughly contemporary Lyric for Strings. While there is no argument that the compositions of the first African American to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize are ripe for rediscovery, his reputation might be better enhanced by tackling meatier fare than this early imitation of Barber’s Adagio, lovely though it is.
Thomas Sondergard’s Beethoven Five, which concluded the programme, is neither fish nor fowl – but then a hybrid of historically-informed practice and contemporary brio is what most orchestras and conductors aim for with the work these days. So we have natural trumpets and modern horns, and string playing that is brisk but not quite crisp enough in the first movement.
The conductor may be keeping his powder dry, but there is also an odd imbalance in the sound – uncharacteristic of engineer Phil Hobbs – which continues in the Andante, with the wind soloists, although all on fine form, rather too far up in the mix.
When more muscle comes into the performance in the Finale, that difficulty disappears, as does the lack of rhythmic rigour. The sprint to the tape, at least, whets the appetite for the orchestra’s return in April.
