{"id":51651,"date":"2020-06-15T12:26:24","date_gmt":"2020-06-15T12:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/?p=51651"},"modified":"2026-04-16T11:33:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:33:42","slug":"live-from-covent-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/live-from-covent-garden\/","title":{"rendered":"Live from Covent Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"

Article by Deborah Weiss<\/em><\/p>\n

Since the Royal Opera House shut its doors on 17 March in response to lockdown, we have all waited impatiently for signs that we might be allowed to lose ourselves in live performances again. The moment arrived when a handful of artists gave the first live performance to a spookily empty auditorium, streamed from the ROH to hungry audiences across the world. It was a start, a welcome step in the right direction but in some ways, alarmingly different. In the last few months, we have got used to watching archive footage on our TV screens and computers and have loved much of what has been shown. Perhaps we are going to have to live with the pared down version of live performances, but the massive space that normally has the capacity to seat 2,256 people felt like being submerged in some sort of dark, cool grotto with little hope of finding our way out. As each individual performance finished to silence, it felt impossibly lonely. The choice of repertoire was eclectic – not perhaps the most accessible when one is trying to attract both opera and ballet audiences and indeed, the wider public. However, the quality of performances was, without question, absolutely supreme.<\/p>\n

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Vasko Vassilev Antonio Pappano and Louise Alder\u00a0 Live from Covent Garden. ROH Photographed by Lara Cappelli<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Louise Alder opened with Benjamin Britten\u2019s On this Island<\/em>, beautifully sung but a later contribution, Handel\u2019s \u2018Tornami a vagheggiar,\u2019 (from Alcina<\/em>) was much more thrilling. Toby Spence sung George Butterworth\u2019s \u2018Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad\u2019<\/em> but again, his duet at the close of the concert with Gerald Finley, \u2018Au fond du temple saint\u2019 from Bizet\u2019s The Pearl Fishers<\/em> took me to greater heights. Finley\u2019s repertoire was most diverse with songs by Mark-Anthony Turnage (who gave an interesting interview to host, Anita Rani), Britten\u2019s The Crocodile <\/em>as well as Gerald Finzi\u2019s Fear No More Heat o\u2019 the Sun<\/em>. All were accompanied magnificently by Music Director Antonio Pappano on the piano.<\/p>\n

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Antonio Pappano Live from Covent Garden, ROH, 2020 Photographed by Lara Cappelli<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For dance enthusiasts, our frustrations had to be satiated by a single piece, a new creation by Wayne McGregor to Richard Strauss\u2019s Morgen! <\/em>performed by Francesca Hayward and Cesar Corrales (on and off stage partners). McGregor is always eloquent when interviewed. He comes across as very relaxed and charming but it was good to hear him point out just how hard hit the dancers across the world have been.\u00a0 It is, \u201ca high touch industry,\u201d and that, \u201cwe have been deprived of this very personal connection with others.\u201d\u00a0 He also explained that trying to keep in shape at home was vastly different from, \u201cdevouring space in a studio.\u201d Anxiously, we watched as Hayward spoke the words of the song in English – her exquisite, luminous beauty framed on the screen. As she and Corrales began to move in intimate phrases, it seemed a near miracle that this was happening in real time. With Pappano on the piano, Alder singing and Vasko Vassilev playing the violin, they gave us something both moving and aesthetically pleasing. McGregor has sensitively created a work \u2018of the moment\u2019 – a piece that celebrates touch, closeness and manages to convey that tenderness we perhaps crave right now. We are grateful to be sharing these new experiences – and the whole concert demonstrated just how extraordinary the artists are, but it felt like a cruelly minimal taster. Fantastic to have them back – but roll on the \u2018new\u2019 normal, my face mask is ready and waiting.<\/p>\n

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Francesca Hayward and Cesar Corrales in Wayne McGregors new ballet for Live from Covent Garden. ROH, 2020. Photographed by Lara Cappelli<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next week, 20 June 2020, Vadim Muntagirov dances Sir Frederick Ashton\u2019s 1978 solo, Dance of the Blessed Spirits<\/em> and David Butt Philip and Sarah Connolly perform Sch\u00f6nberg\u2019s reduction of Gustav Mahler\u2019s Das Lied von der Erde<\/em> – 7:30 pm BST.\u00a0 www.roh.org.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Article by Deborah Weiss Since the Royal Opera House shut its doors on 17 March in response to lockdown, we have all waited impatiently for signs that we might be allowed to lose ourselves in live performances again. The moment arrived when a handful of artists gave the first live performance to a spookily empty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":51654,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performance"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51651"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51661,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51651\/revisions\/51661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}