Echoes - Louth Contemporary Music Society (Dundalk, 2025)

Echoes - Louth Contemporary Music Society

LCMS, Dundalk 2025

8-4-8 "Silver Light", Cold Trip (Part 1), Monadologie XXXVI - Bernhard Lang

Bashō, Eight Pieces for Four Guitars, Svatý Kryštof - Martin Smolka

The Marble House - Nico

Songs of the Smile's Fig - Sarah Davachi
Enigma I, II, III, IV, VI - Beat Furrer

Glosa a lo Divino - Kevin Volans

The Aleph Guitar Quartet, Daisy Press, Daan Vandewalle, Apartment House, Francesca Fargion, Chamber Choir Ireland, Nils Schweckendiek

Dundalk - 13th and 14th June 2025

As always, the Louth Contemporary Music Society managed to find a suitable title and theme for their annual festival of new music that, despite the remarkable variety of works performed, manages to gather everything neatly under a wide umbrella. More than that, Echoes also presents an interesting way to approach and consider the collection of the individual works in relation to each other and their place within that broad family of 'new music'. Despite the remarkable variety of the each of the works and the festival as a whole, this year's theme gave each of them a context and fresh perspective. Not to mention the relevance of the theme in as far as how the regular venues for the festival all provide their own unique and important sound resonance.

Echoes, in relation to the music of the 2025 festival's primary guest Bernhard Lang performed here, is perfectly fitting in terms of how those works often have echoes of music from the past and thrive on repetition. New music doesn't exist in a vacuum, but reflects and echoes our own responses, our own experiences of music in an individual way. New music in as far as Lang is concerned is not to ignore, disparage or destroy traditional music forms of the past but rather - in such series as his Monadologie works - he is continually looking for ways to keep the history of music alive and responsive to new ideas. In these works, the composer takes elements of great works, runs them through a computer, cuts, pastes and loops and presents them in a new context. That makes it sound like a technical exercise, creating what Lang describes as a 'meta-composition' - in popular music it might be called 'a remix' - but in practice and in performance it expands the range of music, instruments and technology in a fascinating way that is relevant and contemporary.

There was no technology employed, for example, in the opening Friday evening concert performance at the An Táin Arts Centre in Dundalk of 8-4-8 - Silver Light and Cold Trip. The first piece, performed by the Aleph Guitar Quartet is not actually part of the Monadologie meta-compositions but rather employs another method in his GAME series that allows an element of openness, randomness, variability and unpredictability into the composition. The four musicians playing amplified acoustic guitars pre-select their individual parts from a set of cards to produce a piece that takes on a random and original form. When played together, using a remarkable variety of techniques and textures including microtonal tuning and extended techniques; picking, strumming, rubbing, tapping and bottleneck sliding; the individual parts come together in unexpected ways, and sometimes planned ones. There seem to be infinite possibilities to this kind of approach.

While that unpredictability and variety is constantly providing surprises, what isn't often considered is the visual side of performance, which is a benefit that comes with seeing such material played at the LCMS and other festivals of this kind. There is a tremendous advantage is not just hearing the music live and spacially separated in a suitable environment, but it aids engagement to be able to see what each guitarist is playing, how it works with the other parts and how it contributes to the whole. 

In my limited experience of Bernhard Lang's work, mainly from his opera work like Re:igen, I had an impression of him as being a playful and irreverent composer. Playful maybe, but on the basis of 8-4-8 and his other works performed in this festival, clearly not irreverent. You could be mistaken for thinking that of Cold Trip, which you could describe as a remixed distillation of Schubert's Winterreisse. There's a purity in that work that surely needs no distillation, but at the same time this 200 year old song cycle doesn't need to remain preserved in amber or indeed forever frozen in time. Its qualities have been influential throughout musical history, in classical, folk and pop music, and Lang's piece for four guitars and singer basically acknowledges that. It's all the more apparent when seen performed here by The Aleph Guitar Quartet with soprano Daisy Press in the beautifully lit and immaculate sound environment of the stage at the An Táin Arts Centre.

Lang's Cold Trip (Part 1) emphasises and highlights the nature or character of Schubert's setting of the Wilhelm Müller poem, with a looped repetition of key words, "frozen", "tear drops", "snow", "deep sorrows", "my heart is frozen". What is different is that in Lang's version this seems less melancholy (and, let's face it, self-pitying), is how when sung by Daisy Press it takes on a wider range of human expression; finding playfulness, humour and even a cold sensual quality in the rhythms and the imagery, at times recalling the intense cabaret melodrama of Pierrot Lunaire. Although the Aleph Guitar Quartet play with the same complexity of techniques found in the 8-4-8, they also support this exploration, bringing out pop-like melodies that indeed reflect Winterreise’s influence on modern (self-pitying) soul balladeers. Cold Trip doesn't treat Schubert at all irreverently; it doesn't desecrate Winterreisse, but rather explores it with a view to the resonances of the work that still echo throughout the years.

On Saturday the second full day of the festival, Lang could be seen to take a similar approach to Chopin's Études in Monadologie XXXVI, demonstrating a foundation of piano playing learning Chopin can continue to be another source of wonder. The twelves pieces vary in how close they keep to the original Chopin etudes, Lang again taking elements and repeating them, sometimes letting them take off in different directions. In the resonant acoustics of the St Nicholas Church of Ireland, pianist Daan Vandewalle dived deeply into the pieces, exploring the full range of tempos and range of sounds on offer from pianissimo to fortissimo. Requiring no extended reaching into piano extended techniques and no electronics, Lang's reinterpretations felt natural and organic, Vandewalle making them sound fresh and vibrant, showing that they still have riches to offer.

The Aleph Guitar Quartet and Daisy Press were back at the Chapel at St. Vincent's Secondary School; a venue typically used by the LCMS for very slow, quiet music that often has a spiritual nature. That might not have been the intention of Bashō and Eight Pieces for Four Guitars composed by Martin Smolka for the Quartet, but there was certainly room for quiet contemplation in the venue and the music, and a third piece Svatý Kryštof - a new commission for the festival alluding to the St Christopher on the Charles Bridge in Prague - was appropriate for the location. Introducing the concert Smolka preferred to let the works speak for themselves and proposed their main objective being to seek to bring beauty back into music. It was an afternoon of quiet music that need to be listened to intently and in the location of St Vincent's that wasn't difficult. The acoustic guitar arrangements rarely developed into a flow, relying rather on a single note or two played round-robin fashion by each guitarist. This had the effect of opening up the songs, spacial positioning and visuals again enriching the experience, inviting the listener to focus on the delicacy of the playing and revel in the beauty of each and every note and microtone. This also provided ample room for the voice of Daisy Press to bring the poetry of Bashō to the setting with an unaccompanied delivery of beautiful precision for Svatý Kryštof, the resonance of the voice and the words carrying through.

As if genre and historical music frontiers were not already breached, the third show of the day added some opposing push from the direction of popular music into 'new music'. Not that the music of Nico, John Cale and the Velvet Underground stable are easily categorised themselves. The early evening LCMS show at The Spirit Store has come to play that role in the festival; not so much that of a refresher or a breathing space from the often intense music and high concentration performances elsewhere - although it serves that purpose too - but rather one that offers a sideways perspective that has an indefinable influence on the works surrounding it. That's something that Apartment House are well used to and the idea of presenting a complete reworking of Nico’s debut album The Marble Index is an interesting one. The arrangement by Kerry Young for string quartet, Young taking the piano and electronics and singer Francesca Fargion singing the songs with a folk-inflection, offered a new fresh perspective on the other pieces in the festival as well as on Nico's album itself. On more than one occasion references to "frozen warnings" and "roses growing in the snow" reminded me of Winterreise or even Lang's Cold Trip. Although such connections are unintentional (I presume), they are nonetheless evidence of adventurous programming throwing up unexpected references and resonances. Or indeed Echoes.

The final evening concert of an LCMS festival back at the church of St Nicholas is often a selection of choral works often proves to be the ideal way to finish off the festival. The selection here for Echoes sung by Chamber Choir Ireland was wonderfully varied, showing the huge range of possibilities and approaches to choral music. Sarah Davachi's new commission Songs of the Smile's Fig established a distinct meditative mood in a steady flow of ethereal voices over its three parts that held a drone-like undercurrent for the words of surrealist André Breton to weave strange imagery. The words themselves could hardly be distinguished in this flow, but were perhaps less important than the mood they evoked. It was almost the opposite with Kevin Volans' Glosa a lo Divino, where the Spanish language text of the 16th century poet San Juan de la Cruz could be clearly followed in the see-saw up-and-down staccato rhythm dwelling on each syllable of every word with only the occasional overlay of running lines the latter verse. It does allow the beauty of the writing to be heard and contemplated.

In between those two rather more sedate pieces, five of the seven Enigmas (I, II, III, IV, VI) composed by Beat Furrer on 'prophesies' written by Leonardo da Vinci were completely and thrillingly in an otherworld of their own. The shifting arrangements and repositioning of the singers give the pieces an extraordinary power and dynamic range of sometimes eardrum battering force that felt truly apocalyptic without every falling into predictable choral voicings or Carl Orff Carmina Burana territory. I can see why however, particularly in these times, the festival would not want their audience - one that seems to grow year upon year - to leave with admonitions of dread and doom ("It will come out of dark and gloomy caves/and whoever does not support it will meet with sudden and terrible death") ringing in their ears. Kevin Volans' Glosa a lo Divino, with its beautiful sentiments, provided the right note to end with the echoes of another successful LCMS festival still resounding as you made your way home.

External links: Louth Contemporary Music Society

Strauss - Salome (Ghent, 2025)

Richard Strauss - Salome

Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, 2025

Alejo Pérez, Ersan Mondtag, Allison Cook, Thomas Blondelle, Angela Denoke, Michael Kupfer-Radecky, Denzil Delaere, Linsey Coppens, Daniel Arnaldos, Hugo Kampschreur, Timothy Veryser, Hyunduk Kim, Marcel Brunner, Reuben Mbonambi, Leander Carlier, Igor Bakan

OperaVision - 16th January 2025

The German theatre director Ersan Mondtag, should his opera work become more regularly produced and distributed, looks likely to become someone worth following. Already noted for his work on Franz Schreker's Der Schmied von Ghent at the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Heinrich Marschner's Der Vampyr at Staatsoper Hamburg and on Rued Langgaard's Antikrist for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, whether he provides any great insights into those works or not, the fact that he works with challenging pieces of a certain character is reason enough to take notice. That and the fact that he clearly has a very distinctive and colourful approach to opera direction, as is evidenced again here in another production of a very challenging work that he has undertaken for the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Richard Strauss's Salome.

Extravagantly staged, with not too much in the way of personal re-interpretation, the only way I can describe Ersan Mondtag's visual look for the Flanders production of Salome is that it seems to appeal more to the feel of the Gothic otherworldliness of Oscar Wilde's Symbolist dramatic poetry in appearance and mood. It doesn't hold to any Biblical context or appear to hint at any modern day commentary. Rather, it has a fairy-tale look that seems to inhabiting the same dark mystical world of Pelléas et Mélisande’s Allemonde or Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle; which is to say a world of dark mystery with an underlying threat of menace and violence, it explores dark corners of forbidden desire that can't be easily brought out or expressed rationally or in any more familiar human terms.

Wilde and Strauss's faithful German version of this struggle with forbidden desires is marked between the corrupt, twisted lust of Salome which pits itself against the steadfast moral purity of John the Baptist, or Jokanaan. It's not clear from this production that Ersan Mondtag takes any new, original or even discernible position on this. That fact is borne out by a short production video on the OperaVision site where the two Salomes for this production run, Allison Cook and Astrid Kessler, both have different views on the nature of the Princess, the former seeing her as a "victim" the other a "brat". Mondtag doesn't seem to come down on one side or the other, nor indeed really have any contribution to make or contemporary resonance on the work, unlike say the recent Tcherniakov Hamburg or the Christof Loy Helsinki productions. Or at least no overt contemporary reference. The programme notes suggest that the director "sees parallels between the historical Herod, vassal of the Roman Empire, and contemporary dictators such as Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko", but I'm not sure you would come to this conclusion independently.

The set may in fact distract from drawing any such allusion, but Herod's castle with its huge statues carved out of stone, demonic murals and opening to a dungeon certainly has a bold and menacing appearance. Impressive looking, it illustrates the scene well in terms of a kind of banality in its dull expression of a brutal controlling regime where corruption is indulged, even celebrated. It's a grey, dusty world of stone, Herod's militaristically dressed troops pale and colourless. Even Narraboth is not distinguished from the surrounding dullness, although Herodias's Page wears black. Only Salome and Jokanaan stand out against this forbidding background, Salome with fiery red hair in long blood split leg red robe, and Jokanaan austere and pale as ivory, undoubtedly from his imprisonment in the dark dungeon at the lower level of the castle, wearing a loin cloth and bright purple robe.

With a kind of Gothic Soviet brutalism on the outside, the second scene of the opera revolves to present a contrasting decadent brothel-like world of the interior court of Herod, the disputing Jews all grey bald pointy headed and alien-like, the women in grotesque grey costumes with pointed hoods. Herod comes in a fat bodysuit, a wonderfully irreverent caricature of a Lukashenko-like leader. In this environment Salome's Dance of the Seven Veils really comes to life and extends outward, the dreamlike fairy-tale fantasy imagery of obscene naked body suited dancers extending Salome's desire for Jokanaan and entwining itself with Herodias's nightmare and offstage screams of horror. Along with Herod's lustful desires, it blends together the fevered atmosphere of the combined lusts, fears and desires of all assembled.

It's the best part of this production, making the most of the music Strauss composed for this section and it ties in well with the scene of wholesale slaughter that seems to be the only natural outcome for this decadent regime at the always shocking climax of the opera. These key scenes might be the best part of the production design, where the choreography and direction all have something more to offer, but elsewhere Mondtag's direction remains in complete accordance with the score and its performance here at Opera Ghent. Conducted by Alejo Pérez, it's dark and seductive where it ought to be, luring you in, but hinting at the dangers to come in flashes of decadent dissonance and menace such as the deep rumble of the "rustling of giant wings".

Just as critical to the work as a whole are the singing performances and we really have some terrific singing here from an excellent cast, conveying all the extremes of the expressions of secret taboo lusts and the corruption of power. Allison Cook is excellent throughout as Salome but really comes into her own in the final scene, sung exceptionally well. In an interview she describes the need to approach the role like a marathon, demanding stamina and the ability to build the role up in stages. That technique is very much in evidence here and works powerfully, throwing herself completely into the character and reality of the horror she has wrought.

There is perhaps more of a hand of a director in this production then in the defining of characters, or at least that's the way it seems from how well each of the performers make an impression in their acting and singing roles. Jokanaan of course remains an enigma, an object of lust as well one of moral purity that only reflects or highlights the corruption of the soul that has fermented in this hypocritical and repressive society that indulges it own vices while condemning others, and perhaps that's really what Michael Kupfer-Radecky's performance succeeds in revealing here. Thomas Blondelle is also excellent as Herod, again making a real presence and contribution to the intent of the work as a whole, and it's great to see the Angela Denoke giving her customary fearless performance as Herodias. 

External links: OperaVision, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen 

Mozart - Mitridate, re di Ponto (Madrid, 2025)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Mitridate, re di Ponto

Teatro Real, Madrid, 2025

Ivor Bolton, Claus Guth, Juan Francisco Gatell, Sara Blanch, Elsa Dreisig, Franco Fagioli, Marina Monzó, Juan Sancho, Franko Klisovic

OperaVision - 4th April 2025

There are limits to expression in 18th century opera seria, even for Mozart, who was only 14 years old when he wrote Mitridate, re di Ponto in 1770. Even with the long flowing arias where each of the figures pour out their hearts, it's within the context of generic feelings and expectations, the arias capable of being lifted and inserted seamlessly into other works; which was often the case, and borrowing is still common practice when rediscovering and recreating lost works of early opera. The main action tends to play out off-stage, only referred to in-between in the recitative, and in the case of Mitridate, re di Ponto - based on an Italian language adaptation of Racine's play Mitridate - the context is the war between Pompey's Roman army and King Mitridate of Pontus around 63BC.

Not that you'd get any real sense of that from Mozart's opera or the libretto written by Vittorio Amedeo Cigna-Santi. The events of the war remain in the background, the focus instead on the impact - or opportunity - that the war presents to the main characters of the opera. With King Mitridate believed to have been killed by Pompey, his sons Farnace and Sifare, both from different mothers, seek to consolidate their own position. Farnace, the elder, plans to seek an alliance with Rome, his only use of force being applied to his father's fiancée Aspasia to be his Queen. Sifare is in love with Aspasia, and the feelings are mutual. Mitridate however is not dead, the news of his death a ruse to find out the truth about his sons, and indeed his wife to be.

The plot then is somewhat contrived, but the purpose is indeed to contrive a situation where truth can be brought out into the open, where human feelings can be freely expressed, the war less important really than the rather even if it is merely in the context of domestic rivalry, jealousy and assertion of dominance. Essentially though, the opera is primarily an excuse or opportunity to give singers the opportunity to shine and show their range and talent, and there is a challenge - particularly in a modern production - to try to keep those emotional expressions within the realm of true human feelings. That's not easy considering the setting, the plot and the larger than life characters, but of course much depends on the inventiveness of the musical setting and that's perhaps easier to find in Mozart's music.

Mozart's early works of opera seria have languished along with many of his youthful works for this reason. Limited by the conventions of the style, there is little apart from the prodigious talent of the age of the composer to set them apart from other works of the period. Mozart would find ways to place his own stamp on the opera seria format as a mature composer in Idomeneo (1780) and advance it in La Clemenza di Tito (1791), but even the earlier works have echoes of the brilliance of those later works and that can be brought out by a sympathetic production.

Mitridate is not one of those great Mozart operas. Brilliant certainly, incredible as the work of a 14 year old composer, but to really appreciate its qualities, you need more than a static opera seria production, and you really need to pull it out of the historical period, which is little more than a pretext really for the human drama. You won't get a static production from Claus Guth, and you won't get robes and togas or ruined temples. The crux of the drama, needless to say, would be more familiar to a modern audience who has seen Succession. I haven't but I expect most people have, and as such they would immediately recognise the setting and the subsequent battle for wealth and power in Mitridate in the absence of love and respect.

The whole of the opera (or at least half of it) takes place in a modern 'palace', a luxurious mansion. I'm not even sure how much the average person could relate to this Succession-like situation as a common family drama - Guth includes a silent servant who looks on the whole affair disapprovingly - but, as has often been established through the history of opera, everyone is capable of experiencing and indeed denying human feelings. If the incestuous situation played out here between an ancient ruler of a kingdom and his sons and a conspiracy with one of them to side with Romans is not everyone’s experience, the sentiments of love, lust, jealousy, trust, betrayal, repentance and forgiveness are more familiar, and they can indeed lead to tragic outcomes.

That would be very much within the enlightened view of Mozart, certainly more so in his greater works, but Mitridate, re di Ponto gives the young composer an early opportunity to explore those sentiments. At this stage it's very much a male power-play, although the assignment of roles of the sons to alto castrato (Farnace) and soprano castrato (Sifare) makes that a little more ambiguous, certainly when cast now as countertenor and soprano trouser role. Aspasia, the Queen, certainly has little to show in the way of personality in the early stage of the opera other than resisting the aggressive advances of Farnace, seeking help of his brother Sifare, unaware that he has deep feelings for her. Wait until their father gets home. Believed dead after battle with Pompey hence his sons’ rather inappropriate advances on their prospective mother, Mitridate is actually alive and on his way, having faked his death so that he could observe the ambitions of his sons revealed.

While it seems a little shallow of purpose and characterisation, all these roles can be given greater depth with good singers and adequate direction. If you have that, it makes it much easier to see how much Mozart's music contributes to their definition and expression. You can't argue with the likes of countertenor Franco Fagioli as Farnace, and soprano Elsa Dreisig as Sifare. Both singers put a stamp on the personalities of the two sons even within the generic characterisation, and Mozart's musical description can be seen as contributing to that; blustering defiance and lust on the part of Farnace, guilty desire and wary lack of confidence on the part of Sifare. Even the music for Aspasia, as sung superbly here by Sara Blanch, shows the conflict that rages within her over the actions of the sons and the doubts about her feelings for Mitridate. The opera is blessed with such wonderful vocal writing for all the roles, with no bass, baritone or even mezzo-soprano roles. Juan Francisco Gatell fills the typical sweet high Mozartian tenor as Mitridate, Marina Monzó an impressive Ismene, and even the roles of Marzio (Juan Sancho) and Arbate (Franko Klisovic) have something to contribute in terms of range of voice and character. 

While the setting of the opera doesn't call out for any dramatic scene changes, director Claus Guth typically tries to delve a little more deeply the sentiments of the characters and relate them to the psychological impact that the situation has on them. The 'shadow side' of the opera takes place behind the living room in a colander-like environment and it's here that the characters mostly take their interior monologue arias where grapple with their feelings and fears. Mitridate, back from the 'dead', is shown dealing with his own mortality in his first scene with a double and black masked figures, and he struggles in a shadow play struggle with a double of his unfaithful son Farnace lusting after Aspasia. Sifare grapples with his feelings for multiple aspects of Aspasia being stolen by dark figures and Aspasia expresses her conflict between duty and love. Farnace, it appears, doesn't have a conscience; his demons haunt him in the 'real world'.

These elements don't really need such separation or elaboration, but it does at least make the opera a little more interesting visually and shows that the real drama takes place on a purely psychological level. Considering the solipsistic nature of the arias, with there being little direct confrontations or expression in this opera through duets or ensemble pieces - even 'conversations' feel one-sided - there is a good rationale for this. Guth however recognises that there is a gradual overlap between the interior and exterior worlds as the opera comes to a resolution as the characters gradually come to an accommodation with their inner lives and, remembering that this is supposed to be about a war-time situation, recognise the true enemy is Rome for the defiant ensemble finale. 

I haven't heard Ivor Bolton conducting for a while (the last time indeed was Idomeneo in 2019), and here as musical director at the Teatro Real, it's always a treat to hear him conduct works from the Classical and early Classical period with sensitivity and drive. You can easily get a little tired of the opera seria conventions and repetitions, but here Bolton never lets you forget that you are listening to the music of Mozart. If it's not always original, Mozart's music in Mitridate, re di Ponto feels well suited to every situation and does have those flashes of brilliance, rhythmic drive and dramatic intensity, but with a lightness of touch that offers hope for these unfortunate figures to escape from the darkness of their personal torments. Musical direction and stage direction successfully working then working hand-in-hand then with fine singing from the entire cast, this is surely all you want from an early Mozart opera.

External links: Teatro Real, OperaVision

Einem - Der Prozess (Vienna, 2024)

Gottfried von Einem - Der Prozess

Theater an der Wien, Kammeroper Wien, 2024

Walter Kobéra, Stefan Herheim, Robert Murray, Anne-Fleur Werner, Alexander Grassauer, Timothy Connor, Leo Mignonneau, Valentino Blasina, Lukas Karzel, Philipp Schöllhorn, Fabian Tobias Huster

OperaVision - 12th December 2024

Kafka’s The Trial has remained not just a prescient work that looks like a nightmare that is increasingly becoming a reality, but it's also a book that has always been extraordinarily observant of human behaviour and its relationship to laws, regulations and conformity. Looked at dispassionately, the everyday rules and modes of behaviour that we accept as normal are anything but, and are in fact often contrary to human nature, controlling and restrictive. It's hard to look at that dispassionately however and at least as far as Kafka’s worldview of the arrest of Josef K. is concerned in The Trial, it can be seen rather as either completely absurd or quietly but deeply threatening. Or, since Kafka cannot be reduced to such simple analysis, it can be all of the above and quite a bit more besides.

Particularly when it comes to how a director like Stefan Herheim chooses to represent Kafka when faced with Gottfried von Einem’s 1953 opera version of Der Prozess. One thing Kafka's work is, for all the truth of its observations, is non-naturalistic. It, or indeed its lead figure Josef K., embraces the absurdity of the situation and takes it to extremes. Whether it's Josef K. who is guilty for whatever it is he has or hasn't done, whether it's the 'system' that is absurdly complicated by obscure, unnecessarily complex and sometimes contradictory rules, it's all part of the equation or unspoken contract that the citizen enters into in a kind of dance down a path that leaves no room for rational thought or individual discretion.

Herheim, in his usual metatheatrical way, take in the opera itself as means of showing the characters entering into a tightly choreographed predetermined progress through the drama. Set in Salzburg, presumably as the composer was Austrian, Josef K. - looking remarkably like the older white bearded and shock haired Gottfried von Einem - awakes to read in a book (presumably The Trial) and wonders why his normal routine has been disturbed, expecting - so the book says - that he expects to have his breakfast brought to him. This comes to the amusement of those, looking like younger replicas of himself, who have come to arrest him.

The indication - if you didn't know to expect this of director Stefan Herheim - is that we are in the mind of Gottfried von Einem as he considers how to put Der Prozess to music, and as he plays the role of the reluctant arrested man he even holds out a sheet of music as his identification papers. The main official who has advised him of his rights (or lack of them) is a bewigged conductor of the orchestra who are all outside his room, ready to lead him on merry dance through the proceedings.

It seems like absurdity is the direction that Herheim has chosen to present the situation of Josef K.'s trial, but there is a close attention to detail here, every bit of it striving to get to the heart of this curious situation - and curious opera evidently - and find out what it really says about the contract the individual believes they have entered into with society's expectations, laws and conventions. Josef K. is certain that he has committed no wrong, and since he lives in a civilised nation at peace where the rule of law holds sway, he will surely be believed and trusted by the state. They will surely see that there has been a mistake and he will be afforded treatment in accord with his human rights. And yet, he begins to doubt himself. If the state thinks he has done something wrong, well, surely it can't be for no reason?

It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to recognise this as the dilemma of many who have fallen foul of the state, of the authorities, of petty rule-enforcers. And, as is becoming increasingly evident, it's not just something that happens in nations under an impressive authoritarian rule (as we once perhaps naively thought, placing our trust in the rule of law), but that it seems to be the nature of the state (political leaders, parties) to seek to undermine, remove and destroy individual thought and dissent that might lead to their removal from power. It's a universal condition and one perhaps that needs to be recognised with the growing presence of generative AI that will eventually make many decisions for us in the future (sorry, I know it seems obligatory to shoehorn mention of AI into every review now).

Add to that some psychosexual impulses and religious guilt that pervade Josef K. or Kafka, a critique of bureaucracy as an end in itself, some self-hatred, insecurities and even a literal scene of self- flagellation and there is a lot to unpack here, without even getting into Herheim's metafictional and psychoanalytical treatment of it all. That element is even there in the original, in Josef K.'s dissatisfaction with how poorly the proceedings are being carried out and his belief that he could make a better job of his arrest and trial himself. That results here in the Einem figure turning into the lawyer half-way through. Well, he has been almost everyone else here, and since it operates with a kind of dream logic bordering on nightmare there are challenges in trying to tie The Trial down to any one simple rational reading, so better just embrace the absurdity of it all.

Of course that's just the kind of thing Stefan Herheim thrives on, bringing the creator and the creation into the mix as well as probing the undercurrents in the work and the creation. He has done so notably with Tchaikovsky (Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades for the Dutch National Opera) and with Wagner (Parsifal, Der Ring des Nibelungen), and successfully so, somehow grasping all the complexity and layers and yet making it readable and accessible (except to those expecting a conventional playing out of the original plot). He has plenty to work with in Einem's Der Prozess. It's a heck of a challenge, but typically Herheim manages to be faithful to the intent of the original, capturing the absurdity, the comedy, the psychological underpinning of fears and self-doubt, while turning the work inside out and offering his own unique visual style and interpretation with a reflection on the artistic act of musical creativity.

Composed in 1953, very much in the free all-embracing style of the contemporary music of the period, Eimens' music is wonderfully expressive and dynamic, performed here by the small but loud Klangforum Wien orchestra at the back of the An der Wien Kammeroper stage. The music jumps between short sections that capture the fast moving changes of the action and tone of the drama, with rhythmic pulses, marching arrangements, pumping brass and melodic woodwind playing and even hints of jazz. There is even a parody or reference to Puccini's Tosca for some unfathomable reason at one point (there is much in this work, in the music and the direction that is unfathomable). It reminds me of Prokofiev's playful approach to the developing absurdity of The Love of Three Oranges, and it works wonderfully for this work. Even those bits of Kafka that drag and frustrate the longer it goes on are mirrored here. 

It's debatable whether Herheim has anything to add to The Trial, but he certainly brings out certain elements well and gives much to think about. It's Einem however who pulls out all the stops in a musically rich and fascinating response to the work. Which means the orchestra compete to hold the attention with than the drama, and the superb musical direction of Walter Kobéra and the performance of the Klangforum Wien PPCM Academy of an arrangement of the score for chamber orchestra never ceases to impress. Combined with the busy activity on the small stage with a relatively large cast and Herheim adding additional figures, nothing is easy about this work, but the production design is marvellous at keeping it all together.

Although the production involves professional and students, everything about it is first-rate. In fact, it's the youthful element of the student singers that bring such an energy to the proceedings, working alongside and pushed by more experienced singers and musicians. Josef K. however would be a challenge for any singer, particularly faced with the layers and complexity that Herheim adds to the role, hence it has an experienced performer like Robert Murray taking the part. Anne-Fleur Werner has similar challenges having to play all the female singing roles (or single female in multiple Kafkaesque incarnations), many of them sexual situations, and she is excellent. But the rest of the cast similarly all have multiple roles and performance challenges and all are exceptionally good here. Ironically, for a work of literature that has the reputation of being intense and intimidating, Herheim and the cast - choosing not to execute Josef K. in this production - show that there is actually something liberating in the way Kafka's work opens up a new way of breaking the unspoken agreements and formal conventions between the individual and the state, and there is a similar sense of liberation in Einem's musical approach that is captured beautifully in the nature of this production.

External links: Theater an der Wien, OperaVision

Parać - Judith (Zagreb, 2024)

Frano Parać - Judith

Croatian National Theatre, Zagreb, 2024

Ivan Josip Skender, Snježana Banović, Sofija Petrović, Matija Meić, Stjepan Franetović, Mate Akrap, Ivo Gamulin, Emilia Rukavina, Petra Cik, Marin Čargo, Siniša Galović, Mario Bokun

OperaVision - 5th October 2024

Despite being the only female character to have a book dedicated to her in the Old Testament, Judith has not made a great impression on the opera world. There have been several notable but rarely heard works, including Vivaldi's oratorio Juditha Triumphans in 1717, an 1863 Russian opera Judith by Aleksandr Serov and a 1922 opera Judith und Holofernes by the Austria composer Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek, but Judith is perhaps better known to most people through some of the great classical painters, Caravaggio's probably being the most famous. The single powerful and extremely violent image of Judith's beheading of Holofernes in some of those paintings may explain why it hasn't been adapted more often to the theatrical or lyric stage, but it's more likely that the impact of the story centres on this key scene and it's difficult to establish a sense of drama and context around it.

To outward appearances, it's not a complex or even a subtle plot by any means. To save the people of Bethulia from the Assyrian forces Judith seduces Holofernes with her charms and cuts off his head while she sleeps. Essentially, that is it in terms of dramatic action, but there is a need to establish historical context, and there are evidently considerable depths of human feelings, resistance and consequences of enacting such a violent act to be taken into account. From a contemporary viewpoint, the subject raises questions of female empowerment and achieving justice, even if there are questionable behaviours in a woman using her beauty and female wiles to achieve those aims. The greatest paintings of the subject - and perhaps the most graphic - Caravaggio's and Artemisia Gentileschi's Judith, manage to address all these questions in all the gruesome horror of the act, while an opera must seek to address those issues in the composition and music.

For Frano Parać, I get the impression that rather than push a particular reading or direction on the action of Judith, he is content to rely on the source material for the libretto and by giving it the most appropriate dramatic treatment that it will be left to the individual to interpret and indeed feel the moral dilemma and the necessity of Judith's action. That would seem to be a reasonable way to address the subject if the music is up to the challenge of expressing or invoking those deeper issues. Parać doesn't rely on avant-garde musical techniques or instrumentation, but on a more traditional musical treatment, which under conductor Ivan Josip Skender is clearly effective if somewhat limiting.

I wouldn't say that the composer was restricted as such, but the original source material for Parać's opera, composed in the year 2000, undoubtedly plays a part in his approach to the subject. Parać's own libretto is based on the epic work Judita by Marko Marulić, the father of Croatian literature, written in 1521. His intent was to take a biblical story that was written in Latin and make it accessible to the common people, making it the first literary work in the Croatian language. It's a work unadorned by psychological motivation or wider context, relating the story of Judith and Holofernes in a direct fashion and Parać adheres to that principle. The direction of this new production of Judith for the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the death of Marulić, similarly relies on the most direct and effective way of putting this story across on the stage.

The subject itself suggests a certain approach and delivery and those are evident in this 2024 Zagreb production. Musically, Parać keeps that classical form and structure in the opera, and there are certainly a number of effective models for this subject. It's hard not to think of Verdi's Nabucco at the opening of the work, as the people in chorus lament and pray for delivery from their fate under an oppressive regime, the Israeli people of the city of Bethulia under siege by the Assyrian forces of Holofernes. Verdi is evident there, but there is also more than a little of the undercurrent of menace running through Turandot in there, particularly in those opening scenes, but the playing out of one person's determination to see through her duty despite the considerable dangers is evident throughout in the darker but still melodic character of the music in Judith.

It might not employ any of the techniques or instrumentation of new music, but what this Croatian National Theatre production of Parać's Judith makes apparent is the strength of the work as one of pure opera. In its directness and simplicity, it comes across as a powerful plot of high emotion and drama, strong dramatic musical writing, exceptionally good singing and an unfussy but impressive direction by Snježana Banović that supports the drama and provides spectacle. You can't argue with that. You could expect that it might make some contemporary commentary on the conflicts against oppressive forces in the world today - and god knows there are plenty to choose from - although perhaps we don't need reminded of it on the opera stage as well. Like Turandot however there is little historical context emphasised in this production of Judith, so it almost operates in abstraction of the necessity of goodness and purity to fight against evil. And there we are very much aligned with Gentileschi and Caravaggio as much as Marko Marulić.

Adhering to the directness of the drama, the structure and arrangement of scenes keeps to a classical form across seven scenes divided into two acts. In Act I, the first scene sets up the climate of fear in a choral arrangement with the people of Bethulia praying, awaiting attack from the army of Holofernes just outside the city. The danger is heightened by the arrival of Achior who testifies to the horrors about to be enacted. Unwilling to surrender while there is a chance God will save them, they choose to wait for five more days. Judith, unwilling to believe you can impose a deadline on God, chooses to go into the enemy camp herself, and prepares herself with the help of her maid.

Once past the enemy guards, introducing another fearful choral episode with the assembled male chorus using handheld wooden claps, Judith has no difficulty in seducing Holofernes with her great beauty, but also using the five-day challenge to God as a reason for her rejecting the Bethulians. After a celebratory banquet and much drinking, Judith takes Holofernes' sword and summons up the strength to kill the sleeping drunk General and remove his head. Bringing it back to Bethulia, the people rejoice and prise Judith while the Assyrians flee in fear and confusion.

Evidently, a production of this opera relies on having a powerful central performance, Judith is indeed written as such with all other roles secondary, and it requires a commanding but lyrical voice to carry it. We certainly have that here in the rich, deep full voice of mezzo-soprano Sofija Petrović, who gives a compelling performance. A mark of the nature of the work is that she doesn't even have a tenor to compete with. The only tenor role is a relatively minor one, Achior, but he plays a key role in the plot nonetheless and is sung well by Ivo Gamulin. Holofernes, sung by Matija Meić, is obviously is a baritone baddie, but the part is surprisingly underwritten as far as the characterisation and limited singing role he has. Everything however is built around the role of Judith, the choral arrangements impressive, the well-designed sets and lighting serving to enhance her presence and the mood of the opera, and it comes across wonderfully effectively in this production.

External links: OperaVision, Croatian National Theatre

Charpentier - Médée (Paris, 2024)

Marc-Antoine Charpentier - Médée

Opéra National de Paris, 2024

William Christie, David McVicar, Lea Desandre, Reinoud Van Mechelen, Laurent Naouri, Ana Vieira Leite, Gordon Bintner, Emmanuelle de Negri, Élodie Fonnard, Lisandro Abadie, Julie Roset, Mariasole Mainini, Maud Gnidzaz, Juliette Perret, Virginie Thomas, Julia Wischniewski, Alice Gregorio, Bastien Rimondi, Clément Debieuvre, Matthieu Walendzik

ARTE Concert - 3rd and 7th May 2024

Euripides' ancient Greek tragedy of Medea is a sensational tale of sex and violence of love and betrayal that has long inspired theatre and the arts and of course countless opera versions over the centuries, from Francesco Cavalli's Il Giasone in 1649 to Aribert Riemann's Medea in 2010. The most famous opera version, its status defined by Maria Callas, is Luigi Cherubini’s Médée, and that's the version you are most likely to still see performed. With the works of Marc-Antoine Charpentier having their turn in the early opera spotlight, William Christie again being at the forefront of reviving great forgotten works of the early period of classic French 17th century opera, you aren't going to get a better opportunity to experience the quality of his version of Médée than this production on the Paris stage at the Palais Garnier.

With a libretto by French dramatist Thomas Corneille, who composed libretti for Lully's operas, and it being an opera composed during the reign of Louis XIV, you might have some expectations as to how this will play out. If you are thinking rather dry 17th century drama with some longeurs, noble sentiments and classical formality that require some patience and familiarity with the style to appreciate, you'd be partly right, but with Charpentier and French music of this period, you can also expect the flavour of wonderful dance music, choruses and spectacle all fulfilling the dramatic punch of the story. You definitely get that in this opera and it's brought out effectively in a manner that ensures accessibility in Christie's musical direction and in this production directed by David McVicar.

But there is a little scene setting required first of all to establish the situation that is going to lead to Jason's betrayal of his wife Medea and fire such fury in her that she is going to do the unthinkable. The context is their exile from Thessaly driven by the people's fear of Medea's magical powers, and Jason's seeking an alliance that will give them safe haven with King Creon in Corinth. He is prepared to lead a joint Corinthian and Argive army against Thessaly and extend the power of the rule of Creon. Although his daughter Creusa has been promised to Oronte, the Prince of Argos, Creon thinks Jason would make a better husband for the Princess. Jason sees that as an opportunity to secure and elevate his own position, but how will Medea take the news?

Well, I think we all know how that goes, and although the phrase "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" wasn't around at the time (it being coined just 4 years after Charpentier's opera in 1697 by William Congreve), there is no surer description for what takes place in the final act here. There is however other shades and colours of dramatic action and sentiment that Corneille and Charpentier have to work with before Act V of Médée. Act I starts slowly with Medea expressing misgivings about Jason's mission, Jason himself confessing love for Creusa to his confidant Arcus, but it soon picks up with the armies assembling for the attack against the Thessalonians.

The Paris Opera production sets this version in a more recent and familiar wartime setting, Creon a de Gaulle like figure, Oronte a brash American fighter pilot, Jason of course a naval officer. It works fine, removing it from the Greek classicism and giving it an attractive freshness and colour on the Palais Garnier stage. Dance routines from a small troupe of six male and six female dancers enliven the stage choreography and choral arrangements considerably; they are not overly elaborate, more formation dancing that suits the militaristic look and feel of the setting. The real battle here however is more the one between Jason and Oronte for the favour of Creusa than a concerted fight against the foreign enemy.

That more or less establishes the template for what follows in subsequent acts of Médée; a little bit of accompanied recitative exposition followed by some invigorating music, singing and dancing as the emotional temperature rises. The stage production rises to those moments as well with - it being a David McVicar production - a few surprising twists. A glittering US fighter plane is wheeled on at the end of Act II for a nightclub scene with L’Amour/Cupid appearing as a cabaret act, the whole scene bathed in purple and pink light. Yes, it's a little bit camp, in a McVicar way, but not excessively so. It's a good way to treat the mythological characters that appear in the opera and it seems to fit musically.

The latter is essential really, since musically this production has the complete William Christie attention to detail and above all rhythm. The use of period instruments is invigorating in those dance and choral pieces, with soft flute and plucked theorbo or lute accompanying the expressions of troubled emotions. Authenticity is a matter for the musical director of course and I'm in no position to dispute or approve the choices Christie makes, but he always makes early music that could otherwise sound alien to a modern classical audience feel accessible and beautiful as well as expressive of emotional and dramatic content.

There's a sweetness to the music that is reflected in the singing voices. Yes, that even goes for Lea Desandre as Medea, but the softness of her voice has an underlying steeliness that leaves you in no doubt as to the depths of feeling love and betrayal inspired in her, nor the horrors she is capable of inflicting because of them. Corneille provides adequate motivation, character definition and some poetic beauty in the libretto for Medea. Vowing vengeance in collaboration with Oronte in Act III, she instinctively softens in the face of Jason and believes she can persuade him away from the fatal course he is on. (Jason is also well sung in this scene by Reinoud Van Mechelen, but perhaps lacks the same depth of character). This leads to a beautiful lament "Quel prix de mon amour, quel fruit de mes forfaits" where Desandre shines, pouring out the complexity and depth of Medea's love for Jason. It's a pivotal scene that the outcome depends on and everything about this is convincing for what follows.

What follows is of course all the horrors of hell, and there Desandre is also wonderfully convincing. The early dance rhythms of the period music might not seem best designed for that kind of darkness, but the fury within is there in Desandre and in McVicar's direction of the subsequent acts and scenes with dancers and demons adding emphasis and impact to the intent. It's not a particularly thrilling or insightful production, more typical 'neoclassical' McVicar, but the way it is modernised is enough really to be able to appreciate the true qualities of the work. Under William Christie the work's beauty, its charm, its seductiveness, as well as its edge of menace are all there in a wonderful combination of soft flutes and flurries of plucked and hammered strings.

External links: Opéra National de Paris, ARTE Concert

Britten - Owen Wingrave (Manchester, 2025)

Benjamin Britten - Owen Wingrave

Royal Northern College of Music, 2025

Rory Macdonald, Benjamin Voce, Orpha Phelan, Alex Riddell, Johannes Gerges, Sam Rose, Kirsty McNaughton, Esther Shea, Hannah Andrusier, Daisy Mitchell, Samuel Horton, Grant Haddow

RMCM Theatre, Manchester - 5th April 2025

The cause of going to war has remained a moral dilemma throughout the ages, and those conscientious objectors and pacifists opposed to it have very much been against the tide of history. Even the most devout Christian leaders seem to be permitted special dispensation to get around the very unambiguous commandment "Thou shall not kill" when it comes to war. Perhaps the real problem that hasn't been addressed is that human nature doesn't seem to have yet found a way to overcome its taste for greed and barbarism. Quite the contrary. To present oneself as a nonconformist to the prevailing order of things as Owen Wingrave does and as Benjamin Britten did in his time, one needs a strong counterargument and Henry James' original story presents the case where it's not enough to just be against something, but rather to take positive steps and stand up for one's beliefs from a position of strength even when they are rejected by everyone else.

That's perhaps getting a little preachy, but it's necessary to emphasise how much the arguments in Owen Wingrave and in Britten's impassioned opera version are just as important now as they were at the end of the 19th century when James read uncomprehendingly of the glorification of Napoleon's campaigns, and during the war years of the 1930s and 40s when Britten took a principled stand as a conscientious objector. It also serves as a reminder that, over a decade on from the composer's anniversary celebrations and now less frequently performed (The Turn of the Screw aside), Britten's music still has a lot to offer and hopefully isn't going out of fashion. Written for musicians and audiences of all ages - Owen Wingrave even originating as a TV opera - makes his work suitable for smaller scale productions, while still having all the impact of a full-scale opera production. That's essentially what we got at with this Owen Wingrave at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

Having come to his thoroughly considered the reasons for his decision to withdraw from military academy, Owen Wingrave's initial arguments and explanations, his genuine distaste for what it represents come from the heart and get directly to the essence of his dilemma. He is unable to see any case of glorification of the death, violence and misery that war brings. Wingrave, despite a long proud family tradition (of being killed in battle), refuses to take part in such horror, much to the shock, disbelief and disapproval of his family and friends. He names and shames all the wartime leaders/mass murderers of history and even when challenged on that by his tutor Coyle and fellow student Lechmere to dare level his argument against a great man like Wellington, recalls the Duke's famous quote that "Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won". The counter-argument presented by Coyle and Lechmere is that Wellington still fought his battles and won them. 

The sincerity of the sentiment and the intellectual argument are one thing - and would probably not make all that compelling a subject for an opera - but making it feel like a matter of real life and death is another. Although it wasn't his usual genre, The Turn of the Screw notwithstanding (also developed as an opera by Britten of course), Henry James found the ghost story an effective means for tapping into areas of the human psyche as a way of exposing or suggesting unspoken and taboo subjects. Britten also rose to that challenge in the writing of Owen Wingrave, commissioned in 1971 for a TV broadcast, and while the opera does inevitably have its moments of preachiness, it also finds ways musically to persuade and frighten in order to get beneath the skin. The director of this production, Orpha Phelan, also finds ways to make that come alive in mood, content and situation, and so too do the music students at RNCM.

The essential character of making this a pertinent subject today is evidently to make it feel present, not some dusty period drama or ghost story. That is clearly the intention right from the start of this production, using the overture or introduction to show soldiers from a number of historical periods climbing onto the stage, seeking cover and fighting for their lives. These are the Spirits of Paramour, the generations of Wingrave men who have given their lives for their country. These physical figures present a more effective ghostly presence than mere portraits of military ancestry hanging on the ancestral walls of the family estate for glorification. Phelan even provides a little tableau to illustrate the 'glorious' fate of Owen's father that is all the more effective for making it feel real. The talk of honour, sacrifice, duty and glory in war is just a twisting of language, but such devices show how Owen sees through this. His intent is to take back or reclaim the language of honour and decency for those who choose not to kill others or submit to blind obedience.

The military tradition of the Wingrave males present one kind of presence of horror, but there is another ghost story introduced that ties into the family's own mythology, another form of self-aggrandisement that in reality hides an uncomfortable truth. Whether taken literally or not (it's a problematic layer at least that has to be dealt with by a director), the childish dare to stay in a haunted room does contribute to the sense of unease in the breaking of taboos, in how far Owen is willing to go to show the depth and sincerity of his beliefs, and his fate is the price to be paid for it. Phelan again makes good choices in how she presents those elements, not playing up to genre trappings, but showing that there is a dark horrible story here, one of bullying and abuse, one that we may take to apply to the techniques employed on young recruits to become unthinking killers and grist for the mill. 

The set and the production design by Madeleine Boyd (who previously worked with Phelan on the Wexford Festival Opera's excellent production of Donizetti's Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali last year, certainly works very much along with the tone of Phelan's direction and contributes considerably to the mood. The choice is not to set it in the present day (where the horror of modern warfare seems even more depersonalised with drones and long-range missiles), but closer to Britten's wartime period. That, the First World War and the Napoleonic era referenced here, would still be the kind of warfare that an audience would be most familiar with as a killing ground. Somehow, even the Paramour setting has a similar feel of something mired in the past, like its hidebound intransigence in regard to the military establishment, a former glory that has not survived the rigours of the passage of time.

For the April 5th performance of Owen Wingrave at the RNCM, Alex Riddell gave a controlled, assured and impassioned performance as Owen, never descending to over earnestness or over-emphasis, but rather delivering with conviction and completely in line with the nature of the character. He is determined and assured, but also regretful of how his commitment to his own beliefs will be taken by his family. Riddell held the attention completely and conveyed the meaning of what is sung through a commanding performance. 

Kirsty McNaughton was a striking Miss Wingrave, as was Hannah Andrusier's Mrs Julian. Aside from the title character, few other roles have any sympathetic qualities in this opera, but it's important that the opposition that Owen faces has sufficient expression and voice, and that was abundantly delivered by McNaughton and Andrusier. Serving an equally important role as Owen's fiancée, Daisy Mitchell performance was very much up to the task of the berating and bullying Kate. Mrs Coyle has more of a conflicted position, but was sung well by Esther Shea.

In comparison to the forceful writing of the female roles, the military men come across as rather weak and pathetic, but were characterised and sung well by Johannes Gerges as Coyle and Sam Rose as the young, enthusiastic and approval-seeking Lechmere. Grant Haddow gave a perfect delivery of the ghost story as the ballad singer at the opening of the second act, setting up Samuel Horton to present the formidable Sir Philip Wingrave as the author or instigator of Owen's demise.

Britten's score was presented in a reduced orchestration at this RNCM production, but I have to say that the musical performance never felt like it. Rory Macdonald's musical direction, with the orchestra here playing under assistant conductor Benjamin Voce, had all the necessary mood and impact. And not just the music nor indeed the uniformly fine singing performances, but everything about this production contributed to the mood and direction of the piece and the most effective way of delivering the important message of the opera. Even the offstage chorus sounded perfect as the Spirits of Paramore. This was pretty much an ideal production of Owen Wingrave whichever way you look at it.

External links: Royal Northern College of Music