Review
Review of the Orchestra of Opera North
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05/12/2009
Yorkshire Post review of the Orchestra of Opera North at Leeds Town Hall on the 5th December 2009 as part of Leeds International Concert Season.
Orchestra of Opera North
Leeds Town Hall, 5 December 2009
A few years back the French violinist, Philippe Graffin, recorded an account of Elgar'sViolin Concerto that stripped away decades of performing traditions.
It revealed a rugged, powerful and virtuoso score free from our present penchant for Elgarian yearning nostalgia, the fast and rhythmical strong outer movements not a million miles from Sibelius.
He was here aided by conductor Richard Farnes, whose fulsome orchestral response created a physically strong dialogue with the soloist, and if at times Graffin's clarity of intonation and articulation were found wanting, the performance proved a richly rewarding and uncommon experience.
Having opened the concert with a well-detailed and atmospheric overture to Vaughan William's incidental music toThe Wasps, the orchestra was to strut its individual and combined brilliance in the showpiece Concerto for Orchestra by Bartok.
It needs to be said yet again that this orchestra is of world class, and much enlarged above their normal opera size. With Farnes taking the score very much at face value, his players unfailingly produced the nuances that inject character into the music.
The testing point came when Bartok employs pairs of solo instruments, the players relishing their display of technical expertise and crowning it with some beautiful piccolo playing.
Book for the Orchestra of Opera North performing as part of Leeds International Concert Season on Saturday 27 March 2010
Author : David Denton
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