https://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/reviews/to-my-distant-love-yarra-valley-opera-festival/
Published online at Limelight Magazine, 19th October 2020
It started as an energetic day in Melbourne on Sunday. I swam at my local pool at the pre-booked time, I cycled within my permitted 5km radius (around and around a free-for-all local outdoor velodrome) and I walked to the shops to pick up a few groceries – masked, sanitised and abiding by the Victorian Government’s rules. But front of mind was a 5pm phone call I was waiting for eagerly, albeit a tad nervously, from my beloved. They called, we spoke and they sang to me Beethoven’s beautiful song cycle, An die ferne Geliebte (To the distant beloved).
2020 marks the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth in December 1770 and celebrations have obviously taken a hit. Mitigating the damage, New York-based On Site Opera conceived what was billed as “the world’s first telephone-based opera experience”, in which a personal one-on-one performance of Beethoven’s song cycle is shared over the phone. With good fortune, lines are currently open to encounter its pleasures courtesy of Gertrude Opera’s Yarra Valley Opera Festival running until 25 October.
Digital etching by artist Jess Reddi-Coronell
A few days prior to the call, an email arrived, beginning, “My Love, I miss you terribly”. On the next day, another: “I’m counting the minutes until I can hear your voice again.” The sender wasn’t suspicious though at any other time, I would have tossed this kind of email in with the junk.
I did my homework and studied the attached text, an evocatively flowing piece by Austrian writer and physician Alois Jeitteles written in 1815 when he was 21, translated here from German to English. Beethoven set it to music the following year in a six-part through-composed work; the music capacious, intimate and tender in its subtly varying moods. The work explores feelings of the deepest longing by a subject separated from their beloved by a great distance. A magnificent picture of nature is invoked and referenced as a carrier of its message of love. Its sentiments certainly resonate this year and it is a decadence so many would enjoy.
Young Melbourne-based baritone Daniel Felton was ‘my beloved’ and, after some initial clumsiness on my part, the conversation felt as though we had sort of picked up where we last left off. Daniel was polite and cheerful and asked if he could sing to me. And when he did, his warm and soothing baritone was a delight to covet. He asked if I had the text in front of me to follow. I did but how completely unnecessary! The first email informed me that ‘my beloved’ would be singing in German but Daniel sang the English text with sparkling clarity.
Not so the sound quality; the pre-recorded piano accompaniment sounded like it was drowning in water. Daniel’s vocal reproduction occasionally crackled too, especially at the top notes. Was I bothered? Not at all! Within no time, it was as if I was listening to an old gramophone recording, which only added to the sense of separation by time. And it uniquely belonged to me.
Three other artists – soprano Bethany Hill, tenor Joshua Oxley and baritone Darcy Carroll – are also at your service to sing to you in a one-on-one performance. What kind of experience others will have makes me curious.
Later, I looked across the treetops towards the city and wondered where my beloved could be. I felt a tad disappointed in myself because I could have tried harder. I wanted to know more. Where exactly was my beloved? Were they sitting of standing? What had they been doing all this time? But they swept me away in the moment and I’m afraid I may never hear their voice across the phone again.
To My Distant Love
Gertrude Opera
Yarra Valley Opera Festival
4-stars
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