From wartime dance hall to boxing arena to venue for political rallies, Belfast’s Ulster Hall has a grand and stormy history, dating back to 1862. Charles Dickens performed there; the Protestant loyalist Ian Paisley gave firebrand speeches; Led Zeppelin first performed Stairway to Heaven. Since 2009 it has been home to the Ulster Orchestra, Northern Ireland’s only professional symphony orchestra, which played throughout the Troubles of the 1970s and 80s, never cancelling a concert. Where better to stage the world premiere of a work with activist commitment embedded in its title?
Riot Symphony, composed by Conor Mitchell, was the latest collaboration between the orchestra and the edgy, multidisciplinary Belfast Ensemble, of which Mitchell is artistic director. They combined their contrasting talents to give an exhilarating first performance last weekend. Mitchell, whose caustic Abomination: A DUP Opera (2019) tackled homophobia in Northern Ireland, embraces music as a tool for protest. He has written in the programme note: “Maybe I’m drawn to [insurrection and resistance] because I come from Northern Ireland where, in my youth, everything was charged with sectarian meaning. Even the warlike drums of the Orange bands every July meant something.”
Scored for soprano (Rebecca Murphy), tenor (Michael Bell), video installation and orchestra, the 50-minute work draws on texts by Sophie Scholl, who was part of the White Rose movement, an anti-Nazi campaign run by students in Munich. She was executed for treason in 1943 at the age of 21. The work pulsates with brassy outburst, now rampant statements in the major key, now collapsing into murky, tuba-heavy dissonance. Ukraine’s national anthem makes an appearance. So too, as an orchestral overlay, does a track by the Russian punk bank Pussy Riot, a key inspiration for Mitchell. A simple, rippling woodwind figure, played forwards and backwards, offers lyricism. The last line – “Doch ist es noch nicht zu spät” (But it is not too late) – is a cry of hope.
The musicians played behind a gauze screen, on which was projected live video by the designer and film-maker Gavin Peden. Generic images of young people in various forms of protest were contrasted with monstrous closeups of a Putin boiled, fried and flayed. Musical colours and visual images were stark and immediate, deftly conducted by Andrew Gourlay. At the end, the audience rose to their feet, cheering. The mood was one of celebration, of those who speak out in a city where self-expression, compared with dark times past, is now possible.
Irish National Opera, founded in 2018, returned to the Royal Opera House’s Linbury theatre with Vivaldi’s L’Olimpiade (1734), after their success with the same composer’s Bajazet in 2022. Elegantly staged by Daisy Evans, with designs by Molly O’Cathain suggestive of amphitheatre and Olympic rings, the production’s emphasis was on simplicity of action and a clear patterning, through unfussy choreography (movement by Matthew Forbes, lighting Jake Wiltshire). Costumes combined a modern games kit look with early 18th century, tricorn and full skirts.
Involving a lost baby and multiple confusions, the plot is the kind that requires a flow chart. All ends happily. Vivaldi’s long passages of recitative can tire the ears, but suddenly he disarms us with extended arias of extreme beauty and virtuosity. Licida’s contemplation of sleep and dreams, Mentre dormi amor fomenti, is one, earnestly delivered here by the Chinese countertenor Meili Li. Aminta’s exuberant Siam navi all’onde algenti (We are like ships on the silvery waves) – a high-voice standalone favourite – was persuasively sung by Rachel Redmond.
The most remarkable performance came from an unexpected source: the mezzo-soprano Maria Schellenberg sang the leading role of Megacle from the pit, replacing an indisposed Gemma Ní Bhriain, who walked the role. Schellenberg had never sung the part until the previous day, but handled every recitative and aria with the utmost precision, and thrilling expression. Some of the singers did not quite match that level, but there was another impressive highlight: the presence of the Dublin-based Irish Baroque Orchestra, conducted from the harpsichord by Peter Whelan. With two violins to a part, and everyone else just one to a part, this tiny ensemble brought shade and zest to Vivaldi’s restlessly brilliant score.
One other event this past week will remain in the minds of anyone present. Michael Tilson Thomas, “MTT”, conductor laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra, was at the Barbican to conduct Mahler’s Symphony No 3, the first of two performances. In 2022, MTT, now 79, announced he had brain cancer. He has continued working as much as he can. At around 110 minutes, Mahler 3 is the longest symphony in the mainstream repertoire. It takes physical energy and immense mental dexterity. Within its great length, the music’s ebb and flow is minutely charted. No tempo change or dynamic shift can be left to chance.
Tilson Thomas, frailty palpable, kept sinewy control, yet allowed the score to surge forward with generosity and almost dreamlike leisure. All, though, was not well. This could be the tale of what happened next: MTT’s disorientation after five of the six movements; the supportive hand of Alice Coote, mezzo-soprano, who remains a first choice interpreter for this work; the conductor’s husband coming calmly on stage to offer water and urging him to complete the performance.
Instead, the real story was how the concerted effort of every musician on stage carried this much-loved conductor through. His shaky but ethereal ushering in of the finale’s serene opening melody was the epitome of tenderness. Implicitly, the flickering proximity of death in life, which so obsessed Mahler, unfolded before us. There was sublime playing in this heroic symphonic undertaking – especially the solos by trombone, offstage post horn and flute – and there were rough moments when tension or exhaustion broke through. Above all, the collective wish for safe deliverance made every note hard-won. Here was humanity at its most raw, and its most precious.
Star ratings (out of five)
Riot Symphony ★★★★
L’Olimpiade ★★★★
LSO/Tilson Thomas ★★★★
• L’Olimpiade is at the Linbury theatre, Royal Opera House, London, until 25 May
