David Smythe
Contributor at Bachtrack
Farming, tourism, agritourism & rural economy. Arts enthusiast. Bachtrack reviewer. Stays for film credits and organ voluntaries.
Articles
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2 weeks ago |
bachtrack.com | David Smythe
Director John Savournin’s rule for updating opera is that it “must add something worth adding”. Happily, relocating The Merry Widow from the Parisian glamour at the turn of the last century, Savournin finds accurate parallels with 1950s New York mafia featuring the Boss, the Family and the Mob.
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1 month ago |
bachtrack.com | David Smythe
Greta Thunberg must have been on the mind of Jonathan Dove when terminally ill opera philanthropist Jim Potter approached him in 2020 with the idea of commissioning a community opera about sustainability involving youngsters. The resulting Uprising sees 15-year old Lola Green throwing her family into turmoil as an ancient forest is threatened. Dove uses a vibrant community of singers in an energetic and moving protest drama as floods arrive, the earth warming alarmingly.
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2 months ago |
bachtrack.com | David Smythe
Pekka Kuusisto’s visits to the Scottish Chamber Orchestra are keenly anticipated, his highly charged musical spark making the bold “New Dimensions” programming vivid and compelling. Works from three living composers were bookended by a rare and early Britten piece and, in a musical arc reaching back through the centuries, a lively Haydn symphony.
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2 months ago |
bachtrack.com | David Smythe
Fauré wrote that his Requiem was “from beginning to end, a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest”. The work’s consoling spirituality is popular, drawing the listeners in, leaving them in a personal deeper peace. The Scottish Chamber Orchestra and SCO Chorus wisely left the transcendent to the end in a concert of English music bookended by French. Berlioz looked to Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing for an opera project resulting in the two-act comedy Béatrice et Bénédict.
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2 months ago |
bachtrack.com | David Smythe
The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra brought a concert of two distinct halves to Perth Concert Hall, familiar Vaughan Williams and Mendelssohn pieces contrasting alongside new music. Sir James MacMillan’s Cumnock Tryst Festival in Ayrshire nurtures and encourages new composers.
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RT @MossgielFarm: BIG SCREEN RE-MOOS A film called Holy Cow hits UK cinemas today, and it hit us straight in the chest. It tells the stor…
RT @bachtrack: Hands up for Uprising, Jonathan Dove’s vivid new community opera @RSNO ✍️ David Smythe https://t.co/rzonASKAPV
Hands Up! for Uprising, new community opera from Jonathan Dove in a vivid heartfelt performance from @RSNO with @RSNOChorus Youth Chorus and Changed Voices. An event to remember for so many. Review @bachtrack https://t.co/FU3vhhsQ0N