New Year Gala
Usher Hall 1/1/25
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Joana Carneiro conductor, Juliana Zara soprano
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s New Year’s Day concert is a popular event and most seats in the Usher Hall are taken on a cold but dry afternoon (though unforecast snow earlier in the day led some of us to book taxis to get here). The multigenerational audience are treated to some American big band music in the first half, and Viennese waltzes in the second. Portuguese conductor, Joana Carneiro was last seen here in charge of the large forces in the Festival’s wonderful opening concert, ‘La Pasión según San Marcos’, and also memorably conducted Scottish Opera’s ‘Nixon in China’ in 2020.
She’s entirely at home with popular music too and sways through Bernstein’s overture to ‘Wonderful Town’ In the leader’s chair, the youthful violinist Sophia Prodovana also throws herself into the syncopation, as the three trombones lead off the contrasting settings of four of the musical’s songs. Mistaken identity is the excuse for an Irish jig while the quirky ‘Wrong Note Rag’ rounds things off. The drumkit at the right of the stage and the piano at the left provide the underpinning for the full brass section – there are also two trumpets, a tuba and five horns in the 51 piece orchestra –all of them relishing this jazz-inspired music.
Any concert which features as much George Gershwin as Johann Strauss II is fine by me, and Someone to Watch Over Me’ is followed by an orchestral arrangements of ‘Somebody Loves Me’. David Kettle’s programme notes offer intriguing details of these songs’ composition – ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ was originally sung as an up-tempo opening number in the musical ‘Oh Kay’ and slowed down into a ballad by its later interpreters from Frank Sinatra to Amy Winehouse. ‘Somebody Loves Me’ was written in the same year as Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ and Hershey Kay’s arrangement with jazzy trumpet and a flute introduction to a Michael Bawtree’s terrific piano solo is almost a miniature version of the orchestral hit.
Juliana Zara replaces Sylvia Schwartz in today’s concert. The Californian soprano, now based in Germany, is still in the early stages of her career and she’s been nominated for a major award for her performance in Berg’s ‘Lulu’. That and some of her roles in Darmstadt can be seen online: she excels in high-lying roles like Zerbinetta and the Chinese Cat In Chin’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’. Today she shows fine rapport with her audience and despite being a stand-in, she sings all her songs without a score. She has all the notes, but her voice does not carry well to the middle of the stalls, especially in the first part of the programme. I wonder if the SCO should have presented the full big band experience with the singer at a microphone. That might have taken the pressure off Juliana Zara on her UK premiere in the 2000 seat Usher Hall. She will fare better in the smaller venues in the rest of the SCO’s tour.
The soprano sings Cole Porter’s ‘Night and Day’ as well as ‘Someone to Watch over Me’ and returns later for Andre Previn’s ‘I Want Magic’ from ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’. This 1995 opera, seen often in the States, has, as far as I can gather, had only one UK semi-staged performance – conducted by Previn himself in London in 2006. There’s interesting orchestration here in what may be the song’s first Scottish performance, and with celeste and string accompaniment, Juliana Zara reveals Blanche Dubois’s desperate search for happiness. In contrast Loewe’s ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’ from ‘My Fair Lady’ provides the opportunity for an audience sing-along, as the soloist and conductor encourage participation.
The last work in the first half is Dvořák’s ‘Slavonic Dance No 8’. Iain Sandilands, Kate Openshaw and Jack Fawcett take their places along the back of the orchestra to provide the first taste of Viennese-style percussion with triangle, cymbals and drum. Here, of course, they are part of a fiery folk-inspired Czech dance reminiscent of the composer’s homeland.
In the second half, we’re entirely in Vienna, beginning with the Johann Strauss II’s bustling and rhythmic overture to ‘Die Fledermaus’. It’s a lovely piece of music and as it moves from one melodious hit tune to another, I wonder why it’s so long since the opera’s been seen in Scotland – a Christmas concert performance could prove very popular! Juliana Zara returns for two arias by Franz Lehar. Over-exposure to ‘Vilja’ in my youth when it was a radio standby makes it one of my least-favourite arias, but Juliana Zara’s well considered performance makes a good case for it. The waltz-time ‘Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiss’ is a seductive song which she sings convincingly, and also dances during the short Spanish upbeat interlude – cue tambourines and castanets.
Strauss’s ‘Champagne Polka’ is good fun, Kate Openshaw doing the honours with the cork-popping device (which looks like a rifle fired off to the side). The brass and woodwind which played an important part in the big band first half, also contribute a great deal to the Viennese sound, and Joana Carneiro’s precise timing and the orchestra’s sweeping strings deliver a magnificent ‘By the Beautiful Blue Danube’. We have two encores, firstly more Gershwin, ‘The Man I Love’, another 1924 work, where with string accompaniment, Juliana Zara does credit to the song, which has some of Ira Gershwin’s best lyrics. The ‘Radetsky March’ ensues, with the audience clapping along in traditional fashion.
There’s much applause for this cheerful and entertaining start to the New Year, with imaginative programming juxtaposing old favourites with the less familiar. A spokesperson from Alzheimer’s Scotland introduced the programme and spoke about the charity which will benefit this year as in previous years from the retiring collection.
PS ‘The Man I Love’ was also the name of a 1947 film. An online search revealed its star, Ida Lupino, in a sultry rendition of the title track, as she shares a cigarette with the pianist in the jazz band – worth seeking out!
