Tippett at the Glasshouse
The Glasshouse, Gateshead - 24/11/24
Royal Northern Sinfonia – conductor, Dinis Sousa; RNS Chorus; Voices of the Rivers’ Edge; Massed Musical Forces of the North East
Perhaps it is unsurprising that Michael Tippett’s wartime oratorio ‘A Child of Our Time’ has been gaining in popularity and repertoire inclusion across the globe in recent years. Its emphatic themes of resistance to oppression and war, linked to the search for hope and healing through the reconciliation of shadow and light, reverberate strongly in the contemporary world: one of deepening conflict, displacement, rising authoritarianism, and existential threats to both people and planet.
This concert at the Glasshouse International Centre for Music in Gateshead (formerly known as The Sage) was special not just in musical terms but as a first-rate example of community music making. In January 2024, a call was put out to amateur singers from many backgrounds and cultures across the northeast of England. The result was this intense, rewarding afternoon, a first for many involve alongside the established Royal Northern Sinfonia Chorus and members of the diverse Voices of the Rivers’ Edge.
The resulting mass choir and large orchestral rendition of this masterpiece, framed around African-American Spirituals and weaving a huge span of English music into a challenging modern context, was deeply moving and effective. Intensive rehearsals began in September. Many of the singers involved did not read music, and nothing coming from the tortured-but-hope-filled soul of Michael Tippett was or is easy. What was finally delivered at the Glasshouse was not just a high-quality musical account, but something deeply felt and understood, resonating from performers to audience and back again.
The orchestra more than lived up to its part. The sheer scale of the production (a contrast to the almost chamber-sized one I heard at Glyndebourne at the end of October) meant that there was always a danger of detail and nuance being lost to dramatic impact. Conductor Dinis Sousa addressed the problem by pacing the oratorio in a stately and deliberate fashion and paying careful attention to how its orchestration could be made to work within a broad acoustic. As associate conductor of the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras, alongside his role with the RNS, Sousa has an evident sympathy for the roots of Tippett’s language in early music, as well as the sinews and fibres of his tempered (in this piece) modernism. It is an intoxicating combination.
As for the mixed chorus, it was deployed in a partial semi-circle across the top gallery as well as immediately behind the orchestra. The balance between clarity of sound separation and organicism in delivery was achieved superbly by chorus directors Audrey Lawrence-Mattis and Tim Burke. The printed libretto for the audience was supplemented by BSL signing from Richard Jackson. After the concert I spoke to one of the singers recruited through the call earlier in the year, Meggy Blenk. She confirmed that this extraordinary experience will stay with those who took part for a lifetime.
World-class soloists also delivered powerfully for the occasion. Bass-baritone Sir Willard White and mezzo-soprano Dame Sarah Connolly have a long association with ‘A Child of Our Time’ and are adept at communicating its urgency and longing. Scottish operatic tenor Nicky Spence brought a quiet authority to his parts, while soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha sang with passion, vibrancy and conviction.
There were many stand-out moments in a performance that cut to the emotional core of the piece without being overwrought. ‘Go Down Moses’ was especially forceful, accompanied by pleading, sinister strings. Horns, brass and timpani were appropriately chilling for the opening of Part Three, “The world descends into the icy waters.” Interweaving strings and chorus parts provided an overlay of heartrending beauty, evoking the struggle to escape the cold.
This is the second major community initiative involving Michael Tippett’s music in 2024, the other being a remarkable Summer production of what some thought was his unrecoverable fifth and final opera, ‘New Year’, by the Birmingham Opera Company. Tippett will probably never have the ready passage with audiences enjoyed by his contemporary, Benjamin Britten. But when people can be drawn into his fibrous but not infrequently lyrical musical world, the angularity and complexity which some struggle with can give way to a strong feeling for its humanity, ambition and visionary qualities.
* This concert was streamed online and is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/uaSUmnkS16c?si=KqbsnejBibommc7D
