Drawing: Brian Jagde

Posted on April 15, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Brian Jagde

American tenor Brian Jagde made his Royal Opera debut this month as opera’s most notorious love ’em and leave ’em characters, Lieutenant BF Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly. His bio describes him as “one of the most engaging and exciting lirico-spinto tenors of his generation”. Having not encountered such a description, I looked it up. Apparently it is a voice that is versatile enough to sing a lighter or darker, more powerful sound when required.

Brian’s many awards include second prize and the Birgit Nisson Prize at Operalia 2012 and first prize at the 2014 Loren L. Zachary National Vocal Competition.

After missing him at the Royal Opera House, I returned on Saturday morning and swam my way to the stage door, emerging from the Covent Garden tube station to encounter a monsoon, but avoided water damage to the sketch.

The security people didn’t know who Brian was, I said (with charade actions) “tall with bright eyes”. They clicked! It was worth it. Not only did he sign my sketch, but wrote a lovely note wanting to see more of my drawings. I’ll send him another original.

Sketch: Anne Sofie von Otter

Posted on April 14, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Award-winning Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter’s repertoire encompasses lieder, operas, oratorios and rock and pop songs. Her busy concert career has brought her regularly to the major halls of Europe and North America.

At this year’s Grammy Awards, Anne won for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album with Douce France on Nai’ve Classique. This was her second Grammy, having won in 2004 for Best Classical Vocal Performance. She ahas received numerous nominations.

In 1995 she was appointed Hovsangerska by the King of Sweden which is literally ‘Court Singer’ – a title awarded by the Swedish monarch to a singer who has contributed to the International standing of Swedish singing.

Last month Anne made an anticipated return to the Royal Opera House as Leokadja Begbick in John Fulljames’ new production of The Rise and Fall of The City of Mahogany under conducter Mark Wigglesworth.

“Anne Sofie von Otter sings and struts splendidly as the widow Begbik” wrote William Hartston in the Express. She sings, struts and signs splendidly, ‘graphing my sketch after her final performance last week.

Drawing: Christine Rice

Posted on April 13, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Christine Rice

Olivier nominated British mezzo-soprano Christine Rice is one of the leading operatic performers of her generation, regularly appearing in all the major venues across Europe, including Covent Garden, The Frankfurt Opera, The Teatro Real in Madrid, the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and also the New York Metropolitan Opera.

Christine intended to follow a career in science like her chemistry lecturer father. She studied physics at Balliol College, Oxford, but her Doctorate was interrupted by a gap tar at the Royal Northern College of Music and her career path took a musical turn.

Since then she’s played a variety of roles, such as a vile punk brat in drag or a a Nero in Handel’s Agrippina, snorting ice sugar representing cocaine and wearing a prosthetic male appendage during one of her virtuoso arias to the sex starved Concepcion of Ravels’ one act farce L’Henre Espagnole, to name only two extremes. She’s also played Carmen and is notable for her Handelian roles such as Rinaldo, Arsace and Ariodante.

Christine has just finished Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s impassioned operatic satire on consumerism, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogany at the Royal Opera House where she played a prostitute, Jenny, of which The Guardian’s Andrew Clements said, “The tart with at least a semblance of a heart is totally convincing.”

Christine signed this sketch of her in the role and also sent me a nice note, loving the drawing, which is always gratefully received.

Drawing: Bryn Terfel in Sweeney Todd

Posted on April 26, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Legendary Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel was born Bryn Terfel Jones, but there was already another Welsh baritone named Bryn Jones, so chose Bryn Terfel as his professional moniker. Well, that’s sorted and he signed that name on my sketch of him as the title character in the concert performance of Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Sonheim’s musical thriller was staged at the Avery Fisher Theater, Lincoln Centre in New York last month (March 2014) with Emma Thompson returning to musical theatre as Mrs Lovett.

Bryn signed the drawing at the Royal Opera House stage door before his final performance as Mephistopheles in David McVicar’s Faust.

Drawing: Angela Denoke in Salomé at the Royal Opera House

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

David McVicar’s revival production of Richard Strauss’ hyper-sensuous and erotic opera shocker Salome, about Herod’s stepdaughter and biblical femme fatale. It opened at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden in July 2010.

It is based on a German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Famed for its ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’ and the final scene when she declares her love to – and kisses the severed head of – John the Baptist. It shocked opera audiences from its first performance in 1905, and was actually banned in London by the Lord Chamberlain’s office until 1907.

German soprano Angela Denoke played the title role. She is a regular at all the world’s major opera companies – Berlin, London, Paris, Chicago, New York, Vienna and San Francisco, being named Singer of the Year in 1999 by the magazine ‘Openweldt’.

Drawing: Placido Domingo in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra at the Royal Opera House

Posted on March 2, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden is not the usual haunt of the autograph ‘zombies’, but they followed my into the unknown after I told them I was heading to the venerable venue to get Placido Domingo. “Oh, that’s the bird from Sesame Street” one said, which summed up their motive and subsequent movement. One of the famous Three Tenors, Domingo had turned baritone and was performing Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra in a late career move.

The Opera House staff looked just as puzzled as the zombies, who wandered around the foyer, pocketing all the printed promotional pamphlets in preparation for Placido’s pen.

The opera-going elite left their hugely expensive seats expecting to be the first to the stage door to meet the superstar, only to meet the human fringe on a cultural cringe. So they rattled their jewellery at the back of the line. Placido remained behind the security desk inside the stage door and we were ushered in 10 at a time. As you would expect, he was gracious and charming, even when one of the zombies asked him if he could get Kermit’s siggy for him.