Programmes

Kokoschka’s Doll / The Art of Love: Alma Mahler’s Life and Music

Our double-bill Kokoschka’s Doll/ The Art of Love: Alma Mahler’s Life and Music, featuring Sir John Tomlinson, Rozanna Madylus and Counterpoise, has been performed ten times to date, at venues up and down the country.

Kokoschka’s Doll

John Tomlinson in ‘Kokoschka’s Doll

For Alma Mahler, the painter Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) was just one of a string of eminent lovers, but for Kokoschka his brief affair with the widow of Mahler was to haunt the rest of his life. Shortly after the liaison ended, in 1914, Kokoschka commissioned a life-size doll of Alma, which he took to concerts and other public events, finally destroying it at a party to which all his friends were invited. Alma is featured in many of his paintings, not least the famous double portrait of the couple known as The Bride of the Wind.

The text of this work, commissioned by Counterpoise, for singer/narrator and ensemble, is by John Casken and Barry Millington, based on poetic and epistolary texts of Kokoschka. It describes the affair as seen through the eyes of Kokoschka as a older man, evoking the passions unleashed by the affair, against the background of the physical and psychological traumas suffered by Kokoschka in the First World War. The score weaves the texts into a musical fabric that references fin-de-siècle Vienna (including the music of Wagner and Alma Mahler) while being of our own time.

‘Tomlinson’s titanic, heart-rending performance’ (Daily Telegraph), ‘the incomparable John Tomlinson’, ‘a compelling dramatic presence’ (Guardian), ‘magnificent’ (Opera),’Counterpoise’s ceaselessly versatile and intriguing combination of piano, violin, trumpet and clarinet/saxophone’ (Independent), ‘Shot through with echoes of Wagner and Mahler, Casken’s chamber score ‘ is lean and effective’ (The Times), ‘riveting’ (Seen and Heard International), ‘engaging and thought-provoking’ (Opera)

The Art of Love: Alma Mahler’s Life and Music

Rozanna Madylus and John Tomlinson in ‘The Art of Love

Kokoschka’s Doll, which lasts 40 minutes, is complemented by a sequence of music and text, featuring the work of Gustav and Alma Mahler, Wagner and Zemlinsky, under the title The Art of Love: Alma Mahler’s Life and Music. The latter includes songs by both Mahlers arranged for Counterpoise by David Matthews (featuring Einsamer Gang, recently discovered by Deborah Calland and Barry Millington), as well as a Webern Trio movement (unpublished and previously unperformed in the UK) for Counterpoise forces, with continuation by Matthews. The singer adopts the persona of Alma and delivers a text (by Barry Millington) telling the story of her affairs with Zemlinsky, Mahler and Kokoschka.

‘superb, unmissable’ (Independent), ‘imaginative arrangements by David Matthews’ (Guardian), the ‘fine mezzo Rozanna Madylus’ (Independent), ‘Madylus was an engaging stage presence’ (Daily Telegraph), ‘compelling performances’ (Opera)

Rags to Riches

Sir Willard White

For over four decades Willard White has been in demand on the world’s stages as an operatic bass-baritone of exceptional quality and charisma. With the all-star ensemble Counterpoise he presents an evocative programme of music and poetry tracing the progress of rag, blues and other jazz forms from the Deep South and Harlem to the legendary cabarets of Paris and Berlin. Music by some of the greats of the era, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Kurt Weill, George Gershwin (‘A Foggy Day’, ‘Love Walked In’) and Frederick Hollander (of ‘Falling in Love Again’ fame) as well as the spirituals that Sir Willard delivers with incomparable poignancy.

The Story of Jenny

Susan Bullock as Elektra

This monodrama compiled by Barry Millington tells the story of Jenny, the protagonist of several Brecht/Weill songs. The sequence includes ‘Alabama Song’, ‘Speak Low’, ‘My Ship’ and ‘Surabaya Johnny’, with linking text.

The internationally acclaimed soprano Susan Bullock takes centre stage.

The Shackled King/Brünnhilde’s Dream

John Tomlinson as Lear in The Shackled King

Sir John Tomlinson, who has been striding the world’s opera stages for several decades, notably in the role of Wotan in Wagner’s Ring, has long been contemplating the role of Shakespeare’s Lear and sees parallels between the two characters. This new monodrama by John Casken affords him the opportunity to incarnate the aging, delusional king in a musical setting that incorporates Shakespeare’s text in the form of speech, sprechstimme and singing. It is a role destined to crown Sir John’s glorious career. Rozanna Madylus plays the roles of Cordelia, her sisters and the Fool.

The work begins with Lear and Cordelia in prison. There are flashbacks – the first to the beginning of the play and the dividing of the kingdom, the second to the scene with the Fool and the storm before time shifts back again to the present: the prison scene, followed by the deaths of Cordelia and Lear.

Brünnhilde’s Dream

The Slumbering Brünnhilde by Arthur Rackham

The other half of the programme is a sequence of words and music entitled Brünnhilde’s Dream, imagining the state of mind of Wotan’s favourite Valkyrie daughter as she lies on the rock, surrounded by fire, after the end of Die Walküre. Music by Wagner, Fanny Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, Zemlinsky, Berg, Szymanowski, Schoeck and Johanna Müller-Hermann. The acclaimed mezzo-soprano Rozanna Madylus, who scored such a success in our Alma Mahler programme, takes the solo role.

Jazz dans la nuit

Satie – Cabaret Songs
Ravel – Violin Sonata
Roussel – Jazz dans la nuit (song)
Milhaud – La Cr’ation du Monde
Iain Farrington – A Little Cabaret

A mixed-media programme for baritone and ensemble capturing the heady spirit of the Paris Jazz Age. Jazz dans la nuit incorporates cabaret songs by Satie, Poulenc and Roussel, Ravel’s jazz-inspired Violin Sonata and an arrangement by Iain Farrington of Milhaud’s short ballet score La Création du Monde. A new 12-minute work specially commissioned from Iain Farrington, entitled A Little Cabaret, depicts a group of entertainers in a series of short sketches. The music is predominantly jazzy and tuneful, in a wide range of moods.

Lights and Shadows

Eleanor Bron with Counterpoise
The incomparable Eleanor Bron brings her wide-ranging talents to an extraordinarily rich and diverse show which draws on cabaret, poetry and jazz, as well as various classical genres. The programme spotlights the fusion of words and music in contrasting genres and settings, from Britten’s nightclub blues The Spider and the Fly to Copland’s evocative urban landscape Quiet City. Poetry by Keats, Auden, Eliot and Langston Hughes is woven into the texture of the programme and cross-references between the genres (jazz/classical, poetry/music) explored. There is also a rare opportunity to sample the notoriety of George Antheil, the Bad Boy of Music.

Eleanor Bron


Weill – The Threepenny Opera Suite
Weill – Mack the Knife
Spoliansky, arr. Farrington – Zwei Krawatten Potpourri
Hollaender, arr. Farrington – Rag 1920
Dizzy Gillespie/Paparelli – Lights and Shadows
Schulhoff – Hot Sonata
Britten, arr. Farrington – Cabaret Suite
Turnage – Two Elegies Framing a Shout
Poems by Auden, Brecht and Langston Hughes.

Metamorphoses

Britten – Metamorphoses After Ovid
Britten, arr. Farrington – Cabaret Suite
David Matthews – Actaeon
Walton – Façade

David Matthews’ Actaeon in a vibrant translation of the Ovid poem by Ted Hughes combining Romantic nature imagery with a gripping narrative; Britten’s jazzy Cabaret Music and Walton’s ever-popular setting of Edith Sitwell’s delectably eccentric Façade poems, both in new arrangements by Iain Farrington. Plus Britten’s evocative Metamorphoses After Ovid played on the soprano saxophone.

Soft City

Benjamin Britten – Six Metamorphoses after Ovid
Jean Hasse – The Fall of the House of Usher
Russell Hepplewhite – Urban Abstract
Charlotte Bray – Soft City

This programme explores themes of construction and disintegration, of harmony and alienation, with particular regard to spatial concerns, through music and film. While Charlotte Bray’s Soft City blurs the boundaries between urban and organic tissues, and proposes a vision of the city as a fragile anthropomorphic landscape, Russell Hepplewhite’s Urban Abstract celebrates the individual ‘personality’ and beauty of bold architectural edifices. Jean Hasse’s score for the classic Watson and Webber silent short The Fall of the House of Usher reflects the film’s morbid obsession with death and dissolution; Britten’s Metamorphoses after Ovid similarly play with ideas of transformative change.

Ghosts Before Breakfast

Strauss – The Castle by the Sea
Hans Richter – Ghosts Before Breakfast (silent film with live music by Jean Hasse)
Kagel – Old/New
Kagel – MM51
Rushton – The Concoction of a Charlatan
Poe – Shadow
Goebbels – In the Basement
Rushton – On the Edge

An adventurous and ambitious exploration of the interaction between words, music and visuals. The programme explores supernatural motifs and also the concept of melodrama not only as a stage genre, but also in terms of its influence on opera and early silent film, examining the broader idea of the relationship between sound and image, spoken text and music.

Loved To Death

Ross Lorraine – Not More Lovely
Jean Hasse – The Fall of the House of Usher (music to accompany silent film short)
Mauricio Kagel – MM51/Nosferatu
Ryo – Noda Mai
John Casken – Deadly Pleasures

John Casken’s vividly theatrical setting of a racy Cleopatra story by D.M. Thomas, based on a Pushkin tale, is given alongside Ross Lorraine’s Not More Lovely, inspired by Poe’s haunting story The Oval Portrait, and Jean Hasse’s The Fall of the House of Usher, a new score to accompany the classic Watson and Webber silent film, together with Kagel’s vampiric MM51/Nosferatu and Ryo Noda’s virtuosic Mai for solo saxophone.

Tales of the Macabre

Richter/Hasse – Ghosts before Breakfast
Jean Hasse – The Fall of the House of Usher
Mauricio Kagel – MM51/Nosferatu
John Casken – Deadly Pleasures

In the 2000 years since her death, the image of Cleopatra has been recreated over and over again, each time in a form that fits the prejudices and fantasies of the age that produced it. John Casken’s Deadly Pleasures sets an intriguing story about Cleopatra by Pushkin, completed by the novelist and translator D.M. Thomas. Cleopatra offers a night of love to any man, but on one condition…

Accompanying a rare showing of the cult 1927 Dada film Ghosts Before Breakfast is a new score specially commissioned from Jean Hasse, who has also composed original music for the classic German Expressionist film version of Poe’s story by Watson and Webber. The programme also includes Mauricio Kagel’s film collage MM 51, which quotes Murnau’s classic silent Nosferatu: a short, sharply humorous piece of musical theatre – funny, slightly sinister and utterly mesmerising.

The Power of Love

Liszt – Lenore
Liszt – Petrarch Sonnet
Wagner – Träume
Grieg – Bergliot
Szymanowski – Chant de Roxane
John Casken – Deadly Pleasures

In the 2000 years since her death, the image of Cleopatra has been recreated over and over again, each time in a form that fits the prejudices and fantasies of the age that produced it. John Casken’s Deadly Pleasures sets an intriguing story about Cleopatra by Pushkin, completed by the novelist and translator D.M. Thomas. Cleopatra offers a night of love to any man, but on one condition…

Grieg’s spine-chilling melodrama Bergliot, based on a story of treachery and vengeance from the Nordic sagas, has been specially arranged by Edward Rushton. A ghostly story of faithful but doomed love is set memorably by Liszt in his melodrama Lenore.