MY 2016 diary's busiest month (August) contains the note of a breakfast appointment at Edinburgh's Caley hotel with soprano Danielle de Niese. She would have been newly arrived in the city, with an engagement to sing the music of George Frideric Handel in the company of the award-winning Dunedin Consort under the baton of John Butt at the Queen's Hall the following day. It was a hot ticket in anybody's diary, but sadly neither the interview nor the performance happened, because the singer was – at short notice –indisposed when the Edinburgh Festival performance came around.
Perhaps some of the insight I was hoping to gather, and share with Herald readers, will be available tomorrow, in BBC4's The Birth of an Opera at 7pm. De Niese, who was an Emmy-garlanded TV presenter before she found international fame as an opera singer, promises a "warts and all" behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Annabel Arden's production of Rossini's The Barber of Seville at Glyndebourne this summer. It might be a surprise that Glyndebourne, generally assumed to be the most exclusive opera-going experience these islands can provide, has opened its back-stage to the cameras, but then Danielle de Niese is married to the chairman and grandson of the venue's founder, Gus Christie, with an 18-month-old son, Bacchus. Speaking on Radio Four's Women's Hour this past week, she said that the "more intimate operatic processes" will be revealed in the programme, adding: "I am not always portrayed in the best light." If that is not enough to have us all tuning in, expecting a glorious diva hissy-fit, I don't know what is. The critics were, in fact, far from universally impressed by the production, and the casting of De Niese as Rosina – a soprano in a mezzo role – was one of their difficulties. By the time the cast took the show to the BBC Proms for a semi-staged performance, however, there were others more impressed by the rich tone of the lower notes in her mature voice.
Meanwhile, back in Edinburgh, a few months after the Glyndebourne Barber doc had been shot, the Edinburgh International Festival had to solve the problem of a morning recital with a crack band of instrumentalists but a soprano-shaped vacancy. This is what I wrote on Saturday August 13:
"EIF 2016 has already boasted many successes, but the solo debut of soprano Louise Alder is a very special story indeed. Drafted in at a day's notice to replace the indisposed Danielle de Niese for an all-Handel programme with Scotland's award-winning Dunedin Consort under the direction of Glasgow University's Professor John Butt, the former Edinburgh University student grabbed her opportunity with both hands, winning an audience response to her first appearance that threatened to bring the recital to a standstill after just half an hour."
The atmosphere in the hall was electric, with the young singer not only showing off her familiarity with some rare repertoire, but bringing a personality that made everyone forget that the star they had expected was not present. Alder had her own Albert Hall Prom performance to come as well, singing Mozart with Ilan Volkov and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra just a week later, and just a week ago she finished her own Glyndebourne run, singing Zerlina in the touring company's staging of Don Giovanni.
I'll be tuning in to see the De Niese's Rosina take shape tomorrow evening, but how I really wish a crew had been hot on the heels of Ms Alder during her busy week in August as well.
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