Medea butchering her children and Cleopatra embracing the asp? Perhaps not the jolliest of evenings, but as Edward Gardner put it, with infectious enthusiasm, the first half of this LPO season opener featured a pair of rarely heard works fully deserving of attention.
Medea’s Dance of Vengeance, by Samuel Barber, is the denouement of a Martha Graham-commissioned ballet from 1955. Opening with discordant flutes and an insistent motto on xylophone, the mood progressed through a pallid dawn before taking flight in a wild, syncopated rout. Full of interest, the music played to the orchestra’s strengths, with its chamber-like textures and opportunities for solo contributions. Gardner teased out the biting dissonances lurking within Barber’s lush canvas, revelling in the twitchy Latin rhythms all the way to the final sickening crunch.
The Death of Cleopatra was the 26-year-old Berlioz’s third stab at winning the prestigious Prix de Rome. So vehemently did the conservative jurors oppose such a tearing up of the rulebook that they awarded no first prize, and the music was never heard in the composer’s lifetime. Well, more fool them, for in the hands of Gardner and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato it emerged as a tour de force.
The orchestra had a field day with a colourful scoring that depicted the writhing snake, the snap of its fangs, and the venom coursing through Cleopatra’s veins until the double bass heartbeat came to a leaden halt. DiDonato is a consummate actor and delivered a daring, take-no-prisoners performance. Stately and intense by turns, she embodied the regal warrior at Actium and the sex goddess on the River Cydnus, before descending majestically into the tomb. Her velvet voice glinted with passion as she guided the audience skilfully through this one-woman musical memory play.
By comparison, Beethoven’s Eroica felt a little safe at first, though Gardner built an increasingly compelling case for the music’s revolutionary credentials. The performance was generally crisp and lightly sprung, though the orchestra dug deep to highlight the jarring peaks of the funeral march. The finale crackled with character, with crystalline fugal passages and a rollicking Romani-style dance variation that had the players grinning.
• London Philharmonic Orchestra plays different programmes at the Royal Festival Hall, London, on 28 September, 4, 25 & 26 October
