{"id":29104,"date":"2015-06-13T11:40:03","date_gmt":"2015-06-13T15:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=29104"},"modified":"2015-06-13T11:40:03","modified_gmt":"2015-06-13T15:40:03","slug":"dvd-review-barbara-hannigan-documentary-highlights-discipline-and-preparation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2015\/06\/13\/dvd-review-barbara-hannigan-documentary-highlights-discipline-and-preparation\/","title":{"rendered":"DVD REVIEW | Barbara Hannigan Documentary Highlights Discipline and Preparation"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_29106\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-29106\" style=\"width: 849px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-29106 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/06\/BH-docu.jpg\" alt=\"BH-docu\" width=\"849\" height=\"466\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/06\/BH-docu.jpg 849w, https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/06\/BH-docu-300x165.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 849px) 100vw, 849px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-29106\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">On this DVD, Barbara Hannigan takes on this dual role with the excellent Mahler Chamber Orchestra in a concert recorded live at the 2014 Lucerne Festival.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3><strong>Barbara Hannigan: Concert and Documentary. Music by Rossini, Mozart, Faur\u00e9 and Ligeti. Mahler Chamber Orchestra\/Barbara Hannigan, soprano and conductor. Accentus Music DVD ACC 20327 (Total Time: 71:38 (concert). 51:17 (documentary)<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Barbara Hannigan, born in Nova Scotia but domiciled these days in Amsterdam, has astonished audiences everywhere with her <em>tour de force<\/em> performances of Gy\u00f6rgy Ligeti\u2019s <em>Mysteries of the Macabre<\/em> in which, dressed as the lead character (shiny black miniskirt and stiletto boots) she simultaneously sings and conducts this fiendishly difficult score. Classical music has never seen anything like it and this new DVD captures this phenomenon brilliantly for the ages.<\/p>\n<p>Ms. Hannigan is, by any standard, an extraordinary musician. As a soprano, she specializes in contemporary music and has come to be associated with major works by Berg, Ligeti, Dutilleux, Lindberg, Unsuk Chin and George Benjamin, but she has also had rave reviews for performances as Donna Anna in Mozart\u2019s <em>Don Giovanni<\/em>. In Canada, she has premiered several \u2018soap operas\u2019 by Torontonian, Alexina Louie and she has taken Canadian music to the capitals of Europe, recently as soloist in Claude Vivier\u2019s <em>Lonely Child<\/em> with Simon Rattle and the Vienna Philharmonic.<\/p>\n<p>One can see\/hear Hannigan singing Ligeti\u2019s <em>Mysteries of the Macabre<\/em> \u2013 actually, excerpts from the opera <em>Le Grand Macabre<\/em> \u2013 with Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic on YouTube; while this is a terrific performance, the piece works surprisingly well with Hannigan as both soloist and conductor. On this DVD, she takes on this dual role with the excellent Mahler Chamber Orchestra in a concert recorded live at the 2014 Lucerne Festival. At one point during the proceedings, a familiar figure leaps up on stage and shouts \u201cWhat the hell is going on here?\u201d Simon Rattle, no less.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sHk84I73rCE?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p>Elsewhere in this concert CD, Hannigan plays a dual role again, this time in arias by Mozart. She sings not a note, however, in Rossini\u2019s <em>La scala di seta<\/em> Overture or Faur\u00e9\u2019s <em>Pell\u00e9as et M\u00e9lisande<\/em> Op. 80; the consummate extrovert in Ligeti\u2019s <em>Mysteries of the Macabre<\/em>, in these works she is a model of conductorial restraint. She conducts without a baton, scarcely ever moves her feet and often limits herself to wrist movements. One surmises that she gets what she wants through hard work in rehearsal and a total focus on the music during performance. Pierre Boulez comes to mind as a possible model.<\/p>\n<p>No doubt about it, Ligeti\u2019s <em>Mysteries<\/em> was the highlight of this live concert, but his very early <em>Concert Rom\u00e2nesc<\/em> was a delightful surprise. These were renderings of some Romanian folk dances that were at times uncommonly beautiful and at others thrilling, in the manner of Enescu\u2019s <em>Romanian Rhapsodies<\/em>. Hannigan and her players gave the piece the full virtuoso treatment with concertmaster Thomas Gould fiddling as though his life depended on it.<\/p>\n<p>In the documentary segment on this CD, we get a sense of Hannigan\u2019s incredible self-discipline as she prepared for this Lucerne Festival concert. She articulates an important lesson for itinerant artists: to maintain your sense of well-being, you must make your travelling home as much like your real home as possible. With this principle in mind, she travels with her kitchen knives \u2013 don\u2019t ask how she gets through airport security \u2013\u00a0so that she can prepare food just the way she wants it, and she maintains a jogging regimen just as she would at home. She enjoys a glass of wine on tour and no doubt she also has fun now and again, but discipline and preparation are her priorities.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara Hannigan has often appeared with the Toronto Symphony and recorded the Mahler Fourth Symphony with them in 2008. She\u2019ll be back with the TSO several times next season, first on Oct. 8 then again for concerts Jan. 27, 29 and 30, 2016. For more about Hannigan visit her website at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.barbarahannigan.com\">www.barbarahannigan.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>#LUDWIGVAN<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Want more updates on Toronto-centric classical music news and review\u00a0before anyone else finds out? Get our exclusive newsletter\u00a0<\/em><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LudwigVanToronto\/app_100265896690345\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a><\/em><\/span><em>\u00a0and follow us on\u00a0<\/em><em><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LudwigVanToronto?fref=ts\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a><\/span> for all the latest.<\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On this DVD, Barbara Hannigan takes on this dual role with the excellent Mahler Chamber Orchestra in a concert recorded live at the 2014 Lucerne Festival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":29106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[118,77,51,52],"tags":[457,3724],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/06\/BH-docu.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-7zq","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29104"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29104"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29112,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29104\/revisions\/29112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29104"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=29104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}