Lola Montez’s extraordinary story has been told in films, and could in itself be a whole opera, with characters including her lovers Alexandre Dumas, père, Liszt and Ludwig I of Bavaria. But American theatregoers feted her as a cabaret hoofer, and that’s the cameo John Adams gives her in his Girls of the Golden West, which will premiere at San Francisco Opera in November.
As a dance-alone taster, Lola Montez Does the Spider Dance is tantalising, and this was a zinging European premiere by the Britten-Pears Orchestra under Marin Alsop, to whom it is dedicated. It is not quite a tarantella, but its rhythms and zany, brassy feel, together with the exhibitionist clarinet, created a vivid picture of Montez (who did eventually go a bit mad, not from a tarantula bite but probably tertiary syphilis). Paired with the Adams was Anna Clyne’s Masquerade, premiered by Alsop at the 2013 Proms, its polished surface shining bright here.
The evening’s main works, Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra and Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra mix the wittiest of gestures with deeply serious intent. Alsop achieved this balance, encouraging solos of individuality and panache while realising a resonant tone that belied the players’ relative youth. The importance of the Britten-Pears legacy is nowhere more evident than in Aldeburgh’s young artists’ programme and in this orchestra, whose makeup is international. Against today’s madness, they embodied vibrancy and hope.
