Alwyn: Miss Julie

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Though not all the musical ideas are equally strong, the finely-crafted result possesses undeniable tension and dramatic potency…The performance itself conveys clear conviction. Anna Patalong... — BBC Music Magazine, August 2020, 4 out of 5 stars (Performance) / 5 out of 5 stars (Recording) More…

Release Date: 3rd Jul 2020
Catalogue No: CHSA5253(2)
Label: Chandos
Length: 1 hour 54 minutes

Presto Recording of the Week

3rd July 2020
Presto Recordings of the Year

Finalist 2020

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Alwyn: Miss Julie

Work length1:54:41

$48.00

$62.40

$84.00

Benedict Nelson (bass-baritone), Anna Patalong (soprano), Rosie Aldridge (mezzo-soprano), Samuel Sakker (tenor)
The BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo

Orchestral Introduction. Allegro

Track length1:04

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Miss Julie Is Crazy

Track length1:36

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But the Count

Track length4:41

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By God, I'm Thirsty!

Track length3:18

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Kristin, Kristin, Kristin!

Track length2:28

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Well, I've Travelled Around

Track length4:28

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There's a New Dance Starting

Track length2:01

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You Know Why I Came Here Tonight?

Track length1:48

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Midsummer Night, O, Night of Magic

Track length3:38

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I'm Ready, Jean!

Track length0:38

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Orchestral Introduction. Andante sostenuto

Track length2:32

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Kristin, Kristin

Track length3:45

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Now You Can Kiss My Hand

Track length2:33

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That Wouldn't Do, Either

Track length3:51

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I Have No Time for Dreams

Track length2:02

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Would You Like Me to Dance

Track length0:52

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Playing with Fire

Track length1:57

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You Don't Know What It Is to Be Poor

Track length1:42

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But You Can Rise, Jean

Track length1:55

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A Lady Went a-Roaming

Track length3:00

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She's the Queen of the Dance

Track length1:52

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You Can Come Out Now

Track length1:51

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I Know, I Know

Track length4:02

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I Can't, Not While We're Still in This House

Track length3:15

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Orchestral Introduction. Lento

Track length2:37

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Never Again!

Track length3:32

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Now Don't Lose Your Head

Track length3:34

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Scum on the Surface of Water

Track length3:20

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If You Want Me Again

Track length4:06

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If I Only Had Enough Money

Track length2:35

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You Sound So Cruel, Jean

Track length1:36

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Orchestral Interlude. Allegro precipitoso

Track length0:59

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Has She Gone?

Track length0:47

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Whatever You Say, I Know You Were Here with the Mistress

Track length1:38

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Class Is Class, and Don't You Forget It

Track length1:22

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We'll Get Married

Track length1:02

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A Pretty Domestic Scene!

Track length1:05

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I Knew I Was Right!

Track length1:40

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There's Someone Upstairs

Track length1:45

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I'm Ready Now, Jean

Track length2:07

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What the Devil Is That?

Track length1:51

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He's Killed Her, Killed Her!

Track length2:33

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You're Mad! You're Both Mad!

Track length4:55

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Well, Well! So You're Going to Elope!

Track length1:15

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The Count's Back!

Track length1:09

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You Can Go, but I Can't

Track length3:56

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I Must Be Dreaming

Track length2:30

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Kiss Me. Before I Go!

Track length1:58

$1.00

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$1.75

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Interview, Anna Patalong and Benedict Nelson on Miss Julie

20th August 2020

The British soprano and baritone (and real-life couple) discuss bringing William Alwyn's unjustly neglected opera to life last year for a concert-performance at the Barbican followed by a studio recording, released on Chandos last month.

Recording of the Week, William Alwyn's Miss Julie from Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra

3rd July 2020

Real-life husband-and-wife Anna Patalong and Benedict Nelson star in the English composer's 1977 opera, based on Strindberg's great naturalistic drama from 1888.

‘Why has this intense, brilliantly orchestrated, claustrophobically gripping masterpiece been so neglected since its 1977 premiere?’ asked Richard Morrison in The Times of the concert performance in the Barbican that preceded this recording. Miss Julie is Alwyn’s last large-scale work, written in 1973-76. Alwyn set his own libretto, based on Strindberg’s 1888 play of that title. The naturalistic drama and lifelike characters of that play appealed to Alwyn from an early age – in fact, he previously attempted to compose an opera on Miss Julie in the 1950s. That attempt failed, because of differences with his then librettist, Christopher Hassall. Alwyn believed that in opera, the action should be self-explanatory, arias should serve a dramatic purpose (as opposed to sheer vocal display), characters should sing to each other and not to the audience, ensembles should be minimised and the text should be set to vocal lines that reflect natural speech patterns. These views were distilled over his extensive career as a film composer, which taught him that music could do more than establish characterisation, suggest mood, and heighten atmosphere: in some cases it could also communicate the unspoken thoughts of an onscreen character even when these were at odds with what he or she was presenting visually. Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra support an outstanding cast featuring Anna Patalong in the title role in this acclaimed revival of Alwyn’s neglected masterpiece.

Reviews

August 2020

Though not all the musical ideas are equally strong, the finely-crafted result possesses undeniable tension and dramatic potency…The performance itself conveys clear conviction. Anna Patalong sketches in a troubled, vacillating Miss Julie while Benedict Nelson provides a forceful presence as the superficially good-natured valet…The BBC Symphony Orchestra proves unfailingly adept. Sakari Oramo charts a secure course through the score’s heady, hot-house emotional world.

3rd July 2020

It is sensationally gripping…

There is a highly strung, obsessive streak to the music that could come straight out of Vertigo, and how heartening it is to find an English composer writing with such passion...it is well sung by the two leads, Anna Patalong and Benedict Nelson, and conducted with urgency by Sakari Oramo.

3rd July 2020

Patalong sings the title-role with a compelling combination of hauteur, wild sensuality and nervy fragility which put me in mind of Gillian Anderson’s Blanche in the National Theatre’s A Streetcar Named Desire…Nelson learned the role of Jean at 48 hours’ notice, but he conveys the character’s manipulative charm, erotic charge and almost psychopathic coldness with such force and assurance that it sounds as if it had been in his repertoire for years.

9th August 2020

Patalong is a charismatic Julie, delivering her neurotic, angular lines with forebodings of suicidal hysteria, and Benedict Nelson, a late replacement as Jean, matches her with his crystal-clear diction. We need to see this in the theatre.

26th July 2020

Alwyn’s gifts as a film composer translate stirringly to opera. The performers capture the work’s chilling immediacy, variously crazed, romantic and seedy, full of dissonant waltz and voluptuous orchestration. The tragic relationship between Patalong’s fervent Miss Julie and Nelson’s serpentine Jean, the valet, is winningly conveyed. Every word of the English libretto (Alwyn’s own) is clear. Highly recommended.

10th July 2020

Oramo’s dynamic account crackles with the kind of electricity usually associated with authentic live performance. Anna Patalong’s tones as Julie may not always be pretty, but they’re psychologically honest: this character isn’t playing hostess at a tea party...[Nelson] plays the valet Jean with a brazen authority especially rare for a singer parachuted into the cast at short notice.

Offer,Alwyn: Miss Julie

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Contents

Interview, Anna Patalong and Benedict Nelson on Miss Julie

Recording of the Week, William Alwyn's Miss Julie from Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra

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