KVT – Ludwig at Nha Hat Lon
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If Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture had been played at the Opera House this week we’d have been transported back to 1807 and a private concert hosted by Prince Franz Joseph Von Lokowitz, probably at his palace in Vienna where he’d had a magnificent concert room built on the first floor. On that special March evening we’d have also listened to the premiere of the composer’s Piano Concerto No 4 and his Fourth Symphony.
It was easy, in the confines of Nha Hat Lon, to stare up at the trompe d’oeil sky on the domed ceiling and imagine you may have beenin the palace, and if you had been it is possible that the Piano Concerto and the Symphony would have been played with the same gusto and sympathy.
Energetic and vivacious conductor Christoph Campestrini had the orchestra in fine control and if their playing continues in the same vein they’ll reach a Fansipan peak during their demanding schedule this year….hopefully with Mahler’s 8th. It must be so difficult to arrive in a place like Hanoi and attempt to encourage a group of musicians to interpret the music just as you want it. If the smiles on the faces of the conductor and the orchestra’s leaders and principals at the conclusion of both pieces (and they obviously weren’t smiles of relief) were any indication, then a good degree of collaborative harmony had been reached.
Young Japanese pianist Hibiki Tamura was excellent and the Concerto a piece of magic under his fingers. You wish you could have been a fly on the wall (with big ears of course) when he played for a select group of VIP’s on Friday evening.
The Symphony always receives less attention than its predecessor the Eroica and its big brother, the Fifth, and although it is less dramatic it’s my favorite…if played as well as it was by the VNSO….so huge thanks Maestro Campestrini.
The two encores were tremendous fun and full of delicious verve and though I’m not a big fan of Strauss’ Pizzicato Polka due to overexposure to it as a kid, I learned to love it again…with as much enjoyment as the string players.
This is the year to keep your eyes on the VNSO and get to as much of their stuff as you can, and it’s only 300,000VND for the best seats at the Opera House (but not in the aisle seats downstairs if you want to avoid the annoying TV camera men and their tripods and clicks) and only 50,000 for seats at the best acoustic venue in town when they do their chamber music and ensemble specialities at L’Espace (the next this month on 26 and 27).
| Not a reviewer, not a critic, “Kiếm Văn Tìm” is an interested, impartial and informed observer and connoisseur of the Hanoi art scene who offers highly opinionated remarks and is part of the long and venerable tradition of anonymous correspondents. Please add your thoughts in the comment field below. |
I love the Hanoi Opera House and feel transported whenever I sit there listening to any programme it has to offer, but I think we should not forget that the Opera House is just that – an OPERA house – or, as it is called in Vietnamese – a THEATRE (Nha Hat). For me there is nothing better than to see it being used as it was intended to be – for opera, ballet and drama.
So when is someone going to build us a real concert hall in Hanoi? And by concert hall I really do mean concert hall and not a meeting room or exhibition centre (where, by the way, the Mahler Symphony Number 8 is scheduled to be performed in October!!)
If only we had been able to hear this Beethoven concert, and the marvellous ninth symphony before it) played by the wonderful VNSO in a hall designed for that purpose. I do not know what the Lobkowitz palace room where the first performance of the Symphony number 4 took place, was like, but I would like to bet it was not a theatre with a stage and proscenium arch.
It does not have to be on the scale of the Esplanade in Singapore, but doesn’t the VNSO – and the music itself, deserve a purpose-built home? I know the Conservatory of Music is building something at the moment, but this will not be a truly public Arts Centre (nor should it be! Rather, it should function as a training ground for students). Hanoi needs a concert hall, – a place were we can really appreciate symphonic music, chamber music and recitals. And at 300,000vnd a ticket and with full houses, such a place would surely soon pay for itself – that is assuming they could develop a better marketing and box office operation than the Opera House currently has!