The August bank holiday weekend has become a high point in the BBC
Proms summer calendar. As they crowd the airports on the way out of the
country, British holidaymakers should not be surprised to find themselves
elbowing their way through an army of cellos, double-basses and
trombones on the way in.
On Tuesday it was the turn of the Kirov Orchestra under Valery Gergiev.
Here was the antithesis of the Japanese visitors, an orchestra that
invariably gives the impression of flying by the seat of its pants, but has
expressiveness deep in its bones. Never one to miss an opportunity,
Gergiev delivered a programme of super-romantic monstrosities.
Schoenberg's Pelleas und Melisande received a splendidly flamboyant
performance, though the Kirov's fine brass section was granted unlimited
dominance in its raised position at the back of the stage. Skryabin's
Prometheus: The Poem of Fire,a gargantuan tone-poem big on ideas but
modest on achievement, threw together Alexander Toradze's noisy piano
solo, the Crouch End Festival Chorus and a half-hearted light display.
Turning the Albert Hall organ pink hardly matches Skryabin's call for a
dazzling transcendental light at the end.
Then Vladimir Vaneyev was the
rather pale baritone soloist in Wotan's Farewell from Wagner's Die Walkure
-more fire music to ensure complete conflagration by the end of the evening.
At least Gergiev was on his usual heated form and his orchestra performs
marvels trying to keep up with him. A shame that the hall was far from full.
Maybe word of the Kirov's less-than-successful Verdi season at the Royal
Opera House earlier in the summer had got around.
