Dove: Siren Song

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Jonathan Dove's one acter, first given by Almeida Opera 14 years ago, is a gem of a piece from a composer who rarely puts a foot wrong in the opera house. Henk Guittart conducting the Siren... — BBC Music Magazine, July 2008, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 28th Apr 2008
Catalogue No: CHAN10472
Label: Chandos
Length: 77 minutes

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Dove: Siren Song, Scene 1

Work length8:54

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Henk Guittart, Siren Ensemble, Brad Cooper, Amaryllis Dieltiens

Dear Diana, dear Diana, my name is Davey Palmer (Davey)

Track length4:32

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Davey … Davey … (Diana, Davey)

Track length2:31

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You mention you're a sailor (Diana, Davey)

Track length1:51

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Dove: Siren Song, Scene 2

Work length6:52

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Henk Guittart, Siren Ensemble, Brad Cooper, Amaryllis Dieltiens

I like chocolate, I like shopping (Diana, Davey)

Track length6:52

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Dove: Siren Song, Scene 3

Work length2:41

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Henk Guittart, Siren Ensemble, Brad Cooper, Mattijs van de Woerd

Dave Palmer? Jonathan Reed, Diana's brother (Jonathan, Davey)

Track length2:41

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Dove: Siren Song, Scene 4

Work length6:02

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Henk Guittart, Siren Ensemble, Brad Cooper, Amaryllis Dieltiens

Dear Diana. Dear Diana (Davey, Diana)

Track length2:50

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I dream of a house and a garden (Davey, Diana)

Track length3:12

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Dove: Siren Song, Scene 5

Work length3:55

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Henk Guittart, Siren Ensemble, Amaryllis Dieltiens, Brad Cooper

Davey, Davey, when I'm your wife… (Diana)

Track length2:25

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Oh! Oh! (Davey, Diana)

Track length1:30

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Dove: Siren Song, Scene 6

Work length1:46

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Henk Guittart, Siren Ensemble, Brad Cooper, Mattijs van de Woerd, John Edward Serrano

Hello? Hello? This is Davey (Davey, Jonathan, Wireless Operator)

Track length1:46

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Dove: Siren Song, Scene 7

Work length6:26

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Henk Guittart, Siren Ensemble, Brad Cooper, Mattijs van de Woerd

Is she still in hospital? (Davey, Jonathan)

Track length3:33

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Sure, I'll give you an education (Jonathan, Davey)

Track length2:53

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Dove: Siren Song, Scene 8

Work length6:26

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Henk Guittart, Siren Ensemble, Brad Cooper, Mattijs van de Woerd, Mark Omvlee

Palmer, it's your ship-to-shore (Regulator, Davey, Jonathan)

Track length6:26

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Dove: Siren Song, Scene 9

Work length4:39

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Henk Guittart, Siren Ensemble, Brad Cooper, Mattijs van de Woerd

A dream house, Diana! (Davey, Jonathan)

Track length3:11

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I'm hungry, my feet hurt (Davey, Jonathan)

Track length1:28

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Dove: Siren Song, Scene 10

Work length2:40

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Henk Guittart, Siren Ensemble, Brad Cooper, Mark Omvlee

Is she there? (Regulator, Davey)

Track length2:40

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Dove: Siren Song, Scene 11

Work length8:00

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Henk Guittart, Siren Ensemble, Brad Cooper, Mattijs van de Woerd

Did you see the flamingos? (Jonathan, Davey)

Track length5:43

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Very soon she'll be with you (Jonathan, Davey)

Track length2:17

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Dove: Siren Song, Scene 12

Work length6:21

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Henk Guittart, Siren Ensemble, Mattijs van de Woerd, Mark Omvlee, Marijn Zwitserlood, Brad Cooper, Amaryllis Dieltiens

Captain, there's something funny (Regulator, Captain, Jonathan)

Track length3:25

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I love you, Jonathan? (Captain, Regulator, Davey, Jonathan, Diana)

Track length2:56

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Dove: Siren Song, Scene 13

Work length1:40

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Henk Guittart, Siren Ensemble, Brad Cooper, Mattijs van de Woerd

Say it again (Davey, Jonathan)

Track length1:40

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Dove: Siren Song, Scene 14

Work length2:03

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Henk Guittart, Siren Ensemble, Brad Cooper, Mark Omvlee, Marijn Zwitserlood

Off cap! (Regulator, Davey, Captain)

Track length2:03

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Dove: Siren Song, Scene 15

Work length1:40

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Henk Guittart, Siren Ensemble, Mattijs van de Woerd, Mark Omvlee

This is Stone (Regulator, Jonathan)

Track length1:40

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Dove: Siren Song, Scene 16

Work length3:53

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Henk Guittart, Siren Ensemble, Brad Cooper, Mattijs van de Woerd, Mark Omvlee, Marijn Zwitserlood

I don't believe you (Davey, Captain, Regulator, Jonathan)

Track length3:53

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Dove: Siren Song, Scene 17

Work length3:22

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Henk Guittart, Siren Ensemble, Brad Cooper, Amaryllis Dieltiens

On the ocean keep a look-out (Davey, Diana)

Track length3:22

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About
Reviews
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About

Siren Song, by the British composer Jonathan Dove, is a chamber opera about the longing for love and the susceptibility to deception, which here receives its world premiere recording. Dove is best known for his operas, including Flight, which also received its premiere recording on Chandos and was applauded by the critics. The recording was made live at performances that took place at the 2007 Grachtenfestival in Amsterdam, where Dove was the composer-in-residence. The Siren Ensemble, specially formed for these performances, consists of ten young, talented musicians, most of whom have appeared at the festival in previous years. The Australian tenor Brad Cooper, who recently made his ENO debut in The Coronation of Poppea and will shortly appear in La traviata for the Nationale Reisopera in The Netherlands, takes the lead role of Davey. Henk Guittart, best known for his work as the violist of the Schoenberg Quartet, conducts.

The opera is based on a bizarre, true story. A young sailor on HMS Ark Royal exchanges letters with a beautiful and successful model personally unknown to him, yet with whom he becomes infatuated. Over time a romantic and passionate relationship develops, yet a meeting is increasingly difficult to arrange and Davey proves to be the victim of an elaborate deception. The composer writes, ‘When I first came across the true story which inspired Siren Song, I knew it had to become an opera. What initially appears to be a simple story of a sailor duped by a con-man turns out to have surprising depths… it is a story about the power of the imagination, and how we invent the people we love’. The Almeida Opera in London liked the idea, and commissioned Dove to write it. In 1994 Siren Song played to packed houses, received rave reviews, and attracted considerable attention. For Opera Now Rachel Connolly wrote, ‘The closely-woven, almost minimalist texture of Siren Song never once lacks dramatic momentum. The musical language is immediately accessible, belying, one suspects, a complexity of rhythm and harmony… If I was planning on introducing a beginner to opera, this is one I would choose’, while Alexander Waugh, in the Evening Standard, had this to say, ‘Siren Song is decidedly the most enjoyable contemporary opera I have seen for a very long time’. Of this production, Dove writes, ‘I was thrilled with the Grachtenfestival performances, staged with eloquent simplicity by Jim Lucassen and beautifully conducted by Henk Guittart. And I am delighted that, thanks to Chandos, Diana can once more be heard luring unwary sailors to their destruction’.

Reviews

July 2008

Jonathan Dove's one acter, first given by Almeida Opera 14 years ago, is a gem of a piece from a composer who rarely puts a foot wrong in the opera house. Henk Guittart conducting the Siren Ensemble… relishes the simple subtleties of Dove's score: from the arresting opening, with an insistent xylophone over dark rising chords, to the echoes of a Gamelan Orchestra and shimmering bell-like sounds, when Davey the sailor lands respectively in Singapore and Bali. Brad Cooper is magnificent as the innocent sailor.

2010

Not since Benjamin Britten has a British composer succeeded in writing operas which communicate with such clarity and coherence to their audience as those by Jonathan Dove. The secret to his success lies partly in his experiences of writing 'community' operas, resulting in refreshingly open and accessible works. But there's also plenty of grit and grime beneath the polished veneer of his streamlined style, especially when the plot is as equally compelling and disturbing as it is in Siren Song.
The opera recounts the true story of a Royal Navy sailor (Davey) who becomes the victim of an elaborate hoax. Duped by means of letter exchanges into believing that the beautiful and alluring Diana lies waiting for him on terra firma upon completing Navy service, the hapless sailor parts with thousands of pounds in anticipation of marital bliss, all of which lines the pockets of Jonathan, the perpetrator of this ruse.
Dove's dramatic skill lies in his ability to create a seamless continuity by weaving cell-like musical figures from one scene to the next. His subtle manipulation of an undulating pattern first heard in the opening seascape scene is adapted to accompany a whole host of other states and situations. Given the seafaring setting, it's hardly surprising that echoes of Debussy's Lamer, Britten's Peter Grimes and Adams's TheDeath of Klinghoffer rise to the surface. Dove also shares with the latter composer an ability to generate large-scale structures from the simplest of musical means. But it is testimony to the Englishman's eclecticism that he skilfully appropriates such references into a language undeniably his own.
This live recording possesses its fair share of onstage clanks and offstage coughs, but at least they all lend an air of vraisemblance to proceedings, and the opera's rapid descent into the depths of deceit and desperation is effectively portrayed, despite the absence of visuals.

August 2008

Not since Benjamin Britten has a British composer succeeded in writing operas which communicate with such clarity and coherence to their audience as those by Jonathan Dove. …the opera's rapid descent into the depths of deceit and desperation is effectively portrayed.

27th April 2008

Dove’s score is fluent and eclectic, and he evokes place and feeling with pinpoint accuracy. The cast is excellent, as is the playing of the purpose-built Siren Ensemble under Guittart.

17th May 2008

This recording, made at last summer's production at the Amsterdam Grachtenfestival, is expertly paced, and Dove's Adams-inspired sound-world is evocatively conjured up by the small chamber ensemble.
The live nature of the recording does mean that some of the singing sounds too backward in the aural picture, but Brad Cooper's besotted Davey comes across well, as do the wily persuasive powers of Mattijs van de Woerd's conman.

Offer,Dove: Siren Song

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