venus and adonis - elizabeth kenny

John BlowVenus and Adonis

Theatre of the Ayredirected byElizabeth Kenny

0043 CD Booklet RPM.qxd 06-12-2010 09:43

Theatre of the Ayre Elizabeth KennyJOHN BLOW

01 Cloe found Amintas lying (A Song for Three Voices) 06.2002 Ground in G minor for violin and continuo 03.56

MICHEL LAMBERT03 Vos mépris chaque jour me causent mille alarmes 03.41

ROBERT DE VISÉE04 Chaconne 05.12

JOHN BLOWVenus and Adonis

05 OVERTURE 03.37

PROLOGUE06 Cupid ‘Behold my arrows and my bow’ 07.0007 Cupid’s Entry 01.1408 Tune for Flutes 02.33

ACT 109 Adonis ‘Venus!’ 02.2710 Hunters’ Music 03.5111 Chorus ‘Come follow, follow to the noblest game’ 02.3212 A Dance by a Huntsman 01.1913 Act Tune 01.54

ACT 214 Cupid ‘You place with such delightful care’ 01.5615 The Cupids’ Lesson 03.03

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Cupid and the little Cupids ‘The insolent, the arrogant’16 A Dance of the Cupids 01.2817 Venus ‘Call the Graces’ 01.0818 Chorus of the Graces ‘Mortals below, Cupids above’ 01.2219 The Graces’ Dance 01.2620 Gavatt 00.4621 Saraband for the Graces 01.2222 A Ground 01.5223 Act Tune 02.39

ACT 324 Venus ‘Adonis!’ 05.0325 Venus ‘With solemn pomp let mourning Cupids bear’ 07.05

Theatre of the Ayre Elizabeth Kenny director/theorbo/guitar

Venus Sophie DanemanAdonis Roderick WilliamsCupid Elin Manahan Thomas

Soprano and shepherdess Helen NeevesAlto and shepherd Caroline SartinTenor and huntsman Jason DarnellBass and shepherd Frederick Long

Cupids from Salisbury Cathedral Girls’ Choir, coached by Director of Music David Halls, withkind permission of the Dean and Chapter Grace Beverley, Flora Davies, Kelly Frost,Hermione Leitch, Rebecca Lyles, Helena Mackie, Georgiana Roxburgh, Rosanna Wicks

violins Rachel Podger, Clare Salaman viola Galina Zinchenkobass violin and viol Alison McGillivrayrecorders Pamela Thorby, Kate Latham, Merlin Harrisontheorboes/guitars Elizabeth Kenny, David Millerharpsichord James Johnstone

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Venus and Adonis, Blow’s masterpiece, is the lastmasque ever composed for the Stuart courtand, though in effect a miniature all-sung opera,retained some traces of earlier masquing con-ventions, one of which was the participation ofroyalty. It therefore stands at the cross-roads ofmasque and opera, and is yet more important forhaving subsequently served Purcell as the modelfor Dido and Aeneas. Its date is uncertain, but DrSandra Tuppen of the British Library has recentlyfound evidence pointing to Shrovetide 1683,which fits with the style of the music and the ageof the youngest member of the cast – its only royalmember, if a slightly down-at-heel one. Lady MaryTudor, who played Cupid, was the illegitimatedaughter of Charles II and a retired actress namedMoll Davies, who played Venus. The librettist,long and frustratingly elusive, was identified onlytwo years ago by Professor James Winn of BostonUniversity as Anne Kingsmill (subsequentlymarried as Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea),who was a Maid of Honour to Maria Beatrice ofModena, the wife of Charles II’s brother Jamesand a keen enthusiast for opera. Much of thesecond act of the masque, which is unconnectedwith the plot, deals instead with the duties of theMaids of Honour, represented on stage by theGraces.

The conventional Prologue, too, is unconnec-ted with the myth, presenting a conversation –about the vicissitudes of love, naturally –between Cupid and a group of shepherds andshepherdesses, and including some ravishing

lyrical music plus a couple of contrasting dances(essential masque ingredients). The scene is setfor Act I with a sensuously writhing tune scoredfor recorders, instruments specifically associatedwith love and sex. The embraces of Venus andAdonis, vividly depicted in their music, areinterrupted by the sounds of huntsmen’s horns,but – in a reversal of the myth – Adonis, urged byVenus to join the hunt, is reluctant to do so, andagrees only when the huntsmen arrive on stageand ask him to lead them against a mighty boar.

In Act II, the boudoir interlude, Venus coachesCupid and the Little Cupids in the cunning arts ofmaking perverse love-matches, and the Gracesliterally dance attendance upon Venus. The actconcludes with a string of courtly dances whichmay be a vestige of the revels, the social danceswhich concluded the Jacobean and Carolinemasque; the last of them is a particularlyimposing ground-bass number – a fine exampleof the Grand Dance which ends many of Lully’scontemporaneous entertainments for Louis XIV.Then the mood suddenly darkens from comedyand grace into tragedy. For Venus’s heartbrokenfarewell to Adonis, mortally wounded by the boar,Blow created some of the most gloriouslyeloquent declamatory music ever composed inEngland, and a mourning chorus of cupids whoseexpressive power was unprecedented in Englishdramatic music.

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BLOW: VENUS AND ADONIS


The discovery that Venus and Adonis had afemale librettist starts a train of thinkingabout the female voice in what is at first glancea very male dominated – not to say stereo-typically chauvinist – corner of English music, theRestoration. Add in the powerful image of Venusand Cupid being sung not by a female and acheeky young boy, but by a retired actor-singer-royal mistress and her daughter glowing on thecusp of adolescence and you have a telling insightinto the nature of female power structures whichgive this masque-opera an entirely different feelto its cousin, Dido and Aeneas. Both Didoand Venus are the authors of their own fates,but Nahum Tate’s Dido follows the – traditionalmale? – view of an out-of-control heroine, where-as in Kingsmill’s reworking of the classical story itis Venus’ realism and clear-eyed wish to preservea no-longer-youthful passion which sends themboth to ruin. She send Adonis off to hunt andto his doom because she needs to stay andattend to her ‘magazine of beauty’, and does notwish her middle-aged lover to tire, a piece ofsatire against Adonis (for which contemporaryaudiences would have read Charles) whichperhaps only a female writer could get away with(and which was tactfully re-written for thesensibilities of Josias Priest’s girls school, whereVenus, like Dido, was later performed). Thelibretto treads an uneasy line between worldlycynicism and a rejection of the same: Cupidrolls out the courtiers-are-faithless line at theaudience’s expense in the Prologue, but Venus

movingly declares despite the artifices to whichsuch an environment leads, she gives him ‘freelyall delights / With pleasant days and easy nights’.

In Act II Venus rehearses Cupid’s lessons and,in a parody of the teaching which was John Blow’sday job with the Children of the Chapel Royal, theyare dutifully passed on to Little Cupids. But astunning reversal comes when it is Venus whoasks Cupid how to keep hold of Adonis, and thegirl replies ‘use him very ill’. This is a stock treat-ment but, significantly an abandonment of Venus’own ‘free’ philosophy. Blow used almost thesame notes for her manic laughter – albeit a lotfaster – as will reappear as her unhinged howl atthe end of the story. With this exchange Venus hasceded authority to Cupid, a culture has embracedcynicism rather than the opposite, and nothingwill be the same again. The young can be as cal-lous as they like, because they have the magazineof beauty without even trying. Usually male loverslike the ‘decoying’ shepherds in Dryden/Purcell’sKing Arthur are in the driving seat, but in thislibretto it is the female desire that comes first: ‘Towarm desires the women nature moves, / Andevery youthful swain by nature loves.’ In the realworld this power doesn’t get them very far.

The first half of this recording is a brief tasteof the sound world of Restoration chamberperformance, whose resources Blow used to fulleffect in Venus. We open with the teasinglytheatrical Cloe found Amintas lying. Blow hadwritten this for countertenors, but included it inAmphion Anglicus – his retrospective collection of

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vocal music published in 1700 – in a version forsopranos, catering to a demand for songs forfemale voices. As was customary, the parts weresimply printed an octave higher, producing atessitura more comfortable for bats (though inthis performance it is transposed downward forthe comfort of performers and listeners alike!).The cunningly wrought cyclic scheme of Dryden'spoem, whose subtitle is ‘A Roundelay’, allowsBlow full scope for reiterating the sensuouspassage that depicts a kiss.

Blow, like Purcell, was a master of that new-fangled Italian genre, the ground (or reiterated)bass. The Ground in G minor (track 2) also existsas a trio sonata; this version for solo violin wasdiscovered in the Bodleian Library by ElizabethHirst. The bass is subjected to splendidlyresourceful treatment in the violin part, includingvigorous and varied figuration, several sly andunexpected twists of harmony, some unexpecteduse of double-stopping (still a fairly noveltechnique at the time), and, in the final variation,a succession of wrenching dissonances worthy ofPurcell at his best.

Venus and Adonis – like the masque Calistoin which Mary Davies starred in a predominantlyfemale cast in 1675 – draws on a tradition ofhighly accomplished girl and women singers towhich many manuscripts full of ornate sophisti-cated songs attest. One such, Anne Blount’scollection of the 1650s, has French songs byMichel Lambert set alongside Italian ayres andworks by leading singers Henry Lawes and CharlesColeman. (Vos mespris chaque jour, track 3, is a

headily sensous song set over a ground bass.)Lambert played the theorbo and sometimes sanghis own songs but he also performed alongsideHiliare Dupuy, his sister-in-law and the sopranostar of Louis XIII’s court. Like Blow, Lambert usedthe symphony song form – songs interspersedwith instrumental ritornelli – in his 1689 collec-tion, Ayres a une, ii, ii et iv voix avec la bassecontinue. Theorbo, lute and guitar player Robertde Visée worked both in this sort of exclusiveintimate circle for Charles’s cousin and rolemodel, Louis XIV, and in the theatre of Lully andMolière.

Charles’s taste in instrumental and dancemusic was also informed by his desire to importFrench cultural prestige to his own court. Heformed his own vingt quatre violons du Roy andpromoted French wind instruments including therecorder. The impact of three of them, headed upby James Paisible – who was in the same employas Anne Kingsmill at the time Venus was put on –must have been sensational. Peter Lely painted abeautiful picture of Mary Davies with her guitar(reproduced on the back page of this booklet).Teaming up as she did with Paisible soon afterVenus and Adonis, the link between the amorousflute and soft guitar immortalized in Purcell’s StCecilia Ode of 1692 was born.

Notes by Bruce Wood and Elizabeth Kenny © 2011


Research informing this performance was supported by Arts Council England andSHM Foundation, a charitable trust that works globally to bring about positivesocial change through the active involvement and empowerment of citizens.

The music for Venus and Adonis, edited by Bruce Wood for the Purcell Society, ispublished by Stainer & Bell Ltd (Purcell Society Companion Series, Vol. 2, 2008).

This is its first recording.

www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/live

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Also available on Wigmore Hall Livefrom all good record shops and from www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/live

NOT JUST DOWLANDSongs for soprano and luteCarolyn SampsonMatthew WadsworthWHLive0034‘Carolyn Sampson’s pure soprano cossets thewords, savouring their expressive implications,relishing their shifts of rhythm and subtly sighingwith bliss, yearning or heartache depending on thecircumstances’ (The Daily Telegraph) ‘Together[Sampson and Wadsworth] weave a superbtapestry of little-known 17th-century vocal music’(The Independent)


JOHN BLOW (1649–1708)01 Cloe found Amintas lying

All in tears upon the plain,Sighing to himself, and crying:‘Wretched I, to love in vain!Kiss me, dear, before my dying;Kiss me once, and ease my pain!’Sighing to himself, and crying:‘Wretched I, to love in vain!Ever scorning, and denyingTo reward your faithful swain;Kiss me, dear, before my dying;Kiss me once, and ease my pain!’‘Ever scorning, and denyingTo reward your faithful swain!’Cloe, laughing at his crying,Told him that he lov’d in vain.‘Kiss me, dear, before my dying;Kiss me once, and ease my pain!’Cloe, laughing at his crying,Told him that he lov’d in vain.But repenting, and complying,When he kiss’d, she kiss’d again,Kiss’d him up, before his dying,Kiss’d him up, and eas’d his pain.

(John Dryden, 1631–1700)

02 Ground in G minor

MICHEL LAMBERT (1610–1696)03 Vos méspris chaque jour me causent mille alarmes,

Mais je chéris mon sort, bien qu’il soit rigoureux.Hélas! Si dans mes mauz je trouve tant de charmes,Je mourrais de plaisir, si j’étais plus heureux.

(Anonymous)

Each day your contempt causes me a thousand anxieties.But I love my fate, however harsh it may be.Alas! If I find so many delights in my misfortune,I would die of pleasure if I were any happier.

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ROBERT DE VISÉE (c. 1655–1732/3)04 Chaconne for 2 theorbos

JOHN BLOWVenus and Adonis

05 OVERTURE

PROLOGUEThe curtain is drawn, where is discovered Cupid,

with a bow in one hand and an arrow in theother hand, and arrows by his side, and round himshepherds and shepherdesses. Cupid bows andsings.

06 Cupid Behold my arrows and my bow;And I desire my art to show.No one’s bosom shall be found,Ere I have done, without a wound,But it would be the greatest artTo shoot myself into your heart.Thither with both my wings I’ll move:Pray entertain the God of Love.

Shepherdess Come, shepherds all, let’s sing and play:Be willing, lovesome, fond and gay.

Chorus of shepherds and shepherdessesCome, shepherdesses, sing and play:Be willing, lovesome, fond and gay.

1st Shepherd She who those soft hours misuses,And a begging swain refuses,When she would the time recover,May she have a feeble lover.

Shepherdess The best of the Celestial Pow’rsIs come to give us happy hours.

Chorus The best …

2nd Shepherd Oh let him not from hence remove

Shepherdess Till ev’ry bosom’s full of love.


Chorus Oh let him not …

Cupid Courtiers, there is no faith in you,You change as often as you can;Your women they continue trueBut till they see another man.

3rd Shepherd Cupid, hast thou many foundLong in the same fetters bound?

Cupid At court I find constant and trueOnly an aged lord or two.

3rd Shepherd Who do their empire longest hold?

Cupid The foolish, ugly, and the old.In these sweet groves love is not taught,Beauty and pleasure is not bought;To warm desires the women nature moves,And ev’ry youthful swain by nature loves.

Chorus In these sweet groves …

Whilst this chorus is singing a shepherd andshepherdess dance to it.

Cupid Lovers, to the close shades retire:Do what your kindest thoughts inspire.

[Exeunt omnes]

07 ‘Cupid’s Entry’. The curtain closes. The end of theprologue.

08 Tune for Flutes

ACT IThe curtain opens and discovers Venus and Adonis

sitting together upon a couch, embracing oneanother.

09 Adonis Venus!

Venus Adonis!

Adonis Venus, when shall ITaste soft delights, and on thy bosom lie?Let’s seek the shadiest covert of this grove,And never disappoint expecting love.

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Venus Adonis, thy delightful youthIs full of beauty and of truth:With thee the Queen of Love employsThe hours design’d for softer joys.

Adonis My Venus still has something new,Which forces lovers to be true.

Venus Me my lovely youth shall findAlways tender, ever kind.

10 ‘Hunters’ Music’. They rise from the couch whenthey hear the music.

Venus Hark, hark, the rural music sounds;Hark, hark the hunters, hark the hounds!They summon to the chase; haste, haste away!

Adonis Adonis will not hunt today:I have already caught the noblest prey.

Venus No, my shepherd, haste away.Absence kindles new desire:I would not have my lover tire.My shepherd, will you know the artBy which I keep a conquer’d heart?I seldom vex a lover’s earsWith business, or with jealous fears;I give him freely all delightsWith pleasant days and easy nights.

Adonis Yet there is a sort of menWho delight in heavy chains,Upon whom ill-usage gains;And they never love till then.

Venus Those are fools of mighty leisure:Wise men love the easiest pleasure.I give you freely all delightsWith pleasant days and easy nights.

Adonis Adonis will not hunt today.

Venus No, my shepherd, haste away.

Exit Venus. Enter Huntsmen to Adonis, and sing thisChorus.


Chorus of Huntsmen11 Come follow, follow to the noblest game;

Here the sprightly youth may purchase fame.

HuntsmanA mighty boar our spears and darts defies.He foams and rages; see, he woundsThe stoutest of our Cretan hounds.He roars like thunder, and he lightens from his eyes.You who the slothful joys of city hate,And early up for rougher pleasures wait,Next the delight which heav’nly beauty yields,Nothing, oh! nothing is so sweetAs for our huntsmen, that do meetWith able coursers and good hounds to range the fields.

Chorus of HuntsmenLachne has fasten’d first, but she is old;Bring hither Ladon, he is strong and bold.Hey, Lachne, hey, Melampus! Oh, they bleed!Your spears, your spears! Adonis, thou shalt lead.

[Exeunt singing]

12 ‘A Dance by a Huntsman’. The curtain closes.

13 Act Tune

ACT IIThe curtain opens and Venus and Cupid are seen

standing with little Cupids round about them.

14 Cupid You place with such delightful careThe fetters which your lovers wear.None can be weary to obeyWhen you their eager wishes bless;

[Points to the little Cupids]The crowding joys each other press,And round you smiling Cupids play.

[Venus takes Cupid into her lap]

Venus Flattering boy, hast thou been readingThose lessons and refined artsBy which thou may’st set a-bleedingA thousand tender hearts?

Cupid Yes, but mother, teach me to destroyAll such as scorn your wanton boy.

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Venus Fit well your arrows when you strike,And choose for all what each may like;But make some love they know not why,And for the ugly and ill-humour’d die.Such as scorn love’s fireForce them to admire.

15 ‘The Cupids’ Lesson’

Cupid and the little CupidsThe insolent, the arrogant,The M. E. R. Mer: C. E. Ce:

[Venus teaches Cupid to spell]Mer: Ce: N. A. Na: R. Y. Ry:The mercenary, the vain and silly,The jealous and uneasy: all such as tease ye.

Venus and the CupidsAll such as tease ye.

Cupid Choose for the formal foolWho scorns Love’s mighty schoolOne that delights in secret glances,And a great reader of romances.For him that’s faithless, wild and gay,Who with love’s pain does only play,Take some affected, wanton she,As faithless and as wild as he.

VenusBut, Cupid, how shall I make Adonis constant still?

Cupid Use him very ill. [Venus laughs]

Venus To play, my Loves, to play:’Tis Venus makes it holiday.

16 ‘A Dance of Cupids’After the dance the little Cupids play together at

hide and seek and at hot cockles till Cupidfrightens them off the stage with a vizard mask,and then they come on again (peeping) whenCupid calls the Graces, and join with them inthe chorus.

17 Venus Call the Graces.

Cupid Come, all ye Graces! ’Tis your dutyTo keep the magazine of beauty.


Venus ’Tis your dutyTo keep my magazine of beauty.

Enter the Graces.

Chorus of the Graces18 Mortals below, Cupids above,

Sing, sing the praises of the Queen of Love.The world for that bright beauty dies;Sing, sing the triumphs of her conqu’ring eyes.Hark! hark! ev’n Nature sighs: this joyful nightShe will beget desire and yield delight.

19 The Graces’ Dance

20 Gavatt

21 Sarabrand for the Graces

While the Graces dance, the Cupids dress Venus,one combing her head, another ties a braceletof pearls round her wrist &c.

22 A Ground

23 Act Tune

After the dances the curtain closes upon them.

ACT IIIThe curtain opens and discovers Venus standing in

a melancholy posture.

24 Venus Adonis! Adonis! Adonis!

A mourning Cupid goes across the stage andshakes an arrow at her.

Uncall’d for sighs from my sad bosom rise,And grief has the dominion of my eyes.A mourning Love pass’d by me now, that sungOf tombs, and urns, and ev’ry mournful thing.Return, Adonis, ’tis for thee I grieve.

Venus leans against the side of the stage andweeps. Adonis is led in wounded.

Adonis I come, as fast as Death will give me leave:Behold the wounds made by th’Ædalian boar!Faithful Adonis now must be no more.

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VenusAh! blood and warm life his rosy cheeks forsake.Alas! Death’s sleep thou art too young to take.My groans shall reach the heav’ns; O Pow’rs above,Take pity on the wretched Queen of Love!

Adonis Oh! I could well endure the pointed dart,Did it not make the best of lovers part.

Venus Ye cruel gods, why should not IHave the great privilege to die?

Adonis Love, mighty Love does my kind bosom fire;Shall I for want of vital heat expire?No, no! warm life returns, and Death’s afraidThis heart (Love’s faithful kingdom) to invade.

Venus No, the grim Monster gains the day;With thy warm blood life steals away.

AdonisI see Fate calls; let me on your soft bosom lie:There I did wish to live, and there I beg to die.

[Adonis dies]

Venus Ah, Adonis, my love, ah, Adonis!

Venus and Chorus25 With solemn pomp let mourning Cupids bear

My soft Adonis through the yielding air.He shall adorn the heav’ns; here I will weepTill I am fall’n into as cold a sleep.

Chorus Mourn for thy servant, mighty God of Love;Weep for your huntsman, O forsaken grove.Mourn, Echo, mourn: thou shalt no more repeatHis tender sighs and vows, when he did meetWith the wretched Queen of LoveIn this forsaken grove.

(Anne Kingsmill, later Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, 1661–1720)


THEATRE OF THE AYREElizabeth Kenny has always enjoyed collectiveimprovisation and working with singers, and hashad a longstanding love of English 17th-centurysong. A fellowship in the Creative and PerformingArts at Southampton University, funded by theArts and Humanities Research Council, enabledher to pursue ideas and experiments in theperformance of this repertoire with a number ofsinger and player collaborators. Together they

toured a project entitled the Masque of Momentsin 2007–8, and the group became the Theatre ofthe Ayre. The Masque of Moments was broadcastin the UK, Germany and Belgium and introducedaudience to lesser known corners of the masquerepertoire. This remains the group’s aim, re-inventing 17th-century works in a spirit of improvi-sation and, most importantly, entertainment.

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Elizabeth Kenny


ELIZABETH KENNYElizabeth Kenny is one of Europe’s leading luteplayers. Her playing has been described as‘incandescent, radical and indecently beautiful’,among many other accolades. In fifteen years oftouring she has played with many of the world’sbest period instrument groups and experiencedmany different approaches to music making. Shehas been appointed one of the four artisticadvisors to the York Early Music Festival from2011 to 2013. Her musical interests have led tocritically acclaimed recordings of Lawes, Purcell

and Dowland, with Robin Blaze, CarolynSampson, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlighten-ment (co-directed with Steven Devine and SarahConnolly) and Mark Padmore. A solo CD FlyingHorse: The ML Lutebook was released by HyperionRecords in 2009. Elizabeth Kenny taught for twoyears at the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin, isprofessor of lute at the Royal Academy of Music,and a lecturer in performance at SouthamptonUniversity.

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ELIN MANAHAN THOMASElin Manahan Thomas is fast becoming one ofBritain’s most popular young sopranos. She hasperformed in venues such as the Royal Albert Hall,Lincoln Center, Westminster Abbey and HetConcertgebouw Amsterdam. Her 2009 Signumrelease of Patrick Hawes’s Song of Songs was CDof the week on Classic FM. She is the first singerever to record Bach’s Alles mit Gott, discoveredin 2005. In 2008 she performed in the premiereof Tavener’s Requiem in Liverpool Cathedral(also recorded for EMI), and in 2009 she madeher debut at Wigmore Hall with the Academy ofAncient Music. Recent performances include BBCProms in the Park, a Songs of Praise Messiahspecial from Birmingham Town Hall, a galaconcert to close the Llangollen International

Eisteddfod and Fauré’s Requiem with the RoyalPhilharmonic. On television, Elin appeared inBBC2’s Birth of British Music and in BBC4’s highlyacclaimed series Sacred Music.

SOPHIE DANEMANSophie Daneman studied with Johanna Peters atthe Guildhall School of Music & Drama. She hasappeared with the Opéra Comique, NetherlandsOpera, Nationale Reisopera, Opéra de Lausanne,Bavarian State Opera and Göttingen HandelFestival, and in recital at Wigmore Hall, the QueenElizabeth Hall, Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam,Musikverein Vienna and Carnegie Hall New York.She sang Theodora with William Christie in NewYork, Paris and Salzburg, and Bernstein’s


Wonderful Town and her first Susanna (Le nozze diFigaro) for Grange Park Opera. Sophie Daneman’smany recordings include Theodora with WilliamChristie, Rodelinda with Nicholas Kraemer,Vivaldi’s Ottone in Villa with Richard Hickox,Schumann Lieder with Julius Drake and NoelCoward songs alongside Ian Bostridge. Engage-

ments include a recital tour with ChristianneStotijn in Spain and the Netherlands, recitalswith Ian Bostridge in London and Hohenems,Schoenberg’s Quartet Op. 10 with the TokyoString Quartet in Valencia and Madrid, and a tourof Lully’s Atys with Les Arts Florissants andWilliam Christie.

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Elizabeth Kenny with girl choristers of Salisbury Cathedral School


RODERICK WILLIAMSRoderick Williams encompasses a wide reper-toire, from baroque to contemporary music, inthe opera house, on the concert platform andin recital. He has enjoyed close relationshipswith Opera North and Scottish Opera, and isparticularly associated with the baritone roles ofMozart. In autumn 2007 he gave highly acclaimedperformances of Papageno (The Magic Flute) forEnglish National Opera and in 2008 sang in Labohème at Covent Garden. He has worked withorchestras throughout Europe, including all theBBC orchestras in the UK, and his many festivalappearances include the Proms, Edinburgh,

Cheltenham and Aldeburgh. His recent engage-ments include a revival of The Magic Flute atENO, Il barbiere di Siviglia for Florida GrandOpera, a European tour of Handel’s Messiah, andperformances of Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrendenGesellen at La Scala Milan. Future engagementsinclude Le nozze di Figaro for Scottish Opera, NedKeene (Peter Grimes) at Covent Garden and Polluxin Rameau’s Castor and Pollux for ENO, as wellas concerts with the BBC National Orchestra ofWales, the Hallé and the Ensemble Orchestral deParis.

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Engineered by Steve PortnoiProduced by Jeremy HayesRecorded live at Wigmore Hall, London, on 3 May 2010Director: John GilhoolyWigmore Hall Live — General Manager: Helen GrangerPhotograph of choristers on p. 14 courtesy of Salisbury CathedralAll other photography by Benjamin EalovegaManufactured by Repeat Performance Multimedia, London


WHLive0043Made & Printed in England

Portrait of Mrs Moll Davies, mistress of Charles II, flowers painted by Jean Baptiste Monnoyer (1636–1669) by Sir Peter Lely (1618–1680)© The Trustees of the Weston Park Foundation, UK / The Bridgeman Art Library, London


venus and adonis - elizabeth kenny

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