At the season opening of a symphony orchestra you expect, well, symphonic music. Some highlights from the repertoire, perhaps interspersed with a handful of arias. Things were different at the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra on Friday evening and the unorthodox approach alone made the evening memorable. The program that conductor and theater maker Manoj Kamps put together at the orchestra’s request was cleverly put together, and the performance, with three very different guest vocalists, was excellent.
West End musical singer Cameron Bernard Jones kicked off. He sang from the balcony in his deep baritone ‘Loving you’ from Stephen Sondheims Passion (1994), very intimate, accompanied only by piano. The sparse orchestral accents then transitioned seamlessly into a sensual reading of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune: slow, subdued, a bit sultry and always perfectly transparent. Jones followed with Sondheim’s ‘Moments in the woods’, in which the prince was transformed into a mythical creature for the occasion: “Did a faun really kiss me?”
Also read this interview with Manoj Kamps: ‘I want other stories, other identities’
Love. That’s what it was about in Rotterdam: the transforming power of love. And with that it was also about identity. Manoj Kamps, who identifies as queer and non-binary (pronouns: them/them), titled the concert “Someday we’ll find us.” It was not difficult to see the program as a reflection of their personal quest. At the same time it was bigger and broader than that, an invitation to open up: because who doesn’t know, to to speak with singer Björkthe desire to penetrate someone else’s system like a virus?
Bjork
Björk formed the third pillar of the program. In alternation with Jones’ Sondheim repertoire, Diamanda La Berge Dramm, the versatile maker who, in addition to being a violinist, always expresses himself as a vocalist, sang four songs, including ‘All is full of love’. The strong orchestral arrangements were made a few years ago for soprano Renée Fleming. But La Berge Dramm sang much less ‘classically’ and, with its breathy, thin sound, clearly connected with the inimitable Björk in its own way. ‘Jóga’ in particular was beautiful, with a buzzing sound field from the orchestra and a pumping beat to which the entire percussion section contributed.
The piece de resistance was, daringly, the recent one unde imber et ignes by Rick van Veldhuizen – according to Kamps “a pop song of nineteen minutes”. Van Veldhuizen wrote it in 2020 for the Netherlands Student Orchestra, conducted by Kamps and with soprano Katharine Dain as soloist. With her big, warm sound, Dain once again impressed in the multilingual evocations of lust, while Rotterdam indulged in turbulent sound mixtures, like one panting, growling abdomen.