Thursday Lunchtime Concert – soprano Naomi Kilby/pianist Elspeth Wilkes

Join us for an exciting vocal recital of Naomi Kilby and Elspeth Wilkes!

 

Programme:

 

Soprano Naomi Kilby trained at Birmingham Conservatoire and Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. She has been a regular chorister at Opera Holland Park since 2009, undertaking several comprimario roles including First Bridesmaid in their 2021 production of Le Nozze Di Figaro. She also works regularly with their Inspire team offering outreach recitals and workshops. Naomi also performs with Lost Chord Dementia Charity, and is the founding producer of Opera Alegría, most recently singing Pamina in their production of The Magic Flute. As a recitalist, Naomi has performed in the UK and across Europe, most recently with Fred Olsen Cruises, travelling to Spain, Morocco & Portugal. This summer, Naomi will perform with Opera Holland Park in their productions of Rigolettoand Hansel & Gretel, and with Opera Alegría as Aurore in Massenet’s The Portrait of Manon.

www.naomikilby.com

 

Born in Leigh-on-sea, Essex, pianist Elspeth Wilkes studied at King’s College, London, Trinity College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music. She has performed at the Royal Opera House; the Royal Albert Hall; St Martin-in-the-Fields; several West End theatres as well as performing recitals in Spain, Portugal, France and South Africa. Elspeth has performed at the Ravenna festival, Italy, the Edinburgh Festival and the Dublin  Theatre Festival winning the ‘Oscar’ award for performance. She has worked with BBC Wales, Royal Ballet, Royal Shakespeare Company and Southbank Sinfonia and has worked as repetiteur/musical director with Opera up Close, Opera Brava, Kings Head Opera, HGO, Merry Opera Company and Opera de Bauge. Elspeth is the conductor of Thurrock Choral Society and assistant conductor of Barnes Choir and Putney Choral Society. She is also a member of the Bridgetower Ensemble. In her spare time, Elspeth is a keen quizzer and has appeared on TV on Mastermind, The Chase, Countdown and The Weakest Link!

Translations:

Pantomime (Paul Verlaine)

 

Pierrot, who is nothing like Clitandre,

Empties a flask without further ado,

And, practical fellow, cuts into a paté.

 

Cassandre, at the end of the path,

Sheds a concealed tear

Over her disinherited nephew.

 

That rascal Harlequin schemes

The kidnap of Columbine 

And whirls about four times.

 

Columbine is dreaming, surprised

At sending a heart caught on the breeze

And at hearing voices in her heart.

 

Moonlight (Paul Verlaine)

 

Your soul is a choice landscape

Where charming maskers and bergamaskers go about

Playing the lute and dancing and are almost

Sad beneath their whimsical disguises.

 

While singing in the minor of

Love triumphant and of the good life,

And their song is mixed and lost in the moonlight.

 

In the calm moonlight, sad and beautiful,

That makes the birds dream in the trees

And the fountains sob in ecstasy,

Those tall, slender fountains among the statues,

Ah, the calm moonlight, sad and beautiful.

 

Pierrot (Théodore Faullain de Banville) 

 

The good Pierrot, whom the crowd watches,

Having finished at Harlequin’s wedding,

Wanders as in a dream along the Boulevard du Temple.

 

A young girl in a flimsy blouse

In vain entices him with her scamps’s eye;

 

And meanwhile, mysterious and shiny

Making him its dearest delight,

The white moon with horns of a bull

Casts a glance offstage

At his friend Jean Gaspard Debureau*.

 

(*French Mime artist, famous for creating Pierrot)

 

Apparition (Stéphane Mallarmé)

 

The moon was growing sad. Seraphim in tears

Dreaming, bows in hand, in the calm of flowers

Vapours were drawing from dying viols

White sobs that slid upon the azure blue of the corollas.

 

It was the blessed day of your first kiss.

 

My fantasy, which likes to torment me,

Knowingly intoxicated itself in the scent of sadness

Even without regret and without vexation,

That sadness the gathering of a 

Dream leaves in the heart that gathered it.

 

I wandered about thus, my eye fixed on the worn paving

When with sunlight in your hair, in the street and in the evening,

Before me laughing at you appeared

And I thought I saw the fairy with her halo of light

Who once in my lovely dreams as a spoiled child

Passed by, letting fall like snow from her half-open hands

White bouquets of perfumed stars.

 

The Cradles (Sully Prudhomme)

 

Along the quay, the great ships

that the sea-swells tilt in silence,

take no notice of the cradles

rocked by the hands of women.

 

But the day of parting will come,

because women must weep

and curious men must be tempted 

toward horizons that will delude them!

 

And that day, the great ships,

fleeing from the port that grows small,

will feel their mass restrained  

by the soul of distant cradles.

 

Autumn Song (Paul Verlaine)

 

When a sighing begins
In the violins
Of the autumn-song,
My heart is drowned
In the slow sound
Languorous and long

Pale as with pain,
Breath fails me when
The hours toll deep.
My thoughts recover
The days that are over,
And I weep.

And I go
Where the winds know,
Broken and brief,
To and fro,
As the winds blow
A dead leaf.

Both of us (Paul Verlaine)

 

And so, it shall be on a bright summer’s day:

The great sun, complicit in my joy,

Shall, amidst the satin and silk,

Make your dear beauty more beauteous still;

 

The bluest sky, like a tall tent,

Shall ripple in long creases

Upon our two happy foreheads, white

With happiness and anticipation;

 

And when the evening comes, the caressing breeze

That plays in your veils shall be sweet,

And the peaceful gazes of the stars

Shall smile benevolently upon the lovers.

 

The Avenue is endless (Paul Verlaine)

 

The avenue is endless

under the sky, divine

by being pale like this:

it would feel really good,

you know, to be under the secret

of these trees.

 

Some well-dressed gentlemen,

undoubtedly friends

of the Royer-Collards,

are heading towards the château:

I would deem it splendid

if we were those old men.

 

There’s the château, all white

with the sunset glow

on its flank,

and fields all around:

oh, if only our love

had its nest there!

 

Muted (Paul Verlaine)

 

Calm in the half-light

That the high branches make,

Let us penetrate our love

With this profound silence.

 

Let us melt our souls together,

our hearts and our ecstatic senses,

Among the vague languors

Of the pine and strawberry trees.

 

Close your eyes half-way;

Fold your arms across your breast,

And from your sleepy heart

Drive away all cares forever.

 

Let us be persuaded

By the gentle, rocking wind,

That comes to your feet to ripple

The waves of russet grass.

 

And when solemnly the evening

Shall fall from the dark oaks,

Voice of our despair,

The nightingale will sing.

 

The exquisite hour (Paul Verlaine)

 

The moon shines,

White, in the woods;

From each branch,

A voice comes[;]

From beneath the bough…

 

O my beloved.

 

The pool reflects,

Like a deep mirror,

The silhouette

Of the black willow

Where the wind weeps…

 

This is the moment for us to dream

 

An all-embracing tenderness

And calm

Seems to descend

From the firmament

That the star makes glisten with rainbow colours….

This is the moment of ecstasy.

Sad landscape (Paul Verlaine)

 

The shadow of the trees in the misty river

 fades and dies like smoke;

 while above, among the real branches,

 the doves are lamenting.

 

 Oh traveler, how well this pale landscape

 mirrored you pallid self!

 And how sadly, in the high foliage, your hopes were weeping,

 your hopes that are drowned.

 

The good song (Paul Verlaine)

 

The hard test will end.

My heart, smile at what is to come!

 

They are finished, the days of alarms,

when I was sad to the point of tears!

 

I have killed the bitter words,

and banished the dark fantasies!

 

My eyes, exiled from the sight of her

by a painful duty,

 

My ear, avid to hear

the golden notes of her tender voice,

 

all my being and all my love

hail the happy day

 

when, my only dream and my only thought,

my fiancée will return to me!

 

1. (Louis Aragon)

 

I have crossed the bridges of Cé

It is there that it all began

A song of bygone days 

tells of a wounded knight

 

Of a rose on the carriage-way

And an unlaced bodice

Of the castle of a mad duke

And swans on the moats

 

Of the meadow where comes dancing

An eternal betrothed

And I drank like iced milk

The long lay of false glories

 

The Loire carries my thoughts away

With the overturned cars

And the unprimed weapons

And the ill-dried tears

O my France O my forsaken France

I have crossed the bridges of Cé

 

Gallant festivities

 

One sees marquises on bicycles

one sees pimps in petticoats

one sees brats with veils

one sees firemen burning their pompons

 

one sees words thrown on the rubbish-heap

one sees words carried aloft

one sees the feet of the children of Mary

one sees the backs of public speakers

 

one sees gasogene powered cars

one also sees handcarts

one sees fellows whose long noses bother them

one sees eighteen-carat fools

 

one sees here what one sees elsewhere

one sees girls gone astray

one sees gutter-snipes one sees voyeurs

one sees the drowned passing under the bridge

 

one sees shoe sellers out of work

one sees egg candlers dying of boredom

one sees reliable values in jeopardy

and life fleeing by the six-four-two

 

The girls of Cadiz (Alfred de Musset)

 

We just saw the bull,

Three boys, three little girls

On the lawn it was a beautiful day,

And we were dancing a bolero

To the sound of castanets;

 

Tell me, neighbor,

If I look well,

And if my bodice

Goes well, this morning,

Do you find my waist slim?

Ah!  Ah! 

The girls of Cadix rather like that.

 

And we were dancing a bolero

One evening, it was Sunday,

Toward us came a dashing Spaniard

Extremely wealthy, a plume in his hat,

And his hand on his hip:

 

“If you want me,

Brunette with the sweet smile,

You have only to say it,

And this gold is yours.”

Pass on your way, good sir.

Ah!  Ah!

The girls of Cadix don’t listen to that.

 

And we were dancing a bolero,

At the foot of the hill.

On the road Diego was passing,

Who quite truly had only a coat

And a mandolin:

 

“Beauty with the gentle eyes,

Do you want

A jealous lover

To lead you to the church tomorrow?”

Jealous!  Jealous!  What foolishness!

Ah!  Ah!

The girls of Cadix fear that fault!