Joyce DiDonato: Eden review – sowing seeds of hope for a better world

It weren’t the serpent wot got American mezzo, Joyce DiDonato, at her Eden performance, at London’s Barbican on Tuesday. It were the IKEA instructions. Rather, the lack of them.

We mortals struggle with our ever-collapsing chests of drawers, depicted by strange, idiot-provoking runic script instructions in thankful Saturday afternoon privacy. DiDonato was called on to assemble a complex stage device in full public view. No screwdriver needed. A hammer might have helped.

Barefoot, clad in a slinky, pale blue, clingy evening dress blotched with sparkles, and sporting a pointy bodice recently classified as a weapon of mass destruction by Amnesty International, the singer ventured onto an elevated podium, resting on a curved walking stick. On inquiry, it was meant to represent Cupid’s bow.

Wassup? Had she broken her leg again, as in the Royal Opera House 2014 run of Rossini’s Il barbiere do Saviglia, when she sang Rosina gamely from a wheelchair for the whole run?

Nope. It emerged the bendy silver stick was an essential part of one of two large rings which, once elevated and secured on the round, mechanised podium, twisted and revolved like a Galileo orrery. With DiDonato nimbly clambering in and out. Or, advisedly, often standing still.

They were the rings of the Tree of Life, referenced in The First Morning of the World, the second song in the Eden cycle project, now available as an album featuring DiDonato and the il Pomo d’Oro baroque ensemble, led by elfin maestro, Maxim Emelyanychev, in full bouncy manic mode, from his harpsichord and all around the stage, now on tour in… Please, here take a deep mezzo breath for a long run:

Brussels, Luxemburg, Arnhem, Amsterdam, Aalborg, Hamburg, Vienna, Budapest, London, Dublin, Kansas, Ann Arbor, Chicago, Toronto, New York and Washington DC. And that’s only March and April.

When she puts her mind to it, DiDonato puts it about a bit and Joyce is on a mission, asking her audiences, “In this time of upheaval, which seed will you plant today?” A packet of Eden poppy seeds was on every audience member’s seat on arrival. At first, I thought it was just another Covid hand wipe.

I’m planting mine this weekend. I wouldn’t dare not. DiDonato has “telt” me to — and I don’t want her swinging by on her wonky rings of life, giving me hell for not playing my tiny, insignificant part in her grand scheme of self-improvement. It’s the least I can do after a mind-blowing Tuesday evening. 

The singer, as well as performing her usual round of mainstage roles, will, over the next four years, ask us to confront “questions of our individual connection to Nature”. Forty-five concerts apart, there will be ground-breaking education programmes, “multiple partnerships”, all to promote a “collective return” to our best selves.  

Is this woke, “woo-woo” agit-prop drivel? Far from it. It’s instead a clarion call to individuals to shift gear from “someone else’s problem” mode to “connecting as profoundly as we can to the pure essence of our being”.

Eden is a logical development of the extraordinary work DiDonato has been ceaselessly pursuing for years — giving back her experience to a new generation of singers, encouraging prisoners to develop their artistic talents and bringing music to children, starved of it in today’s classrooms.

While advanced curriculum theorists have swept musical instruments into the trash can, replaced Don Giovanni with gender therapy (they may have a point there) and bred a solitary, “earbud” generation, DiDonato has been banging the performance drum.

At the end of the Barbican show, we were treated to a presentation from the combined choirs of Bishop Ramsey CE School and Music Centre London. They sang Seeds of Hope, which they had composed.

Especially noticeable was the easy interaction between the mezzo and her charges. Her encouraging glances, hand-holding and sheer delight in their bright-eyed singing were straight from the Maria playbook of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music. 

The attention to detail was enchanting. Down to a four-foot-tall, red-haired shy kid being gently prompted to step stage front and, with a sweep of his arm, usher Maestro Emelyanychev forwards to take bow after bow. 

The audience was alive with the warmth of music. And what music Eden offers. A clarion call from Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question, replete with theatre dry ice fog, got us off to a haunting start. There are no words, just eerie, sung notes. DiDonato was obscure, to the right of us, then left and finally on her lit podium, sporting the silver ring thingy.

I was surprised to learn that The Unanswered Question was unfamiliar to DiDonato. She had to be persuaded to include the piece at all, let alone allow it to showcase the performance. 

I think Ives’ songs, along with Aaron Copland’s are as good at encapsulating the experience of 20th century America, especially small-town life, as any Broadway musical. More, please.

The plinth was set for an eclectic mix of songs from Rachel Portman, Marini, Myslceček, Copland, Valentini, Cavalli, Gluck, Mahler, Wagner and Handel. From baroque opera to the present day. All eras spanned. 

The austere, wood-clad Barbican stage was transformed into an enchanted place by the deft use of lighting — and those revolving silver circles, creating a performance platform mid the Il Pomo d’Oro ensemble, split stage right and left.

Huge credit goes to French stage director, Marie Lambert, and lighting director John Torres for breathing so much life into what could otherwise have been a rum-ti-tum static concert performance. I recall the engaging rework Lambert did of David McVicar’s fabulous La Traviata for Scottish Opera in 2017. She is an inspired choice to take on Eden.

When il Pomo d’Oro is in full cry, sit back and enjoy the musical fireworks. Maestro Emelyanychev is the Elton John of the Baroque. Sitting at his harpsichord. Standing at his harpsichord. Thumping his harpsichord – pointlessly really, as plucked instruments don’t do “loud”. Or soft.

He roams the stage, bouncing on the balls of his feet, bringing to life a wondrous, beautifully articulated sound world. Noteworthy was the performance of Bulgarian violin, concertmaster Zelfira Valova, previously concertmaster of Les Ambassadeurs.

She has been with il Pomo d’Oro since 2015 and delivered some whizzing solos and cadenzas. 

Perhaps most of all, this was a performance of pure joy. Hope, encouragement, and a clarion call to rally to human values in our world of headline-unfolding atrocities. 

Joyce DiDonato had a sly wink at the audience as her tree rings disobligingly refused to slot into place. She carried the packed house along on the tsunami of her emotion.

Now, where did I put my bag of seeds?