Astonishing, if unnecessary, grandstanding: Barbara Hannigan’s La voix humaine reviewed

I think it was when she leaned forward and balanced on one leg that Barbara Hannigan jumped the shark. It wasn’t just a question of physical agility, although that was impressive enough. Hannigan performed her on-the-spot acrobatics while singing; the results were projected on to a big screen by three remote-controlled cameras, which zoomed in on her eyes, merged blurry images of her face and occasionally froze, meaningfully, on a particularly arresting posture. She did all this at the same time as conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in Poulenc’s one-woman opera La voix humaine, though that wasn’t really what this was about; at least, not by the time she was on one leg. It reminded me of the Brummie schoolkid who, taken to an orchestral concert and asked for his thoughts, replied: ‘The man with the little stick was a very good dancer.’

Hannigan doesn’t use a stick, not that this should matter to the audience. It’s easy to get hung up on a conductor’s physical gestures, and particularly if you’re not really listening to the music. The suggestion that (say) a female conductor’s hairstyle is ‘distracting’ in performance is a useful cloak for old-fashioned misogyny; grumbles about ‘hyperactive’ maestros tend to be a front for a similarly unmusical agenda. The fact remains that the only people who absolutely need to concern themselves with a conductor’s expressions and movements are the people at whom they are (or should be) directed – the members of the orchestra. Good conducting is whatever achieves the most convincing musical result.

That, sadly, is where Hannigan – well, ‘fell short’ is not remotely the right phrase. By any standard, she’s a phenomenon: a singer and actor of daredevil brilliance, seemingly never happier than when hurling herself, body, soul and (formidable) voice into some epic avant-garde ear-tangler.