Tag Archives: Laurels

“Titan”

W.A.Youth Orchestra

Perth Concert Hall

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

 

 

Mahler’s massive Symphony No 1 is a challenge to even the most experienced of professional orchestras. How, I wondered, would an ensemble of young people, nearly all still in their teens, fare in traversing one of the toughest and most exhausting of all orchestral terrains?

 

 

 

 

Let it be said at once that for sheer commitment, this young orchestra deserves laurels. And Christopher van Tuinen’s calm podium presence and steady beat did wonders in coaxing a unified response from his forces, no small achievement considering the relative inexperience of the players and the many challenges the score poses. No less to WAYO’s credit, was the particularly meaningful contribution of the brass section which, more often than not, brought a professional sheen to its playing. Tempi were finely judged throughout and, crucially, the shifting moods of the work were evoked with more than ordinary skill.

 

I listened with pleasure to the playing of Joel Bass, winner of the 2012 Woodside Concerto Competition.

 

Hovhaness’ Fantasy on Japanese Woodcuts is not for timid soloists. It is villainously treacherous and requires way-above- average skill with the mallets and an iron nerve to negotiate its intricacies – and this Bass did with professional aplomb. There was not a dull moment in a performance I cannot too highly praise not only the physical command this young musician brought to everything he played but his remarkable ability to reveal the demon that lurks behind the concerto’s tidal waves of notes. Throughout, van Tuinen took the WAYO through an accompaniment which was finely gauged to not only accommodate each subtlety of the solo part but also the challenges posed by the score. Bravo!

 

credit: Jon Green 

Mozart’s overture to The Marriage of Figaro was less uniformly persuasive. Certainly, the strings needed a more uniform tonal sheen. But this should not discourage the orchestra from tackling more works of the classical era which might to advantage figure more prominently in WAYO’s programs. They require a disciplined focus, the practice of which can only be to the long-term advantage of the orchestra.

OPERA

The Bear (William Walton)

Angelique (Jacques Ibert)

Victorian Opera, Melbourne

Ollivier-Philippe Cuneo, conductor

Talya Masels, director

reviewed by Neville Cohn

In the minds of most opera-goers, mention of a double bill of one acters, calls I Pagliacci and Cavalleria Rusticana instantly to mind. Opera Victoria, however, has put on a double bill that might well be completely new to many: William Walton’s The Bear and Jacques Ibert’s Angelique.

In brief, this is the plot of The Bear: A widow (Popova) is in deepest mourning for her  serial adulterer husband. She has become a recluse. Her butler Luka urges her to come out of seclusion. There is a visitor: Smirnov, a debtor who demands immediate payment of a loan to avoid his financial ruin. A fierce argument ensues, with a duel narrowly averted. Improbably, widow and debtor fall in love.

John Bolton Wood and Jessica Aszodi

Lavish laurels to John Bolton Wood who was a frankly marvellous Smirnov. His diction had a level of clarity that critics dream about but seldom encounter in reality, his stage presence a model of its kind.  And his face mirrored a myriad subtle emotions. Jessica Aszodi, too, could hardly be faulted as Popova – and Andrew Collis’ facial expressions and body language were comic inspirations.

Ibert’s Angelique, unlike The Bear, has very much less singing; a good deal of the script is spoken dialogue. A crucial character – Boniface – was to have been played by Samuel Dundas but illness compelled withdrawal. So, at very short notice, the role was taken over by not one player but two – James Payne and Adam Murphy.

Payne, clad entirely in black, stepped onstage from the wings to sing his lines and then silently withdrew. Adam Murphy, though, tackling the spoken word with a script gripped tightly in the hand, (there was no time to memorise it) brought the house down again and again. I cannot praise his characterisation too highly; I savoured its every ridiculous moment. As the hapless husband of a woman who is the ultimate harridan, physically violent and verbally abusive, his frantic desire to get her off his hands was a comic delight. For much of the time, Murphy had the audience in stitches of laughter.

Theresa Borg gave a bravura performance as Angelique. And no less satisfying a characterisation is that of Charlot by Gary Rowley. As the marriage broker trying to offload his dangerous client onto some unsuspecting victim, he rose to comic heights. No fewer than four husbands would return her in short order:

A capacity audience fell about as a weirdly garbed pageant of gentlemen proposed marriage to a human hand grenade.

Benjamin Namdarian was hilarious as The Italian, nursing a broken leg courtesy of the charmless Angelique; Paul Biencourt was a no less funny as a concussed Englishman – and Pelham Andrews, sporting a turban like some monstrous white onion, brought the house down as the King of Bambaras.. Even the Devil (Jacob Caine), in a demonic outfit, returned the goods complaining that Hell had been turned upside down by the appalling, vomitous Angelique.

Director Talya Masel’s directorial touch was everywhere apparent: an arm gesture here, an inclination of a head there, a sudden sideway glance; it added up to theatrical magic and I savoured every second of it. Certainly, the whole of this carefully considered production was significantly greater than the sum of its constituent parts.

This was an evening of utterly diverting silliness that would surely have melted the heart of the most curmudgeonly of opera goers.

Ollivier-Philippe Cuneo presided over events to excellent effect, extracting a consistently stylish response from his players both on stage and in the pit.

Harriet Oxley’s costume designs for Angelique were wondrously over the top.

This double bill had the stamp of distinction. It thoroughly deserves a long run and full houses. Bravo!

Orpheus in the Underworld (Offenbach)

Jane Davidson

Jane Davidson

Daniel
Daniel Sinfield

 

 

Dolphin Theatre

 

 

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

 

 

 

Half a loaf is better than none, as the old saw goes. And experiencing Offenbach’s zany Orpheus in the Underworld to an accompaniment not by orchestra but a single piano might not have been ideal – but it was certainly better than nothing in this part of the world where Offenbach’s work seldom gets the exposure it warrants.

 

With the lightest of directorial touches, Jane Davidson brought this comic opera to sparkling life. Certainly, her young charges seemed positively to relish coming to grips with this much vaunted although seldom mounted work locally.

 

It was an inspiration to use an English version of the libretto by Jonathan Biggins, Phil Scott and Ignatius Jones. With its many witty Oz allusions, it prompted gales of laughter from a capacity audience.

 

Kathleen How as Public Opinion, dressed up as Moonee Ponds’ most distinguished representative, brought the house down again and again. Here was a Dame Edna Everage clone at her most vivacious and effervescent with her mauve-pink hair do, trademark bunch of fake gladioli and those unforgettably tasteful spectacles, all ensuring the laughter level was high.

 

On the debit side were a number of singers whose pitch was not quite spot-on but, time and again, the sheer vivacity with which they tackled their roles went quite some way as compensation. And this cheerful energy, not least in the galop finale, ensured a constant chuckle level. And allusions to that most recognisable of Gluck melodies – Che faro senza Euridice – were consistently musical.

 

Laurels to Daniel Sinfield who seemed positively to revel in the role of  Pluto disguised, not, as in Offenbach’s original as a shepherd cum beekeeper but as a black-clad tough on a motorbike, singing and strutting about the stage as if it was his natural milieu. His diction was first rate.

 

In a smaller role, Dudley Allitt was altogether convincing as the Hades-based, creepy John Styx. With a sepulchral pallor and his hands unctuously clasping and unclasping, he did Offenbach proud – not least for absolutely first rate diction, an object lesson on how to project speech impeccably.   

 

A thousand flowers, as the Chinese say, to Juliet Faulkner who breathed life into a piano reduction of the orchestral score. Surely, she deserved better than being labelled in the printed program solely as repetiteur. The latter would certainly apply to her work as rehearsal pianist – but on stage, she was a pivotal participant in the production.

 

Standing to one side of the stage close to the piano while giving discreet cues to the cast was music director Francis Greep.

 

Décor was basic but effective as was the lighting design by Jake Newby – and the splendid costumes were designed and made by the cast.