Author: Peter Mechen

Orpheus – a Dance Drama – beautiful, complex and thought-provoking work from Michael Parmenter

Posted on by Peter Mechen

New Zealand Festival 2018 presents:
ORPHEUS – A DANCE OPERA
Conceptualised and choreographed by Michael Parmenter
New Zealand Dance Company
Co-produced by the Auckland Arts Festival, the New Zealand Festival
and the New Zealand Dance Company
The Opera House, Wellington

Friday, 16th March, 2018

The “Orpheus legend” is obviously one of the seminal “stories” which has contributed towards western civilisation’s view of itself and its place in the world down the ages. Orpheus himself is a multi-faceted figure whose qualities and exploits have been variously treated and interpreted at different stages, a process that continues to this day, as witness choreopher Michael Parmenter’s ambitious and wide-ranging “take” on the character’s far-reaching exploits.

Most people who know of the name of Orpheus straightaway associate it with that of his lover Euridice.  Their tragic story has been represented variously in practically all of Western art’s different disciplines, notably that of opera – in fact it figured prominently throughout opera’s very beginnings, with Jacopo Peri’s “Euridice” appearing as early as 1600, and Claudio Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo” in 1607.  Virgil and Ovid are the two writers from antiquity most readily associated with the early forms of this story, though there are various other Orphic strands which Parmenter’s work alludes to, such as the hero’s exceptional musical skills, his association with the Voyage of the Argonauts,  his rejection of the love of women after the death of Euridice, and his own death at the hands of the Maenads.

Considering this plethora of material it was no wonder Parmenter was drawn to the story and its variants, the scenarios seeming to offer ample scope for elaboration and reinterpretation in the light of more contemporaneous human experience, as with all mythological archetypes. Using a core group of dancers supported by a larger “chorus” whose movement consistently created a kind of cosmic rhythm involving both naturalistic and metaphorical ebb and flow, the production consistently and constantly suggested order coming from and returning towards an unfathomable chaos which frames the human condition as we know it, a beautiful and magical synthesis of both natural patternings and human  ritual.

Lighting, costuming and staging throughout the opening sequences wrought a kind of “dreaming or being dreamt” wonderment, as a bare, workmanlike stage was unobtrusively but inexorably clothed, peopled and activated in masterly fashion. As if summonsed and borne by divination, a platform on which were seated a group of musicians playing the most enchanting music imaginable, literally drifted to and fro, as if in a kind of fixed and preordained fluidity, in accordance with the magical tones produced by these same musicians and their instruments. Not unlike the dancers, the singers grouped and regrouped with the action’s “flow”, effectively choreographing  sounds in accordance with the whole. The music was largely from the baroque era, from the world of Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Jean de Saint-Colombe, Antoine Boesset, Michel Lambert, Etienne Moulinie and Jean-Philippe Rameau, hauntingly sung and played by singers and musicians from both sides of the Tasman. Their efforts were interspersed with the sonicscapes of composer David Downes, whose elemental interpolations at key dramatic points underpinned the powerful fusion of immediacy and other-worldliness of the baroque sounds with something inexplicably primordial in effect, a sense of interplay between order and chaos far beyond human control.

During the work’s course I was stunned by the range and scope of expression wrought by the dancers, their bodies both individually and collectively driven, it seemed, by a compelling energy and physicality whose expression spoke volumes – I felt hampered by not being able to get a reviewer’s programme, for some inexplicable reason (there were still some on sale when I asked but I had insufficient money to actually purchase one), and thus found myself “in the dark” in situ regarding some of the specific intents of the stage action, particularly in the work’s second part – borrowing a copy from a friend afterwards helped to clear up some of the moments where I felt myself not quite in synch with the stage action at the time.

In the light of the comments made by Parmenter and his team in the booklet I would wish, if I could, to go back and explore more deeply the layers of action, thought and suggestion which the show embedded beneath the basic stories. Some people I spoke to afterwards shared my feeling that the production’s content seemed TOO overlaid, and that less would have meant more – I remain equivocal in my reaction to the effect of things such as the “storming of the ramparts” representation, to give but one example, even after considering Parmenter’s idea of a “knocking down” of a bastion of male ego by the female agents of being, in the story.

Still, what endures for me is the memory of the dancers and their skills – approaching transcendence in their fluency and articulation, as well as conveying incredibly layered and interactive meanings both in individual and concerted movement and gesture. Assisted by the flowing effect of Tracy Grant-Lord’s costumes, the characters’ bodies enacted eloquent and atmospheric chiaroscuro play between clarity and concealment, whose visual tensions everywhere enhanced the power of the story-telling. While readily feeling the power of presence of the two principal name-character dancers, Carl Tolentino as Orpheus and Chrissy Kokiri as Euridice, I was equally taken with the individual characterisations of their colleagues (see below), even if, towards the end I thought the distinctiveness of their movements lost a little of their cutting edge through repetition (perhaps I was the one who was tired by this time, trying to make better sense of the cornucopia of stage incident!).

Full credit, then to this company of dancers who supported the efforts of the two leads already mentioned – Katie Rudd, Sean McDonald, Lucy Marinkovich, Eddie Elliott, Bree Timms, Toa Paranihi and Oliver Carruthers – as well as to the dedicated work of the local “movement chorus” (all of whom were volunteers). Enabling Tracy-Lord-Grant’s costumes and John Verryt’s inventive settings to display their full effect was the atmospheric lighting of Nik Janiurek, whose stated purpose was keeping “the flow of light across the stage” in accord with Orpheus’music. Michael Parmenter’s engaging choreography did the rest in tandem with his dancers’ and musicians’ focused efforts.

No one work of art will reveal all of its secrets in one encounter or during one performance – and the subjective nature of any one critical response is a moveable feast when put against others’ reactions. Michael Parmenter’s creation, I freely admit, took me by surprise in its range and scope of expression, by turns striking things truly home and taking me into places where I felt some confusion – all of which leads me towards expressing the hope that it might be re-staged at some time in the near future, and that certain aspects of the presentation might come to seem clearer in their overall purpose. Parmenter himself admitted that not every theatrical image in the work was “a complete success” in response to a more-than-usually dismissive reaction from another review quarter – but so much of “Orpheus” was, I thought, powerful, innovative and challenging theatre, deserving to be thought and rethought about. It’s certainly a theatrical experience to which I doubt whether anybody could remain indifferent.

Artistic Director and Choreographer – Michael Parmenter (and the Company)
Dancers – Carl Tolentino, Chrissy Kokiri, Katie Rudd, Sean McDonald, Lucy Marinkovich, Eddie Elliott,
Bree Timms, Oliver Carruthers, Toa Paranihi
Singers – Aaron Sheehan, Nicholas Tolputt, William King, Jayne Tankersley
Musicians –  Donald Nicolson, Julia Fredersdorff, Laura Vaughan (Latitude 37)
Polly Sussex, Sally Tibbles, Miranda Hutton, Jonathan Le Cocq, David Downes
Sound Score – David Downes
Producer – Behnaz Farzami
Set Designer – John Verryt
Costumes – Tracy Grant Lord
Lighting – Nik Janiurek
Rehearsal Director – Claire O’Neil
Chorus Director – Lyne Pringle
 

 

 

 

Two resounding recordings from Rattle – classics and a feisty newcomer

Posted on by Peter Mechen


DAVID FARQUHAR – RING ROUND THE MOON
Sonatina – piano (1960) / Three Pieces – violin and piano (1967)
Black, White and Coloured – solo piano (selections – 1999/2002)
Swan Songs for voice and guitar (1983)
Dance Suite from “Ring Round the Moon” (1957 arr. 2002)
Jian Liu (piano) / Martin Riseley (violin)
Jenny Wollerman (soprano) / Jane Curry (guitar)
Rattle RAT-D062 2015

PICTURES
MODEST MUSSORGSKY – Pictures at an Exhibition
EVE De CASTRO ROBINSON – A Zigzagged Gaze
Henry Wong Doe (piano)
Rattle RAT-D072 2017

How best does one describe a “classic” in art, and specifically in music?

Taking the contents of both CDs listed above, one might argue that there are two “classic” compositions to be found among these works, one recognised internationally and the other locally, each defined as such by its popularity and general recognition as a notable piece of work. If this suggests a kind of facile populist judgement, one might reflect that posterity does eventually take over, either continuing to further enhance or consigning to relative neglect and near-oblivion the pieces’ existence in the scheme of things.

Though hardly rivalling the reputation and impact in global terms of Modest Mussorgsky’s remarkable Pictures at an Exhibition on the sensibilities of listeners and concert-goers, it could safely be said that New Zealand composer David Farquhar’ s 1957 incidental music for the play Ring Round the Moon has caught the imagination of local classical music-lovers to an extent unrivalled by any of the composer’s other works, and, indeed by many other New Zealand compositions. I would guess that, at present, only certain pieces by Farquhar’s colleague Douglas Lilburn would match Ring Round the Moon in popularity in this country, amongst classical music aficionados.

The presence of each of these works on these recordings undoubtedly gives the latter added general interest of a kind which I think surely benefits the lesser-known pieces making up each of the programmes. In both cases the combinations are beautifully thought-out and judiciously placed to show everything to its best possible advantage. And visually, there’s similar accord on show, the art-work and general layout of each of the two discs having its own delight and distinction, in the best tradition previously established by the Rattle label.

So enamoured am I still with Farquhar’s original RIng Round the Moon for small orchestra (that first recording featuring the Alex Lindsay Orchestra can be found by intrepid collectors on Kiwi-Pacific Records CD SLD-107), I thought I would give myself more time to get used to the idea of a violin-and-piano version (arranged by the composer in 1992). I therefore began my listening with the more recent disc, Pictures, featuring pianist Henry Wong Doe’s enterprising coupling of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and a 2016 work by Auckland composer Eve de Castro-Robinson, A zigzagged gaze, one which similarly presents a series of musical responses to a group of visual artworks.

Mussorgsky’s collection of pieces commemorated the work of a single artist, Victor Hartmann, a close friend of the composer, whereas de Castro-Robinson’s series of pieces, commissioned by the pianist, were inspired by work from different artists in a single collection, that of the Wallace Arts Trust. In the booklet notes accompanying the CD the composer describes the process of selecting artworks from the collection as “a gleeful trawling through riches”. And not only does she offer a series of brief but illuminating commentaries regarding the inspirational effect of each of the pictures, but includes for each one a self-written haiku, so that we get a series of delightfully-wrought responses in music, poetry and prose.

Henry Wong Doe premiered de Castro Robinson’s work, along with the Mussorgsky, at a “Music on Madison Series” concert in New York on March 5th 2017, and a month later repeated the combination for the New Zealand premiere in Auckland at the School of Music Theatre. His experience of playing this music “live” would have almost certainly informed the sharpness of his characterisations of the individual pieces, and their almost theatrical contrasts. For the most part, everything lives and breathes, especially the de Castro Robinson pieces, which, of course, carry no interpretative “baggage” for listeners, unlike in the Mussorgsky work, which has become a staple of the virtuoso pianist repertoire.

While not effacing memories of some of the stellar recorded performances of the latter work I’ve encountered throughout the years, Wong Doe creates his own distinctive views of many of the music’s sequences. He begins strongly, the opening “Promenade” bright, forthright, optimistic and forward-looking, evoking the composer’s excitement and determination to get to grips with the business of paying tribute to his artist friend, Viktor Hartmann whose untimely death was commemorated by an exhibition of his work.

The pianist relishes the contrasts afforded by the cycle, such as between the charm of the Tuileries scene with the children, and the momentously lumbering and crunching “Bydlo” which immediately follows. He also characterises the interactive subjects beautifully – the accents of the gossipping women in “The Market-Place at Limoges” tumble over one another frenetically, while the piteous cries of the poor Jew in “Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle” are sternly rebuffed by his well-heeled, uncaring contemporary.

I liked Wong Doe’s sense of spaciousness in many places, such as in the spectral “Catacombs”, and in the following “Con Mortuis in lingua mortua” (the composer’s schoolboy Latin still manages to convey a sense of the transcendence he wanted) – the first, imposing part delineating darkness and deathly finality, while the second part creating a communion of spirits between the composer and his dead artist friend – Wong Doe’s playing throughout the latter properly evoked breathless beauty and an almost Lisztian transcendence generated by the right hand’s figurations.)

Only in a couple of places I wanted him to further sustain this spaciousness – steadying a few slightly rushed repeated notes at the opening of the middle section of “Baba Yaga”, and holding for a heartbeat or so longer onto what seemed to me a slightly truncated final tremolando cadence right at the end of “The Great Gate of Kiev”. But the rest was pure delight, with the fearful witch’s ride generating both properly razor-sharp cries and eerie chromatic mutterings along its course, and the imposing “Great Gate” creating as magnificent and atmospheric a structure of fanciful intent as one would wish for.

Following Mussorgsky’s classic depiction of diverse works of art in music with another such creation might seem to many a foolhardy venture, one destined to be overshadowed. However, after listening to Wong Doe’s playing of Auckland composer Eve de Castro Robinson’s 2016 work, A Zigzagged Gaze, I’m bound to say that, between them, composer and pianist have brought into being something that can, I think, stand upright, both on its own terms and in such company. I listened without a break to all ten pieces first time up, and, like Mussorgsky at Viktor Hartmann’s exhibition, found myself in a tantalising network of connection and diversity between objects and sounds all wanting to tell their stories.

The work and its performance here seems to me to be a kind of celebration of the place of things in existence – the ordinary and the fabulous, the everyday and the special, the surface of things and the inner workings or constituents. As with Mussorgsky’s reactions to his artist friend Hartmann’s creations, there’s both a “possessing” of each work’s essence on de Castro-Robinson’s part and a leap into the kind of transcendence that music gives to things, be they objects, actions or emotions, allowing we listeners to participate in our own flights of fancy and push out our own limits of awareness.

As I live with this music I’m sure I’ll develop each of the composer’s explorations within my own capabilities, and still be surprised where and how far some of them take me. On first hearing I’m struck by the range of responses, and mightily diverted by the whimsy of some of the visual/musical combinations – the “gargantual millefiori paperweight” response to artist Rohan Wealleans’ “Tingler” in sound, for example. I’m entertained by the persistent refrains of Philip Trusttum’s “The Troubadour”, the vital drollery of Miranda Parkes’ “Trick-or-Treater” and the rousing strains of Jacqueline Fahey’s “The Passion Flower”. But in other moods I’ll relish the gentle whimsicalities inspired by Josephine Cachemaille’s “Diviner and Minder” with its delight in human reaction to small, inert things, and the warm/cool beauties of Jim Speers’ “White Interior”, a study of simply being.

Most haunting for me, on first acquaintance, however, are “Return”, with Vincent Ward’s psychic interior depiction beautifully reflected in de Castro Robinson’s deep resonances and cosmos-like spaces between light and darkness, and the concluding tranquilities of the initially riotous and unequivocal rendering of Judy Miller’s “Big Pink Shimmering One”, where the composer allows the listener at the end space alone with oneself to ponder imponderables, the moment almost Rimbaud-like in its powerful “Après le déluge, c’est moi!” realisation.

Henry Wong Doe’s playing is, here, beyond reproach to my ears – it all seems to me a captivating fusion of recreativity and execution, the whole beautifully realised by producer Kenneth Young and the Rattle engineers. I can’t recommend the disc more highly on the score of Eve de Castro-Robinson’s work alone, though Wong Doe’s performance of the Mussorgsky is an enticing bonus.

Turning to the other disc for review, one featuring David Farquhar’s music (as one might expect of a production entitled “Ring Round the Moon”) I noted with some pleasure that the album’s title work was placed last in the programme, as a kind of “all roads lead to” gesture, perhaps to encourage in listeners the thought that, on the face of things, the journey through a diverse range of Farquhar’s music would bring sure-fire pleasure at the traversal’s end.

Interestingly, the programme replicates a “Remembering David Farquhar” concert on the latter’s seventh anniversary in 2014, at Wellington’s NZSM, curated by Jack Body and featuring the same performers – so wonderful to have that occasion replicated here in preserved form. The disc is packaged in one of Rattle’s sumptuously-presented booklet gatefold containers, which also features details from one of artist Toss Woolaston’s well-known Erua series of works, and a biography of the artist.

Beginning the disc is Sonatina, a work for solo piano from 1950, which gives the listener an absorbing encounter with a young (and extremely promising) composer’s music. Three strongly characterised movements give ample notice of an exciting talent already exploring his creativity in depth. Seventeen years later, Farquhar could confidently venture into experimental territory with a Sonata for violin and piano which from the outset challenged his listeners to make something of opposing forces within a work struggling to connect in diverse ways. A second movement dealt in unconventionalities such as manipulating piano strings with both fingers and percussion sticks, after which a final movement again set the instruments as much as combatants as voices in easy accord.

The Black, White and Coloured pieces for piano, from 1999-2002, are represented in two selections on the disc – they represent a fascination Farquhar expressed concerning the layout of the piano keyboard, that of two modal sets of keys, five black and seven white. By limiting each hand to one mode Farquhar created a kind of “double” keyboard, with many opportunities for colour through interaction between the two “modes”. Altogether, Farquhar had twenty-five such pieces published in 2003.

I remember at the NZSM concert being less than enamoured of these works, thinking then that some of the pieces seemed too skeletal and bloodless compared with the originals, especially the settings of Negro Spirituals – but this time round I thought them enchanting, the “double harmonied” effect producing an effect not unlike Benjamin Britten’s treatment of various English folk-songs. A second bracket of these pieces were inspired by diverse sources, among them a Chopin Mazurka, a Landler from a Mahler Symphony, and a theme from a Schubert piano sonata, among others. Again I thought more highly of these evocations this time round, especially enjoying “Clouds”, a Debussy-like recreation of stillness, stunningly effective in its freedom and sense of far-flung purpose.

Swan Songs is a collection of settings which examines feelings and attitudes relating to existence and death, ranging from fear and anxiety through bitter irony to philosophical acceptance, using texts from various sources. Written originally for baritone voice and guitar in 1983, the performances I’ve been able to document have been mostly by women, with only David Griffiths raising his voice for the baritonal record. Here, as in the NZSM Memorial concert, the singer is Jenny Wollerman, as dignified and eloquent in speech as she is in song when delivering the opening “The Silver Swan” by Orlando Gibbons (it’s unclear whether Gibbons himself wrote the song’s words or if they were penned by someone else). Throughout the cycle, Jane Curry’s beautiful guitar-playing provides the “other half” of a mellifluous partnership with both voice and guitar gorgeously captured by producer Wayne Laird’s microphones.

Along with reiterations of parts of Gibbons’ work and a kind of “Swan swan” tongue-twister, we’re treated to a setting by Farquhar of his own text “Anxieties and Hopes”, with guitarist and singer interspersing terse and urgent phrases of knotted-up fears and forebodings regarding the imminence of death. As well, we’re served up a setting of the well-known “Roasted Swan” sequence from “Carmina Burana”, Jenny Wollerman poignantly delineating the unfortunate bird’s fate on the roasting spit. As in the concert presentation I found the effect of these songs strangely moving, and beautifully realised by both musicians.

As for the “Ring Round the Moon” set of dances, I suspect that, if I had the chance, I would want to hear this music played on almost any combination of instruments, so very life-enhancing and instantly renewable are its energies and ambiences. I’m therefore delighted to have its beauties, charms and exhilarations served up via the combination of violin and piano, which, as I remember, brought the live concert to a high old state of excitement at the end! And there’s a lot to be said for the process of reinventing something in an unfamiliar format which one thinks one already knows well.

What comes across even more flavoursomely in this version are the music’s angularities – though popular dance-forms at the time, Farquhar’s genius was to impart the familiar rhythms and the easily accessible tunes with something individual and distinctive – and the many touches of piquant harmony, idiosyncratic trajectory and impish dovetailing of figuration between the two instruments mean that nothing is taken for granted. Martin Riseley and Jian Liu give masterly performances in this respect – listen, for example, to the ticking of the clock leading into the penultimate Waltz for a taste of these musicians’ strength of evocation! Only a slight rhythmic hesitation at a point midway through the finale denies this performance absolutely unreserved acclaim, but I’m still going to shout about it all from the rooftops, and challenge those people who think they “know” this music to try it in this guise and prepare to be astounded and delighted afresh.

Gaudete at St Mary of the Angels with Baroque Voices and Palliser Viols

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Baroque Voices and Palliser viols present:
Gaudete

Music by Anon, Tompkins, Byrd, Gibbons, Hume and Ross Harris

Baroque Voices (directed by Pepe Becker)
Pepe Becker, Rowena Simpson (sopranos), Milla Dickens, Alex Granville (altos) Richard Taylor, Phillip Collins (tenors), Isaac Stone, David Morriss (basses)

Palliser Viols (directed by Robert Oliver)
Lisa Beech, Sophia Acheson (treble viols), Jane Brown, Andrea Oliver (tenor viols), Imogen Granwal, Robert Oliver (bass viols)

St Mary of the Angels Church, Boulcott St.,Wellington

Wednesday 20th December, 2017

This was a beautifully devised and presented programme, appropriately given the name “Gaudete” as a kind of seasonal evocation, an enjoining spirit of joyfulness, as well as a reflection of the sentiments proclaimed by both words and music throughout the evening, such as with an eponymously-named work written especially for these musicians by New Zealand composer Ross Harris.

The term “verse anthem” is the English equivalent of the German “cantata” and the French “grande motet”, the form being originally for voices and viols or organ. In an entertaining and illuminatory note accompanying the concert’s programme, Palliser Viols director Robert Oliver elaborated on the development and popularity of the form, and its use by the greatest composers in England of the day, William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons and Thomas Tomkins.

We also learned about Oliver’s regard for the solo viol music of Tobias Hume, which the former had played and loved ever since he bought his first bass viol 50 years ago. Here, Hume’s work, though actually written for two instruments, demonstrated to us both a composer’s and a virtuoso performer’s skills. Hume’s advocacy of the viol even occasioned a brief war of words with fellow-composer John Dowland (who favoured the lute) over the respective merits of their chosen instruments, Dowland going so far as to having his views published!

Merely the act of entering and sitting within the breathtakingly beautiful interior of St Mary of the Angels at a time of day when the stained glass windows were still activated by the light served to give rise to feelings of well-being both spiritual and secular. We were thus disposed mightily towards the prospect of hearing “sweete musick” by the time the instrumentalists and singers appeared.

They came bringing tidings of great joy from various sources, the first a setting by William Byrd of verses by one Francis Kindlemarsh, “From Virgins wombe this day did spring”. Beautiful though this opening setting was I though the vocal line too low for Pepe Becker’s normally radiant voice, and thought that an alto’s tones would have better suited the melody’s range in each of the verses – the setting “came alive” in the sections enjoining us to “Rejoice, rejoice”, the ensemble’s voices inviting the words to exult and dance, which the viols also did of their own accord in an introduction to the second verse.

The accompanying Pavan and Galliard for six instruments gave the Consort a turn to demonstrate its skills, the sounds in this acoustic taking on a “bloom” which liberated any hitherto confined spirits and allowed them air and space, the gently-insinuating rhythms having both a solemnity and a carefree aspect which held us in thrall. After this, the Galliard enlivened our enchantment with its evocations of dance and gaiety and high spirits.

Following the relative restraint of Byrd’s “From Virgins wombe”, we were somewhat galvanized by the weight of tone from the whole ensemble at the beginning of Thomas Tomkins’ “Rejoice, rejoice and singe”, the voices sounding like a great throng in comparative terms. Each verse featured invigorating exchanges between individual voices, soprano and tenor in “For Happy weare the tidings”, and the line being tossed from singer to singer in “Blessed is the fuite”, the piece finishing after the men and women alternated between “For beholde, from henceforth” and “blessed, blessed virgin Marie”, before concluding on a tremulously sweet chord, to angelic effect.

Just as captivating was, I thought, Tomkins’ Fantasia for six instruments, the Consort of viols beginning with a modern-sounding phrase whose tonality seemed to shift uncannily, before a series of chromatic descents focused the strangeness of the terrain even further. I loved the sensation of simultaneous movement and stasis in the music, the energies gradually unlocked and pulsating, a sequence which led to a gorgeous overlapping figure building up and intensifying the textures towards the end – music of blood-flowing emotion!

Orlando Gibbons’ “Behold I bring you glad tidings” reiterated excited, hopeful voices at the phrase “glad tidings”, the joy occasionally leavened by seriousness at “A Saviour which is Christ the Lord” and purposeful repetition at “Unto us a Son is giv’n”. Then all was uplifted at “Glory be to God on High” with a great ascent, given rich weight at its base by the men’s tones – everything nicely controlled. Lovely playing by the Consort, both resonant and clearly-focused at one and the same time in this acoustic, brought us the Fantasia which followed, the music cleverly “fantastic” with lines both ascending and descending at once in places, and followed by beautifully “charged” withdrawals of tone into modal-like realms of the kind loved by Vaughan Williams.

In the wake of these iconic-like pieces came Ross Harris’s “Gaudete”, the fruit of the composer’s desire to write something for this actual concert, after having written separate piece for each ensemble previously. A tumult of voices and instruments at the beginning conveyed the excitement of the news of the Saviour’s birth, the cries of “Gaudete, Christus est natus” reiterating at intervals during the piece, providing some contrast with the relatively sombre “road journey” of the verses, at “Tempus adest gratia” (The time of grace has come), and later, “Ezekielis porta Claus petransitur” (The closed gate of Ezekiel has been passed through). I was given the whole time the sense of a journey from darkness to light, from ignorance to enlightenment, from fear to hope, the music’s trajectories conveying a kind of direction and purpose punctuated by revelations expressed with utter joy. I thought the work heartwarming and the performance exhilarating!

After the interval came one of those treasurable “Pepe Becker” moments, with music which admirably suited her voice – this was the anonymously-written 17th Century Christmas song “Sweet was the song”, an angelic soprano voice accompanied by a single viol, the sounds again given a certain bloom by the acoustic to memorable effect. Just as remarkable was the enchantment of four viols accompanying the song’s second verse, voice and instruments conveying an overall sense, in the sound’s pure quality, of something eternal.

Following these celestial outpourings the instrumental consort music of Tobias Hume brought us back to terra firma, but delightfully so – here, instead, were earthy, characterful tones, in places attractively nasal, while elsewhere the timbres were sweet and ingratiating. These were two duets whose titles – “Sweet Music” and “Musick and Mirth” – suggested contrasting pieces were in store, the first vocal in character, and the second dance-like. The performances’ rhythmic control and subtle variation of pulse was a joy, the trajectories breathing easefully at all times, while the accenting meant that one never knew what next to expect – razor-sharp tones were followed by full, rich vocal lines, the music moving easily and excitingly through eventful contrasts. The “Musick and Mirth” section had a gigue-like character at the beginning, one which seemed to “morph’ into something rather more four-square and even more ruminative, before suddenly accelerating! – the players splendidly put across the music’s exploratory quirkiness to wonderful effect.

The anonymous, carol-like “Born is the Babe”, was the perfect foil for the instrumental pieces which surrounded it, bright, melodic and meditative, with its final line “who cured our care by suff’ring on the cross”. Then, as with Tobias Hume’s piece, William Byrd’s Fantasia for six instruments was filled with imaginative touches, beginning wistfully as if day-dreaming, before gathering more and more tonal weight with the lines overlapping, with lots of “echo-phrases” for our delectation. Rhythms began to throw out accents, enlivening the textures, and leading us towards a joyful dance variation, before rushing to an exhilarating conclusion.

For us in the audience it all felt and sounded fun to perform, as did the same composer’s “This day Christ was born” with its “lively rhythms”, and its magnificent peroration, gloriously put across by the musicians, the voices reaching upwards with “Glory to God on High” and the concluding Alleluiahs. As a kind of “Christmas bonus” the group treated us to a repeat performance of Ross Harris’s “Gaudete”, even more resplendently given this time round – the Monteverdi-like energies of the opening declamations, the almost Sibelius-like rhythmic trajectories of the repeated instrumental figures accompanying “Tempus adest gratia”, denoting the irresistible forces of change and enlightenment, as “the closed gate of Ezekiel” was left behind, and the soaring vocal lines riding the waves of expectation, leading to a final, confident and joyful “Gaudete”.

It all left we in the audience feeling joyful and expectant, and with a sense of wonderment and thankfulness at music’s power of transformation, as well as gratitude to those who performed it all so splendiferously! – omnes laudate!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A flavoursome taste of the “Baroque” at the St.Andrew’s Lunchtime Concert Series

Posted on by Peter Mechen

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace Lunchtime Concert Series presents:
A Concert of Eighteenth-Century Chamber Music

Music by Georg Phillipp Telemann,
Johann David Heinichen, and Johann Sebastian Bach

Rowena Simpson (soprano)
Leni Mäckle (bassoon)
Calvin Scott (oboe)
Jonathan Berkahn (keyboards)

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington
Wednesday, 13th December, 2017

These four performers, a singer and three instrumentalists, provided for this concert a goodly range of musical expression inhabiting that style we loosely know as “baroque”. The programme was framed by works from two of the “giants” of the era, Georg Phillipp Teleman and Johann Sebastian Bach, and also contained a sonata for oboe and bassoon by someone whose name was unknown to me, Johann David Heinichen (1683-1729) , a composer whose relative present-day obscurity belies the fame he once enjoyed as “one of the three important “H”s of German music”, the others being , in the writer Johann Matheson’s opinion, Handel and Hasse.

We began with Telemann’s music, an aria from a cantata written for the first Sunday of the New Year “Schmeckt und sheet unsers Gottes Freundlichkeit” (Taste and see the friendliness of our God). I wish I had known this work before hearing it performed, as I’m sure I would have relished all the more the performance given by soprano Rowena Simpson and the ensemble – alas that one’s “baroque cantata-listening” rarely has the opportunity to extend beyond the stellar creative achievements of “you-know-who”, as there are obviously treasures such as this awaiting a resurgence of appreciation – ironic that Telemann’s music, so popular in its day, is now having to undergo a kind of process of rediscovery via performances such as these.

The church’s acoustic served the music well, ample enough but still bright and focused, a bias towards treble tones enhancing the music’s clarity. As with German baroque vocal music, the voice is really another instrumental line, here sung characterfully and with the twists and turns of the figurations given plenty of vigour, even in the most demanding, breath-testing of places (no alcohol involved!), and by the agile and articulate phrasings of the instrumentalists.

Even more curious as regards the ebb and flow of fame is the case of one Johann David Heinichen, as mentioned above, something of a celebrity as a composer and theorist in his day, and obviously worthy of reinstatement as regards reputation and his music. We heard a Sonata for oboe and bassoon whose four movements provided both entertainment and thoughtfulness in contrasting ways. First, an opening Grave reminiscent in places of Purcell brought forth liquid lines from Calvin Scott’s oboe, supported by confident, well-rounded bassoon figurations. This was followed by an Allegro that sounded rather more like a “concert of equals”, the melodic figures and runs shared and alternated, and the players beautifully reflecting each instrument’s timbral character in their phrasings – Leni Mäckle’s bassoon readily demonstrating, for example, its own unique expressive world as feelingly as its more ostensibly “romantic” partner.

The Larghetto which followed had a gentle, Siciliano-like rhythm, the oboe taking the melody with plenty of light-and-shade in the phrasings and the bassoon flexible and expressive in its accompanying figures. Finally, the concluding Allegro was a sprightly, oboe-led dance, with some tricky bass repetitions and runs for the bassoon – a true and rewarding partnership indeed!

Rowena Simpson then performed a soprano aria from JS Bach’s Cantata BWV 21 “Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis” Bach himself was extremely partial to this Cantata, reintroducing it in revised versions on at least two occasions when applying for different cantorial posts. Bach’s conception is on a grand scale, taking as its subject the Gospel for the Third Sunday after Trinity, which contains the Parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke 15:1-10). The soprano aria “Seufer, Thranen, Kummer, Not” (Sighs, tears, troubles and distress) uses a counterpointing oboe, and cello and keyboard (piano) obbligato, all of which here worked beautifully, the sorrowful oboe line working poignantly with the voice. The singer’s bright, engaging tones put the lines across to us with plenty of anguished feeling and focus, the slightly raw intonation of a couple of her notes enhancing the piece’s basic angst.

Jonathan Berkahn introduced the next item, a keyboard solo with the title “Pastorale in F”, which he played on the church’s chamber organ. He talked a little about the development of the “Pastorale” form, which was developed from the custom of the shepherds in areas around Italian cities and towns who came into the churches at Christmas time to play their musical instruments for the people worshipping before the Christmas cribs and mangers, in homage to the new-born Christ Child.

The piping style (or “Piffero”) in the first two movements imitated a drone bass and a bagpipe melody. (From this term comes “Pifa”, found in Baroque Christmas music such as Handel’s “Messiah” – and in a recent NZSO performance by conductor Brett Weymark, making splendid sense of the title by using a pair of oboes in that work’s “Pastoral Symphony”, despite Handel scoring the piece for strings alone!)

Jonathan Berkahn’s performance brought out lovely, gentle rocking rhythms at the outset, everything luminously-textured and beautifully “layered”, making an enchanting effect on the small organ. A bright-toned allegro second movement conveyed plenty of festive bustle, which contrasted with the third movement’s melancholy and solemn processional-like trajectories. Finally, we enjoyed a bright and cheerful outdoor dance, beautifully in effect and gorgeously registered, the repeat bringing heftier, even more celebratory tones, everything controlled with great aplomb.

To conclude the concert we were given an aria from the fourth part of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio “Flösst mein Heiland” (Does your name, My Saviour instill the tiniest seed….) – a splendid effect, the music steady and processional, with echo-effects at the ends of phrases, some of which were provided by Jonathan Berkahn on a recorder, in between his contributions at the piano. With singing that gracefully and easily filled out the spaces and worked hand-in-glove with the oboe and the ‘cello, besides the enjoyment to be had from the evocative echo effects, the piece made a suitably well-rounded impression. It brought the concert’s strands together in what I thought a satisfying and rewarding way.

After we had finished applauding the musicians for their efforts, a “surprise” presentation was made to the St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace concert organizer, Marjan van Waardenberg, on behalf of both audiences and performers over the years, intended as a tribute to her tireless work in facilitating such a varied and high-quality series of concerts at lunchtime for the delight of Wellington’s music-lovers during the previous decade.

The warm response of the audience to this tribute demonstrated the value and esteem these concerts have come to hold in the concert-going life of the capital.

Cynthia and Gertie go Baroque with Purcell at Circa Theatre

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Circa Theatre and Willow Productions presents:
CYNTHIA AND GERTIE GO BAROQUE

Written and performed by:
Helen Moulder – CYNTHIA
and Rose Beauchamp – GERTIE

Directed by Jeff Kingsford-Brown
Design/Lighting/Stage Manager – Deb McGuire
Costumes – Janet Dunn
Theatre and Puppet Makers – Struan Ashby,
Anna Bailey, Rose Beauchamp

Circa Theatre, Taranaki St., Wellington

Wednesday, 13th December, 2017

(until 23rd December)

Firstly, a note of thanks to Cynthia Fortitude and Gertie Rallentando – Thank you both, for your indefatigable energies and your irrepressible buoyancies! Together, you were as a matching pair of Courtenay Place street-lamps to our sensibilities throughout the intoxicating journey upon which you launched us, offering support as well as illumination! Your concerted efforts generated such refulgence, shining forth from within the textures of one of the masterpieces of English music, Henry Purcell’s opera “Dido and Aeneas”.

Cynthia and Gertrude are hell-bent upon performing a version of Purcell’s renowned work which charmingly as well as outrageously brings it all the more to life for present-day audiences. In fact one of Cynthia’s most telling and candid observations of the evening came towards the end of the show, her remark being that it was probably lucky that Purcell had been dead for four hundred years in view of what she and her colleague Gertie had wrought upon his most famous musical and dramatic work, over the course of the presentation.

Though raising a laugh, it was a piece of tongue-in-cheek repartee which perfectly and ironically accorded with the documented fact that Purcell’s librettists for many of his vocal and theatrical compositions gave him extremely rudimentary and at times uninspired material to work with – to the point where a contemporary of the composer’s, the satirist Thomas Brown, versified thus at the time:

“For where the Author’s scanty words have fail’d,
Your happier graces, Purcell, have prevail’d”.

Also, the librettist Nahum Tate, who adapted the “Dido” story from an episode in Virgil has come in for some damning criticism over the years, summed up by the following verdict of a modern-day commentator – “Little enough of Virgil remains (in the opera) – Dido is drastically simplified, and Aeneas is made into a complete booby. And the sense of cosmic forces at play is replaced by the machinations of an outrageous set of Restoration witches” (Joseph Kerman “Opera as Drama” 1988 University of California)

So, taking the advice of a literary genius who proclaimed “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, Cynthia and Gertie lost no time in cutting to the dramatic quick by adroitly revitalising the identities of the characters in the original story. Here, we encountered not Dido and Aeneas, but “Diana” and “Andy “as the ill-fated lovers, and with chaperone Amanda (rather than the maidservant, Belinda) ready at a moment’s notice to “unbottle and dispense” support and advice as if it were on tap. So, it was pretty much “instant update – just add water”, and with the help of the vernacular, away we were whirled on our dramatic journey!

But wait! – we wouldn’t have entrusted our evening’s entertainment to the unknown so easily without first assuring ourselves of the likelihood of these performers being able to “deliver” the goods, still – after all, anybody can put on costumes and don wigs and pirouette randomly around and about the stage, lip-and-finger-synching to music already being played. True, the immortal duo’s previous show “The Legend Returns” has already become a living classic, having made its way into the most distinguished annals of New Zealand’s theatrical history – but after twenty years, were the old instincts and impulses still firing on all cylinders? Did the flame still burn as brightly and energetically in those theatrical bosoms? Could Cynthia and Gertie still do it?

It took but a few moments to reassure us that all was as real and earnest, realigned and refurbished, as before – Gertie with her introductory harpsichordic displays of prestidigitation, and Cynthia with her congenitally “grand manner” and gesturings appropriate to a “practitioner of rallen-tando” swept up our sensibilities and lost no time in absorbing us in the business of their on-stage preparations . Cynthia primed her audience up superbly, charming and reassuring those whose front-row seats would normally have given their occupants grave concern at having “greatness thrust upon ’em” at any given moment and providing the rest of us with suitably inscribed flash-card response indications – you simply knew where you were with these two in charge!

So, we were given an invaluable Janus-faced view of proceedings, being party to these (sometimes surprising) preparations, as well as enjoying the pleasures of their ultimate fruition, thrills and spills included! Tempting though it is for me to here reproduce some of the choicest moments of the entertainment, it would be a pity to spoil their delightful surprise value! – without giving too much away, I might mention the highly-diverting and all-too-human use of performer-enhancement aids, with Cynthia (bless her!) in need of an occasional “pick-me-up-and-redirect-my-befuddlement” pill! – and the use of a puppet-theatre and its suitably recontextualised puppet figures to crystallise the opera’s action.

Helped further by a racy reworking of the all-too-prosaic original libretto, Purcell and his (renamed) characters were able to live again in their extremely visceral glory, thanks to the energies of our two star writer/performers, and the support they garnered from various quarters – flowing direction from Jeff Kingsford-Brown, suitably atmospheric set design and lighting from Deb McGuire, and lavishly resonating costumes from Janet Dunn. Then there was Struan Ashby’s charming puppet theatre, complete with figures  fashioned by Anna Bailey and Rose Beauchamp herself.

I should add that further support came from a suitably and skillfully-coached audience – after we’d survived a querulous “What are you doing here if you’re not auditioning for our show?” moment from Cynthia, we really came into our own in the Witches’ scene! In fact, our contributions, in the finest baroque fashion, were actually divided into parts rather than left as a kind of mindless unison!

Before concluding, I can’t resist letting slip the merest smattering of the libretto’s updated raciness, simply for sharing’s sakes! – and as the Trojan hero Aeneas seemed to come off worst as a character in Purcell’s original, it was only fitting that he was given more of his dues in this presentation – by way of preparing us for his puppet-entrance, the already-entranced Queen told us that “He’s genetically engineered /so he’ll be marvellous in bed”. Alas, as befits a modern operatic playboy, the eponymous hero, after accessing his hacked online updates, suddenly expostulated “Receivership? – I’ll have to run! I’ll have to get away! I need an exit strategy today!” Well, you get the idea!

It remained for the spurned Carthage Queen to bemoan her loss, and, bereft of love and hope, accept her time-honoured fate as one who died of a broken heart. Such were the conflicting emotions brought into play by Cynthia and Gertie recasting this scene as either one of the great comic tragedies or, alternatively, tragic comedies, I was and remain gobsmacked at the outcome’s cathartic effect! – I may even have to go the show again! What I do remember is that we in the audience, having a participatory role in the grand peroration, were caught up in it all to the extent that when the divine Cynthia indicated to us her “encore” flash-card and the irrepressible Gertie took the lead we capitulated like lambs to the slaughter!

Whoever similarly takes the plunge and “Goes for Baroque” with these two stellar performers, Helen Moulder and Rose Beauchamp, will be similarly transported, their appreciation of Baroque opera enhanced, perhaps even beyond the point of “no return”.

Handel’s Messiah – music as a living entity

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
HANDEL – Messiah

Celeste Lazarenko (soprano)
Deborah Humble (mezzo-soprano)
Robert Macfarlane (tenor)
Jared Holt (bass)

The Orpheus Choir of Wellington
Chorusmaster: Brent Stewart

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Brett Weymark

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, 9th December, 2017

This was a most interesting “Messiah”, containing as it did a number of interpretative and executive detailings I wouldn’t quite frankly have expected to encounter in the same single performance. Of course, for me to actually say that goes against the grain of what I’ve always felt about Baroque Music and its presentation, that its composers and musicians (and almost certainly its listeners as well) would have been intensely practical people for whom “getting the music out there” was the absolute priority, however consistent or inconsistent might have seemed the various detailings of the performances’ style or textural fidelity.

Most composers in that era were themselves performers, and for that reason were well acquainted with the practicalities of live music-making, with all its attendant thrills and spills. For this reason I’m inclined to think the average Baroque composer would have been somewhat puzzled at our present-day obsession with so-called “correct” and “authentic” performance practice, especially considering the extent to which conjecture plays a part in making present-day decisions as to how this music was played/ought to be played. There is so much we simply don’t know regarding how they did it in Handel’s time.

Some musicologists, are worried that the in-vogue HIP (historically-informed performance) movement has, by prohibiting any way of playing it except for what is deemed the “correct” way, had the effect over the years of putting early music increasingly in a museum rather than in a “living” context. This “holier-than-thou” attitude is now increasingly coming under fire, its critics declaring that HIP should be a means towards more imaginative music-making, and not an end in itself. And performers are excitingly taking more and more notice of this attitude, as witness what took place during parts of this “Messiah” performance.

It was obvious, right from the work’s beginning, that the conductor, Brett Weymark, had schooled his orchestral forces to deliver crisp, lean orchestral textures which kept Handel’s contrapuntal writing clear and exciting in its vigour and muscularity. In fact the orchestral playing throughout the work was a joy, the textures allowing the different voices to convey whatever character was needed from the context of the separate parts with clarity and focus, from the bright and forceful tones accompanying the Halleluiah Chorus, to the hushed, withdrawn atmospheres accompanying the bass’s recitative “For Behold, darkness shall cover the earth”.

What a delightful surprise, then, to encounter, in the normally strings-only “Pastoral Symphony” two oboes playing the melody in thirds – my thought was “Why didn’t Handel score it this way?” After all the oboe was one of his favourite instruments. It all sounded absolutely enchanting, and very appropriately “pastoral”, as if the shepherds were playing their instruments to their sheep.

The other instrumental contributions which need to be honorably mentioned are those from the solo violinist (Yuka Eguchi in tremendous form as acting concertmaster), solo cellist Andrew Joyce, often a supporting continuo partner to his leader, and playing as beautifully, along with organist Douglas Mews, and trumpeters Mark Carter and Michael Kirgan, the pair magical in the “Glory to God” sequences and splendid in the Halleluiah Chorus and in the final Chorus. And then Michael Kirgan’s solo in “The trumpet shall sound” made a splendid and festive impression throughout.

The chorus work matched the orchestral playing in impact, clarity, energy, colour and delicacy. In places I thought the tenors lacked the last ounce of “heft” (a common problem among choirs), but still contributed to the overall magnificence of the sound with focused commitment. Right from the opening chorus “And the Glory of The Lord” the voices grabbed and held our attention, as much by dint of the variety and colour of the different lines and by the singing’s overall strength and energy. Only briefly did the voices as a whole disappoint, when, during the opening of “Since Man came by Death” they didn’t invest the opening sotto voce murmurings with sufficient awe and despair, so that the outburst which followed had less contrasting impact. That apart, I thought the chorus work among the best I’d ever heard in a “live” Messiah performance. From so many terrific renditions of individual choruses I particularly liked “Surely he hath borne our griefs” – biting, theatrical and dramatic!

The soloists each had different strengths to offer, beginning with the engaging enthusiasm of tenor Robert Mcfarlane, with a warmly reassuring “Comfort Ye”, the voice with a slight warble under pressure, and lacking that last ounce of breath control to bring off the floating aspect of some of his held notes. Nevertheless it was a strong and characterful beginning, with qualities that he later brought to his extended sequence of recitatives and arias concluding with the vigorous ”Thou shalt break them”, a taxing succession of recitative and arias whose focus and purpose he maintained with credit.. He also added a theatrical touch during this sequence, actually turning and facing the chorus during their singing of “He trusted in God”, as if he was Christ directly confronting his tormentors.

Bass Jared Holt certainly gave his contributions everything he had, summoning up great dignity and sufficient portentousness to deliver “For behold” and its following aria “The people that walked” – while not a particularly deep bass, he made up in emphasis and characterization what his voice lacked in true heft, as he did also for “The trumpet shall sound”, later in the work. A curiosity, which I’d never before encountered, was the recitative treatment he gave to ”But who may abide” which prompted a whispered comment from my partner, “Is this the Readers Digest version?”

I thought mezzo-soprano Deborah Humble’s finest moment in the work came with “He was despised” whose opening phrases received particularly heartfelt treatment, the pauses between each statement given enough time to register and generate pity and wonderment; and then the middle section startlingly changing its character to one of great vehemence, vividly presenting the condemned man’s acquiescence in stark contrast to the pitiless and methodical cruelty and scorn inflicted upon him. Elsewhere she occasionally found, as do most mezzos, the music too low in places to be sufficiently “sounded”, though another memorable sequence was her duet with the tenor “Oh Death, where is thy sting”, both singers giving their irruptions of energy to one another and building up a sense of exultation at the victory of life and goodness.

Soprano Celeste Lazarenko used her beautiful voice exquisitely in places, playing her part in painting a wonderous scene of revelation to the shepherds in the fields, and conveying a sense of growing excitement at the presence of the heavenly host of angels – a great moment! She also made the most of “I know that my Redeemer liveth”, her voice reaching upwards with absolute security to those celestial heights in the music which convey such a sense of exultation. It was a voice whose sheer sound gave a lot of pleasure, which she used most winningly to focus on the music’s ecstatic quality.

I mentioned the performance’s capacity to surprise in places, never more so than at the beginning of the final “Amen” Chorus, when the soloists congregated together and individually began the fugue, singing the whole of the passage up to the entry of the strings. The conductor’s slow tempi gave a slightly mannered effect, which was emphasized when both strings and then the chorus came in at a faster pace – but nevertheless the idea and its execution certainly grabbed our attention. The rest was what we expected, but the point had been made – the work had been treated as a living entity in places, cocking a snoot at tradition for its own sakes and daring to reimagine some passages without doing violence to the whole. And the skill and sensibility of the performers ensured that whatever was done was brought off with style and focus, adding to a sense of wonderment and renewal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monteverdi again – at last! – The Fifth Book of Madrigals, from Baroque Voices

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Baroque Voices presents:
“The Full Monte “ (Concert 5)

MONTEVERDI – “Il Quinto Libro de Madrigali” (The Fifth Book of Madrigals)

Baroque Voices:
Pepe Becker (director), Nicola Holt (sopranos)
Milla Dickens, Toby Gee (altos)
Peter Dyne, Patrick Pond (tenors)
David Morriss (bass)

Robert Oliver (bass viol)
Douglas Mews (harpsichord)

Newtown Community Centre Theatre,
Newtown, Wellington

Sunday, 3rd December, 2017

Continuing with a concert series which began in 2011, Baroque Voices, led by the intrepid and perennially fresh-voiced Pepe Becker, performed for us on this occasion all but the final madrigal in Monteverdi’s “Quinto Libro” (Book Five), the last-named requiring a greater number of singers than the rest of the collection. The group has, sometimes, in these concerts, re-ordered the chronology of the works (Book Four, for example, was interspersed with accompanied madrigals from Book Seven), so as to give listeners a fuller idea of the range and variety of the composer’s invention. It could therefore be that the omitted madrigal from Book Five will suddenly “pop up” in another, fuller-voiced context in the series.

At the point of producing his Book Five of these madrigals, Monteverdi was putting revolutionary ideas into practice of a kind that earned him criticism from his contemporaries, not only as regards musical style but also content (for example, his madrigal “Cruda Amarilli”, featured on today’s programme, was condemned for its “crudities” and “licence” by a fellow-composer). He was certainly throwing down the gauntlet in front of traditional notions of propriety in vocal music by declaring that the words and their meanings had primacy, and the music took its cues from these – ‘the words the mistress of the harmony and not the servant”.

Our proximity to the singers, plus the venue’s lively and immediate acoustic, enabled us to relish all the more these characteristics some of Monteverdi’s peers found so questionable. In fact the marriage of texts and tones wrought by the Voices gave considerable pleasure to the ear throughout the concert, aided, of course, by access to the actual words via a splendidly-annotated and informative programme booklet. We could thus appreciate all the more the group’s explorations of shade upon shade of expression in places like the opening madrigal’s lament “amaramente insegni”(love’s bitterness) and towards the end of the piece, the resigned“I mi moro tacendo” (I shall die in silence”), the intensities obviously “too close for comfort” for certain of the composer’s fellows.

Amazingly, the last of the “Full Monte” presentations by Baroque voices took place no less than four years ago, giving the present concert something of a “prodigal child” aspect, an entity wandering in some kind of wilderness before finally returning home. Over such a period of time things obviously change and people come and go, to the point here where the group’s leader, Pepe Becker, was the only “voice” common to both occasions. Happily, the group’s overall standards of ensemble, intonation and stylistic awareness seemed as well-suited to the repertoire as ever – and I thought in fact, there was a freshness about the approach which suggested some kind of renewal of energies and purpose regarding the project as a whole.

As with the other concerts in this series, the musical riches were too many and varied to document in detail, requiring more of a thesis than a review to do so. I‘ve thus contented myself with relishing the effect of the whole and pinpointing a few particular moments which have stayed in the memory for reasons of impact and resonance. I should at this stage mention the sterling support given the singers by the continuo players, Robert Oliver (bass viol) and Douglas Mews (harpsichord), their playing exquisitely underlining the felicities of the singers’ realisations throughout.

Leading from the front, Pepe Becker’s voice seemed to me in particularly fine fettle, as pure, focused and flexible of tone as ever, able to “float” her lines with as much freedom as I previously remembered. She was well-partnered by fellow-soprano Nicola Holt, their combination producing ecstatic moments throughout the concert – for instance, some amazingly stratospheric singing from the sopranos at the opening of No. 5, “Dorinda, ah, diro….”, the rest finely-chiselled evocations of despair from all voices leading towards bitter resignation at “Sarai con la mia morte” (You shall be mine as I die).

These beautifully-gradated and –realised expressions of acceptance within grief linked the work to the following madrigal, “Ecco piegando” (Here am I…”), though startling with its plea to the lover to “wound this heart that was so cruel to you” (“ferisci questo cor che ti fu crudo”). Already, there was plenty of drama and depth of feeling generated by the opening of the third madrigal“Era l’anima mia” with its sombre depictions from the men’s voices of a soul on the point of farewelling life! And what theatricality at the point when the women’s voices brought “a fairer and more graceful soul” to bear on the scenario, the light illuminating the textures and leading towards that extraordinary extended treatment of the madrigal’s last line “Se mori, ohime, non mori tu, mor’ io? “ (If you die, it is, alas, not you who dies, but I).

Further resisting the temptation to construct a self-indulgent compendium of further on-going delights, I’ll instead concentrate on the performance of the final trio of madrigals, each of which highlighted particular singers’ qualities as well as presenting the group in a true and favourable sense. No.16, “Amor se giusto sei” (Love, if you are just) is a plea to Love itself to be “just”, in making the poet’s beloved properly appreciative of his feelings for her, rather than contemptuous and scornful. It was a chance for both tenor and bass to figure with significant solo passages, each taking his turn to floridly and impassionedly voice his sorrow and frustration at his beloved’s indifference to his protestations. Here, surely were the seeds of the new “operatic” manner about to take music by storm given some of their first expressions in these works; and each of the singers here relished the opportunity to “emote” in an engaging and theatrical manner.

The following “T’amo mia vita” (I love you, my life!) featured the men replying to the soprano’s opening statement, caressing the idea of “in questa sola si soave parola” (this single, gentle word”, expressing emotion with the utmost delight, and, later  declaring “prendila tosto Amore” (seize love quickly). The ensemble skillfully caught the music’s ebb and flow between impulsive energy and rapturous languidity, conveying to us a sensual enjoyment of the lines wholly characteristic of the composer’s output.

Concluding the concert was the last but one Madrigal from the Fifth Book, “E cosi a poco a poco” (And thus, little by little”), the ensemble detailed and demonstrative at the beginning with the two sopranos especially vibrant, preparing the way for the men’s declamatory “Che spegne antico incendio” (Whoever quenches an ancient fire”), the subsequent exchanges and interactions more declamatory and conversational than melodic, the operatic spirit again spreading its wings ready to take flight. A repetition of “Che spegne antico incendio” featured the whole group, and built most satisfyingly to a resounding conclusion.

Though audience numbers were disappointingly few, the concert’s glorious sounds resounded with as much splendour as if we had been in St Mark’s in Venice. One hopes that Pepe Becker and her Voices will get sufficient support to continue their journey, helping to bring this music and its composer to a rightful place in the endlessly detailed musical tapestry of music for the ages. How wonderful to have in Wellington musicians, singers and instrumentalists, of the calibre to be able to do this incredible music justice!

 

 

 

 

 

Cataclysmic conclusion to Orchestra Wellington’s Diaghilev season

Posted on by Peter Mechen

ORCHESTRA WELLINGTON – The Rite of Spring

BEETHOVEN – Symphony No.3 Op.55 “Eroica”
STRAVINSKY – The Rite Of Spring (Ballet – 1913)

Orchestra Wellington
Marc Taddei (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, 2nd December, 2017

This concert began with two of the most famous chords in all nineteenth-century music, those which opened a thrilling performance by Orchestra Wellington of Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony, the work by which the composer allegedly intended to celebrate the achievements of Napoleon Bonaparte, but changed his mind, and, according to an eye-witness account, scratched out the original dedication, and reinscribed it as “composed in memory of a great man”.

Napoleon or no, the work was definitely a revolutionary statement, one which of itself proclaimed a “new era” of musical expression. Beethoven himself was obviously less concerned with the selfconscious idea of being at the forefront of any such new age, than with his own development as a creative artist. He had said to a friend at around this time – “I am by no means satisfied with my work up to now, and I intend to make a fresh start from now on”. That “fresh start” embodied the Third Symphony, the “Eroica”.

What made it revolutionary was its length – the first movement alone was longer than many whole classical symphonies. Other notable aspects were the second movement being styled as a funeral march, and the third movement being a new-ish concept which gradually overtook the idea of the Minuet, replacing it with something called a Scherzo (in Italian, a “joke”). Finally, the symphony’s finale seemed more serious than usual – a theme-and-variations movement based on some music Beethoven had already written.

Again, the composer wanted something different, not being content with the usual “light entertainment” of symphonic finales. To this end, he used music from an earlier work of his own, a ballet about Prometheus, the Titan who breathed life into a pair of statues, making them humans, before being slain for his impudence, and then brought to life again by Apollo. The theme follows the general pattern of the symphony – heroism triumphing over death and returning to life.

The thrust and dynamism of Orchestra Wellington’s playing and Marc Taddei’s conducting made the symphony’s first movement a force to be reckoned with, and the second movement a heartfelt, almost confessional piece of music, laying bare the basic emotions – joy, sorrow, exultation, disappointment, resignation – everything was characterized so strongly and directly in the playing and the overall direction of the piece.

Over the years I’ve collected a number of recordings of the work, my first purchases reflecting what used to be the “norm”when it came to playing Beethoven, very much tending towards a romantic mode of expression, with large orchestral numbers and in some cases monumental tempi – conductors such as Furtwangler, Klemperer and Knappertsbusch seemed to stress the sheer physical amplitude of the music’s range and scope, and developed what seemed like a Beethoven for the ages. Other conductors preferred to bring more dynamism to the music, notably Toscanini, Erich Kleiber (as did his son Carlos), and Karajan, while continuing to use nineteenth-century orchestra numbers. And so interpreters of the music came and went, evoking the composer’s spirit in their different ways, which nevertheless seemed virtually indestructible throughout.

However, of late, there’s been a revolution in the matter of performing music from different historical periods, with musicians wanting to realize a more “authentic” sound by means of examining earlier playing techniques and practices, included among which was a more “purist” approach to the score itself, especially in the matter of metronome markings. Whole articles have been written by different researchers into questions such as the viability of Beethoven’s own markings and tempi directions in general, not to mention the use of “authentic” instruments and playing practices different to those we had become accustomed to.

Even if conductors and orchestras don’t go as far as employing either “genuine” older instruments or copies of the same when they play eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century music, there’s now a far greater awareness in mainstream concert performance of “period” practices, resulting generally in smaller ensembles playing music at faster tempi and with phrasing and tonal production which produce a “purer”, less romantically-laden sound and texture in the music. This was certainly evident in Marc Taddei’s conducting of Orchestra Wellington on this occasion, especially in the symphony’s first two movements, both of which were given urgent, dynamic tempi, and crisply articulate phrasing, with sharply-etched, largely vibrato-less texturings. There’s a roistering spirit of adventure about this combination’s music-making which invariably carries the day, and which on this occasion, for me, resulted in a performance which crackled and sizzled with blood-stirring energies throughout.

The musicians having breasted the epic traversals of the symphony’s opening two movements (the work already lengthier than any other symphony completed up to that time), they then tackled the next “revolutionary” aspect of the work, the substitution by the composer of a “scherzo” movement for the traditional minuet, a more exciting and dynamic development. Particularly striking was the playing by the horns of the “trio” section of the music, given with tremendous panache by the players. Afterwards, one might have expected a finale of more fun and games and relaxation, but the composer had other ideas, infusing the movement with references to an earlier work of his , a ballet about Prometheus, the Titan who breathed life into a pair of statues, making them humans, before being condemned to die for his impudence, and then brought to life again by Apollo.

The theme follows the general pattern of the symphony – heroism triumphing over death and returning to life. The performance here had some lovely aspects including a “solo string” treatment of a variation on the Promethean theme, one which is usually given to a larger complement of strings – here, less was made deliciously more as the solo string textures “personalized” the lines more sharply and characterfully as well as providing a telling contrast with the rest of the movement’s sounds.

A little more than a hundred years later an audience heard another very revolutionary piece of music for the first time, one from a young composer, Igor Stravinsky, the Rite of Spring, whose first performance in Paris in 1913 had occasioned one of the most famous riots in musical history. Though nothing like Stravinsky’s music had been heard before, it seems that the troubles in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées at that first performance were equally provoked by the choreography devised by the principal dancer, Vaslav Nijinsky, and that certain members of the audience took vociferous and even violent objection to what they saw on the stage. Stravinsky himself later described what he saw on stage as “a group of knock-kneed and long-braided Lolitas jumping up and down”, though later still he pronounced himself satisfied with the outcome of the production as a whole, scandal or no scandal.

Despite being over a hundred years old itself, by now, I think parts of “Le Sacre” still have an incredibly “here-and-now” feel about them, a kind of innate power to sound in places modern, totally unique and original. The introductions to each of the work’s two parts are both remarkably evocative, an aspect of the work which the players brought off here to great effect, right from the plaintive bassoon note which sets the work in motion through to the ever-burgeoning sense of something from long ago coming into being. The second part begins rather more claustrophobically, chord-clusters bringing oppressive weight to the textures and underlining the thrall in which primitive peoples were held by the passage of the seasons. Everywhere, the conductor and players gave these evocations the space and weight needed to underline these powerful resonances and let them do their work.

The other aspect of “Le Sacre” which helps define its unique character is its rhythmic variety and complexity, which seems to my untrained ear to reach some kind of apogee in the final Sacrificial Dance of the Chosen One – the trajectories are so irregular, so angular, so unpredictable! For the uninitiated listener it might seem like complete mayhem, nothing but desperate irruptions of movement by a chosen victim sacrificing herself to the spring. Of course it OUGHT to sound desperate and out of control, and Marc Taddei and the players delivered it all with a remarkable amalgam of assurance and spontaneity, so that the awe of the music was maintained right up to the point of its dissolution. All were heroes, and we in the audience treated the players and their conductor as such, after we’d recovered from the final onslaught of the music’s implaccable energies.

So, from a brilliantly successful season of Diaghilev-inspired works this year we’ll be taken by Marc Taddei and the orchestra through Antonin Dvorak’s mature symphonies in 2018 – a journey which was announced this evening, and whose delights we’ll meantime savour in anticipation and without a doubt relish in their performance next year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vivante Ensemble’s Vaughan Williams and Mendelssohn set St.Andrew’s buzzing

Posted on by Peter Mechen

St.Andrews Lunchtime Concert Series presents:

VIVANTE ENSEMBLE

Violins: Yuka Eguchi, Malavika Gopal, Martin Jaenecke, Anna van der Zee
Violas: Victoria Jaenecke, Christiaan van der Zee
‘Cellos: Robert Ibell, Ken Ichinose

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS – Phantasy Quintet (1912)

FELIX MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY – Octet in E-flat Major Op.20

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Wednesday, 29th November 2017

The St Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace Lunchtime Concert Series here in Wellington has over the years produced some memorable musical experiences, but surely none more exhilarating that what we heard given by the talented Vivante Ensemble on this occasion. To be variously entranced, mesmerized, captivated, energized and thoroughly intoxicated as a listener at a concert performance is to experience a “spirit of delight” which, as the poet laments, “rarely comest” to the extent that we in the audience were here able to enjoy at first hand.

What came across to us so directly was the players’ own enjoyment of the music-making, a quality which reached almost orgiastic levels of delight as the concert neared its conclusion with the finale of Felix Mendelssohn’s remarkable Octet for Strings. Earlier the players had explored and brought to fruition a different kind of rapture with Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Phantasy Quintet, a work epitomizing the fruits of the English musical renaissance of the early twentieth century. In all it was a splendidly “charged” affair, with two pieces of music literally set alight in their different ways by the musicians’ whole-hearted and transported playing.

In a sense the programme encapsulated in reverse order a process by which English music “came of age” over a period of imitation of Germanic models and influences to that point where composers such as Holst and Vaughan Williams seemed to find what they were looking for in the heritage of English folksong. Though Mendelssohn never actually lived in England his influence was enormous among members of the British “establishment”, akin to that of Handel’s a century earlier, and certainly inspiring a home-grown compositional school searching for something uniquely “British”.

With works like the “Octet”, the “Midsummer Night’s Dream” music, the symphonies and the momentous oratorio “Elijah”, Mendelssohn surely set his contemporaries and subsequent imitators in England a near-impossible task, one which only Edward Elgar’s genius was able to counter on a European playing-field. But it was the rediscovery of British folk-song by Holst, Vaughan Williams and the researcher Cecil Sharp which gave other native composers a new, home-grown direction; here, it was richly manifest in the Vaughan Williams’ Phantasy Quintet, opening Vivante Ensemble’s concert.

Right from the opening viola phrases, what playing we heard! – full, rich tones, evoking a magnificent melancholy, which other instruments gorgeously enhanced, the effect like a group of folksingers with stringed instruments for voices. A vigorous 7/4 dance on the ‘cello opened the second movement, the additional voices adding stringent harmonies to the rumbustious energies, the instruments again singing out, the players’ focused sonorities creating almost visceral emotional intensities, involving and satisfying for the listener.

Surprisingly Vaughan Williams kept the ‘cello silent throughout the brief third movement, the music’s opening having a sweetness, almost North American in feeling, with hymn-like touches – the ‘cello returned for the finale with a lovely, angular striding theme, one augmented by the other instruments, before adroitly turning its rhythm into firstly a jot-trot, and then a gallop, the players keeping their energies precariously and palpably on the leash. Unpredictably, the movement intensifies, becalms, gallops again, and then concludes in wistful, melancholic fashion.

I’m aware of some commentators penchant for describing music such as this as belonging to the “English Cowpat School” – but I love it! – and, especially when, as here, it’s given with such full-blooded gusto, a kind of earthiness that “feels” authentic, stressing the kinship to Bartok’s identification with Hungarian and Roumanian folk melodies and their influence on his art-music. And, of course VW’s love for those Thomas Tallis-like modes and harmonies adds to the Englishness of it all so resonantly.

So to the Mendelssohn, for which three additional players (two violinists and a cellist) appeared, including a new leader, violinist Yuka Eguchi, the NZSO’s assistant concertmaster – another NZSO violinist, Anna van der Zee had led the quintet of players in the Vaughan Williams work. Straight away there seemed more of a bustling spirit to the venture, with the camaraderie of setting-up extra chairs and music-stands and the deployment of the additional players, even before a note of the music had sounded!

The beginning stole in beguilingly, despite the music’s urgency – the repeated notes of the accompaniment, light and gossamer-like, supported a melody which arched upwards and then subsided just as winsomely. The “thrill” of feeling the additional weight of the extra instruments in this work immediately marked it out from what we’d heard before, with a sense of additional power held in check, but ready for whatever no-holds-barred gestures were required.

Throughout the first movement the playing’s expressive range gave the music’s dynamic qualities full voice, by turns full-blooded and delicately featherweight in places, at times excitingly, almost alarmingly orchestral. The players deftly etched in the occasional touches of tragedy in the minor-key treatments of the material, while the return to the opening was beautifully poised, the group “growing” the running figurations from out of the music’s entanglements and into the full sunlight once again.

The second movement’s opening beautifully caught the vein of the music’s melancholy – the players gave the incessant throbbing triplet rhythm great power, making the contrasting lyrical sections all the more effective in their “balm for the senses” aspect. As for the famous scherzo, our pleasure at the ensemble’s knife-edged precision was breath-taking stuff, the music weaving its gossamer magic at speed, and the leader during the “trio” section performing remarkable fleet-fingered violinistic feats.

But the climax of the performance came with the finale, beginning “attacca”, the ‘cellists literally charging at the music’s opening passages and the lighter-voiced instruments following suit in a kind of fugato ferment, the lines clicking over the points with great elan. The players plunged into attenuated crescendi leading to tremendously-voiced statements of concerted intent, their enjoyment and exhilaration overwhelmingly communicated to their listeners, so that we were all swept away in the torrent of it all.

A woman whom I’d been sitting next to in the church was, like me, stunned by the brilliance and overwhelming physicality of the performances, to the extent that she said she just wanted to sit for a while afterwards and let it all wash over her. And a friend I saw on the way out had tears in her eyes at the joyous energy and commitment of the playing, and the expressive power and beauty of the music which was thus generated. I can find no previous review of the ensemble’s work on Middle C, so this is a debut of sorts for us and for these musicians – it’s a precursor, I sincerely hope, of many more splendidly committed and inspirational concerts from Vivante.

 

Peter Pan – stardust forever at Circa Theatre

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Circa Theatre presents:
PETER PAN – the pantomime

Adapted from J.M.Barrie’s play “Peter Pan” (1904)
and novel “Peter and Wendy” (1911)
by Pinky Agnew and Lorae Parry

Cast: Gavin Rutherford (Katie Pie) / Cary Stackhouse (Peter Pan) / Camilla Besley (Wendy)
Simon Leary (Mr. Darling, Captain Hook)
Bronwyn Turei (Mrs.Darling, Xena Lily, Tinker Bell, Areffa Plankton)
Jeff Kingsford-Brown (Winston, Smee) / Ben Emerson (Dunnie)
Manuel Solomon (Nana, Hone)

Production: Director – Susan Wilson
Musical Director/Arranger – Michael Nicholas Williams
Set Designer – John Hodgkins
Lighting – Jennifer Lal
Costumes: Sheila Hoton
Musical staging- Leigh Evans

Circa Theatre (Circa One), Wellington
Saturday, 18th November, 2017

(until 23rd December, 2017)

Now here was fun heaped up in spadefuls onto classic, tried-and-true fantasy with a splendid pantomimic treatment of J.M.Barrie’s play “Peter Pan: the boy who wouldn’t grow up”, beloved of generations over a century of years. Writers Pinky Agnew and Lorae Parry, in their first-ever pantomime, managed to give us all the trappings of the art-form – music, slapstick comedy and topical jokes – while maintaining enough of those iconic links with the original story to cast a distinctive aura over the high-speed happenings of the fantastical plot.

Barrie’s 1904 play itself had high-pantomimic aspects involving audience participation, principally to do with the fairy character Tinker Bell, who, at one stage of the story drinks poison intended for Peter, and whose survival is “thrown over” to the audience’s children, when they are told that if they believe in fairies, Tinker Bell’s life will be saved. Here, the children were invited to the stage to add physical presence to their voices in their bid to “save Tinker Bell”, with heart-warming results, doubtless generating many a precious lasting memory within those ultra-receptive minds.

Being the “state of the nation” animals that they are, writers Agnew and Parry adroitly spiced the tale’s context with a handful of social and political observations, mostly delivered by the superb Gavin Rutherford as “Katie Pie”, the pantomime Dame with a distinctly Aro Valley Girl flavour, acquainting us with her hand-to-mouth existence in struggling to cope with her landlord’s putting up the rent, but crossing the haves/have-nots divide with aplomb as a harbour-ferry-travelling nanny to the children of a Days Bay household, the Darling family, on this particular evening Mr and Mrs being dinner guests of self-proclaimed right-wing radio and TV presenter Mike Hoskings.

Intriguing separate realities kicked in with the disclosure of the identity of Katie Pie’s landlord, none other than the rapacious, wheedling Captain Hook himself, his character at one point reinforced by way of some slightly miscalculated by-play involving an eponymous right-handed appendage – “Have we “hooked” up somewhere before?” – getting caught in Katie Pie’s dress in what I thought was a somewhat gratuitously-emphasised manoeuvre ….or was the snag accidental, and the near contortionist byplay a resourceful rescue operation? – we’ll never know!

Simon Leary bestrode the thinly-veiled “divide” between quasi-respectable, portfolio-clad predatory landlord, and out-and-out pirate, his Captain Hook extravagant of manner and resplendent of garb, displaying a veneer of heroic stylishness barely concealing impulses of cruelty criss-crossed with slash-strokes of memories of ticking clocks and crocodile’s jaws!

Another byplay was Jeff Kingsford-Brown’s “Winston Tweeters” cameo, the ferryman who here silenced the imagined vocal efforts of any number of Venetian gondoliers, with his spirited ditty “Hop in the waka / and give ’em a shocker”. From such appearances, Kingsford-Brown’s morphing into the piratical Smee, Hook’s right-hand (!) man, was an utter delight, particularly his brigandish rendition of Herman’s Hermits’ ‘”I’m into something good” as the chemistry between him and Katie Pie lit up in spectacular waves of bi-partisan emotion.

Perhaps the evening’s most varied high-octane output of on-stage energies came from the multi-talented Bronwyn Turei,  introduced firstly as Katie Pie’s daughter, the warrior princess Xena Lily, but reconstituting herself as Mrs Darling, the socialite mother of Wendy and baby Michael, before slaying youthful hearts in the aisles as the jealous and possessive, but fiercely loyal and courageous Tinker Bell , in deadly danger after swallowing poison to save Peter, her only true love. It remained for her to summons a kind of mermaid chorus line as backing for “Areefa Plankton” in yet a further oceanic surge of irrepressible song-and-dance energy.

Both Cary Stackhouse’s Peter Pan and Camilla Besley’s Wendy exuded youthful wholeheartedness, Stackhouse’s wide-eyed, open-faced “child of nature” aspect made a perfect foil for Camilla Besley’s equally fresh though more feet-on-the-ground Wendy, as determined in her own way as her more artless, unfettered companion. Each required a bit more vocal heft in places, but made up in physical directness what their work was wanting in sheer volume of voice – as both were newly graduated students each could reasonably expect further developments as their respective voices matured.

Completing the cast were the two Lost Boys, played by Ben Emerson and Manuel Solomon, the latter also contributing some energetic routines doggy-style as the Darling’s pet dog Nana. These were thinly-disguised representations of recently-ousted “lost” parliamentarians, here named “Dunnie” and “Hone” respectively, their singing and dancing bursting at the seams with stylish gusto – I can’t resist enjoying once again their “moment” of confession at bringing Wendy to earth with their arrows on her arrival in Neverland, with the plaintively-sung words,”Twang! Twang! – we shot her down!”

I must confess that, for me, part of the fun of shows like these is the clever reworking of new lyrics into familiar classic “hit” tunes – somehow it contributes to the “outrageous” aspect of the show, the above instance a rib-tickling example for me. Michael Nicholas Williams’ arrangements and on-stage realizations held us in thrall throughout, however popular or otherwise the material – in one instance near the beginning we were dizzyingly tangoed, murder-mysteried and balladed through the magic portals of Xanadu in what seemed like a series of rapidly-drawn breaths, along an exhilarating musical ride.

Everything made eye-catching use of colour (Hook’s costume in particular a visual treat) mobility (the stage readily doubled as either oceanic or harbour waters on which boats could pursue their course, and crocodiles could swiftly stalk their prey) and spectacle (a wonderful cosmic realization as Peter and Wendy fly through the starry divide and into Neverland – all credit to Sheila Horton’s costumes, Jennifer Lal’s lighting and John Hodgkins’ evocative and flexible sets. With Leigh Evans’ rapid-fire deployment of the actors’ choreographic energies, and Susan Wilson’s judicious hand on the show’s pacing and dynamic variations, we in the audience were literally kept on the boil throughout.

Cast and production team deserve every success with this show – no better gauge of entertainment effectiveness was provided by my next-seat fellow audience member (a prominent Wellington composer), whose laughter rang out more-or-less continually at the moments-per-minute parade of risible enjoyment to be had from this delightful “Peter Pan”.

See also reviews at Theatreview –
https://www.theatreview.org.nz/reviews/review.php?id=10759