Category: Reviews – Opera and Ballet

Lively and colourful Iolanthe from Wellington G&S Light Opera

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Iolanthe by Arthur Sullivan, libretto by W S Gilbert
(Wellington G&S Light Opera Company)

Wellington Opera House

Friday 14 July 7:30 pm

Iolanthe is one of the operettas admired by many who take it upon themselves to judge musical worth, and it doesn’t rank among the most popular, with Pirates, Mikado, Gondoliers and Pinafore. The company last staged Iolanthe in 2008.

Here was a chance to see how those opinions stack up with someone who was not seeing it for the first time (I saw the 2008 production and reviewed it in The Dominion Post), but whose memory needed to be prompted a bit. Over the years I have come to enjoy Offenbach and certain of the Viennese school, most conspicuously, Die Fledermaus, and their close comic relatives by Rossini and Donizetti, rather more than G&S.

G&S has carved a niche in the English-speaking consciousness so that it is not really compared with the equivalent operetta or comic opera genres across the Channel. The Wellington company however attempted to broaden its appeal by adding the words ‘light opera’ to its title a decade or more ago, to accord with staging The Tales of Hoffmann, Die Fledermaus, The Merry Widow, The Gypsy Baron; there’s a great deal more to explore, particularly Offenbach.

The music may not be quite as strong and memorable as in the four most popular works, but there are three or four other G&S pieces, including Iolanthe, that do belong up there with the best.

The curtain remained down during the short colourful overture and rose on a possibly somewhat irrelevant but delightful pastoral scene that could as well have been around the Waikato or Rangitikei as in the Home counties. Presumably, John Goddard, listed as Director, was responsible for the stage design, as no specific stage designer was named.

[Monday 17 July, John Goddard commented on my reference to the stage design.  Oddly, he seems to have read the sentence above as suggesting that he was not the director, because I speculated that because no stage designer was named at all, perhaps Goddard was also responsible for stage design, which is not unknown in small – even large – companies. He explains that the set which ‘has been around for generations’, was designed and built by Wilf Conroy; but his name and that information did not appear in the programme. L.T.]

The fairies presented a lovely multi-coloured scene and the chorus singing just what the situation calls for, neither too polished nor too uniform in ensemble: simply bright and delightful. Soloists appear one by one – Stephanie Gartrell as the Fairy Queen, then Iolanthe herself (Alys Pullein), the title role that’s probably famous for having the least to do in all opera. She had been banished from the fairy court for marrying a mortal (shades of Dvorák’s Rusalka), and after being restored, has her brief moments, introducing her son, Strephon (Andrew Mankowski). He reveals that he’s fairy to the waist and human below that. This was a major part, and Mankowski both looked and acted the part in a sort-of fey manner, as well as revealing an engaging baritone voice.

Strephon is in love with Phyllis, the ward of Chancery, and she is, of course, loved not only by the Lord Chancellor himself but by the entire House of Lords, which is the crucial dilemma that is the pivot of the drama. Phyllis was sung by Karishma Thanawala, whose appearance, acting charm and voice combined to created a perfectly delightful character.

The crux of the story, apart from the constitutional complexities that arose through the admission of fairies to the House of Lords, is the Lord Chancellor’s debate with himself over the conflict of interest in his seeking to marry Phyllis, a ward of Chancery.

Chris Whelan has long been a major strength in the company; here as the self-serving (if he can get away with it) Lord Chancellor, he displays both foppishness and ineffectual self-interest, but he commands the stage. His splendid number, ‘When I went to the bar’, was the typical patter song in anapaests (triplets, stress on last syllable), satirising the way the stupid can yet succeed. And I asked Chris Whelan to allow me to print his brilliant little, very topical reworking in the same metre of ‘When you’re lying awake’:

For you dream you are walking in Wellington talking to strangers about hair-net shopping,
Which is odd, you admit, given hair loss has hit, rather harder on your thinning topping.
When you see walk along, in a jostling throng, a crowd of underemployed politicians.
They are arguing loudly and forming up proudly – aligning in strange new positions.
There’s the chap from the left, firmly claiming he’s best as a partner for unaligned greenies,
While the man from the right declares with some spite – their chances are tiny to teeny.
There’s the folks checking polls before choosing their goals and declaring it best for the people.
And the strange little man with the bow tie and tan claiming centrism makes us all equal.
First the left and lefter claim their way is bester and hope no one checks out their numbers
Then the right and the righter do gather in tighter declaring the left as shrill bumblers.
But in moments the troop quickly leap to regroup as the polling shows new ways for reigning,
While the voters stand round with a dumbfounded frown suspecting they’re in for a caning.
Then a figure appears flashing grins and dark sneers – it is Winston the ever outrageous,
Double-breasted his suit and with gaze resolute, claiming he alone “can bring back greatness”.
He compares naive greens to hysterical teens and dismisses the Nats bland abjectness.
“As for Labour”, he cries, “their policy dies on the altar of abject correctness”.
All the parties look glum as their voters succumb to this populist damned agitator,
But he rounds with a grin and a small violin claiming “surely I’ll play nicely later.”
So the parties all split and reform in a bit saying “they don’t heed populist stances”,
And yet none of them dawdles in off’ring him baubles to join them to prop up their chances.

Two lesser members of the Lords, Mountararat and Tolloller (David McKenzie and Kevin O’Kane), have significant parts to play, and they emerge with increasing clarity and conviction. David McKenzie, as Lord Mountararat, made a great job of his jingoistic ‘When Britain really ruled the waves’, as he insists on the dangers of the House of Lords being ruled by intellectuals.

As Private Willis (now the ‘Usher of the Black Rod’), Lindsay Groves opens act 2 with the famous ‘When all night long…’ reflecting on the qualifications demanded for the House of Lords, that brains be left outside, and concludes by recognising the inevitable: that ‘every boy and every girl’ …becomes… ‘a little Liberal or else a little Conservative’.

A comment on the excellent chorus is perhaps the place to mention the extent of the cast’s involvement in many areas of Wellington choral music, as revealed in the biographies in the printed programme. It’s almost a complete inventory of the best Wellington choirs: the chorus of New Zealand Opera, the Orpheus Choir, The Tudor Consort, Nota Bene, Cantoris, the New Zealand Youth Choir, Supertonic Choir, Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir, Inspirare. And I’m sure that a list detailing the activities of individual chorus members would reinforce that.

A proper orchestra is as essential to G&S as to any opera production and it lent a real professional touch that there was a good body of players in the pit, mainly from Orchestra Wellington, under music director Hugh McMillan. Ensemble between pit and stage was occasionally out of focus – the singing a little over-enthusiasic, but an overall spirit of enjoyment and orchestral professionalism supported the whole performance, lending it lively rhythm and momentum, yet never getting in the way of the singers. Microphones were used around the stage and while they can sometimes be useful, allowing words to be heard more distinctly, the sound tended to vary according to the singer’s position on the stage.

The company now takes the production to Palmerston North (Regent, 22 July) and Napier (Municipal Theatre, 29 July). If you’ve missed it in on the Kapiti Coast or Wellington, I’d recommend finding a pretext to take a trip to the Manawatu or Hawke’s Bay to catch this very well presented and sung operetta that’s lively and funny in the inimitable style of one of the most famous composer/librettist partnerships in the history of lyric theatre.

NZ Opera’s 2017 Carmen surprises, disconcerts and delights

Posted on by Peter Mechen

New Zealand Opera presents:
BIZET – Carmen – Opera in Four Acts

Cast: Carmen – Nino Surguladze
Don Jose – Tom Randle
Escamillo – James Clayton
Micaëla – Emma Pearson
Zuniga – Wade Kernot
Moralès – James Harrison
Frasquita – Amelia Berry
Mercédès – Kristin Darragh
Le Remendado – James Benjamin Rodgers
Lillas Pastia – Stuart Coats

Freemasons New Zealand Opera Chorus
Orchestra Wellington
Francesco Pasqualetti (conductor)
Michael Vinten (chorus director)

Lindy Hume (director)
Jacqueline Coats (assistant director)
Dan Potra (designer)
Matthew Marshall (lighting)

St.James Theatre, Wellington
Thursday, Ist June, 2017

(other peformances: Tuesday 6th June 6:30pm,

Thursday 8th, Saturday 10th June 7:30pm)

There’s almost always a lot to like in any production of Carmen. On the face of things the opera has everything that any theatre-goer-cum-music-lover could wish for – like the Shakespearean character who says “four feasts are forward”, one can say Carmen has the four things which ensure operatic success – spectacle, drama, compelling characters and memorable tunes. Of course, these things don’t make or play themselves, and, despite this review’s opening assertion, I still shudder inwardly at the thought of the most depressing night I’ve ever spent at the opera, in 1994, at Covent Garden, of all places, witnessing a second-rate production of – you’ve guessed it! – Carmen.

Happily, Carmen was one of the New Zealand Opera’s great successes in the still-fledgling company’s 1960s years – opera company founder Donald Munro used to regale us in later times with stories of the Company’s first “Carmen”, the outrageously sexy English soprano Joyce Blackham, whose portrayal of the eponymous heroine was by all accounts extremely “up front and personal”, emphasising her own physical allure and the character’s flirtatiousness – she alone would have been a drawcard for the public, one would imagine.

Fifty-plus years onwards, and from the Wellington Opera House a few metres further down and across the road towards Courtenay Place, relocated at the St.James Theatre, the company presented its latest 21st Century version of Bizet’s out-and-out masterpiece. With a leading soprano from Georgia whose career trajectory listed all the “great” contemporary opera houses, a strong, mostly Australasian supporting cast, marvellous playing and direction from the pit, and a director and designer with interesting and strongly-wrought production ideas, this presentation simply couldn’t help but make a striking and resonant impression, very much on its own terms.

It began with what seemed like some kind of conceptual challenge, austere and confrontational, with the chorus arriving on stage before the opening Prelude began, and “eyeballing” the audience unflinchingly – the contrast between the music’s near-vertiginous energies and the disengaged demeanour of the figures was almost Brechtian in its sense of alienation. Director Lindy Hume had referred to gestures such as these in her director’s notes which the programme carried, while admitting the ideas stemmed directly to her very first production of Carmen for West Australian Opera, 25 years ago! – she explained that her thoughts concerning the opera at that time still seemed to her valid and applicable in broad terms, reflecting her pride in that particular production’s achievement.

That opening gesture set the mode for the first two acts, whose set pieces were treated in like manner, creating in places what Hume herself referred to an “almost surreal and unnatural style”, and setting them apart from the more naturalistic exchanges. As an idea in itself it was interesting and impressive, but for me it drained a lot of the dramatic life out of places in the work, as it stylised these sections almost to the point of inertia, and invariably didn’t match the musical flow of things. The opening soldiers’ chorus had nicely built-in indolence, but I thought the children’s chorus lacked real exuberance and dynamism, their “mock-execution” play with the soldiers too “stagey” and contrived, conveying insufficient spontaneity.

As for the “smoking” chorus, marking the entrance of the “cigarette girls” parading before the admiring glances of the young men, I felt the scene was choreographed to over-calculated effect, wrung dry of any of the sultry insinuation of aspect and manner suggested in the text’s utterances – “…. we will follow you, dark-haired cigarette girls, murmuring words of love in your ears” – and pared down to a kind of slow-motion synchronised walking exercise, viewed dispassionately by the women perched (I’m tempted to use the word “stranded”) on narrow steps and landings, who conveyed the visual impression that they’d seen it all before hundreds of times, and in any case vastly preferred their cigarettes!

Things took a long time to get going at Lillas Pastia’s, as well, with the opening instrumental strains of the Gypsy Song getting little or no stage response until Carmen herself took charge of things – up until then, a languour seemed to hang over the proceedings, a disinclination of the production, it seemed, to convey atmosphere and spontaneity in places that seemed to me to call for it most urgently. With the help of Carmen’s friends Frasquita and Mercédès, the stage action did eventually energise sufficiently to match with the orchestra – but it took a while! A turning-point was the arrival of Escamillo, the Toreador. His was no bloodless, over-stylised character – instead, a truly galvanising force!

Afterwards, the Quintet with the Smugglers rattled like a train over the points in an exhilarating fashion – indeed the whole Act seemed to energise itself with its sense of dramatic weight, from Escamillo’s entrance right to the end – a splendid three-way confrontation between two of Carmen’s prospective lovers and the Smugglers saw the ill-fated corporal Don Jose forced to desert the army against his better judgement, and join Carmen and her bevy of contrabandists on their adventures.

As for Acts Three and Four I found it far easier to assimilate the “stylistic” treatment of the various tableaux, such as the smugglers’ approach to their hideout at Act Three’s beginning – black landform shapes morphing slowly into moving figures, betrayed by an occasional glint of forward movement, the “word made flesh” marriage of action and music superbly realised. Only the transition between the last two Acts, with Carmen left lying on the floor in the wake of an altercation with Don Jose seemed to me to lose some dramatic momentum, leaving we in the audience uncertain of a response as the set numbers clicked over. Fortunately, the remainder of that final Act pulled out all the visceral and dramatic stops, even if poor Escamillo never got to show off his glittering Toreador’s costume!

The production, despite the early-on stage action’s stop-start trajectories, maintained plenty of on-going atmosphere by dint of its imposing settings and evocative lighting. With the costumes we found ourselves mingling with ordinary Seville citizens and its soldiery, with the exception of Escamillo, who was something of a swell in his elegant gentleman’s garb. But from the start here was the proverbial Spanish glare of day throughout the opening scene, gradually giving way throughout Lillas Pastia’s to the all-enfolding darkness, which reached its apogee at the Third Act’s beginning, and its antithesis with the explosions of colour among the crowd at the bullfight scene, before returning us to that pitiless opening light at the opera’s end.

Central to the atmospheric charge of the presentation was the brilliant, rich and evocative backdrop of sound recreated by the playing of Orchestra Wellington under its Music Director Francesco Pasqualetti – both in the numerous instrumental detailings (the horn-playing deserved special mention, as did the various characterful wind solos) and the power and colour-suffused textures of the full orchestral passages, full justice was, I thought, done to the composer’s miraculous scoring. And how supple and sonorous was the chorus’s singing throughout! – the aforementioned languour of the soldiers, the vocal ardour of the young men and the sensual insouciance of the young women factory workers in their “C’est fumee” utterances – then the infectious vigour of both the smugglers in their descriptions of the hapless customs-men, and the rip-roaring excitement of the bull-ring crowds – again, the figures up-front and confrontational, but this time abandoning their emotions to the music, to overwhelming effect!

So to the figures towards whom all of these different elements were directed – the cast of characters! – this was a strong, if interestingly constituted ensemble, the “odd one out” for me being the unfortunate soldier Don Jose, here played with an unrelieved sort of tortured awkwardness throughout, rather like a French Wozzeck, by American tenor Tom Randle. I admit to finding it difficult to understand how such an overtly dysfunctional personality as depicted by Randle would have had any appeal for the character of Carmen – but there was no doubting the disturbing undercurrents and frighteningly insistence of this Don Jose, a besotted individual completely out of his emotional depth with the new-found object of his desire. Randle’s voice, though used most intelligently, was notable more for its raw power than any honeyed tones, except in the couple of places during the “Flower Song” when he sang phrases quietly and affectingly.

Playing opposite him as Carmen was the magnetic Georgian-born soprano Nino Surguladze. Though somewhat cramped by the staging for her very first entry, she was a liquid, mercurial and volatile presence throughout, making the most of the “Habanera”and its detailings with her easeful spontaneity and ready (though never over-modulated) physical allure. Only what I thought was some unnecessary, protracted business with handcuffs at the expense of the commanding regiment officer Zuniga detracted from her sultry, disarming focus. For the rest she was magnificent, even with her back turned towards the audience when first held captive by Don Jose, after the skirmish among the factory girls – her playful seductiveness throughout the Seguidilla completely ensnared her hapless captor, whose doom was sealed from that moment.

So it was in exalted terms for the rest of the drama – Carmen’s initial infatuation and subsequent disenchantment with Don Jose, her playful and resonant encounter with the celebrated Escamillo, her darkly-modulated acceptance of her eventual fate during the fortune-cards scene, and the final, defiant and destructive encounter with Don Jose at the end. Surguladze obviously shared and fully participated in director Lindy Hume’s vision of the heroine as a woman who believes utterly in herself and her values, even in the face of death.

Though she was Carmen’s opposite in diametric ways, Don Jose’s would-be sweetheart from his own village, Micaëla, was here portrayed with admirable character and fortitude by a sweet-toned Emma Pearson, whom I remembered most warmly as an affecting Gilda, from a NZ Opera Rigoletto some years before. She similarly melted our hearts here with her touching rendition of “Et tu lui diras que sa mere” (You’ll tell him that his mother..) from her Act One duet with Don Jose (one of Bizet’s most affecting melodies), and, later in the work, her heart-in-mouth “Je dis, que rien ne m’epouvante” (I say, that nothing frightens me) when looking for Don Jose at the smugglers’ mountain hideout.

Completing the quartet of would-be-lovers was the Toreador, Escamillo, played and sung with predictable verve and compelling vocal authority by James Clayton, who, somewhat surprisingly, as I’ve said, never got to impress the punters in his Toreador get-up (usually a feature of the last few moments of the work when he bursts onto the scene of Carmen’s murder by Don Jose, too late to save her). Along with great self-assuredness, Clayton refreshingly brought out a good deal of the character’s suave, debonair and charming aspect, a change from the sometimes excessive arrogance and macho pride by singers wanting to impress and nothing much else.

The lesser parts were given with all the apparent surety and confidence of those in the leading roles, all New Zealand singers (one feels certain there could, for New Zealand Opera, one day be another New Zealand Carmen)……..Don Jose’s commanding officer, Zuniga, was played imposingly by Wade Kermot, his voice and aspect conveying great authority when in control of the barracks, and face-saving dignity when put in a compromising position at Lillas Pastia’s by the smugglers. James Harrison doubled the roles of Morales, the cool-as-cucumber soldier who first notices the arrival of Micaëla at the barracks, looking for Don Jose; and of the smuggler Le Dancaire, the latter portrayal set alongside that of James Benjamin Rodgers as Le Remendado, the two men a force to be reckoned with as gun-toting contrabandists. They were more-than-likely the partners in the story of the two women, Frasquita (played by Amelia Berry) and Mercédès (played by Kristin Darragh), the pair becoming the smugglers’ secret weapon in the latters’ dealings with the customs officers.

The two women did a splendid job in various contexts, supporting Carmen in the Act Two Gypsy Dance, and the smugglers in the Quintet Nous avons en tete une affaire (We have a scheme in mind), but most tellingly in the famous “Card Scene” Trio, Melons! Coupons! during which Carmen foretells her own death. Amelia Berry’s Frasquita was brighter-toned than Kristen Darragh’s darker, more powerful Mercédès, the two intertwining their voices to perfection in the lively interplay that framed Carmen’s grimmer soliloquy.

With all of its idiosyncrasies and compulsions, the production certainly created a distinctive and memorable compendium of impressions, which I thought gathered force and consistency as it progressed. Even if one takes issue with certain aspects, what can’t be denied is the conviction with which the individual roles were brought to life, and with which the drama as a whole was presented. For my money there was a very great deal to like and to admire, and, by the end of the show, to find convincing and satisfying.

NZ Opera’s Mikado contentious but “not to be missed”

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Mikado
Libretto by W.S. Gilbert
Music by Sir Arthur Sullivan
(New orchestrations by Eric Wetherell)

Director: Stuart Maunder
Conductor: Isaac Hayward
Production Designer: Simone Romaniuk

Cast: The Mikado (James Clayton)
Nanki-Poo (Kanen Breen)
Ko-Ko (Byron Coll)
Pish-Tush (Robert Tucker)
Pooh-Bah (Andrew Collis)
Yum-Yum (Amelia Berry)
Pitti-Sing (Anna Dowsley)
Peep-Bo (Barbara Graham)
Katisha (Helen Medlyn)

Freemasons NZ Opera Ensemble Chorus
Orchestra Wellington

Wellington Opera House

Saturday, 25th February (evening)

When W.S.Gilbert’s ornamental Japanese sword fell off the wall of his study while he was turning over in his mind ideas for his latest operatic collaboration with Sir Arthur Sullivan, The Mikado was born – or so all the G&S history books tell us. In fact, there happened to be a vogue for japonaiserie in England at the time Mikado first hit the stage, instigated some years before by artists like Whistler and Rosetti with oriental prints on ricepaper, and images of beautiful Japanese women, a fascination that reached its height in the 1880s. In fact, London’s Daily Telegraph proclaimed at the time that “We are all being more or less Japanned,” and commented on the phenomenon of “the quaint art of a strange people who are getting rid of their national characteristics as fast as they can……..receiving from us that form of homage which the proverb describes as “the sincerest form of flattery””.

It can be seen from this that whatever “cultural appropriation” of oriental styles, fashions and objects d’art by the West was taking place, the process was being reproduced in reverse, with a rapid and efficient “Westernisation” of Japan in particular. But it’s a process that, if anything has burgeoned in recent times, with the all-pervading influences of globalisation in practically every country in the world to a greater or lesser extent. It’s difficult to ascribe any kind of judgement of “cultural exploitation” to situations whose characteristic mode seems like some kind of “boots-and-all” exchange, which makes the recent comments in the press and on radio regarding NZ Opera’s allegedly “racist” current production of “The Mikado” seem to me more like instances of PC imploding in certain people’s sensibilities rather than reportage of shock, horror and outrage on a widespread scale.

Of course, individuals are entitled to their own opinions – and questions of cultural piracy and associated exploitations have a fascinating fluidity of application when it comes to the question of boundaries deemed generally desirable by society at large. But what a recent article in the Washington Post called “the new war on appropriation” highlights the problem for people from one culture who would like to “experience” or even participate in aspects of another, and risk criticism in doing so from what are called “the new culture cops”……see: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/08/21/to-the-new-culture-cops-everything-is-appropriation/
(alternatively, read the same article reproduced at the foot of this review)……

Mikado has, at certain earlier times, been a bit of a hot potato, actually – as long ago as 1907 the show was temporarily banned in Britain by the Lord Chamberlain, for fear of offending the newly-assertive Japanese government, whose military forces had freshly and successfully fought a war with Russia, and whose representative, one Prince Fushimi, was visiting Britain at the time. The then-touring D’Oyly Carte Company decided to defy the ban and perform the opera in Sheffield, an event to which the newspaper “The Daily Mail” with a canny eye on the interest of prospective readers, invited one Mr. K.Sugimura, the visiting special correspondent of a Tokyo newspaper, Asahi, who was reporting on the Prince’s tour, to attend the performance, and criticise the show “as frankly as possible”. Below is part of the correspondent’s report:

“I am deeply and pleasingly disappointed. I came to Sheffield expecting to discover real insults to my countrymen. I find bright music and much fun, but I could not find the insults. I laughed and laughed very heartily.I enjoyed the music: I envy the nation possessing such music. The only part of the play to which objection might be taken by some is the presentation of the Mikado on the stage as a comic character. This would be impossible in Japan, where my countrymen regard the person of the Emperor as too high for such treatment. Yet, even with us, one of our most famous novelists, Saikaku, of the Genroku period, did treat the figure of the Emperor humorously, describing one of his characters as the Emperor Doll. That novel is still circulated in Japan. It has not been prohibited there…….
Of course the play shows quite an imaginary world, not in the least bit like Japan. I had a pleasant evening, and I consider that the English people, in withdrawing this play lest Japan should be offended, are crediting my country with needless readiness to take offence…….”

In recent years there have been charges levelled against both various productions and the show itself of “catering to fetish impulses which reduce the Japanese culture to an object of curiosity”, of “dehumanizing an entire race of people through yellowface stage and screen portrayals”, and of “laughing downwards at a voiceless minority ‘other’, using the Japanese setting as an excuse for cheap gags.” My feeling about the current NZ Opera production in relation to these charges was that, in the first instance it used the staging’s quasi-Japanese culture settings to create colour, atmosphere and a sense of unreality in a way that perfectly served the original dramatist’s intentions, that of attractively and exotically underlining the powerful satirical element of the show’s message.

As for the much-maligned “yellowface” aspect of oriental depiction, there was more “whiteface” than anything in the very overtly Japanese portrayal of Helen Medlyn’s Katisha, the Mikado’s “daughter-in-law elect”. However, for me the stylised makeup reflected the age-old technique of a “mask”, temporarily concealing a character’s more covert characteristics and attitudes, attributes which were demonstrated all too humanly and powerfully in this present portrayal. Finally, the charge of ridiculing a “voiceless minority” seemed to me blunted by the production’s clear delineation of various empowering and insightful chorus lines such as “If you think we are worked by strings…..You don’t understand these things…….” in the opening scene, and the schoolgirls’ whimsical wonderment at the mysteries of the world in their opening chorus “We wonder, how we wonder, what on earth the world can be….”,, and, finally, the choruses’ knowing and whimsical responses to the three commentators describing the execution of the hapless “criminal” to the Mikado – no mere parroting of the refrains, here, but knowing and gently mocking ironies: e.g – “This haughty youth, he speaks the truth, whenever he finds it pays….”

Away with all of this polemic, and its all-too-subjective arguments! – time now for some all-too-subjective analysis and appreciation of the performance!

Straightaway the opening sounds engaged our sensibilities, with conductor Isaac Hayward plunging us straight into the opera, and doing away with the Overture (not by Sullivan in any case, but merely a “stitching together” of the work’s favourite tunes by his assistant, Hamilton Clarke). As well, there were various orchestral retouchings throughout, the work of ex-BBC conductor Eric Wetherell, designed to scale down the orchestral ambiences and make it easier for the singers to be heard. As befits the standards of orchestral execution we’ve come to expect from Orchestra Wellington, the playing, both in general terms and in the matter of individual detailing, was an absolute delight throughout!

For the rest, the work was presented pretty well complete, EXCEPT that the production seemed to regard a couple of Act Two vocal ensemble numbers as “fair game”, to my intense disappointment, cutting the second verse of “Brightly dawns our Wedding Day”, and, what was worse, completely excising the equally wonderful “See How the Fates”, with its wonderfully contradictory lines “Happy, undeserving A!” and “Wretched, meritorious B!” – oh well, as Gilbert himself wrote for Nanki-Poo in the first Act – “Modified rapture!”……..

I thought the chorus work just superb – from the resplendently-garbed men (old-fashioned waistcoats with Japanese-styled hakama (pants) we got everything the words had to offer us from the opening “If you want to know who we are”, matching their word-pointing with both movements ands attitudes in a wholly delightful way. More controversially, the women were garbed in what seemed like the Harajuku, “Hello Kitty” style currently in vogue in Japan (representations far more deserving of feminist-influenced eyebrow-raising, I would have thought, than of heavy-handed, “holier-than-thou” cultural appropriation responses), but their response to the text certainly made the most of its formative, rite-of-passage word-images – “Each a little bit afraid is, wondering what the world can be…”, and later, relishing the prospect of one of them, Yum-Yum, taking those first steps into womanhood, in this case via the age-old ceremony of marriage – “Art and Nature thus allied, go to make a pretty bride…” – beautifully and richly voiced.

As for the cast, we were galvanised at the start by director Stuart Maunder’s announcement that, due to New Zealand tenor Jonathan Abernathy’s sudden indisposition, his place in the role of Nanki-Poo, the Mikado’s disguised son, was to be taken at extremely short notice by an Australian singer, Konen Breen. As it turned out, this “Lord High Substitute” performed the role (after ONE rehearsal, so we were told) with tremendous aplomb, as if he had been doing a run of fifty-plus performances! – I thought his somewhat gauche, nerd-turned-superhero portrayal thoroughly engaging, even if there still seemed some vestiges in his tones of the character we were told he’d recently been playing, which was Mime in Wagner’s “Ring” – his voice had more of an “edge” to it that I would have liked in the role’s more lyrical places. But what a trouper! – hats off and full marks!

It’s a classic “ensemble opera” though, and no one character is allowed to dominate to an extent that they’re a “diminutioner”, though pride of place at the curtain-call was rightly given the Ko-Ko of Byron Coll, known for his various character roles both on stage and screen. He made the most of his comic opportunities in portraying a classic “Chauncey Gardiner-like” figure making good through corrupt practices of local government. His British regional accent added a different kind of exoticism to the production’s ambience ( certainly an amusing foil for Andrew Collis’s hilariously toffee-nosed Pooh-Bah!), and his delivery of the lines had for me an attractive whimsicality which highlighted the droll humour, though on one or two occasions his words were too rushed to capture the essence of the jokes! His interaction with Helen Medlyn’s Katisha throughout the “Tit Willow” sequences was sheer delight.
Andrew Collis’s aforementioned Pooh-Bah brought just the right mix of gravitas and pomposity to a role whose lines are among the best written by Gilbert – “I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmic primordial atomic globule” – and which lay bare the covert, world-wide processes of bureaucratic and political corruption – “I also retail State Secrets at a very low figure”…..Collis’s sonorous baritone brought to life vignettes such as his description of the behaviour of a criminal’s severed head post-execution – “It clearly knew the deference due to a man of pedigree….”

I also enjoyed the bustling, vigorous and full-voiced pragmatism of Robert Tucker’s Pish-Tush, both in his articulate explanation to Nanki-Poo of the rise to prominence of “Ko-Ko, a cheap tailor”, in “Our Great Mikado, virtuous man”, and for his part in the wonderful trio “I am so proud”, in which the agitated Ko-Ko contemplates the alarming prospect of having to cut HIS OWN head off to appease the wishes of the Mikado! This trio, incidentally, was one of several places where I thought the production needed to bring the singers right up to the footlights so we in the audience could have gotten more of the individual flavours of the number’s separate but wholly intertwined thought processes – unfortunately it all happened, for me, too far back!

Completely commanding the stage in his scenes was James Clayton’s Mikado – one of the best I’ve encountered. Seemingly echt-Japanese in his regalia, he looked and sounded the part with utter conviction, speaking and singing every word of his role with razor-sharp clarity, and transfixing the ensemble with his gittering eye (the exception, of course, being the fearsome Katisha, his “daughter-in-law elect”!). But what a pity we weren’t able to also enjoy his contribution to “See how the fates”, as much for his stellar voice-quality as for a corrective of the omission’s further reducing his already sparse singing-role!

Though in accordance with their “college-girl” status at the story’s beginning I thought the somewhat gauche, “jolly-hockey-sticks” manner and deportment of all “Three Little Maids from School” dramatically at odds with certain of their later interactions, such as Anna Dowsley’s determined and forthright portrayal of Pitti-Sing bravely confronting the vengeful Katisha in search of Nanki-Poo, her betrothed. And as Yum-Yum, Amelia Berry’s singing of “The sun whose rays” was so outstanding in its outpouring of beauty and sensitivity it all seemed a world away from the sensibility of the giggly schoolgirl whom we first encountered, even if she quickly “grew up” in her “Were you not to Ko-Ko plighted” scene with Nanki-Poo. Of the Three Little Maids, the dipsiest was, I thought, Barbara Graham’s gloriously vacuous Peep-Bo, who made the most of her relatively few chances to shine with a deliciously artless reference to her sister’s wedding-day being “happiness in all but perfection”, followed by a reference to it all being “cut short” (alluding to the bridegroom’s eventual fate at the hands of the Public Executioner!)

Finally, there was Helen Medlyn’s assumption of the role of Katisha, the elderly would-be bride of Nanki-Poo, bent upon vengeance for her loss of happiness, but finally settling for the life-sparing blandishments of the (by then!) desperate Ko-Ko. Not quite as voluminous of tone as I might have expected from previous encounters with her singing, Medlyn was nonetheless able to still command the stage on each of her entrances by dint of her sheer presence, be it as a kind of fearsome oriental harpie, or as a momentarily crushed and defeated woman – for all Gilbert’s reputed cruelty regarding his theatrical depictions of older women, his portrayal of Katisha evinces real sympathy in places and accords her with no little dignity in the throes of her “defeat” at the hands of “pink cheek, bright eye, rose lip, smooth tongue…..”

I felt there were sequences in which she (and in a particular instance, Ko-Ko) were placed too far back on the stage for the voices to really “tell”, a case in point being throughout the marvellous “There is beauty in the bellow of the blast” – the words are again so delicious, both from Katisha – “There is eloquence appalling when the lioness is roaring, or the tiger is a-lashing of his tail” – and from Ko-Ko – “There’s a fascination frantic in a ruin that’s romantic – do you think you are sufficiently decayed?” Still, Medlyn’s greatest moment, for me, was her truly affecting “The hour of gladness”, sung in response to the news that her would-be lover Nanki-Poo, was going to marry Yum-Yum. Medlyn’s singing, along with the sensitive instrumental accompaniments and the rapt attention she garnered from the entire onstage company, made for a beautiful and treasurable charge of emotion which brought a lump to this listener’s throat, even after so many hearings of this much-loved piece over the years.

So! – rather than be regarded as a dismissal of the objections raised to this and to other productions of Mikado, particularly those of recent times, I would prefer this review to be a constructive addition to a reasoned dialogue concening the issues. A number of the articles by the “dissenters” to their credit contain assertions that what is needed in this situation is awareness, understanding and sensitivity by way of discussion and expression of thoughtful opinion, whatever the individual “stance”. I hope my thoughts on the issues, be they ever so opinionated, fulfil those criteria.

Meanwhile, to all of those awaiting my final verdict concerning the show – it’s this – get to the Mikado if you can, because (as Ko-Ko might say) it’s too good to be missed!

(Wellington: Wednesday 28th February (6:30pm), Ist March (7:30pm), 2nd March (7:30pm)
Christchurch, Isaac Theatre Royal: from Tuesday 7th March (7:30pm) to Saturday 11th March)

* * * * * * * * * * * *
The Washington Post
Democracy Dies in Darkness
To the new culture cops, everything is appropriation
Their protests ignore history, chill artistic expression and hurt diversity
By Cathy Young August 21, 2015

“A few months ago, I read “The Orphan’s Tales” by Catherynne Valente. The fantasy novel draws on myths and folklore from many cultures, including, to my delight, fairy tales from my Russian childhood. Curious about the author, I looked her up online and was startled to find several social-media discussions bashing her for “cultural appropriation.”

There was a post sneering at “how she totally gets a pass to write about Slavic cultures because her husband is Russian,” with a response noting that her spouse isn’t even a proper Russian, because he has lived in the United States since age 10. In another thread, Valente was denounced for her Japanese-style LiveJournal username, yuki-onna, adopted while she lived in Japan as a military wife. In response to such criticism, a browbeaten Valente eventually dropped the “problematic” moniker.

Welcome to the new war on cultural appropriation. At one time, such critiques were leveled against truly offensive art — work that trafficked in demeaning caricatures, such as blackface, 19th-century minstrel shows or ethnological expositions, which literally put indigenous people on display, often in cages. But these accusations have become a common attack against any artist or artwork that incorporates ideas from another culture, no matter how thoughtfully or positively. A work can reinvent the material or even serve as a tribute, but no matter. If artists dabble outside their own cultural experiences, they’ve committed a creative sin.

To take just a few recent examples: After the 2013 American Music Awards, Katy Perry was criticized for dressing like a geisha while performing her hit single “Unconditionally.” Last year, Arab-American writer Randa Jarrar accused Caucasian women who practice belly dancing of “white appropriation of Eastern dance.” Daily Beast entertainment writer Amy Zimmerman wrote that pop star Iggy Azalea perpetrated “cultural crimes” by imitating African American rap styles.

And this summer, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has been dogged by charges of cultural insensitivity and racism for its “Kimono Wednesdays.” At the event, visitors were invited to try on a replica of the kimono worn by Claude Monet’s wife, Camille, in the painting “La Japonaise.” The historically accurate kimonos were made in Japan for this very purpose. Still, Asian American activists and their supporters besieged the exhibit with signs like “Try on the kimono: Learn what it’s like to be a racist imperialist today!” Others railed against “Yellow-Face @ the MFA” on Facebook. The museum eventually apologized and changed the program so that the kimonos were available for viewing only. Still, activists complained that the display invited a “creepy Orientalist gaze.”

These protests have an obvious potential to chill creativity and artistic expression. But they are equally bad for diversity, raising the troubling specter of cultural cleansing. When we attack people for stepping outside their own cultural experiences, we hinder our ability to develop empathy and cross-cultural understanding.

The concept of cultural appropriation emerged in academia in the late 1970s and 1980s as part of the scholarly critique of colonialism. By the mid-1990s, it had gained a solid place in academic discourse, particularly in the field of sociology.

Some of this critique was rightly directed at literal cultural theft — the pilfering of art and artifacts by colonial powers — or glaring injustices, such as white entertainers in the pre-civil rights years profiting off black musical styles while black performers’ careers were hobbled by racism. Critics such as Edward Said offered valuable insight into Orientalism, the West’s tendency to fetishize Asians as exotic stereotypes.

But the hunt for wrongdoing has gone run amok. The recent anti-appropriation rhetoric has targeted creative products from art to literature to clothing. Nothing is too petty for the new culture cops: I have seen them rebuke a Filipina woman who purchased a bracelet with a yin-yang symbol at a fair and earnestly discuss whether it’s appropriation to eat Japanese, Indian or Thai food. Even Selena Gomez, a Latina artist, was assailed a couple of years ago for sporting a Hindu forehead dot, or bindi, in a Bollywood-style performance.

In some social-justice quarters, the demonization of “appropriative” interests converges with ultra-reactionary ideas about racial and cultural purity. I once read an anguished blog post by a well-meaning young woman racked with doubt about her plans to pursue a graduate degree in Chinese studies; after attending a talk on cultural appropriation, she was unsure that it was morally permissible for a white person to study the field.

This is a skewed and blinkered view. Yes, most cross-fertilization has taken place in a context of unequal power. Historically, interactions between cultures often took the form of wars, colonization, forced or calamity-driven migration and subordination or even enslavement of minority groups. But it is absurd to single out the West as the only culprit. Indeed, there is a paradoxical and perverse Western-centrism in ignoring the history of Middle Eastern and Asian empires or the modern economic and cultural clout of non-Western nations — for instance, the fact that one of the top three entertainment companies in the U.S. market is Japanese-owned Sony.

It is also far from clear that the appropriation police speak for the people and communities whose cultural honor they claim to defend. The kimono protest, for instance, found little support from Japanese Americans living in the Boston area; indeed, many actively backed the museum’s exhibit, as did the Japanese consulate.

Most critics of appropriation, including some anti-kimono protesters, say they don’t oppose engagement with other cultures if it’s done in a “culturally affirming” way. A Daily Dot article admonishes that “an authentic cultural exchange should feel free and affirming, rather than plagiarizing or thieving.” A recent post on the Tumblr “This Is Not China” declares that “cultural appropriation is not merely the act of wearing or partaking in cultural symbols & practices that do not belong to you, it’s a system of exploitation & capitalisation on cultural symbols & practices that do not a) originate from b) benefit c) circle back to the culture in question.”

It makes sense to permit behaviors that encourage empathy and genuine interest while discouraging those that caricature or mock a sampled-from culture. But such litmus tests leave ample room for hair-splitting and arbitrary judgments. One blogger’s partial defense of “Kimono Wednesdays” suggests that while it was fine to let visitors try on the kimonos, allowing them to be photographed while wearing them was a step too far. This fine parsing of what crosses the line from appreciation into appropriation suggests a religion with elaborate purity tests.

What will be declared “problematic” next? Picasso’s and Matisse’s works inspired by African art? Puccini’s “Orientalist” operas, “Madama Butterfly” and “Turandot”? Should we rid our homes of Japanese prints? Should I take offense at other people’s Russian nesting dolls?

And while we’re at it, why shouldn’t a wide range of cultural minorities within Western society demand control over access to their heritage, too? Can Catholics claim appropriation when religious paintings of Jesus or the Virgin Mary are exhibited in a secular context, or when movies from “The Sound of Music” to “Sister Act” use nuns for entertainment?

Appropriation is not a crime. It’s a way to breathe new life into culture. Peoples have borrowed, adopted, taken, infiltrated and reinvented from time immemorial. The medieval Japanese absorbed major elements of Chinese and Korean civilizations, while the cultural practices of modern-day Japan include such Western borrowings as a secularized and reinvented Christmas. Russian culture with its Slavic roots is also the product of Greek, Nordic, Tatar and Mongol influences — and the rapid Westernization of the elites in the 18th century. America is the ultimate blended culture.

So don’t let anyone tell you that there is art, literature or clothing that does not belong to you because of your racial, ethnic or religious identity. In other words: Appropriate away.”

Cathy Young is the author of two books, and a frequent contributor to Reason, Newsday, and RealClearPolitics.com.

Days Bay Opera does it again with Handel’s “Theodora”

Posted on by Peter Mechen

HANDEL – Theodora (Oratorio in Three Acts, 1749)
(libretto by Thomas Morell)

Daysbaygarden Opera Company
Director: Rhona Fraser
Conductor: Howard Moody

Cast: William King (Valens, Roman Governor of Antioch
Maaike Christie-Beekman (Didymus, a Roman officer)
Filipe Manu (Septimus, a Roman, friend of Didymus)
Madison Nonoa (Theodora, a Christian noblewoman)
Rhona Fraser (Irene, a Christian)
John Beaglehole (a messenger)

Chorus: (Heathens/Christians) Emily Mwila, Emma Cronshaw Hunt, Sally Haywood,
Alexandra Woodhouse-Appleby, Lily Shaw, Luca Venter, Isaac Stone,
Hector McLachlan, William McElwee

Orchestra: Anne Loeser (Violin, leader), Rebecca Struthers (violin),
Victoria Jaenecke (viola), Eleanor Carter (‘cello), Richard Hardie (d-bass),
Merran Cooke, Louise Cox (oboes), David Angus (bassoon),
Mark Carter (trumpet), Howard Moody (organ)

Canna House, Day’s Bay, Wellington,
Saturday, February 11th, 2017

(Next and final performance: Thursday 16th February, at 7:30pm)

One of the pleasures of reviewing for me is fronting up to performances of music which I simply don’t know, and subsequently asking myself (sometimes in tones of amazement and disbelief) why it is I’ve never encountered this or that work before, finding it so beautiful / profound / thrilling /whatever! Thus it was with this often compelling production of Handel’s oratorio Theodora, a work the composer wrote towards the end of his creative life, and regarded it as one of the best things he’d ever done!

It didn’t get off to a very good start in 1750, the year of its first performance – the consensus of opinion is that Londoners found less favour with the idea of the martyrdom of a Christian saint than with the Old Testament stories which Handel’s previous oratorios had presented. Whatever the case it was played only three times that season, and just once during 1755 before being dropped from the repertoire for well-nigh two hundred years.

According to the work’s librettist, Thomas Morell, the composer himself declared parts of Theodora superior to anything to be found in Messiah, particularly the final chorus of Act Two “He Saw the Lovely Youth”. Naturally Handel was disappointed in the work’s poor reception, though he himself had remarked (again, according to Morell) that his rich Jewish patrons ,who had flocked to hear Judas Maccabeus a few years previously, would probably not be interested in a presentation with such “Christian” themes and characters.

Amazingly, it wasn’t until the famously provocative Peter Sellars’ revival of the work at Glyndebourne in the UK in 1998 that Theodora made a proper “comeback” to the repertoire. It ought to be remembered that this was, of course, an oratorio rather than an original stage work which was inspiring such acclaim/alarm amongst enthusiasts for both genres. Sellars’ production simply put new wine into old bottles, relating the work’s themes of religious intolerance and persecution to contemporary tyrannical practices enforced by certain modern states and rulers.

Perhaps Rhona Fraser’s Days Bay Opera production didn’t generate quite the intoxicating charge of that Glyndebourne affair, but in places it may have effectively “trumped” it! The production’s reduced scale meant the adroit use of a multi-identity chorus whose members at appropriate times merely changed their garb, which here, I thought, worked really well. The staging proclaimed its intentions during the Overture, with chorus members echoing the recent political upheavals in Europe by carrying Brexit-like “Resist” placards, before being moved on by the commando-like armed guards.

The Overture’s grand-gestured opening turned into a nicely-sprung allegro, the players delivering plenty of energy and focus which easily filled-out the performing spaces (unlike with previous Days Bay productions, we were actually inside the house this time). The first solo voice we heard was that Valens, the Roman Governor of Antioch, whose entrance was rapturously augmented by his black-leather-clad brigade, some supporters carrying signs containing the unequivocal message “Make Rome great again”, as well as the more sinister legend “Torture really works”.

William King as Valens delivered a sonorous, strongly-characterised decree, commanding that all citizens commemorate the Emperor’s natal day by taking part in Jovian rites of worship, before similarly dismissing the plea of one of his soldiers, Didymus, for tolerance towards those people who professed a different faith. King brought the same strength and sonorous tones to his threatening “Racks, gibbets, sword and fire”, underlying the contrast of intent with that of Maaike Christie-Beekman’s Didymus, whose dissenting voice expressed all the warmth and pliability of tolerance and concern for those who might fall foul of the Governor in her aria ”The raptured soul defies the sword” – Christie-Beekman threw herself with abandonment into the incredible vocal melismas of the music, despite a couple of occupational spills along the way, emerging with great credit.

I thought the contrast well-drawn between the deeply-felt conviction of Christie-Beekman’s portrayal and the divided emotions of Septimus, a fellow-soldier, sympathetic to dissent, but loyal to his duty as a soldier. Filipe Manu’s assumption of the latter most effectively expressed the character’s inner conflict, his voice securely filling out the phrases of his aria “Descend, kind Pity”, with only a pinched phrase or two drying out the voice in places, not inappropriate to the character’s feelings of stress and conflict.

Theodora’s first entrance, featuring the bright, sweet voice of Madison Nonoa, was accompanied by markedly exposed string lines, suggesting the character’s purity and even isolation in the strength of her belief. Her aria “O flatt’ring world, adieu” carried this idea into even more beautiful and rarefied realms, the singer’s tones full and fresh, voiced accurately and sensitively. Supporting her was Rhona Fraser’s Irene, and the chorus in its Christian garb (having changed sides!), with a serene and radiant “Come, Mighty Father” accompanying the ritualisting lighting of candles.

Not even the entrance of a messenger (John Beaglehole) with his warning of impending arrest of any dissenters from the governor’s edict shook the resolve of the group, with Rhona Fraser investing Irene’s “As with rosy steps the dawn” with plenty of strength and security, emboldening the chorus to give of their best in the canonic “All Pow’r in Heav’n above”, which built to radiant climaxes. The group’s defiant mood disconcerted and frustrated the arriving Septimus, whose recitative “Mistaken wretches” and subsequent aria “Dread the fruits of Christian folly” were given plenty of energy and momentum, Filipe Manu managing the difficult runs with plenty of aplomb and appropriate bluster.

In the exchanges between Theodora and Septimus which followed, each singer “caught” their character’s crisis of moment, Theodora, the captive devastated by her enslavement into prostitution at “Venus’ Temple” as a punishment for her defiance of the Governor’s edict, and Septimus, her captor, torn between sympathy and a soldier’s duty. Madison Nonoa’s reply was to pour all of her artistry and beauty of voice into her character for one of the composer’s most beautiful arias “Angels ever bright and fair”, aided by sensitive and radiant instrumental support from conductor and players – a treasurable and memorable scene.

Didymus’s shock at being told of Theodora’s fate culminated in his resolve to rescue her, in a brilliant show of recitative “Kind Heav’n, if virtue be thy care” combined with aria “With courage fire me”, Christie-Beekman’s more vigorous sequences excitingly counterpointed a florid violin obbligato solo, generating tremendous excitement. It remained for the chorus to invest Didymus with the Almighty’s blessings (a wonderful “Go generous, pious youth”, as he changed his garb for that of a Christian, before setting off to rescue Theodora.

So ended Act One – to go through and “fine-tooth-comb” the rest of the performance would bog the reader of this review down in largely repetitive detail. Each singer by this time had amply demonstrated what they could do and how well they could”flesh out” each character, and no-one disappointed in those terms. While the production was in many ways “abstracted” by dint of its intimacy and confined spaces, Rhona Fraser’s direction firmly held to the essentials of dramatic interaction, allowing the singers sufficient theatricality to flesh out their characters in a totally convincing way. I did feel the chorus members seemed rather more “at home” with the pagan revels than with the Christian rituals, though that seemed a Miltonian problem as much as anything else, a matter for human nature to answer to!

Enough to say that the playing out of the drama was convincingly achieved, with a fine show of orgiastic revelry from Valens’ leather-clad entourage at the beginning of Act Two, the excesses of which were finely counter-balanced by the same singers’ in their opposing roles as the Christians at the “changeover”of Acts Two and Three (the composer described the lamenting chorus “He saw a lovely youth” as belonging to Act Two, though here the sequence in what the group imagines at first to be the death of Didymus was placed at Act Three’s beginning – but no wonder the composer himself had a high opinion of the piece!

I was puzzled by a curiously inert chorus response to the appearance of Theodora, disguised in Didymus’s uniform, in which she had escaped – however, the ensemble roused itself sufficiently to convey most effectively both the Heathens’ wonder at the dignity of the lovers’ response to their own deaths (“How strange their ends, and yet how glorious”), and the final Christian affirmation of the work – “O Love divine, thou source of fame”. here a properly and appropriately moving conclusion.

Each character brought a comparable intensity to his or her role in this playing-out of the story – William King’s Valens, drunk with power during the revels of Act Two, remained an imperious and implaccable presence in the face of pleas from various quarters to spare the lovers’ lives. The agony of Didymus’s soldier friend Septimus became more and more apparent as the denoument approached, from expressing his support for Theodora and Didymus in Act Two, to pleading to Valens for their lives in the final scene. Filipe Manu here brought a full and heartfelt outpouring of tones in “From virtue springs each generous deed”, ennobling his character further in doing so. And the Irene of Rhona Fraser, though following a less tortured moral trajectory, rewarded her part with steady, well-rounded vocalising, readily conveying her real human sympathy and conviction of faith in “Defend her, Heav’n”, sung over Theodora as a prisoner in Act Two, and her freshly-wrought and unquenchable hope in her release in “New Seeds of joy come crowding on” in the final Act, just before the final tragedy’s enactment.

Ultimately it was left to the two main protagonists to properly “carry” the essence of the story’s dramatic and emotional weight, with the help of all those mentioned, along with the instrumentalists and conductor. Maaike Christie-Beekman’s Didymus’s journeyings through what seemed like an entire gamut of emotion to a fulfilment of love reunited in death was classic operatic stuff, comparable in impact to other, later versions of the same, such as that of another soldier, Radames, in Verdi’s Aida, or the love-death of the knight in Wagner’s Tristan, each of these characters confident of progressing towards a loving reunion in another life.

Madison Nonoa’s Theodora was the object of Didymus’s desire, though less passive than that description suggests, her character embracing the idea of salvation in tandem with her once-heathen lover, for whom she was ready to sacrifice her life alone. Handel responded to these characters and their situations with some of his greatest music (he himself thought so too!), nowhere more exquisite than throughout Act Two where the lovers are reunited after Theodora’s arrest when Didymus with his friend Septimus’s help finds her in prison. Didymus sings his enamoured “Sweet Rose and Lily”, then tells Theodora he has come to help her escape though Theodora would rather Didymus kill her and release her unto “gentle death”. Didymus rejects her plea – “Shall I destroy the life I came to save?” and urges her to trade places with him and take his clothes and escape – but Theodora laments “Ah, what is liberty or life to me that Didymus must purchase with his own?” – such heartfelt stuff, and here, by turns, so gutsily and sensitively articulated, voiced and, above all, sung!

The pair’s subsequent duet in which their absolute trust in one another and in the mercy of a Higher Power, enabling them to meet “again on earth” or “in heaven” brought forth an exquisite intertwining of impulse, here full-blooded and forceful, and then rapt and breath-catching, an interaction that came full circle in the final scene of Act Three with their farewell duet “Thither let our hears aspire”. It was singing, and playing, which truly for we in the audience “woke the song and tuned the lyre”, and left us marvelling at the seeming endless invention of its composer. It just went to show that, for our delight, the joys of such music and, as here, its sensitive and whole-hearted presentation, are endless. In the midst of that realisation I felt truly grateful to be there, to Howard Moody, the conductor, to Rhona Fraser the producer, and to all who made the presentation of this glorious music such a profound and for me unforgettable experience.

Melbourne’s Ring cycle revival a spectacular triumph

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Der Ring des Nibelungen by Wagner

Opera Australia

Musical Director: Pietari Inkinen; Stage director: Neil Armfield; set designer: Robert Cousins; costume designer: Alice Babidge

The cast members are named in the course of the text

State Theatre, Melbourne

Friday 9 to Friday 16 December 2016

Introduction
I went to the third run of the Ring in Melbourne, in December. At its first incarnation in 2013, I had rather set it aside, partly because the ticket prices were pretty steep – well over $1000 for the four – and something in me said that, as I have seen the entire cycle five times over the years, in various places including Bayreuth, I doubted whether Opera Australia would offer me any really new insights beyond what one can get a lot cheaper in most parts of Germany.

But when I started getting reports from people who’d been and had their lives changed, I regretted not going. I doubted that it would be revived. After all, the Adelaide Ring of 2004 had been stored in the hope that Opera of South Australia or another Australian company would revive it. But that never happened and the $20 million worth of staging, costumes, sets were sold off for peanuts.

About the end of October I decided to go, reinforced by the chance to see Handel’s Theodora being staged by Pinchgut Opera in Sydney about the same time: I could see all in the space of about 12 days.

I did not plan to write a comprehensive review of all four music dramas; and as I hadn’t asked for press tickets I was under no obligation. Anyway, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be burdened with the inevitable note-taking in the dark that I always rely on to support my erratic memory. In the event I just enjoyed it untroubled by the search for words, but I kept a sort of diary through emails home. Some weeks later, and after writing about Theodora, I decided to bestir myself and pieced together these impressions, to describe the elements that I found especially interesting and which I could remember in sufficient detail. What follows is about five times the size of what I’d planned to write: it kept growing and is still, of course, far from comprehensive and probably not well balanced.

Production
The production was by leading Australian theatre and opera director Neil Armfield with set designs by Robert Cousins and costumes by Alice Babidge. Their approach varied widely from scene to scene – it was at times spectacular and surprising, at other times bare, black and minimalist, so the drama relied largely on the acting and singing. What really sustained it and often held my attention during episodes that I have sometimes found a bit protracted and tedious, was the commitment of the whole production, the portrayal of emotional interaction through acting and singing; above all, and in contrast to many such enterprises, Neil Armfield was largely successful in placing it firmly in the present day.

There are many excellent reviews available on line, most with a selection of photos of representative scenes which you will find interesting and evocative. A good way in is through the Richard Wagner Society (Victoria) which contains links to most of the reviews (http://wagnermelb.org.au/wp/reviews-of-the-melbourne-2016-ring/.

 

Das Rheingold

There’s no other theatrical experience that takes hold of you as powerfully and as filled with excited expectation as the opening of Das Rheingold. It immediately banishes any residual feelings that it might be diminished through knowing the music and the story pretty intimately. In the dark theatre, the below-the-stave E flat arpeggios slow emergence from silence is an almost overwhelming experience.

I wondered whether the many in the audience who saw this production three years ago had misgivings – would it work again?

The first impression as the curtain rose was of a vivid scene with the three Rhine Maidens (Lorina Gore, Jane Ede, and Dominica Matthews), scantily clad in shimmering white cabaret array, emerging from a writhing mass of bathers; they were said to represent the currents of the river, though no attempt was made to represent water. Fortunately, all three singers were so physically endowed as to profit from such exposure. (I can’t resist quoting The Guardian’s review here: “…with the Rhinemaidens in seafoam sparkles, like Tivoli Lovelies en route from a beachfront spectacular…”).

It set the scene for an updating to the present, which convinced through its sheer unapologetic openness; challenging us with, “well, isn’t this how Wagner conceived it?”, even though obviously, he didn’t. And we took it in our stride.

Alberich – Warwick Fyfe – well known in New Zealand, was hardly the repulsive predator sometime portrayed, and his seduction attempts failed amusingly; provoked to revenge, he steals the gold. He sang and acted with gusto and total conviction, and was critically judged one of the chief ornaments of the entire cycle.

In the second scene, we meet Wotan, wife Fricka, daughter Freia; James Johnson’s Wotan, a beautiful if somewhat underpowered voice, Jacqueline Dark, Fricka, the voice of moral responsibility and financial rectitude, alarmed at Wotan’s reckless deal with the giants to build his new castle, Valhalla; and Hyeseoung Kwon in the small but engaging role as Freia, the provider to the gods of the apples of eternal youth. She’s taken hostage by the giants as guarantee of payment for their construction work on Wotan’s unaffordable new palace, Valhalla.

Here, as throughout the cycle, the implications and details of the story were presented with unusual clarity even though some physical elements were passed over. No effort is made to put the two suited giants on stilts or otherwise to simulate giantness: New Zealand bass Jud Arthur and Australian Daniel Sumegi took the roles of Fafner and Fasolt splendidly.

Some reviews, naturally, felt suits diminished the impact of the myth’s universality and meaning, and at certain moments, so did I, though the conviction of the acting and generally superb singing usually overcame that.

Challenged by Fricka to deal with the debt predicament, Wotan and Loge set off to rob the gold that Alberich had stolen from the river, in an underworld whose subterranean horrors had to be created in the mind. No attempt specifically to portray Alberich’s transformations with the power of the tarnhelm though.

In the last scene the giants are paid off with the stolen gold and Freia is released in a curious mix of mythical tale and modern matter-of-factness. The deal, for the giants, includes both the magic tarnhelm and the ring but Wotan at first refuses to give up the ring until convinced by Erda, the earth mother, that he must surrender it. She acts somewhat like Cassandra in the Iliad and Berlioz’s Les Troyens: knowing the past as well as the future but, as with Cassandra, she is ignored: she warns that possession of the ring will bring the reign of the gods to an end. Liane Keegan projected it with impressive power and conviction.

Erda later reappears in Siegfried, forewarning that it will bring about the end of the gods, for Alberich, furious when the ring was taken from him, had placed a curse on it forever. Apart from the gorgeous reappearance of ‘Rainbow girls’, to accompany the gods taking possession of their new home, the music contributed more to the empty grandeur of the gods crossing the rainbow bridge to Valhalla to bring Rheingold to its splendid end.

 

Die Walküre

Right at the start of Walküre there were a few things that didn’t seem to work or at least didn’t fit the story, especially in Act I. Though the hut that served as Sieglinde and Hunding’s home in the forest didn’t need to be a pretentious, columned-portico affair, this was more like a tiny hut in the Tararuas, with scarcely room for one bed and a table. Siegmund couldn’t even enter from the storm and sat outside, while the text makes it clear that he’s stumbled inside. Nor was the great World Ashtree supplied, in which the powerful sword is lodged; when the time came, Siegmund simply pulled it from the floor.

However, Siegmund and Sieglinde (Bradley Daley and Amber Wagner), both performed with strong, elegant and perfectly well-placed voices (but see below) completely in tune with their characters. Their appearance, as twins, was happily reinforced by their singular likeness, but for me their attire didn’t fit one’s preconceptions (though I read no other misgivings on that account). Sieglinde’s violent husband, Hunding, was Jud Arthur who succeeded in exploiting a reversal of his real self in a Jekyll and Hyde manner, cruel and unbending, actually a somewhat more interesting creation than his Fafner in Rheingold.

Nevertheless, with Daley’s  superb “Winterstürme wichen dem Wonnemond”, the first act came off magnificently with its rapid build-up of energy and excitement, through “Siegmund heiss ich, Siegmund bin ich”, taking the sword, brother and sister race out together.

At the start of Act II there was an announcement that Daley (Siegmund) had a voice problem and would be replaced in the wings by an understudy, Dean Bassett, while the silent one did the acting. I was lucky to be well back in the theatre so the problem of misplaced voice wasn’t too conspicuous. Bassett’s voice was an excellent fit for the task, seeming conscious of the fate that Fricka will demand for him and which becomes clearly inevitable.

Brünnhilde (Lise Lindstrom) appears for the first time, in Act II. At first Wotan tells her to help save Siegmund in the forthcoming fight with Hunding; but then Fricka (Jacqueline Dark) arrives to challenge Wotan, to demand he punish this affront to morality, and the ground shifts.

The stage was dominated by a huge, rotating, spiral ramp on which most of the action took place. In sharp contrast to nil stage sets in other scenes, it was spectacular and visually interesting but hardly in line with one’s picture of the abode of the King of the Teutonic gods (Wotan – James Johnson) and his lady-wife (Fricka). But these things soon diminish in significance.

The beginning of the end of Wotan’s hegemony
The shocking combination of adultery and incest between brother and sister is too much for Fricka. Now, far more than the ritual, carping wife, Jacqueline Dark is assured, clear-sighted, though guided by convention, taking the high moral ground; her voice captured all that confidence and authority. She laid her cards on the table with great skill and Wotan could be seen visibly retreating from his authoritarian position. This further sign of his inevitably crippling loss of power was vividly exposed. Oddly, coincidentally, Wotan’s voice began to show signs of wear during his long Act II monologue, though it was arresting nevertheless.

Eventually Hunding, again violently impressive, strong-voicedly, comes to wreck vengeance on Siegmund; in the fight, Wotan intervenes to break Siegmund’s sword so Hunding can kill him; and then Wotan contemptuously despatches Hunding.

Here Brünnhilde (Lise Lindstrom) intervenes, determined to rescue Sieglinde who, she knows, is carrying the child destined to save Wotan’s godly kingdom (Siegfried). Lindstrom soon emerged the star of the show and got the biggest applause at the end. Slim, pretty, fair, with a splendid but not stentorian voice, that was far from being the archetypal horned-helmeted Valkyrie, but evinced a touch of vulnerability, yet resolute in her essential humanity.

A photo reproduced in the critical website, Man in Chair, review shows Johnson and Lindstrom in Act II about to embrace ecstatically on the spiral ramp with the array of stuffed animals behind them (meaning, a matter of debate). Worth looking at: (https://simonparrismaninchair.com/2016/11/24/opera-australia-die-walkure-review-melbourne-ring-cycle-2016/).

The famous opening of Act III was generally celebrated by critics; typically, David Larkin of Man in Chair wrote graphically:

“Apart from their wonderful singing and stirring acting, the nine women playing the Valkyries deserve bravery medals for their incredible entrances. Flying in from the heavens on swings as they sing the famous war cry, the woman promptly unhook their harnesses and leap into action on the stage. The natural hair and costuming mean that each of these invaluable women can be very clearly identified.” And he proceeded to describe each…

The action was “jaw-dropping, descending from the heavens with voices powerful enough to resurrect the dead”, wrote Tim Byrne in Time Out.

Don’t think I’ve ever seen a production in which the dilemma of the gods and the options available to them have been more vividly explored. The very long dialogue between Wotan and Brünnhilde in Act III can sometimes seem too much, but every statement and counter-statement here had such credibility as a deeply felt confrontation between loving father and daughter that it is worth every long five minutes for the power if its wonderful music.

This long, intensely moving scene in which Wotan relents and agrees to protect his daughter with the fire, is an emotional high point, perhaps THE emotional high point of the entire tetralogy.

There are so many nuances that can be perceived in this denouement, and in the tetralogy as a whole; and as Time Out wrote: “All to the most immersive, often overwhelmingly and intensely beautiful, music written for the stage”.

 

Siegfried

I admit I often find the scene with Mime (Graeme Macfarlane) and Siegfried (Stefan Vinke) trying; their mutual hatred and childishness just wearies me, and I don’t suppose there’s much a director or the singers can do to alter its essential character. This is Siegfried’s first appearance in the cycle, brought up by Mime in a cramped house; the drawings on the wall behind Siegfried’s top bunk speak of a stunted childhood, but also of his already great interest in animals and nature.

(Wagner apparently saw Siegfried as the comedy part of his tetralogy! Equivalent to the Scherzo in a symphony, did he really think all this was amusing?).

Suspension of disbelief is needed too, for Siegfried’s re-forging of Siegmund’s sword which had been shattered by Wotan so that Hunding could kill him (Siegmund). The conflict between realism and symbolism is never convincingly resolved, for the score calls for the hammering to be part of the music.

Things become more interesting in Act II. It reintroduces Alberich and Wotan, aka The Wanderer to do some scene setting. Mime’s long-term plan to get the Ring is revealed; after Siegfried has killed the dragon, Fafner – Jud Arthur – and got the ring, Mime will kill Siegfried and take the ring.

Though I can do without dragons, here I was spared it, as the dragon was invisible behind a screen with a black hole in its centre; we see just a huge projection of his horrible face, snarling and grimacing, with his hollow voice booming and Siegfried seizes the chance to stab Fafner, still unseen, apart from blood that spurts in the form of red ribbons. Then suddenly a stark naked Jud Arthur appears in full view to utter his final words. A coup de théâtre for sure!

Siegfried was infected with a drop of Fafner’s blood which suddenly enables him to understand Mime’s plotting his death, as well as to understand the song of the Woodbird (Julie Lee Goodwin) who is often hardly seen, but here quite visible, and most enchantingly portrayed.

Meantime, Siegfried fully realises Mime’s intentions and kills him. The Woodbird then offers to lead Siegfried to a new companion – behold! Brünnhilde!

Siegfried awakens Brünnhilde
The third act starts with Wotan/Wanderer calling on Erde to advise him, but the sins of men have clouded her mind and the Wanderer finally realises that the end of his world is nigh.

Then there’s his confrontation with the (still) obnoxious Siegfried, ignorant that he’s talking to his grandfather, and he breaks The Wanderer’s spear (which carries the ‘treaties’ by which the gods rule the world). No more is seen of Wotan.

Siegfried is then guided to Brünnhilde by the Woodbird, safely penetrates the fire and wins her. The love scene evolves in which the brilliantly cast Brünnhilde effects the sudden maturing of Siegfried, making him a nearly credible lover, reviving something of the atmosphere of the opening of Walküre; and Siegfried becomes more adult and tolerable.

David Barmby wrote in Performing Arts Hub that Stefan Vinke as Siegfried was the outstanding voice and character of the night, considering him a highly gifted actor and singer and great interpreter of the Wagnerian heroic tenor roles.  He felt that Vinke both looked the part and was “a fully formed character, embracing boredom, loneliness, impetuousness, naivety, heroism and love”.

Reviews varied about the success of the love scene that soon takes hold. One wrote: “Thereafter follows one of the most impassioned duets in the Cycle, wonderfully realised by Lise Lindstrom and Stefan Vinke, finishing the opera with thrilling elation on a unison high C”.

David Larkin in Bachrtrack wrote: “Even the love duet between Siegfried and Brünnhilde at the end of the opera is far inferior to the fervent exchanges between Siegmund and Sieglinde in Die Walküre.” But then he confesses that he found Siegfried the most uniformly enjoyable part of the Melbourne Ring so far: testimony to the production, singers and musicians. But one called that love music that ends Act III “one of the most impassioned duets in the whole cycle”.

 

Götterdämmerung

Here I will reproduce, more or less as I wrote it, my email home describing what I felt the overwhelming impact of Götterdämmerung; it was truly marvellous.

Part of my more than ever delight was the excellent surtitles (English Wagner scholar, Barry Millington) that were bright and clear, didn’t switch off before a relatively slow reader could read and to take in what they meant. There were little things whose relevance I better understood this time: some of the foretelling by the Rhinemaidens at the beginning; Waltraute (Sian Pendry)’s dramatic and movingly sincere plea to Brünnhilde to give the ring back to the river, which struck me more powerfully than ever before.

I’ve never seen the scenes in the Gibichung palace so clearly portrayed, both through design and histrionically – and I don’t mean simply the palace itself: rather, the handling of the potion that makes Siegfried forget Brünnhilde; the awareness/unawareness of the action; and its implications for the roles of Gunter and Gutrune.

The wedding was the most stunning scene of all as Hagen (Daniel Sumegi) seems utterly convinced that Brünnhilde will just accept the inevitable, marriage to Gunther (Luke Gabbedy); however, her reaction on seeing Siegfried about to marry Gutrune (Taryn Fiebig) was tumultuous, her total dismay and fury was hair-raising. Gunther can sometimes be portrayed as a weak-willed inconsequential figure, but here he stood his ground respectably with Siegfried in their particularly graphic and gory blood-brotherhood ceremony. Yet his apparent obliviousness to what had happened and what he was involved in was more bewildering and stupefying than it is sometimes.

The wedding was the conventional middle class affair of a generation ago perhaps: long tables laden with goodies. It was an astonishing scene as the guests remained oblivious to what had happened and blind to the realities until Brünnhilde really spelled it out. Then there was the hunt, proposed by Hagen so that he can kill Siegfried (to get the ring, inter alia); the killing (by revolver) is nakedly perfunctory and the more shocking for it.

It was formal attire all round with both Hagen and Gunter in modern naval uniforms with the correct numbers of bands on the sleeves for naval commander and captain.

The palace however was a bare gabled framework of posts, all on a revolve which was often used but not excessively. And the burning of Valhalla for which the same edifice served, was lines of gas burners the full length of the posts and beams. Perhaps not such a chaotic conflagration, end-of-the-world feeling that I’ve seen in other productions; there was a bit much light, but the tumultuous orchestra and Brünnhilde’s penetrating voice filled out the visual elements. They used a huge chorus, both men and women, though its scored just for men, but they were a prominent part of the Gibichung court and were very present during the last scene.

I’d like to end with a quote from one of the excellent Australian reviews, from Tim Byrne in Time Out: “The rest of the opera is taken up with Brünnhilde’s final act, her self-immolation on the funeral pyre of her husband and other self. It is a purification by fire that seems to take in all the sacraments: a baptism, a confirmation, a wedding and a last rite. Lindstrom is quite simply phenomenal; her voice penetrates to the heart of every note, glorious in the quiet moments and devastating in the throes of passion.”

The stage for the curtain calls was crammed with singers and extras, and then Inkinen called the entire 130-or-so orchestra to come up on stage too. I’ve never seen that before. And the clapping went on and on. Perhaps this especially spectacular curtain call was to mark the last of a total of twelve performances.

Pietari Inkinen and the orchestra
Before finishing, I must refer to the music; orchestra, chorus (in Götterdämmerung), soloists, all conducted by Pietari Inkinen, late of the NZSO. I might be prejudiced in his favour but here are some of the comments:  (To balance the Trans-Tasman tensions, I did see and delight in the Hamburg Ring a few years ago under Simone Young).

“Conductor Pietari Inkinen was masterly, unfailingly sensitive to the singers and to the musical flow, while the 100-strong [about 130 actually] Melbourne Ring Orchestra was superb.” (The Age)

“Pietari Inkinen directing the Melbourne Ring Orchestra brought a new vigour and enthusiasm to the work with particular mention to be made not only for the famous orchestral passages, particularly in Act 3, but also for the extended, sensuous and lingering chromatic sections at the realisation of love in Act 1, complete with some excellent solos from within the ensemble. The exquisitely delicate suspensions as Wotan leads Brünnhilde to her rock were profound and memorable.” (David Barmby, Performing Arts Hub)

“Together, Inkinen and Armfield have created an inward-looking Ring, low on gimmicks and as darkly still as Neidhardt’s was brightly energetic. Armfield’s premise is to tell the Ring as a tale of the human race today, steadily destroying its own environment while failing tragically at the business of love. Wagner’s magic is translated as show-business sleight of hand.” (Shirley Apthorpe in The Financial Times)

“…the orchestra once again turned in a sterling performance … One of the only places where Inkinen let the orchestra dominate was the culmination of Mime’s hallucinations, where the fiery music drowned Macfarlane’s cries of ‘Fafner’, but this was not dramatically unwarranted. The open pit may throw up challenges in terms of balance, but it has also allowed the perception of fine details of Wagner’s colouristic orchestration: particularly gorgeous was the delicate sound beginning the “Ewig war ich” section of the duet, the tune famously repurposed for the Siegfried Idyll.” (David Larkin in Bachtrack)

“Under Inkinen’s watch, the Melbourne Ring Orchestra is in superb form, in particular the lower brass that is the Ring’s thrilling engine (and shout out once more to the Ring feature that so delighted me back in 2013, the “anvil orchestra”: an offstage room full of, well, playable “anvils” that soundtrack Das Rheingold’s descent into Nibelheim).” (The Guardian, London)

“With Pietari Inkinen’s sublime conducting, and the orchestra’s intense and supple playing, the effect is almost uncanny.” (Tim Byrne in Time Out Melbourne).

“Maestro Pietari Inkinen presides over a massive orchestra of players sourced not only from Orchestra Victoria and the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra, but also from ten other national and international orchestras. The effect of the glorious music emanating from the voluminous pit from so many players is difficult to describe. Most striking is the sense that various strains of music are originating from distinct sections of the pit; this effect is usual enough in opera orchestras, but is significantly magnified on this scale. With a profound knowledge of the music, and gentle air of assured confidence, Inkinen capably caters to musicians and singers alike.” …
… and elsewhere: “As the Cycle progresses, the supreme capability of maestro Pietari Inkinen becomes ever clearer. Adroitly managing subtle underscoring and dramatic climaxes alike, Inkinen maintains manageably brisk tempi and supportive accompaniment. Inkinen’s expertly judged conducting shows the incredible musicians at their best without ever drawing undue attention.”  (Simon Parris in Man in Chair).

Even though this revival didn’t attract the nationwide excitement and attention that the earlier 2013 one did, by its end the three cycles had created the sort of communal emotional impact that a football world cup might generate in those who derive their spiritual sustenance from that sort of thing. It’s one of the most wonderful music experiences I’ve had (that is, since my last Ring).

 

Orchestra Wellington’s fifth concert excels with last works of Berlioz, Bartok and Tchaikovsky (almost)

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei and Vincent Hardaker, with Michael Houstoun at the piano
Arohanui Strings – Sistema Hutt Valley, conducted by Vincent Hardaker

Arohanui Strings: arrangements of music by Purcell, Tchaikovsky (Serenade for Strings and the waltz from Sleeping Beauty)

Orchestra Wellington:
Overture to Béatrice et Bénédict (Berlioz)
Bartok: Piano Concerto No 3
Tchaikvosky: Nutcracker – Act II

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 15 October, 7:30 pm

This was the once-a-year event for the young musicians involved with the Hutt Valley Arohanui Strings, the project inspired by the famous Venezuelan institution, El Sistema. They filed in after some of Orchestra Wellington’s players had taken their seats: the more advanced ones taking seats alongside a professional player as mentor; the beginners spread across the front of the stage – some of them looked aged about four. They were conducted by the orchestra’s assistant conductor Vincent Hardaker, with assistance from the side by Alison Eldrigde, encouraging the littlies at the front.

Playing some simplified, though genuine classical pieces: Purcell, Tchaikovsky, Scottish dances, they charmed the audience.

Hardaker stayed to conduct the orchestra itself in the Béatrice et Bénédict overture, Berlioz’s last opera and though about six years before his death, really his last work. It’s based on Shakespeare’s Much ado about Nothing, written on commission from the Baden Baden Opera. Though it hasn’t taken root in the regular repertoire, I saw it staged by the Australian Opera in 1998; there’s some fine music, several quotes of which appear in the overture, which has always held its place in the orchestral repertoire. Its brightness and wit were splendidly captured by Hardaker and the players, with secretive little passages from clarinets, edgy brass and dancing violins.

Bartok’s last piano concerto, left a few bars short of completion when he died in New York in 1945, as WW2, too, was ending. I recalled with bemusement how barbaric it sounded when I first heard it in my late teens, which was, after all, only about 10 years after its composition.

Musicologists enjoy themselves identifyjng its odd modal tonalities; all quite beside the point. Any audience can assess its blending of Balkan folk music with ancient modes and contemporary musical obsessions, all overlaid by sheer musical inspiration. Houstoun approached the first movement with a sense of determination and energy, though its generally lyrical character emerged clearly, allowing melodic figures to take root; lovely flute notes at its end. It confirmed the admirable collaboration between Houstoun and conductor Taddei.

The second movement on the other hand can be heard simply as a rather beautiful piece of music, even though analysis shows characteristics uncommon in western classical music. But ‘beautiful’ hardly touches the enigmatic, spiritual, orphic quality of this singular movement. The orchestra alone and many individual players proved their capacity for exquisite, contemplative playing at the start and throughout there are some breathlessly calm, slow passages for the piano alone, Bach-like figurations, in which Houstoun captured a metaphysical spirit, perhaps the composer meditating on his imminent death – it’s entitled Adagio religioso. But then there’s an upbeat interlude, curiously alive with bird-calls in the middle, ending with skittering keyboard.

The third movement returns to an energetic, folk-dance-inspired Allegro vivace, where there’s still more opportunities for individual instruments to shine, like horns and the piano to indulge in fast fugal passages that come to envelope the whole orchestra.

In all, a splendid show-case for the orchestra and pianist, in one of the 20th century’s real masterpieces.

The opportunity to hear a whole of Act II of Nutcracker played without the distraction of dancers proved hugely rewarding, as the score is endlessly inventive and memorable as pure music, quite apart from its qualities of marvellous danceabilty with which choreographers and dancers have been able to create indelible productions.  While I have grown very tired of performances of the Suite that compacts the character dances, in their setting, as little orchestral pieces played by a live orchestra in the concert hall, they sit perfectly in context; their genius, their instrumental brilliance, and the way they flow the one into the next is simply a delight. The programme note records that Nureyev said that it was Tchaikovsky who encouraged serious composers to engage with choreographers, making possible masterpieces like the Stravinsky ballets, Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloë, Prokofiev, as well as dozens of wonderful scores by other great 20th century composers.

Nutcracker engages with an orchestra, inspiring spirited and moving playing from almost every section and including a few instruments like the celesta which Tchaikovsky was the first to use symphonically (though Chausson had actually beaten him by a few years with incidental music for a French version of The Tempest). It’s the great Pas de deux that follows the Waltz of the Flowers that especially enchants me, and it was wonderful to hear this played so well by a ‘live’ orchestra.

Nutcracker mightn’t have fitted perfectly with the ‘Last Words’ theme of this year’s concerts, for the Sixth Symphony, and some piano pieces and songs followed it. But it served a higher purpose: to elevate the genre of great ballet music to the concert hall, and with this performance Marc Taddei proved the case most convincingly.

Taddei gave the first clues to the 2017 programme, which will follow the same most successful pattern as this year, disclosing the general theme of the music, associated with the great impresario Diaghilev, and at least two of his greatest collaborators: Stravinsky and Ravel. If you buy before the next and last of this year’s concerts, the sub is only $120.

 

Sweeney Todd – powerful and disturbing theatre at St.James’, Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

New Zealand Opera (in association with Victorian Opera) presents:
SWEENEY TODD – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Music and Lyrics by STEPHEN SONDHEIM
Book by HUGH WHEELER (from a play by Christopher Bond)

Cast: Sweeney Todd – Teddy Tahu Rhodes
Mrs Lovett – Antoinette Halloran
Anthony Hope – James Benjamin Rodgers
Johanna – Amelia Berry
Tobias Ragg – Joel Granger
Judge Turpin – Phillip Rhodes
Beadle Bamford – Andrew Glover
Beggar Woman – Helen Medlyn
Adolfo Pirelli – Robert Tucker
Jonas Fogg – James Ioelu

Ensemble: Cameron Barclay, Stuart Coats, Declan Cudd
Barbara Graham, Elisabeth Harris, David Holmes
Morag McDowell, Chris McRae, Catherine Reaburn
Emma Sloman, Imogen Thirlwall

Conductor: Benjamin Northey
Director: Stuart Maunder
Designer: Roger Kirk
Lighting: Philip Lethlean
Audio: Jim Aitkins
Wardrobe: Elizabeth Whiting

Orchestra Wellington

St.James Theatre, Wellington

Friday 30th September, 2016

Stuart Maunder, New Zealand Opera’s chief, and the director of the company’s current production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd”, showing at Wellington’s St.James Theatre, called the show in a welcome message written in the programme “a meaty night out at the opera”. I admit I took fright for an instant, irrespective of my largely carnivorous food preferences history. It was just that I didn’t really fancy watching a series of lurid, blood-letting encounters served up for the edification of a respectable opera-going audience who might, without warning, transmogrify into a baleful mob calling for the entrails of the next unfortunate Christian thrown into the middle of the Circus Maximus.

However, reason prevailed – and suspecting that my reaction was probably due to a somewhat over-developed imagination, I resolved to bravely gird my loins, and “tough” my way through the predicted carnage!  While I’m not exactly a veteran of many cutting-edge, “anything goes” theatrical productions in the flesh (so to speak) I had seen sufficient examples on film of no-holds-barred ventures into some pretty visceral stuff to know that some present-day forays into the theatre could be pretty harrowing for audiences – so I resigned myself to be ready for anything!

As it turned out, my protective shields soon began to fall away, as, during the course of the drama, I became increasingly involved and/or empathetic with the intricacies, impulses and foibles of the story’s various characters. It was obvious that this production, with its ready and compelling amalgam of colourful Victorian atmosphere and accompanying operatic volatility and tragic darkness at its heart would bring out so much more than merely the notorious examples of violent blood-letting that the subject of “the Demon Barber of Fleet Street” has become renowned for above all other considerations.

I couldn’t help feeling the parallels between Sweeney Todd, the “demon barber”, and one of the most famous of all grand operatic characters, the misshapen jester Rigoletto. Each story has at its heart the darkness of wrong being done and having to be paid for in blood by the main character – Sweeney, the innocent victim of the rapacious desires of a judge who through deportation deprived him of his wife (whom he described as “virtuous”) and daughter; and Rigoletto, the unfortunate victim of his own physical deformity and the unfortunate loss of his wife, (whom he described as “an angel”), and, eventually, his daughter. (There’s actually a posting on the web which takes up this theme and develops it – it can be found on the following link http://dropera.blogspot.co.nz/2014/09/rigoletto-todd-demon-jester-of-mantua.html)

I won’t reiterate the points made by the linked article – but the upshot of Sondheim’s music and librettist Hugh Wheeler’s book is that the original “penny-dreadful” character-creation, Sweeney Todd, is fleshed-out, becoming a man with a “past” who is done a great wrong by society, and is determined to wreak revenge upon those responsible (Sondheim was inspired by Christopher Bond’s eponymous 1970s play, which set the character of Sweeney on the road to a kind of almost heroic status, transcending his former grisly serial-killer populist origins).

Quite frankly I couldn’t imagine the work more effectively realized in broad brush-stroke terms than in the performance we witnessed on opening night here in Wellington – one could perhaps cavil at this and that detail, most of which would anyway be matters of individual taste rather than theatrical and operatic absolutes. I haven’t seen another “Sweeney” live, but looked at several complete performance on you-tube, finding nothing that essentially superseded my memory and appreciation of what I witnessed “live” in the St.James last Friday evening. To me the overall atmosphere, the general plan and specific detailings of the set, the powerfully-focused lighting, the costumes that looked as though they had “grown” on the characters, and the sheer, no-holds-barred identification of each cast member with his or her role made for an overwhelming theatrical experience.

What a gift for a vibrant, energetic chorus this work is! – no mere indiscriminate body of variously-garbed onlookers upon whatever, these people lived their different roles as though their lives depended upon the outcome – often they were the story’s trajectory-makers, recounting and commenting on scenarios and events, almost always with clearly-ennunciated diction, even if some of Sondheim’s contrapuntal efforts resulted in general effect rather than specific detailing. Musical and dramatic force occasionally fused to telling effect, an example being the occasional appearance of the well-known “Dies irae” theme, beloved of Requiem settings by various composers throughout the ages, delivered with chilling, almost apocalyptic focus apposite to the stage action.

I thought one of the chorus’s greatest, and most breathtaking moments came mid-way through the Second Act, when vocalized storytelling power was suddenly and dramatically made flesh as the various members broke ranks and assumed the guises of an asylum’s inmates. The ensemble relished the depictions of chaos before regrouping at the scene’s end to drive the music’s fate-saturated course to the point of combustion with their repeated phrase “city on fire!”, echoing and abetting the various characters’ agitations – all very organically and compellingly advanced, the final reiterations of the “Dies ire” theme in the final chorus suitably cathartic, considering the Shakespearian body-count at the work’s conclusion.

The story-line takes in both dark, life-embittered business and youthful, idealized romance, but, there again, so does Beethoven’s Fidelio – rather than regard the scenes between Sweeney’s daughter, Johanna, and her young lover, Anthony, as lacking in edge, one must welcome their presence as stars determinedly negating the all-enveloping gloom of a night sky. I thought both Amelia Berry and James Benjamin Rodgers a whole-hearted, life-enhancing duo, making the most of their admittedly under-developed opportunities (though both the first appearance and the reprise of their duet “Kiss me!” was a delight, regarding both its singing and the pair’s accompanying interactions!). Each continued that quality of identification displayed in roles I’d previously seen them take, Berry as an attractive and spirited Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Rodgers as a beautifully characterized Goro in Madama Butterfly.

Antitheses of characterization were provided by a different partnership, that of Robert Tucker’s strong and vibrant-cum-sleazy Adfolfo Pirelli, the showman who attempted to blackmail Sweeney with the latter’s secret past, and his young assistant Tobias Ragg, played by Joel Granger, who conveyed with heartfelt ease his character’s almost naive wholeheartedness and loyalty towards his “protector”, the redoubtable Mrs Lovett, Sweeney’s partner in crime. But an extra dimension of character antithesis rolled into one was conveyed most masterfully by Helen Medlyn, whose portrayal as a mysterious, sometimes deranged, occasionally grisette-like, but at moments almost visionary beggar-woman was a kind of tour-de-force of characterization, transcending the almost “Game-of-Thrones” brutality with which she was despatched by the by-then-maniacal Sweeney (which action proved to be his ultimate undoing).

Villainy of interestingly-coloured threads was variously displayed by both Phillip Rhodes’ Judge Turpin, and Andrew Glover’s Beadle Bamford. The judge’s self-flagellation scene (partly confessional, partly self-indulgent airings of his lustful thoughts regarding Johanna, whom he had adopted as his ward after deporting her father to Australia!) I thought an interesting “take” on proverbial Victorian hypocrisy – through no fault of Phillip Rhodes’ I didn’t think it wasn’t entirely convincing, (and those actual whips seemed very “stylized”, almost to a fault!) – though compared with some rather naff fully-clothed equivalent self-flagellations I watched on You Tube which seemed particularly hypocritical, at least this Judge Turpin appeared to be actually punishing his bare flesh – which, I suppose, might have done it for some members of the audience. More importantly, Rhodes’ singing was a joy – characteristically deep, dark and satisfyingly sinister-sounding, and able to adopt more honeyed tones when appropriate.

And I did relish Andrew Glover’s portrayal of the free-wheeling Beadle Bamford, particularly enjoying the contrast between his swaggering First-Act manner and those almost genteel flecks of self-satisfaction he emitted when playing Mrs Lovett’s harmonium and singing a duet with her. Throughout, his calculated interactions with other characters (such as his suggestions to the Judge regarding ways of making the latter appear more attractive to women – “Ladies in their Sensitivities”) most effectively contributed to something of a study of controlled menace, all the more potent in its implications for whatever outcomes might result.

It could be said that one couldn’t have a “Sweeney Todd” without a performer to do the title role justice – but a great Sweeney would be almost nothing without an equally charismatic partner. This was, of course, the pie-shop lady, Mrs Lovett, who knew Sweeney in his previous life, and who told him upon his return from exile her version of what happened to his wife and his daughter. Here, it was the superb Antoinette Halloran, who brought energy, vibrancy, a great singing voice and well-honed acting skills to the role, bringing out all of the character’s charm and humour as well as a toughness and pragmatism necessary for survival in what were, obviously, tough times in a tough environment.

Though different as chalk from cheese to her Sweeney on this occasion, it was, in a sense, a match made in a theatrical heaven, as each character’s particular largesse complemented the other’s, presenting a kind of united front to the world, even if the fatal flaws in their interaction led to their eventual undoing. As Sweeney, Teddy Tahu Rhodes’ imposing figure certainly commanded the stage, his presence as enigmatic as Wagner’s Flying Dutchman, and as deep-browed as Bartok’s Duke Bluebeard. In contrast to Halloran’s flexible instrument, Rhodes’ tones had a rock-steadiness that allowed for little more than a basic variation of emotion, but which was expressive enough to convey grief at the memory of his long-lost wife and child, tender and flexible enough to salute his long-forgotten barber’s tools (“My Friends”) restored to him by the resourceful Mrs Lovett, and characterful enough to be her foil and allow occasional sparks to fly from their intermingling – their quick-fire-rhyming duet, “A Little Priest”, for instance, demonstrating adroit musical reflexes and teamwork, and producing an exhilarating and enjoyable result.

Yes, bucketfuls of blood were indeed spilt, but in almost every case the killings were practically ritualised, indeed, choreographed, sometimes with the music, so as to add a kind of execution-like air to the vengeful Sweeney’s murderous activities. Come-uppances were also the order of the day for most of the major players in the drama, with only the young lovers and the somewhat (by the end) deranged Tobias remaining more-or-less intact regarding life and limb! So the final sequence featured a ghostly parade of victims and perpetrators of violence alike, as the opening music returned and the chorus delivered the “Dies irae” motif amongst the pulsating textures and tones for the last time, with, fittingly, Sweeney and Mrs Lovett giving the audience the show’s final ironic salute just before the superbly-timed blackout.

So, great theatre, supported by brilliant direction from conductor Benjamin Northey, and on-the-spot playing from Orchestra Wellington. Altogether, it made for an  experience which I thought would have given the average opera-goer food for thought regarding the divisions often drawn between musical theatre and opera, ones which the musical genius of Stephen Sondheim seemed often in this work to call to question/

(A reminder: final two performances in Wellington at the St.James Theatre tonight (Tuesday) 4th Oct. at 6pm and Wednesday 5th Oct. at 7:30pm)

Annual Wellington Aria Contest final showcases some fine talent

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Regional Vocal Competitions: Final
(Hutt Valley Performing Arts Competition Society)

Adjudicator: Martin Snell
Finalists: Laura Loach, Elyse Hemara, Emily Mwila, Sophie Sparrow, Frederick Jones, Pasquale Orchard, Olivia Sheat, Joe Haddow
Accompanists: Catherine Norton and Mark Dorrell
Commentator: Georgia Jamieson Emms

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 18 September, 7:30 pm

This year eighteen singers entered for the annual aria contest (it used to be the Hutt Valley Aria, when there was also a Wellington-based contest, run by the Wellington Competitions Society which died in the 1970s).

Some names were more familiar to me than others. I had only recalled Laura Loach in a smaller role in last year’s Gondoliers from Wellington G&S Light Opera, but couldn’t recall her voice. Her first aria was ‘Vissi d’arte’ from Tosca in which her large voice emerged both accurately but perhaps with rather more ferocity than pathos. Her second piece was Agathe’s beautiful ‘Leise, leise fromme Weise’ from Der Freischütz; it calls for quite marked contrasts, as it moves from the recitative-like ‘Wie nahte mir der Schlummer’, to the aria proper. Her voice was under nice control, even and subdued, then preparing a good contrast as the intensity builds to the big tune from the overture: ‘All meine Pulse schlagen, Und das Herz wallt ungestüm…’ which I thought was really fine.

Elyse Hemara’s first aria was one of Massenet’s loveliest from his little known Hérodiade, ‘Il est doux, il est bon’, that one only hears in anthologies by the likes of Kiri and Angela Gheorghiu. Intonation was a bit shaky to begin, but as she gained confidence there was sensitivity, and a sense that she meant what she was saying. Here she was in a quite different sort of role, having heard her as Lady Billows in the excerpt from Albert Herring a couple of weeks ago; but just as comvincing.

Like Massenet’s Hérodiade, I Vespri siciliani is not one of Verdi’s best known operas, but Elena’s fifth act aria, ‘Mercé, dilette amiche’, known as the ‘Bolero’, stands out in a somewhat laborious, if essentially Verdian score. Elyse, now in a rich deep purple dress, hinting at Roman aristocracy, shone in this bravura aria (no matter the missing top note), supported by Mark Dorrell’s scintillating piano.

I’d been impressed by Emily Mwila who sang Zerlina in both casts of Eternity Opera’s Don Giovanni: made for her. I was impressed that she’d tackle the only pre-Mozart aria in the Finals and she succeeded in expressing dignified grief in Handel’s Giulio Cesare (‘Piangero’); slightly desperate in the faster middle section, with accurate bravura flourishes.

For her second item, Emily also departed from the Italian repertory to which almost all the other finalists confined themselves: ‘Je veux vivre’, or the Waltz Song as it used to be called, from Roméo et Juliette. I admired Emily’s taste in dress, a subdued brocaded yellow. With teen-aged delirium she almost danced through her excitement at attending the ball where she’ll meet Romeo for the first time. Fully in command of her technique, it confirmed her radiant soubrette flair.

For the last year or so Georgia Jamieson Emms has introduced each item with amusing and pertinent remarks and sometimes a flippant precis of an opera plot which have added richly to the audience’s enjoyment. Her remarks about obscure works were particularly engaging.

I hadn’t come across the fourth finalist, Sophie Sparrow, before. Accompanied with colour and subtlety by Catherine Norton, she unearthed an aria from Mozart’s youthful La finta giardiniera, which I seem to recall, inconsequentially, as an opera in which Malvina Major had a principal role in the late 1980s. It was at La Monnaie, the national opera in Brussels, when her career was seriously taking off. ‘Gema la tortorella’ is sung by one Sandrina, the name assumed by the ‘fake gardener’. In truth, as Georgina hinted, it’s one of the more absurd opera plots, but contains lovely music; I wondered whether Miss Sparrow had picked an aria about a bird (a dove) deliberately (better known of course is Antonia’s aria in The Tales of Hoffmann ‘Elle a fui, la tourterelle’, and perhaps Stephano’s ‘Que fais-tu, blanche tourterelle?’ from Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette). A fine bird simulation, with high staccato notes.

Her second choice was from an American opera that has become reasonably well known in the United States: Douglas Moore’s 1956 work, Baby Doe (not a nice story). It revealed a voice under very good control, again much of it lying high yet comfortably within her range, without becoming attenuated.

Sophie Sparrow was placed as runner-up by adjudicator Martin Snell.

Frederick Jones has a tenor voice of considerable purity and emotional range. I’ve come across him at the Opera School in Whanganui and in a couple of productions (Il Corsaro from the NZSM in 2013 and Der Rosenkavalier from Opera at Days Bay). He stuck to arias that exploited both his command of major tenor roles as well as strongly contrasted emotions : great happiness in the case of Alfredo in La traviata, and despair at becoming victim of a stupid masculine honour code in the case of Lensky in Eugene Onegin.

That he wore a dinner suit for both, in contrast to all the other singers who sought to match dress with the roles, clearly did him no harm. His voice was refined and polished and created, with limited hand or facial gestures, the emotion of each aria. Even so, it seemed to me that Alfredo’s words ‘bollenti spiriti’ lacked much real ecstasy. Lensky’s aria however, was full of helpless grief.

Jones was awarded the main prize, the $4000 Dame Malvina Major Foundation Wellington Aria Prize.

Pasquale Orchard has sung in at least a couple of G&S Light Opera’s productions; and she also reached for Der Freischütz, this time the aria from Agathe’s cousin Ännchen, ‘Kommt ein schlanker Bursch gegangen’, her effort to relieve Agathe’s anxiety about Max’s chances in the shooting contest. She was in cheerful peasant gear, a green top and pink apron and she sang with even tone, investing it with a similar spirit.

Pasquale also sang Norina’s spunky aria from Don Pasquale (no pun intended). ‘Quel guardo il cavalieri’. Though she sang excellently, her voice showed more brilliance and accuracy than beauty in her high register.

Pasquale Orchard won the Rokfire prize for the most outstanding singer overall (strangely, a prize that seemed not to be mentioned in the programme).

She and the next singer, Olivia Sheat, had sung together as Frasquita and Mercedes in the Card Scene from Carmen at the NZSM opera excerpts concert 10 days ago.

Olivia Sheat’s first item was from Peter Grimes: the Embroidery Aria where Ellen sees the jersey that she had embroidered for Grimes’s apprentice who is presumed drowned. With every sign of natural dramatic talent, she captured the vein of confusion and enigmatic concern that invest not just this episode but the whole opera; her choice was no doubt a mark of her training at the New Zealand School of Music.

For her second aria Olivia also drew on Faust, with Marguérite’s Jewel Song, in which, with slightly excessive gestures, she displayed a well-supported voice in growing wonderment and susceptibility to the combined forces of avarice and passion.

Finally, Joseph Haddow, who was winner of the Robin Dumbell Memorial Cup for the young aria entrant with most potential, sang first ‘Ah, per sempre io ti perdei’ from I Puritani, and then the Catalogue aria from Don Giovanni.

I’d heard him a couple of weeks before singing Mozart’s Figaro in the School of Music’s concert of opera scenes. His is a well-founded baritone, a warm voice with a resonant quality, that handled the bravura aspect of the Bellini’s belcanto role well.

And the final offering of the evening, Leporello’s list of the Count’s conquests, is one of the most quintessential and well known arias. Though he didn’t hold the famous ‘catalogue’ in his hands, the hands and facial gestures, with even a touch of cynical sleeziness at the end were the marks of an instinctive singer.

So, as with every occasion when gifted young singers (and classical musicians in general) perform, one feels deep uneasiness at the ever-increasing numbers of fine young artists facing a steadily declining market, in a society that is led by a purportedly educated class that is largely unlettered and uncultivated in fields that separate the civilised from the barbarians.

In addition to the occasional reference in the above notes, I have to remark on the very supportive and artistically appropriate accompaniments from both Catherine Norton and Mark Dorrell.

It may be unorthodox to mention singers that I felt were a bit unlucky not to be named, either those among the Finalists or other entrants whom I’ve heard singing recently. Jamie Henare, heard as Leporello in Don Giovanni last month; Emily Mwila (Zerlina in the same production of Don Giovanni, as well as in the school of music’s recent ‘Scenes from opera’).

Admirably staged and sung opera and music theatre excerpts from the school of music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

“Collision”: Opera Scenes 2016
New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University

Musical director: Mark Dorrell; Director: Jon Hunter
Performance tutor: Maaike Christie-Beekman

Memorial Theatre, Victoria University

Sunday 11 September, 2:30 pm (earlier performances on 9 and 10 September)

The school of music’s once annual opera productions have in recent years fallen back to biennial events. In the between years, students create a series of scenes from opera, against a background of elementary sets and a few props that can, with a bit of imagination, be used in various settings.

This production employed around sixteen singers, though the photo gallery in the printed programme contained 23 faces which included first-year students and two guest singers who were not individually listed, but contributed to the chorus; many took part in two or three scenes.

The scenes from eleven works were divided between opera proper and various sub-categories that go by a variety of definitions like operetta, comic opera, musicals, musical theatre. The excerpts from heartland opera came first while the various kinds of musical theatre were in the second half.

As a generalized comment, the quality of singing, acting, energy level, and spirit of enthusiasm and enjoyment were very high, and at moments where musical or story quality limped, the dynamism that invested the whole show carried it.

The marvellous discovery scene from Act 3 of The Marriage of Figaro made a hilarious and fast-paced beginning: Marcellina and Bartolo are revealed as Figaro’s real parents, and their portrayals were vocally strong (Katrina Brougham and William King), as was the devil-may-care Figaro of Joseph Haddow.,with Alexandra Gandionco as Susanna.

Donizetti’s Tudor opera Anna Bolena handles the revelation to Henry VIII’s Queen, Anne Boleyn, of her unwilling rival, Jane Seymour. It exposed Shayna Tweed’s (the Queen’s) voice at the start, but it gained strength and individuality alongside Olivia Sheat’s vivid depiction of Seymour, as the latter’s uncomfortable role is exposed.

Britten’s comedy Albert Herring which may not have had a professional production in New Zealand since the 1960s, is not easy to bring comfortably to life; its humour can seem naïve. Before the opening scene, four singers set the spirit of the piece with a ball game, from later in the first act. A village meeting in the first scene decides to replace the annual Queen of the May contest (no girl is seen as virtuous enough) by a King of the May – and the chosen boy is the simple, but virtuous Albert Herring. Several earlier singers consolidated their talents here, plus the Lady Billows of Elyse Hemara, who assumed the role of patroness and village matriarch, in a spirited scene.

The card scene from Carmen and the mutual disclosure of Falstaff’s identical letters to Alice and Meg were further opera excerpts between operetta and musical in the second half. In the card scene, Frasquita and Mercedes (Olivia Sheat and Pasquale Orchard) study their fates in the cards before the light-hearted tone suddenly vanishes with Carmen’s arrival. There was a somewhat nervous vibrato in Sally Haywood’s voice which may coincidentally have matched the revelation of her fate.

Both Sheat and Haywood reappeared in the famous scene from Falstaff in which the two ladies discover Falstaff’s foolish ploy and decide to play along. Elizabeth Harré, who had sung the spoiler’s role of Florence in Albert Herring, took another strong character role as Mistress Quickly. (How I’d have loved it if the Nannetta, Alexandra Gandionco, had sung that magical ‘Sul fil d’un soffio etesio’ in the last scene – Angela Gheorghiu totally undid me with her recording).

The Broadway musicals included the 1975 satire on police corruption, Chicago, with the highlight scene, ‘Cell Block Tango’, for six prison inmates who celebrate their achievements in punishing errant husbands: a hilarious, if alarming scene that was splendidly carried off.  All have been mentioned elsewhere, except for Nicole Davey: and all that needs be said is that there was no weakness among the six.

Then Sondheim’s Into the Woods, one of his most successful near-musicals, in which Garth Norman and William King vividly illuminated the two fairy-tale princes to Cinderella and to the Grimm tale, Rapunzel, in the scene, ‘Agony’.

Fiddler on the Roof originated as a Yiddish story from Russia, and its most famous number, ‘Matchmaker, Matchmaker’, again characterized in genuine Broadway style, though only subtly satirizing the practice of arranged marriages; the three daughters: Eleanor McGechie, Emma Cronshaw-Hunt and Karishma Thanawala.

Les Misérables was the only one of the musicals that did not originate in New York (Paris, though its real success came after its English adaptation for the Royal Shakespeare Company in London). It offered yet another kind of love dilemma, ‘In my life’ and ‘A heart full of love’, with Karishma Thanawala (after her Chava in ‘Matchmaker’), here sang Eponine, grief-stricken at giving up Marius (Julian Chu-Tan) to Pasquale Orchard’s Cosette.

Three scenes from The Pirates of Penzance brought the show to a close. They began with ‘When a felon’s not engaged in his employment’, which is near the end, led by the Sergeant (Haddow), and inserted ‘Dry the glistening tear’, from Mabel (Sheat) and the female chorus, which actually opens Act II.

I could understand the reason for departing from the order of the three numbers, to put the most rambunctious at the end: ‘When the foeman bares his steel’. (Though I have to confess my greater love of Offenbach, and in this context the Gendarmes Duet, or ‘Couplets des deux hommes d’armes’ from Geneviève de Brabant). The slightly problematic ‘baring of steel’ march number held no fears for the final ensemble of Mabel, Edith (Elyse Hemara), Sergeant, and choruses of policemen and daughters).

Throughout one admired the often virtuosic performance at the piano by Mark Dorrell, especially in the well-rehearsed table lamp episode, always carefully secondary to the singers, but the more admirable for that. And the production team, the movement tutor (is that short for ‘choreographer’?) Lyne Pringle; and most importantly vocal tutors Margaret Medlyn, Richard Greager, James Clayton, Jenny Wollerman and Lisa Harper-Brown.

One looks forward to a main-stage, full opera production in 2017.

Maaike Christie-Beekman with Rachel Thomson in admirable song recital

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Wednesday Lunchtime Concerts

Maaike Christie-Beekman (mezzo-soprano) and Rachel Thomson (piano)

Debussy: Trois Chansons de Bilitis
Samuel Barber: Hermit Songs
Poulenc: Banalités

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 31 August 2016, 12.15pm

A recital entirely of song-cycles is perhaps a little unusual, but it made for a very satisfying concert.  Maaike Christie-Beekman introduced each in a lively and informative way, giving a summary of the words of each song.  Even though she was not using a microphone, most of what she said could be heard clearly.

The Debussy cycle used poems by Pierre Louÿs, which the latter claimed were translations of the Greek, but were in fact his own work, based on Greek styles and in some cases, sources.  The first, ‘La flûte de Pan’, was dreamy in character, with the enchanting flute written into both voice and piano parts in unmistakable French style.  It was a gorgeous song, sung by a gorgeous voice, with its very expressive, beautifully controlled range of dynamics.  ‘La Chevelure’ (head of hair), the second song, was livelier, with the French language pronounced with clarity.

The third, ‘Le tombeau des Naiades’ became quite excited, but ended in a quiet, contemplative mood.  The piano was always sympathetic and eloquent.

The performers turned next to the English language and Samuel Barber.  The poems were translations of Irish poems written from the 8th to the 13th centuries, and translated by W.H. Auden and others.  Most had religious themes, starting with a spiky ‘At Saint Patrick’s Purgatory’.  Here again, in English, Christie-Beekman’s words were for the most part very clear.  ‘Church Bell at Night’ was much more mellow, like the bell.  ‘St. Ita’s Vision’ followed.  I had never heard of this Irish saint, but apparently she lived a virginal life in the fifth century.  The song began in declamatory fashion, and then flowed into euphoria.

By contrast, ‘A Heavenly Banquet’ sounded like a very a jolly party. ‘The Crucifixion’ focused on the drama and pain, expressing grief.  ‘Sea-Snatch’ was fast and furious, like the action of a stormy sea, while the brief ‘Promiscuity’ was angular, questioning whether someone was sleeping alone.  ‘The Monk and his Cat’ contained delightful meows and other feline features, particularly in the lovely frisky accompaniment.  ‘The Praises of God’ was also short – and powerful.  Finally, ‘The Desire for Hermitage’ was solemn and flowing.  The sustained notes were beautiful.  All were characterised, and sung with appropriate feeling and clarity.

Banalités is Poulenc’s setting of poems by Guillaume Apollinaire (real name Wilhelm Albert Vladimir Apollinaris Kostrowitzky); this was the last in the tri-cycle.  Its opening number was ‘Chanson d’Orkenise’.  Not the Orkney Islands, but a village in France.  It was a fast, spirited song in a set all about love and heartbreak (but banal?).  The second , ‘Hôtel’, was more thoughtful, with a lazy mood.  The poem was about a young man who just wanted to stay in his room and smoke.  ‘Fagnes de Wallonie’ concerned a wander through the woods in Wallonie in Belgium – but sounded more like a quick trot.

‘Voyage à Paris’ was described by Christie-Beekman as ‘Carmenesque’.  It began with decisive chords from the piano, and the words confidently described ‘gay Paree’.  Finally, ‘Sanglots’ (sobs).  It was quieter and more introspective, but developed dramatically, having a sublime ending.

The singer conveyed lovely tone throughout a wide tessitura.  All the songs were sung in a thoroughly accomplished and comfortable manner.  Moreover, Christie-Beekman gave a lesson in fine presentation.