Arts reviews: China National Symphony Orchestra, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Chicago coming to SA

Chicago will come to Adelaide next year, the latest in a string of major musicals headed to town. Plus, read our reviews of the latest shows.

China National Symphony Orchestra

Adelaide Town Hall

December 1

A visit by China’s leading symphony orchestra is an event of considerable significance.

The context of the visit lends it an importance that is more than purely musical, given the importance of the relationship between our two countries. Apart from any political considerations, it also reflects a remarkable cultural phenomenon in which East Asian countries - including South Korea and Japan, but none more so than China - have embraced Western classical music and become musical powerhouses, producing some of the world’s finest performers and composers.

The China National Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Li Xincao, presented a program that showed the Chinese and Western sides of the orchestra’s heritage. In the first half were two popular Chinese classics dating from the 1950s, beginning with Dance of the Yao People, an appealing work that reflects some of the ethnic diversity of China.

Then came the much-loved Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto, in which Lü Siqing was the distinguished soloist. Its popularity is understandable, given its memorable main theme and the strong emotional appeal of its storyline. Lü Siqing’s performance was notable for its balance of dazzling virtuosity and high expressiveness, often suggesting the subtle nuances of traditional Chinese music. The empathy between soloist and conductor was exceptional throughout this superb performance. The audience response was understandably ecstatic, obliging the soloist to play an encore with an East-West fusion character – Fritz Kreisler’s Tambourin chinois - played at an astonishingly fast tempo.

After interval the program was dedicated to Beethoven’s monumental Seventh Symphony, a work guaranteed to test the mettle of any orchestra. Li Xincao’s conducting often used economical gestures, reminiscent of Viennese maestro Karl Böhm, with impressive results. The orchestra responded to him with playing full of energy and drama, resulting in a compelling and impressive performance. The audience’s rapturous response compelled the orchestra to play another encore, before the conductor led the concertmaster offstage.

- Stephen Whittington

Dead Man’s Cell Phone

Slingsby’s Hall of Possibility

96 Glen Osmond Road, Parkside

November 25 to 10 December 10

Tucked away behind a row of shops on Glen Osmond Road, the Parkside and Eastwood Institute, built in 1903, has a fine hall that’s somehow escaped the developer’s bulldozer. Huzzah!

In this splendid venue, enticingly called “Slingsby’s Hall of Possibility,” State Theatre SA through the Stateside program presents Dead Man’s Cell Phone, a 2007 piece by the US playwright Sarah Ruhl.

Just about everyone will have experienced the impossible frustration as a phone goes off at the next table and remains unanswered, ringing, ringing, ringing. Especially if someone’s sitting next to it. You might even answer it. But what if you then realised the person didn’t answer because he’s dead.

Such is the premise of Dead Man’s Cell Phone, as Jean (Annabel Matheson), lingering over a coffee, finds her world turned upside down.

Dead Man's Cell Phone Picture: Supplied

She makes the phone her own, and begins a journey of discovery. Who was the dear departed

Gordon (James Smith)? Was he the man his imperious mother (Carmel Johnson, first class) makes him out to be? Or another, darker character, with a mistress (Shabana Azeez) on the side?

Through many twists and turns, Gordon’s life, and Jean’s vicarious delight in entering into it, is fleshed out. And there are certainly some surprises along the way, some laugh-out-loud, some shocking. If the piece is more light than dark, the former was a little under-done, with not enough time for the frequent irony to sink in. Director Tim Overton might well make some adjustments in the course of the run.

The promising stage in the hall is left unexplored – a teaser for the future, one hopes – with

transverse seating making for a close audience connection, very happily so. This is a group of

seasoned actors whose every nuance deserves close attention.

- Peter Burdon

Chicago is coming to Adelaide

Get set to do the Cell Block Tango when the new Australian production of Chicago comes to Adelaide next year.

Best known for its hit song All That Jazz, Chicago will open at the Festival Theatre on August 4 and is the latest in a string of major musicals headed to town.

It will follow Miss Saigon in January, Tina – The Tina Turner Musical in April, and Elvis: A Musical Revolution, also in April.

Set in the 1920s jazz era, Chicago tells the story of nightclub dancer turned murderer Roxie Hart, her rival cellmate Velma Kelly and slick lawyer Billy Flynn.

Producer John Frost said he was delighted to present the “razzle dazzle” of the longest-running show currently on Broadway.

“I’m thrilled to add my home town Adelaide to the national tour of our new production,” said Mr Frost. “

“Chicago has everything that people love about a Broadway musical – a story of fame, fortune and all that jazz, one showstopping number after another and the most amazing dancing you’ve ever seen.”

The Adelaide cast is yet to be announced, with tickets on presale from December 4 and available to the public on December 8.

Chicago opens in Perth this month and will play in the eastern states next year before Adelaide.

chicagomusical.com.au

Arts reviews

Australian Chamber Orchestra

Adelaide Town Hall

November 21

Sometimes pleasure and disappointment go together.

In this concert the disappointment lay in the cancellation of the advertised performance of Chopin’s Piano Concerto in F minor, which was probably the main attraction for many in the audience.

But the soloist, Russian pianist Polina Leschenko, did play as advertised in Mendelssohn’s youthful Concerto for Violin and Piano, and it was a phenomenal display of pianism.

The wildness of youth occasionally pays dividends. Mendelssohn chose to ignore many of the conventions of musical form in this concerto – whether through inexperience, naivety, or youthful impetuosity is irrelevant.

The oddity of the piece turned out to be its greatest virtue. Polina Leschenko responded to it with playing which seemed to capture the essence of early Romanticism, with fantastical imagination, explosions of speed, tempos bordering on incomprehensibly fast, sudden explosions of passion or limpid, dreamy, romance.

It seems unfair to Richard Tognetti, as the other soloist, to say he played second fiddle to her in this performance, but it was Leschenko who commanded the stage.

In any case, Tognetti had his moment in the limelight in Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending (which replaced the Chopin), a very familiar work which he played with a nice balance of lyricism and passion.

The final work was a chamber orchestral version of Fanny (sister of Felix) Mendelssohn Hensel’s String Quartet in E flat, an unfamiliar but certainly interesting work. The ACO made a convincing case for it to be heard more often.

Stephen Whittington

Simon Trpceski

International Piano Series

Elder Hall

November 21

Simon Trpceski is a piano virtuoso in every sense of the word. In particular his playing can rocket along reaching speeds others only dream about, generating immense momentum.

Such was the case with the two sets of Beethoven variations he programmed, the lesser known 12 Variations on a Russian Dance from 1796 and the better known 32 Variations on an Original Theme from 1806.

Locating no fewer than 44 variations together in a program might cause a rather fragmented effect but Trpceski’s performances took flight, giving strong cohesion and direction.

The big-scale Variations on an Original Theme represent Beethoven at his middle-period best and Trpceski achieved startling light as a feather clarity coupled with crisp, often edgy harmonies that permeated the structure like bolts of lightning.

Speeds were often supersonic, coupling together what could have sounded disjointed into a coherent, driven and energetic musical statement.

Prokofiev’s wartime Sonata No 7 made a similar impression as Trpceski swept along, rendering technical challenges inconsequential, but getting to the musical core every time.

The reiterated bass dissonances in the toccata-like Finale boomed out relentlessly and Prokofiev’s famous middle movement theme, a disguised criticism of Stalin, stood out in strong relief.

Earlier four Chopin Mazurkas often sounded skittish, piquant and downright quixotic in a light reading that avoided heaviness and over seriousness.

Subsequently, Pletnev’s diabolically difficult arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite proved a brilliant argument for the piano orchestral arrangement, even in this day and age.

Rodney Smith

The Marriage of Figaro

State Opera of South Australia

Her Majesty’s Theatre

November 16-25

Hooray! Here’s a very funny and very sexy production of this great comic opera of desire, disguise and just desserts.

Nicholas Cannon’s mainstage directorial debut brings elements of clowning and broad farce to the complex mesh of relationships on display and some graphically explicit gestures that raised a few eyebrows and a few chuckles.

Tobias Ringborg directs a clear and energetic score with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra following Mozart’s example by directing from the fortepiano, and adding that special sound to the accompaniment.

Famous and well-loved tunes pour off the stage.

The modern setting reinforces the sexual and political themes of the original. Nothing has changed since the premiere in 1786. Powerful men will always abuse their position and their staff.

Jeremy Kleeman’s Figaro is vocally and physically agile, paired with Jessica Dean whose clear soprano is a joy to hear.

Leave aside the fact they now sleep on a fold-out couch beside the photocopier in the store room, they make the happiest of happy couples.

Not so the Almavivas. Nicholas Lester – a memorable Marcello for State Opera decade ago – returns to us, grown in stature for a convincing portrayal of the hypocritical Count. Petah Cavallaro, dressed as the perfect First Lady, clearly shows the pain behind the portrayal.

Into this milieu stumbles Emily Edmonds, a beanie wearing Cherubino, jaunty and clear voiced. Even stashed in a recycling bin, she holds your attention.

There are no powdered wigs, knee breeches or swords in this contemporary vision.

Ailsa Paterson’s design, lit by Nigel Levings, allows a free flow of the action and the rapid scene changes are beautifully managed.

Sharp-suited Mark Oates is no music teacher but a political animal and gossip, perhaps even a lobbyist. Bartolo and Marcellina, who threaten the happiness of Figaro and Susannah, are no padded grotesques but stylish adversaries.

Cherie Boogart’s Marcellina is a cougar in green silk, and superbly sung Pelham Andrews is unrecognisable as the lawyer Bartolo.

Mix in Lucy Stoddart as Barbarina in a confident and engaging mainstage debut, with Jeremy Tatchell as the drunken gardener Antonio, young tenor Jiacheng Ding as the notary Curzio and Jessica Mills and Courtney Turner romping around as the flower girls.

There’s a very important non-singing role created for this production. Erik Chmielewski is billed as security guard, but he’s the silent presence, probably armed, watching out for the Count. He gets his sweet reward in the garden scene.

Great chorus work as journalists, under the direction of Antony Hunt, rounds out a very special cast.

Ewart Shaw

Welcome To Your New Life

State Theatre Company

Space Theatre

Until November 25

Anna Goldsworthy was riding high when she fell pregnant her first time. There was excitement, to be sure, and understandable anxiety, especially when your forward plans revolve in large part around being a concert pianist.

But she’s a pragmatic, practical type. She’ll manage.

Yeah, right. The mothers in the packed opening night house were already heaving with laughter as she works her way through one unhelpful idea or guide or program after another, and avoids at all costs the development of a needless birth plan.

If the first act is about preparation for birth, the second is about the aftermath.

The careful plans, the blithe assumptions, all count for not a thing when the real world comes thundering through.

Mostly it’s fun, the laughter genuine, if sometimes rueful. But with a poignant undercurrent, contrasting new life with old, as a beloved grandmother’s time draws to a close.

The charm that made Welcome To Your New Life such a popular book exudes from Goldsworthy’s adaptation for the stage, and is brought to life with equal charm by Erin James, Matt Crook and Kitty Adams.

Shannon Rush directs confidently – she admits to identifying with the story almost completely – and economically, allowing little to get in the way of the assured dialogue.

A particularly successful part of the production is the score from Alan John.

The first of half a dozen or so musical numbers comes early on, and had the show turned out to be a musical, no one would have been surprised. It might yet become one.

Peter Burdon

UKARIA 24

UKARIA Cultural Centre

November 12

The final concert of the feast of music that was this year’s UKARIA 24 was certainly eclectic.

From György Kurtág to Noel Coward is quite a stretch.

Kurtág’s spare, sombre two-minute long Doloroso – actually a relatively extended piece for this composer – was sensitively played by violist Imants Larsens.

Walter van Dyk and Aleksandar Madžar had fun with Coward’s There are Bad Times Just Around the Corner, a well-aimed arrow at the British propensity for glumness (ultimately no doubt an effect of the weather.)

In between these extremes we had a tango by Piazzolla, a duo by Schulhoff and a Blues by Ravel.

The latter, more Gershwin than Robert Johnson, received a colourful, sometimes smouldering, sometimes violent interpretation by Natsuko Yoshimoto (violin) and Stefan Cassomenos (piano).

The pianist’s forceful stomping on the pedals caused the piano lid to shake violently at one point, arousing fears of a possible catastrophe.

Aleksander Madžar, with his acute ear for the intertwining of voices, gave a fine account for Alban Berg’s youthful Piano Sonata.

And introducing what was to come in the second half, soprano Judith Dodsworth was the impassioned interpreter of Schubert’s beautiful Sei mir gegrüsst.

What was to come was Schubert’s Fantasy for violin and piano, in which the song provides the basis for an elaborate series of variations.

Violinist and festival curator Anthony Marwood teamed with pianist Aleksandar Madžar in a masterful performance of this demanding work, which is festooned with filigrees of notes. It was a fitting end to a weekend of exceptional music-making.

Stephen Whittington

UKARIA 24

UKARIA Cultural Centre

November 10

Live performance is vital to the experience of all music, but perhaps most of all the new and unfamiliar.

Jörg Widmann’s Schwester Tod (Sister Death) was received with rapturous applause by the audience. But I am willing to wager that many in the audience would have immediately switched it off if it came on their radios or given up on it after a few seconds if they found it on YouTube. From a conventional point of view much of it could be described an unpleasant noise, but watching this performance by soprano Judith Dodsworth, cellist and sometime vocalist Coleman Itzkoff, pianist Stefan Cassomenos and accordionist James Crabb, it was utterly compelling in a way that no recording or video could be. A kind of gender-reversed Orpheus and Eurydice story, this chamber-music adaptation from the opera Babylon, oscillates between different musical styles as often as its tone turns from serious to comic. It’s madcap, confounding, and in this stunning performance, absolutely engrossing.

The rest of this concert was mild in comparison but very enjoyable. Pianist Aleksandar Madžar’s performance of Schubert impromptus was subtle and lovely. Mendelssohn’s Quartet in F minor, given an excellent performance by Anthony Marwood, Natsuko Yoshimoto, Imants Larsens, and Coleman Itzkoff, perhaps suffered by coming after the Widmann, with which it could not compete in terms of visceral impact. The famous Erbarme dich, mein Gott, from the St Matthew Passion, was beautifully sung by Judith Dodworth, with the unique distinction of having a continuo accordion and a cello held and played like a guitar.

Stephen Whittington

’night, Mother

Holden Street Theatres

Until November 25

It takes a bit to silence Peter Goers, but he admits to having been rendered speechless when he saw the first Australian production of Marsha Norman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning ’night, Mother.

It featured two fine actors, Jill Perryman and June Salter, in their prime … and he’s never forgotten it.

’night, Mother is played in real time in the home of Thelma (Kathryn Fisher) and her daughter Jessie (Martha Lott).

There’s tension in the air as Jessie looks for her father’s old gun, and we soon find out that she intends to use it, and soon.

We learn that Jessie has been dependent on her mother for many years, unable to work because of undiagnosed and untreated epilepsy, and we also learn that Thelma is almost entirely reliant on Jessie for even the most basic tasks.

If Jessie has one concern about what she plans to do, it’s Thelma’s ability to carry on.

And that’s it, more or less. With Jessie’s announcement, the tension maxes out, and stays there.

The clock on the wall is ticking, chiming the quarter hours. And we know the play goes for 90 minutes.

Living on the edge of a chasm, there’s no room for anything but candour. In this case, long overdue.

Dating from the early ’80s, ’night, Mother was ahead of its time for its honest depiction of the cruel impact of mental illness (and much more besides) but very much of its time in the way it is handled, which is to say, poorly.

Forty years on from Goers’ first encounter with ’night, Mother, he’s directing the play at Holden Street for its eponymous theatre company.

He, too, has two fine actors at the very top of their game. It’s a riveting piece, superbly done.

Peter Burdon

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra

Adelaide Town Hall

November 3 and 4

This concert was entitled Ecstasy and certainly lived up to its name.

Debussy’s Prelude a L’Après-midi d’un faune packs as much modernist emotion into its 10-minute frame as many a symphony and deserves first mention as it was written in 1893, almost 50 years before the rest of the program.

Guest conductor Chloe van Soeterstède ensured every sensuous musical curve was given star treatment and guest principal flute Joshua Batty shone most persuasively in its famous flute solos.

Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances date from 1940 and his later compositional style still gives plenty of room for glittering brass, warm hearted strings and velvety woodwinds while avoiding outright sentimentality.

The ASO jumped at the chance to enthral and entice listeners with their technical prowess and tonal balance, both of which are now almost routinely first rate.

Van Soeterstède was in complete command and while not a conductor who overly emotes, ensured Rachmaninov’s always tricky orchestral score was as clear as a bell in our Town Hall’s equally tricky acoustic.

Eric Korngold’s Violin Concerto in D, from 1945, was the program’s relative newcomer. Only during the last 20 years or so have this Hollywood composer’s concert works featured regularly in concert halls.

Violin soloist Anthony Marwood gave a splendidly visceral performance of this opulent, sumptuous and, yes, often sentimental score.

In particular, he handled to perfection the technicolour sweetness of its slow movement Romance with its lofty violin obligato poised over shimmering strings.

Rodney Smith

OzAsia Festival

Buried TeaBowl – OKUNI, by Yumi Umiumare

Nexus Arts

October 28-29

Artistic polymath Yumi Umiumare has been enthralling audiences with her unique style of theatre for a good many years now.

The fans know what to expect, and were out in force. Wonderful visuals for her OzAsia show Buried TeaBowl – OKUNI drew first-timers in equal measure.

One thing that immediately sets this production apart is the presence of an uncommonly clear narrative thread.

Two threads, actually. First there is Izumo no Okuni, the 16th century founder of kabuki, who’s been all but erased from history for the crime of being a woman.

Secondly, tea, and the celebrated tea ceremony, which is subtly interpreted as an active, not passive, ritual.

Taking tea is first seen in Western formality, Earl Grey and petite madeleine, Umiumare in a floral dress and all very proper.

Excellent video from Takeshi Kondo – one of Umiumare’s hallmarks, consistent in her work in the 15-odd years this writer has known it – has her dressed in Victorian finery, hoops and lace, but with hints of what’s to come in the kabuki makeup and stylised movement.

A conventional tea ceremony, kimono and tatami mats, is a startlingly frank episode. Here Umiumare speaks passionately of her late father, and his gift to her of a tea bowl.

The cherished vessel has been repaired over time in the traditional kintsugi method, the exquisite gold seams gleaming in the light.

The ancient sound of shamisen over a rhythmic, modern score, heralds another turn, and now it is the full kabuki look, though the language and acting styles are off the chart, nonsense verging on glossolalia.

The modern phenomenon of bottled tea makes for a funny, frantic diversion.

Buried TeaBowl – OKUNI is classic Umiumare with quality video, already mentioned, and excellent sound (Dan West) with the significant presence in the background of Maude Davey as dramaturge and Moira Finucane as “provocateur”. You either love it or hate it. But you keep coming back.

Peter Burdon

OzAsia Festival

Infinitely Closer – T. H. E Dance Company

Festival Theatre stage

October 27-28

Singapore’s T.H.E. (The Human Expression) Dance Company and its artistic director Kuik Swee Boon have carved out a distinctive niche in world dance for its distinctive movement style and, more recently, for its immersive productions.

In Infinitely Closer, the audience is at once engaged with the production, with 360-degree seating and an open invitation to enter the dance space, even to engage with the performers.

And so, as the crowd shuffles in, a few brave souls take the plunge exploring the monumental set, three enormous transparent screens that both confine and embrace.

No doubt this could continue, but as the lights go down, all retreated, and an enthralling sensory feast begins.

The program speaks of the work as being an exploration of freedom and constraint, never more clearly than in the long first scene when guest dancer Billy Keohavong is seen confined within a small triangular space formed by the crossed screens.

A mix of holography and keen lighting focus the attention on this imposing, solitary figure, but the six dancers of the permanent T.H.E. company are ever present.

Do they seek his freedom? Or to keep him confined? Does it matter?

The movement here, as in much of the piece, is extreme, particularly when the sophisticated technology that’s integrated into the piece slows things down.

Keohavong’s mouth opens in a tortured Munch-like scream, and the music – a terrific score from Kent Lee, brilliantly realised by Guo Ningru, reminiscent of Zimmer’s magisterial score for Dune – slows down and warps.

The pace picks up with a set change – the dancers moving the enormous screens with deceptive ease – and a driving, rhythmic score with irregular, unpredictable syncopations culminating in a powerful unison section.

The screens move to the boundaries of the dance space and frame a long solo that becomes a duet and a trio.

For all the distinctiveness of Swee Boon’s choreography, this section shows more “western” influences, pace his experience with leading lights including Nacho Duato and Jiří Kylián.

The lack of a fourth wall becomes even stronger when the dancers grab a camera and the audience become the performers, projected onto the screens.

This might be confronting, but hardly a hair turned – a sure indication that everyone was in synch.

The screens become the canvas for one of the most technologically deft parts of the production, where the dancers’ movements, even to the extent of touch and proximity, influence magnificent projections, light fields that enthral and attract (an echo of Leigh Warren’s 2012 Adelaide production, Pari passu, which used infra red and electromagnetic fields to similar effect).

Two more shows on Saturday. Strongly recommended.

Peter Burdon

OzAsia Festival

Bulareyaung Dance Company – tiaen tiamen Episode 1

Dunstan Playhouse

October 19-21

The OzAsia Festival got off to a triumphant start with a stellar performance from Taiwan’s Bulareyaung Dance Company.

This troupe blends contemporary dance with the ancient lore of the indigenous Paiwan people, whose experience of forced assimilation and acculturation still casts a long shadow.

Does that sound familiar?

The appeal of the show begins as you enter the theatre, with fascinating imagines by young visual artist Reretan Pavavaljung projected onto scrims.

Abstract yet absorbing, they are an equal partner with the music and dance.

And indeed as the lights go down, and a melancholy song fills the theatre, the singer is not to be seen.

In time a silhouette appears, the source of the song.

So from the design to the song to the dance: Eminent dancer Hsu Ting-wei (joining the core company for the production) begins what turns out to be a long and intricate solo.

The artistic elements combine as Hsu and, in time, the other dancers describe detailed, complex patterns that utilise the full space of the stage.

The music from Paiwan native Aljenljeng Tjaluvie (aka ABAO) is at first wild and elemental, a driving techno beat, and much more along the way.

The movement vocabulary from choreographer Bulareyaung Pagarlava has a broad European palette – no surprise for a long-time member of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, who counts Pina Bausch, Jiri Kylian and the late Martha Graham among his influences – but with a keen appreciation of his native Paiwan culture. It’s appealing, and often infectious.

The performance ended with screams and shouts, and Festival director Annette Shun Wah almost dragged onto the stage and hoisted aloft by the joyous dancers. A great start.

Peter Burdon

Sacred & Profane 2: Glory

St Peter’s Cathedral

October 26-27

The second instalment in the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s 2023 Sacred & Profane opened with a work celebrating the sanctity of nature.

The title of Adelaide composer Jakub Jankowski’s work Clairieres refers to clearings or meadows, which are conveyed through crystalline, static textures. Jankowski writes skilfully to the strengths and limitations of a large symphonic ensemble, creating a gorgeous soundscape through instrument pairings, dovetailing and microtonal shifts. The upper woodwinds and strings were used to create beautiful moments that felt like the warmth of the sun slowly emerging into the glade.

J.S. Bach’s effervescent Violin Concerto in E BWV 1042 provided a stark contrast to Clairières. Conductor Anthony Hunt brought out a warm, blended tone from the orchestra, although the outer movements were somewhat lacking in the detailed articulation and vibrant energy one might expect in this style of music. Soloist Cameron Hill played with touching pathos in the second movement and a clarion sound in the Allegro Assai.

The most traditionally “sacred” work in the concert was Faure’s Requiem. Baritone Pelham Andrews brought out the darkness and desperation with conviction in the Libera Me, while Soprano Jessica Dean’s voice had a wonderfully rich quality in the Pie Jesu. The Sanctus was another highlight in this performance, with sensitive phrasing from violinist Holly Piccoli, harpist Suzanne Handel, and the St Peter’s Cathedral Choir.

Melanie Walters

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra

Elder Hall

October 18

A scintillating performance of Mozart’s massive fugal Molto allegro final movement, which ends his Jupiter Symphony K 551 in C, concluded this concert with musical fireworks. Mozart’s last Symphony, composed during the final year of his life, is a wonderfully fitting finale to all 40 symphonies that preceded it.

Conductor Brett Weymark was on his toes and at one with the ASO who positively swept along at precipitous speed engendering enormous energy.

The Symphony’s three previous movements also received colourful readings that were neat and tidy as a new pin, from the imposing opening Allegro vivace, through the romantically dramatic Andante cantabile and the thoroughly rumbustious Menuetto with all its chromaticisms.

Earlier Benjamin Britten’s deliciously evocative Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings Op 31 also made an impact.

Britten’s musical handling of the English language is without equal and tenor Michael Petruccelli proved masterful, projecting every last subtle detail with great clarity and convincing musicianship.

Moreover, there was a pleasing warmth to his voice especially in the higher registers which often Britten favours.

Fellow soloist, ASO principal horn Adrian Uren, was on form with the tricky passages surrounding Blow Bugle Blow elegantly finessed and the prologue and epilogue well controlled.

Britten selected outstanding lyrics for the six songs involved, and in particular his plangent setting of Elegy and whirlwind account of Hymn, with words by William Blake and Ben Jonson respectively, saw impressively polished accompaniments from the ASO under Weymark’s guidance.

Rodney Smith

Vision String Quartet

Adelaide Town Hall

October 12

In the coverage of their Australian tour, much ado has been made about Vision String Quartet performing from memory.

It is of course highly unusual and technically impressive for a chamber group to perform without notation, but a cynic might question the deeper musical value of the exercise.

Their interpretation of Bloch’s Prelude B. 63 in Thursday’s recital was understated and beautifully nuanced, though it wasn’t clear that the memorisation was necessary for that outcome.

It was their vibrant rendition of Bartok’s String Quartet No. 4 where the value of being liberated from the printed score became evident. The ensemble demonstrated a deep understanding of the work, bringing out the details with excellent clarity and convincingly shaping the overall work. The pizzicato fourth movement was effervescent, and the energy of the final movement was thrilling.

Similarly, their performance of Dvorak’s String Quartet in G Major Op. 106 had a wonderfully free quality to it, with intuitive phrasing and extremely effective contrasts in dynamics and timbres. Dvorak’s lyricism was conveyed with flawless tonal control, balance and intonation.

The quartet took a stylistic detour in their encore – a samba from their recent album of self-composed tracks – showing both the ensemble’s range and their sense of comedic timing.

Melanie Walters

L’elisir d’amore

Co-Opera

Burnside Town Hall

This tasty elixir of love and music contains all the ingredients you’ve come to know and expect from this company. Stephanie Acraman’s clear direction makes the most of the resources of the Burnside ballroom and Stephen van der Hoek makes excellent use of the grand piano.

The cast is made up of seasoned favourites and fresh new faces, three of whom make their opera debuts comfortably in their company. It really doesn’t matter, other than in terms of costuming, that the action has been relocated to the Barossa, the story is universal.

Nemorino pines for Adina, his boss. She ignores his devotion and plans to marry a visiting officer. Nemorino falls for the lies of a travelling salesman and buys the elixir of love. It’s actually a bottle of Bordeaux

JiaCheng Ding is a totally convincing hero who eventually gets the girl, and also gets to sing ‘Una Furtiva Lacrima’ the hit song of the show. He delivers beautifully, and Amelia Price as Adina moves well and sings exceptionally so, with a soprano that shines at the top of the range.

Toby Gajewski brings a strong baritone, and a swaggering style to the officer Belcore complete with roguish moustache. Tahlia Murphy and Darcie Yelland lend confident support.

There is luxury casting in Andrew Turner as farm worker, officer and gardener. Chewing on a straw, sprawled on the bench, he relishes every moment. It’s Jamie Moffatt as Dulcamara who really steals the show. He has the voice and stature for a bel canto comic role and great timing.

The wine may not be a genuine love potion but its consumption leaves you elated and hangover free. Furthermore, the opera ends more delightfully that the opera which inspired it, Tristan and Isolde.

Ewart Shaw