Latest music and arts reviews: Finale – Ukaria 24, Tame Impala, Terror by Red Phoenix
Read the latest reviews from the Tiser’s critics, including Finale – Ukaria 24, Tame Impala, Terror by Red Phoenix
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Finale. Ukaria 24.
Ukaria Cultural Centre
October 30
This final concert of Ukaria 24, a weekend’s music making curated by renowned British viola virtuoso Lawrence Power, provided exceptional performance quality.
Power and his three co-artists are all musicians with rare playing talent and international profiles as soloists. On this occasion they demonstrated their ability to morph into a cohesive ensemble of great potency and depth.
Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang contributed golden tone and intense feeling along with her Rode Guarnerius, Swedish cellist Torlief Thedéen provided no less than Rostropovich’s Guadagnini cello which he played with amazing tonal projection and beauty, Italian pianist Alessio Bax mined the sonic depths pf the Bosendorfer as if its life depended on it, and mercurial Power himself, seemingly all seeing and all knowing, created the essential focal point showing considerable musical vision.
With these riches, Fauré’s Piano Quartet No 2 proved no shrinking violet. There was no perfume and sepia for this ensemble.
From the beginning its moods were tumultuous, explosive and rapturously romantic by turns, rhythmically driven and always interpreted with mutual empathy in spades from the performers.
Ukaria’s high ceiling came into its own as these four players shook the rafters and Fauré for once became exciting and adventurous.
Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata Op 40 was the program’s other main pillar. Thedéen got to the very heart of this menacing, occasionally sardonic and sometimes tender work.
With very strong and perceptive collaboration from Bax, Shostakovich’s cri de coeur came across with clarity and immediacy.
– Rodney Smith
Tame Impala
Entertainment Centre
October 26
During the middle of last night’s powerhouse set at the Entertainment Centre, Tame Impala front man Kevin Parker reminisced on his time, years ago, when he played The Gov (for those not from SA, the much-loved, music-friendly pub/institution right across the road).
Speaking to the packed house, he recalled driving past the EC on their way there, looking up at the lights outside the stadium, and saying: “We’re never gonna play there!”
He then looked up to the crowd and said: “Who woulda f***ing thought?”
Well, they sure made this one count
One word: Mesmerising.
From the start to the end of the set, Tame Impala was a captivating spectacle that held the crowd in the palm of its hands.
There was no downtime to be had as the fans rocked in unison to the wall of sound spawned by Tame Impala’s psychedelic-rock tunes, with the magnificent lightshow – including a working UFO – a fitting backdrop.
This was a serious event!
The place was full of diehards, but you didn’t really need to know much about Tame Impala to have a ball; the lights, the lasers and the visuals – were a show unto themselves.
And after more than one cancellation due to the dreaded Covid, it was a show we were more than happy to have.
The support acts were strong too; young Brisbane artist Sycco was the first opener and endeared herself with her cool melodies and effortless audience interaction.
Genesis Owusu was next, with an entrance to remember, a commanding stage presence and top flight choreography with his back up dancers.
It was hard to not groove to Owusu (who will likely be a headliner one day).
Back to Tame Impala, the opener to the set was One More Year from The Slow Rush album, the showcase for this largely sold out tour.
The capacity crowd was hooked from the opening bars.
And it went next level when favourites such as Borderline, Elephant, Let It Happen, Feels Like We Only Go Backwards, Eventually, New Person, Same Old Mistakes were rolled out.
Two encores closed off the set, which included arguably their most popular song (with more than 1.1 billion streams on Spotify) The Less I Know The Better.
This was hypnotic. Alongside the lightshow and the mass amounts of confetti, it was quite a sight to behold.
One More Hour was the final song and a fitting end to a remarkable show.
Parker, though, clearly hasn’t forgotten his roots, telling the crowd: “If I could play a gig at the Gov, I would tomorrow.”
Most people there last night would probably want to hold him to that.
– Becky Deighton
Terror – Red Phoenix Theatre
Holden Street Theatres
October 21-29
A hijacked plane is on a direct course for a packed football stadium, and an air force pilot goes against orders and shoots it down.
Now he stands trial, accused of the murder of the 164 passengers.
Terror, by the German writer Ferdinand von Schirach, has been universally acclaimed since its premiere in 2015.
It’s a fly-on-the-wall account of pilot Lars Koch’s appearance in court, but it’s no ordinary courtroom drama. Red Phoenix give the local premiere in an absorbing production directed by Brant Eustice and Tracey Walker.
What the audience knows – if you don’t, you should – is that it is the jury in the proceedings.
We hear the lot, from the mundane busywork of the court through the theatrical posturing of the prosecuting and defence counsel and the interrogation of the witnesses. And the constant presence of the presiding judge.
As the presiding judge, Sharon Malujlo is impressive, a beautifully-timed performance where gravitas is combined with a light touch – think Judge Judy without the attitude – and leaving no-one in doubt about who’s in charge.
The state prosecutor (Rachel Burfield) is on the front foot, brusque and hectoring, while the defence counsel (Bart Csorba) is very much the doughty defender, slightly crumpled but no worse for it.
As the accused, Fahad Farooque is cool and calm, the pilot’s evident intelligence shining through. He pleads the lesser evil, 164 lives against 70,000.
He knows what he has done. He went against his orders, and against the law. He is convinced – and convincing.
For those accustomed to the spectacle of jury trials in US, UK and even Australian courts, the German legal system comes as a surprise. There is no such thing as a jury trial: we, the audience, are the judges, And so, the witnesses heard, counsel make their closing remarks.
Will he be found guilty or not guilty? You decide.
– Peter Burdon
Alexander Hanysz
Recitals Australia
North Adelaide Baptist Church Hall
October 22
Adelaide composer John Polglase’s music has never made easy listening. Perhaps for that reason it has impacted less than it should, for it stems from an incisive, critical mind and great compositional skill. But his music doesn’t take prisoners.
Pianist Alexander Hanysz has championed Polglase’s compositions for a number of years and his personal campaign continued with this program including a world premiere of Polglases’s Five Pieces, a mountainous half-hour of playing containing huge pianistic challenges. Hanysz gave a totally committed and intellectually satisfying account of Polglase’s turbulent score which actually impacts strongly on first hearing. Polglase treads a careful path with his plangent sonics being readily understandable, if often uncomfortable, for listeners.
Touted as “very showy”, the final Toccata fantasie proved less of a blockbuster than anticipated with slow interludes allowing both player and audience to catch breath between the torrents of notes in the toccata sections. The previous Scherzo was perhaps the most showy movement of all, with wild dance-like driving rhythms played at hectic speed and comprising a multiplicity of angular intervals. Hanysz shone here.
The opening two movements a Chaconne and a Passacaglia proved an object lesson in the difference between these two often confused Baroque forms and displayed in no uncertain terms Polglase’s magic with counterpoint and with musical invention. The mood of the Chaconne appeared tragically wrought, and in hindsight was perhaps a precursor to many of the confronting colours to come.
– Rodney Smith
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra
Elder Hall
October 19
The ASO’s Matinee Series generally features a concerto and Haydn’s once-top of the pops Piano Concerto in D HobXVIII:11 commenced this program in no uncertain terms. Blockbuster it is not, and Mozart it is not, but the piece glitters with enticing classical effects and plenty of action in Haydn’s best manner.
Soloist Anna Goldsworthy enthusiastically entered into its spirit with a scintillating performance.
There was no fortepiano restraint for her, as she gave a fulsome account of the first movement, with an extensive cadenza, using every wile of the nine-foot Steinway to balance and assert itself against the orchestra.
The ASO played in a refreshingly traditional manner with conductor Nicholas Braithwaite ensuring an empathic ensemble. Historically informed performance practice can sometimes seem restricting and this performance felt joyfully free.
Goldsworthy’s elegant, decorated Adagio 2nd movement with its myriad key changes was as reminiscent as you might want, and the driving rhythms of the final Rondo all’Ungarese were projected with gusto.
Benjamin Britten’s Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge is a real tour de force for strings and when written in 1937 it also proved a seismic moment in British music.
A showpiece for all the players it explores a wide canvass of sonorities, broad technical demands and above all precocity in the neoclassical style not previously seen with British composers.
From its pastiche Wiener Walzer and Aria Italiana to its intense Funeral March Braithwaite coaxed just the right sonics from his players in a strongly focused reading.
– Rodney Smith
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, piano
Elder Hall
October 19
It was a very French affair.
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is the epitome of French charm and wit.
Concerned that we might fail to understand the music of Pierre Boulez, he gave an introduction in his beguiling French accent to each of the 12 tiny pieces that comprise Notations.
His remarks were as amusing as they were informative: he would be an marvellous teacher, or – in another lifetime – a musical comedian in the tradition of Victor Borge.
The concert began though on a very different note with a Nocturne by Gabriel Pierné, best described as superior salon music. On a more elevated tone, Gabriel Fauré’s first Nocturne was lovely but baffling. I may be odd – many will attest to that – but I find Fauré more difficult to understand than Boulez. We were on much more familiar territory with Debussy’s colourful Estampes, with its luscious evocations of Indonesian gamelan and Spanish flamenco. The pace then rapidly picked up with the concentrated miniatures of Boulez, which Bavouzet played superbly, capturing all of their aphoristic intensity.
The crowning glory of this engaging concert was Book 1 of the Preludes of Debussy. This wonderful collection of works of astonishing variety and imagination were beautifully performed by Bavouzet. The freedom and colour of his playing were perfectly in accord with the spirit of the music.
– Stephen Whittington
Emma Horwood and Anne Whelan
Adelaide Baroque
North Adelaide Baptist Church
October 16
This was a delicious sonic experience. The program of secular and sacred works from the French Baroque lovingly and carefully assembled, sympathetic resonances of North Adelaide Baptist Church and Emma Horwood in fine voice all contributed.
Anne Whelan’s accumulated knowledge and skill shone through her warm-hearted harpsichord playing adding immeasurably to the finished article.
Furthermore, her veteran 1978 harpsichord by William Barraba seemed to have matured over the years like a good wine, producing less edgy and more roseate tones that merged well with Horwood’s soundscape.
Horwood’s singing always resembles a variety of instruments rather than simply a voice, as she consistently coaxes an amazing range of colours and tone qualities to suit expressive needs.
Whether the voices at Louis XIV’s court would have emulated or surpassed that flexibility can’t be determined but she certainly produced an immaculate tour de force over an hour and twenty minutes without interval.
Clear diction was the only major casualty and perhaps forgivable when the voice is pursuing so many twists and turns.
Undoubtedly, François Couperin’s Pour le Mercredy and Louis-Nicolas Clérambaut’s L’Amour piqué par une abeille were the program’s main pillars. Frequently depicted in art, Cupid Stung by a Bee receives vivid and often virtuoso musical treatment in Clérambaut’s hands and both Horwood and Whelan generated great élan, rhythmic drive and vivid textures throughout.
The Couperin, liturgical settings for Holy Week, proved a complex and delicately constructed canvass. Horwood plumbed its depths with formidable purpose.
– Rodney Smith
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra
Adelaide Town Hall
October 13
The wildness of precocious youth can be exhilarating. Or exhausting.
Prokofiev’s First Piano Concerto, written when he was still a student, has fair claim to being the craziest example of this genre, rushing at headlong speed for the most part through a multitude of musical ideas like a stream of consciousness inside the head of the spectacularly talented young composer.
Pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk took up the challenge of this violent musical helter-skelter with its outrageous cadenzas and thumping chords.
He made a fine job of it, given that he is no longer in the precocious youth category himself.
It was big, bold, percussive playing and hugely enjoyable. Under his relentless assault the piano seemed in danger of sliding away across the stage.
Preceding the concerto we had Ravel’s charming Mother Goose Suite, as delicate and refined as the Prokofiev was apoplectic.
Under the direction of visiting conductor Teresa Riveiro Böhm, the performance was nicely done, but lacked some of the finesse that music really needs.
After interval came an overture – a bit misplaced, it seemed – by Grazyna Bacewicz, a competent but not hugely original piece.
Stravinsky’s Firebird rounded out the program showing both conductor and orchestra in a very positive light. It was full of colour and energy, as it should be.
– Stephen Whittington
Grug and the Rainbow
Space Theatre
October 7
Ted Prior’s wonderful Grug, the top of a burrawang tree that blew off in a storm and took on a life of its own, has been delighting kids across Australia and all over the world for more than 40 years now.
He’s also been a trusted friend of Windmill Theatre these past dozen years.
In 2014 they mounted a second Grug story, about his quest for a rainbow. It was a joy back then, and in this second return to the Space, has all the same magic.
There wasn’t a soul in the house who didn’t know the story. One day, after the rain, Grug sees a lovely rainbow far away. He tries to find it, but it’s always a bit too far off.
During his search, he finds bits of it, each of its colours – a yellow bike, a green house, a red beannie – but the whole thing is still out of reach. So the enterprising Grug makes his own.
The performers, Annabel Matheson, Tim Overton and Elizabeth Hay, are all big kids at heart, and interact easily with the very young audience (Grug is aimed at 2 to 6 year olds) while demonstrating exemplary puppetry skills.
At a tight 35 minutes, it’s just enough to sustain the interest without becoming overlong.
Ellen Steele is remounting Sam Haren’s production, while Jonathon Oxlade’s simple, functional set works wonders, everything from a deep burrow to a towering mountain top. Hint to parents: dress the kids in the colours of the rainbow!
– Peter Burdon
Bowerbird Collective
Life On Land’s Edge
Elder Hall
October 8
For several years now the Bowerbird Collective (Simone Slattery, violin and Anthony Albrecht, cello) have been touring a wonderful program, “Where Song Began”, which is a celebration of that great joy of the natural world, birdsong. Supported by glorious imagery, it’s a hugely memorable piece, approaching its hundredth performance.
Now they present, for the first time in Adelaide, a companion piece, “Life On Land’s Edge”. The focus of this program is migratory birds, another marvel of nature, where some may fly without touching land from Alaska to Australia.
Again supported by ravishing video imagery, Slattery and Albrecht weave their magic with music old and new. Around a dozen carefully and ingeniously selected pieces make for a wonderful soundscape.
Among the many treasures were Chris Williams’ wistful (Codex) on the Flight of Birds and Corrina Bonshek’s pensive Far Eastern Curlew Lament” drawing inspiration from the steady, tragic loss of shorebird habitat.
The ethereal Star Compass by Dai Fujikura started its life as a cadenza to a viola concerto inspired by wayfinding, the art of navigation by the stars.
Gambirra Illume’s “Wind Birds” with its prerecorded vocals was a rapturous celebration of the beauty of flight.
There was plenty of local content, too, with works from Anne Cawrse, David John Lang and Karl Telfer.
The original intention for the piece, made possible through some significant grant funding, was for the artists to follow the migrations, engaging with communities along the way and seeking out musical and other inspiration. The pandemic put paid to that, but the possibility that it may yet come to pass is an enticing thought.
Presented in a darkened Elder Hall, the gently-lit hammer beam roof serving as an aurora-like sky, Life On Land’s Edge” is an absorbing experience, which deserves a long and sustained life.
– Peter Burdon
After All This
Rumpus Theatre
October 5-16
Melbourne theatre makers Elbow Room’s Green Room Award-winning After All This, receiving its local premiere at Rumpus, is a beguiling piece of theatre.
The subject matter revolves around some seriously big issues – life, death and the enticing possibility of an afterlife – told in three, or perhaps four, loosely connected episodes.
We begin with a couple of kids getting ready for the nativity play, tea towel head dresses and all. Angus, aged 10, horrifies Emily, aged 11, by announcing that he doesn’t believe in “All of it”. Pouting and sulking, that’s about as far as it goes for children.
On to a lecture room, where a complicated theorem looms resplendently, there to be discussed by an evolutionary biologist and a mathematician. The suddenly-realised possibility that the equation might disprove the existence of God reduces the hardened scientist to an emotional wreck.
Next, we’re in the end-of-days la-la land of the religious cult, where eight apparently intelligent people are reduced to Groupthink, finishing each other’s sentences and almost thinking their thoughts.
Then on to a darkened dormitory, a departure lounge of sorts, which might (positively) be the rocket ship about to blast off to infinity, or (more likely) the deathbeds of mass suicide.
A very strong group of local talent throw themselves with gusto into this reinterpretation directed by Nate Troisi. He deals well with the complexity of big ideas and a lot of words, especially in the dance-like third scene, where both the words and the action bounce around.
The design from Caitlin Ellen Moore is functional, though the Rumpus space isn’t ideal for a piece designed as a promenade.
The approach by the creative team is a bit too tricksy for its own good, declining to give the names of the actors in the advance publicity, as if that tease might achieve anything. It doesn’t.
I for one would much prefer knowing that eight excellent actors, Zola Allen, Arran Beattie, Emma Beech, Chris Best, Eddie Morrison, Chrissie Page, Mingyu “Stevie” Zhao and Kidaan Zelleke were going to be on stage (and the director, for good measure).
That said, the performers, and the performances, are winning. Rumpus continues to delight.
– Peter Burdon
Avi Avital and Konstantin Shamray
Musica Viva, Adelaide Town Hall
October 6
Listeners wondering how a mandolin could possibly team successfully with a nine-foot concert grand piano soon found out in this sparkling, good-humoured recital by mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital and piano virtuoso Konstantin Shamray.
Originally intended as a concert for mandolin and cello, Covid intervened and Shamray gallantly stepped in to replace cellist Giovanni Sollima. The resulting program changes created a substantially Mediterranean flavoured menu, with middle European overtones, that worked a treat.
Avital is a musical dynamo who produces astonishing resonance and melodic brilliance from the mandolin. He generates tremolo soprano voice-like sonorities, brilliant strummed chordal aggregates and above all wickedly alluring rhythmic propulsion that lights up the platform.
And Shamray, for this occasion, demonstrated his mastery of pianissimo and less, always supporting never overwhelming. Indeed, the audience had to summon its most acute hearing to catch all the subtleties as well as edgy syncopations.
De Falla’s Siete Conciones Populares Espanolas sat at the program’s centre, presented with huge aplomb and élan. All seven dances, well known in various arrangements, were given a new suit of clothes by Avital’s mandolin sonorities and Shamray’s piano delicacies.
But there was nothing miniature about their interpretations and the up-tempo speeds which the agile mandolin can attain must have tested even Shamray’s technique.
Among other items, Bartok’s Romanian Folk Dances have never sounded lighter and yet more vigorous, while Mozart’s darkly dramatic Sonata in E minor K. 304 positively skimmed along with tremendous flair and passion.
– Rodney Smith
The Normal Heart
State Theatre Company of SA
Dunstan Playhouse
Until October 15
Larry Kramer’s seminal 1985 play The Normal Heart was written in the grip of one of the greatest crises the gay community (as it then was) has ever experienced.
The mystery “gay plague” was killing people in weeks, even days, but government was silent, the media too. The glimmers of emancipation the community was beginning to find were dashed.
In New York City, the early epicentre, a few brave activists did what they could, even if their success was mixed. The Normal Heart records a couple of years of the struggle.
Ned Weeks is a writer and founder of an activist group. Doggedly determined and powerfully persuasive, and despite a belligerent attitude and combative style, he nonetheless attracts support. His battles with everyone, friend and foe alike, are at the heart of the piece.
Mitchell Butel is simply amazing in the lead. He’s completely invested in the role, a coiled spring of righteous indignation. Every member of the cast is equally committed, and the atmosphere is electric.
Among the magnificent performances are Matt Hyde as the closeted merchant banker Bruce, Ainsley Melham as Ned’s unlikely lover Felix, and Mark Saturno – yet another standout from this brilliant actor – as Ned’s straight lawyer brother Ben.
And a special shout out to Emma Jones as the dangerously determined Dr Emma Brookner, a pioneering scientific figure in the early days of the pandemic, and a model for patient advocacy the like of which has seldom been equalled.
One of the many directorial challenges in this piece – the emotional toll on the cast being by far the greatest – is to keep a lid on the righteous indignation and outright anger in the face of bureaucracy and denial.
Director Dean Bryant does a brilliant job of keeping a volatile mix in check, allowing the earth to tremble and the lava to flow just beneath the ground, but without losing control. That’s quite an achievement, especially in the raging monologues of the second act, railing against ignorance, indifference, downright stupidity and homophobia. These are rightly the stuff of modern theatrical legend.
An excellent design by Jeremy Allen, Greenwich Village pre-gentrification, peeling paint and all, is very versatile, the shifts in location deftly handled.
“Can we kiss?” Felix asks Ned. Even that was unknown in the early ’80s. There was still no answer when The Normal Heart premiered in 1985. That’s the kind of urgency and intensity that fills the piece, and makes it so important.
– Peter Burdon
Olli Mustonen, piano
UKARIA
October 2
Close your eyes and you could imagine you were listening to a pianist with tousled hair, a swarthy complexion and truculent features playing his wildly unconventional compositions with such violence that the piano was in danger of shattering.
The pianist of the imagination was Ludwig van Beethoven.
Open your eyes and you saw instead the mild, studious features of Olli Mustonen, the Finnish composer, conductor and pianist.
His recital was a unique, extraordinary event in which the personae of composer and performer seemed to merge into one.
Beethoven crashed into the polite world of Viennese classicism like a bull in a china shop, and Olli Mustonen followed him there, dispensing with pianistic niceties in the interests of illuminating the essence of the music.
It was certainly not pretty playing – the piano suffered under the assault, requiring the urgent attention of the tuner at interval.
Not everyone would like this kind of playing. Nonetheless, if you wanted to understand why Beethoven was a musical titan who bestrode the 19th century like a giant, then Olli Mustonen vividly showed you.
It was a brilliantly conceived program, beginning with five sets of variations by Beethoven – pieces that are usually considered unimportant, but here assumed greater significance.
Fifteen three-part Sinfonias by Bach followed, then Beethoven’s last piano sonata, in which the influence of Bach is palpable in the first movement, while the second movement is an extravagant and glorious set of variations.
Even the encore was thoughtfully chosen – Variation XXIV from the Diabelli Variations, a fughetta in the same key and opening with the same interval as the theme of the Sonata variations.
– Stephen Whittington
Legally Blonde the Musical
Elder Conservatorium Music Theatre Students
Scott Theatre
September 29-October 2
“O my God, you guys”. This production of Legally Blonde is criminally entertaining. How could the original film live up to this live action remake?
It’s full of heart, great performances, great energy and one of the best shows in Adelaide in years. These are students delivering at the highest level.
Visiting American director Nicki Snelson makes uncompromising demands of her cast and must be absolutely delighted that they come up with the goods. Musical director Martin Cheney brings Broadway class to the score.
April Beak is almost faultless as Elle Woods who follows her heart to Harvard to reclaim her love. Spoiler, he’s not worth it. She does better. She captures your attention at every moment.
Alongside her Shanee Osbourne is Paulette, beauty store owner whose song of yearning for Ireland brings down the house, and her dance routine with the hunky delivery guy, Sasha Simic, all muscles and moustache, is a highlight.
Look out for Ambrelle Payne as Brooke the fitness guru and murder suspect. The skipping rope routine that starts the second act is unbelievable and unforgettable. Mackenzie Garcia brings a fine characterisation to Vivienne, Elle’s rival and then ally.
It’s such an anthem to female empowerment, but you can’t overlook the men. Callum Worthington is the heartless and ambitious Warner to his fingertips but Harley Dasey will steal your heart as the earnest, supportive and ultimately rewarded Emmett.
It has to be. She’s Woods, he’s Forrest.
There are two cute dogs. There was an audition notice in the foyer. For a moment I had dreams.
– Ewart Shaw
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