Latest review: Adelaide Guitar Festival and UKARIA shows
The latest reviews from The Tiser’s arts critics, including Adelaide Guitar Festival and UKARIA shows.
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Adelaide Guitar Festival
Origination
Dunstan Playhouse
July 24
The 2022 Adelaide Guitar Festival drew to a close with a concert that fittingly celebrated great music old and new, from staples of the repertoire to world premieres.
First up was Tasmanian duo Quin Thomson (soprano) and David Malone (guitar) with a gorgeous program that spanned the 19th, 20th and indeed the 21st centuries, with a world premiere for good measure.
Fernando Sor’s Seguidillas are justly famous, and what a rich variety of music they contain. Full of passion — a common theme throughout the whole concert — and not afraid of a bit of fun (the cheeky Muchacha, y la vergüenza which pits an angry mother against her none-too-innocent daughter), they are welcome in any program. Villa Lobos’s Bachanias, too, especially the virtuosic Brasilieras No 5.
The new music was likewise very appealing. Thomson’s own Un/Breaking set two poetic texts and a vocalise, sitting predictably well with their fine voice. Also receiving its local premiere were Maria Grenfell’s Waldheim Songs, a set worth hearing again and again.
The Grigoryan Brothers gave the local premiere of a new piece, Blue Mountains, written for them by the Cuban composer Leo Brouwer. It’s an intense, engaging ten minute piece that clearly demands artistry of the highest order. The listener is drawn in straight away by a bass figure that returns again and again, with much astounding passagework and taking full advantage of the intimate dialogue between the two brothers. Even on just its third performance, it is already well played in and their enjoyment was a bonus.
More new music with the celebrated José María Gallardo Del Rey and a string quartet comprising Elizabeth Layton, Belinda Gehlert, Justine Julian and Sharon Grigoryan. First the world premiere of España, a new piece written for Gallardo Del Rey by Australian composer Gerard Brophy. Brophy is a guitarist himself, so the guitar writing across the three shortish movements was highly idiomatic, stretching all the players technically and interpretatively, with many harmonic and rhythmic twists and turns. The second movement, with an ancient, chant-like feel, was particularly effective.
Gallardo Del Rey contributed his own Altamira, with harmonically adventurous outer movements and a lyrical, passionate central movement with lofty string writing, is another keeper.
The 2022 Guitar Festival, for all its pandemic-related ups and downs, has been a great success.
– Peter Burdon
Alexandra Flood and Konstantin Shamray
UKARIA
July 24
The definition of ‘art song’ is vague, but the fusion of music and poetry is an essential feature.
Schubert’s Lieder definitely qualify, but so too do the songs of Bob Dylan – who probably wouldn’t usually be regarded as an art song composer. Russian art song is a genre that is not well known outside of Russia. But considering that Russia has a great poetic tradition and a wonderful musical culture as well, it stands to reason that there are should be great Russian art songs. That was the premise of this interesting recital by Australian soprano Alexandra Flood and pianist Konstantin Shamray.
Two composers dominated the program – Sergei Rachmaninov, who needs no introduction, and Nikolai Medtner, who probably does. Settings of Pushkin and German poets by Medtner revealed a composer with a rich harmonic language and a sensitive understanding of poetry. The vocal highpoint of the recital were the Six Romances by Rachmaninov, settings of prominent Russian poets of the early 20th century, with the composer pushed to experiment in response to the mystifying poetry of Sologub and Bal’mont.
After a slightly tentative start, Alexandra Flood warmed to her task as the recital progressed. By the time she reached the Rachmaninov songs she was emotionally engaged and in fine voice. From a technical point of view she is a very accomplished singer with a lovely voice and an enviable ability to reach high notes very softly. Konstantin Shamray was as always an excellent accompanist, sympathetic but assertive when required to be. In addition he contributed brackets of piano music by Medtner and Rachmaninov in which his deep understanding of the Russian repertoire and his impeccable pianism were abundantly evident.
– Stephen Whittington
Adelaide Guitar Festival
Pietro Locatto
Space Theatre
July 23
Locatto, winner of the Adelaide International Classical Guitar competition in 2020, takes his seat. He’ a quite man who, as they say, lets his fingers do the talking. His poise draws the listeners in. His program spans four centuries. There’s a delicacy to his performance of Piezas Caracteristicas of Torroba and in the three pieces by Augustin Barrios, he delivers a very impressive performance of the famous tremolo study.
The precision of touch showed through in his Frank Martin Quatre Pieces Breves, each of the short pieces clearly projected and there was quiet magic in the Invocacion y Danza of Rodrigo.
His friendship with Bach, he says, flourished during the European lockdown, and that relationship showed in his performance of the Ciaccona BWV 1004. It was a masterly exploration of the counterpoint inherent in a work originally written for solo violin, and arranged for many other instruments.
– Ewart Shaw
Suor Angelica
Mopoke Productions
Clayton Wesley Church
July 22
Puccini pours a flood of love and loss into the hour or so of Suor Angelica. Deprived of her noble family and the baby who cost her reputation, Sister Angelica tends to the needs of her sisters in Christ.
Vocal problems cost Fiona McArdle the chance to sing but flying in Karina Bailey was a stroke of inspiration. As McArdle mimed the role, Bailey sang from off stage and the empathy between them was, if not a miracle, a testament to their professional skill and their friendship. That hug at the end was a wonderful sight.
Into the enclosed world of the convent, bearing bad news and provoking the eventual resolution, come, Angelica’s aunt and guardian, the Princess. Meran Bow’s authoritative contralto, a symbol of moral rectitude, was impressive indeed.
Director Nicolas Cannon, assisted by Sean Tanner, makes excellent use of the ecclesiastical resources the historic building provides and moves his cast of fine young singers well. There is a fund of fine singing. Penelope Cashman and Sachiko Hidaka provide excellent support at the keyboard.
Postponed for ages due to Covid, it really merits a revival, at least to hear what Fiona McArdle can bring to the title role.
– Ewart Shaw
Sketches and Orchestrations
Adelaide Guitar Festival
Her Majesty’s Theatre
July 22
Although a relative newcomer among the various festivals in Adelaide, the Guitar Festival has put down strong roots in the local community.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in the Festival’s own guitar orchestra, an valuable educational enterprise, which filled the stage of Her Majesty’s Theatre, and filled the hall with an entertaining set for this somewhat unlikely ensemble.
The 40 or so young players, boosted by their tutors for the past week, were obviously enjoying themselves immensely and theirpleasure was contagious. Under the energetic direction of Paul Svoboda, who also wrote or arranged all of the music, the ensembleachieved an impressive level of co-ordination – no mean feat in music that was rhythmically quite challenging, and an unwieldyensemble of guitars with their sharp attack betraying even small inaccuracies.
At a more professional level, the Riverside Ensemble of 16 guitarists from Brisbane presented a very interesting program thatincluded the premiere performance of A Piece of Cake, a rhythmically quirky piece by Gerard Brophy that seemed to owe as muchto contemporary pop music as it did to the cakewalk. An arrangement of Django Reinhardt’s Douce Ambience and a frenetic Tarantellaby Inti-Illimani were other highlights of this immaculately performed and engaging set.
Replacing at short notice the guest artist, Festival director Slava Grigoryan and his brother Leonard demonstrated their masteryof the guitar, and their fine sense of ensemble in works by Bach, Handel and excerpts from their own extensive suite of piecesinspired by items in the National Museum of Australia.
The addition of 12-string guitar and a tenor ukulele made by local luthier Jim Redgate – both played by Leonard – added vibrantcolour to the music.
– Stephen Whittington
Helena Rathbone, Christopher Moore, Timo-Veikko Valve and Stefan Cassomenos
UKARIA Cultural Centre
July 23
It’s hard to overstate the influence of Nadia Boulanger on music in the 20th century.
Born in 1887, the French music educator, composer and conductor taught a staggering number of significant composers, fromPiazzolla and Copland to Quincy Jones and Burt Bacharach.
Having moved away from composing herself by the mid-1920s, Boulanger’s own music is less well-known than it deserves to be.Her delightful Three Pieces for Viola and Piano opened Saturday’s chamber recital at UKARIA Cultural Centre.
Pianist Stefan Cassomenos and violist Christopher Moore created a sublime muted timbre for the atmospheric Modere.
Their rendition of the second movement captured its simple, folk-like quality, while their playing in the final movement broughtout both playfulness and agitation.
The bulk of the program was taken up by two works that Helena Rathbone described as “great warhorses’’ of the piano – Fauré’s Piano Quartet Op. 15 and Brahms’ Piano Quartet Op. 60.
The ensemble highlighted the contrasting nature of the movements of the Fauré, bringing out the humour of the second movement, the gravitas of the third movement and the turbulence of the fourth movement very effectively.
The concert was held in the late afternoon, and the dramatic Brahms’ Piano Quartet was, fittingly, played as twilight turnedinto darkness behind the performers.
This was an emotionally-charged interpretation of this work, with virtuosic playing from all four musicians.
Also on the program was Clara Schumann’s Three Romances for Violin and Piano, which Rathbone and Cassomenos performed withelegance and nuance.
– Melanie Walters
Adelaide Guitar Festival
El Corazón del Flamenco
Her Majesty’s Theatre
July 21
Adelaide’s burgeoning flamenco community was out in force for a one-night-only concert featuring a titan of contemporary guitar, Jose Maria Gallardo del Rey, and the popular Melbourne flamenco ensemble Arte Kanela.
Gallardo del Rey is a phenomenal performer, with an extraordinary variety of tone and colouring coupled with a meticuloustechnique and effortless delivery that makes a virtuoso performance seem easy. His set began with the baroque, with the four-movementTocata in the Style of Corelli by the Spanish Santiago de Murcia a particular delight.
He went on to present several pieces of his own, his Lorca Suite a fascinating fusion of conventional classical and flamencostyles, and Rosales, where he was joined by Arte Kanela percussionist Joe Batrouni. The interplay between the two, especiallyin what seemed to be some free or improvisatory sections, was great fun.
Arte Kanela has been at the top of the flamenco tree for a long time now, a terrific ensemble comprising Richard Tedesco (guitar), Johnny Tedesco (dancer/percussion), Chantelle Cano (dancer) and Batrouni.
They ran the gamut of flamenco styles in a dazzling hour of technical bravura and visual splendour. The toque, in the senseof the diverse rhythmic forms that are at the heart of flamenco, was exceptional, including many spectacular cadenza-likefree time sections, for musicians and dancers alike. The sheer joy on Johnny Tedesco’s face was a show in itself.
This was a very large audience by flamenco standards, and on this occasion it would have been helpful to have had at leasta notional guide to the program. This is hardly traditional when it comes to flamenco, where a well-crafted playlist oftenmasquerades as spontaneity, but it would help all those who are newer to the form.
– Peter Burdon
A Winter’s Journey
Alan Clayton & Kate Golla
July 21
Schubert’s Winterreise (Winter’s Journey) has a fair claim to being the most depressing piece of music ever written.
The world has plenty of sad music, but scarcely any that plumbs the depths of sorrow and despair so profoundly as this. There’s no Hollywood ending for this love story. Yet this is a work that many music lovers, myself included, love dearly. Sometimes we need to be cheered up or thrilled by music; but we need music to help us to confront and deal with the harsh realities of life too.
This performance was very much Allan Clayton’s night. He lived the character of the discarded suitor with complete conviction. His immense range of vocal colour and characterisation allowed him to explore every psychological nuance and emotion in Schubert’s music – music that transcends Müller’s fairly ordinary poetry in an extraordinary way. Clayton’s singing is a marvel of clarity, beauty, empathy and expressiveness. Accompanied by Australian pianist Kate Golla, he gave us a memorable Winterreise.
Aside from the purely musical component, this was a highly produced Winter’s Journey. Lindy Hume directed, and she gave Alan Clayton a bit more movement than is usual in Lieder, including bedding down under the piano – a first in a Lieder recital for me. But the operatic element was judiciously restrained.
Paintings of Fred Williams, eerily reminiscent of the projections behind State Opera’s recent production of Voss, were projected onto an angled screen. There were surtitles too – a good idea, but they were curiously random, with occasional lines and conspicuous gaps. This seemed to be a case of visual design trumping poetry – if all the words were projected they would be a distraction from the images – but Lieder is about poetry and music, and I fear something was lost for those people who do not know the words or understand German.
This may be a sign of things to come – a future in which multimedia production is frequently grafted on to classical performance. Perhaps that what will be required in order to keep people – particularly younger people – listening to great music, especially in a niche genre like Lieder, which outside of the German-speaking world seems to be attracting diminishing audiences.
– Stephen Whittington
Ike See, Wenhong Luo and Richard Narroway
Ukaria Cultural Centre
July 17
With violinist golden girl and major drawcard Grace Clifford unfortunately indisposed it was of considerable interest to discover how relatively late substitute violinist Ike See fitted in with other trio members violist Wenhong Luo and cellist Richard Narroway. All three musicians have credits stretching as far as the eye can see, so nothing less than creditably professional performances were expected and that’s exactly what we got.
With plenty of sonic depth the somewhat ad hoc group proved powerful exponents both literally and in terms of focused projection, with works by Beethoven, Penderecki and Dohnányi all presented to listeners in no uncertain terms.
Prominent solo writing for viola in both the Penderecki and the Dohnányi gave Wenhong Luo many opportunities to shine and she produced a noble tonal quality in spades that actually gave cellist Richard Narroway a run for his money. Furthermore, there was real character in her expressive powers.
It is also worth saying how welcome it was to hear Penderecki’s Trio of 1991 sitting alongside mainstream repertoire by Beethoven and Dohnányi and holding its own. The work comes from Penderecki’s later, more overtly demonstrative and dare one say it tuneful period but nevertheless its plangent harmonies and sheer tensile strength made a strong impression together with its traditional features.
Dohnányi’s Serenade is a charming early work from 1902 and all players contributed equally to a warm-hearted and colourful performance.
– Rodney Smith
The Black Sorrows’ Saint Georges Road with special guest Lecia Louise
Dunstan Playhouse
July 15
Without a doubt one of the best musicians on the Australian scene, Joe Camilleri is also arguably its nicest, and, after the Adelaide Guitar Festival’s opening night gig, certainly one of the most energetic.
ARIA Hall of Famer Camilleri is celebrating the release of his 50th studio album – Saint Georges Road, with blues and rock band The Black Sorrows – and wants us to join him. “Let’s have some fun” he says, before launching into a rollicking rendition of one of the Sorrows’ biggest hits, 1988’s Hold on to Me. It hasn’t dated and it’s a date – we’re here to party. The band is tight and Camilleri – whether on guitar or saxophone – is a livewire.
With his bluesy and at times growling vocals, Camilleri’s a superb storyteller and showman, whose passion and energy is contagious. There were the songs everyone came for, Harley + Rose and Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons’ Shape I’m In, as well as the lesser known Wednesday’s Child and Tears for the Bride.
There is sometimes a tendency for an audience to switch off when artists perform new material, but there was none of that. The soulful Saint Georges Road and Livin Like Kings, along with special guest Lecia Louise, were crowd-pleasers in a show that didn’t hit a dud note.
– Anna Vlach
Di and Viv and Rose
Presented by the Corseted Rabbits Collective
Rumpus Theatre
July 16 to 24
There are so many twists and turns in UK playwright Amelia Bullmore’s Di and Viv and Rose that to lift the lid on even one is to give too much away.
Three very different women bond in a university share house in the early ’80s, with all the pledges of lifelong friendshipthat wobble along in the course of nearly 30 years.
It’s a tried and true set-up to the point of being hackneyed, but Bullmore’s skilful writing, along with really good performancesfrom Julia Vosnakis, Georgia Laity and Isabel Vanhakatano, pictured, and Rachel Burke’s intelligent direction, make for a very satisfying account. It’s also extremely satisfying for the authenticity of it all.
The author was at university in those days, and much rings true with bell-like clarity – the vibrant feminism of the 1980s, for starters – yet it’s well enough expressed to be intelligible to Gen Z and beyond. It’s often very funny, the punchlinesbeautifully timed, but so are the body-blow moments of high drama.
The pacing of the piece is vitally important. The lion’s share of the action revolves around those vibrant university years, but the journey through adulthood and into middle age never seems unduly hasty. Rather, the passage of time is cleverly depictedthrough the evolution of the characters – as in their youth, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.
Di and Viv and Rose is long, overlong at times, and Bullmore falls into the trap of creating problems to solve that have alreadybeen well and truly exhausted. But it never palls.
– Peter Burdon
Wisdom of AI Light
Ouchhh Studio
Illuminate Pavilion
July 15
The droning sound echoes overhead as you walk through a dark corridor into a large room, which feels like an empty warehouse.
Before long the music and images start simultaneously, slowly at first before building into a three dimensional, unhingedassault on the senses. It is at once disorientating, energising, exciting, uplifting and, on occasions, just a tad scary
Welcome to Ouchhh’s Wisdom of AI Light, the centrepiece of Adelaide’s Illuminate Festival
Divided into five distinct chapters it takes a journey through the works of Leonardo da Vinci, into deep, sometimes ancient, data sets, the words of Einstein and Galileo, to images compiled from information supplied by NASA.
Each chapter is distinctive. Some are striking and bold in colour, featuring images of iconic art. Others are more jolting – all data sets in black and white. It is at times futuristic, other times primal.
In one moment a massive image of the Mona Lisa appears, before her smile devolves into a series of abstract streaks.
In another, balloons streak across the screen (great for some of the kids who started chasing them).
All to a backdrop of music composed by Ludovico Einaudi. It is far better experienced than described.
The technology behind the works is mind blowing. Hailing from Turkey, it has been shown in Berlin and Istanbul, it examines about 20,000 paintingsby more than 300 artists and recreates them with billions of “machine-learned” brushstrokes.
The exhibition took six years to create, with almost 100 people contributing to the work and required its own purpose-builtpavilion in Adelaide.
The projections used in the exhibition are the equivalent of about 20 IMAX movie theatres.
How much you enjoy this 30 minutes of immersive art and music will depend on your personal taste but, for this reviewer, it was 30 minutes of joyous escapism. If you’ve had a rough day, there is no better place topurge it.
Co-founders Rachael Azzopardi and Lee Cumberlidge have created something very special with the Illuminate Festival (LightCreatures is a site to behold and Light Cycles is a brilliant and mesmerising journey through our Botanic Gardens).
For a while now, Tasmania’s Dark Mofo held the crown as the country’s most innovative, challenging and engrossing winter festival.
Not any more
– Matt Deighton
The Australian Ballet
Counterpointe
Her Majesty’s Theatre
July 8
In a triple bill entitled Counterpointe, The Australian Ballet shows just why it is one of the world’s greats.
AB Artistic Director David Hallberg explains that the three works, from Petipa’s 19th century grandeur through Balanchine’s neoclassicism to William Forsthye’s famous — or infamous — Artifact, remind us both of the evolution of ballet, and its common threads.
The wonderful Third Act of Raymonda, “Russian classical ballet summarised in one act,” is packed full of excitement and superlative technique. Depicting a wedding, the happy couple — stellar performances from Sharni Spencer and Chengwu Guo — are feted by their friends in an enormous dance in which the many pairs of dancers all get to shine. There is a beautiful quartet, and a trio, but perhaps the most striking moment of all was the solo variation from Jill Ogai.
Tchaikovsky’s music for a Pas de Deux in Act III of his Swan Lake lay forgotten in the Bolshoi archives until George Balanchinegot wind of its rediscovery. His exquisite choreography for this 8 minute piece is widely recognised as a masterpiece in miniature, and a showcase for the very finest dancers. Yuumi Yamada and Brett Chynoweth were very much up to the challenge.
The first act features the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra under AB Assistant Conductor Simon Thew.
It’s a mark of the impact of Forsythe’s Artifact Suite that there were many in the audience who still recall the performance of part of it in the 1994 Adelaide Festival. It’s performed with nearly 40 lithe, supremely fit dancers, clad in striking green, who execute scene after scene of striking geometrical — almost architectural — patterns with a variety that extends from intimate pas de deux to enormous ensembles.
Many in the house hardly knew what to do as the fire curtain slammed down, only to shoot up again revealing a new tableau, as if the dancers had teleported across the stage. Or has the audience simply been cut off from the dance as it continues? Is there more happening than we know? And is the audience entitled to know it? It’s an utterly enticing piece.
The music, first Bach’s breathtaking Chaconne, then an extraordinary contemporary interpretation of it by the German pianist-composer Eva Crossman-Hecht (for many years pianist with the Frankfurt Ballet), is epic in its own right. Many believe the chaconneto be one of the greatest achievements in music. Pieces like Artifact suggest Forsythe can rightly aspire to similar lofty ideals.
The remaining performances until 13 July feature many of the AB’s finest in the principal roles in all of these pieces, and warrant being seen time and time again.
Counterpointe is at Her Majesty’s Theatre until July 13. Book at ticketek.com.au
– Peter Burdon
50 Years of ABBA Orchestrated
Her Majesty’s Theatre
July 2
Half a century since Swedish pop sensation ABBA began (and 45 years since they graced the hallowed grounds of Football Park – your writer was there and remembers it as if it were yesterday!), the rapturous devotion the group enjoys is alive and strong.
50 Years of ABBA Orchestrated is the brainchild of local creatines Natalie Ermer and Dave Polain, who used their considerable charms to put together an enormous ensemble that included singers, the Adelaide Concert Orchestra, the Woodville High School Choir, and a cracking band including Warwick Cheatle, Alana Dawes, Dean Kelley, Dave McEvoy, and Steve Todd.
The soloists included Ermer herself, along with Diane Panopoulos, Emily Kelly, Jodie Dry and Aaron Collis, all of whom had a field day with one great number after another — two dozen of them, from their early People Need Love from 1972, to the recently released Just A Notion.
Along the way it was one hit after another. Waterloo, SOS, I Do, I Do, I Do, Mamma Mia, Money, Money, Money, Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight), Voulez Vous, and all the rest. It was “ABBA Gold” from local legends the Flaming Sambucas (of which several of the singers are alumnae) on steroids.
The audience roared out the chorus to Thank You For The Music, and even if they fell foul of the syncopations in I Have A Dream, they had a wonderful time anyway. Fernando shook the roof.
Each of the soloists had their moments in the spotlight. Panopoulos in SOS and particularly in The Winner Takes It All, Kelly in Money, Money, Money and with Ermer in Chiquitita; Dry in Knowing Me, Knowing You, and Collis in Rock Me. Throughout, they all supplied excellent support, whether backing or in the lead. They also had lots of campy fun.
The arrangements by Polain were bright and tight, and a few were really epic, especially as the evening reached its climax with Lay All Your Love On Me, The Winner Takes It All and The Visitors.
The Adelaide Concert Orchestra under Carolyn Lam was predictably well-drilled, as they needed to be, with over 2 hours hard at work.
It may have been a sound issue, but on more than a few occasions the singers seemed to lack heft. Even when ABBA songs were quiet, Agnetha and Frida never sang without steel in their voices, and they had no fear of heights, pitch-wise. This wasn’t a night to play it safe.
Part proceeds of concert will be going to the Cancer Council’s excellent 202 Greenhill Road supportive accommodation project, as well as to Caritas Australia’s fund for Ukraine. With a whacking great audience, there should be plenty of funds flowing, and deservedly so.
– Peter Burdon
She Speaks
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra
Elder Hall
July 2
Ably curated by Anne Cawrse and Anna Goldsworthy, She Speaks, is turning into an annual event, now over two days and seven presentations, culminating in this full-scale symphony concert. And its all about women composers.
Without a doubt the evening’s talking point was Welsh composer Grace Williams’ Symphony No 1, written in 1942, in its Australian premiere. There have been precious few performances elsewhere either, demonstrating if ever you needed it, how some composers of real worth can be almost forgotten, especially women.
Broadly travelling from dark to light, from quite serious chromaticism to almost traditional tonality and consistently showing a sure sense of orchestral tonalities and big musical forms, the symphony is full of intensity, memorable thematic materials and sheer defiance.
A relatively early work in Williams’ canon, only the first movement seems unexpectedly truncated but makes up for that with unabated fast paced insistence. There is interest at every turn thereafter and the fourth movement, an andante, plays a long game growing from suppressed determination to almost Mahlarian grandeur.
The ASO directed by Benjamin Northey was in good form producing some enticingly warm sonorities in Jennifer Higden’s evergreen Oboe Concerto (2005) with soloist Celia Craig as always providing listeners with an immaculate and expertly articulated interpretation. Margaret Sutherland’s Haunted Hills (1950) opened the program with her characteristic sonic opulence and uncanny ability to give a comparatively short work gravitas and apparent spaciousness.
– Rodney Smith
Simon Tedeschi and John Bell
Ukaria Cultural Centre
June 26
With Love, Amadeus, brings together pianist Simon Tedeschi and actor John Bell in a further collaboration that builds on their previous presentations Enoch Arden, Bright Star and Echoes of the Jazz Age.
This time, the letters and music of Mozart provide their materials as they seek to illuminate some of the contradictions of the composer’s short life. Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play Amadeus springs to mind for many in conjuring up the Mozart persona but critics have found that two-dimensional, emphasising his almost childlike mercurial, comedic and lighthearted traits without the depth that would have undoubtedly infused his thinking.
Very surprisingly the Tedeschi/Bell collaboration left a similar impression, only dealing with Mozart’s awful penury and serious domestic tragedies towards the very end of their show. Listeners marvelled at Mozart’s lightening-sharp wit, effervescent humour and supercharged energy levels throughout the correspondence Bell aired so eloquently and revelled in Tedeschi’s wonderful delicacy of touch and luminous piano sonorities in Mozart excerpts, some of which he expertly abridged and arranged to fit the occasion. Perhaps most memorable was his management of Piano Concerto in F, K. 459, where, in a sense the orchestra was hardly missed.
And of course the music and letters together did achieve a level of pathos, the hurt behind the smile, the despair underlying the boisterous high spirits. Nevertheless, after the show the enigma of Mozart’s personality remained and perhaps it is appropriate that it should.
– Rodney Smith
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra
Adelaide Town Hall
June 24
Serenity is a rare thing in our world.
If you are feeling serene, then you probably haven’t been paying attention. Nonetheless, if you are offered it, best to take it and make the most of it. Ralph Vaughan Williams gave is a quarter of an hour of calm in The Lark Ascending, a pastoral idyll for violin and orchestra played with exquisite sensitivity and imagination by Australian violinist Emily Sun. There is no gratuitous virtuosic display or drama in this gently ecstatic and deeply affecting work – it’s the very antithesis of the Romantic concerto genre. Emily Sun’s spellbinding performance drew the listener in to the music’s subtle, serene poetry.
In contrast, Saint-Saëns’ introduction and Rondo Capriccioso gave Emily Sun scope to let loose a fine display of virtuosity. Whether it can be called gratuitous or not is a matter of taste, but it was immensely entertaining.
Conductor Benjamin Northey directed the premiere of Ediacaran Fields, the fifth instalment in the Earth Plays series by Cathy Milliken. A musical contemplation of the vastness of geological time and the origins of life, it tells a fairly straightforward story using a rather complex musical language strongly indebted to contemporary European trends. There are some striking effects in the score, notably the contribution by members of the audience hitting stones together. This is a fairly challenging piece for the orchestra but under Benjamin Northey’s careful direction they came out of it well.
Finally, we had a rousing and colourful rendition of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in Ravel’s orchestration. It’s a great work to highlight the strengths of the orchestra across all sections. It does have some unexpected contemporary resonances, notably in the concluding Great Gate of Kiev. No Ukrainian flags were unfurled. But just thinking about such things enough to disturb your serenity.
– Stephen Whittington
Bach
Australian Chamber Orchestra
Adelaide Town Hall
June 21
Music was the Bach family’s business.
That was ingeniously demonstrated in this program, which featured not only the familiar Johann Sebastian (JS), but also Johann Ludwig (JL), Johann Christoph (JC) – yes, there were a lot of Johanns – and Carl Philipp Emanuel (CPE), the latter being the best of the ‘other Bachs’.
But old Johann Sebastian was the greatest of them all – history made the right call there.
If you want evidence you only have to listen to the aria ‘Schlummert ein’ from one of his more than two hundred cantatas – he was no one-hit wonder. It combines sublime beauty and depth of emotion with a structure calculated with mathematical exactitude.
Old JS was a composer with a huge heart and a brain the size of a planet. It was sung exquisitely by Anna Dowsley, whose rich, dark alto voice was perfectly suited to the mood of resignation and hope. She was equally impressive in other arias by JS and JC Bach.
The name Bach can be spelled out in German note names, a feature taken advantage of by JS himself, but also by many others, including Schumann and the contemporary Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina. Her Reflections on the Theme of B-A-C-H formed a striking interlude in the program.
The world of JS Bach has gone, and it’s never coming back, the his music remains a reference point even today, and probably long into the future.
Richard Tognetti and Helena Rathbone were soloists in the much-loved Concerto in D minor for Two Violins. The quick movements were full of energy while the central Largo was deeply contemplative. The irrepressible Timo-Veikko Valve performed CPE Bach’s Cello Concerto in A minor with such energy that his cello was in danger of catching fire. It was a fitting conclusion to this fascinating program.
– Stephen Whittington
Anna O’Byrne: Becoming Eliza
Ukaria Cultural Centre
June 19
“Dame Julie Andrews is going to be in London and she was hoping to catch up with you.”
Words that almost anyone would want to hear. And for Anna O’Byrne, just back in London after a quick trip to Australia to audition – unsuccessfully, so she’d been told – for the lead in the 60th anniversary production of My Fair Lady, the news was, well, loverly.
More loverly still was a career-defining offer.
Becoming Eliza is a charming, and very satisfying account of O’Byrne’s “trip of a lifetime”.
She’d already enjoyed considerable success in Australia and the UK but to “be” and live with an iconic character for a couple of years, under the eye of its creator – well, that’s a rare thing indeed.
Classic tunes from My Fair Lady are interspersed with songs from other musicals, both familiar – Thoroughly Modern Millie – and (sadly) less often heard, like Gigi.
Many were also famously performed by Julie Andrews, like Smile Away Each Rainy Day from Darling Lili and Noel Coward’s patriotic London Pride.
The linking dialogue is as sparkling as the music, bristling with delicious fly-on-the-wall anecdotes from the My Fair Lady rehearsals with Dame Julie and a few candid reminders that life on the stage isn’t always about applause and awards.
Directed by another Australian stage superstar, Sharon Millerchip, and with the celebrated Michael Tyack at the piano, Becoming Eliza is, as Freddy Eynsford-Hill said to the housekeeper Mrs Pearce, “Magnificent!”
– Peter Burdon
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra – Delight
Elder Hall
June 16
Delight proved an apt title for this concert but if you were looking for heart-on-sleeve emotion you would have been disappointed.
Nevertheless, in place of romantic warmth you would have discovered there was plenty of wit, sparkle, some cynicism and definitely humour to keep the grey cells working delightfully.
It was all highly objective stuff, granted, but well suited to Elder Hall’s fairly immediate acoustic, especially with a full orchestra to blow your socks off.
That certainly happened in Prokofiev’s short, sharp Classical Symphony where the ASO tuttis really jarred.
But there was the gentler Larghetto movement to soothe things with its famously challenging high registers for the strings and the galumphing Gavotte which became something of a folk-dance on this occasion.
With all its dry humour, slightly angular melodic content and odd twists and turns, any pianist has quite a hard time with Mozart’s Piano Concerto in Eb K449.
Pianist Stefan Cassomenos wisely decided to play it straight letting the music speak for itself and Mozart compensates providing some magical modulations in the Andantino which really came alive with Cassomenos’s rich firm tone.
Perhaps the most successful item was Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks Concerto for Chamber Orchestra which started the program.
Fifteen of the ASO’s best winds and strings were able to shine in the concerto manner during this deliberately astringent, rhythmically driven work and they all knew how to make it glisten and glitter.
– Rodney Smith
Monolith
Lewis Major Projects
Hart’s Mill, Port Adelaide
June 8 to 15
Adelaide-based choreographer and all-round creative Lewis Major has presented a number of striking dance works in recent times.
His double bill Unfolding and S/Words for the 2021 Adelaide Festival was excellent, with the first piece particularly interesting for its confidence and coherence, no easy feat in contemporary dance with its often transcendental intent.
No doubt Monolith was in his mind at the same time. For this observer, at least, the current piece learns from and builds on the earlier work both thematically and in the dance itself. Both look to very basic, elemental human drives, and the way in which humanity engages with the world. And both are a wonderful fusion of design, light and movement.
Major describes Monolith as an exploration of humanity’s oldest rituals in the midst of an ever-changing planet. The movement is suitably solemn, almost ceremonial at times, and supremely confident, especially in the intricate partnering.
This confidence no doubt derives from the trust and familiarity between the dancers (Christina Chan, Clementine Benson, Sarah Wilson and Stefaan Morrow), and it’s well worth noting that three of the four dancers also performed in Unfolding.
Both are brought into dramatic relief in the magnificent design by Nic Mollison, among them towering megaliths, cascading waterfalls, and a staggering ice flow twisting and folding like a kaleidoscope, while Sascha Budimski’s original score is a winner.
There is much to like in Monolith, not only the absorbing work itself, but also the choreographer’s turn as bartender in The Speakeasy Hotel, where mulled wine (enhanced with his own Sartori gin) is a welcome warmer deep in winter.
– Peter Burdon
Paul Grabowsky and Andrea Lam
Adelaide Town Hall
June 15
During the evening’s program, pianists Paul Grabowsky and Andrea Lam each presented Bach’s monumental Goldberg Variations from polar opposite viewpoints that nevertheless complemented one another.
Lam’s task, playing Bach’s original score as faithfully as possible in the program’s first half, involved reaching for the heavens. Discovered onstage in a dimly lit hall, seance-like and a vision in white, she drew us into Bach’s so simple and yet so complex contrapuntal world, and we followed, mesmerised by what Bach could conjure using just a keyboard.
After interval, Grabowsky, Bach inspired but jazz oriented, more down-to earth and of the moment, mused and flirted with Bach’s masterpiece in extended Improvisations that rose to dizzying heights of jazz colourations, harmonies and moods.
In truth Grabowsky was far more interested in Bach’s simple Sarabande melody than the master himself who basically mined its harmonic sequence without giving the melody a second thought until the end.
Grabowsky would have none of that and improvised thematic resonances culminating in an almost heroic final iteration that would have astonished those used to Bach’s more contemplative approach.
Lam proved herself as daring in her own way, taking the written notes and enunciating them with outstanding control, poise and at times, élan.
Grabowsky finished his Improvisations with the simplicity of Bach’s own final restatement of the Sarabande.
So, fittingly, both performances ended with the selfsame notes, a touching tribute to the baffling genius that was Johann Sebastian Bach.
– Rodney Smith
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra
Finders Keepers
Adelaide Town Hall
June 10
Drawing on the popular model of offering bite-sized chunks of classical music in an easily accessible format that appeals to all ages – pace Guy Noble and the Classics Unwrapped series – the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra has teamed up with composer and music educator Paul Rissmann to present Finders Keepers.
Beginning with Rossini and ending with John Williams – we’re talking really popular here – the main event was the world premiere of a new piece by Rissmann, a setting of Shaun Tan’s well-known and much-loved children’s book The Lost Thing.
The immense popularity of the book was there for all to see, and the moment the first illustrations from the book popped up on screen, cries of recognition from the mainly young audience swept the hall.
In an effort to make the concert even more accessible, the stage was lowered almost to floor level, the better to see the musicians and conductor Ben Northey hard at work.
Rissmann’s piece is a delight, beautifully composed both for the orchestra and the choirs – the Young Adelaide Voices and their senior ensemble, Aurora – and with well-judged opportunities for everyone to chip in.
Hundreds of voices filled the Town Hall singing “Don’t panic! Sweepus underem carpetae” in splendid cod Latin.
The classics were well-judged, from Rossini’s Thieving Magpie and Grieg’s mountain trolls to a few good lessons, like an extract from the opera Talestri by the 18th century Maria Antonia Walpurgis, a timely reminder that music isn’t just for boys.
– Peter Burdon
Antigone
Odeon Theatre
May 27 to June 11
Local creative Elena Carapetis has gone from strength to strength as a playwright in recent years, and in her bold take on Sophocles’ Antigone.
The play begins with an extract from Yorgos Javellas’s magnificent 1961 film, with Irene Papas in full flight against the scheming Creon’s cruelty.
Creon has refused her brother a decent burial, so she will see to it herself, even at the cost of her own life. And at first, it appears we might be headed for a fairly straight reading, Grecian costumes and all. But not for long.
What follows is 100 minutes of often spellbinding anger at the ongoing oppression of women and the voice of youth for 2000 years and beyond.
A terrific cast of Kathryn Adams, Chiara Gabrielli, Mark Saturno and Kidaan Zelleke deliver a series of monologues and ensemble pieces that draw deeply on what John Bunyan called the “Slough of Despond,” the deepest depression at the world’s refusal to do anything to make meaningful change.
There is a tirade about gun violence, where an influential man is held to ransom by his own daughter, then the fourth wall breaks and the actor speaks directly to the audience, inviting – no, demanding – that the audience side with Antigone. And if not, to side with the cursed Creon, greedy and power-crazed.
And, to remind us that this is a real-world challenge, some of Donald Trump’s degrading, vulgar comments about his own wife and daughter flash by.
There are many brilliant moments, sadly timeless. Gender-based violence in the workplace and at home – flash: one woman dies in Australia every week as a result of violence – disgusting stereotyping, chauvinism, alpha-maleness and the spectre of mental illness – flash: 75 per cent of suicides in Australia are men – and so it goes on.
The tirade occasionally slips into hectoring, particularly in a gross game show and an expletive-laden stand-up routine but, that said, both are brilliantly delivered.
A lasting image is of a classic Disney princess – well, Frozen is also showing in town at the moment – singing up a revolutionary, almost terrorist storm., and very beautifully at that.
Is there hope? There are flashes of a few prophetic voices: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the political sphere, Ziauddin Yousafzai (father of Malala) in a plea for girls’ education, Greta Thunberg on climate, Anne Frank on religious persecution.
But the spectre of vile men whose power remains unchecked looms large.
Director Anthony Nicola has done a fine job with a difficult, challenging piece.
– Peter Burdon
Betty Blue Eyes
Therry Theatre
The Arts Theatre
June 2 to 11
There’s nothing like a royal occasion to warm the cockles of a depressed nation’s heart. It’s 1947 and like the rest of the country, the Yorkshire town of Shepardsford is still a bit shell-shocked.
Happiness, like meat and bread, is rationed.
Joyce and Gilbert Chilvers, a piano teacher and a chiropodist, arrive to make a new life.
They get wind of a plan by the town’s leading citizens to serve an illegal off-ration pig, known as Betty Blue Eyes, at a dinner to celebrate the imminent wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Philip Mountbatten.
Eager for revenge at being treated as nobodies, they steal the pig.
It’s the stage version of A Private Function, from the film of the story by Alan Bennett, whose quirky humour and human insight shine through.
Director Ben Todd has assembled a large cast who revel in the story and its eccentricities.
Katie Packer makes the most of the music from the pit, and she and choreographer Vanessa Redmond bring the dancing to vibrant life.
Trish Hart is Joyce, perfectly cast for the role and her big anthem, Nobody, is a powerful statement of ambition and identity.
Jared Frost’s youthful Gilbert is the perfect foil and Carolyn Adams as Mother Dear steals the show. Greg Janzow, Jon McKay and Craig Ellis are the conspirators and Matt Redmond is Betty’s farmer.
Betty makes her appearance. She’s big and pink, with bright blue eyes and really long eyelashes, and she gets lots of laughs.
The women of the ensemble demanding their rights are straight out of a Yorkshire Les Miserables, and three of them contribute to a most poignant moment.
They are war widows whose only physical contact with a man is when Gilbert takes their feet in hand. Katy Driver, Eve McMillan and Natasha Scholey are just right.
I’m not giving anything away. Betty has a happy ending and the guests are served Spam Wellington and urged to fill their boots.
Maybe it’s the parochial nature of the story but it’s taken over a decade for this charming and totally entertaining show to reach Adelaide. It’s a delightful addition to the repertoire.
– Ewart Shaw
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