Sydney Symphony’s spectactularly satanic night at the opera
It started with couples waltzing in the swirling clouds and ended in a drug-induced night from hell when Sydney Symphony Orchestra took the stage for its latest concert tour.
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It started with couples waltzing in the swirling clouds and ended in a drug-induced night from hell when Sydney Symphony Orchestra took the stage for its latest concert tour.
With French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet playing Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G it was always going to be a special night, but factor in the exciting young Finn Pietari Inkinen conducting a dazzling performance of Hector Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique and it was one to look back on for years to come.
The hazy, hesitant opening of Ravel’s La Valse launched the night, a bit like a wheezy old liner pulling out of port, and it was immediately evident that the light-footed Ikinen was weaving a magical spell, full of finesse and nuance, aided by his on point band.
He kept the giddying momentum going as Ravel’s artful score picked out the gamut of orchestral colours and textures, milking crescendos and dying diminuendos and showing us why he is in such demand that he is currently holding down three permanent conducting jobs.
The French theme of the evening continued with Bavouzet’s reading of Ravel’s concerto. This work, which gets under way with a whip crack, is a wonderful collision of impressionist classical and jazz music, written shortly after the composer had been exposed to the American art form.
I saw his compatriot Jean-Yves Thibaudet perform this piece some years ago. Bavouzet’s reading was less extravagant – Thibaudet is a great showman – but more rounded. He has an unerring eye for colour and ear for tone and the opening movement, aided by West Australian trumpeter Brent Grapes, showed a master craftsman laying out his stall.
The gorgeous adagio movement, which Ravel modelled on the slow movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet, was sublimely played. After the lengthy solo passage there’s a jaw-dropping moment when the flute comes in, followed by oboe and clarinet, before the piano weaves in and out of Andre Oguey’s cor anglais solo.
Grapes was on hand again in the final movement which is like a day at the racetrack with all the momentum and excitement which that involves. Bavouzet finished with a flourish which propelled him out of his seat and into the arms of Ikinen.
The audience were not going to let him go without an encore and the fireworks of the Ravel was echoed in his choice of Claude Debussy’s prelude, Feux d’artifice, a favourite of his. The pianist, who turns 60 on Monday, will give a birthday recital of more Debussy and other French works by Gabriel Pierne, Gabriel Faure and Pierre Boulez at City Recital Hall Angel Place at 7.30pm.
Australian composer Chloe Charody has created an international stir over the years with her fusion of opera, classical and circus music, and her new short work My Australia, part of the SSO’s 50 Fanfares Project of commissions for homegrown talent, made for an apt pipe opener for the Berlioz in the second half. Written in 2020, Charody worked with schools across the country and asked children from indigenous, immigrant and refugee families to each write a paragraph about what Australia mean to them.
The result inspired her to write lyrics which she is offering up as a new alternative national anthem. We didn’t get to hear that but the music certainly cuts across boundaries with its warm melodies and shifting moods.
Berlioz wears his heart on his sleeve throughout the 50 minutes of his symphony, one of the great Romantic orchestral warhorses, and it covers a wide spectrum, from the dreamy opening followed by a ball and a pastoral episode before things turn ugly with laudanum-induced nightmares about a “march to the scaffold” – where we hear the hero’s head drop into the basket – and a satanic orgy.
There are wonderful solo moments – too numerous to mention – and the orchestra was in wonderful form. The concert is not one to be missed and is repeated at 8pm at Sydney Opera House Concert Hall on Friday, October 14, and Saturday, October 15.
DETAILS
• CONCERT Sydney Symphony Orchestra: Ravel’s Piano Concerto with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet
• WHERE Sydney Opera House Concert Hall
• WHEN Wednesday, October 12
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