Irish Times writers review Moby at the Point Theatre, Dublin, Queen of Spades at the Gaeity Theatre, Dublin and Lúnasa at Whelan's, Dublin.
Moby
The Point Theatre, Dublin
Following three years of intensive research into the live performances of Moby, from medium-size venues and arenas to open air spaces and football stadia, it can now be safely revealed that the reason why he runs around so much on stage - jogging from keyboard to keyboard, running up to the lip of the stage with hands raised, racing around the perimeter, and so on - is that he doesn't really have anything else to do.
Take away the technology, the banks of equipment, the continuous thank-yous after each song, and you' re left with a performer who repeats himself so much he's like a living, breathing stutter.
The great and very pleasant surprise, however, is that the dinner party platitudes of Play and 18 - Moby's two latest albums, a pair of records that have transported him from NYC cultdom to global, if somewhat ill-suited pop star - are energised by a band that appear to have been hand-picked for the extra warmth they can invest in, largely, quite emotive material.
Concentrating on featuring tracks from these two albums - he unnecessarily throws in a 30-second speed metal assault from his pre-superstar Animal Rights record; absurdly, it's applauded as much as anything else he plays on the night - it's an exercise in blending piano and synth-driven simplicity with commercial techno overload.
Despite the Starbucks ubiquity of something like Porcelain, it still comes across as one of the most elegant pieces of pop music of the past few years; taken out of context of latte-sipping and people watching, it's an oddly mournful, dreamy tune, that clearly requires irregular revisits.
Other songs - including We Are All Made Of Stars, Find My Baby, Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?, In This World, South Side, Extreme Ways, Natural Blues - are invested with such an enjoyable, almost abrasive edge, you'd happily live with the stage versions far quicker than the studio's.
And frankly, dear readers, I never ever thought I'd say that.
Tony Clayton-Lea
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Queen of Spades
The Gaeity Theatre, Dublin
Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades made a welcome return to the repertoire of Opera Ireland on Sunday, after an absence of 30 years.
The work, which is based on Pushkin's novella of the same name, marries what is essentially a classic horror scenario with the sweet scents and innocent pastimes of what Richard Taruskin has called "the 19th-century fairyland known as 'the 18th century'".
It is Tchaikovsky's especial achievement to have written music which treats these extremities of the plot with as much success as it does the transformations of the haunted and hallucinatory mind of Hermann.
This young officer is obsessed with gambling and with the idea that the secret of three cards in the game Faro is held by the aged Countess, with whose grand-daughter Lisa he is in love, although she is already betrothed to another.
His obsession leads to the deaths of all three.
The doubly-tormented character of Hermann received an extra layer of punishment on Sunday, when Austrian tenor Peter Svensson's voice intermittently failed under stress in the portrayal of a man possessed.
For all his problems, Svensson was persuasive as a man driven by visions, and his vocal reliability improved as the evening progressed.
Viktoria Kurbatskaya's Lisa was youthful and introspective, the voice basically clear but with some recurring unevenness of line, that cleaned up when she was at her most impassioned.
Sam McElroy has the bearing for Yeletsky, and knows exactly what he wants to achieve as the noble presence spurned by Lisa. On Sunday, he didn't quite show the vocal resource that's needed, although the applause clearly indicated that the audience had taken him to its heart.
There was a special welcome at the end, too, for the Countess of Veronica Dunne, who came out of retirement as a performer to don the character of a Monty Pythonesque stick-wielding harridan in a wheelchair.
Dunne may not have all that many notes left, but those she has she used with a mixture of venom and half-sounded recollection - strangely compelling and utterly absorbing.
The other smaller roles were also well served.
Designer Joe Vanek provided costumes of muted elegance and a spacious set with mobile, rectangular arches, to provide variety of layout within its stark surfaces.
Director Dieter Kaegi's approach was by turns spare and indulgent in dealing with the aspects of the work which might be described as Poe and prettiness.
Conductor Alexander Anissimov was a tower of strength in the pit. The playing of the RTÉCO may not always have been well regulated, but it was alive and purposeful.
And the members of the chorus, who, as ever, sang with impressive but too consistent gusto, relented for a while to show what they can achieve at the other end of the scale.
Michael Dervan
The Opera Ireland season continues at the Gaiety Theatre until Sunday November 24th (01-677 1717)
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Lúnasa
Whelan's, Dublin
Pushing the outside of the envelope and changing its measure completely are two entirely different propositions. Lúnasa may have been tiptoeing around the periphery of the tradition for some time, but now they've stretched and bent it so far that they've catapulted both themselves and the music onto another plane where creative juices (and not precious entanglements with the past) reign supreme.
A trio of flute and whistles, courtesy of Kevin Crawford, Cillian Vallely and Sean Smyth, mark Lúnasa apart. Marry fiddle, pipes, guitar and double bass to the mix and what you've got is a music that's all soul, (without a trace of any blemishes of trad's original sins).
With their long-anticipated new album, Redwood, chomping at the bit to be released from the traps, the boys couldn't resist a comprehensive airing of a swathe of tunes from the new collection. Crawford, formidable bodhrán as well as flute and whistle player, afforded every set and tune the best of introductions, his easy affability the envy of the most mannered graduates of a Swiss finishing school.
Flute and low whistles conjoined seamlessly, and then launched headlong into a refreshing reading of Kevin Burke's Tuttle's Reel and Spoil The Dance (borrowed from Matt Molloy), Lúnasa proved why so many had braved the flood and pestilence of a Thursday night in Dublin to hear and see them weave their intricate skeins of magic.
Sean Smyth's fiddle and Donagh Hennessy's guitar have reached a newfound compatability too; Smyth's earthy tones finding the perfect foil in Hennessy's balletic fingerwork.
Trevor Hutchinson's double bass may be steadily disappearing (in size, if not in stature and sound), but his complex rhythms are the foundation that roots Lúnasa on solid ground.
The tunes came fast and furious. The transitions between tunes whispered of a collective sense of humour and of an adventurous spirit that would be the envy of many musicians too in thrall of their own reputations to let loose on the music.
Cillian Vallely's solo run on An Buachaill Chaill Dubh was a timely celebration of this magnificent musician who's always carried his talent lightly.
Lúnasa bring it all up and let it all down with an appetite for grace and danger that Van Morrison once held so dear.
This was a gig that set them apart from the posse, in a venue ideally suited to their mood and personality. An unforgettable set that they would be well advised to repeat at the earliest opportunity.
Siobhán Long
