Irish Times writers review Grease at The Point in Dublin, Mozaik at Vicar Street in Dublin and O'Connell, RTÉ NSO/Eddins at the NCH.
Grease
The Point, Dublin
Gerry Colgan
The musical Grease, which has been around for 30-odd years, keeps coming back, and the reasons are obvious. The principal one is probably that it is steeped in the rock 'n' roll ethos in which it was born, with shades of Elvis, Bill Haley and the rest urging it on. For that kind of music it is hard to beat.
There was also, of course, the film, with John Travolta and Olivia Newton John, who consolidated their rising reputations with cameos that have acquired iconic status. In this production a host of personable guys and dolls carry the action, music and dances with an infectious energy and rhythm. There is not a slack or dull moment.
The well-known, not to say well-worn, plot has high-school idol Danny, having courted virginal Sandy on holidays, meeting her again unexpectedly at school. Being leader of the male gang, he cannot admit to having fallen for her, and that, together with her pride, keeps them apart. They finally get together, after Sandy has abandoned her modest restraint.
It's naive love stuff, of course, but not without a core of accuracy. The guys are unashamedly lecherous, the girls openly libidinous, and their seething meetings at dances and social occasions have the atmosphere of mating rituals. It never becomes too overt, but sex simmers beneath the surface of much of the action.
An exceptional cast is led by Jonathan Wilkes as Danny and Haley Evetts as Sandy, both of them of star quality. So is Simon Casey of You're A Star, cast as Teen Angel in a blistering production number. Song after song is belted out, a few pleasantly romantic in theme and treatment but most the occasions for bursts of precise dancing. They all slot into the story's progression, a good sign of any musical.
This blast from the past is a real crowd pleaser. Just leave your inhibitions at home.
Runs until August 14th
Mozaik
Vicar Street, Dublin
Siobhán Long
The normally invisible line that connects Eastern European folk music with Irish traditional and US old timey shifted into view as Andy Irvine and his four colleagues worked through their set. Mozaik may be in their infancy as a band, but their music trawls across decades and continents with the ease of a seasoned traveller who's still got a healthy appetite for exploration.
The brainchild of Irvine, Mozaik effortlessly lived up to its name, with a set list that dawdled awhile amid Bulgarian backwaters, took in the occasional Romanian detour and high-kicked its way through Macedonian turf, with enough energy left over to gather up a few fiddle tunes from the Appalachians, not to mention the odd vengeful tirade against errant blacksmiths straying closer to home.
Multi-instrumentalists all, they married bouzouki, mandolin, fiddle and the Bulgarian gadoulka, gaida and kaval with a fluency that whispered of a shared comfort zone few musicians ever reach.
Bruce Molsky's old-timey fiddle tunes were the feng shui of the band's repertoire, bringing infinite space back into the music. His take on The Rocky Road To Dublin cosied up alongside the Kentucky-bred Indian Ate The Woodchuck as if they'd been lifelong buddies.
It was in the fiddle duels between Molksy and Rens van der Zalm, the band's Dutch member, and in the left-field excursions of the Hungarian Nikola Parov, with his Bulgarian instruments, that Mozaik's music ultimately tore loose of its fetters.
This was glorious music that raised spirits, roofs and not a few pulses along the way. Yet another magnificent musical detour that unleashed our imaginations and our energies, free to roam where passports and language barriers hold no sway.
O'Connell, RTÉ NSO/Eddins
National Concert Hall, Dublin
Martin Adams
Rossini - Barber of Seville Overture. Rimsky-Korsakov - Piano Concerto in C sharp minor. Bizet - Carmen Suite no 1. Rimsky-Korsakov - Capriccio Espagnol
Music with a Spanish flavour dominated this concert. Rimsky-Korsakov's Piano Concerto in C sharp minor is full of the composer's characteristic orchestral colour, and the solo part is a serious challenge. That did not seem to worry the pianist Isabelle O'Connell. She showed no obvious desire to impress with flashy technique or with attempts to wring out of the music more expressive weight than it can carry. Even in moments of technical pressure her playing was thoroughly musical, certain of what it was aiming for and brimming with quiet, engaging zest.
The performance included a high-quality, well-co-ordinated contribution from the orchestra. The conducting of William Eddins must take a large part of the credit for this, and for the strength of the concert as a whole. From the opening notes of Rossini's Barber Of Seville overture the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra's playing had a definition and energy that made you sit up. Precision was not an objective: it just happened as a result of responding to Eddins's ability to combine sprung phrasing and accurate orchestral balance.
Bizet's Carmen Suite No 1 was a treat, but the most impressive playing came in a work designed to impress: Rimsky-Korskov's Capriccio Espagnol. You could hear detail that too often is hidden in the general bustle, and it was all the more remarkable that this was achieved while losing none of the vigour that makes this one of the most scintillating musical evocations of Spain.
