Jazz, opera and rock in today's reviews.
Brian Irvine Ensemble
Pavilion Theatre,
Dún Laoghaire
While others bang on about the besieging of time-honoured genre boundaries by contemporary music, the Brian Irvine Ensemble simply operates as if those boundaries had never even existed.
Gradually, the dramatic element of the 12-piece band's acclaimed performances has reached a point where the theatre beckons. Hence Dumbworld, which is being created in collaboration with writer/director John McIlduff and designer Diego Pitarch.
The "show" itself premieres next year as a co-production by Opera Fringe and Wexford Festival Opera.
For this second helping of tryout previews, some of the planned storylines were cut, and many of the envisaged effects pared down. Still, it more than worked.
Though Irvine's summary of the subject-matter - "the messy, sloppy, wonderful nature of our existence" - sounds like a recipe for postmodern disarray, he and his colleagues have an altogether more moulded dramatic experience in mind.
The characters are a mixed bag of misfits. Keeping an eye on this version's events was a bingo caller (sung by Rebecca Afonwy-Jones); next, and fighting a losing battle with sordid habits, appeared the dysfunctional and tragicomic Morris (Owen Webb).
Then there was Eddie (Darren Abrahams), a paranoid sleuth whose crush on one of his quarries (Catrine Kirkman) climaxed, like Woody Allen, with bunny rabbits and a shower of bubbles.
Meanwhile, a domestic couple (Rebekah Coffey and Craig Yates) went from gaily assembling a flat-packed bed to stoically pushing the pram of another father's child, their lives haunted by a muppet-like personal monster who looked like he'd just failed an audition for Sesame Street.
Singing, acting and staging were uniformly optimal, although the problem of balancing voices and instruments remains to be solved. Yet whenever the blare of amplification obscured McIlduff's reckless words, Irvine's still-evolving score remained a joy in itself.
ANDREW JOHNSTONE
John McLaughlin and the 4th Dimension
Vicar Street
Although lack of energy and excitement aren't among them, jazz/rock has its limitations. But it's still possible to imbue it with a sense of surprise and discovery. And though John McLaughlin got a standing ovation from some in the audience before his concert, and a fuller one at the end, what happened in between largely missed both those qualities.
Effectively, this was a show, in a sense prescripted, where things happened on cue and spontaneity was corralled by a band which never asked itself any questions to which it hadn't already worked out the answers. It was a sleek, dazzling, efficient machine which began at a certain dynamic level and remained there.
Led by a front-rank guitar virtuoso, it's a brilliant group, tight, cohesive, energetic and exciting, completed by three greatly gifted musicians; Gary Husband, with his keyboards, laptop, electronic washes and occasional drumming, bassist Dominique Di Piazza and the marvellous drummer, Mark Mondesir.
The level of instrumental technique on display was therefore never less than stunning. And that's the operative word; one felt almost constantly bludgeoned by virtuosity, to the point where the essential musical emptiness of the process became ever more clear. And for this Doubting Thomist, boredom eventually set in towards the beginning of the exercise.
In terms of material there was, as McLaughlin said, something old, something new. The blues or variants on the form showed up a few times, but much of the rest offered no light and shade, and relatively little harmonic interest - not that this is really a consideration in a style where rhythm and line are foregrounded, and impressing the audience with displays of technique is important.
As one of our finest jazz musicians (and not a guitarist) observed after the concert, "I played music like that, running up and down the instrument, years ago".
As this suggests, even more disappointingly, behind the virtuosity the approach was implicitly retro.
For a marvellously ground-breaking musician like McLaughlin, so often open to fresh things, this was perhaps the biggest surprise of all.
If you wanted adventure, surprise and discovery, that was supplied by guitarist Mike Nielsen. Opening the show solo, which was a trial in itself - given the deserved stature of the man coming on after him - Nielsen showed you could marry great technique with risk-taking. Sadly, it was the only time it happened.
RAY COMISKEY
Castleward Opera
Castleward, Co Down
Of the three da Ponte/Mozart operas, Cosi fan tutteraises some of the most complicated issues. Is this tale of two couples a farce? Is it tragicomedy - a serious comment on human nature? And why do the people behave as they do? Castleward Opera's production addresses these issues subtly, and with deep understanding.
Like so many of the best opera directors, Tom Hawkes is a musician. His direction is never heavy-handed, and fits impeccably with David Craig's sets and costumes, Patrick McLaughlin's lighting, and Mozart's miraculous music.
The story, set in Naples, is brought forward to 1912 - distant enough to make the play of manners plausible, and recent enough to underline the tale's modernity. Bouts of slapstick are sufficiently tasteful to seem more classical buffa than West-End farce. The English translation by Jeremy Sams performs a similar balancing act between stylisation and witty modernity.
In the orchestra pit, David Angus paced things with persuasive authority on the opening night. On the other hand, some of the singing was over-projected for such a small theatre, and in some of the buffa scenes pauses seemed a bit too nudge-nudge, wink-wink.
Although the playing was not always polished, it brimmed with that much more important quality, character.
Casting was excellent. The voices and acting of the women, Fiordiligi (Lee Bisset) and Dorabella (Catriona Barr), and of the men, Guiliemo (Julian Hubbard) and Ferrando (Andrew MacKenzie-Wicks) were perfectly suited to the lyrical ensemble numbers that are this opera's chief glory. Joana Seara had all the wit and versatility for the role of Despina.
Among a young cast, the experience of Ian Caddy gave Don Alfonso appropriate authority, musically and in stage presence. Finally, the chorus members did their bit with aplomb, rounding off an integrated and rewarding production.
MARTIN ADAMS
Dirty Pretty Things
The Academy
Okay, let's put the Libertines references to bed early on here. Yes, Carl Barat looks like a refugee from the noughties' only band with a reputation for real bad boy behaviour; and yes, he's at his best fronting another outfit who's middle name is chaos. But there's more to Dirty Pretty Things than a comatose kinship with Pete Doherty, and that's why this band's future's so bright, even if it's not exactly peachy.
There's enough vitriol, piss and vinegar in their set list to fuel if not a rocket ship, then at the very least a Humvee on the road to hell. The band's backbone lies in the rhythms laid down by drummer Gary Powell, a fire-eating, thirst-quenching Seal-lookalike who leads and drives the band's momentum with an authority that's non-negotiable.
Alongside him, Barat's frontman antics are at times reminiscent of Feargal Sharkey and the Undertones, in all their paroxysmal brilliance.
Last Of The Small Town Playboysshuddered and heaved against a crowd who willed the band to mosh with them in the sweatbox of the Academy. Blood Thirsty Bastardsand You F**king Love Itcouldn't help but conjure comparison with The Clash, and yet DPT lace their venom with just a hint of lime-soaked bitterness that pushes them closer to the daylight.
With their eagerly-anticipated second album, Romance At Short Notice, due for release in June, there was no shortage of sneak previews to whet the appetites of the addicted.
Hippy Sonhints at a sharp hairpin bend on the horizon: Didz Hammond and Anthony Rossomando looping around Barat's bullet-like vocals like honey bees in search of their flight pattern.
As the band ricocheted towards the end of their set list, they revelled in the raised temperature of a sweltering night. Rossomando stage-dived with a panache we haven't seen since Sid's heyday, security went into overdrive and the punters eventually loped away with the confidence that rock'n'roll still has a thread of life left in it.
SIOBHÁN LONG
