Reviews of Don Giovanni, Yuasa, Jesus Christ Superstar and Liberty X.
Mozart - Don Giovanni (Opera Ireland), Gaiety Theatre
By Michael Dervan
Opera Ireland is on hard times. After a major supplementary cash injection of €600,000 at the end of 2001, the company still only presented a single opera in its spring season of 2002. Later that year, in a climate of public funding cutbacks and in the absence of any Arts Council funding for the last three months of 2002, the company, eyes wide open, went into the red to present its regular winter season.
The Government's cutbacks in the arts have bitten hard and deep. The company has received a 2003 Arts Council grant of €800,000, 7.4 per cent below its level of 1999, a year in which it managed to present Strauss's Salome, Verdi's La Traviata, Rossini's Barbiere di Siviglia and Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov. In 2003, however, the company has declared itself unable to present a single, fully-staged production at the Gaiety.
It's hard not to see this as a management failure on a scale unprecedented in the recent history of opera in Ireland. And, sadly, the "spectacular" concert performance of Don Giovanni offered at the Gaiety last weekend (Norma will follow in November) suggests that the company may well have lost the plot artistically too.
The Don Giovanni was given with the musicians of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra playing not in the pit, but on the stage, behind an area for the mostly plainly-dressed singers to move and act in. This, not to mention the various cuts in musical text, certainly rammed home the pared-back arrangements.
The orchestral sound was not only muffled, but conductor Noel Davies, whose dull handling of the overture presaged much that was in store, was left with the singers both out of sight and often effectively out of earshot. As a consequence, the evening was plagued with self-inflicted difficulties of ensemble.
In a brave gesture, the company cast Irish singers in six of the eight roles. Only the Commendatore of Roman Vocel, steady but not quite imposing enough, and the Don Ottavio of Evan Bowers, who handled himself respectably in this most respectable of roles, came from abroad.
Sam McElroy's Don Giovanni was more cocky than seductive, his overall characterisation undermined by the disparity between his usually sharp handling of recitative and his weaker manner in his arias.
There was a different class of vitality and savoir-faire shown by Andrew Murphy who, as his sidekick Leporello, used his skills of musical and comic timing to steal the show with apparent ease. Majella Cullagh's Donna Anna was the most vocally attractive of Don Giovanni's female victims. Miriam Murphy was seriously miscast as Donna Elvira, showing a dramatic sense that missed Mozart by a century or more, and operated in one of those vocally unsteady, over-loud modes that gets Wagner a bad name.
Michelle Sheridan's Zerlina presented a conflict between the simpering innocence of her behaviour and the un-Mozartian pressure behind her singing. Joe Corbett as her intended, Masetto, was all distorted vowels and loose clowning. As the chorus, the members of the National Chamber Choir, handled themselves with their customary efficiency.
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Ulster Orchestra /Yuasa Ulster Hall: Sibelius - En Saga, Mendelssohn - Piano Concerto No 1, Nielsen - Symphony No. 4 Inextinguishable
By Dermot Gault
David Byers' programme note for the Mendelssohn Concerto helpfully quotes the composer's own performance instructions for the finale: "So quick that the notes are barely perceptible . . . but not a rush to the abyss"
Howard Shelley's playing was quicksilver, and he stayed clear of the "abyss". But one couldn't help feeling that the music's good humour and rhythmic élan would have emerged more readily at a less precipitate tempo. A perceived lack of gravitas, and piano writing in the first movement, which is busy rather than brilliant, have kept this work from being a favourite concerto for either players or the public, but the slow middle movement is very fetching and it suited Shelley's classical temperament and style.
It was likewise the middle movements of Nielsen's Fourth Symphony which came over best on this occasion, the wind providing crisp and subtle playing in the pastoral Poco allegretto, the strings producing a full-toned, vibrato-drenched sonority for the tragic Poco adagio. The finale, with its battle royale for two timpanists, was often brilliant, but the brass, which had been an imposing presence in the Sibelius, were overbearing here and in the opening Allegro, and the ending, while satisfyingly loud, was aggressive rather than life-affirming. Atmosphere is all important in the Sibelius, and balance is all important in achieving atmosphere. Not every detail was perfect, but there were some magical sonorities.
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Jesus Christ Superstar, Opera House, Cork
By Mary Leland
There is so much that is exciting and praise-worthy about the Opera House, Theatrix and UCC Vivid Productions co-production of Jesus Christ Superstar that it seems unfair to give the first credit to the protesters proclaiming the "real Jesus" outside the theatre.
The trouble is, they were in the right of it. There isn't the remotest hint of religious sensibility or significance in Bryan Flynn's direction. The narrative of this history is carried in a clumsy succession of newsreels from modern Palestine; the passion is for performance, not redemption. Robert Vickery's boy-band Jesus sings falsetto above the tumult of riotous fans, his soprano tones no doubt encouraged by the writhing clutches of Mary of Magdala (Irene Warren). None of it has anything at all to do with faith; instead the cast invest a Dervish energy in this weirdly wonderful Lloyd Webber/ Rice disco-rock opera. The noise level is pitched at screech - Kenneth O'Regan has a particularly torrid time as Judas - and the only singer who can project below these decibels is Pat Doherty as Caiphas.
While his Mephistophelian arrival up through the trap-door is ridiculous the device is just another indication of Flynn's determination to use every possible technical opportunity offered by the theatre.
Despite his competence and flair, however, Flynn seems unable to recognise, and hold, the moment - particularly and critically at the end. The visual excitement is matched by the frenzied pace but Flynn, responsible for direction, choreography (excellent) and set design (solid, evocative and efficient even if built for abseiling) is supported by a host of talent from Mick Hurley's lighting to Avril Musgrave's costumes and a particularly fine chorus under conductor and musical director John O'Brien.
Heavily synthesised, the score never seems fully coherent, but there is good orchestral playing from guitars, clarinet and trumpet.
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Liberty X, Vicar Street
By John Lane
It's a strange irony, but the fiasco that was the rise and fall of Hear'say had, in the end, the effect of raising the bar for any who dare choose the same career path.
Following the flash of success and subsequent implosion of the first act created on and by television, any band with the merest whiff of manufacture about them inevitably starts their career on the back foot, has a lot more cynicism to subdue and a lot more to prove.
Though Liberty X may only be on the fringes of this "pick 'em and package 'em" phenomenon, the "flopstars" circumstances of their origins inevitably heightened expectations of a crash and burn. Except they didn't.
A shrewd signing to V2, followed by a series of decent singles from their well-thought-over debut album Thinking It Over, proved they were at least canny enough to successfully play the chart game.
Doing it live, however, is the only way to silence the doubters. Opening the show with their funky take on the Mantronix tune Got To Have Your Love, Tony, Jessica, Kevin, Michelle and Kelli set out their stall early on.
Such is their determination, they were always going to be well-rehearsed, and with this show being the last of the tour, the moves had become second nature. As singers, the five were also up to the task, with each member finding an unencumbered space within the mix. Five voices at once can sometimes sound like a shouting competition, but Liberty X were admirably in tune.
The cabaret-show feel of the choreography (plenty of props and costume changes), if a little lame, shuffled the gig along nicely, and the five strutted with ease, never looking like they were concentrating too much. Holding On For You, Thinking it Over, Being Nobody, and their biggest hit, Just A Little, all came across stronger than the studio versions, and as the gig developed, the set began to transcend it's well-rehearsed origins, giving the various personalities room for expression.
