Reviews

Irish Times writers review the Welsh National Opera at the Grand Opera House in Belfast, Peter Wells at the Bank of Ireland in Dublin, Lee, Browner, Sweeney, Orchestra of St Cecilia at the National Concert Hall, Dublin and The Risen People at the Liberty Hall Centre, Dublin.

Welsh National Opera

Grand Opera House, Belfast

Michael Dervan

Welsh National Opera's Le Nozze Di Figaro has many oddities that you might expect to be irksome. There's the blending of 18th-century costumes and 20th-century props, such as an electric iron and salon-style hairdryer. Dale Ferguson's set looks as if someone has rather aimlessly thrust large sheets of brown paper into a rather faded doll's house. But don't let those issues put you off, no matter what your concerns about the foibles of directors and designers. This Figaro is a treat.

James Rutherford is a Figaro with an easy confidence that keeps him well clear of any vocal bluster, and Natalie Christie a sharp Susanna, as pointed in her vocal charm as in her alertness to other people's wiles. Christopher Purves is a Count Almaviva with the callousness of a Don Giovanni, imperious in the pursuit of his prey. And Geraldine McGreevy is a fragile Countess, pulled in rather more directions than she can handle.

The comedy in Neil Armfield's production is quick and detailed, and not at all shy of running gags. But the joy of this production is in the deft handling of the music, the rhythmic sureness of the singing, its lightness of touch, the blend and clarity of ensembles that never overload, the sheer sense of musical style and stylishness. This performance captures the grace of the music, which is so often sacrificed in the opera house to dramatic truth and emotional expression.

The cast was not actually without a weak link or two. Arlene Rolph never quite managed to find her balance as the juvenile Cherubino, and Geraldine McGreevy strayed into moments of vocal unwieldiness, where intention didn't seem quite strong enough to pull her phrasing into the musical style of the evening.

The smaller roles were mostly sharply characterised, with Aled Hall offering unforgettable cameos as Don Basilio and Don Curzio. And conductor Gareth Jones, who had just taken over on this tour from Rinaldo Alessandrini, kept both stage and pit on a bracingly tight rein.

Sadly, there's little to be positive about in the company's Il Trovatore. Peter Watson's direction is stagy; Gweneth-Ann Jeffers takes an unconscionably long time to warm up as Leonora, although this puts her ahead of most of the cast, which hardly warms up at all.

The shining exception is the probing and committed Azucena of Patricia Bardon, whose glowering presence and searing expression enliven every moment she's on stage. Even the orchestral playing, under Julian Smith, takes on richer perspectives when she sings, as if it's the power of one voice to illuminate and focus the sound of the orchestra in the pit. The Belfast audience greeted with a heartening roar of approval the curtain call of this Dubliner, who has been scandalously neglected by Irish opera companies.

Le Nozze Di Figaro ends today

Peter Wells

Bank of Ireland, Dublin

Martin Adams

Peter Wells could make any recorder music sound convincing. Technical flair, personal presence and command of physical and musical gesture have always been the virtuoso's hallmarks, from the transcendence of Paganini at one end of the scale to the batty flamboyance of the conductor Jullien at the other. Wells comes in between: the virtuoso as honest and earnest broker.

Thursday's programme consisted of traditional and composed music from Japan, all played on the recorder. This 1970s flowering of composition for an ancient instrument was rooted in the discovery of common properties with the Japanese equivalent, the shakuhachi.

The music was well ordered, alternating traditional and composed works and different sizes of instrument. A ghost of Debussy's Syrinx haunts the opening of Ryohei Hirose's Meditation (1975), but apart from that the music's oriental character is unmistakable. Moreover, Wells recognised that his only claim to authenticity in traditional music rested on the distinctiveness of his own, inevitably Western view.

The philosophy and practice of Zen permeated the concert. So Pastorale (1973) by Kikuko Masumoto is utterly different from Western works with that name, and although Maki Ishii's Black Intention (1975) lives up to its name, its multiphonics and two simultaneously played, differently pitched recorders have purposes as distinctive as its memorable climax. There, Wells struck the tam-tam with such force that, had he been holding a samurai sword, he could have dismembered the adjacent piano. Now there's a thought.

Lee, Browner, Sweeney, Orchestra of St Cecilia

National Concert Hall, Dublin

Martin Adams

By stylistic osmosis, the historical performance movement has changed the way orchestras play. It represents the spirit of our time, and it is inescapable. For orchestras not immersed in it, it presents as many terrors as opportunities. The Orchestra of St Cecilia is one such group; here it was presenting the second concert in its Vivaldi-Plus series.

Take the repeated chords in the "Quis non posset" movement of Vivaldi's Stabat Mater. Are they tragic sentiment or a representation of pain, of weeping perhaps? A representation, without doubt, but they will work as the former if played firmly, with feeling. The problem was that this performance lacked the confidence and definition to do either. So contralto Alison Browner's dark-hued singing had nothing to work with.

Even in Vivaldi's ever-accessible Gloria the OSC and conductor Nicholas Kraemer switched between a too-limited range of options, such as lively, loud and fast or slow and quiet. The Palestrina Choir's response was variable, too, from strong in the former to insecure in the latter.

By far the best section was the lively duet from Alison Browner and soprano Lynda Lee.

All this was highlighted after the interval, firstly by organist Peter Sweeney's appealing chutzpah in Bach's Concerto in C BWV594. He went full tilt at this extremely demanding arrangement of a Vivaldi concerto, albeit at the expense of clarity. Not a best-ever performance, but what guts. Then it was the OSC's turn to tilt. The difference in confidence between the Vivaldi and Handel's Music For The Royal Fireworks was as night to day. You could see it as well as hear it. Let insecurities about style go hang. If you are convinced by your own playing, Handel, in his most powerful public-music mode, towers above all that.

The Risen People

Liberty Hall Centre, Dublin

Gerry Colgan

Community theatre, amateur by necessity and choice, often has a passion that transcends that perceived limitation. This is certainly true of the production of James Plunkett's play about the notorious employers' lockout of 1913, by East Wall Parents Education Group. Their commitment to that ancient cause, now that of trade unionism generally, is manifest and vigorous, and the result is absorbing drama.

The cause has always been the fight for the right to organise, negotiate and assert the dignity of workers as equal citizens in their community. Here the play is structured as a series of announced vignettes capturing key moments in the progress of the struggle. A sample of their titles are A Question of Conscience, The Toucher Hennessy, The Pawnshop, Mr Larkin' s Diabolical Plan and A Convoy Of Food. They are like chapter headings in a book - and became, indeed, the novel Strumpet City and its TV adaptation.

So leader Jim Larkin urges his people to rise from their knees and deny their supposed superiors that flattering perspective. When the employers require their workers to resign from his trade union, they are refused employment until they do, and the battle is on. That old standby the pawnshop does record business, the men hang about in idle desperation, their women nag them and the Catholic Church condemns them. A plan to send the children to pagan England, where they will at least be fed, is roundly condemned.

A cast of about 20 brings all this vividly to life in a way that I cannot remember any professional production doing. It is not a great play, burdened with a clichéd invention in its characters and dramatics. But here, courtesy of an excellent cast and director (Dara O'Carolan), it transcends the promise of a good night out. This is a serious and engaging accomplishment.

Runs until November 29th