Irish Times writers give their verdict.
The Life of Galileo. Project Upstairs,
Gerry Colgan
Bertolt Brecht wrote his great play about Galileo in 1943, and it is still an amazing work, combining philosophy, politics and intellectual confrontation with a brilliant command of theatre to hypnotise its audiences for almost 3½ hours.
It is difficult to think of an Irish company and director other than Rough Magic and Lynne Parker who could have brought it so brilliantly to the stage.
When Galileo was born in 1609, it was believed that the earth was the centre of the universe, and that all other creation revolved around it.
This was the teaching of the Catholic theologians, not from any lucid interpretation of the Scriptures, but because it placed them at the heart of God's handiwork. When Galileo saw the heavens differently, they were outraged.
But this was a scientist who could not deceive himself. For him, black was black and white was white, and the sum of the angles in a triangle was not subject to the whim of religious authorities.
The latter, however, now included the inquisition, and Galileo was playing with heretical fire. He was a man of flesh who, when shown the instruments of torture, recanted and spent the last years of his life in confinement.
If the story were all, there would still be enough to fascinate and inform. But Brecht says much more through his characters to explore issues vitally relevant today. Reason and fact are sacred; but who can say, observing current religions and ideologies, that this is a dominant theme in their thinking?
When Galileo, towards his end, says he believes science exists to ease the toil of mankind, and foresees a time when new discoveries will be received with horror, is this not so?
This remains an important and seminal play, here in a riveting interpretation. Against Alan Farquharson's well-set stage, three-quarters in the round, Stephen Brennan is a charismatic Galileo, supported in multiple roles by David Pearse, Louis Lovett, Ruth McCabe, Barry Barnes, Robert O'Mahony, Jonathan White and others in controlled harmony. This is an achievement to savour.
Opera Theatre Company - Tecwyn Evans, The Market Place Theatre, Armagh
Dermot Gault
Puccini - La Bohème
I drove down to Armagh fearing the worst: the opera was to be sung in English; the score had been arranged for a 15-piece ensemble; and director Annilese Miskimmon had updated the action to the present day. The Bohemians live in a disused warehouse with electricity stolen from a live wire, and Mimì is an East European immigrant.
But it worked. The minuscule orchestra suited the intimate venue, and Dick Bird's sets, while authentically squalid, were beautifully textured.
The young cast acted with sincerity and were the right age for their parts (although the programme notes shrewdly advised us that today's poor are not necessarily thin - "some of the most fattening food is also the cheapest").
When operas are updated they're all too often sent up as well, but the only really silly idea was to make the Café Momus a hot dog stand, hardly the place to which a well-off middle-aged man takes a young lady with expensive tastes (no wonder she ditches him).
Amos Christie and Tamsin Coombs made a believable pair of lovers, and if Puccini's melodic lines never took flight, these are still very young voices, and they did sing the end of Act One as the composer wrote it.
My biggest complaint was that for much of the time (and especially in Act Two) I found it hard to make out the words. For such a short opera, La Bohème has a lot of text, and you do need to be able to follow it.
Belfry, Ramor Theatre, Virginia
Gerry Colgan
Ramor Theatre is an old church beautifully converted to its current usage, and never more so than for Steve Neale's design of the belfry and vestry of the chapel in which Billy Roche's play is located. Overlooking and embedded in the action is a stained glass window, part of the rear wall of the building itself; atmospheric or what?
The initial impression of authenticity is soon reinforced as the characters assume their roles, ordinary people with life problems.
Artie (Brendan Conroy) is the church's general factotum, a bachelor who lives with his ailing mother. His priest, Father Pat (Malcolm Adams), is a young man already plagued by an alcoholism rooted in loneliness.
Angela (Deirdre Monaghan) is a married woman who does the flower arrangements, and her husband, Donal (Frank Laverty), is an athlete now past his prime.
Dominic (Anthony Morris) is a disturbed youth who hangs out in the church, observing the passing parade without real comprehension.
Things happen without premeditation. Angela, discontented with her life at home, falls into an affair with Artie. Father Pat falls off the wagon, and is sent for recovery to a nursing home. Donal is defeated in his sport of handball; no more glory. Dominic is sent to a residential school, which he hates.
So Donal finds out about his wife's infidelity, and that ends the affair.
Artie eventually embarks on a new relationship, while Angela moves on to another transient liaison. Donal unexpectedly reveals a rare magnanimity of spirit, Father Pat is stitched together again and Dominic is driven to final tragedy.
There is no great drama in all of this; just the still, sad music of humanity filling the air and senses with its truth and relevance.
Twelve years after its Irish premiere, Billy Roche's play still retains its grip on an audience, especially when the production and acting, directed by Padraic McIntyre, are as good as this.
Maighread and Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill, Airfield House, Dublin
Siobhan Long
There's something about sibling harmonies that can't be matched, cloned, or replicated by anyone other than those lucky enough to share a genetic lineage.
Maighread and Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill's close harmony singing has stilled many a crowd before last Friday night's concert in the genteel surrounds of the library at Airfield House, but somehow this was an occasion when not only were their vocal cords utterly in unison, but the stars were in alignment, the moon was crispy white and there was a hint of spring in the air.
Their days with Skara Brae have served them well, and they lost little time before drawing from that sublime repertoire with a reading of An Saighdiúr Tréighe that'd put the hair standing on the back of the neck of the most dispassionate listener.
Maighread's celestial vocals traced pinprick curlicues around Tríona's deeper tones, each one countering the other with an empathy that underscored the sorrow of this tale of frustrated love.
Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill has always been too willing to take the back seat, but tonight, with the luxury of a Steinway at her disposal and a collection of recently self-composed tunes, she tiptoed into the spotlight intermittently and revealed the emotional depth of her musical spirit in the sweeping The Sun On The Water and in the reflective Every Moment.
The stalwarts were there too: The False Fly, Is Fada Liom Uaim Í, Níl Sé Ina Lá, Dónall Óg and the Dublin song which has become the sole property of Maighread, so pristine is her delivery of it, The Spanish Lady.
Two women, in their musical prime, whose music spans generations and yet manages to strike the most contemporary of notes. And Airfield provided the ideal venue for such a glorious interlude.
Ulster Orchestra - Takuo Yuasa, Ulster Hall, Belfast
Dermot Gault
D Purcell - Chacony in G minor (edited by Benjamin Britten)
Beethoven - Piano Concerto No 4
Vaughan Williams - Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis
Tippett - Ritual Dances from The Midsummer Marriage
Originally written for four viols, Purcell's Chacony in G minor was edited by Britten for performance on modern instruments.
According to the programme notes, he did not do very much to the music apart from adding expression marks, but in this performance Yuasa's broad, expressive approach helped to convert the piece into one of the plush arrangements, beloved of the conductors of the past, which are so unfashionable now.
Purcell's balance of gentle seriousness and rhythmic impulse was overlaid with an elegiac sadness which was affecting in its way but unduly funereal.
The Vaughan Williams was much more convincing as a performance. The Ulster Orchestra strings sounded wonderful; they seem instinctively to produce the right sound for this composer, and the string soloists were excellent.
This work was written with a cathedral acoustic in mind, but in the Ulster Hall's friendly acoustics the sound was richly resonant.
After so much reassuring traditionalism, the Tippett came like a splash of cold water. One of his mid-period, Stravinskyan works, the idiom probably didn't seem unduly modern even 50 years ago when it was first performed, but the composer's dense, very personal style still challenges listeners.
In the first movement of the concerto John Lill was never insensitive, and the tone was often beautiful in itself, but his studied objectivity did at first limit the music's scope, and it was only in the latter stages of the first movement cadenza, and above all in the enigmatic slow movement, that the work came alive.
Nick Kelly
Whelans, Dublin
Peter Crawley
At most gigs, five simple words will sink the heart of even the hardiest fan: "This is a new song."
Of course, every rule has its exception, and in Nick Kelly's case some people have been waiting an awfully long time for fresh material. Letting eight years elapse between his much loved solo debut and this year's accomplished follow-up, Running Dog, the Dublin singer-songwriter first has some explaining to do.
"So long time, no see," Kelly begins sheepishly, his nervous smile widening.
"It's not you, it's me," he then offers, perhaps worried that Whelans will fall into a jealous huff.
Tonight, however, is about validation. Touchingly, almost 500 fans helped to fund the new album, and as Not Enough Love (To Go Around) announces a set of new material, Kelly's investors get their money's worth.
No words can sink their hearts, not even: "Here's one I wrote with Brian Kennedy."
Running Dog may not sound like the product of eight years spent hunting the perfect chord change, but the album's absorbing blend of subdued emotion and trusted techniques are adeptly facilitated by Kelly's onstage band.
They are respectfully delicate for the lovely Small Hours, a consoling balm for bruised souls, and winningly invigorating on Brand New New York Day.
Though he scowls while singing and wears a neon-orange hoodie that seems positively sinister, Kelly also chats disarmingly about soothing baths and glasses of wine.
At one point he even leaves the stage to complain about the noise next door before continuing with The Loneliest Ghost in Père-Lachaise, an affecting trumpet-led waltz which moves woozily through Paris's elite graveyard.
Saving old material for last, Kelly bows out contentedly with new promises to keep. "I'll see you soon," he calls, aware that we've heard this one before. "I swear I'll see you soon," he insists.
