A selection of reviews by Irish Timescritics.
Opera North/Parry
Grand Opera House, Belfast
Jonathan Dove - The Adventures of Pinocchio.
MICHAEL DERVAN
Opera North's recent season in Belfast was the company's best and most adventurous since it started its regular Arts Council of Northern Ireland-funded visits to the Grand Opera House in 2006.
This year's final offering was a new work, Jonathan Dove's The Adventures of Pinocchio, to a libretto by Alasdair Middleton, which premiered in Leeds just before Christmas.
As the title and the timing of the premiere might suggest, the piece is aimed at young people as well as seasoned opera-goers, and the enthusiastic audience in Belfast on Friday was anything but the regular mix to be found at the opera.
The production, directed by Martin Duncan, designed by Francis O'Connor and choreographed by Nick Winston, is a high-class, old-style theatrical extravaganza, taking monsters, fairies, animals, the inside of a whale, and many descents from on high in its stride.
It has in Victoria Simmonds an athletically gawky, stubbornly cheeky, and vocally adroit hero. The star singing turns are not Pinocchio's, however. They go to the coloratura antics of Rebecca Bottone's Cricket and the more lyrically-sympathetic Blue Fairy of Mary Plazas. There's a pleasing down-to-earth humanity from Jonathan Summers as Pinocchio's "father" Geppetto, and while the cast list is a long one, there's not a weak link to be found in it.
Dove's richly-coloured minimalist score is eclectically derivative and frequently takes the course of actually underlining rather than just supporting the action on the stage. The chorus and orchestra of Opera North, under David Parry, respond with alacrity to the most extravagant demands of a piece which brings to the opera stage the cleverness and impact of a seasonal Hollywood blockbuster.
Seasick Steve
Tripod, Dublin
SORCHA HAMILTON
With his long white beard, dungarees and a worn-out baseball cap, American bluesman Seasick Steve looked like he'd just come in from working the cotton fields. "Godammit it's nice to be back here," he said, as he took to the stage on Saturday night for a hair-raising show in Dublin. Stomping on his Mississippi Drum Machine and swigging from a bottle of Jack Daniels, Seasick Steve played rowdy blues, with catchy little riffs and heart-warming slide guitar that makes you think of railroads and sunsets.
"Ya'll like a baptist choir out there," he drolled in his southern accent as the throng sang along to Thanks Go Up, Thanks Go Down.
When someone shouted for him to play his one-stringed "Dudley Bow" instrument, he explained how they wouldn't let it through customs: "They said it was weapon. I said, no shit'." Howling like a dog left left out in the rain, Seasick Steve sang his now legendary Dog House Bougieand a range of hits including Cut My Wingsand Hobo Low.
A tune about a nasty little insect called "the chigger" was the highlight of the evening. Forced to wear his socks "up to his knees" during the hot, muggy summers down south, Seasick Steve growled and moaned: "Leave me alone, little chiggers." Pausing to tell one of his "bum stories", Seasick Steve described how he left home when he was 13 after he nearly shot his stepfather. This is a no-nonsense, straight-talkin' man who has seen and lived it all - and has no qualms about telling the crowd to shut up. "You tellin' the story or am I tellin' the story?" he quipped after a brief interruption from the crowd.
Like the bashed-up guitars, some held together with tape and with straps made of string, these hobo-come-good yarns are all part of the Seasick Steve show - an unforgettable one-man triumph.
Tinney, Collins, UO/Montgomery
NCH, Dublin
Tchaikovsky - The Tempest.
Liszt - Piano Concertos 1 & 2.
Stravinsky - Firebird Suite (1919).
MICHAEL DERVAN
Thursday's Ulster Orchestra concert at the National Concert Hall offered a pretty rare kind of musical sandwich. In the centre were the two piano concertos of Liszt, each featuring a different soloist. And enclosing them were two atmospheric Russian works, Tchaikovsky's rarely-heard The Tempestand Stravinsky's riotously-coloured FirebirdSuite.
Tchaikovsky's symphonic fantasia after Shakespeare's play has a lot going for it. It has strong ideas and generates both an effective moodiness and some ardent love music. The composer didn't, however, manage to blend everything into a persuasive whole, and the piece also suffers from the fact that certain related musical impulses were expressed with much more point in his fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet. Stravinsky's Firebirdis, by comparison, simply irresistible, individual, pictorial, characterful and sensual at every turn.
The Ulster Orchestra under principal conductor Kenneth Montgomery gave each work its all without in any way disturbing posterity's verdict on the two pieces.
It was a fascinating idea to offer a contrast of soloists in Liszt's two shortish piano concertos in a single concert. Hugh Tinney played the first with a dashing thoughtfulness and also engaged fully with the opportunities for chamber music-making that Liszt opened up through a range of orchestral solos.
Finghin Collins in the second was freer in delivery and fuller in tone, with his climactic delivery sometimes sounding like an unstoppable force of nature.
There was an attractive fluidity in quieter moments, too, and a sense of musical rightness in every gesture. Orchestra and conductor were with him every step of the way in this highly impressive performance.
