Irish Times writers review a selection of recent events
Irish National Youth Ballet -The Nutcracker
O'Reilly Theatre, Dublin
A FINE line exists between over-indulging at Christmas and celebrating its true meaning, and the same can be said for productions of The Nutcracker. Some versions get carried away with growing Christmas trees and lifelike presents, but the Irish National Youth Ballet's felt nothing short of magical.
Artistic director Katherine Lewis excels at creating movement for the company, and consequently the dancers' confidence soars when executing it. From the adorable mice niggling at a poised Adine Gerber as Clara to the elegant quartet of angels ushering in the sleigh, the dancers interpreted Hoffmann's tale with passion.
This ballet also serves as a benchmark for dancers marking their progress, graduating from children in the party scene to the more advanced soldiers, angels and snowflakes and ultimately into the coveted Act II soloist roles.
In this rendition the second act divertissements played to the dancers' strengths, making the litany of dances surprisingly exciting to watch.
Standouts included Marta Capolei's steely legwork and calm upper body and the seamlessly moving corps in the Chinese Tea dance.
The Waltz of the Flowers proved less successful because of the demanding steps en pointe during the longest and most arduous number, but the company members united as if they had worked together all year.
One payoff for performing the same ballet every holiday season is the hope that some day it will be possible to step into the Sugar Plum Fairy's and Nutcracker Prince's shoes.
Guest artists Juliana Bastos and Jerome Buttazzoni from Ballet du Capitole, Toulouse, set the perfect example, forming a splendid partnership with her lucid footwork and his regal disposition.
Their pas de deux deviated from the norm because it was punctuated with whiplash-speed turns and unusually daring lifts - a generous offering in a duet that can sometimes look robotic.
Their expertise and the rest of the company's earnestness erased any sense of repetition that might have lingered over this holiday production, instead making for some of the best ballet dancing seen here in recent years. CHRISTIE SEAVER
Tönz, RTÉ NSO/Markson
NCH, Dublin
Beethoven — Violin Concerto Strauss — Alpine Symphony
Richard Strauss completed his IEine Alpensinfonie (Alpine Symphony) in 1915. The 51-year-old composer had been wowing his fans with the chromatic clashes and sheer spectacle of his orchestral writing for nearly 30 years, and in the process causing his highly vocal opponents to shower him with vitriol for his rule-breaking adventurousness.
Yet it was the musical pictorialism of this day on the mountain - complete with sunrise, sunset, a waterfall, mishaps, a glacier, fog and a big storm - which caused him to remark, "At last I have learnt to orchestrate". Though with caustic wit he also claimed that the task had amused him even less than chasing cockroaches.
The work is lavishly scored, yet it spent a long time in the shadows, viewed almost as an error of judgment.
Friday's performance by the RTÉ NSO was the fourth in Dublin in two decades, and the second under the NSO's principal conductor, Gerhard Markson.
Markson likes to give Strauss room to breathe and blaze. Impetuosity in this music seems almost to go against his nature. The big picture, he seems to be suggesting, will take care of itself if he takes sufficient care of the here and now. The approach is a little too measured for my taste. On Friday it was as if the pictures that Strauss laboured so painstakingly over were sometimes being experienced from the inside of a luxury car on a smooth road rather than in the rough and tumble of the mountainside itself.
Both the clarity of the rendering and the sense of power were far greater this time than in Markson's last performance, back in 2001.There is not much musical meat in Strauss's creation but lots of foam and smoke and commotion, all of which Markson dispensed with impressive care.
A bit more care and balance would have been in order from Stefan Tönz, the soloist in Beethoven's Violin Concerto. Tönz got off to a very unsettled start, with peculiar irregularities of rhythm and pitching that was not always at the centre of the note. Markson and the orchestra had much more of the measure of the music. The solo playing settled down, and seemed to have reached its stride by the third movement, as if the sheer drive of the music was here irresistible. MICHAEL DERVAN
Bon Iver
National Stadium, Dublin
Justin Vernon and his band Bon Iver have certainly struck a chord with Irish music fans - this was their third appearance here this year (making them to 2008 what Arcade Fire was to 2007), while the debut Bon Iver album, the delicate and forlorn For Emma, Forever Ago, quickly developed a large, devoted fanbase, and will undoubtedly top many end-of-year polls.
The genesis of that album has quickly become one of the most fabled "album creation" stories of recent years - after both his band and a relationship split up, Vernon retreated for a spell of restorative isolation in a wood cabin in northern Wisconsin in 2006, where the songs coalesced.
But the Thoreau of modern folk seems reluctant to stand in the full glare of the spotlight - literally. The show started in darkness as Vernon and his three bandmates began the slow, meditative prelude to new track Woods, and the lights scarcely brightened as the performance continued, leaving the musicians cloaked in a kind of gloaming.
But the shadowy illumination certainly befitted the atmosphere, with perfectly realised versions of Flume, Re: Stacks and, in particular, Skinny Love leaving everyone in a hazy reverie, while the title track of the eagerly anticipated Blood Bank EP was more muscular, reminiscent of Iron and Wine in full flight.
The National Stadium is a notoriously difficult venue in which to generate much atmosphere.
But Vernon's quiet, contemplative music certainly benefited from the separate bar and the lack of clinking glasses. This show was marked by a reverential stillness that enveloped the audience - they resembled terracotta statues, captured in static raptures. Perhaps it didn't match the dizzy heights of the earlier Tripod show but this was most certainly an exquisite, pristine performance. DAVIN O'DWYER
