Two Abbey productions 'postponed'Halfway through its centenary year celebrations, the Abbey Theatre has had to pull two productions from its abbeyonehundred programme, writes Belinda McKeon.
"Postponement" is the term being used in regard to the two productions: Lennox Robinson's Drama at Inish, which was to run in the autumn, under the direction of Jim Nolan, as part of "The Abbey and Ireland" series, and Smokescreen, a new work written and directed by Paul Mercier, which was scheduled for the Peacock stage from early December until the new year.
In the absence of artistic director, Ben Barnes, who is in Montreal, Abbey comment emerged in contradictory form; Ali Curran, director of the Peacock Theatre, said initially that "financial issues" and "cashflow issues" were to blame, but, given more notice to gather his thoughts than Curran was, the theatre's managing director, Brian Jackson, stated that the postponement was "not a cashflow issue" but "primarily a logistical one", to do with the "sheer numbers of technical staff required" by the two shows. He denied that the fundraising programme mounted by the Abbey to get its centenary programme off the ground had not proven as productive as was hoped, and insisted that the theatre's financial situation was "positive", referring to the current, "packed-out" run of The Shaughraun, directed by the chair of that fundraising committee, John McColgan. But other inside sources painted a different picture, expressing concern that the large productions staged recently as part of the Abbey's European programme had devoured funds without running for sufficiently long periods to recover them, and claiming that a shortfall in the projected income of the fundraising committee was to blame for the postponement of the shows.
However, Jackson insists logistics is the problem, arguing that the end of the year, both in the Abbey and in the Dublin theatre scene in general - with the Dublin Theatre Festival and the Fringe Festival running - will be such a busy time that demand for stage managers and other technical staff will exceed the supply available to the theatre. Strange that this problem was not foreseen when the Abbey compiled the centenary programme last year; after all, the DTF and the Fringe are hardly new developments. But Jackson strongly disagrees that there is any embarrassment in what he calls "one minor adjustment" to the programme. "All programmes are presented subject to change, it's not simply a case of putting a programme down and guaranteeing it." The run of Eugene O'Brien's Savoy, he points out, was "truncated" earlier this year.
But truncation and postponement are very different things - especially for the actors who had been cast and, as Curran puts it, given "commitments" - though, tellingly, not yet contracted - by the Abbey, and for the directors who learned of the situation in an e-mail from a Montreal-bound Barnes. As for the spaces the postponements will leave on the Abbey stage, Jackson will say only that a revival of a past or current show is "one of the things on the table". It's believed that a Christmas re-run of The Shaughraun is being strongly considered. In the meantime, the possibility of financial settlements with those involved in the postponed shows will have to be accommodated in the Abbey's budgetary challenges.
Getting the civic spirit
The mist of Chinese rumours gathering around the company organising Cork's year as European Capital of Culture 2005 has parted to reveal a quartet of major sponsors for the event: these are Heineken, AIB, Thomas Crosbie Holdings and RTÉ, writes Mary Leland. So far, no details as to the nature of the support can be obtained, but it is understood Heineken will be giving a major cash boost to the otherwise inadequate coffers from which many organisations hope to draw.
It has also been confirmed that the organisation's board of directors has accepted the executive's recommendation on the civic event to launch the year, designed by Dr Martin Barrett who is managing special events at the Athens Olympics. Musicians and musical companies in Cork are also welcoming the news that Margaret O'Sullivan is transferring from the Association of Irish Choirs to become project manager of music with Cork 2005.
And in a further move aimed at stemming the rising tide of discontent and disillusion - largely caused by the delay in decision-making and the lack in the acknowledgment of proposals - the board is insisting that most of the final programme for the year be unveiled by late summer, rather than in October as originally planned.
Although it has been admitted that there have been significant tensions within the organisation, these are now understood to have eased.
It is clear, however, that the organisation is still struggling with an inadequate budget, and only €1 million has been allocated to Dr Barrett, for example, to mount several public extravaganzas throughout the year (one proposed concert that might have cost €900,000 was not accepted by the board). While proposers of other musical events are among the disenchanted but discreet (because while disappointed they still hope that further negotiations may produce a result), the Cork Orchestral Society is happy that its series of concerts is being supported. So too is the Vanburgh String Quartet, although this has had to restructure its calendar of eight recitals featuring guest quartets, due to a shortfall in funding. Mel Mercier is also happy as his anthem Panorama, commissioned by Cork 2005 to mark the year, has been accepted and recorded. The Kearney-Melia press and public relations firm has dropped its connection with the Cork 2005 organisation. Barra Ó Tuama's 21-year-old concert promotions company has had a good relationship with the organisation, although a major concert planned over the last 18 months and dependent on its support, linked to commercial sponsorship is still under negotiation.
RTE/NSO season launch
RTÉ has announced details of the 2004-2005 subscription season by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, writes Michael Dervan. For the first time, a major sponsor, Anglo Irish Bank, has been secured for the season, and there will also be two national tours in association with The Irish Times.
One of the giants of 20th-century music, Igor Stravinsky, who was last given special attention by the orchestra in 1981 (the centenary of his birth), is the subject of a major focus. This will bring performances of the scores of the three early, Diaghilev-commissioned ballets The Firebird, Petrushka and The Rite of Spring, and the composer's unusual collection of symphonies, including the Symphony of Psalms and the rarely heard early Symphony in E flat. Some of the memorial pieces of the late years will also feature, as well as the Violin Concerto and the Concerto for piano and wind.
Mahler will be approached, not through his symphonies, as the orchestra has mainly approached him in the past, but through an offering of his works for voice and orchestra. This will include, along with the familiar song cycles and a performance of his earliest major composition, Das Klagende Lied, Das Lied von der Erde, paired with Mozart's G minor Symphony and conducted by Benjamin Zander.
There will also be a concert performance of Verdi's Il Trovatore with Russian soprano Galina Gorchakova in the role of Leonora.
Just before the end of the season there will be a Beethovenfest in which principal conductor Gerhard Markson will conduct all nine Beethoven symphonies on five successive days.
The closing concert, again under Markson, will be the world première, in a concert performance, of Gerald Barry's opera, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, of which only Act II has yet been heard. Barry's is one of a number of RTÉ commissions to be unveiled during the season; the others are by Gráinne Mulvey, Eric Sweeney and Ian Wilson.
In terms of musical planning, the season presents some of the most arresting and cogent thematic stranding that the NSO has ever presented. Individual programmes are well thought out, and the roster of Irish vocal talent being called upon will see nearly a dozen Irish singers working during the subscription season, as opposed to just four last year.
Following a season where the number of guests was low and there were no conductors new to the orchestra, the number of guests will nearly double. An extraordinary major weakness in the planning, however, is the sparse representation of contemporary music from abroad. Apart from Alfred Schnittke's First Cello Concerto of 1986 (part of a "Stroke of Genius" programme celebrating music written by composers after they had suffered a stroke), and Swedish trombonist Christian Lindberg playing his own Mandrake in the Corner, there is less than 20 minutes of music written in the second half of the 20th century, all of which is by Stravinsky. And not a single work by an Irish composer has been scheduled for a repeat performance.
RTÉ likes to congratulate itself on what it has done for contemporary music through the success of its Living Music Festival, and through its free "Horizons" concerts based around the work of Irish composers.
Yet the inclusion of so little major music of recent years in the subscription
series creates a situation in which the work of living composers is being, if not ghettoised, then at least carefully segregated from the mainstream of orchestral activity in Ireland.
For full details, contact the NCH booking office at 01-417 0000