Victorian Opera: Two men will die tonight

Victorian Opera

Lucia di Lammermore
Her Majesty’s Theatre

Tuesday 19 April 2016

A couple of thousand people came to a complete halt; nobody shuffled, nobody coughed, nobody unwrapped lollies. Nobody, except a few people on stage, moved. On stage, the movement was from Lucia’s friends – worried, uncertain what to do, while Jessica Pratt aka Lucia slowly and gut-wrenchingly went mad. Essentially, Richard Mills and Orchestra Victoria were superb, too. More than superb really, because they played in a pit that sounded like playing under melted lead. It took all the skill of Dr Mills and the pit orchestra to produce a sound that didn’t decay in 2 microseconds or less, to give the singer first-class support. Including the glass harmonica's beautiful, ethereal, unworldly sound was a brilliant idea (but the player is uncredited). Why OV-Richard and Jessica didn’t get a long, standing ovation at the end of the act is a mystery. Theirs was a most beautiful singing-accompanying performance: Jessica and Richard in each other’s head.

Jessica had all the promo resources; she had the lead part, she was the local girl come home again from La Scala and she had the stunning, magical, world-class voice. We knew that from her Traviata last year. She alone was going to be worth the price of the ticket – and so she was.

There were two other local singers on stage who didn’t quite qualify for photo opps in a white, blood-drenched dress. Some blokes would-of but not these two: they'd been Victorian Opera Developing Artists; they were graduates of the Vic Opera/MU Master of Music program. I’ve followed their development and their careers from ‘good-singer’ to’ superlative-opera-star-level-two (shared dressing room)’. That’s what they were on Tuesday.

Michael Petruccelli is a Schubert lieder wunderkind; so in some ways, inevitably, that was seen in Arturo. It seemed that Michael's singing was grounded in his lieder experience – emotional, expressive, richly lyrical. It was all there in the score and Michael found it. Not over-dramatic, not suicidal, just beautiful singing and being a total shit – chatting up pretty birds – ignoring his wife who was enveloped in emotional turmoil, barely able to see the parchment through tears while she signed the marriage certificate without him by her side. From the soles of his white boots to the top of his white feathered hat Michael was a loathsome figure. The surprise is not that she stabbed him; it was that she didn’t stab him sooner. If he’d sung more of his opening aria to her he’d have won her and the tragedy that was Lucia would not have happened.

Michael Petrucceli
Source: http://www.michaelpetruccelli.com/

That was not a possibility for Edgardo. He was inevitably doomed from the moment the curtain went up. Carlos E. Bárcenas was brilliantly cast – a skill that Richard Mills is recognised for. Carlos was suited physically, vocally and as an actor to the part of the fatally hopeless lover.

Carlos had worked on Lucia with Jessica in Italy over Christmas so they understood each other totally and credibly. Like Lucia 45 minutes before, he slowly went mad: a Mad Scene without the white dress. His performance in the last act suffered from some pretty awful direction. Half out of his mind with anxiety he begged information about his beloved from a courtier (so far so good) tapping him on the shoulder (credibility = zero). 

Carlos had an horrendous part: alone, grief-stricken that Lucia’d broken her vow to him, hearing the wedding celebration over in the castle, he had to slowly (that was the tricky bit) lose the will to live without his love and then find the courage to stab himself. And who sought to comfort him, to prevent him? Nobody. He was despised, rejected of men. Alone, surrounded by courtiers, he stabs and dies – a truly tragic figure in the best model of Romantic opera.

Carlos E Bárcenas
Source: Arts-Review-Carlos-Barcenas-Ramirez

There’s a risk on casting unknowns such as Michael and Carlos: they don’t attract the press and therefore the crowds. But they weren’t unknown. They are graduates of the best opera school in the world. They had been worked in all aspects of opera till they dropped. They’d come out of the Master of Music program with star quality. They just has to wait until the firmament came along. And it did in the superb (if you ignore the directing) Victorian Opera production of Lucia.

George Brandis Attorney General of Australia (Liberal Party)

Brandis's view alone, theguardian 19 April 2016 http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/19/george-brandis-says-climate-science-not-settled-but-csiro-should-act-as-if-it-is alone is enough to justify getting rid of this gang of big-business-serving, stupider-than-neandertals (with apologies to our co-ancestors).

The science of anthropogenic climate change is as much settled as the science of aeronautics that underpins his government-funded helicopter trip.

Your're an idiot George. 
You're a disgrace. 
Go away. Now. Please  stop embarrassing us in front of the rest of humankind.

Victorian Opera: Voyage to the moon

Victorian Opera
Voyage to the moon
Elisabeth Murdoch Hall
19 February 2016
then Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Perth, Adelaide

Spectacular range – low tenor to mid-bass with no head to chest voice break. Low notes retain their clarity with no growl. Rapid vibrato that suits baroque singing. He makes the hideously difficult rapid runs seem effortless (Difficult? Where?). Mostly, though, it’s the rich beauty of his voice that is captivating.

Jeremy Kleeman as Magus
httphistoriesofemotion.com20160219voyage-to-the-moon-performer-perspectives-with-jeremy-kleeman-3

Towards the end of 2013 Lisa Gasteen finished a week of intensive teaching with the eight Vic Opera/MU Master of Music course students. She ripped into young Mr Kleeman (in the most gentle of ways, of course). His body language suggested he was not amused. She wouldn’t have bothered if she knew he wasn’t worth it. We could hear his wort then. Doubtless she could.

I next heard him singing The Pudding – the Magic variety – in a bowler hat. Then in an interminable Handel Opera – part of Brisbane Baroque. He was good and very good, then. But in The Moon he was superb.

I have a vested interest in the Master of Music course that was part of; we support it. I’m very glad we do because it produced – it keeps on producing – voices of the quality of Jeremy’s. His parents are partly to blame. They give him that wonderful collection of genes that are the foundation of a brilliant singer. And his incredible hard work and intelligent approach to singing is doing the rest.

Of course Christina Smith’s stunning costume helped – a lot: a full length black and gold brocade coat that was purpose-built for his long, lean frame. Matt Scott/Peter Darby’s wonderful lighting measured the mood and responded. But (I have to have a grump) I would have liked surtitles.

And it was right, very right, that the longest individual ‘aria’ applause was given to Phoebe Briggs’ seven-piece ensemble. These super-talented musicians gave us the great gift of superb music-making.

Rachael Beesley, Zoë Black,Simon Oswell, Phoebe Briggs, Molly Kadarcauch, Kirsty McCahon, Emma Black
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153627335524219.1073741851.127956549218&type=3

We’ve come to expect perfection from Sally-Anne Russell – her Gluck aria with Emma Black  was riveting – and Emma Matthews. They seemed completely at home with the Alan Curtis/Calvin Bowman pastiche. If nothing else the score demonstrates the incredible depth of opera-music talent in this country.

Sally-Anne Russell, Jeremy Kleeman, Emma Matthews, Pheobe Briggs behind the harspichord, Kristy McCahon behind the double bass.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153627335524219.1073741851.127956549218&type=3

Voyage was so right. If anyone doubts that Richard Mills and Vic Opera can’t (still) mount a world-class opera they weren’t there.

Now … I’m off to break open the piggy bank. There’s a fresh crop of young singers for VO to mentor.

Jeremy's blog post about Voyage including his off-cuff rewriting of the libretto is at The History of Emotion's site.

The History of Emotions is conducting a major research project on Vic Opera's Voyage to the Moon.

The Voyage to the Moon researchers are Jane Davidson, Joe Browning and Frederic Kiernan, based at the University of Melbourne. Jane Davidson is Professor of Creative and Performing Arts (Music) at the Faculty of the Victorian College of the Arts and Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, The University of Melbourne, and Deputy Director of the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (CHE). Joseph Browning is a ethnomusicologist and postdoctoral research fellow at CHE specialising in the shakuhachi, central Javanese gamelan, and ethnographic approaches to Western art music. Frederic Kiernan is a PhD candidate at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and research assistant at CHE.

#LetThemStay

State Library of Victoria
8 February 2016
LetThemStay rally


I was (and still am) angry enough about the Australian Government's (= Turnbull / Liberal Party) policy on asylum seekers and the Australian Labor Party’s scramble to “me too” the lock-'em-up policy to dig out my First Dog tee shirt and tram it to the State Library for Get Up’s rally.

Old and leftie he may be, but he votes.
©SGJ8022016

Old farts don’t demos.

They don’t do they?

Old farts and young farts were angry and chanted 'Let them stay'. They (nearly all) vote.

©SGJ8022016

Old farts have a few advantages, to whit,

• they have fewer years left than they have used and they want to use them well
• they don’t give a shit what people think of them
• they have well-oiled political hypocrisy detectors
• they vote.

Delicious irony: Sir Redmond Barry - of Ned Kelly fame, now immobile in bronze - presides over a protest rally. Like Mr Turnbull, he was significantly outnumbered.
©SGJ8022016

I cannot – will not – vote for a party that will return the 267 refugees presently in Australia back to Nauru.

I cannot – will not – vote for a party that incarcerates refugees in the hell-holes we pay for on Nauru and Manus Island.
I cannot – will not – vote for a party that institutionalises cruel and inhumane treatment of innocent people.

Not in my name Mr Turnbull; not with my money.

ANAM: Adam McMillan and Laurence Matheson

ANAM
South Melbourne Town Hall

Monday 1 November 2015

RAVEL, Gaspard de la nuit

Adam McMillan

“A great musician is a great gastronome”, some bloke may have said about Rossini. The evidence included Rossini’s great corporation. There are exceptions. Adam McMcMillan, evidently, is an exceptional musician.

Ravel wrote some incredibly difficult music. Whether or not a pianist gets it technically is pretty obvious.

Adam did.

Much more subtly, whether or not a pianist gets it musically is a matter of emotional judgement.

Adam did.

Gaspard de la nuit of 1908 is instantly recognisable as Ravel and the first of the three poèmes, Ondine is set in constantly rippling water, writing that suggests Ravel understood chaos theory.

To play Gaspard – particularly to an educated, experienced audience (about 100 retirees and fellow students) – suggests supreme confidence, high-order foolishness or technical and musical competence of an extraordinary order. At about the one-minute mark, I’d opted for the technical bit. At about the three-minute mark I’d firmly decided on the musical bit too because Adam had answered my fundamental question about this piece, Was he finding the images and painting them for me?

Like the ripples in Ondine’s water that are nothing but the location of water molecules in three dimensions, Ravel’s – and Adam’s – music are nothing more than soundwaves in time. Neither the ripples nor the music exist until I stand back and see (or hear) it in perspective. The magic of Adam’s performance was that underneath the chaos of the ripples he found the melodic line (Ondine?). Fiendish stuff to play. Even more difficult to make work.

Gaspard de la Nuit, Ondine last page. Note the ppp

  

But as is the way of consummate musicians, apart from the cascades of notes that encompassed the entire range of the Steinway, Adam never let it sound like hard work.

The B-flat octave ostinato tolls aggravatingly throughout Le Gibet – admittedly much more aggravatingly to the poor blighter swaying in the breeze from the gallows. The rich backdrop of Ravel’s minor chords, often exhilarating in his work, only make the tolling worse. More technical brilliance; more superb musicianship.

Gaspard de la Nuit, Le Gibet

The dwarf, Scarbo, emerged, laughed, taunted, threatened. On a wickedness scale of one to ten, he represented a score of 13. Adam found his malevolence in bucket loads in Ravel’s wonderful highly chromatic score.

Gaspard de la Nuit, Scarbo

Has an ANAM end-of-year recital ever generated a standing ovation? This got pretty damn close.

RACHMANINOV, Suite no. 2 for two pianos in C minor op. 17

Adam McMillan

Laurence Matheson

If Ravel is an impressionist – even though he rejected the description – this piece is pure Rachmaninov-romanticism. There are hints of the two great piano concertos – Two and Three – every few minutes. It has “soaring melodies building to a dramatic climax” (Adam) that brand this music as gut-grabbing Rachmaninov. And the notes, the number of notes. The two pianists had 20 cm fingers and six or seven on each hand.

But it wasn’t difficult; It wasn’t hard work – or it didn’t seem so. It was cascades of gorgeous music that left a gent in front of me grinning with delight as he applauded.

Critical to the success of this performance – apart from the technical wizardry – was the synergy of two pianists controlling the rubatos (rubati?) by gut; clearly they couldn’t see each other’s hands.

Two superb pianists, one superlative composition; one splendid recital. Bravo, gentlemen!