A collision of tunes globes creates an intriguing twice-bill
An excellent blink-and-you’ll-miss-they residential farce and you will a temperature-dream fantasy out-of a track-cycle: Stravinsky’s Mavra (1922) and you may Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (1912) lead to surprise twice-expenses. But, in the event the a few remain slightly awkwardly near to each other, they are both facing in identical recommendations – for every single looking to the latest musical past.
Mavra/Pierrot Lunaire, Linbury Movies review – operatic insanity tempered with lots of means
Passacaglias and you may fugues, love-duets and you will ensembles, waltzes and you may folksongs: these are the fragments attained upwards of the a few composers faster curious for the tearing on the audio organization at the start of the 20 th 100 years than just lso are-purposing they, bending and you can skewing the latest bits to complement brand new anxiousness regarding a good new age.
Stress, tipping on distress, paranoia and you may downright madness, ‘s the determining disposition out-of Anthony Almeida’s this new staging, formulated within the Royal Opera’s 20 th wedding celebrations into organization’s Jette Parker More youthful Musician program. Designer Rosanna Vize takes the “miraculous light roses” away from Pierrot’s vision and punches her or him upwards on the a massive flowery pattern: an oversized chintz that establishes new tone toward unique, circus-domesticity from Mavra where tea-dining tables been laden up with jelly (and nothing otherwise), pastels and you can prim silhouettes burst into the over the top wigs and you may yellow eye brows, and you can crinolines cover holsters out of squirty solution.
The story (considering Pushkin’s The little Home for the Kolomna) is easy sufficient: Parasha misses the girl date Vasily, so when the lady mom laments the increased loss of the family members’ dedicated retainer Fyokla, she conspires to create her companion into the family in the guise out-of “Mavra” another housemaid. Cue most of the classic comic-opera shenanigans.
The brand new slightness off Mavra (which lasts barely a half hour) brings a manager absolutely nothing shoulder-room, and you may Almeida makes the fascinating telephone call so you’re able to bleed you to definitely drama on another, uniting the 2 disparate halves from inside the a provided world in which a large clinging light becomes this new moonlight that books Pierrot’s madness. Pierrot himself strays towards the Parasha’s teas-cluster, and soon after Parasha and her family reappear during the Pierrot’s individual hopes and dreams.
Definition stays oblique, however, tethering Mavra to something big lends anticipate heft to their arch satire. Anything primal is actually stirring inside the Almeida’s dolls house, sensed not just in the new slithering clarinets and out of-kilter dances away from Stravinsky’s get (crisply lead by Britten Sinfonia not as much as Michael Papadopoulos) however in characters just who dive its hands American Pie-concept for the bowls of jelly, smudge by themselves for the lotion and you can undress on the undies.
Jette Parker artist April Koyejo-Audiger brings enough brilliant-eyed naughtiness to Parasha, the girl soprano lump generously using Stravinsky’s ensembles, but sometimes spilling outside the firmly mathematical traces founded because of the Papadopoulos, smudging mountain. She generally seems to fall into another opera to help you Egor Zhuravskii’s wash Vasily (pictured right) – darkly Russian tone meeting bel canto manage and you will sweetness. Sarah Pring stands out because Parasha’s lay-upon mother (hardly dangling so you can sanity here) having Idunnu Chew including certain zesty misunderstandings since the Neighbour. It’s all a fun and you will does not overstay its acceptance. But it’s next 50 % of in which it inform you most goes into its very own. Soprano Alexandra Lowe (envisioned over) was Schoenberg’s moon-struck Pierrot – holding their audience courtesy all of the move regarding vibe and you may character: now a good Madonna dating sites voor vrouwen mourning in the a perverted Pieta, today an excellent murderous revenger drilling due to their rival’s skull in order to smoke they such a pipeline.
Stilling the latest visuals following mess and in pretty bad shape away from Mavra, Almeida lets the action move to Lowe’s face and the body, tellingly illuminated of the Lucy Cartermitting surely to every reinvention, off cabaret-artist to running creature, ballroom dancer and you may androgynous mate, Lowe gives us insanity that’s never shorter you to specific, underpinned quicker because of the whimsy we frequently get a hold of than simply a reduced-bubbling rage and anger. The new command over Lowe’s sprechstimme, plucking pitches about sky, morphing the girl build to reflect or battle the brand new orchestra’s flute or clarinet, try absolute: a very carefully calibrated negotiation ranging from message and song. Insanity will be anarchic, however it is so much more persuasive once we feel the hidden purchase and you can logic as we do right here.
Comentarios recientes