By Josephine Gazard. Crisscross Productions. Director Suzanne Millar. The Vault at KXT on Broadway. 6 – 29 May, 2023

Reviewed : 22 May, 2023

Though I couldn’t get to this production earlier in its run, it was one I was determined to see. There is no theatre more important than that which exposes wrong and inspires reaction.

When it’s written and performed by the protagonist themselves, it can be confronting and often raw – which is fine but not necessarily always good theatre. Not so with this piece. Josephine Gazard has taken it through 65 drafts to get to the point where it IS good theatre. It is still forceful, it is still confronting – but it also has all the elements that make drama theatre – conflict, tension, dimension, changes in pace and timing, characterisation … even humour.

Gazard’s play is about being raped in her first term at university. On campus. In her own room. She writes about the shame, the guilt, the isolation, the trauma. But she also writes about her grit and determination. To report the assault. To face her parents. To accept their love and support. To expose the perpetrator. To protect other victims. To let other survivors of assault know they are “worthy… loved … and have a voice … that no one can take away”.

She plays it in The Vault, the smaller, very intimate space in KXT’s new venue on Broadway. She plays it to a small audience that almost surrounds her. Sometimes she is so close that her striking blue eyes fix you with their intensity. At other times she sits, on a chair or on the floor – almost relaxed but ever edgy, watchful. Trust is something that will need even more time.

Suzanne Millar directs Gazarrd with understanding and care, in a space that is contained but allows the changes in movement that take her from eager student, to lost victim, to loving sister, to confused interviewee. Gazard pared the interview with college official down to answers alone, many of them simply “I don’t know”. The repetition of that one answer and the growing bafflement and confusion it implies is clever writing that is beautifully directed and performed.

Millar has worked closely with lighting and sound designers Aron Murray and Rose Mulcare to ensure that the effects are as restrained as the writing.  Shadows haunt the story – and give Gazard places to hide and explain, just as patches of light help her justify the beginning of hope.

Gazard uses movement and gesture expressively to show the taut stress of trauma, the overwhelming heaviness of shame, the relief and liberation of vindication. Her performance is as contained as her script – but between them Millar and Gazard have retained vestiges of the shock, the rawness, and the loneliness of the victim as well as her courage and her very potent message.

This play joins all those who have written of, spoken of, or successfully exposed the perpetrator of sexual assault of any kind.

It also stands as a carefully crafted piece of theatre that tells its message compellingly.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

 By Tennessee Williams. Ensemble Theatre, Sydney. Directed by Shaun Rennie. 15 May – 10 June 2023

Reviewed : May 19, 2023*

We never actually meet Sebastian Venable in this play that centres around him. He is dead, but his mother, Violet, won’t let his memory be besmirched by her niece Catherine, who was with him when he died. Violet is determined to gag Catherine, who is being treated at a mental asylum – even to the extent of trying to convince a doctor to give her a lobotomy.

Williams was never anything but confronting!

This play he chose to write in one act– and yet the complexity of the characters and relationships and the darkness of the plot are just as provoking as his longer plays – and the lyricism even more poetic.

Shaun Rennie highlights that lyricism in this very beautiful production that not only accentuates the poetic language and the gentle lilt of Southern accents – but conjures the colour and atmosphere of New Orleans in the 1930s. Designer Simone Romaniuk has draped long curtains of filmy fabric printed with flowing vines and leaves from high above the back of the stage. When shifted by slight movements they shimmer in the shadowy shades of changing lighting carefully conceived by designer Morgan Moroney. Perspex boxes filled with greenery – ferns, philodendrons, a hungry venus fly trap – symbolise Sebastian’s lush “jungle garden” and the animals and “flesh eating birds” with which he populated it.

Romaniuk continues the symbolism in her costumes. All but Catherine are dressed in white, symbolic of the society of the time – a sharp contrast to Catherine’s even more symbolic red dress. The pure use of colour brings the characters into greater perspective on the tight arena stage. The audience is a close, silent observer in this savage family conflict.

Belinda Giblin inhabits the malicious Violet Venable in a performance that juxtaposes Violet’s inflexibility with her physical frailty. Violet is an arrogant woman who has idolised her son, keeping him close, even travelling with him on vacation every year. She is determined to protect his name at whatever cost. Giblin reveals the fierce depth of her rancour in spiteful lines, vicious sneers, cruel looks and menacing strikes with her white walking stick. Even as she amiably cajoles the doctor, her deviousness pervades.

Remy Hii took over the role as the Doctor only 4 days before opening night – but there is no way his performance indicates so short a rehearsal time. The Doctor he portrays is thoughtful, perceptively watchful. His eyes move from one arrogant family member to the other, categorising, deducing, professionally remote. Only with Catherine does he show compassion – and medical curiosity.

Valerie Bader returns to the Ensemble stage in the role of Mrs Holly, Catherine’s mother. Bader merges mother, aunt, sister in this clever performance. She too watches carefully, judging the right time, the right tone, the most effective words to speak to Violet, at the same time constantly mindful of the damage her headstrong son might cause.

Socratis Otto is George, that belligerent, greedy son. Otto makes George fidgety, restless, easily angered, quick to react with words – and aggressive action – yet childishly responsive to his mother’s words of restraint. His anger glints in his eyes and in his restless agitation.

Then there is Catherine! Andrea Demetriades shines as this distressed, distraught woman. Her fear and unease are shown in anxious eyes and fretful nervousness, yet there is resoluteness in her determination to share the truth of her cousin’s death. Demetriades seems to draw strength for Catherine from a void that she looks into with haunted eyes that have seen too much – a strength that the Doctor sees and reinforces with an injection of truth serum.

Kate Skinner hovers obediently as Venables’ companion and as the psychiatric nurse, Sister Felicity. She lingers, submissively waiting as the first, alertly dutiful as the second.

Rennie matches his stunning production of Tennessee Williams’ Bay Doll in 2022 with this equally theatrical production. It is precisely directed, tightly acted, creatively staged and tautly timed. The performances are transfixing – the story they tell almost unbelievable. Almost.

*Opening Night

Photographer : Jaimi Joy

 By Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. Willoughby Theatre Company. Director: Adam Haynes. The Concourse, Chatswood. 12 – 27 May, 2023

Reviewed : 12* & 13 May, 2023

What a triumph for Willoughby Theatre Company!

The Von Trapp family has made its jubilant, musical way to Chatswood and the Concourse is alive with The Sound of Music. Heralded by a magnificent choir of fourteen nuns, they take the audience back in time to 1938 as the Third Reich invades Austria, and those who resist are swept away – unless, like the von Trapps, they have the courage to escape.

Based on that brave escape, The Sound of Music is a love story with a difference. There’s politics and history, religion and tradition, submission and defiance, lots of lovely music – and a family of seven children.

Adam Haynes obviously kept all of this in mind as he deftly and sensitively brought this very professional and moving production to the stage. There is care and sincerity in every scene. He has fostered the intimacy of a family torn apart by loss then brought together by love … and music. Yet he has also realised the humour and lightness that Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse wrote into the dialogue and Rodgers and Hammerstein made famous in the songs.

This production is one of which the whole company should be very proud. The meticulous direction is matched by Janina Hamerlok’s creative and carefully instructed choreography and Callum Tolhurst-Close’s adroit musical direction. Together they have succeeded in producing a fresh, original interpretation of a much-loved musical. Not an easy achievement when they are also managing a cast of 40, ten of whom are children!

Working with children requires care and sensitivity. Working with two different sets of children as “regulated” can be even more tricky. Characterisation, blocking, movement, songs must be explained simply and explicitly. It takes a more than good direction! It takes understanding and firm, gentle command. From discussion with some of the young cast members and their parents, Haynes and his team achieved both admirably, as well as ensuring that the young actors felt and looked confident alongside other cast members.

Haynes chose that cast with care and a perceptive eye. The rapport and sense of family that was fostered in rehearsal shines brightly in every scene.

It is Maria, the young novitiate-cum-governess to whom the children must relate most closely. She needs to be warm and empathetic. She needs to inspire respect. She also needs to be able to sing those very familiar songs! Felicity Caldwell does all of this and more. There is warmth and tenderness in her performance. It begins with her deference to the nuns at the abbey. It wraps itself around the children. It touches the heart of their father. And and reaches across the orchestra pit to embrace the audience. Caldwell creates a Maria that is her own, a Maria who fills the stage with both the “sound of music” and tender caring.

Marcus James Hurley is Captain Georg von Trapp, the wealthy widowed naval hero who has been left with seven children. Hurley finds all the contained control of this character, his sadness, his sense of responsibility and his staunch loyalty to his country. There is subtlety in the way he reveals the real intensity of the Captain’s character: his genuine love of his children; the almost bemused realisation of his feelings for Maria; his strong defiance of the German invaders. Nowhere is that intensity so clear than in his face as he sings the haunting “Edelwiess”.

His children are played by 12 young people. For rehearsal and for booking clarity, the two families are called The Ländler Cast (after the Austrian dance performed in Act 1), and the Edelweiss Cast.

In every performance Abbey Thomas and Jimmy Chapman play Leisl and Friedrich, the two oldest von Trapp children. Both are talented young performers, who bring a youthful sincerity and vitality to these special roles. They have also established a warm, convincing connection with their young siblings in both families – leading them affectionately but also providing strong exemplars of focus and control.

Lana Harmey and Helen Jordan play the mischievous, prank-playing Louisa. Gabriel Wright and Xavier Billett play the sensitive but thoughtful Kurt. Chloe Brown and Isabella Coffey are the intuitive Brigitta, while Lilou McKenzie and Cara Ryan play Marta, who wants a pink parasol for her birthday! The youngest of the children, Gretl is played by Amy Mogan and Penelope Mortimer.

How intriguing it must also have been for the directors and the older cast members to see these fledgling actors flexing their wings, becoming more comfortable and confident in their relationship with each other and their stage “father” and governess. There is a genuine warmth in the way both sets of children relate with Caldwell and Hurley – and in the way Caldwell and Hurley care about them, especially in the last scenes, as they sing together at the concert … and as they hide with the nuns in the Abbey Garden.

The nuns! Fourteen wonderful voices led by Tisha R. Kelemen as the Mother Abbess fill the Concourse with perfect harmony. Kelemen brings operatic splendour to her role, as well as the ability to find the integrity and understanding warmth of her character. I’m sure there have been few Mother Abbesses played so skilfully. Julia Brovedani is the disapproving Sister Bertha, Julianne Horne the warm-hearted Sister Margaretta and Georgia Kokkoris plays the supportive Sister Sophia.

Baroness Schraeder is played by Taryn-Lea Bright who finds the panache and flair of the wealthy widow as well as her fickleness. Bright is a skilled performer who is at home on the stage, using it confidently and effectively, whether charming von Trapp and the children, or conspiring in song with the even more fickle Max Detweiler, played by Clive Hobson.

Hobson is a strong force on the stage. He injects his Detweiler with pace and pushy over-confidence, finding all his cunning and wiliness, as well as his charm and persuasiveness. Detweiler is not a particularly nice character, but Hobson makes his charm much more memorable than his duplicity.

John Tilbrook returns to WTC as Franz, the aging factotum who served with von Trapp in the navy, and Nerida Walker is the diligent, loyal housekeeper, Frau Schmidt. Both bring belief and humour to these roles.

Rolf, the telegram boy who has won Liesl’s heart is played by Matthew de Meyrick. This is a relatively small part, but politically important to the plot and De Meyrick makes his gradual transition to Hitler Youth effectively and convincingly.

Tim Wotherspoon is Admiral von Schreiber and Mitchell Jacka the nasty Herr Zeller. They are also part of the ensemble who dance at the Captain’s gala dinner. That scene is one of the highlights of the production. The choreography is true to time and place and is explicitly rehearsed and timed. The tiny segment where eleven-year-old Kurt dances with Maria centres the scene, and the children’s goodnight song takes it to a picturesque conclusion.

Picturesque is an apt word to describe this production. The set is stunning, the lighting, designed by Tom French, makes it even more stunning, gently illuminating special moments, and working in conjunction with Callum Tolhurst-Close and his hidden, but beautifully heard orchestra, to enhance the atmosphere of darker moments.

Adam Haynes, his creatives and all those working behind the scene – and there are many, including the parents who have buoyed their young actors through late nights and reluctant mornings and even now are working behind the scenes as chaperones – have every right to be very proud of a very professional and expertly reimagined production of this classic musical.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine

*Opening Night

 Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. The Concert Hall and Forecourt, Sydney Opera House. 6th May, 2023

Reviewed : May 6, 2023

Mind blowing in every sense! The music, the singing, the imagination, the acting … a total ‘wow’!

This was a concert conceived to captivate! Broadway Hits from the 1940s, 50s and 60s. From shows that helped the world recover from a nasty war. Shows that were transferred from the stage to the silver screen then to television sets in living rooms all over the world. Shows with big orchestras, optimistic stories, wonderful songs … songs that were played again and again from treasured record albums.

Making this concert part of the 50^th birthday celebrations was an inspiration. Broadcasting it to the forecourt of “The House” spread the joy even further. The atmosphere outside on the steps was fizzing well over an hour before the performance began – and inside the very full Concert Hall the atmosphere was electric as Brett Weymark and his magic baton took the stage. And the elation grew!

Weymark and the orchestra, choir and soloists took the audience on a joyous journey around the world. It crossed America from Broadway to Oklahoma, sailed to “an island, looking on an ocean” in the South Pacific, then flew north to a kingdom in Siam and across Europe to London and Royal Ascot.

The journey thoughtfully reflected the hopes and concerns of a new post-war era – and the songs were carefully programmed to link themes and tempos. The theme of new beginnings was linked by “Blue Skies” from White Christmas and Nellie Forbush’s “Cockeyed Optimist” from South Pacific. The moon shone on different situations – and in different tempos – in “What Good Would the Moon Be?” from Street Scene, “The Man in the Moon” from Mame and “Moonshine Lullaby” from Annie Get Your Gun.

The orchestra had its own very special moments, especially with the allusively evocative strains of the waltz from Carousel. The Choirs, resplendently theatrical in black and white and some cunningly subtle bling and feathers, gave a very British rendition of the “Ascot Gavotte” from My Fair Lady.

Memories of those wonderful shows are often associated with the actors who performed them. Rightly so, because it was their interpretation of the characters and the songs that made them so memorable. But good performers don’t need elaborate sets and costumes to be memorable.

Certainly not performers like Virginia Gay, Georgina Hopson, Kanen Breen and Alexander Lewis. The performances they gave last night were just stunning! All four have magnificent voices, all have a wealth of experience in all areas of musical theatre – all can create the character behind the lyrics and the mood of the music wherever they are performing.

Last night, in the Concert Hall, and outside on the big screen in the forecourt, they did just that!

Kanen Breen became a very persuasive, priestly Nicely-Nicely Johnson from as he sang “Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat” – and an agile Jed Potter from Blue Skies as he put on “The  Ritz”. Perhaps he wasn’t “dressed up like a million-dollar trooper” but his jacket sparkled just as brilliantly as his voice.

Virginia Gay has an eclectic theatre background and compelling stage presence. Her performance last night was a crowd pleaser, whether playing the trombone with the orchestra, becoming Hattie Walker singing “Broadway Baby” from Follies or a “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” Vera Simpson from Pal Joey.

Georgina Hopson is similarly talented and charismatic! She captivated as both the English governess Anna Leonowens wondering “Shall We Dance” from The King and I and the metamorphosed Eliza Doolittle telling Mrs Higgins she “Could have Danced All Night”.

The wonderful tenor Alexander Lewis returned to the Concert Hall with the SPC, after his performance in Handel’s Samson. But in this performance he was much less sombre, his actions much less restricted!  With the Choirs he explained that “A Secretary is not a Toy” and with Kanen Breen sang the stirring “Brotherhood of Man” and “New York, New York” from On the Town.

The four joined together in the choruses of many of the songs, and in the rousing theme song from Oklahoma! that led, resoundingly into the interval. Gay led them into the much-loved “Hello, Dolly” which closed the show to a standing ovation that, eventually and noisily, dragged them back for a short reprise.

Shows such as these are hard to put together. Just the choice of which shows and what songs takes judicious thought. Which will best show off the choir and the orchestra? Which best suit the soloists? How should the program be arranged?

With Weymark at the helm and the incredible Sydney Philharmonia’s musical directors and administrative staff, behind him, those decisions were made surely and successfully. This special concert is an example of a special musical event that will be as shine as memorably as the Broadway musicals on which it was based.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

 GUTS Dance, Central Australia. Toured by Artback NT. Riverside Theatres Parramatta. May 4-6, 2023

Reviewed : May 5, 2023

The great thing about contemporary dance is that you never really know what to expect. You can read the media releases and the program notes – and they are always very descriptive and thought provoking – but they are just words! They can’t really prepare you for the way the choreographers and the performers translate those words into allusive, complex, even provocative, movement.

 Such is the case with Value for Money. Who could imagine that experiences in the Middle East and Israel years ago could result in a performance that delves into the ideals and tenets of heritage and community, that infers mistreatment and ignorance, that stresses the importance of safety and trust.

Sara Black and Jasmin Sheppard coalesced those ‘values’ in this intricate and evocative performance, based not only on their own experience, but in collaboration with dancers and creatives whose stories brought even greater depth and insight to their original concept. A concept Sheppard describes as “a multi-layered work, which I believe can speak to audiences from a vast array of diverse human experience.”

Five performers express those diverse experiences in movement that is graphically sensitive and suggestive. From still, naked aloneness to caring togetherness, they trace the many and varied mores that affect relationships and communities. There are suggestions of mistrust and doubt, rejection and suffering, but there is also an overwhelming feeling of hope and coming together in trust and confidence.

Suffused lighting effects designed by Chris Mercer allows hazy segments where the performers dance free of clothes, suggesting perhaps the uncluttered sincerity of unity and faith, especially in the final moments of the production.

Based in Mparntwe (Alice Springs), GUTS is a contemporary dance organisation  situated in the “unique environment of the Central Australian Desert”. It is the only one of its kind in a 1500km radius. How wonderful that they are able to share some of their creative work with a wider audience!

First published in Stage Whispers magazine.

 

It is not often that rehearsed readings are reviewed! But this is a little more than a ‘reading’ …

The Disappearance is a ‘double adaptation’! It is based on the book The Boy Who Could Make Himself Disappear by Kin Platt in 1968 and Baxter, the 1973 screenplay of the book written by Reginald Rose. Director Les Solomon first directed the play in 1976 at the Wayside Chapel and for a youth theatre production in 1991.

When he found and read an old copy of the play recently, he realised that the theme resounded even more clearly today than perhaps it did forty years ago when mental health issues were not so readily discussed or diagnosed, especially in relation to young people.

The Disappearance is about Roger Baxter, a teenager suffering from a speech disorder and emotional issues following the divorce of his callous parents and his mother’s decision to relocate to a different city. Despite being befriended by some understanding tenants, his mother’s continuing insensitivity and neglect cause Roger to ‘disappear’ into a schizophrenic withdrawal that requires hospitalisation.

In this adaptation Solomon moves Roger and his mother from America to an apartment in Sydney – so the relocation is even more disorientating and his ‘alone-ness’ more distressing.

Despite the disturbing theme, the play has moments of gentle humour and compassion, and Solomon’s cast have, in only eight days, brought this rehearsed ‘reading’ to a moving single night performance.

Gordon Vignelles performs a touchingly real portrayal of Roger, a portrayal that reaches beyond ‘reading’ to find the tortured loneliness of a young man crying out for understanding in an atmosphere of scorn and abuse, perpetrated by his mother Stella, played by Norah George.

Tayman Jamae depicts both his obnoxious father and Mr Rawling, a sadistic teacher. Nicola Bartholemew is Nemmo, the girl across from his apartment who watches him through her telescope and becomes his friend. Felicity Beale and David Hooley bring joy to his life as kind, caring Chris Bentley and Roger Tunnell.

When things become too much, and Roger begins to withdraw, he is protected by Dr Clemm, played with patient compassion by Katrina Retallick.

Liam Faulkner Dimond narrates the ‘reading’ as well as providing original music that, with lighting effects by Sean Clarke, emphasises the fact that the evening is much more than a ‘rehearsed reading’ – in fact one that Solomon feels may become a full scale production.

Watch this space!

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine.

By Noël Coward. Theatre on Chester, Epping, NSW. Director Cate Cunningham. 14 April – 6 May, 2023

Reviewed : April 23, 2023

Noël Coward finished writing Blithe Spirit on 9^th May 1941. It opened only a month later in Manchester, and his own production of the play opened in July 1942 and ran for 1,997 performances in theatres in the West End. It is fitting therefore that the Theatre on Chester presents this production almost 82 years after the maestro penned the last lines of this, one of his famous ‘social comedies’.

Today Coward’s works are regarded as ‘period pieces’, and director Cate Cunningham has stayed true to his time in her design and direction. Her set is a tribute to the Art Deco motifs that pervaded in Europe and Britain through the 1920s and 30s, and the costumes reflect the styles that were favoured by the British social elite during the 1940s. Her direction too, clings closely to the time, emphasising Coward’s clipped sentences and his almost satirical depiction of his own social milieu.

Blithe Spirit is what Coward himself described as “an improbable comedy in three acts”. He had apparently wanted to write a play about ghosts and the “blithe spirit” in the play is the ghost of Charles Condamine’s first wife, Elvira. She is conjured during a séance conducted by the clairvoyant Madame Arcati at the request of Condamine, a novelist, who thought the séance might give him ideas for a new book. Unfortunately it does much more than that! Elvira disrupts Condamine’s life, and that of his second wife Ruth, in scenes that become increasingly chaotic.

Over the years, the character of Madame Arcati has become the stage epitome of the “mad medium” and Christine Rule does the image proud in this production. Shedding colourful hats, scarves and jackets, she bursts into the Condamine’s home with carefully controlled flamboyant gestures, melodramatic expressions and a shrill Scottish accent, disrupting the ‘refined’ calm of the gathering and setting the scene for events that become, in her own words, “catastrophic”.

Rule brings comedic pace and energy to the production, as does Madeleine Dart as the spectral Elvira. Dart silently drifts around the set, watching at first, then becoming increasingly provocative. She goads Condamine, flirting seductively – and when he eventually explains her presence to Ruth, Elvira’s jealousy is nastily released.

Condamine is played by Christopher Clark, who shows Condamine’s increasing loss of self-assurance as he moves from arrogant control to confused uncertainty. Clark is an experienced, confident performer who finds both the cutting cynicism of Coward’s character and his frailty.

Penny Day is Ruth. Day establishes Ruth’s confident poise in the first scenes and shows how she tries desperately hard to sustain some equilibrium as her life is viciously, stylishly undermined by Elvira’s malice.

Dr and Mrs Bradman, guests at the séance, are stylishly portrayed by Bob Blunt and Kate Mannix, and Fabiola Pellegrino is Edith, the new maid who not only serves the Condamines, but is cleverly directed to carry out some small scene changes.

Cunningham has ensured the action moves in keeping with the changes effected by both Madame Arcati and Elvira. The staid, social tempo of the Condamine’s dinner party is disrupted by Arcati’s gaudy energy – and completely ramped up as Elvira wreaks her havoc.

Ghost stories often require special effects – and this play is no exception. Elvira’s “appearances” are heralded by quivering lights (Mike Brew, Wal Moore and James Miller Argue) and eerie music (Charles Wiltshire). Other special effects came from the creative imagination of production manager John Wiltshire and were manipulated and manoeuvred by Wiltshire himself and his very adept stage crew.

Cate Cunningham has taken her cast back to Coward’s élite wartime London, complete with dry martinis, fur stoles, Art Deco and British aplomb. Her Blithe Spirit artfully invokes the tenor of the 1940s … as well as being entertaining theatre.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House. 19 – 22 April, 2023

Reviewed : April 24, 2023

This concert is an incredible combination of musical masterpieces. Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, his last major work, was written at the end of World War I – and Shostakovich’s tense, suggestive Symphony No. 10 was written in 1953 after the death of the Soviet oppressor Joseph Stalin. Both speak, as only music can, across the barriers of language to express the universal emotions of suffering, loss, and bitter victory. Both take the musicians, and the audience, through torment and turmoil to eventual triumph. Both are evocative … yet are very different.

Elgar’s wife Alice described the Cello Concerto as a “lament which should be a war symphony” and certainly the four movements reflect the varying implications of a lament … grief, sorrow, regret, and occasional elation.

Cellist Nicolas Altstaedt, “one of the most sought-after and versatile artists” of today, found every possible intimation of those emotions in his interpretation of Elgar’s complex and contrasting reflections on four years of war. With the orchestra, led by visiting conductor Sir Donald Runnicles, the tension behind each of the four movements of the concerto is mirrored in his body, in his face and eyes, in his deft, fast fingers and the poised purposeful power of his bow.

Altstaedt’s investment in his performance and the music is total because he believes that “music should always give a feeling to people that they hear something that we cannot put into words, that is much bigger than what we do in our daily lives”.

If Altstaedt is right, then Shostakovich’s symphony gave “a feeling” that reflected not only the fear and oppression of Stalin’s violent dictatorial rule of the Soviet Union – but could well be a musical manifestation of similar fear and oppression emanating from the actions and ambitions of dictatorial governments today.

The harsh intensity of the second movement of the symphony invokes fear and even terror – and could summon contemporary images of Ukraine or Afghanistan or Sudan. I am not qualified to write about the complexities of Shostakovich’s composition or how he wove the instruments and themes together to create the atmospheres that pervade and interact and call back to each other – or the intensity and hopeful triumph of the final movement.

Suffice to say that Sir Donald and the wonderful musicians of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra certainly made this performance of Shostakovich’s very provocative symphony an experience for the audience that was, indeed, very “much bigger than what we do in our daily lives”.

Mirage, the composition that introduced this concert, is by young Australian composer, arranger and collaborative artist Alex Turtley. It is a new work commissioned by the SSO through the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s 50 Fanfares Project. In it Turtley separates the orchestral brass instruments and moves them far away from each other. Some of the musicians were “socially distanced” along the gallery behind the orchestra. Others stood at the back of boxes in the hall itself. All were conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles as they called out to one another in Turtley’s “interwoven melodies” creating what the composer himself describes as a “shimmering quality … that underpins the central theme and title of the work”, namely the refraction of rays of light in a mirage. This harmonic interplay of the horns was an intriguing introduction to the music that was to come.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine

By Hans Christian Anderson, adapted for Ballet by Martin Sierra. Victorian State Ballet. The Concourse, Chatswood. April 14 – 18, 2023

Reviewed : April 14, 2022

It’s always a treat when the Victorian State Ballet brings one of its productions to Chatswood. It’s also wonderful that local ballet students are invited to audition for the young ‘corps’. In this production thirty-three lucky young dancers – some advanced, some intermediate and some junior – ‘made the cut’ to play the Princes and Princesses of the Snow Queen’s entourage.

This is a great learning opportunity for those young performers. Not only do they learn some classic choreography, and get to wear to wear some beautiful costumes, but they also learn much about focus and production etiquette from the professional dancers, and the production crew. It’s certainly something they won’t forget. Nor will the many family members, friends and fellow student dancers who flock to the Concourse to see what has become a favourite, and relatively inexpensive, annual event.

The Snow Queen is based on one of Hans Christian Anderson’s famous fairy tales, in which an evil troll breaks a mirror that magnifies only the bad and ugly aspects of the people it reflects. The splinters of the mirror, blown all over the world by the wind, get into people’s eyes and freeze their hearts. Gerda and her young playmate Kai are dancing together when Kai is infected by an ice splinter. He runs away to the river where he is enchanted by the Snow Queen. Gerda searches for him and eventually saves him from the Snow Queen’s spell with a kiss. Kai and Gerda dance joyously and are blessed by the Snow Queen because their pure love has conquered evil.

In her search for Kai Gerda meets fortune tellers, two crows, gypsies, robbers and a captured reindeer as well as the snowflakes who guard the Snow Queen’s palace. This array of characters plays right into the hands of costume designers Jan Tredrea, Mandy West & Jill Kerr who juxtapose the glistening white of the snowflakes and the Snow Queen’s shimmery turquoise robe with green and gold, black and red, blue and yellow.

Artistic Director Martin Sierra himself uses atmospheric lighting and projected images to set the various scenes including the shattering magic mirror.

Michelle Cassar de Sierra cleverly introduces contemporary touches to her choreography, adding gentle moments of humour and piquancy to the fairy tale nature of the story. It is evident particularly in the acrobatic elegance of the troll which Tynan Woods performs with lithe energy and just a little sinister intent – characteristics that he sheds to become a strident robber and the princely Snow Cavalier.

As the Snow Queen, Elise May Watson-Lord is sophisticated grace with a touch of ice as she rules from her cold white palace. Watson-Lord brings a wealth of experience to this role, which she performs with vibrant poise.

Elise Jacques and Benjamin Harris delight as the naïve innocents, Gerda and Kai. They dance beautifully together, at the same time transmitting their childlike trust and gullibility.

Henry Driver and Cieren Edinger are the two crows who accompany Gerda on part of her search – and Josh Steinke delights as Bae, the lively, wide-eyed reindeer who directs her to Lapland.

This production shines, literally, as the glittering snowflakes, snow bees and their icy white Queen bewitch the audience with the poised control and structured grace that is always inspiring in balletic work.

The Snow Queen is another of Martin Sierra’s clever adaptations, produced and performed with all the joie de vivre we have come to expect from the Victorian State Ballet.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

By George Frideric Handel. Words John Milton and Newburgh Hamilton. Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House. Saturday 8 April, 2023

Reviewed : April 8, 2023

Handel’s Samson! In the Concert Hall of the Opera House! On Easter Saturday! Wow!

It’s aways a thrill to see and hear the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs – as anyone of the audience of the 1250 ardent Philharmonia followers will testify. But this one was special, and it’s hard to find the appropriate adjectives! Stunning? Magnificent? Superb? Dramatic? All of those and more. And yet the music was written by Handel in 1741 to words written by the poet John Milton from 1671 – and they were based on words from the book of Judges in the Old Testament of the Bible written between 1200-165 BCE! That’s remarkable! As was yesterday’s performance.

In his 20^th year as Artistic and Music Director of the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, Brett Weymark led his choir, the orchestra and seven very talented soloists in Handel’s musical re-telling of Samson’s final days … and his last triumphant act of strength.

Who was Samson? Samson was the last judge named in the Book of Judges. He died in 1051 BCE when David was the king of the Israelites. He was celebrated for his feats of strength but ended up blind and in chains, betrayed by his wife Dalila to whom he disclosed the secret that his strength lay in his long hair. One night, as he slept, Dalia cut off his hair and betrayed him to her Philistine compatriots, who captured Samson, put out his eyes, and imprisoned him.

Handel’s oratorio tells of Samson’s regret at falling for Dalila’s wiles, giving away his secret and letting down the Israelites. It tells of his rejection of Dalila’s apology, of his reckless challenge to fight the giant Philistine soldier, Harapha, and concludes with Samson regaining his strength enough to destroy the Philistine temple – and, alas, himself.

Unwounded of his enemies he fell,
At once he did destroy and was destroy’d;
The edifice where all were met to see,
Upon their heads, and on his own he pull’d!

It’s a story characterised by betrayal, loss of self-esteem, despair, and death … but eventual triumph. Milton portrayed that in words, Handel transformed them into music that took them to more complex dimensions –  all of which resounded superbly in the Concert Hall yesterday.

Particularly superb was the performance of Alexander Lewis as Samson. Lewis sang heart-wrenchingly of the despair of the man, bereft of his power and his sight, languishing in prison – but he also became the man and his anguish when he was not singing. His eyes stared into a lonely space; his body seemed to carry the weight of suffering. It was a memorable performance that was deeply moving. (He will sing with the Philharmonia in the Concert Hall again in The Golden Age of Broadway on Saturday 6^th May at 7pm).

Samson’s friend Micah was invented by librettist Newburgh Hamilton to narrate the story as a sort of Greek Chorus, and countertenor Russell Harcourt performed this long and exacting role with aplomb, finding Handel’s musical perception of the poet’s words in lines such as …

Ye sons of Israel now lament …
Your glory’s fled
Amongst the dead
Great Samson lies
For ever, ever, clos’d his eyes!

Soprano Celeste Lazarenko, as Dalila, charmed the audience as she sang (and played) the shamed, apologetic wife, rather than the “hyena” Samson described whose “charms to ruin led the way”.

Manoa, Samson’s proud but devasted father, was performed by bass-baritone Christopher Richardson, who found a father’s anguish in his carefully modulated notes.

Perth-born Andrew O’Connor made his debut at the Sydney Opera House singing the boasting Philistine “giant” Harapha. O’Connor’s powerful bass voice taunted Samson in his “chains” but met his own fate at Samson’s hands when Samson felled the Philistine temple.

T

enor Matthew Flood was the messenger describing Samson’s death – and introducing the beautifully sombre dirge with which Handel heralded Samson’s hearse. Here, Lazarenko returned to the stage as an Israelite woman, calling the Virgin Choristers – and Irish-Australian soprano Stephanie Mooney – as they brought the “laurels” to strew on the hearse.

Behind the soloists, supporting them constantly, was Weymark, the orchestra and the watchful, wonderful one hundred and five singers of the Philharmonia Chorus. Together their voices rang out in praise at times, in sadness at others – and joyfully as they “let their celestial concerts all unite” in the final moments of the oratorio.

It’s always special to watch Brett Weymark at work. His love of the music is evident in vibrant enthusiasm and his extraordinary relationship with each part of orchestra and every member of the choir. This performance was no exception. Together with the soloists, they made this interpretation of Handel’s musical characterisation of the bible story much more than a ‘performance’.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine.