Wednesday 28 August 2019

EIF 2019 - Breaking the Waves at the King's, or The Things We Do for Love

Staged opera has been a bit of a challenge for the International Festival in recent years, so it was a pleasant surprise when this year's programme was announced to find that one of only two staged operas was to be a European premiere. I'd read a positive note of Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek's new work in the New Yorker. I'd also been a huge fan of Tom Morris's production of John Adams's masterpiece The Death of Klinghoffer for ENO. The signs were encouraging. This proved to be a gripping evening of music theatre, introducing me to a work which deserves to be widely seen.

The new opera is an adaptation of Lars van Trier's 1996 film of the same name. I haven't seen the film so I can't comment on how the adaptation compares. What particularly surprised me was the sudden realisation a few days before I attended that both have a Scottish setting. Given the Festival has been anxious to play up Scottish content in recent years it fascinates me that more emphasis was not placed in the marketing of this run on that Scottish setting. I wonder if the darker Scotland portrayed here may be a factor - a community whose narrow minded, intolerant religion has terrible consequences. I actually thought this story had more interesting things to say about Scotland than most of the recent newly commissioned Scottish plays the Festival has offered - not least because it is centrally concerned with a darker Scottish world than those plays have often wanted to address.

Thursday 22 August 2019

EIF 2019 - Stephen Fry's Mythos at the Festival Theatre, or, Excuse Me While I Digress

At the start of Part 3 of this epic there was a striking moment, indicative of what could have been a rather different show. Fry comes on stage (I think to some music and lighting effects) and lies down. A ball rolls up to him. Then, without preamble or side note, he starts to tell a story - a traveller washed up naked on a beach, taken in by the local rulers, fed and clothed. Fry takes care not to name the traveller, and while some in the audience (myself included) may remember the episode, this gives it an air of mystery - we want to know who he is, what will happen next. The local bard is asked to entertain them and starts in on the tale of the Trojan War, and the princess sees that our shipwrecked traveller is weeping. This is my story, he says...

That opening is a tight, focused piece of storytelling. It's also part of a narrative (effectively the Trojan War and Odysseus's return) which provides Fry with a coherent dramatic shape. As a result, although Part 3 doesn't manage to maintain the high standard of the opening throughout it is more satisfying than the other two segments. The problems elsewhere arise from several factors.

Friday 16 August 2019

EIF 2019 - Eugene Onegin at the Festival Theatre, or, Is it raining? I hadn't noticed.

It's a comment on the limitations on EIF finances these days that this, one of only two staged operas at the 2019 Festival, only arrives at the end of the second week. It received a rapturous reception from the audience, but from where I was sitting I was less convinced.

This was a return visit for Komische Oper and director Barry Kosky. This pairing was last seen at the Festival with their disappointing Magic Flute in 2015, with Kosky having been a fairly frequent visitor since the Mills era. I've also seen several Kosky opera productions in London. He has a considerable reputation, but I still can't see why, and this production did not change my mind. This evening was, however, an improvement on my only previous live encounter with this work - Holten and Ticciati's flawed recent version at Covent Garden (though I was interested on re-reading my blog on that performance that I liked that production more than I'd remembered).

Thursday 15 August 2019

EIF 2019 - Angela Hewitt at the Usher Hall, or, A Masterclass in Pianism

The last time I heard Angela Hewitt at the Edinburgh Festival (I'm pretty sure) was way back in the mists of time in 2002. On that occasion she was a substitute for Andras Schiff and performed the Goldberg Variations to a sold out Usher Hall as part of the wonderful Royal Bank Lates. I remember that concert for several reasons. I hadn't planned to go when it was originally advertised because I'd heard Schiff in several Queen's Hall recitals and hadn't cared for his style. Nor was I, then, very keen on Bach. But when the substitution was announced I thought I'd like to hear Hewitt live. I credit that concert with making me realise that Bach can be a rather amazing composer. So when the programme was announced for this year's Festival, these two marathon concerts of the complete Well Tempered Clavier were top of my list of things to catch. It proved to be a memorable experience.

Hewitt's programme note, matched to her approach to grouping in performance, proved very helpful to this listener effectively encountering the work for the first time - I recognised the occasional individual prelude and fugue, and the phrase that Kit and the Widow satirise as Lloyd Webber borrowing. Hewitt suggests that it is helpful to approach the preludes and fugues as groups of four. This gave shape to the evenings and assisted me to retain a sense of place within the journey.

Wednesday 14 August 2019

EIF 2019 - Roots at the Church Hill, or, An Underwhelming Afternoon

Note: This is a review of the matinee on Sunday 11th August 2019.

My only previous encounter with the company 1927 was their Magic Flute, staged for Komische Oper Berlin in collaboration with Barrie Kosky which visited the Festival back in 2015. I was underwhelmed. I thought that perhaps seeing one of their own shows would explain their reputation to me, but I'm afraid this anthology while technically impressive and delivered by a versatile ensemble of musician actors (Susanna Andrade, Esme Appleton, David Insua-Cao, Francesca Simmons) left me rather cold.

This new show, co-produced by Edinburgh and receiving its European premiere here, is a collection of folk tales including a greedy cat, patient Griselda (whom it is difficult not to regard as out of her mind in this version) and an ant who loses her mouse husband in a stew accident. The company's approach is a repeat of that used in The Magic Flute, with the benefit here that they can precisely tailor the constant musical accompaniment to fit their needs. So the staging consists of a white screen on which everything required is projected, with a few holes cut in it through which faces and hands can appear.

Tuesday 13 August 2019

EIF 2019 - The Secret River, or, Under Very Challenging Circumstances

Note: This is a review of the matinee performance on Saturday 10th August 2019.

A pre-curtain announcement from director Neil Armfield hinted that the run of this production was continuing under challenging circumstances, but it was only the result of a conversation afterwards with a relative that I learnt just how challenging. Frankly, it is astonishing that the rest of the cast are managing to continue under those circumstances and the remarks that follow must be presaged by an acknowledgement that we were lucky to see the show at all, and a sincere hope for the recovery of Ningali Lawford-Wolf.

To turn then to the show itself. I haven't read Kate Grenville's novel, so I can't comment on how Andrew Bovell's adaptation compares. We follow the fortune of now pardoned convict William Thornhill (Nathaniel Dean) and his wife Sal (Georgia Adamson) as they attempt to occupy a hundred acres of land on the Hawkesbury River in colonial New South Wales. Thornhill attempts to convince himself that the land is virgin, that they are entitled to take possession. His wife, still longing for a return to her native London (evocatively conjured in text and, at moments in staging) is much more sceptical. The story focuses on exposing the fallacy of Thornhill's claim. We find his family at first alongside the First Nation people who have inhabited the area for far longer, and watch as tensions mount to inevitable violence.

Wednesday 7 August 2019

Present Laughter at the Old Vic, or, Acceptable Revisions?

Note: This is a belated review of the performance on Thursday 25th July 2019.

Like buses you wait ages for a revival of a work, then two come along in quick succession. This is a much stronger production of Coward's play than the disappointing Chichester version last summer. Andrew Scott is outstanding in the title role. But it is not a flawless evening.

The highlight of the evening is unquestionably Andrew Scott's Garry Essendine. He's a commanding, charismatic stage presence. It's completely believable that he's been packing theatres for years - whenever he's on stage it's almost impossible not to watch him. Yet at the same time Scott is aware of the need, in a way that Rufus Hound wasn't at Chichester, for a distinction between Essendine's on-stage and off-stage character. There are a number of fine, subtle moments when Scott dials the energy, the forcefulness right back to reveal a touching, believable vulnerability. In particular, a tiny moment when his wife Liz has clearly rung off abruptly caught at my heart.