Romeo and Juliet at the Barbican, or, A Bland Updating

Note: A belated review of the performance on Thursday 20th December 2018.

This is a show that feels like it is trying a little too hard to be down with the kids. It updates the action to a bland modern setting which, ultimately, lacks dramatic conviction. The ensemble too often seem to be struggling with the language. There are occasional flashes of inspiration but overall it lacks punch.

The first significant problem is Tom Piper's minimalist set - metal walls at the back and a single cube room in the middle which has to double as far too many different places. Apart from a bizarre moss back curtain for the Lawrence's cell scenes there's no sense of contrast in wealth or location to reflect anything in the text. Frequently members of the cast have to rotate the cube or move the very occasional piece of furniture or prop in a way that doesn't fit with their character. The cover image of the programme suggests there might have been a plan of setting it in a gritty urban cityscape, but the set pretty completely fails to realise this - that cover image of the lovers embracing is far more evocative of a world than pretty much anything in the visuals of the actual production.

The Second Violinist at the Barbican, or, A Strange Reluctance to Set the Text

The day after this performance I was booked to see the ENO production of Britten's Paul Bunyan at Wilton's Music Hall. After this performance I expected an interesting juxtaposition. It often seems to be questioned whether Paul Bunyan with its unseen, non-singing narrator and sequence of numbers rather than through composition is an opera. Donnacha Dennehy and Enda Walsh's The Second Violinist is described as "a new opera" in the programme, but the limited amount of actual singing seems to me to raise questions.

I previously encountered this pairing in their first opera The Last Hotel, performed at the EIF in 2015, and about which I had reservations. Overall I got more out of this second attempt, but it remains flawed - particularly in terms of really engaging me emotionally - a familiar problem for recent new operas I've seen (Ades's Exterminating Angel was a notable exception).

Taylor Mac's 24 Decade History (The First Act) at the Barbican, or, A Rather Extraordinary Evening

Note: A review of the performance on Friday 29th June 2018.

If you'd told me at 7.35pm last Friday evening as, disgruntled, I watched the audience continue to trickle nonchalantly in (the advertised start time of this three hour show was 7.30pm) that some two and a half hours later I'd have a supporting cast member sitting beside me pretending to be drunk while I patted his hand and Taylor Mac sang a lullaby and, more importantly, that I'd be finding this conceit touching rather than annoying I doubt I'd have believed you. But so it was. Regular readers will know I'm not a fan of immersive theatre – that this show, which is full of it, gradually drew me into it tells you how remarkable a piece of theatre this is.

This performance is the first three hours of a twenty four hour marathon, exploring the history of the United States since 1776 through its popular music. Originally staged as a non-stop 24 hour performance in New York City it has been broken down into a variety of other increments around the world. According to Taylor Mac the plan is to stage it in London in increments (a segment every year or every two years were both mooted). On the strength of this episode there's no question in my mind that the rest should come over.

Obsession at the Barbican, or, Unengaging and Self-Indulgent

Note: This is a belated review of the matinee on Saturday 29th April 2017.

This was, I think, my third Ivo van Hove directed show. I remain very unconvinced of his alleged brilliance as a director. This isn't as annoying as his Shakespeare mash up Kings of War but it is slow, dull and gimmicky.

The show is, apparently, based on a film by Luchino Visconti. Not having seen the film, I have no idea how closely the scripts compare but if they are very similar I can only assume that the film being in Italian masked the cliched nature of the dialogue. Certainly the text confers few plaudits on either adaptor Jan Peter Gerrits or English translator Simon Stephens. The story is a familiar love triangle – woman married to older man falls for passing younger heart throb who eventually murders husband, is consumed by guilt and everything ends unhappily. To make this material work you need persistent high tension between the characters and a sense of pace driving everybody towards the successive disasters. For reasons that were never clear to me, van Hove moves things forward at the speed of a snail, leaving me longing to shout at the ensemble to get on with it. Minimal tension is created at any point.

Beware of Pity at the Barbican, or, Technically Impressive (if Familiar) but Emotionally Cold

Note: A belated review of the performance on Sunday 12th February 2017

My past experiences with those involved in this production have been mixed. I thought Complicite's The Master and Margarita was remarkable. I had mixed feelings about Simon McBurney's The Encounter, and I was not impressed by the Schaubuhne Berlin's Richard III (touring alongside this show and featuring some of the same cast). As I seem to be saying depressingly often these days other critics, and social media opinion, have largely raved about this one but it left me cold.

As a staging it reminded me strongly of The Encounter. Although some scenes are partially staged (usually in lighted space centre stage) and there is some use of props and the wearily familiar projections around the sides and to the back, far too much of this show consists of people delivering text into onstage microphones. As a radio play this would work better, as theatre, for me, it had an alienating effect which the show never transcended. A similar problem bedevils the adaptation (by McBurney and colleagues). I haven't read the book, but other reviews suggest that the adaptors have maintained the narrative style – wherein the older Hofmiller recalls the experience of his younger self. There are two issues here. First, because the narration is constantly telling you how people feel and what to think about things there is little room for the viewer to use his or her own imagination – like far too much theatre at the moment there is a lecturing element. But secondly, and more seriously, on too many occasions the narration drags on (there is also not enough variety of delivery) with insufficient visual accompaniment. On a radio, where you have to imagine the scene from the words this might work quite well – on a stage cluttered with actors sitting at their microphones there is a constant unconvincing divorce between text and visuals.

Cymbeline at the Barbican, or, Making Magic from Potential Muddle

Regular readers (and twitter followers) may have noticed that I've been suffering a run of poor to indifferent shows. It is therefore a joy to be able to say that this RSC Cymbeline breaks the run, in magical, moving fashion.

As a play Cymbeline is at times like a compendium of Shakespeare devices, characters and plots all thrown together into an occasionally crazy pot. We have battles stepping out of the history plays, feigned deaths akin to Hero or Juliet, recovered heirs as in The Winter's Tale and a darker reusing of the idea of love tokens seen more happily in All's Well. Then there are the abrupt deaths, the sudden changes of tone, and an exposition heavy final scene. It is easy to imagine a less accomplished team coming to grief. That instead the play transcends its limitations is I think a tribute to the way the team trust it. From the outset this show simply asserts belief in this world and its abrupt changes of fortune, and that tone successfully carried me over even the most bumpy textual moments.

On the Twentieth Century at the Guildhall, or, It's About Life on a Train

Note: This is a review of the performance on Saturday 2nd July.

Regular readers may have realised that I have a real soft spot for what I think of as old fashioned musical comedy. By this I mean shows which are real musical comedies – witty, plot on the silly side, happy ending assured – musicals, one might put it, as they once were. This 1978 show (music Cy Coleman, book & lyrics by the incomparable Betty Comden and Adolph Green) has had a recent London outing, off-West End at the Union, but I wasn't able to catch it – so I was delighted when I discovered the Guildhall was reviving it for the musical theatre class's end of year show. I was even more delighted when I started to scan through the programme book on Saturday evening and discovered that the director was Martin Connor and the choreographer Bill Deamer – the team responsible some years back now for the magnificent Babes in Arms revival at Chichester (still, I'm tempted to say, the best musical revival I've ever seen there). And I was not disappointed – yes there are some uneven aspects to the evening but taken all in all, it's performed with great panache, and that vital sense of pure enjoyment which says yes, we know this is all a bit silly, but isn't it such fun. Indeed it is.

Zender's Winterreise at the Barbican, or, Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You Should

Note: This is a review of the performance on Thursday 12th May 2016.

The original version of Schubert's song cycle Winterreise is, in the right hands, one of the most searing pieces in the repertoire. Although it requires only two performers it possesses remarkable emotional and musical range. I was sceptical in advance about whether the work could be improved, or even equalled, either via orchestration or, particularly, the addition of multimedia elements. Committed performances from Ian Bostridge and the Britten Sinfonia under Baldur Bronnimann did not convince me otherwise.

I mistakenly thought, until I read the programme afterwards, that Zender's orchestration dated from the Weimar era, in fact it dates from the early 1990s – possibly I was misled by elements in the design of this performance which seemed rather influenced by the world of Kander & Ebb's Cabaret. Schubert's original is still largely detectable, and the additions are not challenging but rather bring to mind other familiar voices such as Bartok, Strauss, Wagner and, obviously, Weimar cabaret. The sound world stretches from slightly twisted Schubertesque chamber music to Hammer Horroresque film score. Overall, it struck me musically as an interesting occasional piece but one which suffers from fundamental weaknesses in comparison to the original. Zender is so busy bigging up effects that he doesn't leave the space for the listener's imagination that the original piano accompaniment allows. More seriously it manages, for me, to lose the emotional power of that original. The finest moments, tellingly, came when the orchestration was sparest and Bostridge was delivering the vocal line straight out (Der Wegweiser and Das Wirtshaus in particular).

Kings of War at the Barbican, or, Ivo van Hove makes a film

I've seen a good many foreign Shakespeares over the years, mostly at the Edinburgh Festival, and mostly they've been poor (though oddly enough not the last foreign language version of the Henry VI trilogy). Sadly this latest work by the in fashion Ivo van Hove is not an exception.  After the long first half I was just indifferent, by the end of the four and a half hours I was pretty fed up.

Van Hove has amalgamated Henry V, the three Henry VIs and Richard III (plus a bit from Henry IV Part II at the beginning). After sitting through the show I'm still unclear what he was trying to achieve by doing this. His deletions and inclusions can be curious but it is less those textual choices and more the overall effect which is the big problem. This is because van Hove succeeds in the surgical removal of pretty much any sense that there is a kingdom at stake, or that there are more than a handful of people inhabiting it or dying for it. The set consists of one enormous room, behind which are a set of white corridors which we see, interminably and ineffectively, on film. It's an increasingly boring space to look at. I suspect we were supposed to think of modern leaders launching air strikes from their bunkers (some of the visual projections are overt about this) but frankly this is illuminating neither about those modern leaders nor the Shakespearean text, and it isn't in any case followed through in a sufficiently sustained way.

Waiting for Godot at the Barbican, or, An Outstanding Evening

Owing to the Edinburgh International Festival in recent years I'd already discovered, contrary to what I'd expected, that I enjoy Beckett on stage. It was primarily for that reason that I booked to see Waiting for Godot for the first time in this run of performances by the Sydney Theatre Company at the Barbican. I hoped it would be good, I did not anticipate such a hilarious, moving and quite simply totally compelling evening.

Having now actually seen it on stage what seems to be the standard joke about it – that nothing happens, twice – seems the more puzzling. To my mind at least there's a great deal going on. The basic plot (as most readers will probably know) involves Vladimir and Estragon waiting through two days for Godot who, needless to say, never arrives. On both days some of the time spent waiting is occupied by the passing through the possible meeting place of Pozzo and Lucky. The premise itself (of waiting for Godot) is surely one of the finest running gags in the history of theatre – the more so as it becomes laced with an ever increasing, at times almost unhinged, desperation. And behind it, there's an extraordinary richness of ideas – about how difficult it is to live as an individual, the equally potentially ghastly problem of and yet indispensible need for companionship, the yearning for something beyond the world we see in front of us. At the same time, the play is a superb send up of the whole ludicrous idea of putting plays on stage in the first place. That it manages to do this so sharply, while being equally capable of chilling the viewer is testimony to a vital contrast to the many more recent practitioners who've attempted similar sending up. Beckett's mockery, unlike many would be successors, is never dismissive or contemptuous of the form. He makes us laugh at ourselves as viewers and then, suddenly, he reminds us precisely why we're still there.

Antigone at the Barbican, or Solid Not Special

Note: This is a rather belated review of the performance on Sunday 8th March 2015. Usually I would not post something so delayed, but because we have a particular interest in the Edinburgh Festival and this travels there later in the year I wanted to record my thoughts despite the delay.

Late this month I'll finally get round to seeing Ivo van Hove's production of A View from the Bridge. Possibly it will then be clear to me why he's been much praised. On the strength of this performance it was not. It's not that this is a bad production, though there are some oddities, but I can't say that I found it either especially powerful or perceptive.

The setting is sparse. There's a raised platform in the centre into the middle of which various of the show's bodies are periodically raised and lowered, and with an access ramp leading into Kreon's house at the back. Along the front it can be accessed by various sets of steps and also facing the audience are a number of bookshelves and a sofa. The implication at the end, the reasoning behind which I couldn't make out, is that we are in some sort of archive. At the back there's a flat panel the width of the stage onto which various things are projected which add little. With the exception of the projections and the ending it's all perfectly serviceable if not especially inspired. The same applies to the costumes, which are modern and minimal, and don't do much to distinguish the characters, though this may well be intentional. I would criticise the high heels which all the women seem to be wearing which sometimes create a false note (as when Antigone is being buried alive) or undermine an attempt to hurry from one point to another (Ismene on a couple of occasions).

Eugene Onegin at the Barbican, or, Who Are All These People?

I'm beginning to have the slight suspicion that Eugene Onegin is one of those stories which is not for me, as this is the second version of it I've seen which left me cold, though it may not have been helped by the fact I was labouring under a nasty cold to start with.

The first problem was the rather baffling concept, the purpose of which was no clearer to me at the end than at the beginning. Rimas Tuminas has decided to set the adaptation in a dance studio in which various men (whose reasons for being there are also opaque) decide to start reciting Pushkin's poem. The effect of this peculiar arrangement was to put a hurdle between me and a real emotional engagement with the narrative from the beginning because I couldn't work out who they were and I didn't really believe in them.

ENO's Sunken Garden, or, Proving that Michael van der Aa is not a Triple Threat

For the last few years English National Opera has escaped the Coliseum once a year for something smaller scale and generally more experimental. Because these tend to be short runs at an academically inconvenient time of year this is the first of these escapes that I've managed to catch. On the whole I rather wish I hadn't, though I can't say I wasn't warned.

Sunken Garden is advertised as a film opera. The programme notes go to great lengths to insist that the art forms are organically linked together, or as the composer, director and film-maker is quoted as saying “3D would be locked into the DNA of the libretto.” Sitting through it this was not my experience. In the first part the musical sections don't feel well connected to the films and in the second the Garden's visualisation in 3D could be dispensed with at no loss to anybody. The only person who can be blamed for this, with the exception of the libretto to which we'll come, is Michael van der Aa. Van der Aa apparently labours under the delusion that he is some new kind of operatic triple threat – equally talented as composer, director and film-maker. In fairness he is undeniably passable at all three, but on the basis of this show in none of them is he of a quality to make one want to rush to see/hear more of his work.

He is not, it has to be said, helped by David Mitchell's libretto which commits three cardinal sins. First of all it failed to create characters which engaged my emotions. Secondly, it engages in tedious moralising about needing to live every moment despite all the awful things that occur – as I've remarked in other contexts this kind of messaging only really works if connected to a character for whom one really cares. Thirdly, it leaves so many plot points unexplained as to have one gnawing limbs off in frustration. To give just a few instances: What is the Garden doing there in the first place? How come Dr Marinus has the power to destroy it? And why is Tobias's only means of escape to jump through the pond of water (which explodes so we can be reminded how clever using 3D film is) into the body of Zenna Briggs thereby undergoing a bizarre sex change? I failed to grasp any of this by listening to the piece and the two page plot summary in the programme is not much help either.

Einstein on the Beach, or, Satirising the Form will Carry You Only So Far

I had in my head written a number of openings to this review before I left for the show (which of course one is not supposed to do). Given what I had read about it I anticipated ripping it to shreds as it seemed likely to fail fundamental requirements for my having an enjoyable evening. I even thought that it might finally be the show to shift the legendary Edinburgh Festival Three Sisters off its podium as worst show a Pollard has ever endured. But my reaction to it was nowhere near as extreme as this. I was neither bored out of my mind, nor ecstatic. There are a number of interesting, even some striking, things in this show but it does not stand up to four and a bit unremitting hours of scrutiny.

The first point that has to be acknowledged is that this is an opera. Some may well be discomforted by the idea of placing this piece alongside such operatic luminaries as Mozart and Wagner but it is I'm afraid inescapable. Glass clearly has a knowledge of the form – arias, choruses, orchestral interludes are all to be found here.

To a certain extent the way this piece plays with operatic conventions and styles is engaging. The libretto is (until the very last scene) almost entirely meaningless – or at least extremely ambiguous – and there are plenty of operatic librettos that are not far from that or are nearly rendered to that state by being set to music. Numbers are placed in no particular order, cannot reinforce emotions or plot (because basically there is none of either) and again, as the piece goes on one feels that, on one level, a big joke is being had at the expense of the unrealism of the form.

Sakari Oramo and Anu Komsi kickstart the BBC Symphony Orchestra's Sibelius cycle

In the annals of mad Where's Runnicles dashes in search of high culture, Friday's trip to London to hear Sakari Oramo conduct some Sibelius is probably only edged off the top spot only by a mid-festival literally flying visit to the Proms in 2007 to hear the man himself conduct Götterdämmerung. (Certainly at 25 hours between departures, it edges out my brother's trip to hear Louis Lortie's extraordinary Liszt at Snape of which, with hindsight, I am extremely jealous.) Originally, I had intended to stay in London all weekend, but then I discovered James Lowe was to conduct the Rose Street Ensemble in Edinburgh on Saturday in a programme including Poulenc's organ concerto. Being a big fan of both Lowe and the RSE, this was not to be missed either.

Why on earth would you want to know any of that? I mention it to underscore just how exciting a prospect I think the opportunity to hear Oramo in Sibelius is - namely that it's worth a trip that in effective terms probably made mine the most expensive ticket in the hall. I also say it because, with a not especially full hall, I wonder if some of London knew what they were missing. Indeed, I'm doubly envious as this is the second Sibelius cycle the city has enjoyed in the last couple of years (not too long ago the LPO did one under Osmo Vanska), whereas we haven't had one in Scotland since 2006 (though we are getting a couple of symphonies this year).

Sibelius didn't arrive until the second half of the concert, which instead opened with Arnold Bax's Tintagel, named for a village on the Cornish coast. From the powerful and glittering opening onwards, through the satisfyingly swelling climaxes, Oramo made a powerful case for the composer. The piece contains some fine writing, particularly the surging strings, fittingly evocative of the sea. Indeed, visual stimulation is a quality the piece shares with much of Sibelius's output, if not perhaps quite so strongly. There are other nice touches too, such as some fine brass fanfares. The piece does sprawl a little, though Oramo kept a tight rein on it. All in all, it made an effective start to the evening.

Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic play Schubert's great C major and more

The other week when this concert was performed in Berlin, and broadcast via the Digital Concert Hall, it was billed as the 8th symphony, here in London it was the 9th (and you can argue it's number 7 too). Regardless of how you choose to number it, or the disputes are over the numbering, what is surely beyond doubt is that the great C major ranks among the finest symphonies ever written.



It stands on the cusp between the classical and romantic eras, and one measure of its greatness is how wonderfully it responds to both a more classical approach, a la Mackerras or Erich Kleiber, or an unashamedly romantic take, such as Furtwangler provides. Rattle's interpretation, as will be known to those who own the recording he made with the Berliners a few years ago, followed firmly in the footsteps of his predecessor in this regard, and was utterly thrilling for it. This was particularly evident both in his choices of tempo and, as importantly, his changes therein.

Rattle and the Berlin Phil play Stravinsky's Apollon and Mahler 4

In the manner of a striptease in reverse, Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic have been gradually putting on their clothes, that is to say adding more players to the stage, over the course of the first two of their four London concerts. They began yesterday with but a string quartet, progressing to a chamber orchestra. Concert two opened with a full string orchestra for Stravinsky's Apollon musagète. By coincidence, this is the second time I've come across the work this month, the first being under the baton of Rattle's protégé Robin Ticciati, performing with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, albeit a different version (I think, I don't have my programme to hand to double check).

It is a stunning piece, so I'm more than glad to be hearing it again. Rattle had arrayed the bass section in a single row at the back of the hall, something that always provides an added visual spectacle and seems to give extra energy. The orchestra's wonderful string sound made for a beautifully textured sonic treat, helped by the way Rattle shaped the music. It was frequently gentle and poetic, yet it also contained plenty of drama, often coming from those driving bass chords.

Despite some exceptional playing, Elder and the LSO don't quite find The Kingdom

Ever since the current London Symphony Orchestra season was announced, Elgar's The Kingdom under the baton of Mark Elder has stood out for me as a potential highlight. Not only is it my favourite of his big choral works, but when Elder brought the Halle to Edinburgh to perform The Dream of Gerontius in 2009 in was an extraordinary experience. (Preferring The Kingdom almost certainly puts me in a minority, but I have good company from the likes of Adrian Boult.)

From the outset, Elder had some handicaps to contend with this time. Some, such as the harsh and constraining acoustic of the Barbican Hall and the lack of an proper organ, were largely beyond his control. Others, such as the decision to split the work in two, were not. This was done in Edinburgh too and in both cases was doubtless to prevent the loss of interval bar takings. On both occasions it lessened the dramatic impact. It wouldn't happen in Mahler 3 (a work of comparable length), and doesn't any longer in the Verdi Requiem. It is a pity Elgar's choral works do not seem to have outgrown the practice.

From the opening bars it was clear we were in for a special treat orchestrally, and as the main theme was introduced for the first time it brought a tear to my eye. Elder drew out some of the finest playing I have heard from the orchestra and displayed a mastery at building the emotional swells that are so critical to great Elgar. In terms of tempi it seemed slightly higher octane than his superb recording with the Halle.

Great Performers at the Barbican in 2011/12 (and more)

In parallel with the LSO's announcement of their next season, the Barbican have published details of their other classical programming. While the Great Performers strand will doubtless draw the most attention it isn't what has me most excited, which is this. It seems that the BBC Symphony Orchestra are doing a Sibelius cycle next year, which is good news to begin with. The icing on the cake, though, is that concert of the 3rd symphony and more under the baton of Sakari Oramo. Not only is he one of my favourite conductors and Sibelius one of my favourite composers, but, for my money, he is one of the finest Sibelians around today (those with Spotify can hear his CBSO recordings here). The remainder of the cycle is in other hands.

Following this, the next thing to grab me is also a British orchestra - the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with their chief conductor Andris Nelsons and soloists Sarah Connolly, Toby Spence and James Rutherford in Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius.

A little déjà vu as the London Symphony Orchestra announce their 2011/12 season

At risk of sounding like a broken record, given I said this when the London Symphony Orchestra unveiled their current season, and indeed the preceding one, January is a little early for a season launch, leading to bookings almost 18 months ahead. I much prefer the March and April timeframe adopted by the three main Scottish orchestras. And this time round it didn't even seem like the LSO themselves were quite ready to launch: the website went live on Monday yet it took another two days before a PDF download of the season appeared. For an organisation normally such a slick exemplar of how an orchestra should do digital engagement, this looked sloppy. If you haven't finished the brochure you shouldn't be launching. In fairness to the LSO, they aren't alone - often organisations seem to announce with PDFs following later in the day, or days. It's baffling: how hard can it be? Still, it's the content that matters at the end of the day.

The first thing that jumped out at me was this programme of Beethoven's 1st and 9th symphonies from John Eliot Gardiner. It jumped out because I was at that exact concert last February - even the soloists were identical. Indeed, when I saw an advance copy back in January I wondered if this was a mistake. Now, I suppose one should expect Beethoven 9 to come up fairly often, but what about a different pairing, or something different?