Irish Times reviewers on Jane Eyre at the Gate Theatre, the Ulster Orchestra at the Ulster Hall and Robin Tritschler and Finghin Collins at the Hugh Lane Gallery.
Jane Eyre
Gate Theatre
By Gerry Colgan
Charlotte Brontë's novel must be one of the greatest love stories of fiction, and the major achievement of Alan Stanford's adaptation and direction here is to bring that passion blazingly to life. The story is faithfully transferred to the stage, and that alone would constitute serious entertainment; but the two central performances transcend mere storytelling to invade the emotions.
As devised here, an older Jane occupies the stage in the role of narrator. It is a profitable theatrical device, as it enables the action to flow unimpeded, while allowing the younger Jane to exist in her present, an immediate character in thrall to an unknown future. Susan Fitzgerald is altogether authoritative as the woman reviewing the years.
After a brief prologue with Jane as a young orphan, she fast-forwards to her first job as a teacher. From there she graduates to a position as a governess in a country mansion, with just one girl pupil, the ward of Edward Rochester. When she meets the macho, authoritative man, the love story begins, and follows its familiar course to the ending, with the narrator telling the audience "I married him".
Dawn Bradfield is Jane, in a memorable interpretation of the girl whose courage and integrity bring her through many ordeals to enduring happiness.
She captures every nuance of the character, the clean-cut appearance, the refusal to compromise and the inexperienced woman who yet senses her right to love, and will not be diverted from it.
Stephen Brennan's Rochester is the perfect counterpoint, a cynical man of the world who recognises her special quality, and is almost destroyed when his past deprives him of it. The final scene, when the maimed Rochester finds her love again, and understands its permanence, is lump-in-the-throat territory, wholly persuasive and moving.
Among the excellent supporting cast, Barbara Brennan, Eleanor Methven, Robert Price and Sean Kearns are notable. Bruno Schwengl's set design is essentially a large grey box, a colourless but effective facilitating device. The lighting by Rupert Murray lends atmosphere to many scenes, albeit throwing up unusual shadows. But let me not carp. This is an irresistible version of a great book, so misanthropes beware.
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Ulster Orchestra - Thierry Fischer
Ulster Hall, Belfast
By Dermot Gault
Beethoven - Symphony No 2. Mozart - Clarinet Concerto. Beethoven - Symphony No 4
Traditionally, Beethoven's even-numbered symphonies were also his even-tempered symphonies. In Thierry Fischer's consistently lively Beethoven cycle, however, both works had plenty of punch, with strong accents, clear textures and well-marked rhythms predominating.
The first movement of the Second received the most successful performance of the cycle so far. The slow introduction was kept moving, but had feeling, mystery and a sense of space, and I enjoyed the incisive string-playing and strong dynamic contrasts in the following Allegro con brio.
The Larghetto lost rather than gained tension at Fischer's flowing tempo, some positive string phrasing notwithstanding. The Fourth Symphony, on the other hand, featured a roughly-played first movement but an expressive Adagio. In the finales of both works thematically significant material tended to become mere runs of notes. One had to admire the strings in the finale of the Fourth, but also to pity the poor bassoon.
Toscanini used to discreetly relax the tempo for this tricky solo, allowing the instrument to articulate the notes. Not so Fischer.
Some feeling of haste spilled over into Fischer's accompaniment to the first movement of the Mozart concerto, which was not always ideally poised, but there was no lack of poise in the playing of the very young clarinettist Julian Bliss. This was full-toned and enormously assured playing. The use of a basset clarinet provided characterful and thematically important low notes which added a new dimension to the work.
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Robin Tritschler, Finghin Collins
Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin
By Douglas Sealy
The second part of the Hugo Wolf Festival began last Sunday and will continue each Sunday in December.
Robin Tritschler sang a selection from the Goethe and the Morike Songbooks. His tenor voice was at its most persuasive in the quieter and more reflective songs such as Ganymed and St Nepomuk's Vorabend by Goethe, and Um Mitternacht and Auf ein altes Bild by Morike; but he also very cleverly brought out the humour that is to be found in some of the other songs, in particular Morike's picture of the poet with a hangover, in Zur Warnung in which the voice requires the skill of an actor as much as that of a singer.
The texts were interpreted with sympathy and delicacy, for most of the time matched by Finghin Collins at the piano, but in the louder, more forceful songs the piano threatened to become too prominent - in these cases a more moderate and varied approach to dynamics would have facilitated the singer.
