Irish Times writers review Kylie at The Point, Holzmair, Cassard, Robinson and the Parisii String Quartet at the NCH, and Virelai, at the Chapel Royal, Dublin Castle.
Kylie
The Point, Dublin
Anna Carey
Tonight, Kylie Minogue is a showgirl. Literally. Decked out in ostrich feathers and a bright blue corset covered in crystal flowers, she waves to her adoring fans like a Las Vegas princess. Yes, Kylie's back in town (for the first time in 14 years, as she reminds us later) as part of her Showgirl: The Greatest Hits tour, and she's putting on quite a show.
Glittering themed sets, dozens of fantastic costume changes, a troupe of energetic male dancers who aren't afraid to stand around clad in nothing but glittery pants and enormous feathery wings - it all adds up to one of the campest, most entertaining nights the Point has ever seen.
And, as this is a Greatest Hits show, Kylie leaves no stone unturned. Out come not only the recent excellent songs such as Giving You Up and Slow, but songs I thought I'd long forgotten, such as Hand on Your Heart and Je ne Sais Pas Pourquois. While Kylie reinvents most of these oldies with striking new arrangements, she lets one early hit shine out in all its Stock Aiken and Waterman glory: I Should Be So Lucky is straight out of 1987, and all the more entertaining for it.
But while her dancers gyrate impressively, Kylie herself is a curiously static, if elegant, performer. In fact, her on-stage moves basically consist of parading languidly around the stage in time to the music while her dancers somersault around her. Could it be that botox has robbed her of the ability to move? The montage of Kylie-through-the-ages which appears on the screen during the final Love at First Sight is a reminder that she used to be capable of making more than one facial expression.
She may be covered in glitter, but Kylie's stage persona could do with a bit more sparkle.
Holzmair, Cassard, Robinson, Parisii String Quartet
NCH, Dublin
Michael Dervan
Debussy - Quartet in G minor
Ravel - Histoires naturelles
Fauré - La bonne chanson
Franck - Piano Quintet
The programme of Wednesday's celebrity recital was a tightly-knit affair. César Franck's infatuation with the young composer Augusta Holmès (whose parents were Irish) is said to have infused the Piano Quintet he completed in 1879 to the point where his wife couldn't bear to listen to it.
Fauré's Verlaine song-cycle, La bonne chanson was also inspired by an extra-marital liaison, with Emma Bardac, the wife of a banker, who was later described by Fauré in connection with the cycle as "the singer who was to remain its greatest interpreter". He later arranged the work by adding parts for string quintet, but in the end preferred the songs as originally written, with just piano.
Fauré composed the songs in 1892, 1893 and 1894, and 1893 was the year in which Debussy wrote his String Quartet in G minor, the work in which, as Paul Griffiths put it, Debussy became Debussy.
Just over 10 years later he would dedicate two song cycles of his own to Emma Bardac, and shortly afterwards proceed to make her the second Mrs Debussy.
In setting five of Jules Renard's amusingly anthropomorphic texts about animals to music in his Histoires naturelles of 1906, Ravel was inspired by "the direct, clear language and the profound, hidden poetry".
But Debussy had reservations, once describing Ravel's cycle as "excessively curious, artificial and chimerical, somewhat like a sorcerer's house".
The evening's links went beyond the music. Philippe Cassard and the Parisii Quartet are no strangers to Irish audiences in the Debussy, Fauré and Franck, though they've never quite gelled in the collaborations I've heard of the Franck. This time, the players seemed to want to help the music along with too much polite assistance. It's wise to avoid treating this heady music in a flat-out manner, but it calls for more effective surges than it received on this occasion.
There was a lot to admire in the Parisii's handling of the Debussy Quartet. They have the knack of allowing the music to speak for itself.
What was missing was the individuality of harmonic glow found in the best performances. Fauré's La bonne chanson can seem inscrutable in performance, as it did on this occasion.
The highlight of the evening was the other song cycle.
The sophisticated and wittily mischievous Ravel was supported on every level, down to the finest of details, with both Holzmair, slightly grainy in tone, and Cassard clearly enjoying the inventive wealth of Ravel's highly-coloured creation.
Virelai, Chapel Royal, Dublin Castle
Martin Adams
This concert by the British early music ensemble Virelai, their second in a Music Network tour, showed why early music is one of the most healthy areas of music-making. The tour's programme switches effortlessly, and with no incongruity, between music by Dowland and contemporary works written for Virelai. There was no hint of the coy or cosy in Virelai's view of Dowland - nothing wimpish or foppish about his melancholic songs; and his dances had earthy vigour and quiet authority - literally quiet, given the combination of Renaissance flute (William Lyons), lute (Jacob Heringman) and viol (Susanna Pell).
Catherine King's singing was riveting. One of the most absorbing aspects of her warm mezzo-soprano voice was the pronunciation, with slightly rolled vowels and consonants that scholars tell us was the manner of speech in Elizabethan England. In Dowland it produces a subtle energy far more expressive than the calculated clarity of modern posh-speak.
Seven pieces by living composers were on the programme, almost all settings of Elizabethan or early 17th-century poetry. It was thought-provoking that in most of those works which sought to reflect the poetry's declamation, such as Andrew Keeling's With How Sad Steps, O Moon, the patterns of the vocal lines carried hints of the 20th-century's greatest imitator of Dowland, Peter Warlock.
The only escape from the power of history was a clean break. Songs by Alastair Greig and Jonathan Chenette hinted at that, though with enough references to tantalise. The most radical work was Fabrice Fitch's Rondeau de Panurge, a setting of Rabelais that has the singer speaking as the instruments do things unhistorical, but charged with purpose. This calculated use of melodrama was one of the most memorable things in a concert that was memorable for all the best reasons.
In Belmullet Sunday; Castlebar Monday (01-6719429)
