Irish Timeswriters review a selection of recent events
Jake Heggie - Dead Man WalkingOpera Ireland Gaiety Theatre, Dublin
The problem with Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, premiered by San Francisco Opera in 2000 and given its Irish premiere by Opera Ireland on Sunday, is a simple one. It's the music. The opera tells of the relationship between a death-row convict and his spiritual adviser. It was adapted from Sr Helen Prejean's book, Dead Man Walking, which has also been made into a sobering film by Tim Robbins.
Heggie's failure is to have delivered something closer to a play that's sung than an actual opera. The vocal writing defaults to a kind of all-purpose lyricism, the orchestral writing to a rather lumpy 20th- and 21st-century musical soup, with all kinds of familiar Americana floating in it. The obvious invitation of a scene where Sr Helen voices admiration for Elvis Presley is taken up with unfortunate enthusiasm.
Terence McNally's libretto has its problems too. His scenario is effective, beginning with a brutally graphic rape and two murders, and ending with an execution. On the other hand the libretto is too wordy.
Some of the longer scenes simply deflate because of the imbalance between words and music. Heggie, probably unwisely, has ended up setting lines such as "I've got a camera in my bag. It's in here somewhere. Ah, here it is. Gather round me, boys." Thomas de Mallet Burgess's production is unflinchingly direct, Paul Keogan's set designs make telling use of the Gaiety stage, and the costumes by Joan O'Clery evoke the world of what in operatic terms is just yesterday.
Charlotte Hellekant's Sr Helen is ardent, but her words are sometimes indecipherable. Marcus DeLoach conveys a resentful anger as the condemned man, Joseph De Rocher. And Virginia Kerr is a pained and mystified presence as his unfortunate mother. The smaller parts, of which there are many, are well served, although the Opera Ireland chorus is not in the best of voice. Bruno Ferrandis conducts the RTÉ Concert Orchestra with great drive, but there are passages where the string playing roughs up the lyrical intentions, and the sound in some of the more heavily orchestrated parts is inclined to congeal.
Until Saturday Michael Dervan
Irish Baroque Orchestra/HuggettSt Mary's C of I, Ardee
Vivaldi - L'estro armonica & other concertos
Ardee Baroque is now in its fourth year. It is a local festival in the sense that local people organise it, and the performers engage locally, from workshops for children to mingling with the large audiences for the main concerts. But it encourages everyone to look beyond local horizons, partly by engaging a group of international calibre as its centrepiece, and allowing them to run with their own adventurous ideas.
Under Monica Huggett's guidance, the Irish Baroque Orchestra did something rare. The opening and closing concerts, on Friday and Sunday nights, were devoted to Vivaldi - several miscellaneous concertos, but above all the 12 of L'estro armonica from 1711, one of the most important and influential publications in the history of western music. At least as much as Corelli's concertos, this music shaped late Baroque style internationally.
It is a sign of how the IBO has developed since Huggett became leader and, more recently, artistic director, that she spent much of the time standing in the ranks. Others took most of the solos, to the extent that almost all the 16 or so players had a star turn at some point. That variety with personnel, the efficient platform management, and Vivaldi's extraordinary resourcefulness with scoring, made these concerts a never-dull and often astonishing experience.
Inevitably, some of the soloists were stronger than others. However, there was not one weak link, and the way in which the players and music mixed and matched, showed why these concertos had the impact they did. They are a joy to listen to; and although they are often very demanding on technique and musicianship, they are a joy to play. It is intensely human music, that relishes the possibilities of the instruments and the then-new ways of playing them. The players of the IBO understood all that.
The IBO plays Vivaldi in the Aula Maxima, UCC on Tuesday night, and in St Ann's Church, Dawson Street, Dublin on Thursday. Call 01-8721122 to book tickets Martin Adams
Sinéad O'Connor, Olympia Theatre, Dublin,
Trying just a tad too hard to get the punters on side, Foy Vance delivered a curtain raiser that hinted at bigger things to come - before too long. His visceral performance of Homebirdand Indiscriminate Act Of Kindnesswere the singer-songwriting equivalent of green cards, absolving him of the sins most often visited upon the solo performer: Vance substituting chutzpah for the navel-gazing that could all too easily drag him into the doldrums.
Sinéad's back. Trading in hellfire and damnation, but with her tongue planted firmly, and unexpectedly, in cheek. That uncompromising stubbornness that resulted in her latest CD being christened Theologyhas served her well, and despite a voice raw and ragged from six months of touring, she offered up a cracking set list of old and new material, much of her most recent work celebrating her particularly sinuous gift for sublime melodies.
Kicking off with The Emperor's New Clothes, O'Connor's wardrobe of choice (a shapeless man's suit and shirt with Docs) might have been either a mask or a statement of intent: was she hiding within its formless androgyny or revelling in its ability to confuse? But once she launched headlong into I Am Stretched On Your Grave, infusing it with the same vitality that first hauled that jaded lament kicking and screaming with pleasure into the 20th century, we knew she was ours for keeps - or at least for the night.
Subtlety has never been one of O'Connor's strongest assets, yet she tackled Dark I Am Yet Lovely(from Theology) with finesse, the fragility of the music underscoring its beautiful lyric. Despite declaring utter stage fright, nobody else can grasp such oceanic lungfuls of air mid-song quite like her as she trawled through the scripture-driven If You Had A Vineyardand engaged in a magnificent a cappella reading of In This Heartwith fiddler, bassist and guitarist joining her one by one as each verse unfolded.
An incongruous low whistle intro did little to augment the original beauty of Nothing Compares To U, but Sinéad was in generous form as she peppered her set list with a succession of gems from her back catalogue. The voice may be struggling with road weariness, but Sinéad O'Connor is back on the only pulpit that makes any real sense: the stage. Siobhán Long
