Irish Timescritics choose the best and worst of the arts in 2007
ROCK/POP
Davin O'Dwyer
Peter Crawley
Laurence Mackin
Highs
Joanna Newsomat the Olympia, Dublin. Seeing the freak-folk queen's fingers glide across the strings of her harp while she spun her cryptic tales proved utterly captivating. DO'D
REMat the Olympia, Dublin. Stipe, Mills and Buck blasted out five great performances on Dame Street last summer, mixing very new songs with very old, and fully involving the lucky audiences in their brave creative renewal. DO'D
Iron and Wineat the Ambassador, Dublin. Sam Beam and his exceptional eight-piece band gave a simultaneously fragile and muscular rendition of his simple folk songs in a performance that was the very epitome of substance over style. DO'D
Andrew Birdat Crawdaddy and Tripod, Dublin Coming perilously close to cancellation, the Irish debut of singer, violinist, guitarist and world-champion whistler Andrew Bird in March was made somehow more compelling as he battled his way through the fog of flu. Returning some months later in rude health, and with a full band, to layer his live loops and arch lyrics into the beguiling shape of skewed pastoral songs, he rewarded the faith and high expectations of every Bird watcher. PC
Electric Picnic, Stradbally, Co Laois A festival of such sweep and variety that it offered as many stand-alone candidates for this year's music highlights (the magnificent double appearances of The Beastie Boys, the brooding whirl of The Good, The Bad and The Queen, the baroque pop of Final Fantasy) as lowlights (a pretty listless showing from The Jesus and Mary Chain), the only undisputed star of Electric Picnic is Electric Picnic itself. Following the death of one attendee this year, it may be hard to hold up EP as an idyllic haven from real world concerns. But it's still the closest we've got. PC
Glenn Branca's Hallucination City: Symphony for 100 Guitarsat Grand Canal Square, Dublin Take one avant-garde New York composer, a piece of music that sounds like the apocalypse, and around 100 guitarists to play it. Shake together and unleash on an unsuspecting crowd in July. Now stand well back as your terrified audience reels in the face of cacophonic music that sounds like aircraft plunging into the earth. Outstanding. LM
Broken Social Scene's Kevin Drewat Tripod, Dublin A gig of gloriously shambling melodic rock, played with infectious good humour, the band throwing shapes around the stage like a pack of gleeful monkeys. "We're not very professional, and we never will be," Drew told the crowd, and a stupefying version of Where the Streets Have No Nameleft the room enraptured. Glorious. LM
Lows
Maxïmo Parkat Temple Bar Music Centre When you mix threadbare, hackneyed rock posturing with intrusive, ubiquitous lager advertising, you're left with a truly bad taste in your mouth. DO'D
The Babs Debacleat Castletown House, Co Kildare With ticket prices scaling to €550, the most ludicrously expensive gig of the year was also its most costly calamity. The spiralling grievances - biblical weather conditions in July, traffic chaos, seating clashes, accusations of promoter mismanagement and customer opportunism - became so loud that Barbra Streisand's own timorous performance was drowned in the fallout: a PR disaster for promoters MCD and eventual compensation for 2,500 dissatisfied ticket holders. This parade got rained on. PC
Timbaland supporting Justin Timberlakeat the RDS Justin Timberlake's last behemoth of a live show in June gave Timbaland an enticing half-time 45-minute slot. All Timbaland could manage, however, was some lacklustre scratching and irritating shouting over what appeared to be an ad for his latest CD. Offensive and shoddy stadium-sized karaoke. LM
OPERA
Michael Dervan
Highs
Dvorák's RusalkaThe production of Dvorák's Rusalka was the only Wexford Festival presentation at Johnstown Castle to win popular acclaim. The strength of the production and the principal singers was reflected in the pit, where the Irish-sourced orchestra under Dmitri Jurowski thoroughly out-played the East European imports of recent years.
Nanset Wind Ensemble's ShostakovichThe international conference of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, held in Killarney in July, might seem an odd forum for an opera production. But the Nanset Wind Ensemble's production of Shostakovich's The Priest and his Servant Balda offered a fascinating blend of live performing, animated film and puppeteering.
Niall Doyle moves to Opera IrelandAs executive director of RTÉ's performing groups, Niall Doyle managed to keep music afloat in RTÉ during some of the national broadcaster's most challenging crises. This year he moved to Opera Ireland, an organisation which has still not managed to recover to the levels of activity it achieved in the 1970s. Doyle has many of the skills needed to begin implementing the necessary reforms.
Lows
Wexford Festival OperaThe festival is having a bumpy ride. Disgruntlement was high over a festival that had so little opera. Silverlake is a play, Pulcinella a ballet. The departure of chief executive Michael Hunt (who has still notbeen definitively replaced) was messy and costly. And next year will once again feature the importation of a production - Pedrotti's Tutti in maschera - that's already been seen in Italy. Has someone lost the plot?
The Lily of Killarney at the RDS19th-century English opera, whether actually by an Irishman or a German, is about as far removed from 21st-century affinities as 19th-century surgery. The RDS's initiative in attempting to resuscitate Julius Benedict's The Lily of Killarney as part of a presentation over three years of the so-called Irish Ring is as commendable as the performance itself was deplorable.
DANCE
Michael Seaver
Highs
DanceHouse in Dublin2007 was a year of growth for the dance sector, most symbolically through the opening of DanceHouse in Dublin. A rehearsal space, resource, social centre and, during this year's Fringe Festival, performance venue, it has quickly become a hub for the country's dancers, from earnest experimenters to celebrity jigs 'n' reelers.
Independent dancePerhaps not coincidentally, there was increased vibrancy in the independent dance sector: Fearghus O'Conchuir's residency with Dublin City Council( www.bodiesandbuildings.blogspot.com), Rebecca Walter's collaborations with musicians at Project, Jean Butler's grappling with her step-dancing past, Niamh Condron and Joan Davis in Christ Church Cathedral and a slowly emerging scene in Cork's Firkin Crane, formerly the Institute for Choreography and Dance.
David Bolger and Cindy Cummings at AosdánaYears of lobbying finally paid off with the election of David Bolger and Cindy Cummings to Aosdána. Hopefully it will hasten the implementation of tax-free status for choreographers.
This Dancing Lifeat Kilkenny Arts Festival You didn't have to sit through the four hours of Sara Rudner's This Dancing Life ("After one hour they get the idea," she said before the premiere in Kilkenny last August), but there was little reason to leave this compelling affirmation of the moving body.
Slow Down at the Pavilion, Dún Laoghaire Producing Martine Pisani's unplugged Slow Down was a bold move for Dance Theatre of Ireland that paid off, as audiences laughed through a portrayal of just how we are.
Lows
The death of David GordonAlthough he was not as active in recent years, David Gordon's death was nevertheless symbolic as it broke one of the last creative ties with Irish National Ballet, which was axed by the Arts Council in 1989. Although best remembered as the company's ballet master, he was also a skilled choreographer of works for the company, particularly Catalysis.
Ballet at a standstillAlthough the Arts Council's ballet review might lay a path for ballet development, another year passes without any meaningful attempt to promote and support dance training by the council or Department of Education.
THEATRE
Peter Crawley
Patrick Lonergan
Jane Coyle
Mary Leland
Highs
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Streetat the Gate Balanced on a razor's edge between horror and kitsch, Selina Cartmell's ferociously entertaining production of Sondheim's musical allowed audiences both a shiver and a knowing giggle. Always finding room between the numbers for an illuminating joke or a stirring device, it dispatched the barber's victims not with torrents of blood but puffs of flour, proving as sinister and delicious a treat as the meat pies that come steaming from the barber's abattoir. PC
Terminus at the AbbeyTo call Terminus the Abbey's best new Irish play this year is meagre praise - discounting adaptations, it was the Abbey's only new Irish play. Still finding amperage in monologue plays, Mark O'Rowe offered an exhilarating, lyrical picture of a contemporary Dublin swirling with scuffed-up myths and swooping demons, while Eileen Walsh, Aidan Kelly and Andrea Irvine mapped out their stories through incantatory verse. PC
The Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre FestivalLoughlin Deegan's first festival as Artistic Director announced a bright new vision for a 50-year-old institution, its expanded programme allowing for equal parts experimentation (from Krétakör to Pan Pan), anniversary retrospection (conferences, talks and rehearsed readings), ensemble-based practice (Katona József, The SITI company), unfocused disappointments (James Son of James), site specific gems (Small Metal Objects) and prudish public controversy (small fleshy objects). A fitting birthday bash and an encouraging springboard into a new phase. PC
Playing PoliticsThere was a time when "political entertainment" might have been considered an oxymoron, but the global rhetoric of freedom and terror, together with the sharp focus of an election year at home, saw political theatre surge into the mainstream. Rough Magic's Don Carlos made a political thriller of the clash between idealism and absolutism, the Abbey's Julius Caesar again illustrated the stabs of realpolitik, while Sam Shepard's hugely successful Kicking a Dead Horse glowered obliquely at the Cowboy-in-Chief. All art, as they say, is political, but this year theatre put its politics centre-stage. PC
Getting the shows on the roadIt's expensive, it's risky, it's not particularly eco-friendly, but touring theatre has been off the agenda for too long. This year, under the aegis of the Arts Council's Touring Experiment, several companies hit the road again, allowing for such superb new productions as Livin Dred's Conversations on a Homecoming and welcome revisits (and reinterpretations) for Rough Magic's Improbable Frequency and Druid's My Brilliant Divorce. Keep them rolling. PC
Blue Raincoat's The Third PolicemanSandra O Malley was marvellous as the nameless hero of Blue Raincoat's The Third Policeman, at the Factory Performance Space in Sligo. Jocelyn Clarke's adaptation of the Flann O'Brien novel was a perfect showcase for the Sligo company's strengths: it was performed with wit and elegance - and it looked gorgeous. The production is due to tour throughout Ireland next year - it's one to watch out for. PL
Druid's LeavesLucy Caldwell wrote an unusually mature debut play for Druid. Ostensibly, Leaves was about teenage depression, but it also raised serious questions about language and family in post-ceasefire Belfast. Caldwell showed an unusual lightness of touch in her treatment of difficult material, resisting the temptation to resolve every problem that her characters encountered. PL
Macbethat Crumlin Road Prison, Belfast During the Belfast Festival, Replay Productions, the North's theatre-in-education company, celebrated 20 years of quality work with a spectacular site-specific production of Macbeth in the awesomely grim setting of Belfast's Crumlin Road Prison. Over 1,000 people failed to obtain tickets but those lucky enough to be admitted were rewarded with an unforgettable experience. JC
The Lyric's hat-trickBelfast's Lyric Theatre eventually hit a long-awaited purple patch, with a triple whammy of critical and box-office successes: Rachel O'Riordan's swaggering, all-male Much Ado About Nothing, Mick Gordon's bewitching Dancing at Lughnasa and Dan Gordon's ebullient The Hypochondriac, David Johnston's audacious Belfast take on the Molière classic. JC
Scenes from the Big Pictureat the Waterfront Hall, Belfast For all the flaws in Conall Morrison's production, how thrilling it was to see no less than 21 actors on stage for Owen McCafferty's Scenes from the Big Picture, premiered at London's National Theatre in 2003 and finally making its way back home, thanks to the sterling efforts of Prime Cut to raise the necessary funding. JC
Fr Mathewat the Half Moon Theatre, Cork Written by Sean McCarthy and directed by John Breen, Fr Mathew was premiered at the Half Moon Theatre with dazzling performances in a gripping account of the Capuchin priest whose fight against alcoholism in Ireland won him the title of "apostle of temperance", although he was anything but temperate. ML
Bath of Baghdadat the Everyman Palace, Cork The Midsummer Festival in Cork brought several delights, none more rivetting than Bath of Baghdad, presented by the Syrian Experimental Theatre at the Everyman Palace; written and directed by Jawad Al-Assadi, the play is set in an Iraqi bathhouse where two estranged brothers try to survive the destruction of the only world they know even while haunted by its fleeting emanations. ML
Divino Pastor Góngorain Kinsale Kinsale Arts Festival introduced Mexico's El Teatro del Mar with Divino Pastor Góngora, writer Jaime Chabaud's story of an actor condemned by the Inquisition for his one-line role in an incendiary play; Carlos Cobos was the actor in an unforgettable performance. ML
Lows
No business like Shoah businessThis isn't the first time a critic will stand bewildered on the platform as the great train of a popular success passes him by. But Who By Fire, an utterly misguided musical set in Auschwitz - which incorporated (and reworded) Leonard Cohen songs, sent ersatz SS men through the auditorium, hauled giggling audience members onstage to "become part of the Auschwitz experience!" and met with routine standing ovations - simply beggared belief. It's like Springtime For Hitler never happened. PC
Acting outThe sustained howl of protest over the decision to axe the Bachelor in Acting Studies in Trinity College Dublin at the start of the year was certainly understandable, but that outcry muffled the fact that a long under-funded programme had become untenable inside the walls and pressures of academia. With a high-powered (perhaps over-powered) forum set up to investigate the viability of actor training in March, the outcry subsided, the course disappeared, and its future remains unclear. PC
Inadequate arts funding for the NorthIt is a depressing fact that arts funding in the North lags way behind that of England, Wales, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland. There is currently an anxious wait for the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure to announce the budget for 2008-11, but nobody is in any doubt that the forecast is extremely gloomy. JC
No room at the ballA notable disappointment was the postponement of a production of Enda Walsh's New Electric Ballroom, which had reportedly been due to appear in the 2007 Galway Arts Festival. Let's hope this companion piece to Walsh's brilliant Walworth Farce gets its Irish premiere in 2008. PL
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Michael Dervan
HIGHS
Barry Douglas's performancesPianist Barry Douglas had a blazingly good year, with first-rate concerto appearances in Brahms (with the Ulster Orchestra under Kenneth Montgomery in January), in Bartók (with the RTÉ NSO under Giordano Bellincampi in May), and in Shostakovich (with his own Camerata Ireland in June).
Irish Chamber OrchestraFor sheer consistency and highly-polished technical delivery, the Irish Chamber Orchestra is hard to beat. The best of their concerts that I heard this year was with the Finnish whizz-kid violinist, Pekka Kuusisto, with the original leader of the Takács Quartet, Gábor Takács-Nagy, running a close second. However, see also below.
Gustav Leonhardtat Kilkenny The great Dutch harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt made his second-ever Irish appearance in Kilkenny in April. Leonhardt has long been a seminal figure in the world of early music, and although he'll turn 80 next May, his playing was as vital as ever. The remarkable local initiative which brought him to Kilkenny will see counter tenor Andreas Scholl give a recital there on January 26th.
Louth Contemporary Music Society's festivalAnother laudable local initiative was Louth Contemporary Music Society's May bank holiday weekend festival devoted to US minimalist Terry Riley, with Riley himself a genial participant in the performances. LCMS are premiering a new commission from Arvo Pärt in February, with promises of John Zorn and John Tavener further down the road.
ResignationsThe National Chamber Choir and the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland have both successfully weathered a storm of resignations. The NCC is about to appoint a new artistic director - look through the list of recent guest conductors for the likely name - and the NYOI's senior orchestra is back in action in January. The next challenge is for the Arts Council to help establish more realistic funding levels.
Neville Marriner and the Orchestra of St CeciliaHe transformed the orchestra into a class act for two concerts in November, so much so, in fact, that the OSC sounded altogether more musically refined and alert, if not quite as technically polished, as Manchester's Hallé Orchestra under Mark Elder, who followed the second OSC/Marriner collaboration at the NCH.
Lyric fm labelIrish composers don't fare well on CD. But Irish performers fare even worse. The appalling near-vacuum of Irish recordings documenting the work of Irish musicians is at last, albeit slowly and modestly, being filled by the RTÉ Lyric fm label.
Lows
Joyce Hatto scandalHattogate, as the scandal surrounding British pianist Joyce Hatto came to be known, will be talked about for years. Irish musicians John O'Conor and Philip Martin were among the pianists whose work was passed off as Hatto's in an extensive discography (100-plus CDs) that's set to become one of the musical frauds of the century.
The Irish Chamber OrchestraThe orchestra's artistic director Anthony Marwood continues to programme the orchestra's concerts as if the ICO were a niche supplier in a crowded market. It's not. It's our national mainstay in the area of chamber orchestra activity.
And it's about time the programming reflected this.
RTÉ NSO's massacre of Mahler's EightFor the listener, the RTÉ NSO's performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony at the National Basketball Arena was a musical fiasco. The lack of an adequate venue should be addressed by the redevelopment of the National Concert Hall. Surely it's time, too, for a dedicated chamber music venue for Dublin, a loose musical equivalent of what the Gate Theatre is to the Abbey?
JAZZ
Ray Comiskey
Highs
The Local SceneA generally very positive year for jazz here was marked by a continuation of the extraordinary creativity and vitality evident among young local jazz musicians, with new groups being formed, boundaries crossed and other musical cultures embraced from a jazz perspective with refreshing openness.
Wayne Shorterat the Helix, Dublin Saxophonist Wayne Shorter inaugurated the Helix's jazz series in April and showed, with his quartet, how true the old description of jazz as the sound of surprise remains, with creative interaction of a high order between him and Danilo Perez (piano), John Patitucci (bass) and Brian Blade (drums).
Douze Points Festivalat Project, Dublin A great idea - bring in 12 groups of emerging European players - was capped in April by Finland's marvellous working quartet, Ilmiliekki, and trumpeter Verneri Pohjola. A mix of Stanko, Arve Henriksen and Miles, all welded into a personal concept, Pohjola was of a different order in a festival with more than its share of outstanding young jazz musicians.
Fred Herschat Triskel, Cork and the Pavilion, Dún Laoghaire It was a double treat to hear pianist Fred Hersch with John Hebert (bass) and Eric McPherson (drums) on successive nights at Cork's Triskel and at the Pavilion in DúLaoghaire, where his concert was enhanced by the venue's grand piano, even better than the fine one he had the previous evening.
Bill Carrothersat the Mermaid, Bray On tour here last month, this exceptional and utterly individual pianist was awesomely good at the Mermaid in Bray, aided by his impressively responsive colleagues, Kevin Brady (drums) and Dave Redmond (bass); it was imaginative, brilliant, full of diversity, and great fun - the sound of surprise again.
Lows
The Guinness Jazz Festival without TriskelThe unceremonious dropping of the Triskel from this year's festival in Cork was not only a poor response to the venue's long festival tradition and its significant role within it, but also showed no appreciation of the centre's valid concern with quality programming.
Bill Frisell, Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahillat Vicar Street, Dublin The one that got away; this much-anticipated Vicar Street encounter in May between the great jazz guitarist and the equally notable traditional Irish fiddle player, Martin Hayes, and his guitarist duo colleague, Dennis Cahill, never caught fire despite the talent involved.
Clash of eventsThe unfortunate - and completely accidental and unforeseen - clash of events that saw the Tomasz Stanko Quartet at Vicar Street and the Francois Couturier Quartet at the John Field Room on the same night meant that only a handful heard Couturier's superb group, with the exceptional cellist, Anja Lechner, perform.