Fly-blown to Emerald City
March 2015 The New South Welshmen-and-women complained about the autumnal ‘cold snap’ (the softies). Anyway, Sydney is exactly the reverse of Adelaide in being a sensational place in which to visit but challenging to live. The Mardi Gras and election nonsense sums it up: ultra conservative. They’re still doing the first (!) and in the (mandated) second, they are debating the privatisation of poles and wires (how September 10th). We arrive on a Friday and search for food on Circular Quay (for our U.S. friends, that’s pronounced ‘KWAY’, very loudly) – we meet Opera buddy Lindsay, for Faust. We see Germaine Greer at…
Continue Reading →The Sixteen
Julius III accepts score from da Palestrina, promises to pay later.
Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House (10 March 2015) A brilliant evening of sacred choral music. TVC was not the only guest counting his fingers; with conductor Harry Christophers CBE, there were 19 on the stage but 16 is the historical name for the ensemble formed in 1979, and we are almost embarrassed at such a quibble. The 18 were magnificent. Their harmonising made musical accompaniment superfluous – at times, the 4 bass singers simulated an entire wood section. During the first part of the programme, four of the, er, 16, ascended to an elevated rear part of the hall to supply some…
Continue Reading →Perish Vandals
Lazlo Toth (He's not Jesus)
Art vandals can expect no clemency TVC charges the following with crimes against art, and adopting the jurisprudence of Ignatius J Reilly (aka Zorro) from A Confederacy of Dunces, sentences them to be hanged by their undeveloped testicles till dead (or if dead, to plough their graves and build thereon a new Bedlam). In no particular order: 1. Lazlo Toth (who in 1972, aged 33, took a geological hammer to Michelangelo‘s Pietá, shouting “I am Jesus Christ – risen from the dead.”) Lou Reed sang in his song I Believe – “being sick is no excuse…”. 2. Islamic State (for the wilful…
Continue Reading →Carmen
"Pres des remparts!"
(State Opera SA, 10 November 2011) Carmen is golden, deathless and a remarkable example of the great weird paradox; in life as in art, beautiful women who entrance deficient men get shredded. Perhaps the overt expression of this theme, or an excess of absinthe, caused its stunning, hostile Paris reception on debut in 1875. Brahms, who knew a thing or two about great music, saw it 20 times. Why the French turned on Bizet, one of their own, and rejected one of ‘the greatest creations for the musical stage’ is a mystery. Never mind – Carmen survives and flourishes, even…
Continue Reading →Madama Butterfly
Geraldine Farrar as Cio-Cio-San at the Met, 1907
(State Opera SA, 7/9/2006) In many ways, this piece is ridiculous, but Puccini patched up its failings, including the poverty of the libretto, and triumphed over both the odds and the hostility of Milan, where it premiered in 1904. With some of his loveliest music connecting a few inky dots and a prescient theme of American domination (and carelessness), Butterfly’s desolation still moves us and in this production, her simple sorry plight was not badly sung by Kirsti Harris, amid some stark but satisfyingly depressing scenery. Pinkerton’s Stars and Stripes motif never fails to startle! It was conducted by Aldo…
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