Don Giovanni
"Tu a cenar meco?" (Painting by Fragonard; image by Rama)
(State Opera SA, 30 May 2015) TVC had only seen the disastrous ENO production but not this version which originally featured Teddy Tahu Rhodes as the Don. What a relief to find staging and performances generally faithful to the 1787 work; in fact, superb staging, a simple hall, doubling as a courtyard, bounded by masonry with balconies (which, unfortunately, wobbled a little) but the simplicity of this setting, varied by good use of lighting, emphasized the pyrotechnics of the finale when the far wall collapsed to admit the Commendatore’s statue and a team of demons ferry the Don to the infernal regions (or…
Continue Reading →The Idyll
Tribschen as Arcadia (photo by Josef Lehmkuhl)
(Ensemble Le Monde, Elder Hall, 29 May 2015) ELM gave us a varied programme, with Serenade in C Major for String Trio by Dohnányi. Played in 5 short bursts, each part crowded with disparate moods, ideas and tones, this unfamiliar (to TVC) work is of great interest and showed the versatility of violin, viola, cello. During the soft, still moments, the cello acted almost as a harp. A larger portion of the ensemble gathered for Richard Strauss’ tone poem Till Eulenspiegel einmal anders! TVC is willing to give Strauss points for his operatic and several symphonic works, but it is hard to underrate this one,…
Continue Reading →Magna Carta (800)
"You want me to HONOUR this scrap of paper?"
On 15 June, 1215, at Runnymede, a reluctant King John, under coercion from unruly barons and the ruly Archbishop of Canterbury, ‘signed up’ to Magna Carta. John was a crafty bastard: a couple of years earlier, with French wolves at the door, the King submitted to Papal authority and bought himself some miraculous breathing space. That summer morning in 1215, the King rode to the meadow, absorbed the terms and agreed on the spot. He needed time (again) and may have not intended to comply. John was dead (of dysentery – ecch!) by the next year, and by then, no one was getting specific…
Continue Reading →The Geography of Bliss
It won't be long
(Eric Weiner) This is another of those sorts of books which are labelled “holiday” or “beach” reads but for once, it really might be worthwhile to read at 30,000 feet while jetting in to meet some joyful Icelanders (by far the best chapter in the book) or away from the moaning Moldovans (who, TVC is surprised to note, don’t even seem to be cheered by their relative success at Eurovision). Is Bhutan really the happiest country in the world? Despite its telegenic crinkle-faced monks, its measure of Gross National Happiness and its being the site of Shangri-La (which was, interestingly enough, the former name…
Continue Reading →The Waiting Years
In Japan - beware the black butterfly
(Fumiko Enchi) Although the story commences in the household of Kin and her crippled daughter Toshi, it quickly turns to the bifurcated life of Tomo, the middle-aged wife of an older, important bureaucrat. Tomo, despite her “unbending quality” and “undeniable air of distinction” lives an agony of repressed jealousy and humiliation. Although she can barely read and is a voteless subject in her samurai husband’s kingdom, Tomo manages the family’s extensive finances and murderously complex emotional structures with dedication and skill. Her husband, Yukitomo, is a suave and easy seducer of the disenfranchised women about him who have nowhere else…
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