Friday 5 December 2008

Bear Necessities

On Bear's Listening Post....


'Luonnotar' - Sibelius - from Sibelius Tone Poems - Songs
'Piante ombrose' - Cavalli - La Calisto - Sally Matthews
'Oh Thou Bright Sun' - Handel - Theodora - Dawn Upshaw from the Glyndebourne Peter Sellers Production
'True Love Will Find You In The End' - Headless Heroes (with Alela Diane)
'The Green French One (Original Mix)' - Dinamoe - from Body Language Vol. 7 - Mixed By Matthew Dear

Bear At The Opera: Riders To The Sea


Leigh Melrose, Kate Valentine, Patricia Bardon, Edward Gardner, Susan Gritton, Claire Booth

"It's a play about nothing happening. It's a play about women waiting. It's a little jewel, in that it's very short, it's about 45 minutes long. It's half the length of a Greek tragedy but it really has the essence of a Greek tragedy in it."
Fiona Shaw (from the ENO podcast)
Having always loved Vaughan Williams I was thrilled to discover this opera; however short. With the extra bonus of the great actress Fiona Shaw directing, and the mezzo-soprano Patricia Bardon in the leading role of the mother, Maurya. It seems an odd play that the intensely English composer chose this tale by the Irish playwright J.M Synge about life and death on the barren Aran Islands.. but it strangely works. The opera's short length - about 50 minutes - might at first glance appear a problem but Fiona Shaw's decision to couple the opera with the Sibelius tone poem 'Luonnotar' which in itself lasts about 10 minutes was a stroke of genius. It sets Riders up in the context of the mythical world of the sea, land and heavens telling of Luonnotar, an air spirit, and the creation of the heavens, moon and stars..... Shaw only discovered later that Williams greatly admired Sibelius and indeed dedicated his fifth symphony to him; a fortuitous choice indeed.

The soprano Susan Gritton sung the Sibelius piece exquisitely, perched high-up in a suspended boat above the stage. This was a wild, electric piece to start with and set the tone for the upcoming opera.... The set and video projections by the artist Dorothy Cross and and designer Tom Pye complimented the two works and added another dimension. Behind the Sibelius work a video projection of an underwater scene of a woman swimming wih jellyfish formed a mesmerizing backdrop. Indeed you can find an excerpt on the Frith Street Gallery website - click on the video Jellyfish Lake.

In fact this production had the most intelligent and interesting sets I have seen so far in London... none of the traditional sets that you normally get at Covent Garden... this had some thought put into it. The backdrop to Riders was a rocky coastline... a trace of a house etched into the stone - apparently based on the real life rock formation in Ireland, Poll na bPéist or the Wormhole... a perfectly symmetrical rectangle cut into the coastline. Find a picture and an excellent article on Fiona Shaw and Riders in the Guardian. Boats hang above the stage and a single suspended figure of a man hangs in mid air. In the background a video of a man slowly falling into the sea like one of those Bill Viola video projections... this is telling the tale with the set.

And what of Riders... this tale of women waiting... a story of loss... well this has been the only live performance of an opera to make me cry and truly that was down to the wonderful Williams score and the emotional keening of Patricia Bardon as Maurya.... she sings 'My heart is broken as from this day' having a premonition of her son's death.... and you are bowled away by her grief. The rest of the cast was a restless mass of grief (perhaps too restless) with Kate Valentine as Cathleen putting a particularly competent performance. There are such lines in this opera that plough into your heart... it is evocative and insanely sad. In the score there are no big arias but only floating, repeating motifs; haunting and vibrant. Indeed it reminds me Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande.



Leigh Melrose, Kate Valentine, Patricia Bardon


Truly a great opera; short, intense and beautifully tragic. Fiona Shaw describes it as a little jewel - well it is even more primal than that - it is a little pearl perfectly formed in the depths of the ocean; polished and rugged, smooth and pungent.

Riders To The Sea - Nov 28th 2008

Sibelius: Luonnotar

Soprano
Susan Gritton

Vaughan Williams: Riders To The Sea

Maurya
Patricia Bardon
Bartley
Leigh Melrose
Cathleen
Kate Valentine
Nora
Claire Booth
A woman
Madeleine Shaw

Conductor
Edward Gardner
Director
Fiona Shaw

Designers
Dorothy Cross/Tom Pye


Notes

Fiona Shaw writes brilliantly on the opera and it's inception in the Guardian....