MAHOGANY OPERA MAGAZINE

The Yellow Sofa: Glyndebourne

joanna — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:59:06 +0000

World premiere by composer in residence Julian Philips with a libretto by Ed Kemp after the novella Alves & Co. by Eca de Queiros.

Glyndebourne Festival August 20, 23, 25, 28 2009

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Inferno: Mahogany and Aurora

joanna — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:50:19 +0000

Mahogany is teaming up again with Aurora Orchestra to present a semi-staged performance of Berio’s Laborintus II

- a work for singers, tape, narrator and ensemble – as part of Mahogany’s Towards A New Movement project. Written for the 700th anniversary of Dante’s birth, Laborintus II inspires a programme which arcs from medieval troubadour music beloved of Dante to John Adams’ Son of Chamber Symphony.

This concert is also the first of Aurora’s new residency at LSO St Luke’s which consists of nine concerts over three years featuring cross-arts collaborations with a variety of groups and ensembles.

Friday 19 March 2010 at 8pm

LSO St Luke’s EC1V 9NG

Box Office 0207 638 8891 or www.barbican.org.uk

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Kasper Hauser: RSAMD

joanna — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:17:50 +0000

Kaspar Hauser – Child of Europe

World Premiere

Rory Boyle Composer

Dilys Rose Librettist

Derek Clark Conductor

Frederic Wake-Walker Director

Anna Jones Designer

Mark Doubleday Lighting Designer

Saturday 20, Monday 22, Wednesday 24, Thursday 25 March

7.15pm

New Athenaeum Theatre

“Here lies Kaspar Hauser, riddle of his time. His birth was unknown, his death mysterious.”

In 2006 Composer Rory Boyle won a Creative Scotland Award to write an opera about the 19th century German foundling, Kaspar Hauser, with a libretto by the Edinburgh-based writer Dilys Rose.

Kaspar Hauser, also known as The Child of Europe, first appeared in Nuremberg in 1828, later claiming to have spent most of his childhood and early adolescence locked in a dungeon, fed on bread and water and constrained. He became a curiosity of the day, with people flocking to see him, and the subject of numerous books and essays. Various theories surrounded him – that he was a prince of the House of Baden, a feral child brought up by wolves, the son of a cavalryman, or, more simply, an imposter.

Hauser’s birth and death are shrouded in as much mystery as his short existence. Following one attempt on his life, he was stabbed to death at the age of 21; his origins were never discovered, nor was his killer.

This version of his story is seen from Hauser’s viewpoint; a strange and fascinating story, not only of child neglect but also of exploitation.

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Russian Tales: Mahogany Opera

joanna — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:22:37 +0000

Russian Tales at the Village Underground, Shoreditch 23 April 2008

‘Frederic Wake-Walker is the brains behind Mahogany Opera, an electrifying young company…This benevolent venue combined with a provocative and arresting staging to make Mahogony’s double bill one of the most exciting and electrifying evenings I’ve spent at the opera in recent seasons. Wake-Walker took Stravinsky’s “Renard” and Walton’s “The Bear” and presented them in tandem without a break‚ so that the first melted effortlessly into the second…it was “Renard” presented in an extraordinary non-naturalistic staging inspired by the stage directions of the great Soviet-era director Vsevolod Meyerhold that lifted the evening and made it something truly special.’

Roderic Dunnet, Opera Magazine

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Towards A New Movement: Mahogany

joanna — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:07:18 +0000

Mahogany recently held a two week research and development workshop at the Jerwood Space to explore Berio’s Laborintus II and Blacher’s Abstrakte Oper Nr 1, drawing together singers and dancers from various backgrounds and experimenting with new lighting technology that tracks the sound and movement of performers.

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The Little Sweep: Jubilee Opera

freddie — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:46:48 +0000

The sixtieth anniversary performance of Benjamin Britten’s Let’s Make An Opera (The Little Sweep) at the Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh 14, 15 November 2009.

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Le Big Mac

freddie — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:33:26 +0000

Le Grand Macabre comes to ENO this month. I saw this production in Brussels and it came to be known as Le Big Mac. The set comprises a giant naked woman, out of whom singers appear and disappear. Together with Ligeti’s crazy and surreal music and sounds, this is definitely worth a look…

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New Bennett play about Britten

freddie — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:30:05 +0000

The Habit of Art opens at the National in November. A new play by Alan Bennett that imagines a conversation between Auden and Britten during the composer’s last years as he writes his final opera, Death in Venice. Auden and Britten collaborated on a number of projects as young men so it will be fascinating to see these two giants come to life and speak to each other from a more mature perspective.

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The Yellow Sofa

joanna — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:17:36 +0000

The Yellow Sofa by Glyndebourne’s current composer in residence, Julian Philips, is FWW’s latest directorial venture. It is the world premiere of the piece- at the end of its four performance run- and I was lucky enough to see it- for free no less. That’s the compensation for shelling out (mostly)extortionate amounts for a Glyndebourne ticket, you get this gem- performed in the Jerwood Studio around the back of the famed opera house- thrown into the bargain. As part of the Jerwood Chorus Development Scheme, it provides a supporting act of sorts before the main showdown, but I would probably go for this supporting act alone.

Julian Philips

The opera- in which a tainted yellow sofa is the powerful centre point- is based on a short novel by the Eca de Queiros-Portugal’s most distinguished novelist- and is all about the corrosive, destructive nature of sexual jealousy. This is not high tragedy though, there’s plenty of comedy and a happy ending so you won’t leave in too sombre a mood. Set in the 19^th Century, it follows the story of Godofredo, a well-to-do, whose life gets tipped on its head when he arrives home from work one day to find his wife Ludovina doing the dirty with his friend Machado…on the yellow sofa. Husband and wife part and Godofredo ruminates, plans his revenge with some charismatic friends, and ruminates some more. Only time can tell the outcome.

It’s a neat work with elegant touches. Having the yellow sofa personified by a buxom redhead (Martha Bredin) with a touch of the wanton harlot about her, worked wonderfully to betray Godofredo’s increasing torment and to evoke the powerful sexual charge of the yellow sofa- the furniture on which the act was performed has become the act itself. All ten of the young singers, who work as a tight knit ensemble, confidently breezed through Philips’ demanding score, and the Britten Sinfonia, under the precise baton of Leo McFall, were similarly adept. Particularly memorable were the guitar duet and the violinist who extracted herself from her fellow players and became part of the action on stage.

In fact, meta-theatrical devices ran rife in this opera- a guaranteed entertainment. When within The Yellow Sofa, another opera is about to start, McFall leaves his post and re-emerges as the conductor within the opera (are you still with me?) a flamboyant, hair tossing specimen, who then gets the orchestra to play the first few bars of L’elisir d’amore, Glydebourne’s headline act that evening. Masterful. Needless to say the audience (and I) didn’t get the joke.

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Tales from Japan part 6: The Last Stretch

joanna — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:38:54 +0000

My trip culminated in a performance that demonstrated Zeami’s theory about substance over function (see part 5) perfectly. At Cocoon Theatre I saw a new adaptation of Sakura Hime written by Keishi Nagatsuka, directed by Kazuyoshi Kushida and starring Kanzaburo Nakamura. The production transferred this famous Kabuki play to modern day South America. It was visually arresting with vivid colours and fast scene changes, full of theatrical tricks and devices and contained a myriad of cultural influences from Brecht to Hollywood. There were also certain influences from Kabuki; men played some of the female roles, actors pulled ‘mie’ faces, a bottle was struck which sounded like blocks of wood and the actors at times performed in a more stylized way. The key, I believe, as to why this production was a success was because the Kabuki influence (and any other influence for that matter) was incorporated into the production. No single element dominated and from this, a modern and relevant form emerged. After the show, Kanzaburo-san told me that in previous years the shows at Cocoon Theatre have been more in the Kabuki style and that audiences had been a bit shocked by this production. I hope they keep pushing this endeavour because from experiments like this we will succeed in transferring and updating our cultures and the result will be that we connect our present to our past and find a worthwhile understanding of ourselves.

And so I leave Japan affected by the deep and refined elements of the culture, inspired by the fascinating and talented people I met, refreshed by the energy and enthusiasm that I encountered and full of new ideas for my own future work.

FWW

Previous Installment- Part 5: Modern Japanese Theatre- a Myriad of Cultures

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