Album Review: "TRANQUILO" - The View From Madeleine's Couch, MGM Distribution KAA9404, reviewed by Tony Magee

An exciting new group of artists, with a new CD, comes across my desk. This is the full “commitment” thing. They wrote half the songs, did all the arrangements, recorded the album, paid for it all, printed the booklets, pressed the CD’s and do much of their own promotion. Luckily now, they are signed to MGM, so we can all avail ourselves of this great new Latin American style group.

“They” are The View From Madeleine’s Couch, which is really a Brisbane based song-writing and arranging duo comprising Kym Ambrose and Anje West, with guest musicians making up a band of seven pieces, and then also filled out with strings on some tracks.

Lovers of the Antonio Carlos Jobim repertoire will fall head-over-heels for this album. The songs are not copies of Jobim’s style, however there are distinct influences. Also, listeners may be reminded of Astrud Gilberto and Maria Toledo when they hear Anje West’s singing style. But we have an updated sound here, with updated arrangements, whilst still retaining classic authentic Brazilian and other South American rhythms.

Another striking feature is the imaginative use of vibraphone and its clever integration with the band and the vocals. The Luiz Bonfa style of guitar work is also purely authentic and adds further to the captivating and stylish way in which this album presents.

Tracks include Historia do Samba, Berimbau, Anos Dourados (Jobim), Eu so Quero Um Xodo, Fato Consumado and five originals, all of which are excellent.

As for venues: lunchtime cafes and restaurants, sophisticated dinners and late night. Visit the group’s site:  www.madeleinescouch.com.au to find out more.

Tony’s rating: 4 stars

First published in Eat Drink Magazine, Dec 2005

Review: Death's Waiting Room

Contributed by Joyce Chau     

Oct 19 2005

Composer Tim Hansen

Death’s Waiting Room is an eclectic mix of theatre, music, comedy and circus. It takes the freak show as its premise and plays to our age-old desire for the perverse. While there’s enough sex, blood, guts to outrage the moral majority (if there is such a thing), Death’s Waiting Room has a strong morality of its own.

A troupe of actors, a collection of freaks put on the show. Roll up! Roll up! As always the credibility of a freak show depends on the variety of the flesh on display. In this one there’s one grotesquely fat clown and one grotesquely thin clown, a mermaid in a bath tub, whores to cater for every fetish, acrobats with bodies that contort and bend. The Ringmaster presides over the spectacle, the expert, the one who knows all and knows what’s best for his collection of freaks. Nevertheless, the troupe wants to do things differently and takes things into their own hands. The results are far from your usual family fairground outing. 

The freaks bicker over the parts they will play in each scene. They bitch and bait one another as they rehearse. Each freak is bitter about one thing or another and the competition within the troupe is particularly vicious. Some really have been hard done by, others just whinge. Yet they must nevertheless get on with it. While the characters may be sideshow freaks, they are about more than their weird physiques. The power dynamics of the group are played out in each petty squabble. 

That the troupe is a dark metaphor for life and society and the Ringmaster a god-like figure coolly removed from all the action isn’t extraordinary. There’s the sense that humanity is a disturbing, uncontrollable and dangerous thing, which isn’t all that surprising either given some of the content of the play. What was more unusual was that the play derived a moral position from these elements and from the sense of futility. Inaction and non-interference becomes a strange sort of moral high ground.

The scenes in Death’s Waiting Room are as diverse as the cast playing them out, ranging from extreme physical theatre to moments where there is nothing but the spoken word. There’s also a good dose of self-deprecating humour and a Shakespearian blood bath (a case of taking Shakespeare to the literal extreme!)    

Toby Finlayson’s timing as Fat Clown is impeccable. Likewise, Kate Clugston’s spiteful Strawberry, the mermaid. 

Tim Hansen’s music is the highlight of Death’s Waiting Room, though the choreography in some of the musical numbers could’ve been sharper. 

Directed By: Danielle Harvey

Cast: Liam Nesbitt, Matt Gaskin, Blair Milan, Toby Finlayson, Sasha Cody, Kate Clugston, Danielle Connor, Amy Firth, Fiona Rishworth, Phil Hassan

Season: PACT Theatre, 107 Railway Pde, Erskineville until 5 November 2005. www.dancinggiant .com.au

Obituary: Wilfrid Holland

Wilfrid Holland was born in Hull, England, on 27 June 1920. His serious musical education started at the Royal School of Church Music in 1938. In 1946, after WWII, he was appointed organist at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he studied composition and musicology. From 1950 he taught at Dover College in Kent and for ten years was a leading musician in that town, directing the Dover Choral and Orchestral Societies and the Dover Singers.

In 1960 he settled in Canberra as Director of Music at the Canberra Grammar School. The following year he instituted the Canberra Choral Society, also acting as its conductor for the following ten years. As a conductor Wilfrid was also responsible for helping develop the Canberra Orchestral Society, which would later become the Canberra Symphony Orchestra. In 1971 he retired from this field to concentrate on the interpretation and composing of chamber music suitable for The Winter Singers, which he had founded in 1963. Many of his original works have been published by E.C. Schirmer of Boston, MA, but are not generally distributed in Australia.

In mid-1992 the ACT Lieder Society sponsored a concert devoted entirely to his compositions, which was an acknowledged artistic success and which, as a by-product, created a new direction in his writing.

In July 1993 he disbanded The Winter Singers and decided to concentrate on piano work, mainly vocal accompaniments. From this point his composition also changed from writing choral music to turning his hand to solo songs, which he found a far more personal business, since solo work must be tailored to suit the personality as well as the technical skill of the singer concerned.

In addition to his capacity as both a composer and conductor, Wilfrid worked in various other roles. Between 1960-1970 he lectured in music for the Canberra Adult Education Authority, and he also worked as an examiner for both the Australian Music Examinations Board and the Australian Guild of Music and Speech. Wilfrid was active as a private music teacher, and was awarded the Canberra Critics' Circle Award (Music) in October 1993 for "outstanding contribution to musical life in Canberra as teacher, composer and conductor". He died 15 September 2005.

Reproduced from the Australian Music Centre website.

Album Review: BLUE JOY - BONNIE J JENSEN, La Brava Music LB0058, Reviewed by Tony Magee

Here is a truly sumptuous album containing beautiful new arrangements of some seriously well written 70’s and 80’s classics, plus some excellent original material.

Singer, songwriter and arranger Bonnie J Jensen is new to me, but I’m so glad I’ve found her. Absolutely refreshing to hear intelligent, quality singing and phrasing from one of our own.

Bonnie has assembled around her a superb band featuring the top players available, including Jonathan Zwartz on double bass, Michael Bartolomei on piano and keys, Fabian Hevia on drums and percussion, Jeremy Sawkins on guitars, Don Rader on trumpet and flugel horn, Craig Walters on Tenor sax and Andrew Oh on flutes. Bartolomei and Jensen have done most of the arrangements, with Zwartz and Sawkins contributing to one piece each. What a line-up!

Jensen sings with a silky, smooth, lush sound, not unlike Dianna Krall. It oozes and flows all over the listener, pouring music into every nook and cranny of the body and soul. 

In particular, some outstanding tracks include Exactly Like You, here presented in a smooth easy swing arrangement, a wonderful version of Just the Two of Us, a clever arrangement of Rio De Janiero Blue (lots of people have covered that song, including Randy Crawford and Nicolette Larson), in which the latin feel is combined with some searing electric guitar breaks, This Masquerade and Sting’s Every Breath You take. Jensen’s originals include Free, The Flame and Tokyo Skies, which provides a suitable opening to the entire album.

Perfectly suited to the cocktail hour, sophisticated dinners, or late night romance.

Tony’s rating: 4 stars

First published in Eat Drink Magazine, June 2005

Big Brother Goes to the Opera

by Norman Lebrecht                                                                                     

Lorin Maazel

There ought to be a tingle of excitement. The most talked-about English novel of modern times is being brought to the opera stage. The composer is a universally renowned musician, a former head of the Vienna State Opera, now music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. The director is a multi-skilled renaissance man, more sought after than Osama Bin Laden. There ought, by rights, to be a buzz about this production.

Yet, a fortnight before the Royal Opera's world premiere, Lorin Maazel’s opera of George Orwell’s 1984, directed by Robert Lepage, arouses something akin to ambivalence in the crush bar, if not outright embarrassment. It is a matter of public record that the composer has paid the physical costs of the production out of his own pocket, a contribution tantamount to self publishing. It is also no secret that Maazel is 75 years old and has never written an opera before.

No conductor presently active commands more respect from orchestral players than Lorin Maazel. He is a phenomenon of the podium, an immigrant kid who first raised a baton for Toscanini at the age of seven and has since conducted 5,000 performances. Brimming with self-esteem, his website reports unblushingly that ‘he is affectionately referred to as “numero uno” by many of his colleagues.’ He plays three sets of tennis with people half his age and is contracted to lead New York’s finest until the end of the decade.

Still, 75 is a bit late to start writing opera. No debut work by a senior composer has ever succeeded. The only ones to make headway past 70 were Verdi and Janacek with a sheaf of masterpieces behind them. So why is Covent Garden, a publicly funded house, putting on Maazel’s spinster effort as its only new opera this season?

The simple reason is that Maazel offered it to Michael Kaiser, the last ROH chief executive, after his negotiations fell though with La Scala. Kaiser, calculating that he could get a world premiere for less than the cost of a Figaro revival, grabbed the bargain with the glee of a Boxing Day sales shopper.

There were other attractions. Every world-class opera house needs a roster of top conductors. It has been 26 years - Luisa Miller in 1979 - since Maazel last conducted at Covent Garden. He magnanimously agreed to waive his conducting fee and undertook the cost and headache of building the scenery in Quebec, under Lepage’s eye. The production is owned by Maazel’s company, Big Brother, and he controls any future revivals or transfers. ‘It is a hybrid,’ said a Covent Garden official uncomfortably. ‘Nothing like this has ever happened before.’

Nor should it ever happen again, for this is no way to run an artistic institution which depends on public goodwill and corporate support. But such is the chaos enveloping new operas that the commissioning process has fallen prey to external pressures.

Ten days after 1984 opens, the Metropolitan Opera in New York will stage Cyrano de Bergerac by Franco Alfano, a budget-buster seldom revived since its overblown Rome premiere in 1936. Alfano is best known for finishing the third act of Puccini’s Turandot. His own works plod wearily around set-piece arias.

The only reason the Met is doing Cyrano - and that Covent Garden will take it next season - is that Placido Domingo, the eminent tenor in the time-added on element of his singing career, wants to sing the role before his final whistle. Domingo has an exquisite way of shaping a musical phrase and couching a request of this kind, but when it comes to dramaturgical discrimination he has, like most busy singers, poor taste and no judgement whatsoever. The list of Domingo’s costly flops is extensive: Menotti’s Goya, Wolf-Ferrari’s Sly, Morreno Torroba’s Luisa Fernanda, Il Guarany by Gomes, Merlin by Albeniz – these and many more, all one-run wonders, never to be seen again.

But what Domingo asks, Domingo gets. If the Met and ROH don’t put on his Cyrano, they fear he might not sing in Walkure, undermining precarious Ring cycles. So opera bosses bite their knuckles til they bleed and pray that the rewards of Wagner will outweigh the folly of Alfano.

This genteel form of arm-twisting is practised by the biggest names in the business, just because they are the biggest names. Covent Garden would never have commissioned Sophie’s Choice from the underpowered Nicholas Maw had not Maw been backed by Simon Rattle whom the ROH were desperate to have back. The result was an opera of no consequence, neither surpassing the movie of William Styron’s novel nor offering any stretch of music that sticks in the memory or stretches the mind.

Maazel’s 1984 follows in the footprints of Andre Previn who, in 1998, imposed A Streetcar Named Desire on San Francisco Opera, decorating the Tennessee Williams masterpiece with music that was, at best, innocuous. Commissions like these are crazy paving stones on a wobbly path to an operatic future, if there is to be a future at all.

A Streetcar Named Desire, by Andre Previn. San Fransisco Opera, 1998

Thankfully, there are signs that some artistic directors are beginning to get a grip. Antonio Pappano’s priority at Covent Garden is to renew core repertoire but he is taking an intelligent interest in the periphery. Next season, he has inserted Carl Nielsen’s comic Maskarade, an early 20th century gem, alongside another of Donizetti’s lost scores. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

But the real energy is going into new work. A five-year partnership is to be launched with the Genesis Foundation to commission operas for the smaller Linbury Theatre, which is the obvious way forward. Opera is so expensive to mount and must sell such a huge proportion of seats to break even that the chances of a new work taking off are choked by its own umbilical cord. The last new opera to sweep the world was John Adams’ Nixon in China, and that was 18 years ago. Far better to take opera back into the smaller chamber where it began and allow composers to find their voice without pressures of great expectations.

That said, I shall be out there in the stalls rooting for 1984. I admire Maazel’s intellect and know that his acute self-criticism will not let him produce a dud. Seats are selling pretty well and other companies are taking an interest. Still, even if 1984 sets all the senses swirling, it will not alter the public conviction that grand opera houses lack credibility in contemporary opera. The interesting stuff must be sought elsewhere.

First published at The Lebrecht Weekly, April 21, 2005

Review: "THOMAS HEYWOOD - ORGAN RECITAL", Wesley Uniting Church, Forrest ACT, March 13 2005. Reviewed by TONY MAGEE

Well let’s just cut to the chase and start by saying that this guy is a very good organist and also a brilliant showman and entertainer.

“This guy” that I refer to is Thomas Heywood., Australian concert organist, who presented a highly enjoyable and varied program of music at the Wesley Uniting Church on the afternoon of Sunday 13th March.

Heywood’s bubbling and effervescent personality oozed forth from the moment he burst into the room and swept to the organ, where his wife Simone awaited to settle him and then operate at least as much equipment as he did – activating some of the organ stops, changing camera angles as required for the giant screen video, turning pages and selling CD’s before, at interval and after the show. Yes, this act is very much a two person affair and they travel it around the country and the world with great success, playing to packed houses accompanied by significant CD and music sales. It’s brilliantly thought out, thoroughly well prepared and perfectly executed. All in all, one must applaud the business acumen at least as much as the music making itself.

Heywood’s own transcription of Rossini’s overture to his opera The Thieving Magpie commenced the program (after a sparkling rendition of the National Anthem) and was delightful and convincing. It is a hugely popular piece and suitable for use in a miriad of situations besides the opera, including a lengthy underscore in Kubrick’s nightmarish film A Clockwork Orange and also forming the basis for the plot of a an episode in Herge’s Tintin series - The Castafiore Emerald.

Two pieces by Dubois followed (written for organ) including the fast paced Toccata, which is not unlike the Widor. Both pieces were well executed with dazzling finger work and accuracy. Lemare’s Rondo Capriccio, Canzonetta and Toccata di Concerto followed. His works are greatly influenced by the orchestral repertoire and this was apparent of course. The Canzonetta particularly showcasd Heywood’s ability to present softer passages with delicacy and style, whilst the Toccata displayed his dazzling footwork in a fabulous performance of the work.

Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 – “Unfinished” was the major work for the afternoon – again also popping up to great effect in film, this time in Peter Seller’s penultimate offering, Being There – the “Unfinished” aspect being the crucial touch. See the film to find out why. Here, in Stuart Archer’s transcription, the piece was handled with great mastery by Heywood as he explored the orchestral colourings and developed the passages, phrases, texture and drama of the piece to majestic and powerful levels. Very satisfying and also fascinating.

Heywood’s own transcription of Beethoven’s Egmont Overture closed the program. This I found just a tad rushed and dashed off, only because I am used to Klemperer’s sometimes ponderous tempos I suppose. However, it was none the less very satisfying. 

Finally, I would like to mention that Heywood has transcribed all the Beethoven Symphonies for concert organ. This is certainly a monumental feat in itself, separate to the playing of them which I have yet to hear, but relish the opportunity to do so. Franz Liszt did same for the piano (both as solo piano and duo piano transcriptions) with, in my opinion, mixed success. As I previously mentioned, the organ is the supreme instrument on which to re-create orchestral colourations and power. Thomas Heywood understands this thoroughly.

First published in Muse Magazine (Canberra), April 2005

Review: Not much drama as sad folk tell all - The Canberra Times

MONOLOGUE MOMENT: Ian Croker, one Telling 
Moments mixed bag of performances

by Frank McKone

Telling Moments.  Monologues by Robert Reinhart, Adele Lewin, Tessa Bremner, Margaret Fischer, Keith Curran and Neal Bell selected and directed by Adam Maher for A.R.T.S. at The Street Theatre, January 6-22.

This mixed bunch is a pot-pourri of mainly gay and lesbian scents, with a strong smell of death, actual or emotional.  Though some pieces are humorous, even occasionally very funny, the lives of these disparate characters are essentially sad and at the extremes, bleak.

The bunch is also of mixed quality.  Reinhart, a well-known New York gay writer, communications executive and media producer, wrote Telling Moments as a collection of 15 gay monologues, which sell to actors to use as audition pieces.  Though published in 1994, I could find no internet reference to their production on stage in toto.  The other pieces performed here are a mix of one-offs and monologues taken out of plays.  

Reinhart's writing is clearly the best of the bunch, but with only some of his 15 presented, and the other pieces having a different focus and not so well written, the show is not clearly integrated.  Some of Reinhart's characters  do make references to each other, but the point of this is lost on the non-Reinhart characters.  So, despite short bookend scenes, there isn't any dramatic development for the audience to follow.

Performances also ranged from fair to excellent.  Bringing in only one woman asked too much of Adele Lewin, while Oliver Baudert and Ian Croker had real style and I was particularly impressed by the strength of the younger Jeremy Just's acting.  On opening night the acting seemed to free up in the second half, and the audience responded in kind, so we can look forward to the show settling in quickly.  

The musicians, Helen Way (cello) and Brett Janiec (clarinet) played with verve and great style between the telling moments.  The musical links, composed by Helen Way and Tim Hansen, were neat and thematically pointed, successfully helping to hold the evening together.

In summary, an interesting and partially successful show, which is worth seeing to appreciate different lives of horror and humour as each character expresses his or her thoughts and feelings directly to us.

First published in The Canberra Times, January 10, 2005

[Ed: A reply followed from me, two days later through Letters to the Editor, Canberra Times Jan 12, 2005]

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

January 12 2005

Frank McKone’s mostly constructive review of Telling Moments (CT January 10, Times 2, p.8) contains some disappointing factual errors which I should like to correct.

The work is unfairly denigrated by his suggestion that the monologues were only intended as audition pieces and also that they had never actually been performed. Both of these observations are wrong. 

Firstly, Author Robert Reinhart published all the monologues in 1994, where he clearly states in the preface of the book that they can be performed either as a complete entertainment in any sequence or [italics added] used separately as useful audition pieces. 

Secondly, the play was premiered at New York’s internationally acclaimed performance space, The Kitchen, whose board of directors includes composer Philip Glass. The Kitchen serves as a venue for more established artists to take unusual creative risks. Later, the work shifted to New York’s Kaufman Theatre (at 534 West 42nd Street, not the one at the American Museum of Natural History).

Tony Magee

Artistic Administrator

ARTS Theatre Company