KULLERVO AT LAST

It's important to me to make note of how very good was the Sydney Symphony's Kullervo, with Vladimir Ashkenazy seemingly at one with the work. Three weeks have rushed by since we went, yet I think about it a lot.

It will be broadcast on Thursday 14 March 1300 (Australian Eastern summer time)  a time slot which seems rather obtuse, and certainly not that accessible for the working man. It's a recording I can just hope makes it to the CD stage.

The first half of the programme was the Ravel's Left Hand Concerto with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet which was rather as epxected - not exactly Ashkanzy's natural home and played with considerable physicalness, which included leaving the stool and clutching the Steinway with the right hand to run the keyboard with his body as much as five fingers, by M. Bacouzet.

Kullervo is Opus 7. Sibelius was 26 when it premiered in 1892 with a scratch orchestra in a Finland now annexed to Russia having been sectioned off from the Swedish Kingdom earlier in the 19th Century. Reactions were mixed. There was sneering, there was uncertainty, there were reservations, there were cries of treachery for the use of the Finnish language (for a very Finnish legend mind you) as Sibelius gave first notice of the nationalism which would be his hallmark, and then there was the laurel wreath presented to Sibelius by his friend, the conductor Robert Kajanus, and on which were inscribed the final lines of the Kalevala on which Kullervo is based:

"This way therefore leads the pathway,
Here the path lies newly opened ..."

It is a huge work, an 80 minute oratorio / tone poem of substantial incubation.

It was, to cut to the chase, a simply maginficent performance for little ol' me, hearing it live for the first time (the previous outing in Sydney was in the 70s) and pretty worked up about it too I was. Everything was right. Ashkenazy is so well connected with this composer, the orchestra responded wonderfully to his every insight, and the all male choir was in fantastic form (in Finnish what's more) under acting music director Elizabeth Scott - take a big bow boys and girl. And then there was the supreme gift, thank you Mr Ashkenzy (for not much longer can we call you 'Our Vlad', as we tend to informalise those we love most) - two Finnish soloists in the absolutely splendid form of Helena Juntunen and Ville Rusanen.

Helena Juntunen and Ville Rusanen. You can hear them on March 14 if you're not down the mines like I will be.

Ashkenazy played it very darkly, which is what it is for sure. After the hauntingly restrained first two movements - a mysterious flight of ideas of youth (composer and hero/anti-hero) from which would emerge the shocking story of lost childhoods, lust and incest, guilt, self-condemnation and suicide - came the tragedy. And Ashkenazy played it very darkly.

The chorus, a Greek chorus of dark knowing tragedy, from entry to the final "and so he perished", was relentlessly good, these men in black getting around the language as if their own, with a beautiful sombre tone replete with doom. The steady swaying funeral beat was hypnotic. You could only yield to it and go with it, swept into the darkness, as did they.

Ville Rusanen's Kullervo ran the gamut. From his almost naive heady insistent "Come, girl, into my sledge" of young libido uncontained, he morphed into a darker voiced fallen human, angry, judging and brutally condemning of self.

Now, Helena Juntunen simply stunned me. Her confident presence told all. She had its measure. In a equally astonishing display of vocal development, rather the reverse of her brother's, she devolved from a fiesty object of seduction, initially wildly rejecting with spitting conviction the sleigh man in those woods, into a soft hued girl, with lilting beauty of such sweetness as to break your heart, and a soft grained tremolo like a maiden's curls, as the winds rippled behind her, as she recalled her childhood and the realisation of the horror of the self alone, such that she wished herself dead.

If only I get to hear this again; then again, revisiting such specialness doesn't always work.

(To the stage right of the podium, a beaming Mr Ashkenazy and Elizabeth Scott; to the left, soloists Ville Rusanen and Helena Juntunen)

For the record, your blogger visiting Ainola (2009)

BACK TO BACON

I went back to the Francis Bacon Five Decades in its last week. Noticeably, my emotional response was muted now the startle reflex had faded, and I found the early work the more interesting.

The first painting you see, on its own in a small entry room, is the 1933 Crucifixion. It quite overwhelmed me on first viewing, and I actually got a bit teary. The guide (we were on a early entry tour and were the only two) noticed, I think, and I was half embarrassed to be so unsophisticated yet half proud that at least I had some feelings left.

I had been overcome by the transparency, the evanescence of existence, the fading of animus, and the horribleness of the exaggerated suspension, but it was when I fixed on the three ribs that I became so visibly affected. Ribs invariably define the carcass. Perhaps it is just that they are so recognisable or more likely they outline a precious cavity and it is they themselves, the ribs, which are the machinary of the most elemental of the life forces - inhalation of exhalation. Little wonder the breath is the focus of much meditative technique.

Then there's the religious connotation of course, to crucifixion I mean. But Bacon's focus was on the incredible cruelty of man to man rather than sacrificial lamb.

On the other side of the entry wall the Odessa Steps Massacre - Battleship Potemkin - was screening high on one wall so we could all see again, and again, the nurse's scream that so affected Bacon (Head series), and later Whiteley.





The young Whitely spent time with Bacon as Wendy Whiteley recalls below (25 minutes admittedly, although quite interesting ones I think, covering much of what Bacon was about, technically and personally)




"Bacon didn't change what he did all that much ... "



Head I (1947-1948) shows a head with both human and animal features, the boundaries blurring.

From the catalogue: "For the philosopher Gilles Deleuze this slippage between animal and human in Bacon's work cannot be resolved: "This is not an arrangement of man and beast, nor a resemblance; it is a deep identity, a zone of indiscernibility ... the man who suffers is a beast, the beast who suffers is a man."" This was the one painting which stirred me most this visit.

And then there was the dog - Study for a running dog, 1954.

The blurred head and feet, suggest more than movement (and maybe he wasn't very good at heads, and feet, and hands, and genitals, never seen). What initially felt like menace, a slinking dog in the gutter, became, the longer I looked, a sad and lonely outcast creature in the sewers and drains of the gutters of life. Self Portrait I ?

Blurring movement interests me, along with changing the (extremely limited) time frame in which we operate (as say in Koyaanisqatsi) in its capacity to change perception and perspective, unmasking the unseen, changing emphasis, and refocusing interest.

I've tried catching my dog at different speeds. Here are two. The first photo was shot using a slow shutter speed with the camera above and following the dog walking. The effect is of a dog walking along its own time tunnel in space, the past behind and its future beyond.

The second is because I like it.

SO GOOD IT'S SICKENING

Vladimir Ashkenazy kicked off his final year as MD and Chief Conductor with the SSO with an interesting if not particularly gala-ish programme of:

Sibelius - Lemminkäinen Suite

Fauré - Pelléas et Mélisande
Debussy - La Mer

It was played in that order although the programme notes made mention that the order of the halves had been originally the reverse. The very raising of the matter suggests some residual uncertainty about the decision. Whatever Mr Ashkenazy's reasoning, I think plan A the better. The Fauré would have made a fine opener, the Debussy, which was the most accomplished playing of the night, would have sent everyone out for drinkies on a big swell, and the Sibelius would have been the main focus for a programme called 'Legends by the Sea - Ashkenazy conducts Sibelius'. Or Legends by the Lake. Or Stay in your Cabins.

While we're talking about reversing the order, episode two of Ashkenazy conducts Sibelius - A Finnish Epic - follows on this week and it seems to me it would have been a fine season opener with the much more gala-ry Kallervo (monumental, imported soloists, male choir, and me busting to hear it live, especially after reading Alex Ross go bananas about it with Vänzkä) and a big rumble with Ravel's left hand concerto.

Anyway, back at the actual gala opening night, playing in reverse. We were well into the second should-have-been first half.  The Debussy was working well. The strings had reached that certain frission they didn't quite manage in the Sibelius (and Sibelius is all about the strings), bowing and swaying through the penultimate bars when, can you believe it,  someone two rows behind got sea sick and started to throw up. Now throwing can be quite off-putting - not only for the victim of the irreversible urge (there's only a few physiological processes that can't be aborted past a certain juncture - vomiting, sneezing, and one other does come to mind) but also for those close by, and trapped close by, whose proximity to the whole unpleasantry risks them joining in. The man directly behind me kept repeating, loudly, like some gormless adolescent - 'ooh it's going all over her dress'.

That music should so emote is the envy of many a conductor. It even made Norman's newsroom.

SIGNS OF LIFE

My apologies. I didn't intend to drift away like that. It just happened and the longer it went the longer it went. A bit rude really; sorry.

The end of the working year was hectic, and when holidays finally came I slid into a kind of torpor.  Doing the least became the pleasure, and we spent languid times together idling through the season - swimming (Sydney is really the most glorious water city), napping on hot afternoons under the ceiling fan, and then retreats to the country where the summer was fierce but manageable.

Against that background -

K's birthday party was wonderful.

Locals will remember the Aunty Jack Show in the early days of Australian television.




On keyboard in that clip is the irrepressible Thin Arthur, an escapee from the old dart with all that ebullient inherent panto style. There he was and here he is:




It all became a gorgeous balmy night blur.

Christmas happily came and went, New Year exploded as usual in the ritual that still manages to dazzle, and January slid past as the hottest month on record. Finally the rains came.

The boat ramp by the pool shining in the morning light:

The Angophoras in the gardens by the pool glowing in the late afternoon light:

A glorious day at Mackerel Beach with the birthday boy (now all has been exposed, though a layer or two down, some discretion retained) in the water taxi back to Palm Beach, Lion Island behind:

Francis Bacon is explored in a five decade retro at the Art Gallery. We have had little exposure down here to Bacon, Irish born of an Australian race horse trainer, whose transition from interior designer to painter of the disconnected and depraved was in the company of Roy de Maistre, later also lover to Patrick White who would arrive in London some years later. Recently I read that Marianne Faithful had declared herself to be have been born depraved, or something close to that, by which I think they both mean that they are not fooled by the superficiality of temporary beauty, the things of time and space, and have come to the realisation that the/their way to the truth is to confront the ego in all its ugliness. Bacon had no time for beauty. His paintings were reality as he saw it - "a concentration of reality and a shorthand of sensation". It was suggested he could live in Switzerland and avoid tax - an idea he rejected because of "all those fucking views".

Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey was screened in the Concert Hall with the SSO and choir in great form - Ligetti, Strauss and Strauss fully alive and fully thrilling in a still remarkable and remarkably beautiful film. If he got anything wrong, it was the hostess's clothing, though I do love the velcro stick -on shoes, and that computers would get smaller, not bigger. We still watch it from time to time, at least once a year, and it has never looked or sounded so fabulous. The next most beautiful film to look at has to be Mulholland Drive - every frame a perfection of construction and light. We just watched it twice in as many weeks.

In the country things got bad. Sydney had a day of 46 C and while it was degrees cooler in the highlands, it was the smell of the dryness and heat, something almost approaching ignition point in the air, that prevailed. And there were no birds or animals. Nothing. Just heat.

I installed a fire safety bunker a year ago. The road out of this place, on the edge of a National Park, is a death trap, a photo on the front page of the next day's newspaper - a burnt out car in a charred smoldering landscape. The bunker is an earth covered underground concrete box and it feels like getting into a space shuttle when one climbs down and closes the hatch.

In the country, the night temperatures have dropped and there's soil moisture again. The King Parrots are never far away

and a lyrebird has been singing wildly just off the bedroom verandah.

GREETINGS

It's that time of year. The frangipani in our front yard, Sydney, just about says it all.

THEIR GAIN OUR LOSS

Michael Black, Opera Australia's outstanding chorus master, is taking up the full time position of Chicago Lyric's chorus master in August 2013. That's just a few months before Gotterdammerung in Melbourne.

Read allaboudit here.
.

THE TROUBLE WITH

Wasn't it Woody Allen who hit the spot with "The trouble with happiness is it can't buy you money!" I love it. Still breaks me up.

It and its variations on a theme certainly broke everyone up in Pique Dame. That's so much of what I love about it. Everyone fails. Hermann loses happiness (and himself) in the search for money. Lisa loses money (and herself) in the search for happiness. The Countess, malcontent that she is, drops dead when confronted with 'show me the money'. And the Prince loses happiness but keeps the money. Etc.

Anyway, there was no trouble with Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra's Queen of Spades last Saturday night, the first of two. I found it quite overwhelming and was quietly emotional for all but all of the first half (as played that means to Act II, Sc 1). It was simply the excellence of it that got to me. The cast is here.

I chose to sit rear stalls which was a good call. The sound mix is just about as good as it gets with soloists and big forces - a huge orchestra, sounding wonderful, a huge choir (about 150 excluding the children's choir) sounding wonderful, and a big line up of soloists, a quite exotic line up in fact, sounding wonderful. The acoustic modifications don't look nearly as bad or ticky tacky as they do when looking down form the circle and the sound was very good for whatever reason - the hall is sounding better, the orchestra is sounding better, the seating is better, I was in a better mood without eyes hanging out after a day down the mines ...

And I had grown to love the work enormously having been obsessed with it over the preceding few weeks. It was really Ashkenazy's triumph. The only thing that niggled me was the Countess's great aria when there was maybe room for something rather more French along the lines of lingering warmth and rubato and less chilly Russian. Early settling in moments when it felt like the choir, which sounded alarmingly more philharmonic than chorus at first (strange that) was feeling the air, and some initial uncertainty in the children (always forgiven, it just makes them sound more gorgeously childlike) soon passed and the new sound stage took shape. I now wonder if anything lesser could satisfy.

Great moments were whenever Stuart Skelton was on stage, like all seven scenes. He is a mighty presence and singer and I can't think of anyone anywhere who could match such beauty with such masculinity, not to mention stamina. Boy did he ride the storm (Ashkenazy gave him no special consideration there and he rode it triumphantly). His "beauty, goodness, angel" (how I love that courtship - it is so wild; got Lisa) was spine tingling. And on and on. And the Lisa of Dina Kuznetsova (Francesca di Rimini next year at the Met) was a dream - she seemed always in character, every movement, every head angle, every step with dress held up slightly, and sang like it was her fetish role. It should become same. She was the big surprise of the night.

Andrei Bondarenko's Prince was another sung to perfection. He gets the beautiful aria, so beautiful as to seem, intentionally I'm sure, to be effete beside wild man's engorging swelling almost thrusting "beauty, goodness, angel". He topped it off with a stunning mezza di voce on the big note of his final phrase and an audience otherwise stunned into silence and breathholding burst into applause (the tune helped I think too, doesn't it always).

Jose Carbo had a big sing too as Tomsky and Deborah Humble poured it out with lush velvet ripples as Pauline (another big surprise). There were no weaknesses really.

Characterisation came and went a bit. The native Russians not unexpectedly more at home with the text seemed rather more free to emote and act out. The chair for the Countess's final scene was a great idea, and I only wish the idea had been extended and Stuart had pulled a gun on her. Really. Everything was calling for it, and I thought he would. It would have capped it off, so to speak.

The lighting effects once the old buzzard had croaked were very effective. I'd have preferred the hall darkened more and earlier. It seemed like a work in progress, but very good progress, and maybe just needed more time.

The final mens chorus lament was simply the most beautifully modulated singing you can wish for. And the extras from the chorus, notably Amy Corkery, were splendid.

The curtain calls could have done with a bit more choreography which is hard to do admittedly at the end of a long night on a large but crowded concert platform. The children had long gone, the female choir had gone, there was a long line of soloists, the orchestra was huge, and there was Ashkenazy. It was just that we wanted to say thank you more individually, and especially to the chief, and for a little while longer.

Here speak Mr Ashkenazy and Mr Skelton:




Critical thumbs up are here and here.

It was a fine end to the year (for me).