Reviews

Dance of Desire at the Ambassador, National Symphony Orchestra at the National Concert Hall and the RTE Concert Orchestra at the Naitonal Concert Hall.

Dance of Desire

Ambassador Theatre

By Gerry Colgan

When a new show appears proclaiming itself a spectacular Irish dance show, it is hardly possible to avoid the comparison with Riverdance and its progeny.

This is, indeed, out of the same stable, but not on the same scale. The cast comprises 25 performers, including a solo singer and a few instrumentalists, but mostly dancers.

The story, based by author Sean Quinlan on the legend of the Children of Lir, is the thinnest of fairytale threads drawn through the proceedings.

King Lir's second wife, the wicked Aoife, is intensely jealous of her four stepdaughters, and contrives to change them into swans. Poor Lir gets it in the neck, but when the Milesians finally arrive to supplant the De Dannan (some 900 years on) there is a happy ending. In truth, one hardly notices the plot's presence in the thunder of the dance routines it generates.

There is one singer, Susan McFadden (although others are occasionally heard in recorded music), and she has a pleasant voice with a good range.

The songs, however, are another matter, consisting of three undistinguished numbers in a modern pop genre which sit uneasily in the middle of Eric Cunningham's lively score and the show's general ambience.

They interrupt the action, as do isolated instrumental slots with uileann pipes, violin, bodhran and sax.

Dance is the thing here, and it is terrific. Daire Nolan's choreography tests the dancers' mettle to the full, and they respond with athleticism and precision.

While the routines are traditionally based, they are also eclectic in their absorption of other influences.Hips sway sensually, heads and shoulders move independently of each other and breaches of traditional Irish dance are freely indulged in. This helps to avoid a sense of repetition and is wholly acceptable.

Among the lead dancers, Cian Nolan, Lisa Anderson, Zoltan Papp and Tanya Cunningham elevate terpsichorean talent and charismatic stage presence to that level known as star quality.

Without being a blockbuster of the now familiar genre, this show offers its own professionalism and talents with merited pride.

**********

Sweeney, NSO/Markson

NCH,Dublin

By Martin Adams

Messiaen - L'Ascension. Bruckner - Symphony No 8.

During his lifetime, Bruckner's reputation was based on his abilities as an organist and teacher, as well as on his compositions. So too with Messiaen. Both men were deeply committed Catholics and their devotion was worked out through music which strives to express a spiritualised artistic thought, which stands apart from mainstream groupings and has proved enduringly influential.

It was a bold stroke to couple, in the National Symphony Orchestra's Bruckner series, the Austrian symphonist and the French composer-organist, especially as L'Ascension was presented in the arrangement for organ. As a contrasted programme this was just about as extreme as one could imagine. Its bravery worked.

Peter Sweeney made the National Concert Hall organ sound remarkably French, and grappled well with a sudden technical glitch on the instrument.

As a display of technique, the Transports de joie movement was marvellous, but such speed was too hectic to be ecstatic. However, most of the music is slow, and he paced it perfectly for acoustics so different from the resonant, cathedral-size spaces for which it was conceived.

Even by Bruckner's standards, Symphony No. 8 presents enormous challenges. It is vast (this performance lasted around 85 minutes), packed with self-conscious contrapuntal detail and a range of ideas which can bewilder.

Gerhard Markson's command of this vastness was as gripping as the strong details of the NSO's playing. The slow third movement was so spacious, a contrast to the tension which had run throughout the first two, and which burst out again when the finale started.

Everything counted and, in music which tempts conductors to excess, precisely judged. Yet ultimately this performance impressed through its expressive focus, through a sense of grand, aspiring purpose.

Bruckner would have approved.

**********

Gavanelli/O'Sullivan

RTÉCO/Pearce

NCH

By John Allen

High musical values and frisson-inducing vocalism combined to make this Ford-sponsored event into something memorable, with the music of Verdi dominating.

Excerpts from eight of his operas were performed, seven of them by the best Verdi baritone of the day. Paolo Gavanelli's command of wide-phrasing, dynamic contrast and vocal colouring, as well as his sometimes on-the-brink-of-danger open tone, reminded me a lot of Tito Gobbi. But Gavanelli's actual timbre is more mellifluous, especially on his high notes.

He is a fine vocal actor, as witnessed by his ability to differentiate sharply between the emotions of the characters in their various predicaments. Best of all was the dawning of hope followed by the joy of reunion in the great recognition scene from Simon Boccanegra.

He rounded out the evening with a bravura comic act in Figaro's entrance aria from Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia .

In the Boccanegra scene, and in the long father/daughter confrontation from Nabucco, he was ably partnered by Cara O'Sullivan, who contributed enormously. The Cork soprano's versatility continues to amaze. In arias from Mignon and Pirates of Penzance she tossed off effortless bouts of coloratura pytrotechnics in the same full voice that satisfied the varying dramatic requirements of her Verdi heroines and her legato throughout was exemplary.

The enjoyment of the vocal contributions was enhanced by the supportive conducting of Colman Pearse. He encouraged the members of the RTÉCO to work their collective socks off. And they did - splendidly.