Reviews

Irish Timeswriters review a selection of recent events

Cork Midsummer Festival: MedEia

Vertigo Suite, County Hall

Written and spoken in what the programme calls "Euro-English", this Corcadorca presentation of MedEiauses the script by Oscar van Woensel in a version first performed by Dutch company Dood Paard. It has become something of a tradition for Corcadorca to present the leading theatrical event of the Cork Midsummer Festival and here, as many times before, the opening night had all the excitement of expectation, even though it was already known that the company was working on a reduced scale. But scale, as a term of visual measurement at least, is only material on which director Pat Kiernan and his technical team can excercise their imagination.

In this case, the sky-high site of County Hall’s 16th floor brings an element of physical and historical survey – before the blinds are drawn, it is all viewpoint, different ways of seeing. That is also the approach to the text, as the tragedy of Jason and Medea is related by a trio composed variously of the chorus, the principal characters and a group of puppets. In this story of love, exile, betrayal and revenge, the theme is the universal acknowledgement that intervention is impossible, that what the Fates have decreed is what must ensue. The narrative mixes Euripides (as the original but modernised scriptwriter) with fragmented lyrics from The Beatles, Madonna and other popular references, while the walls of television monitors use Barbie-doll imagery as part of a reading which is full of questions but not, oddly, of anguish. It is as if the lyrics are captured, but not the harmonies. Instead, the meticulous trinity of players set the story at a distance layered by the telling, the impersonation, and the manipulation of the puppets. Mel Mercer’s compositions and Stevie Jones’s sound design richly underscore Paul Keogan’s lighting and set, of desk-high white light-boxes on a sea-blue floor, along which Louis Lovett, Gina Moxley and Tadhg Murphy move in costume designer Joan Hickson’s white suiting.

In this immaculate reminder that love hurts, the absence of yearning is emphasised only in the water-tank, in which a goldfish with a tail like a tutu wanders in a slow metaphorical ballet. Until July 4. MARY LELAND

Remembering the Tenors of Ireland

Pavilion, Dún Laoghaire

The recently launched DLR Glasthule Opera celebrated Bloomsday at the Pavilion with an enjoyable tribute to John McCormack, Dermot Troy, Frank Patterson and James Joyce, the latter of whom trained as a singer before taking a rather different career path. One of several surprising omissions was Joyce’s own favourite tenor, Cork-born John O’Sullivan. Nor was there any mention of Joseph O’Mara from Limerick, or Belfast’s James Johnston.

Emmanuel Lawler, who presented the concert in an assured and easygoing manner, albeit slipping in the occasional piece of misinformation, was to have sung the whole programme. But an indisposition caused him to draft in support from Carthaigh Quill and Ross Scanlon. Mind you, in the handful of items he did contribute, Lawler gave his younger colleagues something of an object lesson in matters of line, phrasing and vocal presentation.

Scanlon displayed a promising, if short-breathed, lyric tenor voice with a touch of baritone in it. After a hesitant start he blossomed in Moore's She is Far From the land, and was most impressive in a couple of Tchaikovsky songs. Quill was rather more extrovert in his delivery. With a bigger and more forwardly placed voice, he made more of his words than Scanlon, but he was sometimes careless in matters of rhythm and phrasing. He made rather heavy weather of a pair of operatic arias by Bellini and Lalo, but was more disciplined as a duettist with Lawler in Franck's Panis Angelicus. He is a good communicator, and showed a lively sense of humour in ditties such as The Star of the County Down.

Pianist Padhraic O'Cuinneagain supported the singers strongly, and rose to the occasion admirably when the sheet music for Santa Lucia went missing. All the artists came together for "three tenor" renderings of Morricone's Nella Fantasiaand Adams's The Holy City. JOHN ALLEN