Reviews

The Irish Times reviews: The Four Note Opera, Pavillion Theatre, Graham Coxon, The Village and Elizabeth Cooney with the RTE NSO/Domenech at the NCH.

The Four Note Opera. Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire

The practice of parodying opera is almost as old as the lyrical art itself. In the English- speaking world, Pepusch and Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728) began a process that has survived, by way of Gilbert and Sullivan, Bugs Bunny and the Marx Brothers, right up to the present day.

Tom Johnson's The Four Note Opera is a splendid example of the genre. Now 32 years old, and getting its second airing from Opera Theatre Company, it hits its targets smack in the face time and time again. Using only four notes - A, B, D and E - Johnson's score takes a gentle poke at minimalism, while his deliberately fatuous lyrics offer director Gavin Quinn multiple chances to mirror the pretentiousness of many contemporary productions.

Quinn grabs these gleefully. In Aedín Cosgrove's setting of four hospital beds, each with its sheet music progress chart, he directs his four singers in some wickedly perspicacious takes on the conventions of operatic singing and stage deportment. One of the most guffaw-inducing episodes involves the soprano singing from a dustbin.

All four vocalists contribute to the fun. Baritone Joe Corbett, a master of the poker face, and tenor Kevin West remain deadpan throughout. The women are allowed a modicum of expression. Soprano Nicola Sharkey achieves hers by an adroit use of deadly accurate coloratura, mezzo Buddug Verona James by her rich-toned delivery and delicious over-articulation of the words.

In enjoying what is a genuinely funny, if rather short, evening, one is also aware of the strict musical discipline involved. Like all the best satire, the effectiveness of this venture lies in its performers' confidence with their material. And the responsibility for this lies with musical director Dearbhla Collins, who presides at her upright piano with all the authority of the prim schoolmarm's costume she wears.

The Four Note Opera continues at the Factory Theatre, Sligo on Tuesday; the Millennium Forum, Derry on Thursday; the Downpatrick Opera Fringe Festival on Friday and Saturday; and elsewhere until June 25th (details and online booking: www.opera.ie). - John Allen

Graham Coxon, The Village, Dublin

There was a time, not too long ago, when it seemed quite likely that former Blur guitarist Graham Coxon would disappear up his own fundament. Even when Damon Albarn gainfully employed him, Coxon found it difficult to focus - which was nothing to do with the band name but more a propensity for the demon drink. Subsequently, his solo album sideline - four scratchy, lo-fi works - proved interesting but underwhelming. Frankly, they were the sound of a man waving frantically as his self-scuttled ship was going down.

Fast-forward a couple of years, with Blur gone and a new impetus in his life - the arrival of a baby, no less - and it would seem Coxon has discovered that the clear-sightedness of sobriety can sometimes be just as creatively rewarding as looking at life through the bottom of a beer glass. This newly wrought approach has worked wonders, as we could see when Coxon played Dublin last Thursday.

For a start, he looks about 15 years old, all stripy T-shirt, tapered Levi's, red Converse footwear, NHS glasses and secondary school haircut. He comes across like Harry Potter scorched by the mark of Johnny Rotten. Plugging his latest album - Happiness In Magazines, his fifth, and by far his best - Coxon seems to take delight in fronting his own bona-fide band. It's not that he's a natural leader, more that enthusiasm leapfrogs over obvious shortcomings.

Songs from his previous solo records are played somewhat diffidently, but it's quite clear that his new album is the one people want to hear songs from. Unsophisticated British punk/pop crossed with Syd Barrett-like nerve-jangles is the blueprint (and so what if they sometimes sound like prime-time Blur?) and songs such as Girl Done Gone, Spectacular and Little Sweet Bundle of Misery are delivered with all the head-scratching peculiarity we have come to expect from the guitarist.

The loudest cheer went up for Freakin' Out, a stone-solid classic that might steal a tad too much from The Skids's Into The Valley but which is forgiven for being so, well, freakin' good. Graham Coxon - who's a clever, sober boy, then? - Tony Clayton-Lea

Elizabeth Cooney, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra/Domenech, NCH, Dublin

Verdi - Forza del destino Overture. Mozart - Violin Concerto No 5. Ravel - Rapsodie espagnole. Respighi - Pines of Rome.

Irish violinist Elizabeth Cooney is now based in London, four years after winning the string section of the RTÉ Musician of the Future competition.

On Friday night she joined the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and played Mozart's Violin concerto No 5 with the same calm assurance that she had demonstrated at the RTÉ finals in 2000. What has matured most noticeably since then is the quality of her tone. She has a fine instrument - a Nicolaus Gagliano on loan to her from the Royal College of Music - but the deft control of phrasing and articulation are her own.

Her best playing came in the song-like Adagio, in which her response seemed at its most relaxed and open-hearted. She played the fast outer movements with grace and lively agility while appearing to exercise a degree of deferential restraint.

Restraint, oddly enough, also characterised Spanish conductor Josep Caballé-Domenech's reading of Ravel's Rapsodie espagnole. Its journey from eerie nocturnal prelude through vivid dance movements - the Malaguena and Habanera - to festive finale never attained its usual level of Iberian energy.

It could be argued that this understated approach had a native authenticity, and counter-argued that Ravel's musical snapshots are the impressions of a French tourist and therefore liable to a little exaggeration. Either way, the work's famously colourful orchestration came across well.

The young Domenech, who becomes principal conductor of the Norrkoping Symphony Orchestra next year, seemed more willing to let loose in music by Italian composers.

He allowed full rein to the thrilling and brilliant sonorities of Respighi's Pines of Rome, just as earlier he had unleashed the theatrical essence of Verdi's Overture to La forza del destino.

In the final movement Domenech's well-gauged calibration of the homecoming army's gradual, tramping approach and boisterous arrival brought the concert to an exciting conclusion. - Michael Dungan