Reviews

The Irish Timestakes a look at what is happening in the world of the arts

Opera Ireland at the RDS, Dublin

Mozart - Così fan tutte

Mozart is the perfect opera composer. Good directors and designers know that everything is in the music. In that crucial respect, Opera Ireland's modern-dress production of Così fan tuttedoes quite well. The direction of Gavin Quinn and assistant Niall Morris, the designs of Bruno Schwengl, and Thomas Märker's lighting complement one another, and the updating of this timeless tale.

The opening scene is a shock, but proves apt. The chorus is a victorious soccer team that, jock-straps and all, changes into everyday clothes. Don Alfonso, played with great authority by Peter Edelmann, is the team manager, sketching out fidelity and seduction on a flip-chart, like tactics on the pitch.

Mary Bowen (Dorabella) and Sara Galli (Fiordiligi) are Desperate Housewives with a touch of Bebo babes - but babes who can sing and act. Balancing subtly characterised singing and none-too-subtle acting, Federico Lepre (Ferrando) and Josef Wagner (Guglielmo) create a comic transition from ordinary soccer players into egomaniac, superstar gropers, with sunglasses and designer wear. Sandra Oman plays the maid Despina with style and alacrity. As the chorus, the National Chamber Choir is always strong.

This production is sometimes in-your-face, but it also knows when to get out of the way and let music do what only it can. In this, one of Mozart's most sensuous operatic scores, none of the many highlights failed to reach out and grip, including the Act I ensemble numbers between the lovers, Fiordiligi's virtuoso aria "Come scoglio," and the Act II finale.

In the immediate and unforgiving acoustic of the RDS concert hall, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and conductor Gianluca Febo produced tight ensemble and colourful sound. This was in line with the whole evening - Mozart was the star, but he was aided by solid musical and theatrical craft. - Martin Adams

Continues tomorrow and Friday in the RDS, and on June 8 in the University Concert Hall, Limerick

Julian Cope at the Tripod, Dublin

Resplendent in his antique German army officer's cap, Julian Cope has to constantly hold himself in check - every one of his songs has a story behind it, and he is very much inclined to tell them. Luckily, Cope's tall tales are every bit as entertaining as the man himself.

Take the inspiration for O King of Chaos. The year was 1984 and Cope was spending the majority of his time "taking LSD and collecting dinky cars". During one lengthy trip, Cope and his friend Al Jourgensen, the lead man of industrial group Ministry, were upstairs in Cope's country house preoccupied with said dinky-car collection, while their wives were downstairs with an Ouija board. After several hours, a cry came from the kitchen. "They had raised a bunch of demons in the kitchen and they wanted to know if we could help."

In fairness, Cope's wife was probably talking to the right man. Not content with blazing a trail with The Teardrop Explodes and strafing on the fringes of rock for the best part of 30 years, Cope has, more latterly, turned his attention to writing critically acclaimed books on Britain's ancient sites and heritage. Add to this his interest in mysticism and musicology, and you have one of the most colourful characters in the British music and academic worlds.

But back to the music. Cope's playing and singing is less than polished, but what he lacks in technical prowess, he overcompensates for with spontaneity and sheer unbridled personality. Most songs start off quietly enough, build to big, broiling pots of noise (still just one man on stage, mind) and then shunt to a sudden end: Autogeddon Bluesand Upwards at 45 Degreesare two gloriously bruising encounters. However, Soul Deserthas a crafted, poignant undertow that lingers long after the track's feedback has faded.

"Often, during gigs, fans tell me to just be myself," Cope says. "Believe me, that's the last thing you want. I am being myself, but in very strictly controlled parameters." Years of drug use have not dulled his lustre, and this is as witty, lucid and charming a performance as you're likely to see. - Laurence Mackin

No Crows at The Cobblestone, Dublin

Alice Jago cuts a slightly skewed Rickie Lee Jones figure as she warms up the small but perfectly formed punters in the Cobblestone. Her crooked, still vocals wrap themselves around Born Stubborn, stretching syllables in unlikely places, and hinting at a talent emerging from its chrysalis with a healthy impatience.

No Crows hit the ground racing with Corridinho. Steve Wickham is the perfect front man: full of witty one liners, decked out in a claret-rich velveteen jacket, and possessed of a fiddling brilliance that has helped keep The Waterboys on the road for so long.

Anna Houston's cello and mandolin bestow No Crows with a haughty brilliance that becomes their jagged repertoire. Reeling from Szhock to Fado via Moldova, Russia, Hungary and numerous stopping-off points east and west, No Crows could easily descend into a Dante's inferno of Europulp hell, but instead they cherry-pick regional tunes, buff and hone them, and then add enough spit polish to render them anew.

At times though, a certain tweeness crept in, particularly on Houston's own Rock The Gondola, which barely withstood a single listening. Repeated exposure, one suspects, might pose a health risk of either diabetes or cardiac overload, such was its rush towards infinity. Felipe Carbonell, No Crow's Mallorcan guitarist, donated the gorgeous Finn's Waltzto the mix, a perfect antidote to the at-times rabid pace set by Wickham's fiddle. Eddie Lee's double bass sang deep and low, lending wisdom and nonchalance to a cool re-working of Summertimeand Moondance, the pair seguing in and out of one another like Siamese twins smoking weed into the small hours.

Refreshingly light-spirited, No Crows treat the music with requisite seriousness, but wisely add a healthy dose of levity to their live performance. - Siobhán Long

Willy Mason at the Temple Bar Music Centre, Dublin

This was the last night of Willy Mason's tour in which Elvis Perkins featured as his support act. That may be a good thing. Any longer together and these two exponents of American folk would have to be forcibly split up - we can only take so much pleasure at a single sitting.

Mason and Perkins are as different as two young musicians regularly labelled "the new Dylan" can be, but their music carries a similar thrill. Both come within a hair's breadth of cliche - you could easily lump them in with the troubadour legion and put their songcraft to use selling televisions or mobile phones. Yet each songwriter distinguishes himself from the throng: Perkins with inventive, musical embellishments and a discretely redemptive pulse; Mason with purposeful melodies and a charmingly wry stoicism.

Perkins, who lost his father, the actor Anthony Perkins, to AIDS in 1992, and his mother to the attacks of 9/11, tonight threatens to eclipse Mason with his controlled explosion of emotion, his dishevelled charm and the enlivening arrangements of Ash Wednesday, his debut album. But Mason gives as good as he gets, the ridge of his brow and the ageless gravitas of his voice making him a clear successor to Johnny Cash.

Mason, a dab hand with gently trickling guitar lines and politically questioning lyrics, will never be prone to the holiday jauntiness that flares up through Cash's back catalogue. He invests as much earnestness as lolling resignation in his songs, and his deftly accomplished band give We Can Be Strong, the excellent Save Myselfand the stomping Our Towna bluesy drive that feels both relentless and relaxed; the tone of front-porch rebellion.

It is Oxygen, reserved for tonight's encore, that best sums up his appeal. A song that is wearily optimistic - if that's possible - in which Mason delivers the line "we can be stronger than bombs if you're singing along" and actually makes you believe it, it is the soul of his charming contradiction.

An old head on young shoulders, Mason sings about feeling out of place and out of time. As Perkins and his band add their sound to Mason's chaotically wonderful closing jam, such isolation looks far from lonely. - Peter Crawley