Reviews

The Joe Jackson Band

Vicar Street, Dublin

Peter Crawley

She could easily be Joe Jackson's biggest fan. But while the lady beside me whoops, sings, offers review advice and attempts to rescue a charming dance from antiquity, even she is awed by the four blokes before us. Hairlines in varying states of recession, gripping each other tightly by the hand, performing slow shaloms of worship after particularly pleasing numbers (there are several), theirs is true devotion.

As lean as a rake on a diet, Joe Jackson springs onstage. Resembling a Teddy Boy costumed by Tim Burton, he warmly introduces the band he dissolved 23 years earlier and promises a concert that will not wallow in nostalgia. Thankfully, it does.

Even the title of The Joe Jackson Band's new album, Volume 4, seems sentimental for the bristling, witty and astonishingly well-crafted pop that halted after just three records. Appropriately, Friday night stitched the rift, combining the best of early albums Look Sharp! and I'm The Man with lovingly-tolerated new numbers.

If Jackson's genre-hopping career (punk pop, reggae, jazz, classical - how long have you got?) haemorrhaged listeners with each volte-face, there is a rose-tinted comfort in this reunion. Not that he lets the audience get too cosy, sardonically wrong-footing a Fools in Love sing-along, and swivelling the microphone outwards during Is She Really Going Out With Him? "Oh, you want to sing, do you?" pouts Jackson, shaking a maraca with mock petulance.

One More Time, Don't Wanna Be Like That and Got The Time stomp with adrenaline-fuelled urgency. Friday and Sunday Papers offers wry explorations of (sub)urban ephemera. It's Different For Girls drifts by on soft keys and delicate guitar lines, while Jackson's solo renditions of Steppin' Out and Bowie's Life on Mars are simply blissful. A dreamy phalanx was disgorged from Vicar Street, humming with Joe Jackson anecdotes. Friday was a memory to add to that treasure trove.

Lee, CCB/Cummings

Castletown House

Martin Adams

Christ Church Baroque closed the Music in Great Irish Houses Festival in vigorous style last Saturday night at Castletown House. The English harpsichordist Laurence Cummings directed 16 instrumentalists in concertos and vocal music by Corelli and Handel. If any music can be regarded as the foundation of Baroque playing style, this is it.

For an orchestra which is in the midst of fundamental change and which still needs to develop identity, it was an ideal choice.

The playing was never short of confidence or precision in rhetoric, despite rough edges to ensemble and intonation. Corelli's Concertos in C minor and D, Op 6 Nos 3 and 1, seemed utterly spontaneous - a quality which the composer sought. In them and in Handel's Concertos in G and A, Op 6 Nos 1 and 11, the strong concertino group was led from the front desk by Sarah Moffat.

Throughout there was a tendency to that hard-driven, heavily-accented rhythm which characterises several English period-instrument groups. Sometimes this went against the character of dance-based movements, such as last of Corelli's No. 3 in C minor.

The orchestra was joined by soprano Lynda Lee for cantatas and arias by Handel. She was more persuasive in the dramatic language of "Se pietà de me non senti" from the opera Giulio Cesare than in the pastoral language of the cantata Crudele tiranno amor.

The other opera aria was the highlight of the evening. "Scoglio d'immota fronte" from Scipone is an extraordinary exhibition of vocal and instrumental prowess. Lynda Lee was in full command, forceful, yet seeming to carry her virtuosity with ease, knowing its exact purpose. An outstanding performance of an astonishing piece.

Co-Opera

Draíocht

John Allen

With every modern production of Mozart's Così fan tutte tending to give a fresh spin on the opera's "meaning", we sometimes forget that Mozart and his librettist created the work as a comedy. Co-Opera's touring production reminds us of that fact. It takes place on a beach that is every bit as sun-drenched as the music; and the brightness theme is carried through in Sarah King's colourful costumes.

Michael Hunt's fluid staging for the most part eschews the work's darker side. Although they have their periods of anger and/or pensiveness - episodes of musical intensity well grasped by the performers - there is never a fear that any of the characters will be emotionally bruised by their experiences.

The opera is performed by a cast of six young singers who are disciplined in ensemble and clear in their delivery of the English text. Singapore soprano Ee Ping Yee has all the tenderness-cum-resolve, as well as the wide range, to win our sympathies as the almost steadfast Fiordiligi. The mezzo role of her not-at-all steadfast sister is sung by soprano Sandra Oman, whose warm middle register adds weight to the ensembles. Michelle Sheridan is a tough cookie of a Despina who happily puts across her two disguise roles without resorting to vocal caricature.

John Molloy sings well but lacks suavity as Alfonso, a role for which he is really too young. The male lovers are well cast. Icelandic tenor Garder Thör Cortes is a mellifluous Ferrando and Swedish baritone Michael Bartov an incisive and rich-toned Guglielmo. Jonathan Gale accompanies the opera on piano. Good as his playing is, it doesn't quite compensate for the loss of Mozart's instrumental colouring. But there is a certain dramatic gain in not having the normal aural leap from recitative chords to full orchestral backing.