Reviews

Christine Maddenreviews Annie at the Olympia Theatre while Michael Dervanreviews the opening concert of the Irish Chamber Ochestra's MNBA Shannon International Music Festival at the University Concert Hall, Limerick.

Annie, Olympia Theatre

In this appalling summer, is it wise to programme a show, the best-known song of which features the line "the sun'll come out tomorrow"? Or did the weather confuse them enough to bring out this Christmas classic, complete with Santa doling out gifts to mistreated orphan girls?

Actually, Annie the musical, which originally opened on Broadway in 1977 (in April, and ran for six years) and the chirpy optimism of its eponymous main character, are welcome any time. You'd be happy enough to dodge the cold damp weather with a show like this. And despite the sombre suggestion that the very wealthy can summon a superpower's media and police forces - not to mention the head of government - to their own personal ends at a moment's notice, the idea that they all have a soft spot for this plucky girl, and have much to learn from her courageous belief in the good, is invincibly appealing - particularly when presented with such memorable musical numbers.

The girls from the Moore School of Performing Arts in Skerries rise to the challenge of such great pieces as Maybe and It's the Hard Knock Life, as the rest of the cast bring life and excitement to numbers such as NYC and I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here.

Some cast members stood out particularly (though the souvenir programme, strangely, mentioned no names aside from top production staff and design), such as Rachel Stanley as Grace, Christophe Molloy, as Drake the Butler, and the evil Hannigan trio, played by Ruth Madoc, James Gavin and Claire Taylor. Laoise McHugh as the very young Molly was a joy. Brooke Wright (Annie) seemed a bit self-conscious and nervous at first, but she soon warmed to the challenge of her demanding role. (Her parents or teachers should make sure she's not overstraining and potentially permanently damaging her young voice, though.)

Unfortunately, the acoustics in the theatre presented an enormous problem - one, luckily, that should be solvable. The band overpowered the singers so that the lyrics could often not be understood, and sometimes even rendered them almost inaudible. Even the keyboards were often drowned out by the brass and percussion. It was a big flaw in an otherwise enjoyable performance.

Runs until August 12

Hopkins, O'Connor, ICO/Marwood MBNA, Shannon International Music Festival

Michael Dervan

John Tavener- The Protecting Veil. Sinéad O'Connor- Theology

The opening concert of the Irish Chamber Orchestra's MBNA Shannon International Music Festival at the University Concert Hall, Limerick, was very obviously aimed at a new audience.

The programme juxtaposed John Tavener's The Protecting Veil for solo cello and strings, a big hit at the 1989 Proms in London and later on CD from Steven Isserlis, and a first collaboration with singer/songwriter Sinéad O'Connor (below), for a performance of her new Theology album, in orchestrations for strings by Orlando Jopling.

The common factor is the religious inspiration behind the two works, Tavener celebrating the Orthodox Church's Feast of the Protecting Veil of the Mother of God (and seeking "to make a lyrical ikon in sound, rather than in wood, using the music of the cellist rather than a brush"), O'Connor's sources including the Psalms, treated with a contemporary slant.

Tavener has an uneasy relationship with the ways of the musical world (music as individual expression is not a straightforward issue for him), and O'Connor is also well aware of the fine line she has sought to tread. Speaking of Theology, she told an interviewer: "I wanted it to be on the right side of the line between corny and cool. When it comes to religious music there is a very fine line between cool and very uncool. It deliberately deals with the Old Testament. If you start writing songs about the New Testament, you're doomed no matter how you say it, people have such a prejudice about it."

As heard here, the songs of Theology are musically chaste and reserved to the point of dullness. It's as if she pared them back to give priority to the words and message over the music.

Serious subjects, surely, can be communicated with stronger melodic character, greater rhythmic life or more imaginative harmonic content than the almost perpetual gray middle-ground O'Connor arrived at.

Things can't have been helped by the condition of the singer's voice. Her vocal production didn't always sound easy, and she apologised at one point for having "a really bad flu". Jopling's string scoring mostly essayed an inconspicuous smoothness, and the contrast between the polish of the instrumental playing and the rougher graininess of the vocals failed to work effectively. The high points in this strangely muted performance came in the orchestra's sung contribution to If You Had A Vineyard and in O'Connor's own finely judged vocal inflections in The Rivers of Babylon.

Louise Hopkins's performance of the Tavener, sadly, was also far from rewarding. The ICO's artistic director, Anthony Marwood, directing from the leader's chair, frequently allowed the orchestra to mask the solo playing, and Hopkins herself didn't seem fully at ease with the micro-nuancing which permeates the work and gives it its characteristic, eastern flavour. It was in moments when the scoring was lightest that this performance came closest to hitting the mark.

Festival continues until Sun. See www.irishchamberorchestra.info