Reviews

Irish Timeswriters review a selection of events.

NCC/Hayrabedian

National Gallery, Dublin

Poulenc- Chansons françaises

Guy Reibel- Plein ciel

Schmitt- A contre voix (exc)

Lucien Guerinel- La morte meditata

Ohana- Cantiga No 4

Edith Canat de Chizy- Suite de la nuit

The National Chamber Choir has been having a great run for a long time. But, like everyone else, it must blink from time to time. It did so under visiting French conductor Roland Hayrabedian.

The bad news was obvious from the first item. The folk song arrangements of Poulenc's Chansons françaises were handled in a way that was just too woolly. Tightness within and between the vocal lines was not going to be a feature of the evening's singing, and with such a generalised approach Poulenc's settings outstayed their welcome.

The programme itself was enterprising. Apart from the Poulenc, the rest of the evening's repertoire was of the kind that's unlikely to turn up again in a hurry. Sadly, Hayrabedian's handling of the pieces by Guy Reibel, Florent Schmitt,

Lucien Guerinel and Edith Canat de Chizy conveyed the music with a kind of consistent greyness where distinguishing features of style and expression simply failed to materialise.

The happy exception was an excerpt from Maurice Ohana's Cantigas(1953-54), settings of medieval and Renaissance Spanish texts. The purity and directness of the Cantiga del Azahar, with well-taken solos, came as a welcome relief. - Michael Dervan

Lance Coburn (piano)

Freemasons' Hall, Dublin

Bach- Toccata in C minor BWV911

Brahms- Paganini Variations

Carl Vine- Anne Landa Preludes (exc)

Prokofiev- Sonata No 8

It was in a spirit of seriously exploring high-end virtuosity, rather than of merely bedazzling an audience, that Lance Coburn had put together his ambitious programme. Yet, bedazzled the audience certainly was.

Australian-born Coburn (who teaches at the Royal Irish Academy of Music) tackled in unbroken sequence both of Brahms' sets of variations on that oft-varied theme by Paganini. These wildly difficult studies can hardly be expected to come off live without a few fluffs, and had Coburn taken to heart the composer's direction not to go too quickly, his playing might have been even tidier. Instead of Brahmsian sedulity, then, the ethos was of Lisztian bravura.

In the fugue from Bach's Toccata in C minor, a generous dynamic range - as well as certain inevitable concessions to the forthright tempo - created some stern and stormy impressions. Yet these stemmed not from a deliberate romanticising of the music, but from an instinctively pianistic response to its rhetorical shadings.

The moods were further diversified in selections from the 12 preludes that shrewd Australian composer Carl Vine has recently dedicated to the memory of Sydney arts philanthropist Anne Landa.

Jazzy eclecticism ( Divertissementand Thumper) alternated with ghostly chill ( Romance) and soap-opera sentimentality ( Chorale), so that this appealing music's only invariable was its sheer panache.

With Prokofiev's penultimate piano sonata came the evening's most sustained musical arguments, as well as some quasi-orchestral textures that Coburn negotiated with more pedal than would suit some listeners.

But his layering of the slow movement's melody and accompaniment maintained an astute and delicate balance between the colour and function of the idiosyncratic harmony.

Though the piano's tuning had been steadily deteriorating, that didn't deter this imperturbable player from turning to another Paganini theme for an encore, Liszt's scintillating study La campanella. - Andrew Johnstone

Manic Street Preachers

The Ambassador, Dublin

The Sturm und Drangof the opening chords promised it all - and the Manics delivered by the bucketload. When you can afford to use Motorcycle Emptinessas your curtain raiser, you'd better have a cracking catalogue laden with goodies to keep the punters chomping at the bit in the front rows. And so they had.

A fit and trim James Dean Bradfield, and a suitably painted and powdered Nicky Ware (surely a hybrid of Ziggy Stardust and Dorian Gray?) ricochetted through a set list that tickled the nether regions of a decidedly ageing fan base. There were more greying pates and pot-bellies than you'd find at a Harley Davison roadside gathering, but the night was all the sweeter for this boundless expression of loyalty.

The band manage to mix vintage and contemporary songs with ease, the nonchalance of Everything Must Gocountered by the endearing clunkiness of If You Tolerate This, Then Your Children Will Be Next, complete with Dean Bradfield's glorious homage to Gary Moore's Parisian Walkways, by way of a guitar solo that had his sardine-packed punters grinning and grimacing in air-guitar nirvana.

Truth is, the Manics' credibility shone through the grinding insistence of this year's Indian Summerjust as much as it did through the remarkably fresh-faced You Stole the Sun from My Heartand the still-effervescently anthemic A Design for Life.

Back on the road again for a pre-Christmas tour, the Manics miraculously hang on to a verve and energy that's kept the old songs fresh and imbued the new ones with a gumption that has few parallels.

It's enough to renew your faith in the central tenets of rock 'n' roll: with a little genius and a lot of excess, anything's possible. - Siobhán Long

Aladdin

Lambert Puppet Theatre Monkstown

A new version of an old favourite, this Aladdinis somewhat longer than usual, with extra scenes, fresh dialogue, souped-up changes and lighting, and new music.

They add up to a colourful and appealing production that incorporates some tried-and-true routines, and gives the youthful audiences a satisfying role in vocal participation.

All the familiar characters are there; the commoner Aladdin who falls for Princess Jasmine, his washerwoman mother Widow Twankey, the King, villainous magician Ebenezer and his comical henchman Hairy. Throw in the Genie of the Lamp, the spirit of the Magic Ring, an elephant and a scary - but not excessively - shark, and the charm's wound up.

This one is mostly for the kids, although the sophistication of the rod puppetry will catch and beguile the eye of the adult also.

The packed house for the opening performance drowned out some of the dialogue, but enhanced a general mood of merriment by way of compensation.

Behind the scenes, new talents, revealed at the curtain, are honing their skills in this house of magic, a clear augury for its future status. - Gerry Colgan

Weekends to December 23rd; then December 26th to January 6th.