Anca Dumitrescu
posted 19 September 2007

If music and theatre can coexist magnificently in opera, is it far-fetched to imagine that any piece of music can be staged and shown in a theatre? From oratorios and cantatas to sonatas and symphonies, the staging of music is not just a utopia for creative minds. These performances at the Arcola Theatre outlined three different visions of love and desire, where music is both the starting and final point of a human adventure…the adventure of musical composition itself.

Schumann’s Dichterliebe lieder on stage embodied by actors in flesh and bones: a very simple and yet not so common idea. Lieder are by definition descriptive pieces of music. They are ’singing poems‘, in the same way as opera is theatre put into music. For those ears accustomed to listening to lieder in their purest form, ie as musical performance, watching them staged can be rather disturbing at first, as if the fascination of visual stimulus and physical movement undermine the music itself. But this disconcerting feeling soon leaves room for delight. While Emily Randall’s acting was distinguished by its dullness and lack of facial expression, Dawid Kimberg (baritone) convinced the audience both with his vocal and acting performance. Considering the rather poor acoustics of the venue, which sometimes flattened piano nuances while exaggerating forte nuances and crescendis, Dawid Kimberg and Michael Hampton (pianist) nonetheless achieved a sensitive interpretation of Schumann’s work.

A Fountain Sealed is structurally closer to classical opera, with its staged performance of the prologue and the first two scenes, even if the orchestral score was only played on the piano by Nathan Williamson (the composer). Difficult though it remains to judge the entire opera based solely on the introductory pieces given here, the overall performance left a sour taste. The vocal performances of both the priest and the young girl proved convincing overall, and loaded with enough dramatic sense, despite some hesitant phrase endings and transitions. Much more worrying was the young man’s singing, which was barely audible and certainly below what would be called a satisfactory vocal standard. In spite of some beautiful musical passages, the harmonic structure of the composition did not allow vocal lines to intermingle naturally with the orchestral part. It is tempting to say that the composition would have been a nice piece of music without this Wagnerian vocal style where voices are made the prisoners of torturous and sluggish crescendi.

Vice is a simple yet promising jazz opera composed by Jools Scott. Based on The Revenger’s Tragedy by 17th-century French playwright Cyril Tourneur, this opera features the degenerated aristocracy and interlope classes mingling in stories of rape, incest and punishment. Supported by memorable tunes reminiscent of the Kurt Weill style, this jazzy cabaret sung by masked actors and astutely orchestrated has all the ingredients to appeal to a wide audience. If the overall performance would have been greatly enhanced by more experienced singers, Vice did manage to arouse the feeling of joy one has in front of any delightful piece where music meets (human) drama.

Run over