Così Fan Tutte (Artscape)

Photo: Pat Bromilow-Downing

Photo: Pat Bromilow-Downing

Hurtful and stupid comments are best ignored. “Move on” is good advice. However, after watching the current production of Così Fan Tutte – UCT Opera School and Cape Town Opera’s triumphant conclusion to their celebration of the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth – a compulsion to exact some contrition simply overcomes one.

If accurately quoted, our Minister for Arts and Culture (Sunday Times 25/09/06) claims that teaching African kids to sing like Italians is “to make them into imitation whites – and poor imitations as well”. His comment is insensitive, patronising and grossly insulting to this bright, confident black cast. Would he be prepared to say that to their faces? Nobody on that stage was a poor imitation of anything. It’s a pity the minister lacks faith in the abilities of African students. Does one really have to point out at this stage that black students are quite capable of mastering the art and as talented, it often appears more gifted, than the average Italian student? Nobody would dream of calling Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman and Barbara Hendricks (none of whom are Italian) imitation whites. Why should the minister think of black South Africans as anything less?

Angelo Gobbato’s bold vital production makes the case even more persuasively. Michael Mitchel’s superb set – which recalls David Hockney’s Beverly Hills swimming-pool series – could be mistaken for a location in an episode of Generations.

The audience is rapidly swept away by the joyous spontaneity of the youthful cast. The two friends who set out to test the fidelity of their fiancés, Ferrando (Given Nkosi) and Guglielmo (Aubrey Lodewyk), push weights and do press ups. It’s not something you see every day on the opera stage. Gobatto has used his director’s license judiciously and produced great comic moments, memorably when the lovers masquerade as sheiks, jiving in keffiyeh and galabiya.

But the evening belongs to the sopranos Lungelwa Mdekasi (Dorabella) and especially Pretty Yende (Fiordiligi), who demonstrates a wonderful range, though she is less comfortable with the contralto demands of her show-stopping rondo Per pieta, ben mio, perdona. Nokrismesi Skota as Despina, the plucky maid, is deliciously amusing in her various physical and vocal disguises as the doctor and the notary. The chorus are rather timid.

This production puts the debate on the legitimacy of opera today finally behind us.

November 17, 2006 | Tags: | Comments Closed

Betrayal (Baxter)

Andrew Buckland Susan Danford Jeremy Crutchley
When the baker’s wife is unfaithful with a prince in Sondheim’s Into the Woods, she sings some of his cleverest lyrics: “There are vows, there are ties, there are standards, there are needs, there are shouldn’ts and shoulds. Why not both instead? There’s the answer if you’re clever. Have a child for warmth and a baker for bread and a prince for whatever.”

In Harold Pinter’s Betrayal Robert (Andrew Buckland) has affairs, but is married with two children. So is his best friend Jerry (Jeremy Crutchley). Yet Jerry is also having an affair with Robert’s wife – Emma (Susan Danford). Like the baker’s wife we wonder, “Must it always be either less or more, either plain or grand, is it always ‘or’, is it never ‘and’?” Yet this isn’t a moment in the woods, they’ve been at it for seven years, even sharing a flat. Nor is it a secret. At a certain point in time, everyone knows, but not everyone knows who knows.

Echoing conventional morality, the baker’s wife concludes, “Just remember when you’ve had and ‘and’, when you’re back to ‘or’, makes the ‘or’ mean more than it did before”. Pinter is not convinced. Instead, he acknowledges how people manage the tensions around emotional security and romantic yearnings. There is no terrifying climax, no make or break confrontation. Not that there isn’t pain, jealousy, loss and anger, but when everyone is guilty of some betrayal, it almost ceases to be an accusation.

Director Lara Foot Newton has chosen shrewdly for a public largely unfamiliar with Pinter’s extensive oeuvre. Written with the clarity of a surgical light, it is today as relevant as it was in 1978.

Newton has hand-picked what is a dream cast. Buckland is subtlety personified, perfect for a sly comedy in which we laugh silently, inwardly. He could be purged of some British intonations that have become over-familiarly associated with Monty Python, but that might be part of his performance’s appeal. Audiences may need clues to the comedy. As passionate lovers, Crutchley and Danford, are an ideal match. We’re fortunate to have them both permanently back in South Africa. Together with Mannie Manim’s sensitive lighting, Patrick Curtis’s muted modern grey set is the perfect canvas for these sterling performances. Newton has allowed the work to breathe and seen to it that none of Pinter’s delicacy goes astray.

November 10, 2006 | Tags: , , , , | Comments Closed

Songs of Hangings and Redemptions (Kalk Bay)

The best way to see Graham Weir’s latest musical performance is to sit with your eyes closed. There is brilliance and precision in his vocals these days. But listen carefully and another quality starts to emerge. There was always a gnostic element to Weir’s work, yet this time around the ballads selected for Songs of Hangings and Redemptions brings his spiritual nature particularly to the fore.

Although the lyrics touch upon justice and outrage, dwell on the defiance of the guilty and the resignation of the innocent, their sentiment is primarily informed by the mental clarity the proximity of death brings. One would expect a show about rough justice and mob lynching, about foolhardiness as often as it is about betrayal and vindictiveness, to be dark and harrowing, but Weir rewardingly treats the material with empathy, humanity and unexpected gentleness.

This redemptive element is reinforced by versatile musos Pitchie Rommellaere and Simon Ratcliffe who accompany Weir’s singing and percussion with soulful musical arrangements.

Weir spent much time in the Cape Town and Wynberg public libraries sourcing sheet music and listening to old vinyl records. Led Zeppelin once did Gallows Pole, and Amazing Grace and Tom Dooley are well known, but many of the songs will be unfamiliar to most. Some songs stretch back as far as the fifteen hundreds, and range in origin from the Scottish Mc Pherson’s Farewell to the American spiritual Canaan Land. Weir’s quirky, mischievous humour – which is never far away – is present in the words he has set to The Devil Didn’t Die Today.

Interspersed with the songs are brief monologues, topped and tailed by Weir’s original text about a set of new gallows going up in his narrator’s town, and extracts from William Faulkner’s Light In August and John Steinbeck’s The Vigilante. Director Megan Chortiz has ensured that the links to the songs are cohesive and natural.

As further encouragement to go, a particularly good menu accompanies the show. Although Weir is conscientiously vegetarian, the Kalk Bay kitchen’s seared tuna and roast fillet are a substantial incentive.

November 3, 2006 | Tags: , | Comments Closed