RESONANCES: RESILIENCE & LOTUS FUGUE / Bellepoque / Review

RESONANCES:

RESILIENCE & LOTUS FUGUE

Bellepoque

Esplanade Recital Studio

Saturday (10 July 2021)

An edited version of this review was published by The Straits Times on 14 July 2021 with the title "Seeking beauty in a time of ugliness". 

 

The Covid pandemic has inspired musical endeavours, not least the Compassion series of chamber concerts at this year’s Singapore International Festival of Arts. Resonances, a double bill by local musical theatre company Bellepoque, seemed like a logical extension but turned out radically different in its execution.

 

Rather than a concert proper of listed set pieces, the audience was treated to two separate and seemingly unconnected works of performance art. Multi-disciplinary in nature by combining music, movement, spoken word and film, the synergism derived in both formed an aesthetically pleasing whole.

 

The first part, Resilience, was a 20-minute long composition by Robert Casteels, who true to form defied conventions of concert music. If it is unclassifiable, it is likely to be by Casteels, who was himself part of a trio of live musicians. Operating on electronics and pre-recorded material, he was partnered by pianist Bertram Wee and violinist Kailin Yong who improvised for most part by not having any scores at hand.

Bellepoque founder-director Sabrina Zuber provided the element of dance movement, but eclipsing her in the memory were the lighting design by Yeo Hon Beng and stunning filmography of Tejas Ewing and Deepesh Vasudev. Theirs was a kaleidoscopic treatment of subjects including filmed musicians, nature and cityscapes, an allegory of healing and rejuvenation. This idea was further emphasised by the music centred on and firmly closing in the reaffirming key of E major.

 

If Resilience was virile and masculine in feel, the second part Lotus Fugue was to be its feminine counterpart. At almost double its length, excerpts from letters and lecture scripts of legendary local artist Georgette Chen were neatly wrapped up as a story engagingly told by veteran writer-playwright-actress Verena Tay.

 

The accompanying music was more traditional, with sung melodies by Gabriel Fauré and Claude Debussy (pre-recorded by Zuber, now doubling as soprano), piano solos of Erik Satie, Debussy and improvisations by pianist Tabitha Gan. These better reflected the impressionist lotus paintings of Chen, which merged Western techniques with Eastern sensibilities.

 

The more substantial dance segment was helmed by Mohd Sharul Muhd, exhibiting a rare grace and athleticism in a white frock. His moves were sometimes mirrored by the ubiquitous Zuber, who flitted on and off the floor in a subsidiary role. The accompanying visuals were again en point, but it was Chen’s own words that literally rang with the most resonance.

 

At a time when people question the role and value of artists in society, Chen provided the answers. Why do we do it? Art is “a labour of love,” she countered, and that alone was the “eternal driving force”. As a parting short, she also added, “When a lotus blooms, its beauty drives out all ugliness in the world.” It may be surmised that all the artists involved in Resonances strived for beauty in a time of ugliness.  

Final curtain call.
Photo by PianoManiac

 

All photos by Xavier Keutch Photography 

(unless otherwise stated).

SCENTS OF JOSEPHINE / Bellepoque / Review

SCENTS OF JOSEPHINE

Bellepoque

Black Box @ Drama Centre

Thursday (27 April 2017)

To do justice to a well-loved historical personality within a production of 90 minutes is a tall order. All the more if that happened to be the multi-faceted artist that was America-born singer-dancer Josephine Baker (1906-1975) who made her fame and fortune in France.

Part of the Voilah! French Festival, Scents Of Josephine was not a musical, but a play by Singapore-based French playwright Marc Goldberg with musical pieces running through its thread. Baker does not appear as a character, instead her life and legacy were mirrored by four women in the form of a backstage discussion.

Reflections of Josephine might also have been an apt title, but the audience got many whiffs and wafts of Baker, which made much sense of Scents. While none of the women remotely resembled the sexy and seductive African-American waif in her prime, but their totally riveting story-telling hit the mark.

An air of informality presided over Samzy Jo's stage direction, and the audience unsuspectingly becoming eavesdroppers on the foursome. British Afro-Caribbean actress Sharon Frese had the only non-singing part, and she immediately broke the ice by raising the topic of race, illustrated by the irony of black women straightening their hair and lightening their skin to appear whiter.

With race out in the open, there was scope to discuss gender, sexual orientation, social status, equality, human rights and other seemingly contentious subjects. Baker was a woman ahead of her time, breaking all barriers in her performances, dances, costumes and alternative lifestyles. She was an icon like today's Madonna, Britney Spears, Rihanna and Kardashians all rolled into one.

The three vocalists provided different vistas to Baker's personality. French jazz singer Andayoma portrayed strength and resilience, Singaporean musical theatre singer Caitanya Tan oozed youthfulness and sexuality, while Italian operatic soprano Sabrina Zuber exposed frailty and vulnerability.

  

The songs, well-chosen and neatly dovetailed ino the script, ran the gamut from American musical theatre (Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin), Latino hits (Besame Mucho, Brasil) to French chansons (Trenet, Scotto, Misraki). The “orchestra” provided by Robert Casteels (piano), Viviane Salin (violin) and Balraj Gopal (synthesiser guitar) also included a segment of Stravinsky's The Rite Of Spring to depict Baker shocking her German audiences.

An attempt to include Singapore into the framework was mercifully limited to few Singlish phrases, but there was a comical scene when 1930s news snippets on Baker in The Straits Times were quoted. The audience also learns that a 1938 world tour (including Singapore) was unfortunately cancelled just before the outbreak of war.

The singularly most gripping scene was Frese reliving Baker's 1963 speech alongside Martin Luther King in his Civil Rights Movement march on Washington D.C., a veritable showstopper. What about Baker's infamously skimpy “skirt of bananas”? It finally made an appearance in the final ensemble song Feeling Like A Million, on a more than adequately covered Caitanya Tan. Was this a case of “less flesh please, we're Singaporeans”?

Playwright Marc Goldberg speaks.

 Photographs by the kind permission of Bellepoque.

THE BLACK PEARL - TRIBUTE TO MARIA CALLAS / Bellepoque / Review

THE BLACK PEARL –

TRIBUTE TO MARIA CALLAS

Bellepoque

Esplanade Recital Studio

Tuesday (8 November 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 November 2016 with the title "Laying bare famous soprano Maria Callas".

On 16 September 1977, alone in a Paris apartment, the great Greek-American diva Maria Callas died, apparently of a heart attack. She had been the world's most famous dramatic soprano, hailed as La Divina. Yet she had been ill, lovelorn and vulnerable at the very end, a pale shadow of her former self.

The Black Pearl, receiving its Asian premiere, is a play by Federica Nardacci with music, originally in Italian but performed in an excellent English translation. In it, the tormented and world-weary persona of Maria is separated from the celebrity and superstar of Callas. Laid bare, La Divina was as human as the next person, fraught with insecurities, ultimately wanting of love and understanding.

The narration, related through the character of butler Ferruccio, was rendered by Singaporean actor-director Gerald Chew, whose tortured expression and angst-ridden eyes was totally believable. Central to his soliloquy was the utterance of the word “Silence”, which meant the cessation of singing, sound and life itself. Opening with a throbbing heartbeat, the story began with mortality and moved backwards in time to the so-called glory years.

Italian lyric soprano Silvio Cafiero had the demanding task of playing Callas, and did a more than creditable job singing a range of arias from her iconic operatic roles. She has a beautiful and pristine voice, capable of projecting with power and vibrato, yet capable of diminuendos (diminishing the volume) to a just audible hush, without missing a note.

Her first aria was Desdemona's Ave Maria from Verdi's Otello, a moving prayer of rapt stillness, and before long, she was seeking a distant beloved's return in Un bel di vedremo from Puccini's Madama Butterfly, and reliving Violetta's dying scene in Verdi's La Traviata. Allied to this was an innate ability to emote and act out the part, which was, of course, Callas' speciality and strength.

The “orchestra” for the evening was Italian pianist Claudio Di Meo, who accompanied the arias and expertly filled in the gaps with interludes of his own device. The set design by Fiorenza de Monti was simple and effective, a tea-table, chair, portrait of a reclining diva (Between Hours by Edward B. Gordon, courtesy of LUMAS) and a red shawl, the latter used to very good effect.

The slightly over-an-hour-long play in two acts never dragged, and even when certain arias were truncated, such as Sempre Libera (La Traviata) and the concluding Convien partir (Donizetti's La Fille de Regiment), the essence of each was not lost. At least the audience got to hear the popular favourites Bizet's Habañera (Carmen), Puccini's Vissi d'arte (Tosca) and O Mio Babbino Caro (Gianni Schicchi) intact.

The only pity was not having Cafiero do the honours in the bel canto gem that is Casta Diva (Bellini's Norma). Instead emanating from the speakers was the recording of La Divina herself, played after all the characters had departed the stage. Even that was cut short after a climax, perhaps deliberately so. Beyond all that was darkness and... silence.     

Pianist Claudio Di Meo, soprano Silvia Cafiero,
Director Sabrina Zuber, playwright Federica Nardacci
and actor Gerald Chew (from L).

GEORGE AND THE MUSIC BOX / Bellepoque / Review

GEORGE AND THE MUSIC BOX

Bellepoque

Esplanade Recital Studio

Thursday (14 May 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 16 May 2015 with the title "Bedtime fun with stories and toys".

The name of Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880) has been synonymous with light comic operettas in French and his single important opera The Tales Of Hoffmann. Credit goes to local musical theatre company Bellepoque for unearthing his Six Fables de la Fontaine, little known musical settings of children's tales by 17^th century writer Jean de la Fontaine, neatly packaged as a one-act musical called George and the Music Box by playwright Susana Jose.

George is a restless young descendant of the writer, who needs his bedtime stories and toy companions to lull him into slumber. He has a somewhat dysfunctional relationship with his maman, quirkily portrayed and sung by Italian soprano Sabrina Zuber, who is also founder-director of Bellepoque. An element of abuse and oppression is hinted at by their absent father/husband, who gets his snarling voice in by way of director-pianist Robert Casteels. His peripheral but glowering presence, attired in concert garb and armed to the teeth with metronomes, was surely symbolic of discipline and over-regimentation.

Their dynamics made for some uneasy viewing, George's petulance caught perfectly by local tenor Jeremy Koh as a foil to his parents' schizophrenic comings and goings. With their berating and taunts “George is a naughty boy”, it would take some miracle if he does not grow up to become some French Amos Yee.

His consolations are the fables and his toy soldier (sung by tenor Leslie Tay), dancing doll (soprano Angela Cortez) and teddy bear (baritone Daniel Ho), who sing and act out his fantasies at bedtime. Despite none of them being native Francophones, their parts in sung French and spoken English came out credibly, aided by projected translations on a screen behind.

Some of the fables, like those of Aesop's with morals and cautionary dictums, would be familiar to many. These included La laitiere et le pot de lait (The Milkmaid and the Pot of Milk) and Le corbeau et le renard (The Crow and the Fox) which remind the listener “not to count chickens before they hatch” and “flattery feeds on the vain”. The latter and Le rat de ville et le rat des champs (The Town Rat and the Country Rat) cleverly highlighted hand puppets, and La cigale et la fourmi  (The Cricket and the Ant) utilised shadow play, to aid the narrative.

The music, as expected, was light and frothy, and as each fable lasted a matter of minutes, there was some padding up with highlights from The Tales of Hoffmann and La Vie Parisienne. These gave the singers ample opportunities for solos and ensemble work, which came out very well.

In case one thought that this was a production for children, it was decidedly not. The relatively late hour ensured that there were only a few youngsters in the audience, and stage director Sharon Joy Frese's scenarios were aimed mostly at adults, albeit those young at heart. Visual designer Caterina Minganti's children's bedroom, the painted clownish faces, maman's movements, and that man-sized and man-shaped comfort pillow named Doudou which George hugs in his deep stupor all had a touch of the creepy (think the horror movie genre) about them.

Little matter, as this was a largely enjoyable and musically satisfying outing fully consistent with Bellepoque's ethos to challenge the status quo through simple yet sophisticated departures, and to entertain. George and the Music Box, part of the European Season and Voilah! French Festival, plays for one final evening on Saturday, which would be well worth your time. 

LETTER TO JULIET / Bellepoque / Review

LETTER TO JULIET

Bellepoque

The Chamber @ The Arts House

Friday (3 October 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 6 October 2014 with the title "Moving musical tribute to Shakespeare's women".

Letter To Juliet is a 80-minute play produced by local light musical theatre group Bellepoque in commemoration of William Shakespeare’s 450^th birth anniversary. It is in effect a tribute to the multi-faceted women who made the Bard’s plays so true-to-life and ultimately memorable.

The setting scripted and directed by Hemang Yadav involves literature teacher Hermione (played by Sherilyn Tan) who has a troubled relationship with her ambitious and insensitive husband Leo (Darren Guo), and writes Agony Aunt letters to Juliet Capulet of Verona, the Shakespearean heroine  who has been receiving such letters for centuries.

She addresses the issues of contemporary women and relates these with Shakespeare’s women as she lectures her class of students, which was the audience. Each letter introduces groups of operatic arias and duets, with a cast of five singers very capably accompanied by Vincent Chen on the piano.

It was perhaps unfortunate that the first heroine was Juliet herself, as young soprano Angela Cortez was overmatched by the waltz-song Je veux vivre from Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette. Just getting around the coloratura notes was not quite enough, as it also needed to sound seemingly effortless, which was not the case.

Opposite her was a more believable Romeo, with Ah, leve toi soleil sung by tenor Melvin Tan, one of the land’s best bleeding heart tenors, who made every note and gesture count. Their duet O, Nuit Divine! was better balanced than anticipated and the mismatch much less obvious.  

The character of Lady Macbeth, love or loathe her, was all about ruthlessness and overarching ambition. She found a perfect protagonist in soprano Satsuki Nagatome, whose sheer depth of tone and emotion swept the field in Verdi’s Nel di della vittoria (from Macbeth) as she eyed the Scottish throne with her next nefarious plan. A woman’s hysteria provides an added dimension to the cold brutality already perfected by man. 

In two arias from Purcell’s The Fairy-Queen, adapted from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it was tenor Reuben Lai who stole the show as a smarmy, domineering male, towering over soprano Sabrina Zuber’s bit-part in the slender If Love’s a Sweet Passion. The aria from Handel’s Giulio Cesare, V’adoro, pupille, ably sung by Cortez, ironically had nothing to do with Shakespeare’s play on the same Roman emperor.

A Shakespearean heroine who evoked most sympathy was Desdemona, and this production telescoped scenes from Otello by both Rossini and Verdi. Verdi’s version is by far the better known, with its tender Ave Maria, here sung with much feeling by Nagatome. The final duet and murder scene with Lai’s Otello brandishing a dagger provided the most gripping moments of the evening.

To close Hermione ponders her next step with her wayward hubby, and drawing from the strengths of all the Shakespearean heroines, she does the unexpected. Forgiving the arrogant Leo would seem like a cop out in the age of women’s liberation, but her magnanimity is the quality that makes true love transcendent. It is all there in The Winter’s Tale. Shakespeare truly understood the hearts of men, and women. 

Photographs by the kind permission of Bellepoque.

VIVA VERDI! / Bellepoque / Review

VIVA VERDI!

Bellepoque

Esplanade Recital Studio

Thursday (28 November 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 30 September 2013 with the title "Operatic entertainment".

The third concert this year celebrating the bicentenary of Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi’s birth was undertaken by Bellepoque, an enterprising local group specialising in light musical theatre. Unlike the large-scaled productions by the Singapore Lyric Opera and Singapore Symphony Orchestra, this was salon concert of arias, duets and choruses modestly accompanied by piano.

Five operas were represented, with highlights performed in mostly chronological order. With popular numbers interspersed with the less familiar, the arrangement worked well if not for the variability of the singers. Veterans appeared alongside relative novices, and the marked disparity of abilities was sometimes all too obvious.

La Traviata (1853) opened the show with the popular Brindisi (Drinking Song) sung by the full ensemble of seven singers. It was misfortune that tenor Edwin Cruz (Philippines) had to lead, as he could barely keep in time. The empty champagne flutes the singers pretended to drink from seemed symbolic, as the performance lacked fizz.

The role of Violetta was shared by sopranos Angela Cortez (Philippines) and Sabrina Zuber (Italy), in Un di felice and Addio del passato / Parigi o cara respectively. Both were competent enough, and the transformation of the courtesan from a picture of health to frailty was very believable. Opposite them was Singaporean tenor Shaun Lee’s Alfredo, whose raw and desperate heroics in this highly demanding part was reminiscent of the legendary and now-retired Leow Siak Fah.

Baritone William Lim (Singapore) was his usual unflappable self in Germont’s aria Provenza il mar, easily the most convincing moment of the segment. He and soprano Satsuki Nagatome (Japan) united in A tal colpa e nulla il pianto from Un Ballo In Maschera or The Masked Ball (1859) gave the best duet of the evening, with passion now in full flow.

Nagatome in Ritorna Vincitor! from Aida (1871) also provided the single most arresting aria of all, spitting the words with true fervour and vehemence. Contrast this with the struggling Cruz in Celeste Aida, who never quite hit the high notes and whose final last gasp was achieved by falsetto rather than full voice. It was a small mercy that the great closing duet of Aida and Radames was not on the programme.

From Verdi’s last opera Falstaff (1893) came Fenton’s little aria Dal labbro il canto, sung with sensitivity and finesse by tenor Brendan-Keefe Au (Singapore), clearly someone who knows where his strengths lie. The concert ended with the famous Hebrew slaves’ chorus Va Pensiero from Nabucco (1842), where unison singing sometimes eluded the men.

Pianist Vincent Chen dutifully filled in for the indisposed Robert Casteels in accompaniment, and Thomas Manhart’s conceptualisation was narrated with engaging humour in Italian-accented English by actress Alessandra Fel. A mixed bag, to be sure, for a fair evening’s entertainment.