PENELOPE / The Opera People / Review

PENELOPE

The Opera People

Esplanade Annexe Studio

Saturday (15 January 2022)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 19 January 2022 with the title "Girl power in pared down opera".

 

When one thinks of opera, visions of heroic singers, humongous casts, epic sets and lavish costumes come to mind. At the opposite end of the spectrum is chamber opera, with production pared down to the minimum, supported by modest budgets and keen minds striving to do something different. Ambition, without compromising on quality, has been the vision of groups like New Opera Singapore, L’Arietta and The Opera People.

 

Plaudits go to The Opera People for even attempting to stage American composer-conductor Andre Previn’s final work, the opera Penelope based on Homer’s Odyssey, left unfinished when he died in 2019. With libretto in English by Tom Stoppard, the project was realised by Previn’s copyist David Fetherolf and premiered later in the same year with soprano Renee Fleming in the title role.

 

The Opera People’s production went one step further by merging the opera with English composer Benjamin Britten’s 1939 song cycle Les Illuminations, with words by Arthur Rimbaud sung in French. This odd mix might not have worked if not for the skilful curation of sung and spoken texts undertaken by the production team with stage director Edith Podesta.

 

The musical idiom of both works is tonal, and especially lyrical in the case of Britten, which made for quite seamless transitions between the set-pieces. Previn’s instrumentation was scored for string quartet and piano, while Britten’s was wholly for strings. All these were comfortably accommodated by the Wayfarer Sinfonietta conducted by Lien Boon Hua.

Photo: Moonrise Studio

 

Its story was simple: the trial of Penelope’s unwavering faith in her husband Odysseus twenty-year absence while fighting the Trojan War and his dangerous journey back. Penelope was personified by three women, sopranos Teng Xiang Ting and Felicia Teo Kaixin, and actor-narrator Koh Wan Ching, representing her heart, body and mind respectively.

 

There was however a clear delineation of roles, with Teng singing only Previn, and Teo singing just Britten. Fanfare, the first of Britten’s ten songs, opened the show boldly with, “J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage” or “I alone have the key to this savage parade”.

 

This proclamation would reappear two further times, being a recurring theme but sung differently on each occasion. With this, Penelope established her self-determination and steely resolve. Although liberties were taken with reordering the sequence of Britten’s songs to suit the narrative, this gambit did not turn out to be too jarring.    

 

Through the action and music, one became privy to Penelope’s uncertainties, fears and anxieties. When will he return, if ever? If not, should I move on? All this in the face of mounting pressure, such as the plaints of a cynical son and hundred suitors. These were laid bare, symbolised by the women shedding their forbidding trench-coats to reveal snug maroon gowns.

 

Penelope stays true to the end, as the old man who puts her to the test is none other than Odysseus himself. This affirmation of female empowerment shone through in this well conceived and excellently executed 70 minutes of musical theatre.    

COMPASSION: Online Chamber Concerts / Singapore International Festival of Arts / Review

SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL 

FESTIVAL OF ARTS 2021

COMPASSION Chamber Concerts

Online videos-on-demand on SISTIC Live

 

BE COMFORTED NOW: BACH CANTATAS

Red Dot Baroque

 

BEFORE LIFE AND AFTER

Felicia Teo Kaixin, Jonathan Charles Tay 

& Jonathan Shin

 

ECHOES OF FIRE AND WATER

Ensemble Aequilibrium

 

HEALING RHAPSODY

Ding Yi Music Company

An edited version of this review was published in The Straits Times on 16 June 2021 with the title "Emotional healing through music".

 

The heightened measures of the present circuit breaker could not have come at a worse time for the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA). Limited audiences were further restricted to 50 persons per event, and live shows of the Compassion series of chamber concerts involving singers and wind players had to be cancelled. These were, however, recorded and made available for viewing on demand, a reminder that art and artists provide solace and comfort, and will ultimately survive adversity.

 

Red Dot Baroque, Singapore’s only dedicated professional baroque ensemble, presented three sacred cantatas of J.S.Bach which explored the pain of human suffering and healing through faith in God. Sung in German, Bach’s Lutheran perspectives still ring true in modern times.

 

The world-weariness in Ich Habe Genug (I Have Enough, BWV.82) was poignantly portrayed by soprano Joyce Lee Tung while bass-baritone John Lee manly broached the subject of sacrifice in Ich Will Den Kreuzstab Gerne Tragen (I Shall Gladly Bear The Cross, BWV.56). Both singers were united for Ach Gott Wie Manches Herzeleid (Oh God How Much Heartache, BWV.58), which closed the concert with a spirit of blessed optimism.

 

Art songs of three 20^th century composers, Frenchmen Maurice Ravel and Francis Poulenc, and Briton Benjamin Britten were the subject of Before Life And After. Tenor Jonathan Charles Tay ran the full gamut of emotions in Britten’s Winter Words, eight settings of Thomas Hardy poems, encompassing pastoral innocence and seasonal bleakness. Its culmination was the titular final song, which pondered what came before “a time there was... when none suffered sickness, love or loss”.

 

The French songs from soprano Felicia Teo Kaixin were more lyrical but no less gripping, such as Ravel’s melismatic Kaddish (a Hebrew song of mourning) and Poulenc’s deceptively congenial Poems of Louis Aragon, with words by a famed Surrealist and Communist. In between groups of songs, pianist Jonathan Shin performed movements from Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, each dedicated to a friend killed in the First World War.   

 

Newly-formed new music group Ensemble Aequilibrium’s eclectic programme of 20^th and 21^st century works had one thing in common: uneasy calm that comes before impending doom and the aftermath that follows. Japanese icon Toru Takemitsu’s Rain Spell and Singaporean Young Artist Award Recipient Chen Zhangyi’s Walks On Water set the tone, with the fluid realm providing more than a modicum of sustenance and comfort. The atmosphere conjured was haunting and dissonances paradoxically soothing, especially with the use of flute, harp and piano. 

 

This continued into Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s Cendres (Ashes), a diametrically opposed scenario of consumption by fire. Volume and tempo were upped but stopped short of outright violence, as if stilled by the warmth of embers. The main work was American avant-gardeist George Crumb’s Eleven Echoes of Autumn, which employed only four instruments: piano (with “string piano” techniques), viola, flute and clarinet. This apparent economy however translated to a myriad of tonal effects, its very short connected movements suggesting that “less is more”.

 

Healing Rhapsody was the offering of Ding Yi Music Company, conducted by Quek Ling Kiong, in response to civilisation’s perpetual cycles of crisis and rehabilitation over the ages. Joyce Koh’s stark but dynamic Isskimmer was a reflection of natural beauty as viewed in ice formations. In Benjamin Lim Yi’s Memory, liuqin, cello and sheng starred as concertante instruments, with its rich melodic content signifying nostalgia and yearning.    

 

Buddhist precepts dominated the rest of the programme, with Chow Jun Yi’s serene and lushly-scored Zen Thoughts a meditation on impermanence, the current strife being just a passing phase. Luo Mai Shuo’s specially-commissioned Compassion, which lent its title to the entire chamber series, received its world premiere. Sounds of nature were recreated in its quiet introduction, the music then blossoming into a hope that humanity aspires to kindness and ultimately love. Finally, the vigourous chant-like closing pages of Wan Yun Fei’s Bodhi, the embodiment of enlightenment, provided an upbeat end to a concert that promised healing, and delivered. 

Photographs from 7TH SINGAPORE LIEDER FESTIVAL 2017

With a lack of publicity and promotion bordering on stealth and secrecy, the 7th Singapore Lieder Festival presented by the Sing Song Club took place last weekend in the Music Studio of Victoria Concert Hall. This year's offering, held over two evenings, was modest compared with previous outings, featuring the complete songs of Maurice Ravel.

I attended only the first evening, featuring pianist Shane Thio with four singers, countertenor Glenn Wong, soprano Felicia Teo, tenor Adrian Poon and baritone William Lim. (The second evening showcased Poon, soprano Rebecca Li and baritone Daniel Fong.) The sequence of songs were well chosen, offering a variety of themes and colours. The small audience comprising mostly members of Singapore's small singing community (including several famous sopranos) enjoyed the evening's fare, which was presented in the usual unpretentious manner and high standards of the Sing Song Club.

Countertenor Glenn Wong made his Lieder Festival
debut with Ravel's Trois Chansons,
adapted from three a capella choral works.

Tenor Adrian Poon was his usual lively self
in Chants Populaires (sung in English, Spanish, Italian and
Hebrew, in addition to French) and Melodies Hebraiques. 

The ever-indefatigable Shane Thio must have performed
over a thousand songs in these Lieder festivals.

Soprano Felicia Teo Kaixing raised the roof with
Un grand sommeil noir, Les grande vents Venus d'Outremer,
Sainte, Si morne! and Vocalise-Etude en forme de Habanera.

Veteran baritone William Lim accounted for
Histoires naturelles and Don Quichotte a Dulcinee.

Take a bow, Sing Song Club!

 

DONIZETTI'S RITA / New Opera Singapore / Review

DONIZETTI'S RITA

New Opera Singapore

Esplanade Recital Studio

Wednesday (13 April 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 15 April 2016 with the title "Spousal abuse Punch and Judy way".

This seems to be the month for chamber opera in Singapore, as so soon after L'arietta's debut with three operas in a hour, New Opera Singapore has unearthed bel canto master Gaetano Donizetti's one-act comic opera Rita, or Le Mari Battu (The Beaten Husband).

Created in 1841, it was not performed until 1860, well after the composer's death. Comprising a cast of only three singers and running for just 50 minutes, its farcical plot centred on one taboo subject: spousal abuse.

Rita (sung by soprano Felicia Teo Kaixin) takes perverse delight in berating and slapping her timid and ineffectual husband Pepé (tenor Jonathan Charles Tay), but the table is turned when Rita's abusive first husband Gasparo (baritone Sangchul Jea), orginally thought to have died, unexpectedly returns. Pepe sees this as a chance for bailing out, but learns a thing or two from Gasparo on how to love but keep a wife under control.

Rita provides a new definition
to the term "ballistic".

All this sounds almost sado-masochistic in a Punch and Judy way, and that was ironically what kept the audience mostly in stitches despite the grim subject matter. Large credit has to go to director Stefanos Rassios' simple yet brilliant staging, which saw spoken dialogue trimmed off but retaining all the music. Gaustave Vaëz's French libretto was sung with projected English surtitles which greatly enhanced the experience.

The classic bel canto singing to be found in Lucia Di Lammermoor or La Favorita was not on show here, but the short arias, duets and the final trio still needed agile and expressive voices to pull off the dark comedy.

Teo's taunt of “When it comes to husbands, simpletons are the best” came off as funny rather than cynical. Jea's brash and booming counsel, “You can beat your wife, but don't knock her out” seemed almost good advice in the self-confident way he put it. Even Tay's declaration of glee in his aria when he thought he had seen the last of Rita was genuinely sincere.

What equalled or even surpassed the singing was the actual acting. Every singer rose to the test, particularly New Opera debutant Teo, whose transformation from bored stage prop (she sat on stage throughout all the preliminaries before any music began) to sadistic husband-beater and ultimately submissive spouse was remarkable.

The casting of actress Carina McWhinnie as the silent Cynthia seemed a luxury, but she added a further dimension to the story by acting out the inner thoughts of each singer. Besides delivering an excellent accompaniment, the casually outfitted pianist Kseniia Vokhmianina also had a minor role, spouting phrases in Ukrainian, probably swear words.

Like all comic operas, all's well that end's well. Or is it? Rita is rid of Gasparo (who wants to marry someone else anyway) but gets to keep a “reformed” Pepé (who has been well taught by Gasparo). A husband-and-wife detente is re-established, but like many a workable or peaceable marriage, tensions still exist. But who has the upper hand now? 

The cast takes its bow together with
New Opera Singapore founder Jeong Ae Ree
and director Stefanos Rassios (centre).