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. 

OF POETRY & MUSIC / Ding Yi Music Company / Review

OF POETRY AND MUSIC

Ding Yi Music Company

Esplanade Recital Studio

Saturday (8 November 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 November 2014 with the title "Reliving ancient music and poetry".

The Song and Tang dynasties represented a golden age of the literary arts in China, which flourished until its conquest by the warlike Mongols of the Yuan dynasty. Its poetry inspired no less than the likes of Gustav Mahler in his autumnal lyric symphony The Song Of The Earth. This concert by the Ding Yi Music Company conducted by Lim Yau, with music by Zechariah Goh Toh Chai, was somewhat less ambitious while attempting to encompass similarly epic subjects.

An added dimension to this production was the projection of calligraphy by former Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts President Choo Thiam Siew, who is also CEO of the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre. Narrator Lee Yong Tick read the poems in Chinese as a prelude to each of the sung movements.

The first part comprised three poems, beginning with Butterflies Over Flowers, with hushed plucked strings (ruan, pipa, cello and bass) creating a suitably serene atmosphere for tenor Jeremy Koh’s impassioned song and recitation. Ladies voices from the NAFA Chamber Choir were unaccompanied in Li Bai’s Qing Ping Diao (Pure Serene Music) and a mixed choir incanted the word fei (Chinese for flight) countless times in Peng, a segment from Zhuang Zi’s Xiao Yao You (Carefree Wondering).

Of course, such polyphony in composer Goh’s scores were foreign and even non-existent in those times, but his intention was not to recreate ancient music, but to relive its spirit through modern compositional techniques. He succeeded with a combination of idiomatic choral writing and coherence in conception, even if the choir was at times not always spot-on in intonation.

The second part was Da Feng Ge (Song Of The Rising Wind), conceived like a six-movement cantata on the subject of war and ancient chivalry. Two bare-chested drummers opened the work with a pugilistic show of belligerence, heralding tenor Koh’s Song of Gai Xia, a show of anger and indignation that had both spoken and sung elements, accompanied by chanting male voices.

Soprano Su Yiwen provided the most glittering display of vocal prowess in Reply to Xiang Yu, the concubine Yuji’s song of anguish and despair. Two purely instrumental movements set the scene for the grand finale. Kenny Chan’s sanxian led the charge in Besiege From All Sides, while the stage was bathed in blood red light in Battle of Gai Xia, where the strident winds and high pitched strings chillingly depicted scenes of carnage.

The closing Song of the Rising Wind for full choral and orchestral forces was a glorious paean to ultimate victory, but a nuanced one where reflection stood in parity with celebration. This half-hour long work could be considered a Singaporean Chinese answer to Prokofiev’s war-inspired cantata Alexander Nevsky, and that is saying quite something. 

Photos by courtesy of Ding Yi Music Company.

THE VIENNESE SCHOOLS / NAFA Orchestra & Chorus / Review

THE VIENNESE SCHOOLS

NAFA Orchestra & Chorus

Lee Foundation Theatre

Thursday (30 October 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 1 November 2014 with the title "In the spirit of Mozart".

The title of this concert by the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Orchestra and Chorus refers to the two historical movements centred in Vienna that revolutionised the course of Western music. The first was the classical school of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, while the second was represented by the 20^th century atonality of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern.

The evening’s very short first half comprised wholly of Anton Webern’s Six Orchestral Pieces Op.6, epitome of terseness and astringency that characterised the Austrian’s output. Its emphasis was on creating a specific tonal colour, known as klangfarb in German, rather than portraying a scene or mood. To this end conductor Lim Yau succeeded in coaxing a fine balance of sound from the young musicians.

Although certain solos sometimes struggled in their parts, there was an arch-like development to the pivotal 4^th movement, where percussion and winds managed to convincingly craft a crescendo of shattering and cataclysmic impact. The programme notes referred to the death of Webern’s mother as an influence, but this is absolute music at its purest and most uncompromising.

Mozart’s Requiem in D minor was the prime reason why this concert was very well attended. Conductor Lim elected to perform Robert Levin’s revision of the classic instead of the familiar and commonly heard Franz Sussmayr version. Levin was considered to have come closer to the spirit of the composer in a masterpiece that was left tantalisingly incomplete on his deathbed.

This meant paring down the orchestration in certain parts to better highlight the choir and altering some un-Mozartian quirks in the score. In the same spirit, basset horns favoured by the composer were employed instead of clarinets in this performance. A further addition was a new fugal Amen which followed the Lacrimosa, Mozart’s final utterance.

Typical of choirs trained by Lim, the NAFA Chorus was well-disciplined, accurate in pronunciation and consonants, and generally immaculate in fugal passages. Of sturdy and robust voice, the women outnumbered and out-sang the men; the latter group could do with further boosting and the vocal equivalent of Viagra. Their entry in Confutatis Maledictis was rather flaccid, for example.

The quartet of soloists, formed by faculty and students, were in good form and complemented each other well. They were introduced in sequence in Tuba Mirum, baritone Huang Rong-Hai, tenor Jeremy Koh, mezzo-soprano Jessica Chen and soprano Su Yiwen. From the opening Kyrie Eleison to the final Cum Sanctis Tuis, this was a very satisfying performance, filled with conviction and passion.

Tenor Jeremy Koh and baritone Huang Rong Hai.

Soprano Su Yiwen and mezzo-soprano Jessica Chen.

The concert was dedicated to the memory of Leong Yoon Pin, Lim Shieh Yih and Ong Lip Tat, all of whom were giants – figuratively and literally - of NAFA and Singapore music.

MOZART Bastien und Bastienne / NAFA Music Department

MOZART Bastien und Bastienne

NAFA Music Department

Lee Foundation Theatre

Wednesday (26 March 2014)

Want to hear some opera for free? You won’t go far wrong by attending the occasional production by the Music Department of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, produced and performed by its students. This evening was the first of two performances of Mozart’s single-act opera Bastien und Bastienne, composed when the musical prodigy was only twelve.

This wasn’t even his first opera for that matter. La Finta Semplice was the first, but it was dropped by its would-be performers. Under the sponsorship of Viennese physician and hypnotist Franz Mesmer (from whom the word “mesmerise” arose), Bastien and Bastienne was first produced and performed in the good doctor’s garden in 1768. Just involving three singers and lasting about an hour, it provided some worthwhile entertainment then as it did this evening. There were about a hundred people in the audience, including a fair number of children, but they were all ears in its simple but engaging drama.

The “orchestra” was provided by pianist Jeremy Wong, a sensitive and most steady accompanist in this pastoral love comedy. The role of shepherdess Bastienne was sung by soprano Yin Yue (Su Yiwen would play the role on the second evening), whose bell-like clarity in the arias, easily hitting the notes of the higher registers, was a particular pleasure.

Her love interest Bastien, ably helmed by tenor Jeremy Koh, was equal to the task and their chemistry quite believable. The intervening dialogue was in English (rather than German), and this was where Yin could work on her PRC-accented English which sometimes rendered the words garbled. Opposite them, veteran baritone William Lim (a member of the voice faculty) was his usual unflappable self as the soothsayer Colas, who helps bring the couple together. Surtitles were employed, but these were in a form of synopses rather than transliterations, but helped in explaining what was happening on stage.

What of the music? Early Mozart is still Mozart, with its freshness of melodic invention and keen allying of lyricism with dramatic action. The short prelude piqued with a theme that looked forward to Beethoven’s opening Eroica melody, composed more than three decades later. Some arias could be heard as prototypes of the great melodies to be heard in the Mozart-da Ponte operas of the near future. More importantly, it was the lightness and the treatment that enthralled and enthused.

The semi-staged production directed by Andy Pang was effective in conveying the emotions without much fuss, and the use of a sheep puppet (operated by Su Yiwen this evening) lent an endearing touch of bucolic humour that was most apt.

An hour passed ever so swiftly, and there was not enough time for the children in the audience to get restless. The applause for an evening’s good work was enthusiastic and encouraging, and it is hoped that more short operas, or scenes of longer stage works be presented in this informal and unstuffy manner. That would be just the right kind of outreach needed to bring new audiences to opera, still considered by some to be a niche market in Singapore.   

There is a second show of Bastien and Bastienne this evening at 8 pm, at the Lee Foundation Theatre of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. Su Yiwen is this evening's soprano. Admission is free. 

OPERA COMIQUE: AT THE AIRPORT / New Opera Singapore / Review

OPERA COMIQUE AT THE AIRPORT

New Opera Singapore

The Chamber @ The Arts House

Saturday (9 March 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 11 March 2013 with the title "The comedy of arias".

The Opera Comique series by New Opera Singapore is becoming a bit like those Carry On low budget comedies of the Sixties and Seventies, featuring a cast of familiar faces in variations on the theme of farcical plots, double entendres and more than a few good laughs.

Each of these opera capers features popular arias and duets strung together by some flimsy plotline. On this evening, the setting was the airport in Bali, where flirtations, misunderstandings and love matches take place between passengers, cabin crew, ground staff and Duty Free personnel. It was all very silly but the quality of singing was most encouraging.

The sopranos had a field day. Few might have expected the ease and level of projection afforded by Isyana Sarasvati (above) in Je veux vivre (Juliette’s Waltz Song) from Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette. She was scintillating and simply brilliant. Closely matching her were Bethea How, 3^rd Prize winner in the Llangollen Eisteddfod last year, in Arditi’s swirling Parla Walzer, which brought on the loudest cheers.

Rebecca Li’s Mein Herr Marquis (Laughing Song) from Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus was infectious, as were her tittering giggles, while Moira Loh (below) had the audience in stitches in Mozart’s Batti batti, o bel Masetto (Don Giovanni), as she went on to batter her love interest. After this, there may be a new meaning to “Could you batti batti me?”

Of the male singers, baritone Jeremy Koh impressed most in Mozart’s Donne le mie fatte (Cosi Fan Tutte) with his clear ringing tone. Tenor Yap Joo How’s Questa o quella (Verdi’s Rigoletto) was convincing in his libertine aspirations, while Shaun Lee and Lim Jingjie were more than earnest in their efforts. Pianist Albert Lin, attired as an ICA immigration official, was unobtrusive while providing premium accompanying support.

It would seem that most the young singers trained by Korean soprano Jeong Ae Ree, founder of New Opera Singapore, were bleeding heart tenors or coloratura sopranos. Where were the altos or basses among the eight singers featured?

Thus this programme was skewed heavily towards soprano and tenor arias, which besides being slightly unbalanced and also on the short side. By the end of the hour, the conflicts had ceased and all on stage was kissing and making up to Lehar’s Lippen Schweigen from The Merry Widow.   

This cavil aside, it was all in good fun. With time and as the cast of New Opera Singapore matures, we might have local singing versions of Sid James, Kenneth Williams and Barbara Windsor someday.

SCHUBERT'S DIE SCHÖNE MÜLLERIN / New Opera Singapore / Review

 

 

 

SCHUBERT’S DIE SCHÖNE MÜLLERIN

New Opera Singapore

The Chamber @ The Arts House

Thursday (20 December 2012)

 

This review was published in The Straits Times on 22 December 2012 with the title "Sing, don't dance".

 

Almost everyone knows the prohibitive costs of staging an opera, so New Opera Singapore has exercised the option of appropriating a Schubert song cycle for the basis of a production. Why not, as all good vocal music deserves champions, and it is vanity to split hairs over what talented young singers should or should not sing.

 

The concert began unusually with all the performers loitering on stage, looking on idly as the audience made their way to their seats. A classic case of role reversal but put into practice.

 

Franz Schubert composed no great operas, but his three major song cycles are matchless. Die Schöne Müllerin (The Fair Maid Of The Mill), 20 songs set to poetry by Wilhelm Müller, was composed around 1823. It is not the bleakest of the three but in certain ways is the saddest. The predictable plot of young love cruelly unrequited does not end in aimless wandering, as in the darker Winterreise (Winter Journey), but instead in suicide.

 

Five male singers, three tenors and two baritones, undertook the task of musical story-telling. Tenor David Charles Tay was the very able narrator, guiding listeners to the action and the protagonist’s ever-shifting moods. Transliterations in English were helpfully provided, and there was to be no excuse for not knowing what was going on.

 

Shaun Lee (left) and Lim Jingjie (right) opened the song cycle.

 

The younger and less experienced singers took on the earlier and less gloomy songs. Tenor Shaun Lee opened the cycle with Das Wandern (Wandering) in a hearty spirit, but his brash earnestness could have been served with better intonation for Mit dem Grünen Lautenbande (With The Green Ribbon). Baritone Lim Jingjie, who sang three songs including Wohin? (Whither?)  and Danksagung an den Bach (Thanksgiving to the Brook), has yet to attain the gravitas and experience to be truly convincing.

 

 

Baritone Jeremy Koh (above), armed with superior pronunciation and intonation, made a good case for the contrasting emotions of Ungeduld (Impatience), Tränenregen (Rain of Tears) and Mein (Mine), and the cycle was taking on a definitive direction and shape. It was little surprise that the final five songs, the emotional core, climax and denouement of the cycle, were shared by Tay and his twin brother Jonathan Charles Tay who as relative veterans both stole the show.

 

David Charles Tay was the excellent narrator, as well as sang five of the songs.

 

The paired songs on greenery, Die liebe Farbe (Favourite Colour) and Die böse Farbe (Hateful Colour), were wonderfully delineated as hope rapidly turned into despair. The cycle’s greatest items, Trockne Blumen (Withered Flowers) and Der Müller und der Bach (The Miller and the Brook), from David and Jonathan respectively, were coloured with a shuddering vividness and ultimately beauty beyond mere words.

 

David's twin brother, Jonathan Charles Tay was not to be outdone in his five songs.

 

The final song Des Baches Wiegenlied (The Brook’s Lullaby), gentle but an immovable force, rang like a requiem with ever-steady chords from pianist Albert Lin, who as a collaborator was a tower of strength throughout.

 

Do the dancers - good as they were - add anything more to Schubert's wonderful music? 

Last and least, some of the songs were choreographed, with dancers Kenneth Tan and Koustav Basu Mallick playing the miller and the brook respectively. In this case, the dancing – however artistic - was a needless distraction and more became less. Schubert’s song settings provide endless stimulus on their own and will succeed without extraneous help.    

 

Albert Lin (2nd from left) was the perfect collaborator in the 20 songs sung. All the singers take a final bow.