Sunday 7 May 2000 Victoria Concert Hall |
CASUAL CONCERT French Flair Explained |
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Georges BIZET (1838-1875)
Overture, Seguidilla, Habañera and Chanson Bohème from Carmen Maurice RAVEL (1875-1937) Pavane for a Dead Princess Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921) Printemps qui commence, Bacchanale and Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix from Samson et Delilah Paul DUKAS (1865-1935) The Sorceror's Apprentice
YANG Jie mezzo-soprano |
OVERALL NOISE RATING: 5 (Bawling kids, beepers and the two ladies in W
19-20 who refused to shut up even after being told off by an irate
member of the audience.)
The Noise Rating Index is a partially-objective measurement of pager and handphone blasts, 9pm and 10pm watch beeps, coughing-during-the-pianissimo-bits, intra-audience conversation and other mind-bogglingly inept noises emitted in the concert hall during actual performance of music. It is measured on a scale of 0 to 5, in increasing annoyance.
Last Concert Reviewed (Apr 22 no review) | Next Week's Concert
by William Beh
This is the second of two Casual Concerts held on consecutive
weeks, both of which (to coin an understatement) have played to less
than full houses. Last week it was Petri Sakari and Vladimir
Ovchinnikov on Teutonic Romantic repertoire (their full concerts are reviewed here); this week it's Bart Folse
and Yang Jie on quote French Flair Explained unquote,
with a slightly reduced programme from what they'd already done on the
preceding Friday and Saturday evenings.
The selection of repertoire isn't too bad, actually. We haven't (to
coin another understatement) had too many vocalists on the programme
this season, and despite all the rolling of eyes from some jaded
concertgoers I've seen when Carmen and Pavane and
Bacchanale get mentioned, this is quite a rewarding programme
especially for first-timers.
In keeping with the informality, Bart gave a short intro before
launching into the Overture to Carmen. The full-sized orchestra
sounded too loud and opulent for the empty hall, but I don't think
anyone minded. This rambunctious opening set the stage for Yang Jie's
rendition of three items from Carmen, although maybe the
concert hall manager should look into relocating the spotlight on the
soloist's space next to the conductor such that their faces don't
disappear into what theatre people call a "dark spot".
The serene Pavane for a Dead Princess came as a
dénouement after the three fiery airas, with the orchestra
responsive to Folse. The solo horn sounded unsteady carrying the main
theme at the beginning of the work, but only momentarily.
The second half was much less enjoyable, but perhaps not for the
reasons one might think. Bart Folse took to the stage alone with a
sheaf of questions to answer - this being a Casual Concert, after all
- and apologized for Ms Yang's absence, explaining about her
lack of confidence with English and also her shyness about answering
questions, and volunteering to answer on her behalf.
Now, I'm not saying that a shy opera singer is unheard of, nor that
Folse is incapable of answering on her behalf, he being classically
trained in opera and all. Actually, I very much sympathize with shy
musicians unfluent in English who'd rather perform for than to
talk to their audiences - but how did a public-shy artiste get
lined up for a Casual Concert? Artiste management, please try harder
next time.
Q: Miss Yang Jie is Chinese, yet she looks like European.
Why ?
Folse: When she comes on stage to perform, she wears a lot
of makeup - sometimes it's quite heavy - and she also dresses very
much into the character. In these pieces, she'd playing Carmen, a
Spanish gypsy girl who works in a cigarette factory, she smokes and
flirts with men, and then in the Saint-Saëns's Samson and
Delilah she's Delilah, who[sic] again has a lot of exotic
influences. It has a lot to do with portraying the character and
sometimes it means trying to dress up and looking like it.
(Professor Ovchinnikov, not exactly a paragon of the English
language, took to the stage alongside Petri Sakari last week.
He fielded his share of the questions - more than Sakari, in fact -
and told some great anecdotes that had everyone in stitches, too.)
Folse did make a very good solo attempt to answer the questions,
but his dialogue (sort of) was constantly interrupted by a battery of
wailing babes-in-arms from somewhere a third of the way down the
concert hall from the back.
Perhaps this has been mentioned before, but as long as the problem
persists, it perhaps cannot be mentioned enough: management, please
educate parents that babes-in-arms who are obviously too young to
understand what's going on should not be brought to 'live' concerts.
Casual Concert or not, other people have paid good money for the
performance and crying babies are an absolute disaster for everyone,
from musicians to parents to audience.
I suppose this also applies to adults who associate "casual" with
"permission to talk while the concert is being played", such as the
two ladies in W 19 & 20, among others, but these people are much
harder to curb (you can't put pacifiers in their mouths, for example)
and I doubt if the orchestral management is ready to adopt a policy of
expulsion for talkative concertgoers.
Be that as it may, Folse struck up another exciting performance of
the Bacchanale from Saint-Saëns' Samson and
Delilah. Again, a lot of detail in the middle-range instruments
were lost in the reverberance of the concert hall, but everyone
managed to hold their part together. Barring the noise from the kids,
Yang Jie's two arias "Printemps qui commence" and "Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix" were ravishingly beautiful; gone was the
extravagance of the wild gypsy and here came the sensitivity of the
dusky Philistine beauty. (Pity the Philistines in the audience were
much less sensitive.)
There are the usual careless mistakes in the programme booklet
(pages 2-3, 10-14, and on page 18, Bach's catalog index should be BWV,
not BMV [Could have been worse: BMW - Ed.].) It still never fails to surprise me that with the entire
concert season determined for months in advance, that so many
unneccessary mistakes still appear in each week's booklet. (Not all
the blame should go to Eureka Publicis.) I'd also point out
that lyrics (and translation) for the operatic arias would not have
been amiss, but maybe I'm already setting my expectations too high.
William Beh
This is the sixth time she's performing with the orchestra (and
next week she makes it number seven with Beethoven's Ninth).
The Seguidilla and Habañera were both attacked
hard - one senses that this was deliberate - albeit with fairly solid
technique, although the songs lacked punch without the original choral
accompaniment (substituted by winds in this rendition). Yang's
affected mannerisms worked much better for the flamenco-like
Chanson Bohème, infusing it with a gypsy character.
Question of the Day
The concert concluded with The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and
another uncompromisingly boisterous performance from the orchestra.
The humourous broomstick theme (on bassoon and other winds) had the
audience in quiet titters, and Folse (right) hit all the dramatic nuances just
right. But for the noisy audience, this would have been a great concert.
William feels that it's high time for a Leave Your Kids and Handphones At Home campaign at the SSO.
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