Saturday 9 December 2000 Victoria Concert Hall	Young People's Concert
	Stefania de Kenessey: The Other Wise Man Singapore Premiere Samuel Hepler Artaban David Quah Artaban's Father / Roman Soldier / Slave Master Sahako Sato Mother Danielle Hermon Slave Girl Members of the Singapore Symphony Chorus Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Bart Folse

NOISE RATING INDEX: 5 (They talked among themselves, they walked about during the performance, they played with handphones. They basically couldn't give a flying @#$% about the performance going on onstage.
And these were the adults.)

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.

Bringing in the one-act children's opera The Other Wise Man by American composer Stefania de Kenessey sounded like an intriguing venture - something different, at least, from the usual classical clichés you find at these young people's performances. But despite the fact that there was considerable time to prepare for this performance, it was therefore all the more a surprise to find that the show came so darned near to a fiasco for its local premiere.

This hour-long opera tells the story of the fourth person, Artaban, who plans to join the pilgrimage to the star over Bethlehem. Rejecting all worldly goods presented to him at his departure, he brings along only three jewels as a gift to the infant Saviour of the World. At the start of his journey, he visits a village of starving villagers and so gives up one of the jewels to help them. Next, he encounters a troop of Herod's soldiers killing the babies and expends another jewel bribing a soldier to save one of them.

After wandering the world for the next thirty-three years, he finally arrives in Jerusalem on the day of the crucifixion. But then, he encounters a slave girl on sale and uses his last jewel to buy her freedom. Elsewhere, the Messiah dies and there is an earthquake. Artaban is struck on the head by an falling stone and dies in the arms of the young girl as a bright light shines on him.

As can be seen, much of the plot is rather contrived - in the grand tradition of opera, anyway (children's or otherwise). We don't really find out how Artaban qualifies as a "wise man" (apart from knowing how to follow the star to Bethelem); historically, nobody even really knows how many wise men there were, as the Bible doesn't mention the exact number.

But we can overlook all these if we can accept that opera plots aren't the most intellectual things ever devised - which we can - and if the music makes up for it - which it barely manages here. The tunes are lyrical and accessible in a simple, easy-to-hum sort of way, but otherwise void of any inventiveness which makes them attractive or memorable. This being an opera, there were also several duets which went on much longeur than they should have: this much was clear because the audience tuned out and started talking among themselves.

Perhaps things would not have been so bad if the performance had been better done. This was simply one of the worst concerts I've attended under Bart Folse and ironically, also the first time I've seen him conduct opera. The stage was divided into two, with the orchestra squeezed into half its usual floor area on the left (facing the stage) and the rest of the action on the right.

There was never any balance between the music and the singing; the former always louder than the latter - one wonders whether Folse actually knew how bad the sound balance was from the auditorium - and only the four featured soloists really managed to project themselves beyond the instrumental accompaniement, and then with much strain and turmoil. A major disappointment in this respect, but not the last of the afternoon.

The biggest letdown came from the supporting members of the Symphony Chorus, who, for all their size in numbers, were barely audible. You could tell that they were singing something, from the way their heads bobbed and their arms gestured, but under the music and the audience noise, their parts simply evaporated the instant it left the stage. In the finale, they were just plain inaudible. One senses that they might have done much better in rehearsal but choked when it came to the opening performance. Perhaps they should have done a pantomime instead.

No less uninspired was the artistic (read "drama") direction by Wendy Ng, a laboured shibboleth of effort that was both uninspired and humdrum. The chorus members were flat and self-conscious, tending to either over- or underact their parts as diverse partygoers and villagers, and it took only the occasional and all too frequent tripping over of robes by the odd member to reduce the entire pageant down to the level of an amateur school production.

Again, one sensed that the chorus, even as mere supporting players, suffered from a lack of basic drama work and rehearsal. The costumes and lighting design were much better - impressive, even, given the limitations of the Victoria Concert Hall stage, but due to an oversight in the programme notes, the costumer's name(s) was omitted.

It took a degree of competent dramatization by the four soloists to redeem this aspect of the performance. Samuel Hepler was excellently cast, producing a believable and empathic Artaban despite the artistic blight unfolding all around him. David Quah, whom we previously heard in the Beethoven Choral Symphony last season, played a miscellany of roles, with his Roman Soldier being the most tragicomic. Between the two of them, the male soloists really carried the day where nearly all else failed.

Of the two female soloists, Sahako Sato had to struggle more to get herself heard over the orchestra and perhaps that took something away from her thankless role as the mother of a baby to be killed by a Roman soldier. Danielle Hermon's role came in the swan song of the opera, coming on in the final scene as the slave girl. The trio - Hepler, Quah (as slave master) and Hermon - could have made for a powerful closing number, but for stilted support from the crowd and an overkill of sound from the orchestra.

To their credit, the Music Education Department did a superb job of things outside the concert hall, turning the front-of-house into a hive of fun activity for the kids: balloon sculpture, face painting, charity dips and Santa Claus conducting a lucky draw for kids who filled in a crossword puzzle. Hats off to them. The only drawback I can see is that perhaps all these spoilt the kids to some extent, because some of them couldn't keep still when they got into the hall.

The audience deserves the final comment, then. Our colleague Johann de Souza has complained far and loud about last week's audience; I would do the same here, but for the fact that it'd sound tedious. But this much I will say: Young People's Concerts for older kids are fine, but you really wonder what kind of brain-dead parents would bring babes-in-arms to a concert and remain in their seats as their progeny start crying away in the darkness, or let their kids clamber all over the chairs as if they were in a public playground.

The SSO should rethink long and hard about their intention to bring classical music to the masses, for bringing Philistines into the concert hall and throwing good music at them teaches them nothing, and wastes good time and money of the real fans there who are capable of enjoying the performance. I mean, if you want to educate the masses, then for goodness sakes, educate them properly.

William Beh now understands why Herod had all the infants killed. He must've had a bad night out at the opera.

Click to Return to the Concert Index!... or Visit the Inkvault archives!

807: 31.01.2001 © William Beh

Explore the Flying Inkpot