The arts week ahead: By quiet volcanoes | NZSO Made in New Zealand: Wonderland | NBR NZ Opera Rigoletto - "Setting the opera firmly in the twenty-first century Italy turns this Rigoletto into front-page tabloid material and it works brilliantly.&q
Richard Orjis
By quiet volcanoes
Featuring works by Rebecca Ann Hobbs and Tessa Laird
June 13-July 7
Exhibition opening and publication launch as part of the Auckland Festival of Photography
Wednesday, June 13, 5.30-7.30pm
"I've been thinking about home"
This is a space of sanctuary, of pure comfort; a walled garden. Here it is: some kind of paradise where we can be together and alone, where objects are not procured but placed, where presentation meets privacy, and polish hugs practicality.
At the intersection of craft and art, this exhibition is a glimpse into the ambience of the artefact, a creation of space both personal and public where the rituals of the home can be enshrined and reinscribed.
RICHARD ORJIS | PARK
Text by David Eggleton and Harry McNaughton
Designed by Warren Olds, Clouds
RRP: $60
Revolutions
Neon Works by Paul Hartigan
Waikato Museum
Until August 26
Revolutions comprises three works from a larger body of works of circular wall-based art works which pay tribute to three of the European art heroes - Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), Dadaist and father of assemblage, Victor Vasarely (1906-97), father of Op Art, and Joan Miro (1892-1983, Spain), who experimented with "automatic writing" as an art form and one of the early fauvist/surrealists.
Hartigan uses the word revolution as a double entendre connecting the tondo shape of the circular neon tubing and the socio-political sense revolution initiated by these artists.
He has matched each of these heroes with appropriate colour system; for example the Vasarely tondo was inspired by the sharp contrasting red and blue dashboard LED lights in his VW car - piercing ultramarine blue against a shock of red.
NZSO Made in New Zealand: Wonderland
Hamish McKeich Conductor
Helen Medlyn Mezzo-Soprano
New Zealand String Quartet
CHRIS CREE BROWN Celestial Bodies
LYELL CRESSWELL Concerto for Orchestra and String Quartet
GILLIAN WHITEHEAD Alice
AUCKLAND, Town Hall, Saturday, June 9, 8pm
Led by star Kiwi conductor Hamish McKeich, this annual concert celebration of New Zealand music brings together the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and New Zealand String Quartet to mark the 25th anniversary of the New Zealand String Quartet.
Wonderland begins with the combined strengths of both the NZSO and NZSQ in one of Wellington-born composer Lyell Cresswell’s Concerto for Orchestra and String Quartet. Composed in memory of some friends who died too early.
Also on the programme is New Zealand composer Chris Cree Brown’s spectacular Celestial Bodies merges music and media.
Premiered by the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra at the 2005 Christchurch Arts Festival, this complex work contemplates the heavens above through the machinations of the orchestra, electro-acoustic sounds, and images from Christchurch-based visual artist Julia Morrison.
Known for his conventional instrumental composition, electro acoustic and computer music, and inter-media art,
The final work on the programme is Gillian Whitehead’s cantata Alice, performed by mezzo-soprano Helen Medlyn, for whom the eight-movement work was composed.
This descriptive monodrama tells the story of how Alice Adcock, a lively and adventurous young woman from Manchester, travelled to New Zealand in 1909 to rid herself of tuberculosis. It worked, and the 23-year-old emigrant lived for a further 50 years of life.
This is her story - it has the resonances of a universal myth, known to all of us who have crossed the seas to begin a new life, with unforeseen and unimaginable difficulties.
Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi
NBR New Zealand Opera
Directed by Lindy Hume
Aotea Centre
Auckland
Until June 17
Never been invited to one of Silvio Berlusconi’s bunga bunga parties? Try going to Auckland's Aotea Centre where one is in full swing as part of NBR New Zealand Opera's latest production of Rigoletto.
There is only one fully naked guy but all the bunga bunga girls are partying and Silvio and his mates are up for anything.
Setting the opera firmly in the twenty-first century Italy turns this Rigoletto into front page tabloid material and it works brilliantly.
Over the last few years Rigoletto has had a number of updates with contemporary Mafia settings. But this production gives the opera immediacy and relevance. It also helps the opera make sense.
The first act opens with the Duke of Mantua very much like Berlusconi, flanked by police, army, politicians and various aides, including a cardinal bursting into a the grand set where the business of the day is to be done.
Like Berlusconi, the duke presents as the loveable tyrants while Rigoletto is a fawning, backroom procurer who uses his intimacy with the duke to intimidate others.
Playing in the background is an actual handi-cam feed along with real news footage, which gives the scene real urgency and drive.
The first act’s dramatic opening is just the start of probably one of the most mature and intelligent productions of the opera which kept the audience enthralled.
One of the problems I have always had with the opera is the curse with which Monterone damns Rigoletto and the duke early on. The notion that he has been cursed preys on Rigoletto's mind throughout the opera ,and when his daughter dies in his arms he shrieks about the curse has been fulfilled.
Of course, the evil duke still lives, so the curse has not affected him.
In fact, Rigoletto is the reason his daughter has been killed. He is the curse and she dies because of his deceit and immorality rather than anyone else’s.
The duke and his various courtiers are not particularly evil. They act as most politicians, using or skirting the law in an amoral fashion. It is Rigoletto who embarks on a course of revenge with the decision to hire an assassin to kill the duke.
The courtiers and the duke are also upfront about what they do. It is Rigoletto who presents a façade at court as well as to his daughter, withholding the truth of his relationship with the duke, even from her.
This veneer which he presents is his undoing - his pretense of an irritating, sycophantic fool at court which hides a deep-seated resentment. His lack of awareness of his involvement with amoral activities, as well as presenting as a cloying and over-protective father, is his weakness -his flaw, his curse.
Warwick Fyfe in the role of Rigoletto has to convey this complex set of attributes and flaws. His character never becomes over demonstrative and there is always a sense of him holding back in his expression of love, hate, contempt.
It is too easy to have Rigoletto portrayed as a twisted character who is obviously deformed physically as well as mentally and Fyfe carefully avoids this.
His “Pari siama” (How alike we are) when singing of the assassin Sparafucile is haunting in its exposure of Rigoletto's awareness of his own wretchedness, his voice catches with shuddering emotion at just the right point.
Then he superbly transitions to his singing as devoted father of Gilda. This ability to capture his two personalities, the heartless and the warm, in just a couple minutes showed a singer able to convey deep psychologicals states with exquisite refinement.
As Gilda, Emma Pearson created a charcater which expressed all the conflicting emotions of a young woman exposed to ache and the desperation of love, the terror of kidnap, the embarrassment of talking to her father about her seduction and the confusion of being dragged into the adult world.
Her voice soars with emotional expression in aria such as “Care nome” (Dear name) where effervescent and passion erupt
Rafael Rojas as the duke sang gloriously as the laid back hedonist with just the right mix of bravado and self-awareness.
In his role a Gilda’s lover his voice took on an elegant combination of romanticism and cynicism which helped create a fully rounded disreputable character.
Ashraf Sewailam was a splendid Sparafucile, who portrayed a groovy hit man, showing Rigoletto photos of his temptress sister as well as his hits on his cellphone. His voice resonated with darkness and menace, his body cat-like tense with suppressed nervous energy.
Kristin Darragh is splendid as Maddalena, Sparafucile’s sister, and she adds a sensual dimension to the final quartet when she sings with the duke, Rigoletto and Gilda in a profound “Bella figlia" (Lovely woman).
While the opening palace interior is relatively traditional in its combination of the classical and the modern, the other sets are a triumph, with small brillinarly detailed constructions on a revolving stage which helps concentrate the action.
The cleverest is a bus stop shelter replacing the traditional alleyway, providing a sense of contemporary realism.
Another clever innovation was the background projection of video images, including flocks of crows with dramatic closeups of single birds which were telling symbols of foreboding and death.
The Auckland Philharmonia was outstanding, with conductor Wyn Davies ensuring the music added to the overall dramatic effect, dominating when it needed to but always allowing the singers the space to let their voices shine.
The director, designers, soloists, chorus and musicians have brought together a seamless tale of brilliantly rounded characters with vivid emotions and contemporary relevance.
