Festival off to an operatic start

NZ International Arts Festival, Wellington
Until March 21

Transports Exceptionnels, Waitangi Park
Gustav Mahler Symphony No 8, Michael Fowler Centre
February 26th

There is no opera in this year’s festival but the opening day provided a couple of acts which came close.

In “Transports Exceptionnels” there was the voice of opera diva Maria Callas heard as Frenchman Philippe Priasso teamed up with a mechanical digger – and in Mahler’s Symphony No 8 one can hear a work in which he came close to writing an opera.

“Transports Exceptionnels” is a variation on the old dance of the diggers routine. This was a lot more complex with Philippe Priasso performing a cross between gymnastics, dance and operatic posing.

While Priasso expresses some feelings through his dance and body movements it is the digger which provide some of the subtle nuances as they both reflect on the emotional drama of Callas

In this metaphor for the relationship between man and machine, Priasso is certainly the man but the digger which is by turns threatening, playful and sensual seems to have more depth of character, like HAL in “2001 A Space Odyssey.”

Priasso occasionally acts like James Bond, set upon by a ruthless foe as the digger searches him out, chasing him with its giant arm. But then the two protagonists (like James Bond) fall into a romantic embrace.

Priasso’s performance is stunning. Not only is he a superb athlete, he is also a great comic actor and dancer, with brilliant timing.

Gustav Mahler always had a troubled life within his marriage, his professional life and his inner life. He never really managed to work out whether he was a Jew, a Christian, a spiritualist or a humanist. What he did manage to do was express those troubles and his attempts to understand and reconcile them in his music.

His symphonic works and song cycles are depictions of his life as well as something close to philosophical treatises.

The Michael Fowler Centre with the massed choir of several hundred curving around the rear of the hall and the seven soloists standing before the huge orchestra looked like Raphael’s painting “The School of Athens.” The soloists ranged along the front were like Plato and Aristotle. The bearded Simon O’Neill could be either of them.

As well as concerning himself with big ideas, Mahler was also interested in great structures and the eighth symphony is a massive one partly because of the large choir but also because of the way he uses his voices to create cathedrals of sound in which huge volumes are contrasted with exquisite detail.

He is also unparalleled in the way he uses his soloists, giving them some meaty roles to sing, at the same time allowing himself the freedom to give one of his sopranos only two lines to sing.

All of the singers; the three, sopranos (Twyla Robinson, Sara Macliver and Marina Shagugh), the two mezzos Dagmar Peckova and Bernadette Cullen), the two tenors (Simon O’Neill and Marcus Eiche) and bass Martin Snell put on an electrifying display of singing. At times they sang eloquent solos but most of the time they battled against the chorus and the orchestra. They did so, some more easily than others, but all showed they had voices of power and emotional reach.

The symphony is long, particularly the second half, which features the rather tedious ramble in which Goethe and Mahler try to decide whether they are humanists or mystics.

However, the music is continually inventive in subtle way as the composer plays with his themes and the interplay he establishes between choir and soloists.

The NZSO gave a magisterial performance providing the turbulent sounds which conveyed all the conflicting tensions, queries and emotions, which the composer had infused into the music.

Vladimir Ashkenazy held the choir, soloists and the NZSO together with a firm hand and gaze, never letting any section dominate unduly. He even continued his control until the end instructing the soloists when to bow to the audience.