The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 15

THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD MONDAY, JANUARY 15, 1996 ARTS 15 cl ass oi ins own Model for a free world music Opera BY PETER McCALLUM BY PETER McCALLUM Philip Glass: Solo Piano, Opera House. January 12 Esso Opera in the Park, The Domain, January 13 IERRE Boulez once said contemptuously of minimalism that the EETHOVEN immortalised the prisoner's yearning for freedom in the chorus at the end of of Fidelio. It is an JL. human mind was capa I Act 1 11111 mm mm iiM.iijMmiiii mii in i ii i. ii ii mwui i uu i mm i i mum.

mi muim i.i.uii in mm. I mi .11. pi 11 uil .1111 11 11 11. iiiiili Lim.1n1.nnu.mn 1 ii, for operatic excerpts as bleeding chunks of Wagner)? From the consumer's point of view, it is probably the rhapsodi-cally charged lines of Puccini and Giordano's Andrea Chenier (another tale of simple revolution modified for complex times in which Kenneth Collins was at his stentorian best), which are most effective in this context The accent on young singers was welcome, particularly the Chinese tenor Hao Jigang (in Puccini's Manon Lescaut, conducted by Roderick Brydon), Claire Primrose, Amelia Farrugia and Ingrid Silvea (beautifully matched in the Barcarolle from Delibes' Lakme), Deborah Riedel and Kirsti Harms (equally so in the Barcarolle from Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann), Neville Wilkie and Chloris Vowels in Verdi's Rigo-letto (conducted by Richard Gill) and Anthony Elek and Riedel in La Traviata. Riedel stole the show in the fireworks from Bellini's La Sonnambula although real fireworks from rival events on the harbour robbed the love duet from Verdi's Otello of some of its more delicate moments.

But for we prisoners, with the Esky and MacNuggets on the grass, it was quite a nice night really. uncomplicated vision of life the tyrants on one side and the oppressed on the other. But, in early 1826 (or late 1825), in a conversation on law and order, his interlocutor pinpointed the problem: "We have no Botany Bay where prisoners can be The idea that, almost exactly 1 70 years later to the day, about a 100,000 descendants of those prisoners would gather on a balmy summer night to listen to bits of Fidelio (those bits that made it through the loudspeakers) and chat, under the sponsorship of a multi-national oil company, is a more complicated model for a "free" world than Beethoven ever had to contemplate. Is this the song of the free, the beer and circuses of a different power structure, or just a little MacNugget of Beethoven (if I may update Shaw's metaphor ble of working harder than that. One might equally say that the body is capable of" greater exertion than lying in a float tank.

In any event, few of the people at Philip Glass's piano recital seemed to be missing the hard work. What Glass has achieved is a music with no significant points of articulation, no points of ment and repose. It is music without a trajectory: his chords inhabit the play-till-ready, suspended time before the song starts, except that, in this case, the song is indefinitely postponed. One either finds this profoundly peaceful or else is irritated by the abject simplicity. Yet there is an original voice in the way Glass puts down chords which avoid any accumulation of tension.

You only need to hear some of the legions of would-be minimalists to realise that plastic imitations don't quite work. Glass framed the recital with Opening and Closing from his 1981 Glassworks recording which are classics of this approach. The harmony never goes quite where you expect it to, but nor does it do anything to surprise you. In the end, you give up projecting the music forward or backwards in time and either accept the music as a mantra or else get rather frustrated. All the other music on the program consisted of transcriptions of his theatre music except the recent Six Etudes (1994 present).

Least effective of the transcriptions was the Witchita Vortex Sutra (1988) (which he usually performs with the poet Allen Ginsberg reading his poem of the same name) from Hydrogen Jukebox, while Satya-graha (from his Gandhi opera of the same name) suited the piano particularly well. Glass sees his Twilight's star Music BY FRED BLANKS Mostly Mozart twilight recitals, Art Gallery of NSW, January 12 and 13 HERE is no local teenage pianist with as wide, eclectic and constantly expanding a Original voice Minimalist pianist Philip Glass brings moments of stillness to an anxious age. did performances. But quite outstanding was the magnum opus of the program, Samuel Barber's Piano Sonata Opus 26 (1950). It begins by wrestling with its material, then has a kind of scherzo giving quicksilver relief.

An adagio molto that suggests a serious mid-20th century Mozart-ian follows. It ends with a fugue turning cartwheels at breakneck pace. Only a virtuoso can play the work with the necessary scintillating confidence, and Tamara-Anna Cislowska met its specifications in all four movements. The final Mostly Mozart recital was a twin of an earlier one and again paired a Mozart quintet with a Shostakovich quartet These were admirable performances ending a series almost free of falls from grace. Photograph by JAM ES ALCOCK capture some of these features better.

Nevertheless, few, I think could keep a concert hall of people as engaged as Glass did. Anthony Steel, director of the Sydney Festival, told me that Glass said he had slept 1 1 hours on his flight to. Sydney, reflecting perhaps his unique gift to bring moments of stillness to an anxious age. repertoire as Tamara-Anna Cis-lowska. And there are few pianists of any age who play with the degree of excellence that she showed at the second of three twilight recitals which took Mostly Mozart to the Art Gallery.

She began with Mozart's Adagio K540, then came the last of the 24 Preludes and Fugues Opus 87 by Shostakovich, and Tliree Fantastic Dances Opus 5 by the same composer. These pieces had splen played the piano for most of their lives. He plays with great affection, but with no great mastery of tonal colour, nor unusual precision, let alone the sharply projected timbrel purity of his recordings. It is often said that composers don't always play their own music particularly well and other pianists could certainly one "mood" and, in a non-trivial way, only one piece, continually rewritten. Yet, in Glass's case, this consistency is a strength, not a weakness.

The great interest of the Six Etudes was in how he had developed this idea in the context of exploring piano figuration (the traditional concert of the piano etude) without making the music too "active" and "eventful" and thus subverting his basic style. There were textures in here which I hadn't heard before in his music the exploration of counterpoint in the first piece and the agitated character in the sixth (commissioned by the Festival of Sydney). Glass is no better a pianist than most people who have recent work as theatre music rather than minimalist music. While one can understand the desire not to be reduced to an these words, judiciously used, do provide a vocabulary, and "minimalist" seems singularly appropriate to a composer who so consistently explores a particular mental state. With Glass, there is, in a sense, only Awfully silly adventure in Killara Theatre KSSU7 BY JAMES WAITES Neville's Island, Marian Street Theatre, January 12 MAGINE a cross between Gilligan's Island and Lord of ee the carpet of wildflowers the Flies and vou have Sheldon, Tony Taylor, Terry Bader all well known to the local audience and Brendan Higgins.

From the first moments, as each stumbled inelegantly out of the waters from the shipwreck, the opening-night audience was in fits of laughter. And it never stopped. Richard Cottrell's production is perfectly timed, and the serious bits shine though with just enough light. Higgins does very well in the role of bird-w atching Roy, ho, since his nervous breakdown, finds solace in hymn-singing and prayer. Bader as Angus, a bloke who, through the course of events finds a new level of self-esteem, once again delivers a classy, well-hewn Seville's Island.

Written bv Taylor, as group leader Neville, thrives effortlessly on the whacky opportunities his role offers. Sheldon, perfectly cast as sharp-tongued Gordon, unfortunately cannot resist overplaying. This potentially fine actor ho, on this occasion, begins quite brilliantly really must address his habit of sponging up applause until his performance takes on the proportions of a balloon. Big is not always beautiful and this many days after Christmas the ham is definitely off. Few among Marian Street's growing subscriber list will mind anything for a laugh.

It is a fun evening and, overall, very artfully executed. Byrnes, and the work has a slight sting in its tale. The carefully crafted characters, all entertaining fellows, are tested not so much by the elements as the close proximity of fellow man. Order descends into chaos, tempers fray, behaviour unravels and things are said that have been held back for years in the regular office environment. It's a work in the tradition of Alan Ayckbourn who, in fact, assisted in its development.

Although the characters are all middle-class, the play itself is less so less twee. The voice is Firth's own and it's a fresh one. The cast brings together the natural comic talents of Tonv British newcomer Tim Firth, it's a silly, entertaining adventure for four blokes, nerds from middle management, who get lost on the first night of an Outward Bound program. The action is set on foggy Rampsholme Island in the Lake District of England, moodily re-created here by designer James Ridewood with lights bv Donn on the roof of Austral ur historic mountain lodge is in Kosciusko National Park, Charlotte Pass, NSW. It's nearly half a kilometre higher than Thredbo, literally on the roof of Australia.

Billions upon billions of tiny alpine flowers are everywhere right now. Walk the easy 8 km trail to Mt. Kosciusko for the spectacular 360 views of the main range. (You haven't seen Australia until you do) Take the shorter walks to the shallow but swift headwaters of the famous Snowy River and on to beautiful Blue Lake. Relax with cozy evenings before the big fireplace in the lounge.

Savour our fresh, wholesome food. Our special short break package now to Jan 28 includes two nights twin or double share room with ensuite bathroom, two 3-course dinners, two full cooked breakfasts and two picnic lunches all for only $219 per person. Enjoy! Freecall 1-800 026 369 or Freefax 1-800 802 687 for bookings, inquiries, free colour brochure 111 iVfl Ik (I 1 i fftfi ili 4 The return of Radio Birdman, fronted by Rob Younger historical rather than historic. Photograph by DEAN SEWELL History lesson for new generation ROCK BY JON CASIMIR Radio Birdman, Selinas, January 13 -Si WENTY-TWO years after they formed, 17 after they broke up, Radio Birdman are back up and passed by the last couple of decades of experiment. Birdman are basically a full-tilt surf boogie band with two memorable songs, Aloha Steve and Danno and New Race.

It was good to see a new generation there, to see Australians developing a sense of their own musical history. But it was hard to escape the feeling that, while Radio Birdman are one of Australia's most historically significant bands, their importance has never been greatly related to their musical worth. No matter how much fun they were in the '70s, no matter what the energy level was, no matter how visceral their effect, they were simplistic, essentially derivative and seriously short on songs. And they still are. It was still there at Selinas.

The stage was draped in red and black, with the Birdman logo prominent. The lighting was red and white. Stark, aggressive. The crowd, most of whom appeared to have been in preschool hen the band split up, was amped, shouting and histling long before there was anything on stage but a couple of roadies placing water bottles (my, haven't things changed). The band appeared at midnight and played a rousing one-hour set to a tumultuous reception, with the stagefront moshpit in permanent convulsion.

The faster, straighter material, perfect for the Saturday night beer-and-testosterone pogo, has not aged a jot. It is rock at its most direct and physical. However, anything out of fifth gear sounded undistinguished and flat, caught decade after they had broken up, it was difficult to find a band in Sydney that didn't owe something to their style of attack and not just because half of Sydney's acts had ex-Birdman members. You could hear the legacy in the early Midnight Oil, see it in Ron Peno's stage presence with Died Pretty. Though it grew quieter later in the decade, Birdman's ghost never left us.

Every band on the northern beaches skatethrash circuit has had a little Birdman in them somewhere. And it was no shock when You Am I and silverchair teamed up at last year's ARIA Awards to pay tribute. Radio Birdman were one of those acts that showed the way. They brought an energy and intensity to Australian rock, a sense of abandon that had previously been missing. on Sydney stages.

The question, of course, is: cash-in, nostalgia or something new to offer? The answer, on the evidence of the Selinas show, is: "why not?" and "iimmmm, let me get back to It's a tough job to find a band which has had more effect on the Sydney (and perhaps the Australian) music scene than Radio Birdman. Extraordinarily influential in their day, they inspired dozens of acts to follow in their footsteps. In the mid-'80s, half a KOSCIUSKO Chalet 'Est 1930 Charlotte Pass, Australia's highest Alpine Village'.