It’s almost fifty years since Hundertwasser burst onto the art scene in New Zealand with his major exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery. That show which opened in April 1973 was the start of an interconnected, almost symbiotic relationship between New Zealand and the Austrian artist.
The catalogue for that show sold in its thousands and it seemed that most New Zealand art lovers had a copy of it. The book went on to be published in 18 editions selling over 750,000 copies.
Hundertwasser’s connections with New Zealand went further than that exhibition. Not only did he design a new flag for the country which almost became the official flag but he designed one of the country’s few ’iconic” architectural works with the Kawakawa public toilets. The recent opening of the Hundertwasser Art Centre in Whangarei which he also designed has further cemented his creative impact on New Zealand society.
Hundertwasser Art Centre
In some ways Hundertwasser could be seen as the archetypal New Zealand artist / architect. He displayed the No 8 wire mentality in his approach to architecture and design as well as a desire to own his own piece of land and developed an affinity with Māori. He also drew inspiration from the landscape as well as seeing the need to integrate the individual into the physical and natural environment.
A new book “Hundertwasser in New Zealand” by Andreas Hirsch, a long-time friend of the artist provides insights into this latter-day New Zealand citizen who had a major impact on the arts, the environmental movement and Northland itself.
The book records his journeys around the world including the voyages on his boat, Regentag which sailed from Europe to New Zealand, metaphorically linking his European life to his New Zealand life. The book is also a record of his artistic journeys as he developed his artwork and the themes he was fascinated with. There is also his journey within New Zealand as he sought to acquire property and then his years of developing his farmland in the Kaurinui Valley.
In the book much is written about his career up to his major Auckland show at a time when his work was becoming internationally recognised . As the German curator Wieland Schmied noted at the opening of the exhibition in Auckland. ‘The themes of Hundertwasser’s pictures are labyrinthine architectural structures, hill-like houses surrounded by protecting fences, house-like steamers surrounded by protecting waves, leaf-like windows surrounded by protecting spirals, the spirals running inwards with many convolutions like paths leading towards a cave of security.’ These are themes which were much in keeping with Māori creative approaches.
His interest in alternative architecture is outlined from his early rooftop living in Vienna in a building designed by Otto Wagner to his encounter with the New Zealand architect Ivan Tarulevicz whose house in Tauranga Hundertwasser saw as a functioning implementation of his vision of green roofs with sheep grazing on the roof. Several years before Tarulevicz had been responsible for getting Buckminster Fuller, a proponent of the geodesic dome to come to New Zealand to talk.
The book also expands on the way that Hundertwasser came to acquire land in Northland and his growing understanding and respect for Māori. At the same time, he was expanding his commitment to ecological and conservation issues which were in turn were linked his artistic work, producing paintings and posters related to these ideas.
For many New Zealanders, Hundertwasser’s career centre on that 1973 exhibition but the book expands on his twenty years of his output before arriving in Auckland. His early life and much of his outlook was built on his Jewish / Aryan heritage and like many in post-war Germany he saw the need for a social revolution. There is also material about the process leading up to that Auckland show and the efforts of his Australian dealer Hertha Dabbert who had given hm a Melbourne show in 1970
The texts also provide ways of insights into the artists approach to art and life, notably with his notion of the five skins of the human being, the importance of the spiral and his ideas about the horizontal (the domain of nature) and the vertical, (the domain of man).
Hundertwasser, Fagan’s Farm
The book manages to show how the artist’s career and ideas are reflected in his art and the way the works become the visual diary of his physical, intellectual and social progress. Paintings such as “Fagan’s Farm” which have many of the features of his work is based on the farm owned by neighbours of his in Northland. The painting is a plan of the farm with many features of the landscape but it is also something of a metaphysical map as well, embodying the notions of “crop circles” inherent in the land as well as the idea of the spiral or koru which refers to the endless cycle of growth and renewal.
It is a handsome publication with a number of full colour illustrations of his work along with images of his architectural work both here and elsewhere. There are also preliminary sketches of the Arts Centre as well as illustrations of early concepts of building with nature.
It is a book which traces out the history of a visionary creator but also provides insight into the way in which an individual can help change thinking in terms of social issues and our ways of seeing.
In the final concert of his three concert series, pianist Paul Lewis gave a magnificent performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto. The work which had gained the title of “Emperor” was one which Beethoven rejected because of its association with Napoleon. but has nevertheless prevailed
Beethoven was born in 1770, one year after Napoleon and like many of his generation, initially believed the French revolution with its ideals –of liberté, égalité, fraternité, heralded a new dawn, that mankind could be reborn, that a new society was imminent and that great men like Napoleon would lead the way to this new society.
Beethoven’s enthusiasm for Napoleon peaked with the Eroica symphony of 1804 but by the time of writing the fifth piano concerto he had lost faith in the man who was then at the gates of Vienna.
Despite the composers misgivings about Napoleon the piano concerto has all the features which stemmed from the revolutionary fervour of the time – notions of the heroic, the innovative and the challenging. This was evident in the music but also in Lewis’s approach to playing.
A great pianist can make Beethoven’s work seem relatively easy to play but is also easy to forget just how difficult a work like the Emperor Concerto can be to play.
Lewis’s mastery of the work was his ability to provide a real sense of cohesion and an understanding of the structure of each of the movements as well as the work as a whole. He never allowed the simple demonstration of his own technical facility to obscure his larger purpose.
He fully captured the textures, scope and power of the work and the heroic spirit as conceived by Beethoven is revealed to be both physically robust and spiritually refined. From the virtuosic opening of the first movement through the dramatic contrasts of the Adagio to the impressively optimistic finale, Lewis demonstrated an effortless strength as a concerto performer. There was a cerebral focus and an understanding of the work in the way he played. Rhythmically, he was in total control, never too soft or loud, never to fast or slow, with his magical fingers conjuring up the emotions of the piece and at all times he was in sync with conductor Gemma New and the orchestra
Few pianists would have the sheer technical skill, understanding and stylishness he demonstrated.
Praise should also go to Gemma New and the NZSO who gave a sympathetic accompaniment. They also realised the full symphonic nature of the work ensuring that the drama, subtlety and excitement of the concerto was fully expressed.
The latest NZSO concert ”Truth & Beauty” opened with John Rimmer’s “Lahar” which he wrote in the 1970’s as part of his Ring of Fire orchestral work. It was a volcanic lahar of melted snow and ice which caused the Tangiwai disaster on the Whangaehu River in 1953.
While Rimmer does not reference the disaster directly in the work one can sense the various forces of nature – geological and atmospheric which contributed to the disaster represented in the music.
Conductor Gemma New reinforced the aspect of peril inherent in the work with her arm movements which at times looked like short sharp semaphoric, movements signalling danger.
The percussion instruments created the opening growling sounds of the volcano and the tectonic shifts, while other instruments captured the sounds of the forest such as the twittering piccolo and flutes representing the bird life.
The work ended with a plaintiff piccolo solo, a lament in honour of the victims of the Tangiwai disaster.
The big work on the programme, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No 5 had some of the same brooding and reflective quality to it as the Rimmer work.
In the 1930s, the Soviet Union the purges of Joseph Stalin meant that traditional music and composers were declared decadent and even Dmitri Shostakovich saw the need to adapt. In a cynical nod to political correctness, he subtitled his symphony “A Soviet Artist’s Response to Just Criticism.” While there are many lyrical and heroic aspects to the work there is a sense of despair beneath the almost romantic melodies.
The symphony feels as though it is contemplation of the battlefield, the horror of battle and the eerie aftermath. But this is not some reimagining of Tchaikovsky’s triumphant 1812 and it sems very relevant to the present day as Ukraine had been focus of Russian territorial ambition in WWI and the site of much fighting and destruction.
The work opens with the great percussion roar of war and destruction followed by the various colours and moods of the battlefield landscape where the souls and spirits of the dead lie. Then there are themes which could be derived from folk melodies which eventually morph into driven militaristic music.
The second movement which has some links to dance, but this is not folk dance or the waltz but rather a dance of death. Then as with most of the bright and colourful themes in the work the music eventually returns to the militaristic the dramatic and the chaotic.
The slow third movement was almost a requiem with mournful sounds provided by flute and harp and the work eventually moves to a transcendental mood conveyed by the flute. In the fourth movement New extracted nuance and subtly giving the work a lightness and innocence before erupting into a joyous reworking of the opening theme
At times throughout the work Gemma New’s elaborate conducting style saw her more as a magician than conductor and her baton more of a wand.
While the Shostakovich was the big symphonic work on the programme it was Hilary Hahn’s electrifying performance of Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No 1` which was the highlight.
After the slow ethereal opening her playing became more impassioned with some frantic bowing displaying a deep understanding of the work. Her own bodily movements also displayed a physical response to the music moving with a dancer’s litheness and intensity.
The fairground themes of the second movements which foreshadow the composers later compositions for film were soon turned into more robust sounds with some powerful contrasting passages.
Her playing was technically brilliant and she handled the more difficult sequences of playing on the bridge of the instrument and plucking with consummate skill. Her duets with various instruments of the orchestra were all precise and incisive.
Her playing ranged from the whimsical through the serene to the extravagant and all the time she was formidably focused on the music. There were times when she seemed to be in trancelike state while at other times she seemed to be in a rage. Throughout it was as though there was no effort being made and that the technical wizardry and sumptuous music flowed effortlessly from her instrument.
Roy Good’s latest exhibition “Squares Cascade” continues his experiments and enquiry into shape, and colour. For the most part each of the works echo the title of the show with squares of colour seeming to fall, rotate and displace in an endless search for possibilities.
A lot of the artist’s work in the past was built on, and a homage to some of the abstract artists of the past and in this show the square shapes are variations on the geometric paintings of Kasimir Malevich. As with the coloured squares of Malevich, what at first seem to be flat coloured shapes start to reveal differences in colour and texture. So, in “Squares Cascade – Eight Rotate” ($8500) some of the shapes are flat colour while others have subtle variations of texture such as one might find in marbles and granites.
There is an architectural quality to these works particularly apparent in the stacked works such as “Squares Cascade – 5 Squares, 4 Rectangles” ($14,500) or “Squares Cascade – Stack” ($7500) where the shapes are built on top of each other. In others this architectural quality can be seen in the depiction of planar forms as in “Squares Interlock” ($19,500).
With many of the work it is as though the artist has based the shapes, placement and connections on mathematical or geometric principles. There might even be a hidden code or an enigmatic symbolism attached to them.
From medieval times artists and architects regarded number symbolism as important with. certain numbers and ratios having magical or talismanic properties. They also had an ethereal existence and were models for theology and an analogy for creation itself.
One is alerted to the mathematical quality of some works partly by the title such as “Squares Cascade – Arithmetic Progression” ($18,500) where the assemblage of varying shapes seem to conform to a predetermined set of principles and not just random placement.
Roy Goode, “Square Cascade – Dance The Line”
There are the set of work which have dance in their titles where the shapes follow the logic of the dance steps. In “Square Cascade – Dance The Line” ($6500) the various coloured squares negotiate a shifting central line and with Squares Cascade – Square Dance 1” ($8500) the squares follow the ordered nature of the traditional square dance. Then there is “Squares Cascade & Rotate” ($19,500) where the mathematical and dance notion collide in an unexpected combination of regular and off-centre shapes.
Good has always had an interest in shaped canvass and in these works, there are a variety of shapes , both of the exterior frame as well as within the frame .
There are the more complex ones such as “Squares Ascend No 1`” ($25,000) which is like an upended ziggurat and “Squares Cascade – Fault Line” ($25,000) where the descending coloured squares appear to have dislodged part of the the frame
There are the couple of works which owe much to the Israeli artist Agam with the raised triangular forms producing an op art sensation with changing perspectives . “Squares Cascade Kinetic No 2” ($19,500) explores space and movement in an intriguing manner touching on the ides of meditation and contemplation,
Jim Allen who last week turned 100 has been developing his artistic practice since the 1950s, and was a pioneer of post-object art in New Zealand in the 1970s.
Nearly fifty years ago in 1974 I interviewed him as part of a series of video interviews with leading artists -“ Interviews with six NZ Artists” (Allan, Albrecht, Binney, Ellis, Hanly, Twiss.). This is a transcript of the interview.
At that time his major works included the designs for the windows, stations of the cross and crucifix for Futuna Chapel (1961) in Wellington, the ICI mural (1965) in Wellington ,”Wairaka” Lady of the Rock (1965) in Whakatane and his first post object exhibition at Barry Lett gallery including Tribute to Hone Tuwhare, 1969,
John Daly-Peoples: How do you describe the work that you now produce You don’t do figurative or representational work – why don’t you, and what you see as a sculptor’s aim, or your aim as a sculptor?
Jim Allen: Well I have to talk about my own personal aim and it’s not that I dislike realist work, or have no interest in it, for instance, I get a lot of enjoyment from the work of
Brancusi and people like this. And it’s not as if I’ve turned my back completely on that in terms of appreciation. It’s just that my own preoccupations appear to take me a very long way from those kind of realist things. But my work seems to have two kinds of polarities – one is where I’m involved with a physical problem, which leads me to the evolution of structures to solve the physical problem, and here I’m talking about work of a more architectural nature. For instance, the work which I did at Palmerston North Teachers College, the design solution was based upon the architectural elements of the spaces surrounding the sculpture and the floor plan, on which the sculpture was standing on. And the fact that there was a considerable number of, flow of people walking backwards and forwards within the space which it’s situated in- And it’s very much a practical problem to evolve something which will complement the architecture stylistically, and also not to clutter up the foreground so as it becomes an obstacle for people to have to walk round, and so on.
When I get a problem I tend to approach it from a structural design analysis point of view, and produce a solution which meets the problems inherent in the site, rather than carrying an idea to the site and imposing it upon that situation. Now I’m not against that, I’m just saying, this is what I tend not to do. And the other thing, which is the other polarity, is where I’m concerned about ideas, and I seek to use materials, and methods to get to grips with the idea in a visual physical way. But, primarily I’m concerned about ideas, and the significance of ideas, in different kinds of relationships, and then I seek to use materials which will begin to deal with these ideas in a visual kind of way. And that leads me to use media which would be classed as being non-traditional, and in fact it leaves the whole media opportunity completely open, because when you’re dealing with ideas, anything becomes appropriate, as to that which will best explain, or demonstrate the idea. And I guess a lot of people have difficulty in getting close to my work because the materials which are used, and the way in which they’re used, differ greatly from traditional types of medium, to traditional types of usage of media. But it’s because I’m more interested in the idea, or ideas which can be generated by materials, rather than doing a purely formal exposition.
Jim Allen, Futuna (1961)
JDP: It would seem that the idea itself, was important – not so much the piece of sculpture or what comes out of it, but rather the actual involvement in the process.
JA: Yeah, on a lot of occasions the intentions are modified by the events as they occur at the time, particularly with this kind of work. And, with “Sonic MI”, what nobody else realises, but the problem is that had three things worked out for “Sonic W’, and that each of them was cancelled out, one after the other, because the venues, or the space available for me to perform these works, was changed. was told that was going to – I had the dining room as a space, and I evolved a work for that space, then that disappeared because they wanted to use it for coffee, or something. I then evolved a work to the place on the grounds on the lawn outside, in a marque, the marque didn’t materialise, and
twenty-four hours before the start of “Sonic Supers” I was given the room which I was placed in. Not using this as a way of excuse, but it certainly threw me a bit, and the work which has evolved for “Sonic W’ really wasn’t what I’d planned, it was something that I had to rush through, which was unfortunate. But nevertheless it has the bones of the approach which I would had to any of those spaces, which was to create a situation within which a certain amount of participation – free participation – both by performers who are used to the structures I was setting up, and people who would have been seeing it for the first time – could have got some feedback by becoming involved, in a physical situation. And in this sense most of the things I’m involved with are traditional, when one talks about them in these kinds of terms. They involve space, they involve sound, some sets of physical dimensions, but instead of the viewer, or spectator being on the outside of them, he becomes part of them and he becomes part of the sculpture itself, in many cases, not in all cases, but many cases.
JDP From the 1960’s on you are looking at new sculptural methods, you start to try out a lot more ideas than you had previously – would this be so? Or when you talk about abandoning Elam, did you start to have to redefine what you saw as sculpture, and re-examine and explore some of the new aspects?
JA: Well, prior to the 1960’s I’d been employed by the Education Department, doing experimental work in Māori schools in the far North of New Zealand, and I went straight from the Royal College in London to that job. And I think probably it was the best thing that could have happened to me, because it brought me into contact with people, and with children, who are operating at a very early creative stage. And I learnt an immense lot from these people and from the children, in fact they would be the biggest single influence on the way I think, and what I think is important and the way I work, and the values I place on things. When I came to Elam it gave me the opportunity to return to making things, which I hadn’t had for some time, and for a few years there was a heavy physical involvement in casting and moulding and welding, and so on like this. The kind of forms which emerge from those periods are, a generic term which applied to them, that was called “slotsies”, and they were in the main, cast pieces of aluminium which slotted together, and some of them had the possibility of a variety of combinations, you could slot them in different ways, and they formed different shapes. They were concerned about articulation, and things like that. With the “slotsies”, I was very much concerned with the articulation of things, and also, some exploration into casting techniques.
Jim Allen, ICI House mural (1965)
About that time, I did one of the largest castings in Australasia, by the polystyrene method, it involved quite a lot of experimental work in moulding with sand and so on. That’s the work which is in the Bank of NSW in Queen St. So, there was quite a heavy involvement with the experimental techniques with media, of a more traditional kind. But in terms of ideas, I was involved with the articulation of forms. The next sort of development from that, occurred after, or during the period I was on leave, in 1968, in Europe. And it was a very good time to be away. The art schools in Britain were in ferment, they were having riots going on, the schools were being closed, the students and staff were objecting to the administration of the colleges, and the aims and intentions of the courses, degree courses, and diploma courses. There was the French riots
which nearly overthrew the authority in France. There were riots in Germany. And we were in Britain, and I was very closely – I can’t say associated with – but I was in very close contact with the ferment in the art school at that time. We were in France when the riots were on in Paris We were living in an area in London, where groups of students were trafficking from both England to Europe, to France and to Germany, and backwards. And every evening there was a large campfire in this place, and hundreds of young people just sat round, and people were standing up and speaking and talking about what was happening in their country, and what they were concerned about, and what they were trying to do to right what was happening there. And the kind of proposals that were being put forward. And people were discussing for and against the proposals, which were being aired. And there was a time of great vitality, and big things were happening, old established modes of performance and behaviour in quite large sections of society were being set aside, and people were talking about alternatives in a very vigorous way.
I have counted myself being fortunate in Europe at that time. As far as what was happening in the art world – there was a development of multimedia activities, which I. hadn’t come into direct contact with before, there were experimental laboratories with sight and sound situations. There were many instances of development of mixed-media activities, it seemed that the dividing lines between painting and sculpture, and filmmaking, and drama – it was very difficult with many of these activities to set up any dividing line, it seemed to encompass all of these activities, in one way or another. Now this related to me in a very curious way, because it took me back to the experimental work which I’d done in the far North in New Zealand, particularly with a school called Oruaiti, and a teacher called Elwyn Richardson. And I started my activities in that school with him, and he later went on to write a book which is called “In The Early World”. But the main thesis of this activity was, we gained, or made, terrific strides in child growth, by using one activity to reinforce another.
By this means, we had children, for instance, a lot of poetic development, developed in this kind of way is an example; we had children climbing pine trees, and taking handfuls of the pine-needles and chewing them, and just climbing round the trees generally. And when they came back to the ground, we asked them to write about what the trees said to them, and we told them not them not to worry about any problems with grammar or spelling, or so on, just to set down what they felt and what they were thinking about when they were doing this activity. And we got a lot of free and direct poetic utterance through that. We got a lot of work, and a lot of development out of pottery, out of coil forms, and the children made animals. They also made lots of things out of clay. And they were asked to write what they were thinking about when they were making these things, or they were asked to a story about the things which they were making. And they were asked to make paintings and Iino-cuts, about these things.
So, what began to happen after a while, as these activities developed, was that a child could start at any point; he could start by writing a poem and then the images conjured up by the poem he could make a painting, or he could make something in wood-carving or in clay. Or he could start off from the point of making something in clay and then write stories and poetry and so on like that. A lot of the work was based on the measurements of things which they were making, or areas in which they were going to use for making things in. And the ordinary arithmetic processes were dealt with largely in this kind of way, of just measuring and adding things up. A lot of these things weren’t new, except that I think in this case they were fully and well exploited. There was a school shop, operating in the classroom, and a lot of the number work was done through the activities of the shop. And the children made things to go into the shop, so a lot of the activity programme was geared in that direction. They also did a publication, which was a collection of their poems, and stories, and Iino prints. And when they had amassed a sufficient amount of material, they bound it all together and they did so many copies of it and put it out.
Those school magazines now are fairly highly prized in educational circles in this country now, because the kind of creative effort that came from these children has seldom, if ever, been equalled, since. The big lesson for me in it, was the development, or rates of development which could be obtained by the cross-fertilisation of ideas. Where one idea started off in one media and was carried through to another. It seemed that big jumps could be made, in understanding and comprehension, certainly with young children. And it seemed to, from what little I knew of education – well, let’s put it this way – the very young child can be stimulated by having a lot of things around it, which are twinkling and moving, and so on, so it’s attention is… it’s not just left there as a dormant, small being but is stimulated, visually and audibly, and if it’s involved , by adults, in a series of activities, it rates of growth and progression seem to be accelerated. And in a way, this is what we were doing in the schoolroom, we were stimulating the children by involving them in extended activity programmes, and crossing from one media into another, backwards and forwards. And by doing this, reinforced and developed increased rates of leaming. It was good school to work in because, we conducted I.Q. testing at the beginning of the programme and the levels we got were for an average group of children, but from the evidence of work which materialised, people wouldn’t have thought that. Well, I was going to go on and say that, when I went to Europe, and I was involved in all these ideas and different attitudes coming through, and coming up face-to-face with multi-media activities in their various forms, what I was seeing again there, were the developmental work which we’d done at Oruaiti and other schools, materialising at an adult level, and a much more extended level because the immediate facilities were much more extensive and much more sophisticated. But nevertheless, there was a clear identification with my previous activities, here in New Zealand, and with what I found overseas. And it led me to a re-evaluation, a rediscovery of my earlier work in schools, and since I’d returned in 1968, this had been my main preoccupation – the fertilisation of, and development of ideas, and the involvement of ideas, using, involving different medium. And I think it goes a long way to explaining why my present work differs so much from traditional usage of materials.
Jim Allen, Tribute to Hone Tuwhare, Barry Lett Gallery, 1969
JDP: You don’t in fact structure your art for a particular market, the interest is in the ideas, in the exploration of these in any form?
JA: Right…l think…one of the reasons why I concentrate on this, or free myself, to involve myself in this area – which I think is a better way of putting it – is that I have a job, I have the financial means to support myself. And so my object is not to become a successful artist in terms of producing objects which can be sold and given a monetary return to me – though I’m very pleased when I sell things of course, because it gives me more money to be able to develop my work further, and this is also essential. But basically, I operate on a loss. I’ve had to write any notions of being a success and that kind of thing, out. By doing that of course, it frees me to concentrate on problems, which I set myself. My activities are somewhat restricted because I’m working on my salary only, and I use all my salary for these kinds of purposes. And I’m in a continual state of debt because of this. But at the same time, I hold to the situation, that basically I do have a wage to support myself and the family, and I think of the work I do in terms of what’s involved with it and for no other reason.
JDP: Have you done any commission recently? What would you feel about commission sculpture at this point?
JA: Well I usually do commission sculpture if anything is offered to me, to get myself out of debt a little. And I certainly won’t – even in the commission field – I don’t accept any work unless I’m interested enough to do it. In other words, I’ve got to feel some identity with the problem before I’m prepared to spend my time doing that. And some of the interesting problems I’ve had – have been with the Palmerston North Teacher’s College work – the work for the Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, and recently I did a work for Metal Import Company. I made very little money on the Palmerston North Work and also the Metal Import Company, and I owe money on, I operated on a loss for the Commonwealth Games sculpture. So, it’s not a profitable area, either financially, or in terms of my time. But nevertheless, one of the things about commercial work is that there is a certain amount of working capital, and that working capital is money which is not, in ordinary circumstances, available to you. And it gives you an opportunity to make structures which you wouldn’t have otherwise. And briefly speaking, that’s why I accept commissions of that kind – because couldn’t normally afford to do them with my salary.
Gustavo Porta (Manrico), Erika Grimaldi (Leonora) and Simon Piazzola (Conte di Luna) Image – Adrian Malloch
Verdi, Il Trovatore
The Trusts Community Foundation
Opera in Concert
Auckland Philharmonia
New Zealand Opera Chorus
July 16
Auckland Town Hall
Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
A couple of weeks ago we heard four great singers on stage singing Verdi’s Requiem in the Auckland Town Hall – Gustavo Porta, Erika Grimaldi, Olesya Petrova and Petri Lindroos. That tremendous concert was only their warmup to last Saturday’s triumphant performance of Verdi’s Il Trovatore in which they all exceeded expectations.
Central to the story of Il Trovatore is the image of a woman being burned at the stake. This image of flames devouring a human being dominates much of the story and the characters of the opera. The twin notions of the flames of love and the flames of destruction are ever present.
The opera takes place during a Civil War in Spain and has two intertwined stories. One is centred around Azucena and her quest for vengeance against the Count di Luna for burning her mother at the stake because she had bewitched the count’s infant brother.
The other plot concerns a love triangle between the count who is pursuing Leonora, who is actually in love with the troubadour and rebel leader, Manrico, who serenades Leonora.
The count challenges Manrico to a duel, but Manrico is unable to kill the count despite gaining the advantage. Azucena is revealed as Manrico’s mother and then it turns out he is the infant brother the count believed was dead so when the count executes Manrico, Azucena has her revenge by declaring that the count has killed his own brother.
The imagery of the devouring flame is heard at its best at the beginning of the second act when the vengeful Azucena, sung by Olesya Petrova recalls the fire that killed her mother in the aria “Stride la Vampa” (“the flames are roaring). She describes her drive to see vengeance on Count di Luna, singing that “The dreadful memory torments me -It makes my blood run cold.”
Her telling of the horrific tale would have made the audiences own blood run cold as well. She also conveyed the idea of the obsessed gypsy being driven mad by her memories in a vital and nuanced emotional delivery.
Soprano Erika Grimaldi was an impressive Leonora with a heavenly voice which, along with her facial and body language was able to express a sense of ecstasy when singing of her love for Manrico.
Gustavo Porta as Manrico had a commanding stage presence with a robust voice which captured a sense of the heroic along with that of the ardent lover.
Simone Piazzola as the Conte di Luna gave a great performance expressing his jealous rage. His sharp looks and menacing gestures were the embodiment of the ruthless, spurned suitor verging on mad man. His ability to reach and hold high notes without being forced was very impressive.
In the first act when the two men and Leonora sang about love and death, they gave an inspiring and moving account.
In the third act when Manrico and Leanora sing of their love, the two singers and orchestra merged in a spine tingling display. Then in the final moments of the opera Leonora’s sweet, anguished voice erupted, soaring above the orchestra, as though in the throes of passion.
The chorus did a splendid job notably in the popular Anvil Chorus where their singing of “Vedi! Le fosche notturne spoglie” (the sky reveals her nightly garb) reinforced the flame imagery.
In the minor roles Petri Lindroos as Ferrando made his bold entrance from the auditorium, striding up the aisle displaying an elegant manner with precise gestures and a authoritative voice while Morag Atchison’s Ines was nice foil to Leonora
Throughout the performance conductor Giordano Bellincampi ensured that the orchestra served the needs of the singers, providing them with the necessary emotional emphasis and musical drama.
Beethoven never got to play all of his own piano concertos as he was severely deaf by the time he had composed his fifth concerto. However next month the acclaimed English pianist Paul Lewis will perform the composers entire Piano Concerto cycle in three back-to-back concerts in Auckland with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
The pianist who is highly regarded for his interpretations of Beethoven’s piano works, joins the NZSO directly from the United States just days after performing the Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle at the prestigious Tanglewood festival with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and a separate solo recital at the Aspen Music Festival.
The concerts which will be performed August 12 – 14, exclusively in Auckland, are understood to be the first time in Aotearoa New Zealand that all Beethoven Piano Concertos will have been performed over three consecutive days.
Beethoven composed the five piano concertos over a twenty two year period between the late 1780’s and 1809 and his affinity for rhythm and a desire to display a vibrant defiant energy shows in these works, all of which he initially conceived as vehicles for himself to perform. Given Beethoven’s hearing loss, which occurred gradually over two decades, it is no surprise that he connected most viscerally to rhythmic themes, which he could perceive through vibrations.
With these works Beethoven essentially declared the composer’s artistic imperative to make music that reflects the personal rather than the general.
Gemma New Image – Ray Cox
NZSO Artistic Advisor and Principal Conductor Gemma New will lead the Orchestra for all three concerts, which are part of the NZSO’s Immerse 2022 festival in association with The New Zealand Herald (nzherald.co.nz.)
Lewis knows Beethoven’s Piano Concerto cycle well and was the first pianist to perform all five concertos at the BBC Proms more than a decade ago when the Financial Times reviewer noted that “His Beethoven is a classy fellow, with considerable stature and depth, but meeting him can be a more soothing experience than one imagines. this fiery, cantankerous composer was in real life. In the Piano Concerto No.1 Lewis’s playing exhibited an exemplary sense of balance and finesse .
His later recording of the cycle with the BBC Symphony Orchestra was hailed by Gramophone magazine as “civilized, musically responsible and vital playing”.
“There’s definitely some kind of journey from the first to the last piano concerto,” Lewis has said. “I think it tells us very specific and valuable things about Beethoven. Each piece is completely unique.”
For Reverence, the second of the three concerts, New also leads the Orchestra for New Zealand composer Tabea Squire’s work Variations. For the third concert, Emperor, the programme finale is Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade.
Beethoven never got to play all of his own piano concertos as he was severely deaf by the time he had composed his fifth concerto. However next month the acclaimed English pianist Paul Lewis will perform the composers entire Piano Concerto cycle in three back-to-back concerts in Auckland with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
The pianist who is highly regarded for his interpretations of Beethoven’s piano works, joins the NZSO directly from the United States just days after performing the Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle at the prestigious Tanglewood festival with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and a separate solo recital at the Aspen Music Festival.
The concerts which will be performed August 12 – 14, exclusively in Auckland, are understood to be the first time in Aotearoa New Zealand that all Beethoven Piano Concertos will have been performed over three consecutive days.
Beethoven composed the five piano concertos over a twenty two year period between the late 1780’s and 1809 and his affinity for rhythm and a desire to display a vibrant defiant energy shows in these works, all of which he initially conceived as vehicles for himself to perform. Given Beethoven’s hearing loss, which occurred gradually over two decades, it is no surprise that he connected most viscerally to rhythmic themes, which he could perceive through vibrations.
With these works Beethoven essentially declared the composer’s artistic imperative to make music that reflects the personal rather than the general.
Gemma New Image – Ray Cox
NZSO Artistic Advisor and Principal Conductor Gemma New will lead the Orchestra for all three concerts, which are part of the NZSO’s Immerse 2022 festival in association with The New Zealand Herald (nzherald.co.nz.)
Lewis knows Beethoven’s Piano Concerto cycle well and was the first pianist to perform all five concertos at the BBC Proms more than a decade ago when the Financial Times reviewer noted that “His Beethoven is a classy fellow, with considerable stature and depth, but meeting him can be a more soothing experience than one imagines. this fiery, cantankerous composer was in real life. In the Piano Concerto No.1 Lewis’s playing exhibited an exemplary sense of balance and finesse .
His later recording of the cycle with the BBC Symphony Orchestra was hailed by Gramophone magazine as “civilized, musically responsible and vital playing”.
“There’s definitely some kind of journey from the first to the last piano concerto,” Lewis has said. “I think it tells us very specific and valuable things about Beethoven. Each piece is completely unique.”
For Reverence, the second of the three concerts, New also leads the Orchestra for New Zealand composer Tabea Squire’s work Variations. For the third concert, Emperor, the programme finale is Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade.
Eugene O’Neill in his detailed notes describing the living room of the Tyrone family in “Long Day’s Journey into Night” requires that in the centre of the set above a bookcase is a portrait of William Shakespeare. The image of Shakespeare is an indication of the language O’Neill is aspiring to but also pointing out that the Tyrone family is another in the list of great tragic families – the Lears, the Macbeths, the Montagues and the Capulets. *
Shane Bosher’s latest production of the work is a skilful probing of a messed-up family. We live a day and a night with the members of the Tyrone family: James, the brash celebrated alcoholic actor-father, Mary the opium-addicted mother who has just returned from a sanatorium, the rebellious, aspiring alcoholic older brother and Edmund the poetic, sickly younger brother. Through them we explore the self-delusions, lack of communication, guilt and accusations that bind the family together and that threaten to destroy them.
The play draws heavily on O’Neill’s personal history with the three male characters named after his father and the two brothers in a family where death and misery were constant – his own suicidal impulses, and the fact that his father, mother, and brother all died within a four-year period.
Much of the tension in the play is around the family’s suspicions of Mary’s relapse into drug taking and the anticipation of a serious prognosis on Edmunds ailing health.
Each of them characters is self-centred and self-pitying. None seem to know what they want from life but blame the others for their position. They are each in their own cocoons and tip toe around each other. None of them can avoid dragging up the past to try and understand their present as they constantly deny the reality of the tragedies that beset them.
Theresa Healey’s performance as Mary is a remarkable exploration of addiction coupled with a mental condition which means she is unable to connect with the problems of her sons and husband. Mary’s flights of fancy are conveyed by Healey with an almost ethereal presence as she wanders the stage her eyes and hands only tentatively connecting with reality. Her second half soliloquy was tour de force, full of emotional energy
Much of Stephen Lovatt’s performance as James is filled with wry wit and clever observations. He does an exceptional drunken tirade where he includes the incisive and relevant Shakespearean quote from Julius Caeser “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves.
He manages to portray the belligerent former actor who desperately tries to hold onto his patriarchal position as he loses the respect of his children and wife His position in the household is continually being subverted, though he frequently succeeds at holding together his collapsing world by sheer force of will as well as a trace of violence
The dying Edmund who Simon Leary interprets as some late nineteenth century Romantic has an interdependent relationship with his mother in which death has links to the past and present. There are some fine scenes of the Mary and Edmund as they explore their tenuous connections.
Edmund and his older brother (Jarod Rawiri) also have some taut exchanges exploring their love / hate relationship which is brought into sharp relief in Jamie’s alcoholic ramble
John Verryt’s set works well sitting on what appeared to be crumbling foundations, this and the mismatched chairs are all metaphors for the disintegrating family. The revolving stage presumably maps out the course of the day and night of the play but it seems to rotate in a random manner and without reason.
There are a couple of fairly potent bits of symbolism – some white lilies displayed on a central table symbolising the funeral state of the family and right near the end Man y dons her old wedding dress which James then cradle like a sleeping / dying infant.
*O’Neill was specific about the books displayed in the bookcase – novels by Balzac, Zola and Stendhal, philosophical works by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche Mark and Engels, plays by Ibsen, Shaw, Strindberg and poetry by Swinburne, Rossetti, Wilde and Kipling.
Conductor Giordano Bellincampi Soprano Erika Grimaldi Mezzo-soprano Olesya Petrova Tenor Gustavo Porta Bass Petri Lindroos
With New Zealand Opera Chorus Members of Voices New Zealand The Graduate Choir NZ Chorus Director Karen Grylls
Auckland Town Hall
July 7
Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
Verdi’s Requiem was initially composed in memory of Rossini but not performed until some time later when it was dedicated to Alessandro Manzoni the Italian poet, novelist and philosopher whose novel The Betrothal was a symbol of the Italian Risorgimento.
The work is a Celebration Mass for the dead and is filled with themes of the wrath of God as well as words of mercy and forgiveness. It is the contrast between these two aspects of sustained drama and calmer moments which helps give the work its power conveying turbulent emotions and grand gestures.
Conductor Giovanni Bellincampi made sure the full range of emotions and tones were explored while maintaining a bracing tempo throughout.
He ensured that both the intimate moments as well as the grand panoramas and explosions of sound were captured.
With the opening bars of the “Introit” he kept the strings to just a whisper, barely audible, adding warmth through the soft sighs of the chorus.
This opening was followed by the dramatic and terrifying “Dies Irae” where the massed power of orchestra and chorus gave the work a sense of both the resurrection and the apocalypse.
The remarkable choral and orchestral forces were complemented by four soloists.
The Italian soprano Erika Grimaldi showed off a colourful voice with a luscious tone and her often piercing voice provided some moments of drama. Her rendition of the “Libera me” was flecked through with urgency, describing her terror in broken phrases.
Mezzo Soprano Olesya Petrova’s voluptuous voice expressed a sensitivity and intensity of emotion and when the two female voices combined they produced some splendid souring moments.
Bass Petri Lindroos intoned with a majestic sound, often touched with a sense of mystery while tenor Gustavo Porta who gave a fine rendering of ‘Ingemisco’ often seemed to struggle.
Next week the APO will be presenting Verdi’s Il Trovatore featuring many of the soloists form the Verdi performance including Erika Grimaldi as Leonora, Olesya Petrova as Azucena, Gustavo Porta as Manrico and Petri Lindroos as Ferrando.
New Zealand Arts Review 