The Guardian - 31.07.2019

Section:GDN 12 PaGe:13 Edition Date:190731 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 30/7/2019 15:36 cYanmaGentaYellowbl

• The Guardian
  Wednesday 31 July 2019 13
  Live reviews

PHOTOGRAPHS: TRISTRAM KENTON/THE GUARDIAN; GARRY JONES; CHRIS CHRISTODOULOU/BBC; DOUGLAS MCBRIDE

Crassus’s courtesan. She is pure

steel, wily and merciless. Her arms

snake and curl luxuriously to frame

her body, her fi ngers so long it takes

an extra bar for them to catch up

with the curve.

Grigorovich’s choreography

comes in statements (as opposed

to lyrical phrases) and the stage

has a mid-century geometry about

it. He uses blocks of dancers in

perfect accord, such as the ice-cold

courtesans, hypnotic like stony-

faced sirens. Act II’s shepherds

and shepherdesses are the only

characters truly free, and they dance

that freedom with almost vaudeville

fl air from the men and an incredible

lightness from the women who

whip, skip and fl it.

The best thing about this ballet,

and what drives it, is Khachaturian ’s

cinematic epic of a score, with its

mighty percussion, great swooning

love theme and touches of jazz. It’s

the music that makes this period

piece vigorously alive.

Lyndsey Winship

★★★★☆

Royal Albert Hall, London

The Proms continue until

14 September

Dance

Bolshoi:

Spartacus

inexhaustible in grand displays of

power and strength.

Men dominate the stage in one

of ballet’s more masculine outings.

Slaves and soldiers thrust forth

limbs in tight unison, straight as

their swords, and Denis Rodkin ’s

Spartacus takes on Roman consul

Crassus ( Artemy Belyakov ). Rodkin

makes a lukewarm entrance – it’s

rare one need ask a Russian dancer

for more melodrama, but Anastasia

Denisova as his lover Phrygia has the

idea, the tilt of her neck expressing

a deep lament. Rodkin grows into

the role though, his endless leaps

becoming higher and wilder, his

power and presence revving up.

It’s a marathon of a show over

three acts, so it pays to pace yourself.

The length and scale are not always

at the service of the drama.

Crassus and Spartacus spend a

long time not fi ghting each other,

then climactic moments pass in

a fl ash. Anyway, it’s clear who

should be ruling everyone in Rome:

Svetlana Zakharova ’s Aegina,

I

magine Romeo and Juliet

transplanted several

thousand miles from

home , with the Capulets

and Montagues still going

at each other hammer

and tongs. That, broadly, is the

scenario of Nicola McCartney’s

neglected 1998 drama in which

the schisms of Northern Ireland’s

religious divide are played out

among the early 20th-century

settlers of Saskatchewan. It’s no

place for romance.

As the playwright sees it, the

absurdity of sectarianism becomes

even starker when placed in a

diff erent context. Over the course

of the play, relations between two

neighbouring ex pat families go from

frosty to outrightly hostil e, purely

because of their split affi liations to

King Billy and the Pope. This despite

the younger members never having

set foot in Northern Ireland.

Absurd the arguments may be,

but Heritage shows the powerful

pull of cultural identity. Here in the

middle of Canada, the Protestant

family pack their son off to join the

war in Europe because of loyalty

to the British empire, while their

Catholic neighbours resolutely

proclaim independence. They

fi nd comfort and solidarity in

their traditions, language, dances

and parades. The possibility of a

union between David Rankine’s

Catholic Michael and Fiona Wood’s

Protestant Sarah threatens not

just their self-defi nition but their

survival as a group.

Staged on Ken Harrison’s

imposing set of wooden beams,

dynamically lit by Wayne

Dowdeswell, Richard Baron’s

assured production is at its best

when most keenly focused on the

central romance – and is elevated

by Wood’s radiant performance as

a teenager falling for a boy from the

wrong side of the tracks.

Mark Fisher

Music

Womad festiva l

F

or his second

Prom with the BBC

Philharmonic , the

orchestra’s new chief

conductor Omer

Meir Wellber turned

to Haydn for a performance of his

oratorio The Creation. Wellber is

passionate about the composer’s

work, and is concerned that “apart

from period ensembles, hardly

anyone plays Haydn these days”.

His enthusiasm was palpable

throughout, though his approach

had its idiosyncrasies. He directed

the performance energetically from

the keyboard. He took liberties with

the score. The big recitative for

Adam and Eve was spoken rather

than sung, as was Uriel’s cryptic

pronouncement on the “happy

pair” in their prelapsarian state. The

latter was delivered in English, as

was the fi nal chorus, at the end of

a performance that was otherwise

given in German – a reminder,

perhaps, that the oratorio was

originally planned to an English text.

Wellber clearly regards Haydn as

malleable and far from sacrosanct.

Against that must be set the

excitement he generated in a work

that celebrates the glory of God not

only in the act of creation but in the

wonder of the natural world. Though

the balance took time to settle, the

playing was splendid.

The soloists were strong. Baritone

Christoph Pohl fi nely contrasted

Raphael’s lofty detachment with

Adam’s human warmth. Soprano

Sarah-Jane Brandon sounded lovely

both in Nun Beut Die Flur and her

duets with Pohl. Tenor Benjamin

Hulett delivered his arias with

ease, elegance and fervour. The

performance’s chief glory, however,

was the BBC Proms Youth Choir ,

whose singing blended enthusiasm

and commitment with superb

dynamic control and polyphonic

clarity. An evening of occasional

eccentricities, perhaps, though the

best of it was magnifi cent.

Tim Ashley

A

t the Bolshoi,

size matters. The

company’s name

means “big” in

Russian, and the

Muscovites open

their London summer season

with a ballet that lives up to it.

Yuri Grigorovich’s Soviet-era slave

rebellion story is a signature work

of the Bolshoi, one of the few

companies that could off er such an

army of identically drilled dancers,

★★★☆☆

Royal Opera House, London

Until 10 August

Theatre

Heritage

★★★★☆

Pitlochry festival theatre

Until 26 September

★★★★☆

Charlton Park, Wiltshire

‘H

ere’s a song

from the 1920s

• just before
  Led Zeppelin
  were formed,”
  announces
  Robert Plant as he leads his new
  semi-acoustic band Saving Grace
  into Cindy I’ll Marry You Someday.
  It’s late on Sunday night – Orbital
  are on the main stage, while Plant
  and singer Suzi Dian make a modest
  festival debut backed by drums,
  guitars, mandolin and banjo for a
  classy set of old favourites. They
  include Doc Watson’s Your Long
  Journey , Ray Charles’ stomping
  Leave My Woman Alone , Donovan’s
  Season of the Witch and fi nish with
  I Bid You Goodnight. Low-key, but
  enormous fun.
  This is the 38th Womad, held in
  an increasingly crowded festival
  market made all the more diffi cult by
  visa restrictions. But there is still a
  varied global line up – anything from
  Macha y El Bloque Depresivo ’s tragic
  Chilean ballads to the emotional soul
  classics of Macy Gray, BaBa Zu La’ s
  wild and angry Turkish psychedelia,
  and Ustad Saami , Pakistan’s 75-year-
  old master of a haunting microtonal
  style that pre dates Islam.
  It is a great year for veterans such
  as these. Calypso Rose, now 79, is
  feisty on the cheerfully risqu e Young
  Boy , and Africa’s fi nest male singer
  Salif Keita is in distinctive, soaring
  voice on an upbeat set.
  The best newcomers include
  Jamaican soloist Brushy One String,
  whose song Chicken in the Corn has
  been viewed 24m times on YouTube.
  With Brexit threatening, there is also
  an appropriate emphasis on Europe:
  San Salvador , from the French
  Massif Central, are a slick, rousing
  young six-piece , and Ukraine’s
  glorious DakhaBrakha return,
  sporting tall fur hats and quirky,
  compelling songs.
  There are reminders of the British
  multicultural scene, too, from the
  soul-jazz-rap reworking of civil
  rights classics by A Change Is Gonna
  Come to the angry political songs
  of Nadine Shah. In our era of walls
  and vocal bigots, Womad is more
  important than ever.
  Robin Denselow

Proms

BBC Phil/

Wellber

Power and

presence ...

Denis Rodkin

as Spartacus

Quirky ...

DakhaBrakha

Idiosyncratic ...

Omer Meir Wellber

Sweet sorrow ...

David Rankine

and Fiona Wood

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important than ever.

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important than ever.

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Robin Denselow