The Daily Telegraph - 20.08.2019

T

here are few ballet plots thinner

than that of Marius Petipa’s 1869

romantic romp, Don Quixote.

Taken from a wafer-thin section of

Cervantes’s picaresque masterpiece, it

concerns a barber (Basil) who gets his

girl (Kitri) despite her father’s

disapproval, while a hopeless old

knight errant (the Don himself ) teeters

about, gets bumped on the head by a

windmill and has a vision of the lady of

his dreams, Dulcinea. That, give or

take, is it – by comparison, even the

ever-anodyne Sleeping Beauty looks

like the last word in edgy, serpentine,

postmodern narrative.

What “Don Q” does, however, have,

is one sparkling high-classical

set-piece after another. Here

presented in Alexei Fadeyechev’s 2016

restoration, it is the sort of boisterous,

full-evening showpiece that is very

much in the Bolshoi’s bloodstream

(and was, after all, created for the

great Muscovite company), and with

the right performance, it can really fly.

That Thursday evening’s rendition

didn’t quite achieve full lift-off was,

then, a great surprise, especially to

someone who was completely won

over by a pile-driving Spartacus

and exquisite Swan Lake earlier in

this summer’s three-week Covent

Garden residency. It was full of

energy, the corps were strikingly

united as ever, and the Bolshoi’s

visiting house orchestra excelled itself

with Minkus’s sunny, sub-Rossini,

rum-ti-tum score.

The problem lay very largely,

however, with the two leads, who – on

this first night of the London revival –

both felt over-exposed. In Act I, set in

a Barcelona town square, Basil and

Kitri need to look to all intents and

purposes as though they want to rip

each other’s clothes off. Here, there

was only the politest, remotest

connection between Margarita

Shrainer and Igor Tsvirko.

He made for a distractingly tense

partner, completely botching one big

lift in Act I, holding the next one too

long as a kind of meretricious

compensation, and looking visibly

relieved when he was “allowed” to do

his own thing as opposed to tend to his

ballerina. What’s more, although he

fired off his solo showpieces with

crowd-pleasing muscularity, “fired

off ” is very much the phrase – there

was no poetry there at all.

Shrainer, too, rather fell into the

trap of prioritising showmanship over

detail. She’s a lovely dancer in many

ways, but typical of her performance

here was that in the closing fouettés of

the Act III grand pas, she pushed too

hard for multiple pirouettes and ended

up pretty much facing the back of the

stage. Throughout, too, she failed to

use her spine to any sort of lyrical

effect and danced capably to – rather

than lyrically with – the music, traits

that were shared by several of the

other female soloists.

Of course, the Bolshoi doesn’t have

the same Ashtonian tradition that the

Royal Ballet has. But what’s telling is

that the performers on Thursday who

did, so to speak, truly put their backs

into it, and who most clearly

demonstrated those very Ashtonian

Elgar’s unloved oratorio makes for

a mighty and moving occasion

I

n front of a full-throated crowd,

Jaden Smith (son of celebrity

Hollywood couple Will Smith and

Jada Pinkett Smith) confessed that he

struggled with singing about feelings

and “being a mosh pit”. This reflected

the yin and yang of Syre, his 2017 debut

album dealing with coming of age in

the shadow of a superstar, and Erys,

his wild, egotistical, second-album

mirror-image. It might have felt like

the stuff of an LA therapy circle, but

the contrast actually suggests that

Smith might have what it takes to be

the next megastar offspring to make it

on their own creative merits.

For every Jeff Buckley or Rufus

Wainwright there are a dozen James

McCartneys; the trick is to have a

relatively underappreciated parent

and a distinct, unique talent and

character all your own. Smith fails on

the first count but more than makes up

for it on the second. Since he swapped

acting for rapping full-time in 2013

• his father’s career in reverse, you
  might say – his rebellious nature, love
  of a good conspiracy theory and
  rampant imagination have made him a
  fascinating hip-hop prospect.
  Where once he compared himself to
  Plato and Galileo and discussed time
  travel, aliens and the Illuminati, now
  he bases his rap career around a grand,
  immersive conceit: the protagonist of
  2017’s myth-scattered, 70-minute rap
  musical Syre was a troubled kid

This fresh pop prince

is no longer in his

father’s shadow

F

ollowing The Apostles, first

heard in 1903, Elgar

originally envisaged The

Kingdom as the second part

of a trilogy of oratorios that

would culminate in a

treatment of the Last Judgment. Only a

few rough sketches remain of the

latter: waylaid by his chronic insecu-

rity and other commissions – as well as

perhaps a deeper sense that he had

nothing more to give in the expressing

of ineffable sublimity – he would never

complete his grand design, leaving The

Kingdom to live on as a meditative

slow movement that lacks a grand

finale. I guess that it now ranks as the

least popular or recorded of Elgar’s

mature major works.

Focused on the feast of the

Pentecost in the upper room and the

inauguration of the apostles’ ministry,

it lacks drama, irony, or any shades of

ambivalence. Sceptics may well find its

relentless religiosity sanctimonious,

perhaps even enervating, and there

are passages of accompanied recitative

which seem pompously turgid and

rhetorical.

But it also contains much

superlative music, including the

incandescent orchestral prelude,

palpitating with the glorious melody

that serves throughout as a leitmotif

and that Elgar labelled the “New Faith”

theme; the radiant soprano aria The

Sun Goeth Down; and a striking final

choral setting of the Lord’s Prayer.

Conductors find its overall nobility of

manner hugely satisfying; Hans

Richter, Wagner’s right-hand man and

not a man easy to please, admired it

greatly and a deep-dyed Elgarian as

distinguished as Adrian Boult claimed

that it made the The Dream of

Gerontius seem like the work of a

“rank amateur”.

This tremendous performance

made the best possible case for The

Kingdom’s merits. It was to have been

conducted by Mark Elder, but when he

withdrew on account of a trapped

nerve, Martyn Brabbins took his place;

also called in at a late hour were

Catherine Wyn-Rogers and David Butt

Philip, substituting for the ailing Alice

Coote and Michael Fabiano. Despite

these disappointing changes in

personnel, nobody could have left the

Usher Hall feeling they’d been

short-changed.

Expert in the repertory of 20th-

century British romanticism, Brabbins

drew rich and supple playing out of

Elder’s Hallé Orchestra, keeping the

score from sinking under the weight of

its own pretensions and honouring all

its delicacies – special praise to the

leader Amyn Merchant for his playing

of the exquisite violin obbligato that

introduces The Sun Goeth Down, sung

with intense, glowing rapture by that

rising star Natalya Romaniw.

Stalwart but never stolid

contributions from Wyn-Rogers and

Butt Philip, both in excellent voice,

were complemented by the ever-

impeccable Roderick Williams. You

couldn’t ask for better.

At the heart of the performance,

however, was the Edinburgh Festival

Chorus (EFC), on which Elgar has

placed great demands. It met them all

triumphantly, its diction lucid, its

balance finely calibrated and its heart

in the right place: this is music

intended to bring spiritual uplift, and

that it certainly did. All praise to the

EFC’s new choirmaster Aidan Oliver,

hotfoot from his other new posting at

Glyndebourne.

Three years ago at the Usher Hall,

Edward Gardner conducted a

stupendous interpretation of The

Apostles: this reading of its grandiose

but lovable successor was every inch

its equal, a mighty and moving

occasion.

Solo rap: Jaden

Smith, the son of

Hollywood star Will,

is following his

father’s career... but

in reverse

No further performances

Jaden Smith’s

new album Erys is

out now

chasing the sunset until it turned

round and chased him back, while on

this year’s 80-minute follow-up Erys,

the character was resurrected as a

snarling rap renegade, taking over a

post-apocalyptic LA with a pink

mind-control drug called Vision.

A cinematic mindset and eye-

catching showmanship is perhaps

embedded in his DNA. But if the

Forum show intended to trace any

such narrative, it was muddled.

Recalling the stark stage designs of his

heroes Kanye West and Frank Ocean,

Smith bounded through dry ice on a

stage drenched in neon pink, with a

huge screen playing out striking

but random scenes: Smith convulsing

in an ambulance, turning into a

laser-shooting superhero for the

melodic rave of GOKU, roaming

Hollywood as a white-suited Batman

or vomiting his way around a Wild

(Wild?) West town on corrupted soul

track Fallen.

Instead the set cohered around

the warm infusion of LA sunset tones

and his irrepressible energy, charisma

and versatility. When he wasn’t

delivering agile rhymes, he was

transforming himself into an

autotuned loverman on Ninety and B,

playing the sullen Eminem foil to

guest vocalist Harry Hudson on E,

teasing a downbeat Latino riff on

slurred ballad Someone Else or going

full emo on Fire Dep.

The night’s shrillest screams were

reserved for Again and Icon, both

breathless bravado rap anthems. But

the real revelations came with the

pounding electropop of On My Own

and the infectious, glossy hooks of

Summertime In Paris, brimming with

mainstream promise. Behind Erys’s

renegade exterior lurks a newer,

fresher pop prince.

Edinburgh International Festival

The Kingdom

Usher Hall

★★★★★

By Rupert Christiansen

Mark Monahan

Chief DanCe CritiC

Pop

Jaden Smith

Forum, London NW5

★★★★★

By Mark Beaumont

Arts

An enjoyable soufflé

that doesn’t quite rise

Ballet

Don Quixote

Bolshoi, Covent Garden

★★★★★

Lacking passion: the Bolshoi's Margarita Shrainer and Igor Tsvirko as Kitri and Basil in Don Quixote

ALASTAIR MUIR

No further performances

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traits of épaulement, musically aware

phrasing and 360-degree upper-body

pliancy – Daria Bochkova, Elizaveta

Kruteleva, Ekaterina Bondarenko

and the ever-wonderful Anna

Tikhomirova – were also the most

involving.

So, not quite the farewell I’d hoped

to be able to give the Bolshoi this

time round, though the evening

made for enjoyable, colourful froth

all the same. I would gently suggest ,

however, that maybe next time round

the Bolshoi – and indeed their St

Petersburg rivals, the Mariinsky –

leave the dear old Don at home when

they next visit. In Carlos Acosta’s 2013

production for the Royal Ballet, there

is now a very glossy and (I

increasingly realise) remarkably

nimble version already in situ at

Covent Garden. By contrast,

Spartacus, The Bright Stream and

their ilk are like nothing we have

here, and they are the productions,

above all, that make these visits from

across the Urals such eternally

exciting prospects.

On fine voice: Roderick Williams and

Catherine Wyn-Rogers

PAUL FOSTER-WILLIAMS

The Daily Telegraph Tuesday 20 August 2019 *** 23

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