POP & ROCK
CLASSICAL
Courage creates a masterpiece
Mitski
Laurel Hell HHHHH
Dead OceansKiller chord
progressions,
melodies to
die for, lyrics
of unfiltered
directness: Mitski’s sixth
album encompasses all of
these, and confirms the
Japanese-American as one
of the most vital talents
operating in pop. She
sings about societal
division, out-of-step
relationships and the
deeply strange reality
of being an artist
confronted with social
media-amplified
assumptions when your
name goes up in lights.
“Who will I be tonight?/ Who
will I become tonight?” shePiau knocked
Handelians for
six in 1994 with
her singing of
Berenice’s
showstopper, Scoglio
d’immoto fronte, from
Scipione, and here she is in
2020, still enchanting us with
Handel heroines as different
as Cleopatra — in a rapt
account of the lament fromHandel
Enchantresses HHHH
Sandrine Piau, soprano,
Les Paladins, cond Jérôme
Correas
AlphaTelemann
12 Fantasias for Solo Violin
HHH
Thomas Bowes (violin)
NavonaAmong Bach’s German
contemporaries, Georg
Philipp Telemann cedes only
to Handel in the quality of his
output. Vast in quantity, his
orchestral and instrumental
compositions tend to be
overlooked, although not on
record. Bowes is as clearly
versed in baroque style as
was Arthur Grumiaux, the
fantasias most illustrious
champion on disc. HCBastille
Give Me the Future HH
EMIThey have notched up No 1
albums, arena tours and hit
collaborations, yet Dan
Smith’s band lack an imprint
that is identifiably their own.
On their fourth album,
Bastille again raid the past
(the Police etc) on songs that
fret about the metaverse
catchily and melodically, but
leave no lasting trace. DCBlack Country, New Road
Ants from Up There HHHH
Ninja TuneThe post-punk/jazz/spoken-
word band who delighted and
appalled in equal measure
with their sprawling debut
have gone (relatively) formal,
with compelling results. Bread
Song, Concorde, Good Will
Hunting: these are small
triumphs of beauty over irony.
How sad, then, that frontman
Isaac Woods is leaving. DCCate Le Bon
Pompeii HHHH
Mexican SummerThe Welsh songwriter’s latest
glories in slurred and woozy
sax, equal parts Weimar
and Berlin-era Bowie, spiky,
Robert Fripp-like guitar, Tom
Verlaine-like vocals, early
Eighties post-punk and
electronic soundscapes, and
lyrics inspired by alienation
and impermanence. The
results are wonderful. DCmuses on Valentine, Texas,
a song that examines the
perils of playing to the
gallery. On Everyone,
she reflects: “I left the
door open to the dark/
I said: “Come in. Come in!”
The latter, a sort of
desiccated ghost of
Ultravox’s Vienna, is a
key example of Mitski’s
courage. Others include
her willingness to yank the
wheel or subvert herself;
witness the sudden switch
from glistening Eighties pop
to busy, billowing prog on
The Only Heartbreaker,
and how she sets a forlorn
tale of romantic
disappointment to
zippy Seventies
disco-soul on That’s
Our Lamp. A
masterpiece.
Dan CairnsGiulio Cesare, Piangerò la
sorte mia — and Alcina (Ah
mio cor). Her tone remains
pristine, but her response to
the emotional effect of the
music has deepened. A steely
edge may have crept into her
bravura singing of Cleopatra’s
joyous Da tempeste, and
Melissa’s rabble-rousing
Desterò dall’empia dite, from
Amadigi, but she retains
enough sweetness to render
Almirena’s Lascia ch’io pianga
— arguably Handel’s best
known opera aria, from
Rinaldo — with immaculate
style and exquisite tone.
Hugh CanningON RECORD | THEATRE/OPERA
ALBUM
OF THE
WEEKKatie Mitchell has acquired
a reputation as one of the
UK’s most highly regarded
international theatre and
opera directors. Now she is
giving Handel’s 1750 oratorio
Theodora her treatment at the
Royal Opera House. She turns
the tables on Handel and
Morell’s male villains,It breaks every rule
but this retellingof Theodora is
spellbinding,says Hugh Canning
portraying Theodora and her
fellow Christians as terrorists,
compassing the destruction of
the Roman “embassy” where
they are kitchen skivvies.
Some will find this rewrite
as objectionable as Mitchell’s
previous tinkering with
Donizetti (a feminist reworking
of Lucia di Lammermoor) but,
even as a Mitchell agnostic, I
was increasingly drawn
towards the drama she creates;
the spellbinding slow-motion
tableaux she choreographs to
Irene’s sublime arias. She
encourages fine ensemble
work from her cast, notably
from Julia Bullock’s heart-Handel with a pole dan
Caryl Churchill long ago
worked out the sweet spot
where she could write slender
plays that were opaque
enough for modern theatricals
to be unsure about calling
them rubbish. If something
was incomprehensible, hmm,
maybe it was clever. And if it
was clever, “people like us”
needed to say it was
wonderful in case friends and
workmates realised they were
thick or untrendy.
In 2002, when we were all
talking about Dolly the sheep
and Tony Blair’s enthusiasm
for genetically modified
“Frankenstein foods”,
Churchill produced A Number.
It features a father who,
having made mistakes raising
his son, had the lad identically
reproduced by scientists in
the hope that the resulting
clone might turn out better.
Unknown to the father, the
lab kept the gene sample and
produced a load of other
copies of his son. It is not clear
how many of them there are.
This wasn’t a bad idea for a
play and could have made anLads, dads and
genes — but isCaryl Churchill’s
revival still timely?absorbing story had Churchill
developed the plot. But she
knew that sweet spot: keep it
cryptic, save on the ink, knock
it out double-quick and they’ll
never notice the cheap glue.
Shrewd Caryl possibly also
realised that plays with small
casts are more likely to be
staged than those requiring
lots of actors. A Number gets
by with just two stars: one
plays the father, the other
plays three of those identical
sons. The father, although you
need to buy a programme to
learn this, is called Salter. The
sons are called Bernard 1,
Bernard 2 and Michael Black.
Lyndsey Turner’s revival at
the Old Vic has Lennie James
as Salter and Paapa Essiedu asQUENTIN
LETTS
A Number
Old Vic, London SE1
HHIn the
16 6 February 2022