The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 14

14 ARTS lis THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 199 the Performers reduced to minor role 1 Via A 24 season by Peter Cochrane hear jviessian III oy if lillMmill HI .11 I I llll. ll.ll llllll II IIIMIM KHIIMIMIIIIUMH lllllll.lll Illl I. IMIIIIIIIilM HIM I I ilMfcl II I 1 itttM tained the conditions of conflict between art disciplines and bitterness between practitioners. The TheatrePerforming Arts Board's policy over many years of funding only new work could now be seen as "a most insidious obstruction to the development of Performers were being exploited, Derum said, quoting an Australia Council report which revealed that between 1987 and 1993 the income of actorsdancers fell 44 per cent. "There are many abuses of legal entitlements, where actors are invited to pay their own fares, accommodation and forgo travel expenses in order to get the job." Salaries were either non-negotiable or by co-operative dividend.

"It is now common to schedule an immense amount of work into one day for an actor, enabling producers to pay for a major performance at a single daily rate." Rehearsal times were also getting shorter, forcing the actor to make an "even greater contribution to subsidising the enterprise by doing even more unpaid hours outside "The most disturbing thing of all is the widening resignation among experienced actors that 'that is how it is and we'll never change it'." The need to express was stronger than the need to live by that expression, and often stronger than a need to be respected for that expression. "We must encourage more informed understanding of hat actors do in order to change the perception of our value to society and the demeaning exploitation of our skills." Tony McNamara (The Cafe Latte Kid) was last night presented with the Phillip Parsons Young Playwrights' Award. A MUSICIAN IN THE MAKING: Two-year-old Marnie Cooper stands mesmerised by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra's principal cellist Catherine Hewgill at a babies' prom in Newtown. The Proms, specially programmed for children from newborn to five years old, continue today and tomorrow at 10.00 am, 11. 15 am, 1.00 pm and 2 pm in St George's hall.

Both the SSO and the Opera House Orchestra will hold more babies' proms in January. Photograph by james alcock the choruses a far cry from Handel's conception, but stirring stuff for modern listeners. The Opera House concerts are sold out, but tickets are available for the Hills Centre. The Wil-loughby Symphony Orchestra and Choir will also present Messiah on Friday night, at the Willoughby Civic Centre. Because Handel's music does not require a whole symphony orchestra, half the SSO will present another Christmas concert on Friday at the Opera House Concert Hall.

A Classic Christmas will include well-loved festive music including Beethoven's Ode to Joy, and excerpts from Messiah, Tchaikovsky's 77k Nutcracker Suite and Corelli's Christmas Concerto. All around Sydney, Christmas music other than Handel's is being performed. At the Town Hall on December 21, the Sydney City Council brings together Trinity College Choir, the Jacobean Singers, Newing-ton College Chapel Choir and the Sydney Brass Ensemble, with Robert Ampt on the grand organ, in a program of hymns and carols called A Classical Experience. The council has also organised a trio of carollers to stroll between the Town Hall, the Queen Victoria Building and the Pitt Street Mall every day between December 1 1 and December 22 at lunchtime. A traditional Christmas pantomime, The Princess and the Pea, will be presented by the Opera House every evening between December 16 and December 24 at 6.30 pm, plus several matinees.

The Song Company is holding a Christmas barbecue on Tuesday, December 12: an evening of food (vegetarians most welcome, they say), wine, songs and carols at Old Darlington School at Sydney University. On December 23, Carols in The Domain brings the Philharmonic Choir for that traditional family night out. 1 "HE role played by the performer in the performing arts was being marginalised to the extent that live theatre might not survive, actor John Derum claimed last night. After a century of challenges posed by technological developments such as cinema, radio and television, the VCR and the PC, the threat to theatre was now from within. Delivering the third Phillip Parsons Memorial Lecture, Derum claimed that the essence of theatre the communication between performing artist and audience had been enhanced by technology, and supported by administration, to the point of extinction.

The actor laid the blame at the collective feet of theatre administrators, academics, casting consultants, actors' agents whose interests were best served by ensuring the maximum number of actor fish were kept in the smallest possible pond and the actor fish themselves, for tolerating a deprecatory attitude to their art. Derum targeted a number of major institutions, including the Australia Council and the Sydney Theatre Company, on whose premises (The Wharf) he delivered his speech. The administration of our theatre had failed to develop new audiences "theatre administration is about getting grants, getting sponsorship and putting on a good first-night party" while millions were being spent on training people for unemployment "from the major half-dozen theatre training institutions there are more than 100 graduates each year where are the 100 new jobs each year? Additional jobs, that is." Meanwhile, the Australia Council had created and main Spirits Obituary ROBERTSON DAVIES 1913-1995 "HE novelist Robertson Davies, 82, one of the first Canadian literary figures to gain an international following, died at the weekend of a stroke. Davies published 30 volumes of fiction. In the Herald last May, Andrew Riemer praised Davies's early novels calling them "flamboyant tales, mixtures of theatrical extravagance and philosophical However, Riemer dealt sternly with Davies's last novel, The Cunning Man (Viking, S35) which he said was dull.

"Davies's somewhat chastened style cannot sustain a novel of this length," he wrote. SSO, singers excel in saga with messages for today Musical groups all over Sydney are gearing up for the high point of the year, writes MIRIAM COSIC. 1 marks the season more clearly than Christmas music. Earlier and earlier every year, it seems, retailers encourage a festive approach to credit cards by piping terrestrial choirs singing Hark The Herald Angels Sing through their stores. By the end of November, newspaper ads for Handel's Messiah let music-lovers know that Christmas is really coming.

Though also part of the Easter repertoire, Messiah is the most familiar evocation of Christmas in the English-speaking world. The sheer happiness of much of the music, the rejoicing of the Hallelujah Chorus, the controlled madness of All we like sheep, the profundity of Since by man came death every part of Handel's most famous oratorio has ensured its immortality. Messiah was first played in the Music Hall in Fishamble Street, Dublin, in aid of charity in April 1741. Handel was a superstar and the two concerts were sold out. Women were asked to leave their crinolines at home, and men their swords, so as many people as possible could be squeezed into the venue.

Handel's orchestra was the Vice-Regal Band, beefed up with drums and a couple of trumpets, and the choristers of St Patrick's and Christchurch. The composer was apparently concerned about the first outing of Messiah. The oratorio was reflective rather than dramatically narrative and he hoped it would hold the audience's attention. Also it was held in a theatre rather than a church and continued to be performed in secular spaces which some people considered sacrilegious. He needn't have worried.

More than 200 years later, Messiah is as popular as ever. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Sydney Philhar-monia Choirs are joining to present Messiah on Friday night at the Hills Centre, Castle Hill, and Saturday and Sunday nights at the Opera House. At the Opera House, a massed choir of 410 voices will fill out WIN AN Win with surtitles, for any listener to be struck by the way Das Rheingold retains protean topicality. To hear the giant Fasolt reproaching Wotan with the god's dependence on carefully defined treaties is to be reminded of the Bosnian negotiations, the Palestine-Israeli peace talks, or the slow circling of the parties arguing about Northern Ireland. Fricka's scornful view of the big toys her husband and his fellow gods scheme for is part of the continuing war of gender; the tricks by which Alberich, the dwarf industrialist, is captured and stripped of his assets might be compared to the tactics of a modern corporate raider.

The big, central, gloriously unflagging element in this performance was the sound of the SSO in full, confident Wagnerian cry. The scrubbing bass figures that represent Alberich scrambling across the rocks in the bed of the Rhine River were reassuringly strong as well as technically vivid. There were wonderful belching and farting sounds from the lower brass that reminded us ish crush on the goddess Freia (a rather too recessive Suzanne Prain). The Rhinedaughters (Gillian Sullivan, Kirsti Harms and Nancy Maultsby) sang as a well-balanced and yef strongly contrasted trio cf voices. Geoffrey Harris caught the whin-geing tone of Mime admirably.

Even the lesser vocal force of Donner (Michael Lewis) and Froh (Richard Greager) sat perfectly with these characters' status as Freia's under-achieving brothers, who have to push hard to have any authority at all. When Sydney next attempts a complete Ring, there would be a strong case for introducing each section of it a year in advance with such a distinguished concert performance as this and then giving the cast collective time to develop characterisations and musico-dramatic ensemble. But there could be no retreat into the inadequate Opera Theatre. The only possible area in the Opera House for staging this work is the Concert Hall, ingeniously adapted as it has been in the past. how new and unprecedented were many of Wagner's orchestral textures for the Ring.

Edo de Waart, in complete control of every aspect of the instrumental and vocal action, disclosed a sure ability to fulfil Wagner's larger trajectories of theme and climax, and a temperamental compatibility with the composer's musical syntax and system of emphasis. The singers, all soloists, were outstanding: David Kuebler mockingly incisive as the shrewd, self-possessed and nihilistic Loge; Peter Sidhom, rich-toned in Alberich's thwarted anguish (and a consummate actor); Nancy Maultsby an awesome Erda, with a voice like a trumpet wrapped in velvet; Monte Peder-son as a Wotan of open-toned clarity who could colour his singing with sardonic authority; Bernadette Cullen inflecting the exasperated comments of Fricka with womanly steel; the strong thrust of Conal Coad's bass voice as Fafner; and Donald Shanks suitably monumental as that big softy, Fasolt, beginning strongly and declining into a schoolboy- Opera BY ROGER C0VELL Wagner's Das Rheingold, Opera House, November 30 ALINE of solo singers mostly reading from their scores, the mighty panoply of the mature Wagnerian orchestra, even surtitles (for those members of the audience seated where they could see them): the only things missing from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra concert performance of Das Rheingold were movement, costume and stage settings. These were serious absentees for a work so thoroughly bred out of Wagner's unique, all-encompassing sense of theatre. However, few other music dramas are so firmly rooted in debatable and self-sufficient ideas. Wagner was closer in this preludial section of the Ring to his youthful socialist theories and to Shaw's later interpretation of the Ring as a parable of the blight of unbridled capitalism than in the richer narratives of its three later parts.

So it was possible, especially FINAL WEEKLY Box office I UK Herald yesterday reported that David Marr was leaving Radio National's Arts Today to write a biography of Gough Whit-lam. Mr Marr says that, although he had considered this project over the years, he was definitely not embarking on such a project. LONDON NOTICES BY M1CHELE FIELD APPLE COMPUTER FOR YOUR THE An Apple PowerBook A Competition for Secondary School Students set free Davies was primarily a storyteller concerned with moral conflicts. Beneath its imaginative, enigmatic themes, his work, which was translated into 17 languages, was informed by the philosophy of Carl Jung, with its emphasis on self-knowledge, creative maturity and wisdom. Davies once said the theme at the core of his work was the isolation of the human spirit and mankind's growth from innocence to experience.

Characters' actions were carried out on their own volition and usually contrary to what was expected of them. "The characters try to escape from early influences and find their own place in the world but are reluctant to do so in a way that will bring pain and disappointment to others." day when it might emerge as a duet because it is about a child who seems wise in the eyes of the man he becomes. The song will be broadcast for the first time on Christmas Day. The Tate Gallery will soon be free of those animal protesters who dislike the bisected calf that won the Turner Prize for artist Damien Hirst. It may, however, have a battle with wowsers from the anti-alcohol brigade.

The Christmas tree the Tate is erecting this week (always one of London's best) will be heavenly laden with dried fruit and a staggering smell of arm brandy ill be wafting from special vents. There are complaints that the 50th anniversary of Bela Bartok's death is being underplayed because the British are celebrating Purcell's birth. Considering that Bartok was a Hungarian who chose to flee to the US, not to England, I think the English have been generous with their thank yous. Opening at Covent Garden on Saturday is Twyla Tharp's first collaboration with a British ballet company. It will also mark the first time a foreign choreographer has done a full-length ballet for Covent Garden.

Mr Worldly Wise is inspired by the life of Rossini, and it reflects a man who moves from being all ego, very dominating and grandiose, into an ascetic phase, and then back to working in a moderate, reasonable manner. A theme for our time, Twyla believes. Meanwhile the pit of the Royal Albert Hall is frozen over. The show Beauty and the Beast on Ice swirls around where the greatest singers usually sing. Here's your chance to test your knowledge and win an Apple computer for your school.

All you have to do is answer the questions in our Weekly Test. Please Note: This Competition is open to secondary schools students in NSW and ACT only. Primary school students have their own competition (Find the Hidden Apple 7 see Computers section). HOW TO ENTER 1 Answer all the questions in the test and have the form certified by a teacher, parent or guardian in the space provided. 2 Cut out the entire questionnaire and send it by noon Monday 11 December to: THE SIXTH WEEKLY TEST, Sydney Morning HeraldApple School Computer Competition, GPO Box 7030, Sydney NSW 2001 3 The first correct entry drawn on Monday 1 1 December will win an Apple PowerBook for the winner's school.

The winning school will be Morning Herald on Tuesday 12 announced in The Sydney r- i i SIXTH WEEKLY TEST Put a circle around the correct answer. December. day of the week does the regular page appear in The Sydney Morning b) Tuesday c) Wednesday 3) On which Fxlucation Herald a) Monday SCHOOL! er IC MSMH41561! toria and who is a graduate of the University of fine arts department, has since 1985 been deputy curator in the same area at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He is co-curator of a very successful show which opened here last week, "The Peaceful Liberators: Jain Art from The Jains are an Indian religious order, pacifist to the point of believing all life is sacred. Because Guy's show clashed with the dates of "Visions of Kings" in Canberra, a few of the pieces which Australia wanted to borrow are among the 125 on display here.

1 A A new kind of vocal arrangement is hitting the music charts which we might call "Singing with the Ghost of Christmas Not only are the surviving Beatles singing with dead John Lennon but Judy Garland's daughter Lorna Luft, 42, has re-recorded her mother's Have Yourself a Merry Christmas as a duet, Aled Jones, who for years topped the Christmas charts as a boy soprano, is now a 25-year-old baritone and he has made a record singing with his younger self. Long ago, the rock ballad What Can You Tell Me? was taped but never sold and the songwriter, a BBC disc jockey, now says that he foresaw the i ONDON has had a plague of arts-and- money seminars with trite titles like "Value for Money or Money for Value" all in the wake of a Budget which announced that the Arts Council's grant was being cut by 5 million ($10.6 million) for 1996-97, to 186.1 million, and in 1997-98 would be cut again, to 182.9 million. The grants to museums and galleries were hit even harder: a drop of 13 million. Heritage organisations the backbone of Britain's tourist trade are down 6 million. The lone voice of reason was heard from arts education lobbyists who said that the real priority was to create a larger arts constituency, so that a decade from now a cut like this would be so unpopu lar that in the year before an election, no would dare.

fiAtArn pnt And, interestingly, arts education proposals now emphasise the teaching of arts practice only in areas like instrumental music; by far the greater emphasis is on making the more sophisticated arts cheaper and more accessible to uninitiated spectators. Programs of community arts and arts as entertainment (which, someone pointed out, includes Tosca) are not the subsidy drawcards they once were. One special access day is Friday, June 2, when the British Film Institute, which lost 500,000 in the new Budget, is arranging for every cinema in Britain to celebrate the centenary of the flicks by charging only 1 for any admission. John Guy, who was formerly the curator of Indian and South-East Asian art at the National Gallery of Vic TEST 5) In computing, what docs the term stand for? a) Internal Chip b) Integrated Circuit c) Inverted Circuit lon Comput 1) On which page of The Sydney Morning Herald would you find a summary of the weather? a) Back page b) Front page c) Business section 2) The ARPAnet, the precursor of the Internet came into being in the late 1960s in an effort to: a) see if computers could communicate over distances using phone lines. b) update the US Post Office internal services.

c) link, institutions performing defence research for the US government. 4) What does CPU stand for? a) Central Processing Unit b) Completely Personal Use c) Connecting Peripheral Units PLEASE COMPLETE THIS School: SECTION IN BLOCK CAPITALS: Name: Address: I certify that the answers given are the sole work of the student whose name appears above. Signature: Relationship to student (teacher parent guardian) Answers to last week's questions: 1) 2) 3) a 4) a 5) Last week's winner was Marc Zarila for Kogarah Marist High Competition Permit Number TC955880. Morning fpralb i 0 Apple school compuf-er connvpe.