The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 18

Page 18 The Sydney Morning Herald iARTS Monday, August 1, 1988 Loved the dancers, hated the set YVONNE PRESTON tastes the press reaction to the Australian Ballet's London season. Q0S Has Mick Jagger become the Perry Como of the 80s? Some in the rock business would say he has. LYNDEN BARBER reports from New York. ETJSHE Australian Ballet is facing strong competition in its first London season for 12 years, which opened to generous curtain calls and enthusiastic applause on Tuesday night with a gala performance of The Sleeping Beauty before Her Majesty the Queen at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. An unprecedentedly rich feast of ballet is being presented in an overcrowded summer season and even the most carefully worked timetables will not permit ballet lovers to see every ballet to be performed over the next three weeks.

Besides the Australian Ballet, the Kirov Ballet from Leningrad, in London after an absence of 18 years, the Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Moscow Classical Ballet and London's Festival Ballet are all competing for customers, with unfortunately clashing programs. The Royal Opera House, appropriately decorated for the Australian company's bicentennial appearance with 9-metre gum trees in the foyer and koalas made of greenery, is home to a less demonstrative and emotional audience than the Kirov Theatre in Leningrad, where the Australian dancers were rapturously received. London's dance critics, flat out keeping up with the current ballet glut, have been liberal with praise for the energy of the Australian dancers, their technical consistency and accuracy, their confidence of performance, and fresh, open style. The Times critic could not remember having seen Sleeping Beauty so consistently well danced from beginning to end. The Daily Telegraph saw a "company very much on its and a "sparkling and meticulously rehearsed" performance.

The Guardian said the troupe was well-trained, immensely confident and cheerful, and obviously ready to tackle anything. The Financial Times, noting the changes wrought by Miss Gielgud since the company's last London appearance, praised the "bright edge of energy" to its dancing, reflecting, it said, a view of classicism marked by "frankness and a kind of sunny Criticism has concentrated on the failure of perfectionist classical dancing to combine with what the Financial Times's Clement Crisp called a deeper "decorum of "You will seek in vain for a more noble manner, a certain reserve which is the special mystery of danse d'ecole, looking beyond the immediate physical act to a decorum of spirit quite as much as body." To the Daily Telegraph critic "clean classical dancing needs to be embellished with subtfeties of phrasing and presentation to do justice to great The overall approach of the Australian Ballet's performance was bland and shallow, she said, with "too many fixed smiles from all the pretty iris and an insufficient exploration of the deeper relationship of steps and Tfie Guardian said bright dancing and broad smiles from the entire ensemble gave some life to the evening but "entirely missing was grandeur and The harshest criticisms have been reserved for Hugh Colman's sets, seen by ail the critics as the production's weak link. "The strident blues and golds are overcrowded with fanciful detail," said the Telegraph's Kathrine Sorley Walker. One critic unkindly compared the turquoise background and "madness of gold scrollwork" of the prologue, to "Dame Edna Everage's And the Guardian's Mary Clarke commented: "The garish sets and costumes removed everything to the land of pantomime or old fashioned musical comedy." The difference between today's company and the one that gained international reputation in the 70s, critics noted, was the lack of homegrown, star-quality dancers. Christine Walsh, who danced Aurora, David Ashmole as Prince Florimund, and Lisa Bolte as one of lorestan's sisters, were singled out.

Christine Walsh later told the Herald that the performance had been a high point in her career. She would treasure the compliment paid her by Dame Ninette de Valois, the 90-year-old founder of the Royal Ballet, who told her: "I'm usually very nervous for every Aurora, but I take my hat off to you. 1 wasn't nervous one bit." Following its Soviet triumph and six Covent Garden performances, the Australian Ballet moves on to Greece, the only cloud on its present horizon being the persistent post-Soviet stomach trouble suffered by a number of its performers. it was a sign that despite "five years of boom" within the music industry, things aren't necessarily hunky dory. In a roll-call of music lovers' nightmares, the U2 manager described Adult Oriented Rock radio as "a dismissed MTV, attacked "the utter awfulness of much sponsor-bedecked American black and in case no-one had got the message, lambasted current English rock 'n' roll as "a bit of a waste of too.

"I always imagined U2 to be one of a generation of great rock bands, but we seem to be alone," he added. But McGuinness's sharpest knives were reserved for the increasing tendency of major rock stars to plump for corporate sponsorship. "Not only does it offend my aesthetic sense, but to place all your credibility at the service of a soft-drink company perverts the meaning of rock 'n' roll. I'm ashamed of the fact that you can take great rock and sell it to Michelob and Pepsi." It had taken "an old warhorse like Neil Young" to hit the nail on the head, he said a reference to the singer's current video, which parodies corporate adverts featuring Michael Jackson, Eric Clapton and Whitney Houston, while Young sings lines like, "It makes me look like a joke." The attack was a timely one, since Don't You Know What The Night Can one of the tracks on Steve Winwood's new album, was composed for the brewer Michelob. After McGuinness's speech, some of the other sessions were a bit of a let-down or "a to use the less delicate but more commonly paraded description.

Having begun in 1980 as a small gathering of independent operators from the then fresh new-wave scene, the seminar has grown into a monster a talent scout for WEA I spoke to, public taste is considerably in advance of the record industry at the moment. A large number of serious, ungla-mourised women performers have this year made a huge impact, from Tracy Chapman to Sinead O'Connor and K.D. Lang. World music is proving an irresistible force, with Malian singer Mory Kante having just hit number one in Germany. A French flamenco rock band of Spanish descent, The Gypsy Kings, were creating a buzz at the seminar, though sadly I missed them live.

Rap is proving both popular and musically vital, if worryingly bedevilled by gang violence (after I'd left a dull hip-hop evening, a gun-fight reportedly took place outside). Meanwhile the World DJ-mixing championship turned out to be tedious (contestants were limited to one minute each) and badly organised The dance club scene, meanwhile, is "a hundred times better" in London than New York at the moment, according to top US producer Arthur Baker. "Music happens quicker in London, even if it's from America." The 10th seminar will be doubtless even bigger and more bew ildering. But despite all this, the atmosphere of the event communicated what's happening in music with an infectious immediacy. The absence of most Australian major companies notorious for catching on late to world trends was therefore disappointing, if hardly surprising.

Probably the seminar's most important role is that of a talent-spotting festival for the major record companies; with more than 350 acts playing at 29 Manhattan venues in four days. With judicious cab-hopping, obscure acts with juvenile names like Bong Water, Snatches Of Pink, John Sex or Australia's The Hard Ons can be seen on the same night (if that be your particular bent), not to mention more established "alternative" names like Afrika Bambaataa, Timbuk 3, Tack-head, Iggy Pop, the Ohio Players and the Meat Puppets. So what's good about music in 88? Despite his complaints, McGuinness found positive things to say about speed metal (currently sweeping America) and rap, two contingents heavily represented. And if you kept your ears open, it became obvious that behind the corporate, facade, the prospects for good music are on the rise. In the opinion of EAR the end of a decade in which mainstream radio has become ever more conservative and format-bound, coroorate rock sponsorship ubiquitous, and women in videos reduced to soft porn, hesthe rock, industry become a ccnventiorubound circus parading behind an image of rebellion? Neil Young, in an uncompromising interview in a recent edition of the United States magazine Musician, may have put his finger on a sore spot "You know the Perry Como show back in the 1960s? Where he'd come out and sit on the stool with his cool sweater? That's where rock 'n roll is today.

There are a few exceptions. But generally we've got this crap produced by dicknoses, I mean, people putting out what they know will sell and people saying 'play that to 1 50 radio stations who can't make up their own minds and are paying these idiots to tell them what to do." A brave stand, you might think, considering that Young's latest album is a valiant stab at 'n' but hardly of the type to sets planets aflame. But now he has been joined by a powerful ally: Paul McGuinness, the dapper, privately educated manager of U2. Popular music in 1988 is "a bleak McGuinness recently told several hundred music business executives, agents, musicians, reporters and the usual smattering of con-men at the New Music Seminar, the annual music biz gathering in New York. Coming from a hard-bitten punk band manager, or some failed musical third-rater, a statement like that wouldn't result in more than a mildly querulous eyebrow.

But coming, as it did, from the lips of the manager of the world's most popular rock band as the foundation stone of the seminar's "keynote Williams MUSIC FRED BLANKS 9HN WILLIAMS Music by Baroque, Hispanic aid contemporary composers Concert Hall, July 28 tips iRST-rate guitarists, unlike pia-28 nists, tend to sound more-or-less alike. Maybe that is because they ail claim to have been students of Segovia: more probably, it reflects the fact that there are fewer national schools of guitar playing. Also, the repertoire is more limited and shared. warms the night attracting hundreds of international delegates to four days of seminar attending, bar-crawling, sleep-losing and band-watching. The size of the event reflects the mushrooming of independent labels and distributors that has taken place in the 10 years since punk: from a number of isolated cottage industries to a huge international network.

These days it feels like the independent industry has become a business like any other: the urge towards growth comes first, the music to feed it can be found later. In the late 70s it was the other way around. The individual seminars, covering different musical areas, leant towards sterility, being set up in such a way as to prohibit discussion from the floor (questions had to be handed in on cards). I attended discussions on Australian music there any positive things to say about the Australian music industry?" asked one perplexed American after this hour-long whinge session); sex and rock (a display of juvenility worthy of 13-year-olds); music journalism (it transpired that some US and Canadian metropolitan newspapers have a less than enlightened attitude to popular music), and World Music. relaxed yet encompassed a meticulous technique and a reaction to baroque rhythms that maintained steadiness without rigidity.

Some quite devilish finger-dances marked Paganini's 24th Caprice. In the second half, pure guitar music took over, first in the form of Stemma (1988), a new work and a quite beguilingly melodious one by the English composer Stephen Dodgson, then at last in a Hispanic idiom with a series of pieces by the Paraguayan composer Barrios Mangore. Here we had those tremolos and trills that inhabit so much Spanish guitar music, and lots of gentle, dignified but rhythmically strong tunefulness evocative of warm nights. jacketed into giving us the words and very little else. Their stillness and stylish gesture make a strong first impression but ultimately this short evening, even as a reading, becomes repetitive in its emotional detachment.

Only Foster spices that repetition with a few touches of irony. This calculated purging of anything dramatic is obviously deliberate from director Helen Grace, who is better known for her films than her theatre. The selected writers, it could be argued, speak to us unadulterated by theatrical effect or comment. The audience, I would reply, is left with a jumble of words, randomly juxtaposed and lacking an even intellectual development They are also left a little bored. A theatre lover can only ponder those many moments which begged to be illuminated by a better theatrical imagination and a stronger analytical commitment.

charm by Peter Sculthorpe, Songs of Sea and Sky, (1987, revised June 1988) deserves attention from every self-respecting clarinettist. In Nigel Westlake's performance, the clarinet part sang the Torres Strait dance song from which the work is derived with a transcendent beauty suggesting a Mahlerian peace with the world. With its Messiaen-like bird calls and energetic dance rhythm, David Bollard's piano part was equally evocative of the work's origins. Mozart flat quintet for piano and winds concluded the concert in a performance no less individually virtu-osic than those that had preceded it. Though there were some minor impre-.

cisions, the total effect was such as to confirm the already considerable reputation of the Australia Ensemble as a benchmark by which other Australian chamber music ensembles must be judged. For pick-the-author buffs Computers and Communications LINTAS NEC 3186 UNIX is a registered trademark of But John Williams is a special case. He remains a paragon of guitarists and, what is more, a superb musician. His recital on Thursday continuously projected a unique distinction which even his unnecessary talking between pieces did little to reduce. The first half of his program relied entirely on transcriptions, yet his command of changing tone colours, able to make the guitar become quite chameleonic, made all the music seem ideal for his instrument, which transcriptions often do not.

Dances by Praetorius, a Passacaglia by Roncalli, above all five Scarlatti sonatas were played extremely well, with a manner which seemed entirely edged in the program but in performance the works wash together, mixing male and female writers, local and overseas works, esteemed gurus and unknown scribblers. Amongst this post-modernist clutter, only the literary-minded will be able to pick the sources and, for the really astute, the parodies upon those sources. Nietzsche, Plath, Sartre, Ginsberg, Greer, Pasolini and a couple of nuclear physicists are all in there somewhere. This, says the program, is infotainment "which chips away at the notions, concerns and ideas of these times, the twilight of the Twentieth The work is loosely bound by a thread of continuity from its general themes of love, death and science. But there is no narrative, no dramatic conflict, no characterisation and no development.

Dressed in black and with minimal movement, Foster and Sitta are strait- of Gallic violin, and Louise Johnsone, harp, found a limpid beauty in this music while not neglecting those moments when its surface must sparkle brilliantly like sunlight on water. Faure's minor piano quartet moves in darker and deeper regions though it is not without its lighter and exhilarated passages. In this performance, while there was a tendency for the balance occasionally to favour the piano, the playing honoured the joy and passion which inhabit this score. The mercurial Scherzo, with its scintillating piano part, was a delight to hear while the slow movement breathed a profound tenderness. With an unfailing sense of ensemble, the musicians caught each nuance of this sometimes delicate, sometimes robust work, a work which demands close attentions to its constantly changing tonal colours.

A recent work for clarinet and piano THEATRE MARTIN PORTUS AS MUCH TROUBLE AS TALKING Ey Pamela Brown and Jan McKemmish. Directed by Helen Grace. Downstairs Theatre, Belvoir Street. July 27. YDNEY writers Pamela Brown and Jan McKemmish have pres-ented their montages of live voices before, among their peers at the Harold Park Hotel and at feminist conferences.

With As Much Trouble As Talking they have inadequately fashioned a more dramatic treatment for the Downstairs Theatre at Belvoir Street. Actresses Katrina Foster and Eva Sitta give voice to a disconnected stream of extracts taken from 20th-century writers. These are acknowl Loads MUSIC DAVID VANCE AUSTRALIA ENSEMBLE Sir John Clancy Auditorium, July 30. Music by Goossens. Faure, Sculthorpe, and Mozart.

first half of the program given by the Australia Ensemble-on Saturday evening could easily have been subtitled "The French Eugene Goossens, though no Frenchman, invests his finely crafted Suite for Flute, Violin and Piano, Op.6 with great Gallic elegance and charm. Janet Webb, flute, Dene Olding,.