Sigur Rós thrill in elemental arena concert

This wrap of reviews of shows around Melbourne kicks off with an ethereal and elemental arena concert, a beloved book adapted for the stage, and shines a light on Stravinsky’s colourful and precocious musical imagination.

MUSIC
Sigur Rós ★★★★
Margaret Court Arena, August 13

Despite a few days of unseasonable winter warmth, on the afternoon of Sigur Rós’ first Melbourne show in five years, hail fell from the sky. Sigur Rós have often been tagged as ethereal, celestial, or some such adjective. But as Saturday night’s show displayed, there is also something elemental about the Icelandic quartet’s output.

Sigur Ros concert at Margaret Court Arena, Melbourne on August 13, 2022.Credit:Rick Clifford

The current tour is loosely a celebration of the 20th anniversary of Sigur Rós′ third album ( ), and a third of the setlist is dedicated to its track listing. The album was a landmark release for Jonsi and co., debuting at number one in their native Iceland and making an impression on the charts in Australia, the UK and the US – no mean feat for a release with no official song titles or discernible lyrics (Jonsi sings in a made-up language called Hopelandic).

But as the opening triplet of Untitled #1 (Vaka), Untitled #2 (Frysta) and Untitled #3 (Samskeyti) proves, the emotions and penetrating power of ( ) lingers. Jonsi is joined on stage by bass player Georg Holm, keyboardist/guitarist Kjartan Sveinsson and drummer Olafur Olafsson. Sigur Rós have often toured accompanied by string quartets and brass sections, but scaling back to a four-person line-up allows for greater magnification of their trademark quiet-louder-loud dynamics.

After a short interval, the night’s second set opens with Glosoli, from 2005’s Takk… Like many of Sigur Rós′ better-known compositions, Glosoli begins with a soft and pleasant morning freshness. Smiles are shared around the arena. Phones go up in the air to capture the moment.

But Olafsson gradually picks up the pace on the kick drum, before incorporating the hi-hats and crash cymbals. Holm’s bass gains a coat of distortion and Sveinsson’s piano playing becomes near frantic. Jonsi, now singing in Icelandic, appears at once swept up in the swelling commotion and in command of it. He sounds pained but euphoric. Childlike but battle-scarred.

And by the time the show ends, after the even loftier crescendo of Popplagio, that’s how we feel too.
Reviewed by Billy Burgess

THEATRE
Laurinda ★★★
Southbank Theatre, until September 10

Adapting the 2014 novel by Alice Pung to the stage, Laurinda delivers an acerbic coming-of-age tale with a Mean Girls vibe that’s at its sharpest in the realm of private school satire.

We follow Lucy Lam (Ngoc Phan) – a talented Vietnamese-Australian girl, the daughter of working-class migrants – as she navigates snobbery and stands up to bullying after winning a scholarship to an elite girls’ school.

Ngoc Phan and Chi Nguyen in scene from Laurinda at MTC.Credit:Jeff Busby

An adult Lucy is compelled to revisit the horrors of her high school days at Laurinda, though in a quirky framing device, she’s got a spirit guide to reliving the 1990s in the irrepressible Linh (Gemma Chua-Tran). Will it be enough for her to face down The Cabinet, and the iron reign of queen bees Brodie, Chelsea and Amber, who intimidate teachers and students alike?

Played by an Asian-Australian cast, most of whom take on double roles, Laurinda brings biting observational comedy to the fore. It’s full of eerily lifelike types – from a well-meaning but clueless posh friend’s mum to a whole social pecking order of teenage girls who say overheard things like, “No really, but where are you from, from?” – and it’s certainly funnier than the ill-fated Torch the Place, the MTC’s last stab at Asian-Australian comedy before the pandemic.

And yet the arresting moments of fly-on-the-wall schoolyard satire aren’t always anchored to a strong central plot or character development. Take the magical guide Linh, for instance. She can digitise herself and float onto screens (igniting a spark of audio-visual wizardry) but she also serves as a thin device, holding together episodes that feel individually crafted but lack overarching momentum.

Still, the acting can effect remarkable transformations. Poignant sketches of Lucy’s parents, often performed in untranslated Vietnamese, sit astride the animated schoolgirl buddy story, and there’s a wicked exultation (and perhaps some kind of nerd’s revenge) to be found in the authentic incarnations of venomous adolescence Lucy must confront in the schoolyard.

Directed by Petra Kalive, this adaptation does do justice to Pung’s sharp-witted skewering of white privilege and manners, even if it sometimes loses dramatic focus and meanders along. As trashy and brutal a comparator as Mean Girls isn’t quite appropriate: the play’s dark observational humour is nuanced enough to inspire cringe-inducing flashbacks and has more the ring of a nightmare lived through.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

MUSIC
Z.E.N. TRIO ★★★★
Melbourne Recital Centre, August 13

Celebrating youth and experience, the Z.E.N. Trio has made an impressive start to its first national tour for Musica Viva. Presenting a program that contains a rarity – a new work and a classic – violinist Esther Yoo, cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan and pianist Zhang Zuo proved themselves intelligent yet intrepid explorers of the piano trio repertory.

Mining a vein of musical melancholy that ran through the evening’s choices, the trio brought finely focused pathos and brilliant virtuosity to the 1952 F-sharp minor Piano Trio by Hakhnazaryan’s Armenian compatriot Arno Babajanian. The mournful folksong that recurs throughout the work flowered into a passionate first-movement climax, full of the fervour of Russian high romanticism. Yoo employed her brilliant silvery tone to telling effect at the start of the slow movement, with atmospheric accompaniment from Zuo, while all three players propelled the rambunctious finale to a dramatic close.

Receiving its first performance, Matthew Laing’s Little Cataclysms was commissioned by Musica Viva for the trio. Cast in five sections, these wistful vignettes, according to the composer, are “about intimate, personal disasters in miniature form”. Drawing on his own experience as a violist, Laing deploys a wide variety of string techniques to evoke a classical element to his writing, while using extremes of register to recast the piano trio in thoughtful contemporary terms.

Finally arriving at familiar territory, the trio gave a polished and well paced account Dvorak’s “Dumky” Piano Trio, memorable for its poetic moments, especially those from Hakhnazaryan’s 1707 Joseph Guarneri instrument, whose rich, honeyed tone enhanced an already sensitive contribution.

Relaxing after a warm ovation, the players revelled in an arrangement of Brahms’ Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6, investing the encore with added freedom and confidence that will doubtless crown future performances.
Reviewed by Tony Way

MUSIC
Stravinsky’s Ballets ★★★★½
Hamer Hall, August 12

Shining a light on Stravinsky’s colourful and precocious musical imagination, this triple-bill of early ballets was a rare opportunity to savour sequential works that changed the course of western music in four short years from 1910 to 1913.

Young Stravinsky’s astounding creativity, particularly in the realm of orchestration, inspired the combined forces of Australian National Academy of Music students alongside the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra to render vivid performances of winning conviction; each fruitfully encouraging the other in a growing sense of shared artistic purpose.

The Firebird, with its luscious evocation of a fairytale world with a glittering bird and an evil prince, showed the players under MSO chief conductor Jaime Martin attentive to finer details of dynamics and timbre, even if the final crescendo failed to deliver an overwhelming sonic punch. Presenting the work in its complete ballet version underlined the composer’s reservations about its length; some of the connective tissue robbing the score of dramatic impetus.

No such problems accompanied the 1947 revision of Petrushka, which began with enormous verve and continued with sparkling characterisation of the protagonists. Martin’s movements at the podium even suggested the story of puppets come to life. An increasing sense of cohesion among the ensemble was reflected by a collective revelling in the work’s wry humour and forthright projection of its inventive instrumentation.

Ensuring that after nearly 110 years The Rite of Spring lost none of its shock value, the orchestra abandoned itself to Stravinsky’s lurid vision of an erotically charged pagan sacrifice. With convulsive energy coursing through its musical veins, the orchestra delivered a thrilling and compelling account of this seminal work, enhanced by excellent cameos, including principal bassoon Jack Schiller’s initial eerie solo.

Channelling Stravinsky’s youthful vigour, this admirable ANAM-MSO collaboration produced an evening of bold and memorable music making.
Reviewed by Tony Way

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