Adelaide Festival. Elder Hall. 28 Feb 2025
By any measure, Innocence is a remarkable and enthralling piece of theatre. At the very start it grabs your attention – demands your attention – with the moody and foreboding overture that demonstrates a composer at the very heights of her compositional powers. It demands your attention when the curtain rises to reveal one of the most imposing sets you will experience on any stage. It sustains your attention as the set starts to slowly rotate, with only moments of pause throughout the next one-hundred-and-five non-stop minutes. It amplifies your attention as you bear witness and listen to one of the most harrowing stories unfold.
Hyperbole? Not at all. If anything, the above understates the impact Innocence has on the audience. Many Adelaide Festivals have a grand opera touted as their centrepiece, but this one blows them all away. The claim is real. Innocence is legacy of former festival Artistic Directors Neil Armfield AO and Rachel Healy, and it is difficult to see how current Artistic Director Brett Sheehey AO can better this.
Innocence is presented by the Adelaide Festival in association with State Opera South Australia, and is a co-commission and co-production of Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, San Francisco Opera, Dutch National Opera Amsterdam, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Finnish National Opera, Ballet Helsinki, and in partnership with the Metropolitan Opera New York. With such impressive resources behind it, one is entitled to expect nothing less than artistic excellence of the highest order, and one’s expectations are met by the bucket load!
Innocence, with music by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho and libretto by Sofi Oksanen and Aleksi Barrière, explores themes of trauma, memory, and reconciliation. Set in a contemporary world, it centres around the aftermath of a shooting at an international school that occurred years earlier. The opera follows a group of people – students, teachers, and parents – who gather to reflect on the events and confront the haunting memories of that tragic day.
At its core, Innocence delves into how the past, particularly moments of violence, shapes the lives of individuals and communities. The narrative structure weaves together the perspectives of the characters, uncovering their inner conflicts, guilt, and the difficulty of moving forward. The shooting, which initially seems like a singular catastrophic event, is revealed to have far-reaching and complex emotional repercussions for all involved.
With its experimental score, the opera uses sound, atmosphere, and minimalism to create a deeply immersive experience. The music and vocal lines are often dissonant and frequently include uncomfortable intervals – it frequently evokes thoughts of Alban Berg’s music. The characters are caught in a web of fragmented memories and shifting identities, questioning the very notion of innocence in the face of overwhelming tragedy. Every character in the opera is touched in some way by the horrors of the shooting and feels guilt: the survivors because they survived; those indirectly impacted because they wonder why those more directly affected can’t put it all behind them. Human emotions are multifaceted and run deep.
Every character in Innocence is complex, and every member of the cast reaches deep inside their artistic being to bring Innocence to life, and they succeed admirably. No-one really stands out – it is a true ensemble piece. The singing is uniformly excellent, but the parochial audience especially enjoyed the commanding and warming tones of Teddy Tahu Rhodes. The text is sung in multiple languages, including English – a nod to the setting of the International School – and the surtitles are absolutely essential, but they are well designed and only a glance is needed to understand what is transpiring on stage.
Ultimately, Innocence is not just about remembering a violent act but also about the possibility of healing and the fragile nature of collective memory.
In interview, director Simon Stone describes Innocence as an “extraordinarily therapeutic opera about the need for honesty in the process of grief, and honesty in the process of recovering from a trauma” and as an “incredibly beautiful exploration of the scars we carry with us and the need to sometimes reopen wounds to make sure we can heal them properly the second time round.”
Stone is correct, and his vision for the opera comes through clearly, infusing everything with meaning and purpose. No member of the audience leaves the performance without being impacted and without questioning their own understanding of what it is to experience loss and subsequently grieve in a way that is visceral, inimitable, authentic and that provides an assured platform upon which to re-establish one’s sense of purpose and being.
The set has to be seen to be believed. It comprises a large two-story structure set on a revolve. Each of the two levels comprise a series of interconnected rooms that variously become a reception venue for a wedding including an impressive commercial kitchen, a café, classrooms in an international school, bathrooms, storage rooms, antechambers, balconies and the like. There is free movement between the levels via a staircase, and each room is independently and tastefully lit to make it easier to quickly see who is singing and where. The colours evoke mood at all times. When a room revolves out of sight and reappears some minutes later it has been transformed into something else. It is all done effortlessly and, crucially, unnoticed – the large backstage crew do a remarkable job, and fully deserve being brought onto stage and singled out as part of the final curtain call. The stage managers are to be commended.
French conductor Clément Mao-Takacs is more than a musician and expert conductor. He is clearly a creature of the theatre and understands the need for music and the elements of stage to work hand in glove. Like Escher’s hands, one produces the other – they are co-dependent. Mao-Takacs ensures the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra is empathetic to everything that happens on stage. The music never dominates at the expense of the acting or singing, and individual instruments are allowed to feature just to the right degree. Frequently dissonance sounded consonant!
Christie Anderson, as chorus master of the combined Adelaide Chamber Singers and State Opera South Australia Chorus, again weaves her magic. The chorus is almost entirely out of sight but is heard as clear as a whistle. Impressive.
The text “I loved my brother. I love him still.” was sung by the bridegroom (Sean Panikkar), the brother of the mass murderer, in the purest and most heartfelt tones. Similarly, the single line “Let me go” was sung in the most disarming and sweet manner by the ghost of Markéta, one of the slain students to her grieving and inconsolable mother.
These two short sung texts are the most harmonic in the entire opera. They are brief beacons of love and hope, which is what Innocence is ultimately about.
Innocence is not to be missed. It is unique.
Kym Clayton
When: 28 Feb to 5 Mar
Where: Elder Hall
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Adelaide Festival. Elder Hall. 28 Feb 2025
Ensemble Lumen is a newly mined ensemble and comprises members of the faculty of the iconic Elder Conservatorium of Music at the University of Adelaide. In fact, today’s concert entitled Towards the Light, which is a nod to the university’s motto ‘Sub Cruce lumen’ (translating roughly as "the light (of learning) under the (Southern) Cross"), was the very first concert given by the ensemble.
The ensemble comprises Lloyd Van’t Hoff, clarinet, Emma Gregan, French horn, Lucinda Collins, piano, Anna Goldsworthy, piano, Elizabeth Layton, violin, Stephen King, viola, and Edith Salzmann, cello. It goes without saying – but let’s say it anyway – that they are all excellent musicians at the top of their game, and together they are even better.
The program notes provide a rationale for the title of the program and state that “…Ensemble Lumen explores facets of light in all its radiant forms. The program will illuminate the rarely heard music of William Shield, whose melodies once charmed the ears of Mozart and Beethoven. Dai Fujikura brings the solo horn to life in Yurayura, conjuring the mesmerising dance of a candle-lit flame. The Australian première of Libby Larsen’s Trio Noir draws a shimmering sonic parallel between music and the mystery of film noir, while Dohnányi’s sweeping Sextet embarks on a dramatic journey through light and shadow.”
It is not self-evident that the chosen compositions flesh out the rationale, and it’s arguable from the perspective of an audience member whether a program needs such a logical framework to ‘make it work’, but presumably it helps the musicians to design and perform a coherent performance. After all, the human mind constantly seeks patterns and structure in order to make sense of things.
William Shield’s String Trio No.8 in F major is an absolute light, but his music is not often heard in concert halls, except perhaps at the Elder hall. It was performed there in 2021 by The Dorrit Ensemble at a lunchtime concert, which included two of the members of Ensemble Lumen, namely Elizabeth Layton and Edith Salzmann. In today’s performance, Layton, King and Salzmann exposed the joy, lightness and humour inherent in the piece. It’s uncomplicated music, but it demands finesse and meticulousness, which the three performers provided in spades!
Yurayura for solo horn by contemporary Japanese composer Dai Fujikura requires the performer to produce a throng of interesting sounds that sound anything like a horn. At its very start, the half-depressed valves make it sound like a gently playing clarinet, and later like a small string ensemble reaching a crescendo and then waning into breathlessness. Perhaps the likening of the piece to a dancing candle flame is apt after all.
Libby Larsen is a contemporary American composer and her composition Trio Noir for clarinet, cello, piano received its Australian première at today’s concert. Collins begins the piece with a foreboding sequence of rising chords before Salzmann enters with a sustained rising two note phrase that reaches higher and encourages Van’t Hoff to settle the feelings of presentiment. But the colour changes and the mood constantly shifts; variously ominous, portentous, spirited, optimistic.
And then to the major work of the program. Erno Dohnányi’s Sextet in C Major Op. 37 is a substantial composition and involves all members of the ensemble, except for Goldsworthy. The instrumentation is uncommon and therefore the piece does not find its way into concert halls all that often. (Maybe Ensemble Lumen was created with Dohnányi’s Sextet in mind?) The aural effects are diverse, lush and jazz infused at times. The writing is both dramatic and introspective. The composition is infused with enjoyable melodies, but none are destined to become ear worms: they are light, humorous and interesting. There is a strong sense of development throughout the four movements as various instruments take the lead, and the sound seems bigger than it should be because of the interesting and commanding horn line. And then comes the final movement: it’s jazzy, fun, chaotic, and climaxes with a false finish (which trapped this reviewer!) before finally ending in a tutti flourish.
Ensemble Lumen are a tight outfit and have shone a probing light onto some seldom played gems of the repertoire. Long may their light burn brightly.
Kym Clayton
When: 28 Feb
Where: Elder Hall
Bookings: Closed
★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. The Light Room Bar at ILA. 26 Feb 2025
Aidan Jones is a pianist, and a comedian. There have been others before him who have successfully paired the two ‘disciplines’, such as the iconic Victor Borge, but Jones is an altogether different proposition. His show, Chopin’s Nocturne, is an homage to Chopin’s much-loved Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9, No. 2. Audience members of a certain type and of more mature years would recognise the tune as the theme from the 1956 film Eddy Duchin Story starring Tyrone Power and Kim Novak. Younger members of the audience who are students of the piano might remember it as a Grade 8 examination piece for piano. Regardless, it is a beautiful piece of music, and Jones extolls its virtues as he dissects and questions it, and muses how it appeals to his thinking mind and what Chopin might have been thinking about as he composed it.
For fifty fast-paced minutes he trots out oh-so-funny anecdotes about his first job (as a shelf stacker in a supermarket), through to his failed audition as a piano student at the Elder Conservatorium of music (he chose not to learn the all the required pieces – instant fail), and his desire to be a comedian. During the lock-down years early in the COVID pandemic he set himself the task of learning the Nocturne, and succeeded, although when he finishes the show with an almost full performance of it, it is clear that he is still a maverick and he doesn’t quite follow the score as originally written, but it’s fun! As Jones quipped, “Sometimes you just say f**g stuff” and that’s what he does throughout his performance, and the one liners come thick and fast. Even Goya the artist slips in. You have to be there to see how it fits with the narrative about the music.
His dissection of the piece would enrage a musicologist – oh so offhand – but he demonstrates passionately to the audience what he has personally found in the Nocturne and what it means to him. It’s almost a theory lesson in music – chord structure, phrasing, voicing etc - but it’s not at the same time. What it is, is funny, very funny! And the audience laps it up.
Kym Clayton
When: 21 Feb to 8 Mar
Where: The Light Room Bar at ILA
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 14 Feb 2025
What a cracker of an opening to the ASO’s 2025 season! Almost every seat was occupied in the expansive auditorium of the Adelaide Town Hall and the audience was brimming with excitement and anticipation. In the words of guest conductor Tito Muñoz (who was just terrific), the program featured some real ‘crowd pleasers’ and he wasn’t wrong! The audience reaction to the entire program was overwhelmingly joyful and positive, although some appreciated Russian pianist Pavel Kolesnikov’s interpretation of Beethoven’s much loved Piano Concerto No.4 less than others.
As has become traditional, and perhaps a tad wearying (musically speaking), the program begins with the musical Acknowledgement of Country, composed by Jack Buckskin and Jamie Goldsmith, and arranged by Mark Ferguson. Section principal percussionist Steven Peterka begins the piece by tapping two boomerangs together with a steady beat. He is de facto conductor. It is certainly an evocative piece but runs the risk of becoming ‘part of the furniture’, which, according to some is the ultimate distinction in some fields of human endeavour, but it is possible to have too much of a good thing regardless of its purpose. For this reviewer, having the conductor take the lead, as opposed to letting the orchestra get on with it, adds interest.
British composer Anna Clyne’s This Midnight Hour is a remarkable piece. It is a single movement composition lasting about twelve minutes, and in that time it takes the listener on an exciting musical journey with thrilling orchestrations and lush and changing melodies. It is almost cinematic in scope. It debuted in France in 2015, and although it takes its inspiration from specific poetry, Clyne has suggested that audience should create their own mental scaffolding to appreciate the piece, rather than assuming it is ‘programmatic’. What a liberating idea!
Tito Muñoz exacted exquisite precision from the orchestra, with meticulous shaping of pulsating phrases, especially in the strings. The lush romantic sections in the Clyne were never schmaltzy. Of course, we expect superb musicianship and technical mastery from a professional orchestra such as the ASO, but it’s always a joy to experience it, nonetheless.
Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.4 in G, Op.58, is one of the monuments in piano literature. Surprisingly, it begins with the piano outlining its unassuming principal melodic theme, and Pavel Kolesnikov delivers it with clarity and simplicity, although there is little that is unassuming in his, at times, flamboyant style. In some ways he channels the legendary pianist Glenn Gould, with his propensity to express his deep connection with the music by giving the appearance of mouthing sounds or seemingly talking to himself (although nothing is audible) and by almost conducting himself with his left hand when the right is working alone on extended runs up and down the keyboard. Regardless of any such eccentricities, Kolesnikov’s music making is immensely appealing and musical. The ASO’s violinists, almost to a person, can be seen intensely watching Kolesnikov’s hands as he takes the complexity of the concerto’s cadenzas in his stride. There was spontaneous applause at the end of the first movement.
Many interpretations of the concerto might be described as ‘muscular’, but Kolesnikov delivers something that is more lyrical bordering on impressionistic. The strong pulsating strings in the second movement contrasted starkly with the almost dreamy piano. He elicits sweet bell like tones in the third movement that imbue the piece with a coloratura feel.
Kolesnikov’s interpretation was not loved by everyone in the audience, but the vast majority enthusiastically applauded and cheered, and there were even wolf whistles. They experienced an interpretation that was personal, and heart felt.
The second half of the program is a lesson in more can be better! The orchestrations of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture and Respighi’s Pines of Rome both demand large orchestras, and the stage is full to overflowing. It is exhilarating to experience the might of a fully charged orchestra under the direction of a conductor who knows how to marshal such diverse musical forces.
Unlike the Clyne, the Tchaikovsky is programmatic, and the intensely romantic nature of the overture is not lost on the Valentine’s Day audience. Muñoz maintains the drama of the piece (particularly in the sumptuous romantic theme) and hints of what is essentially some melodic material from Tchaikovsky’s fifth and sixth symphonies come through clearly. Again, the orchestra plays with superb articulation and synchronisation, and the percussion and brass sections are especially at the top of their game.
The orchestra enlarges for Respighi’s Pines of Rome, with the use of more winds and horns, piano, pipe organ (yes, the ‘big’ one!), harp and celesta. Throughout this remarkable (programmatic) work, the trumpets, trombones and other brass unmistakeably draw the focus at key times, and they are grand and aurally imposing. The deep pedal notes emanating from the magnificent Walker & Sons pipe organ are as much felt as they are heard, and the frenetic bowing of the violins in the fourth and final section renders the whole experience majestic.
Again, what a cracker of an opening to the ASO’s 2025 season! The flagship Symphony Series has gotten off to a wonderful start – something for everyone!
Kym Clayton
When: 14 Feb
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 6 Dec 2024
The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s final concert for the year was GF Handel’s almighty Messiah. Of course, the ASO has performed it many times before, but this performance was one of the best.
In his excellent book An Insiders History of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, recently published by Wakefield Press and an excellent Christmas gift (available from the ASO’s headquarters on Hindley Street), Paul Blackman notes that “In April 1859, the first really ambitious musical project in South Australia took part in White’s Assembly Rooms [where the Commonwealth Bank on King William Street is now situated], a Handel Festival marking 100 years since the composer’s death. Linger conducted a performance of Messiah… There were 20 players in the orchestra and 70 choristers… Messiah proved so successful that a repeat performance took place the following week… Prior to the festival, a letter appeared in a local paper, from a person more used to the London music scene. He felt it his duty to point out to the colonial rabble that certain practices at sacred performances should be avoided. This included clapping between each aria or chorus, and calling out for encores; however, the audience should stand during the Hallelujah Chorus.” According to Blackman’s research in his highly entertaining and information book, the concert received a highly favourable review.
Tonight’s performance featured a much larger orchestra, a much smaller chorus, a conductor who knows the piece inside out, and four soloists at the top of their game.
Canadian born musician, conductor and teacher Ivars Taurins is the founder and director of the excellent Tafelmusik Chamber Choir, and he is in high demand throughout Canada as an expert conductor of choral works. He has a string of accomplishments to his name, and he has conducted Messiah more than 200 times! (He knows the piece).
In tonight’s performance with the ASO, Taurins was joined on stage by the outstanding Adelaide Chamber Singers, and four superb Australian singers, all with noteworthy international careers: soprano Samantha Clarke, mezzo soprano Fiona Campbell, tenor Andrew Goodwin, and bass-baritone Andrew O’Connor. Between them all, Handel’s Messiah was in very good hands, and the diverse audience, which included young children, Messiah (and art music) ‘newbies’, the curious, and seasoned concertgoers, were gripped by the majesty and theatre of humanity’s most loved and most performed choral masterpiece.
Messiah is a Christian oratorio in three parts: the first part focusses on Old Testament prophesies and the birth of Christ; the second part depicts Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection; the third on Christ’s eternal glory and the salvation of humanity. The sung text consists entirely of quotations from the Bible with some modifications for musical reasons, but it is much more than a medley of quotations. Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, it is hard not to be moved by the visual and aural spectacle that is Messiah. Whether it be the sight of a chorus being summoned to stand and sing, or trumpeters playing from the balcony at the command of the conductor, or additional musicians coming on stage to augment the orchestra at various times, or a trumpeter rising to his feet to accompany a soloist, or soloists striding to centre stage and commanding our attention with their luxurious voices, the Messiah oozes theatre, and Ivars Taurins knows it and uses it.
Andrew Goodwin has a glorious tenor voice: robust, pure of tone, excellent breath control and exquisite articulation. His voice miraculously emerges out of the instrumental accompaniment in the first aria and his rendition of Comfort ye my people borders on the sublime. Goodwin also clearly delights in Messiah: he’s a picture of studied concentration throughout, whether it be observing his fellow soloists with encouraging smiles, or closely observing and listening to the chorus when they sing in response to one of his arias, or mirroring maestro Taurins’ exhortations by discreetly tapping his knee.
Samantha Clarke’s soprano voice is also strong and pure, with the gentlest of vibrato when required. Adelaide audiences have heard fine soprano voices on our stages before, but Clarke’s voice is one of the best. She is equally at home in the lower register, as she is at the very top, with clean tonality and sweet potency across the range. Her Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion was an exuberant highlight. Throughout, Clarke sings almost effortlessly.
Mezzo soprano Fiona Campbell is perhaps the busiest of the soloists, and she sings O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion with joy and and deceptive lightness. Her He was despised and rejected of men was almost reverential in the upper register. Quite something.
Andrew O’Connor is an imposing man with an even more imposing voice. His smile is a picture of contentment and gentleness, and it almost fills the stage. His voice is an exquisite instrument: mellifluous honeyed tones easily emerge, and the expanse of the Adelaide Town Hall auditorium resonates with warmth. His For behold, darkness shall cover the earth and The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light were a revelation: strength and sweetness across the full range of his voice.
Trumpeter David Khafagi was excellent in The trumpet shall sound, and Andrew Penrose on timpani was delighted to keep beating his mallets for what felt like an exaggerated finale at Ivars Taurins’ direction.
The only sour note in the whole evening was a full forty-five second pause fifteen minutes into the performance at the end of the chorus And the glory of the lord and before Goodwin’s first aria Thus saith the Lord to allow a bevy of latecomers to enter the hall and take their seats. The performers patiently waited, but there is no ‘suitable break’ for such intrusions.
The ASO have had a marvellous season and now go on a deserved break before resuming in 2025 with the celebrated Mark Wigglesworth as new Chief Conductor.
Kym Clayton
When: 6 Dec
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed