Irish Songmakers presents Cara O Sullivan at NCH

Per la gloria d'adoravi Bononcini 1625?-1750
Amarilli mia bella       Giulio Caccini 1546-1618
O del mio dolce ardor  Gluck               1714-1787
Hark the Echoing Air              Purcell  1659-1695
Music for a While 
Sweeter than Roses
I Know Where I'm Goin           Hughs 1882-1937
The Gartlan Mother's Lullaby
The Spanish Lady 
Cuatro Madrigales Amatorios  Joaquin Rodrigo 1901-1999
Dream Valley    Roger Quilter  1877-1953
Weep No More Sad Fountains 
Love's Philosophy
Encores
Toselli's Serenade
Someone is sending me Flowers Shoestring Revue Harnick /Baker arr Roger Vignoles

It is 25 years since she won the RTE Musician of the Future, Cara O Sullivan reminded her audience at the John Field Room yesterday .  In her preamble, the soprano painted a picture of   a timid ingenue gently propelled onto the NCH stage by host Mike Murphy, unused to the big stage and orchestra. It was hard to imagine the Cork diva as anything other than a fearless performer who  imbued her song recital  at a packed John Field Room with the spirit of a  hooley in the kitchen.
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The diverse programme spanned centuries and took in a number of genres. Opening with an attractive clutch of Baroque arias, she showed off the gorgeous rich velvety tone that has earned her success. My favourite of the set was  Caccini's, Amarilli mia bella,  sensitively  delivered with a subtle range of dynamic.  Next a Purcell set, some of which was not quite tamed yet, work in progress as the diva remarked herself.  Pianist Niall Kinsella did full justice to Hugh's clever arrangements of familiar  Irish folksongs.

Rodrigo's attractive Spanish songs were unfamiliar to me and suited O Sullivan's warm rich timbre very well.   A cabaret number , Someone is sending me flowers from The Shoestring Revue showed off her flair for comic timing .

The event was presented by Irish Songmakers' an inititaive of Niall Kinsella, who acted as impressario and musician  for the occasion. It is good to see a young performer showing such entrepreneurial flair . There is a good demand for daytime, shorter events I believe. There were many singers in the audience to support one of their tribe. It would have been good to have had texts and translations for the foreign language numbers and a solo spot on piano here and there would have not gone amiss and served to give   the vocalist some respite during an intense programme.


Related posts Pagliacci for Everyman http://cathydesmond.blogspot.ie/2012/06/pagliacci-for-everyman-cork-midsummer.html

Punk Baroque Delight Dido and Aeneas Cork http://cathydesmond.blogspot.ie/2011/09/heavy-metal-baroque-delight-dido-and.html


    

Punk Baroque Delight : Dido and Aeneas Cork

The production  of Dido and Aeneas at Cork Opera House last night combined superb singing with innovative staging, inventive orchestration to produce a fresh contemporary take on the English Baroque opera classic.
Originally produced  in 17th century for a London  girls' school, it is  rare gem in that it combines an English libretto and with loads of singable tunes and remains for me  one of the most appealing and accessible works in the genre . Although frequently performed as a concert piece ( my review of  Waterford International Music Festival here) , in this fully staged production, director John O Brien places the action in a Gothic world intensified by the extreme angles of a set of giant geometric shapes which rotate and glide throughout the production combined with projected nocturnal skyscapes.  The lighting is subdued exaggerating the shadows and intensifying the dark world of seething emotion.

While the staging is impressive, the most innovative aspect of the production  is in the treatment of the orchestration.  There is no need to book a ticket near the front if you like to peer into the pit. The curtains open with the musicians on stage in gothic costumes elevated from their usual position in the pit to taking on the role of  all singing, dancing players . The original string orchestration by violinist Marja Gaynor is rejigged for a  salon ensemble of violin/viola, clarinet/sax. accordion and cello all performed theatrically from memory , quite a feat.  The baroque elements are mixed with other genres in the musical cauldron and there is a strong whiff of Klezmer with the high clarinet and sax lines. The tango treatment of one of the numbers reminded me of the orchestration of Roxanne in Baz Luhrman's  Moulin Rouge   It is a tight ensemble piece with eight players in total.  Cara O Sullivan looks suitably regal and also sings role of sorceress as an altar ego. It is lovely to hear two local divas of international standing with Mary Hegarty playing Belinda.  A punk looking Catrin Johnsson  completes the  coven . Simon Morgan recently seen in Opera in the Open (my review here)  sings the role of  heart breaker Aeneas , the jaunty sailor and spooky spirit, the latter a device requiring him to sing while operating a ghostly ventriloquists dummy .
All elements old and new combine to produce a theatrical delight that should work really well on the festival circuit in medium sized theatres with flytowers.

Irish Times Review here