Affecting festival opener a study in contrasts
Chosen and Beloved
MAU Wahine
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kristjan Jarvi with Racha Riszk (soprano) Michael Fowler Centre February 21
Reviewed by John Button
The 2020 New Zealand Festival opened with a concert curated by Lemi Ponifasio in which the theme was the suffering of women.
It began with the MAU Wahine, a group of young women who, over nearly half the concert, gave us an extremely polished vision of the plight of women everywhere. The message was clear, and the drama was palpable.
The women were in simple black except for the mother in white, and the choreography was simplicity itself.
But I did wonder if it was quite the right partner for the other work on the programme – Henryk Gorecki’s Symphony No 3 – Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, mostly for the contrast between the loudly amplified impact of the former with the natural, very quiet sounds of the latter. It took time to adjust between the two.
The quiet, unremittingly sad Gorecki work burst on the scene in the early 1990s with a famous recording sung by Dawn Upshaw, which captured a huge audience. There is something about sadness that captures the imagination.
But a concert performance that places the soloist in a more vulnerable position than that of a closely miked voice on a recording brings out the sorrow and sadness even more, no more so than in this performance.
Syrian soprano Racha Riszk was a picture of loneliness as she sang beautifully from isolated positions, both to the side and above the orchestra.
Sometimes she was buried in the orchestra – rightly so, as this is a partner, not an accompanist – but at climaxes she rose thrillingly above the sound.
The orchestra played with great sympathy under the knowing direction of conductor Kristjan Jarvi, and it all finished with the appearance of a waterfall – stunningly realistic – at the rear. Much of the production was highly stylised, asking questions – but as the opening concert in a festival, that is perfectly reasonable.