Arts reflections – a real treat
Sam Edwards reviews the Hamilton Civic Choir, and Auckland Theatre Company’s staging of Roger Hall’s play Last Legs.
Mentioned in dispatches:
These have just arrived:
On Friday, October 13, at 5.30pm in St Peter’s Cathedral, Julien and Chris Hainsworth as the Rata-Tui Duo, will fulfil their promise to provide beautiful music by Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Barrie`re . . . and a surprise! on baroque cello, harpsichord, and the St Peter’s Cathedral organ. Chris Hainsworth was instrumental in laying the foundations for the university’s music department at the same time as he was director of music at the cathedral. Now living in France, he returns regularly to Hamilton to give concerts and is back on Friday with baroque cellist son Julien – who just may be an even better musician than his pater. Momentum Waikato and Hamilton City Council recently agreed to fund the concept design phase of the Waikato Regional Theatre.
Sarah Nathan of Creative Waikato has set up two public discussion sessions to enable people to come in and listen to and offer ideas about the proposed theatre. They will be in the Creative Waikato performance space at 131 Alexandra St, next door to Milton’s Canteen, on October 20, from 12-2pm and 4-6pm. Major issues range from whether this will be the building to house a first-rate concert organ – the Waikato hosts world class organists, and the Conservatorium is developing an international reputation for its organist teaching – through general design and use features, to whether the space will be acoustically independent, or simply grind out music which has been grotesquely interfered with by electronics. What do people really want? It is a great opportunity to find out.
There is a very thin line between cliche´ and honest generalisation. Roger Hall’s genius is that he never crosses that line. Even when poking the borax at a retired professor of literature, a figure ripe for cliche´d excesses, he stands firm. In this character, built up from recognisable generalisations about senior academics, he develops a persona so entertaining, so original, so believable, that the creation is both convincing and unique. It is Hall’s real claim to fame, and in the hands of an actor like Ray Henwood, one knows that every appearance of the superbly flawed Angus will be original.
Hall’s new take on New Zealand life targets accommodation for the elderly middle class caught by that new dollar factory so beloved by its shareholders, the euphemistically labelled retirement village. He develops situations affectionately enough to be appealing as well as comic, and peoples them with individuals who provide more wit and laughter than we have come to expect.
PC? Not on yer cliched nelly. There is a sequence in which four old women play a hand of bridge, and the highlight is a hilarious Parkinson’s sufferer trying to deal cards. Any of us who have Parkinson’s suffering friends know that laughter is their best relief, just as it is for all of us. Po-faced Philistines rail against laughter from such a source, More fool them. In this fast-paced, witty, and hilarious performance, Hall, through director Colin McColl and his players, not only shot a herd of sacred cows, but posed real questions about the way in which we are busily directing the lives of the old fellers.
This was a total treat.
Thirty years ago the Hamilton Civic Choir performed as part of the celebrations marking the opening of the Waikato Museum of Art and History. The new institution was seen as a cultural coming of age for the city, and the growth in musical power of the choir is an interesting reflection of the cultural growth of the city. Thirty years ago the choir was Hamilton’s foremost classical ensemble, and has since become one of New Zealand’s preeminent exponents of choral music. After today’s celebratory concert, it was clear that their recent invitation to sing in New York’s iconic Carnegie Hall was a genuine recognition of its international quality and not a lucky sugar daddy trick.
Sunday’s programme was based on their earlier 5,4, 3, 2, 1 . . . concert, and in the crisper acoustic of gallery 12, where the choir had sung those three decades ago, there was a richness and authority which was impressive.
The choir is fortunate in a membership which includes soloists who can also handle choral music, and in a number of the works, an individual chorister provided an independent line which, in the context of the a cappella arrangements, was spine tingling.
Remarkably accurate harmony, exquisitely sculpted dynamics, tempi to match mood and lyrical content – oh dear! I will stop before I become merely fulsome.
As a public concert, freely and generously given, and so engagingly presented, it had qualities such as other choirs can only dream of. We hope the public will be as generous in their support for the Carnegie Tour as the choir was with Sunday’s audience.