Updated ,first published
THEATRE
Never Closer ★★★★
fortyfivdownstairs, until May 24
Grace Chapple’s Never Closer is a love story – also a ghost story – set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and it’s such an assured and mature piece of writing, it’s hard to believe that it’s her debut play.
First staged at Belvoir in 2024, this entirely new production is an excellent choice for Patalog Theatre – a company I’ve previously compared to the Hayloft Project in talent and importance – not only because it has tended to cleave to works by contemporary UK playwrights (Caryl Churchill, Jez Butterworth, Polly Stenham, Simon Stephens) but also because they’re strong at the sort of intimate, finely grained ensemble performance Never Closer demands and rewards.
A group of friends, fresh out of high school, gathers to farewell one of their number, Niamh (Ella Ferris), who’s leaving Belfast for London to study medicine. Her best friend Dierdre (Enya Daly) recounts a spooky local legend, but the dominant mood is optimistic.
Together with Connor (Damon Baudin), Jimmy (Ben Walter) and Mary (Molly Holohan), they’re excited to be on the cusp of adulthood, and certain that their bond will endure separation.
Years pass, and on Christmas Eve, 1987, the friends are reunited at Dierdre’s house. Much has changed in the interval, not least Niamh falling in love with Harry – an Englishman (Karl Richmond) blithe to the trauma Niamh’s friends have experienced, living through a time of terror.
As Dierdre’s whiskey stash gets raided, submerged feelings and tensions erupt, complicating a genuine reconnection between the (still young) members of their circle. I won’t spoil the ending, save to say that it involves a return to the ghost story that begins the play.
Fly-on-the-wall set design from Dann Barber and Ella Butler lends the show a voyeuristic edge. The audience peers into Diedre’s living room from three sides, with curtains pulled back after the first scene to draw us deeper into the drama.
Director Marni Mount doesn’t waste the intensity of focus, helping to craft one of the finest ensemble performances I’ve seen for a while. I loved the lived-in quality of these characters, not just the compelling detail in the individual performances, but the quality of attention and responsiveness between actors.
It’s incredibly technically difficult to play people bantering and scrapping with and talking over each other in a manner that sounds overheard yet still intelligible; or to portray all the wordless communication that occurs between intimates.
The cast creates a sense of found family, and the comedy and the melodrama of their camaraderie, counterbalanced by their vulnerability and the suffering they endure, all heighten the impact of the play’s climax.
With ensemble performance this superior, you almost hope Patalog Theatre’s next stop will be Chekhov, though if Chapple continues to realise her talent and ambition as a playwright, her next work would be just as welcome a prospect.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead
OPERA
La Traviata ★★★★
Regent Theatre, until May 16
La Traviata is the most commonly performed opera in the world. It is timeless. And not in the sort of, meek marketing rhetoric that is rolled out by companies clinging for a contemporary angle, but truly ageless. Non-opera goers will know of the Parisian courtesan and her naive beau from Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge!
Such is the evolution of the character, it’s said the role of Violetta Valéry requires three different voices. If you had your pick of history, perhaps the vocal fireworks of Joan Sutherland in Act I, the lyricism and richness of Renée Fleming in Act II and the whole nine yards of vocal emotion (let’s have Maria Callas) in Act III. Invariably, most divas are best suited to one act more than the others.
Melburnian Stacey Alleaume is an Act III Violetta. Here, in Opera Australia’s latest production, Alleaume’s final moments are both sublime and heartbreaking – her vocal control is stunning. Her youthful, effervescent Violetta of Act I also delivers a dazzling vocal performance. Alleaume alternates the role with Maria Laura Iacobellis.
As Alfredo, New Zealand tenor Filipe Manu deftly portrays Alfredo’s ingenuousness, coupled with an even, powerful Italianate sound.
The role of Alfredo’s father, Giorgio Germont, is sung by Ukrainian baritone Andrii Kymach, who, while possessing an impressive voice, is barely five years older than Manu. Height and grey hair dye does not gravitas-maketh. OA should definitely get Kymach back, just not for this role, not yet anyway.
Conductor Giampaolo Bisanti makes his company debut, and Orchestra Victoria gives a stirring performance under his regard. An unfortunate side effect of the Regent’s extremely raised conductor’s podium was that Bisanti’s many and varied hand gestures were so prominent they almost became the show’s best supporting actor.
It appears the OA Elijah Moshinsky production of Verdi’s masterpiece has finally been retired. This production, which premiered in Brisbane in 2022, is by director Sarah Giles, with modern set and costumes by Charles Davis, is a welcome, indisputably successful, replacement.
Reviewed by Bridget Davies
MUSIC
Beethoven’s Ghost ★★★★
Musica Viva Australia, Melbourne Recital Centre, May 12
Haunted in parts, this fine program, bringing together three stellar performers as a piano trio for the first time, was both an outpouring of high-octane musical energy and a memorable celebration of artistic synergy.
From the outset of Beethoven’s “Ghost” Piano Trio, violinist Kristian Winther, cellist Timo-Veikko Valve and pianist Aura Go seemed propelled by a pent-up enthusiasm, which made for an exhilarating ride despite occasionally threatening minor instability.
Possibly based on the ghost of Hamlet and the witches of Macbeth, the famous slow movement unfolded with effective spectral sonorities, all to be banished by a deft cat-and-mouse finale.
Melbourne composer Melody Eötvös’ Regnare, a new commission from Musica Viva, was inspired by eucalyptus regnans, the mountain ash, the world’s tallest flowering plant. Needing fire to regenerate, this tree put the composer in mind of rulership based not on domination but endurance.
Initial restless, febrile rumblings low in the piano were counterpointed by calmer, sometimes ascending elements in violin and cello. In its more rhythmic moments, there was a slight tip of the hat to fellow Australian composer Ross Edwards, but tellingly, Regnare affirmed a world far beyond the ghoulish threats of sabre rattling.
Lili Boulanger’s D’un soir triste (Of a Sad Evening) seemed full of premonitions about the composer’s approaching death. Wringing plenty of pathos from the pulsing accompaniment and the elegiac turns of melody and harmony, the players empathetically advocated for this forgotten masterpiece.
Although conceived in the shadow of mental depression and war, Ravel’s Piano Trio is predominantly an upbeat affair. While revelling in the glittering exoticism in three of the four movements, the players made the sombre third-movement Passacaglia sound like a lost spirit searching for peace.
Characterised by admirable ensemble and memorable solos, any hovering ghosts would have been charmed by this polished trio.
Reviewed by Tony Way
JAZZ
Panorama Brasil: The music of Hermeto Pascoal ★★★★
The JazzLab, May 9
When Brazilian composer Hermeto Pascoal performed in Melbourne in 2012, his restless creativity and invention were on constant display as he switched from keyboards to cowhorn, melodica to melodies whistled into a bottle of water.
The instrumentation for Saturday night’s homage to Pascoal was more conventional – apart from a brief appearance by a squeaky toy pig – but the exuberance of Pascoal’s spirit coursed through every tune.
Melbourne drummer-percussionist Alastair Kerr has long been a passionate exponent of Brazilian jazz, and his superb Panorama Brasil quartet formed the core of this concert tribute to Pascoal, who passed away last year. Kerr also served as the night’s jovial MC, shining a light on the late composer’s influence and originality, the various rhythms and styles his music incorporated (forro choro, frevo), and its often complex and unpredictable structures.
Not that there was anything academic or arcane about the band’s presentation. On the contrary, this was music that leapt off the stage with irresistible energy and vitality, as Kerr and his colleagues (pianist Matt Boden, bassist Jorge Albuquerque and the brilliant flautist Yael Zamir) navigated each tempo change, tonal shift and rhythmic fillip with apparent ease.
The various guests who joined the band throughout the night were equally adept in making elaborate arrangements sound as airy as a summer breeze in Rio. On Forro Brasil, Adam May plucked a wonderfully deft melody on the four-string cavaco, buoyed by Kerr’s agile percussion and the twin-guitar accompaniment of Paul Carey and Rose M. Gonzalez. Doug de Vries (on seven-string guitar) played a mesmerising duet with pianist Barney McAll, the pair navigating a knottily intricate theme with thrilling synchronicity.
Pascoal’s best-known tune, Bebe, served as a fittingly joyous finale, as Zamir’s flute darted and danced like a hummingbird, Kerr’s polyrhythms suggested an entire percussion section, and the whole band brimmed with the exuberance and ebullience for which Pascoal was renowned.
Reviewed by Jessica Nicholas
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Jessica Nicholas is an arts and music writer, specialising in contemporary jazz and world music.
