Handel’s Messiah

Perth Symphonic Chorus, Perth Baroque Orchestra

Perth Concert Hall

Saturday 18^th December 

Foreword

Dear Readers

 

Please welcome to the pages of this blog my good friend and colleague Wolfgang von Flugelhorn, who will henceforth from time to time be posting reviews and commentary here and elsewhere, whenever I myself am too busy to do so. Wolfgang is a lover of theatre and the arts like myself, as well as being a fellow artist in his own way, though his work is not well known, except among a small circle of friends and admirers. He and I have known each other since childhood, and we share a similar outlook on things, though of course he has his own point of view and way of expressing himself. We don’t always agree, but I have always found his opinions stimulating, even if somewhat eccentric and at times a little overheated. In any case, I hope you'll enjoy his contributions to this little space for critical reflection.

 

At Wolfgang’s prompting I have also changed the title of this blog – formerly known as ‘Postcards from Perth’ – to ‘After Words’. In part this reflects the fact that these posts can no longer be adequately described as ‘postcards’; nor are they always ‘from Perth’. As for the new title ‘After Words’: Wolfgang informs me that it derives from the German term Nachwort, which literally means ‘afterword’. However he also wishes to convey by it something of the Yiddish term Trepwerter (‘staircase words’), which in turn derives from the French expression l’esprit de l’escalier and its German equivalent Treppenwitz (or ‘staircase wit’), and which refers to the psychological phenomenon described by Diderot when ‘a sensitive man…overwhelmed by the argument levelled against him, becomes confused and doesn't come to himself again until at the bottom of the stairs’, whereupon a witty rejoinder occurs to him; for example after leaving a dinner on the first floor of a mansion; or for that matter (I might add) after leaving a performance at a concert hall or theatre.

 

Humphrey Bower

 

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Handel’s Messiah

By Wolfgang von Flugelhorn 

As I arrived at the Perth Concert Hall – one of my favourite venues both acoustically and as a work of early 70s poured concrete brutalist architecture – for Saturday night’s performance of Handel’s Messiah, I noticed a man wearing an Australian flag t-shirt with a second, actual Australian flag draped over his shoulder making his way from the carpark towards a large crowd in the park nearby. Then I heard the amplified voice of an angry male speaker telling the crowd to put the WA Premier ‘between a rock and a hard place’. Presumably it had something to do with Covid-related mandates and restrictions rather than the Messiah, though the aria ‘Why do the nations so furiously rage together, and why do the people imagine a vain thing?’ did spring to mind.

 

Inside the Concert Hall I was informed by a fellow patron – who asked if she could share my table in the first-floor lounge while we waited for the concert to begin – that her companion was running late because of traffic congestion on the freeway generated by the protesters; and throughout the first part of the oratorio latecomers trickled into the auditorium, though none of the singers seemed nonplussed by the distraction. 

 

Handel wrote his great series of English-language oratorios in response to the declining popularity of Italian opera (a genre in which he had previously excelled) in London during the 1730s and 1740s. The subject of Messiah was suggested by his librettist Charles Jennens, who supplied him with a compilation of texts from the Old and New Testaments alluding to the coming of Christ, his crucifixion and resurrection, and the future resurrection of humanity. Despite Handel’s genius for drama, the work is unusual among his oratorios (and stands in contrast to those of Bach) in that it contains no dramatic roles, quoted speech or even a dominant narrative voice. It is more like a reflection on the idea of Christ as Messiah, with the soloists and choir as anonymous and in a sense impersonal (though no less impassioned) speakers with whom we can all the more readily identify. It is arguably this in combination with Handel’s dramatic flair and gift for melody that accounts for the work’s extraordinary appeal, which is evident in the propensity of audience members to participate by spontaneously singing along. At times I found myself struggling not to do likewise, though I felt no desire to stand up for the ‘Hallelujah’ Chorus, a tradition attributed to the anecdote that King George II did so during the first London performance, thus effectively compelling his subjects to follow suit.

 

I have long resisted the Messiah. When I was a schoolboy on a student guest program in Melbourne and was housed with the family of my future friend and colleague Humphrey Bower, we visited an English schoolmate and his parents who played a recording of the Messiah during dinner (followed after dessert by The Mikado). The former was one of those overstuffed performances featuring a huge 19^th century orchestra and massive choir which became something of an English-language tradition after Handel’s death, but never took hold in his native Germany. When I later heard the work in a humble church back home in Lower Flugelhorn played and sung by smaller forces as Handel wrote it, the effect was a revelation. Instead of being infused with 19^th century British Imperial pomp and circumstance here was a tender, delicate work of 18^th century German Lutheran Pietism (and its English-language Protestant counterpart). The Messiah is not a collective celebration of historical triumph – of whatever religious, cultural or national stripe – but a deeply felt message of personal salvation.

 

It was just such a performance that I heard at the Perth Concert Hall on Saturday night. The Perth Symphonic Chorus is a medium-sized choir of 50-odd choristers, but under the guidance of their founding director and local Perth legend Margaret Pride they sang with a combination of restraint and clarity that was eloquent and touching. Similarly, the Perth Baroque Orchestra (sensitively led by concert master Paul Wright) is a chamber orchestra of 20-odd players (many of them familiar faces from WASO) which included a smallish string section, three cellos, two double basses, two oboes, a bassoon, two trumpets, one timpani player, a harpsichordist and an organist, and featured outstanding playing from Wright, principal oboe Liz Chee, and principal trumpet Jenny Coleman. Again, Pride’s conducting was both deeply thoughtful and self-effacing, allowing the music to express itself without undue emphasis. The use of modern rather than Baroque instruments gave the strings a velvety sheen, and the winds a ripeness of colour and steadiness of intonation, but the smaller orchestral forces and the transparency of Pride’s conducting conveyed the felicities of Handel’s score with great charm and intimacy. 

 

As for the soloists, all four possessed richly rounded operatic voices, but knew how to hold back when necessary and let the words and music speak without excess garnish. Tenor Paul Lewis and soprano Rachelle Durkin stood out: the former delivering his arias with a heartfelt sense of yearning, and the latter with a creamy richness that was brimful of vitality, especially in my favourite aria ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’, which settles everyone down after the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus and reminds them that the work is not yet over and that the best is yet to come. Mezzo Fiona Campbell sang with a calm and peaceful evenness of mood and tone; and dashing young baritone Jake Bigwood made a commanding debut on the Concert Hall stage without overloading things vocally or dramatically.   

 

The performance was received by a capacity audience with rapt attentiveness and enthusiasm – with prolonged applause and added stomping from the orchestra at the end for Pride, who leaves her position with the choir next year after 25 years at the helm. As a friend and colleague remarked on the way out afterwards: ‘That was the best Messiah I’ve ever heard; and I’ve heard a lot; and sung in some of them.’

 

As I descended the steps outside the Concert Hall and unfolded my collapsible bicycle there was no sign of the anti-government protesters, and despite some congestion in the carpark caused by departing concert goers, the traffic on the freeway was flowing again.

 

‘Behold, I tell you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.’

 

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Wolfgang von Flugelhorn is a writer, critic and non-conceptual artist based in Perth, Western Australia. He was born in Flugelhorn, a small town in Upper Austria, in 1963. He is editor of the Zeitschrift für Unsozialforschung (Journal of Anti-Social Research) and Emeritus Professor at the University of Lower Flugelhorn where he holds a chair in Paranormal Phenomenology while engaging his core muscles for two minutes every day. He is the author of several monographs including Unlogische Untersuchungen (Illogical Investigations), Sein Unzeitlich (Not Being On Time) and Wahnsinn und Methode (Madness and Method), all of which have been translated into English by Humphrey Bower but none of which has yet been published in any language.  

 

Animal Farm

Adapted by Van Badham
Black Swan State Theatre Company
Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre of WA

 

George Orwell’s Animal Farm (first published in 1945) is a satirical novel about the Russian Revolution that uses animals to represent specific social-historical classes and individuals. Orwell himself was a democratic socialist, and this perspective sharpens his critique of Bolshevism, which he saw as a total betrayal of everything socialism stood for. The human characters in the novel represent the pre-Revolutionary aristocracy and bourgeoisie, with Farmer Jones standing in for Tsar Nicholas, and the neighbouring farmers representing the other ruling and owning classes abroad. Pigs represent the Bolshevik vanguard (with Old Major as Lenin, Snowball as Trotsky and the villainous Napoleon as Stalin), and other animals such as horses, donkeys, sheep, cows, chickens, crows, cats and dogs represent the agrarian, industrial and other workers who are exploited, oppressed and manipulated by their feudal and capitalist overlords. In a particularly sinister transposition, dogs become the police employed both by the despotic Tsarist regime and by the totalitarian Bolshevik one that follows it. 

 

Orwell’s fable extends beyond the Russian Revolution to criticise the totalitarian impulse throughout history, whether this is manifested on the left or the right. The characters in Animal Farm have a universality as social-psychological types which speaks to us no matter who or where we are. Moreover, Orwell’s literary skill gives them a three-dimensional individuality that makes us believe in them, fear them, care about them, and even identify with them. We know or can imagine what it’s like to be dominated by pigs or terrorised by dogs; to be exploited and oppressed like the patient and obedient workhorse Boxer; to be led and manipulated like sheep; or even (if we are honest) to be tempted or corrupted by power or the allure of material possessions. One way or another, for better or worse, we are all animals deep down. 

 

Van Badham’s contemporary stage adaptation extends itself horizontally rather than vertically, so to speak, to address contemporary struggles for social and racial justice, animal rights and environmental sustainability, as well as the populism of Donald Trump and the distortion of truth by politicians which is amplified by mainstream and social media. Unfortunately this broad-brushstroke approach fails to convey either the specific or the general thrust of Orwell's original critique. The result is artistically as well as politically incoherent, and squanders Orwell’s legacy as a writer, journalist and critic, a legacy which is still relevant today if we listen to what he has to say. The quality of the writing also falls far short of Orwell’s in terms of craft, humour or insight. Perhaps inevitably this failure extends to the production, including the design, direction and even the performances, despite the best efforts of all three actors, who play multiple roles.

 

The set consists primarily of a vast screen that descends from just behind the proscenium, onto which satirical comedy sketches are projected representing mainstream and social media coverage and commentary on the animal revolution as it unfolds. The content mimics typical TV or online footage and is (correspondingly) crudely shot and edited; it’s also (for the most part) painfully unfunny, despite the actors’ comic skills. This screen dominates the stage and is dark for about 50% of the show. In other words, there’s a lot of dead space, which extends upstage, as most of the area beyond the screen is visibly empty and unused. The actors have to avail themselves of a small area in front of the screen, including a low metal balcony which is accessible from the wings and leads to the forestage via a set of stairs. Beyond the screen, rows of metal barriers are visible that could represent empty animal pens. The floor, walls, balcony, stairs and barriers are all painted black, and the overall ambience is one of coldness and gloom, which kills off any sign of life or attempt at comedy on the part of the text or the performers.

 

This sense of lifelessness is no way the fault of the valiant and talented trio of actors, who appear in various guises for what are mostly brief vignettes or overlong expositional monologues. These are delivered with great energy and comic timing but mostly fall flat because of the clumsy writing and staging. There is also a lack of depth to the performances which can likewise be attributed to the slipshod nature of the adaptation and production. British accents are used for some of the characters, such as Old Major and the neighbouring farmers, perhaps as a nod to the original novella or as some kind of reference to Brexit (though neither Old Major nor Jones and his fellow property-owners seem like Brexiteers); whatever the reason, the effect is inconsistent and confusing, as the rest of the show seems to be set in a dystopian version of Australia, apart from the Trump-like portrayal of Napoleon. As for the representation of the animals themselves, despite the addition of strap-on animal noses, ears and tails, and the sporadic mimicking of animal sounds or movements as if they were some kind of involuntary vocal or physical tics, there is no real sense of embodiment or transformation from human to animal. The overall result is a kind of pantomime which hardly does justice to Orwell or the characters.

 

Whether considered as representatives of historical classes and individuals, social-psychological types or three-dimensional characters, Orwell’s animals (like Aesop’s, La Fontaine’s or Kafka’s) are fundamentally versions of human beings. This deliberate anthropomorphism has the simultaneous effect of humanising them (and thus enabling us to empathise with them) and of rendering visible what is animalistic in our own nature, and thus giving us an estranged, almost Brechtian perspective on ourselves. 

 

However, the adaptation falls short of this level of critical anthropomorphism because it lacks both the humanity and the animality to embrace it. Instead it parodies the animals and their ‘animalist’ revolution. In doing so it mocks all struggles for justice and trivialises the forces of authoritarianism, populism, capitalism, racism, sexism, able-ism and species-ism they are struggling against. This trivialisation is epitomised when a video segment plays out on the screen featuring the actors dressed as chickens and advocating for their right to lay eggs in freedom while the slogan #chickenlivesmatter flashes beneath them. Some people in the audience laughed, but I found it utterly insensitive to Black lives, and cringed to imagine how any person of colour watching it might feel.

 

The emblematic misjudgement of the entire show is the clownish impersonation of Trump (dressed in Napoleonic drag) as the Stalinist pig dictator Napoleon. Trump is no Stalin, and the analogy between Trumpism and Stalinism (or for that matter between Bolshevism and contemporary left-wing or right-wing populist movements) is an entirely false equivalence. Orwell’s Napoleon is a penetrating portrayal of the authoritarian personality (and could perhaps with some adjustments be adapted to fit Putin or Xi Jinping); but Stalinism is an inaccurate characterisation of the demagoguery that currently passes for leadership in so-called liberal democracies. Perhaps a strutting, preening, red-faced, racist, sexist, xenophobic, nationalist turkey would be closer to the mark. However, that would require a much more radical rewriting of Animal Farm, one that departed further from the letter of the original while remaining truer to its spirit. In fact, it would require nothing less than a brand new play.

 

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Animal Farm is at the Heath Ledger Theatre until October 24.