Irish Timescritics review La Traviataat the NCH, Love Lettersat the Tivoli Theatre and Alela Dianeat Crawdaddy
La Traviata, NCH, Dublin
Like Madama Butterfly, Ellen Kent's production of La traviata at the NCH benefited from the commanding leadership of conductor Nicolae Dohotaru. His fast speeds for the two party scenes created an atmosphere of hedonistic abandon that served to point up the underlying tragedy lurking beneath the false gaiety. The intensity of his trusting way with the Act II gambling episode was positively gripping.
In the title role, Moldovan soprano Maria Tonina conveyed her character's defiance of her illness admirably. Her transition from vivacious flirtation, through courageous sacrifice to ultimate collapse, was carried most effectively. Her middle-weight soprano coped effortlessly with the Act I coloratura and the soft singing that enhanced the poignancy of her frailty was offset by her spunky reaction to the elder Germont's emotional blackmail. As her lover Alfredo, Ukranian tenor Ruslan Zinevych produced surprising volume for a man so compact in stature. His Italian was suspect, and his tuning wasn't always secure, but he wooed ardently. His varying moods of ardour, anger and remorse were achieved by some skilful vocal colouring that included an amount of effective soft singing. Petru Racovita was a splendid Germont père. The role allowed the Moldovan singer to fully exploit his vibrant baritone to the full. Apart from a lachrymose moment during Di Provenza, his portrayal concentrated on the character's inherent dignity. - JOHN ALLEN
Love Letters, Tivoli Theatre
A R Gurney has long been hailed as the dramatic voice of the American upper middle class, and Love Letters, written 20 years ago, continues to underpin his status. There are two characters, Andy and Melissa, whose lives and relationship are charted through their letters to each other. Her parents are richer, which offers her freedoms that operate to her detriment. Andy has inherited a sobriety that channels him into career achievement.
They develop a bitter-sweet relationship through their correspondence, she being the unstable one who mocks his restraint, while he disapproves of her wildness. Their words are suffused with a candour that argues an attachment which circumstances, parental and other, tend to smother. She marries badly, has children and drifts towards alcoholism. He is first a successful lawyer, and then a politician. The letters continue as the years fly by until, eventually and inevitably, they meet and have a sexual affair, curtailed by his conservatism.Jerry Hall creates Melissa as a complete person, truthful and self-aware to a painful extent. David Soul is the authoritative male, often disapproving but always committed and finally heartbroken. Together they are mesmeric. - GERRY COLGAN
Alela Diane, Crawdaddy
American singer/songwriter Alela Diane plies her trade with remarkable poise and confidence.
Initially, she's Ricky Lee Jones - with more gunpowder in her pen - as she launches headlong into songs from her debut CD, The Pirate's Gospel: a sometimes monochrome, frequently lyrically obtuse but mostly engaging collection. Accompanied by her (unnamed) father on guitar and mandolin, Alela Diane trundled down a road well travelled, invoking the natural world as a metaphor for her own biographical hollows and humps.
There's a parched dryness to Alela Diane's music reminiscent of Gillian Welch at her stripped down, bare-boned best. Saving The Rifle for her penultimate offering, she climbed deep into its darkness, a tale of murderous loss and an apt reflection of the panic and foreboding that bedevils her homeland these days.
With nothing more than a small but perfectly formed audience at her disposal, Alela Diane did what any self-respecting singer must do: she dug deep beneath the skin of her prickly, poised songbook and told her own story. - SIOBHÁN LONG
