Forthcoming highlights in 2010
Irish Baroque Orchestra/Monica Huggett
The Irish Baroque Orchestra is having a counter-recessionary January. It is putting on a six-concert series at the National Gallery, where it will perform three monuments of baroque music: all six of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, the full set of concertos of Handel's Opus 3 (another six), and all 12 concertos from Vivaldi's Opus 8, Il Cimento dell'Armonia e dell'Invenzione (The Contest between Harmony and Invention), the work that's now best-known for including the four concertos usually played together as the Four Seasons. You won't be able to hear all of The Four Seasons in a single programme at the National Gallery, but you will get them all together in a concert at the Wexford Opera House on Saturday 23rd, where the orchestra has coupled them with the fifth Brandenburg and Handel's Concerto Grosso in D minor, Opus 3 No 5. National Gallery, Dublin, January 12, 14, 16, 19, 21 and 24 MD
Peter Gabriel’s new album
In his first new solo album since 2002's Up, Peter Gabriel isn't necessarily playing by the rules. On Scratch my Back, one of rock's most successful mavericks has chosen to interpret songs from acts that include Arcade Fire, David Bowie, Elbow, Paul Simon, Radiohead, Bon Iver, Neil Young, Randy Newman, Talking Heads, Lou Reed, Magnetic Fields and Regina Spektor. The cover versions, needless to say, will be forward-thinking and idiosyncratic – they were recorded using only piano, orchestra and Gabriel's sonically untreated voice. Scratch my Back, released via EMI on January 25 TCL
Christ Deliver Us! Tom Kilroy
Tom Kilroy's first play in six years transports Frank Wedekind's 1891 symbolist masterpiece Spring Awakening, to repressed rural Ireland, circa 1950. It was so controversial that it wasn't produced until 15 years after it was written. The vivid erotic fantasises brought to life in Max Reinhardt's original production drew notoriety, and the play has been frequently censored and banned. Inspired by Wedekind's frank social and sexual critique, Kilroy's sophisticated theatrical imagination plumbs the depths of the characters' nascent identities, and this significant production will define the artistic identity of its director Wayne Jordan. Featuring performances by actors such as Aaron Monaghan and Denis Conway, Christ Deliver Us is the highlight of the Abbey's spring programme. Abbey Theatre, February 9- March 13 SK
Sean Scully
Carlow's National Centre for the Visual Arts, is organising a Sean Scully show to run from February to April. It will focus on his work from the 1980s, an important decade for him, when he had found his mature artistic voice. It will feature about 15 large-scale oils and the same number of works on paper. It's intriguingly partnered for part of its run with Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno's feature film Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, a riveting work that follows Zidane through one match from beginning to end. National Centre for Visual Arts, Carlow, February-April AD
Haunted
Having debuted in Manchester early last year, Edna O'Brien's play Haunted is coming to Ireland before going to the West End in early spring. O'Brien is best known for her novels, but Haunted is actually her 12th play, yet only her third to be seen in Ireland. The story has a touch of the Pygmalion about it, as it charts the relationship between a charming young stall holder and one of her patrons, Mr Berry. In return for elocution lessons, she is gifted with a selection of items from his wife's wardrobe. As Mrs Berry searches for an explanation for the missing clothes, hidden desire and regret come out of the close in this tense study of love and loss. Starring Brenda Blethyn, Heather Cooke, and a welcome return to the Irish stage by Niall Buggy, Haunted is a rare chance to see O'Brien's distinct imagination embodied on the stage. Gaiety Theatre, February 4 -13. Grand Opera House, Belfast, February 15-20. SK
Anne Tallentire
Imma is hosting a show, in February, by this unfailingly interesting, often challenging, artist. Tallentire's practice encompasses texts, performance (sometimes with an element of endurance), on video, photography and film and, on occasion, live, much of the time in collaboration with John Seth. The show will include a recent project and a number of other works. In these recent works she considers "itineracy and residue" in relation to the way we occupy urban spaces, personally and politically. Imma, February AD
The Absence of Women
The Absence of Women is a fitting metaphor for Owen McCafferty's entire canon of plays. However, in this case it refers directly to his latest work, which receives its premiere at Elmwood Hall, where the Lyric Theatre has taken up residence until the opening of its new theatre in 2011. Set in the lonely London of Irish immigrants, the terse two-hander explores the relationship between two Belfast labourers as they face the end of their lives in a hostel, talking of the present, thinking of the past, and wondering where home is now after all these years. With director Rachel O'Riordan at the helm, The Absence of Women promises to be a poignant encounter with the harsh legacies of emigration. Lyric Theatre at Elmwood Hall, February 8-27 SK
Vertical Thoughts: Morton Feldman and the Visual Arts
The composer Morton Feldman enjoyed a close involvement with visual artists and the visual arts. This Imma exhibition in March has been inspired by a curatorial project he undertook in 1967 in the show Six Painters. It includes works by some 14 artists associated with him, including Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, Jasper Johns, Alex Katz, RB Kitaj, Piet Mondrian and Jackson Pollock. It also incorporates music scores, album sleeves, photographs and documents, plus Oriental rugs in his possession and films on artists scored by him. A festival of his music is planned to coincide with the show.
Imma March AD
Alice in Wonderland
Do we need another adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s metaphysical fantasy? Well, the many fans of director Tim Burton would surely reply loudly in the affirmative. The gothic master behind Edward Scissorhands has cast Helena Bonham-Carter as the Red Queen and (who else?) Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. Curiouser and curiouser.
March 5 DC
Philadelphia Here I Come!
Brian Friel's important play received its Irish premiere at the Gaiety Theatre in 1964. It marked the beginning of one of the most significant periods in Irish theatre, in which writers like Friel, Tom Murphy and Thomas Kilroy brought the double-vision of the fast-modernising country to the stage in vivid theatrical fashion. Philadelphia, Here I Come! perfectly embodied the social schizophrenia with its presentation of the split personality of Gar O'Donnell. Directed by Dominic Dromgoole of London's Globe Theatre in his Irish debut, the production will feature Gerard McSorley, Barry McGovern and Brid Brennan in leading roles. The roles of Gar's Public and Private remain a closely guarded secret for the moment, but having elicited important performances from Donal McCann and Des Cave over the years, it provides an opportunity for two young actors to make their mark. Gaiety Theatre, March 9-April 10 SK
The Waterboys/An Appointment with Mr Yeats
Setting poetry to music can be a risky business but as Mike Scott's preview of some of his song versions of WB Yeats's poems, in the National Library last summer, demonstrated, he is an astute interpreter of the innate musicality and lyric passion that abounds in Yeats's work. The Waterboys' frontman also showed himself to be a close and attentive reader, well versed in the nuances of both the plays and poetry, especially WBY's ventures into more mystic terrain. This Abbey Theatre/Waterboys collaboration promises performances of The Song of Wandering Aengus, New For the Delphic Oracle and others. If all of Scott's versions measure up to his very effective and credible musical adaptation of An Irish Airman Foresees His Death, heard in the National Library, the marriage could be a good one. This is not Scott's first engagement with Yeats's poetry – a version of The Stolen Child appeared on Fisherman's Blues and he also recorded the poet's Love and Death. Nor is he the first musician to tackle Yeats: Van Morrison has done so with a superb recording of Before the World was Made as well as some of the Crazy Jane poems. The stage of our National Theatre seems the perfect setting in which to perform the work of one of its founding fathers. Abbey Theatre, March 15-20 GS
Oliver Comerford and Gary Coyle
Not a collaboration but two separate shows that happen to overlap at the RHA Gallagher Gallery, opening in mid-March. Comerford is a contemporary landscape painter whose evocations of nowhere spaces in meticulously made paintings explore ideas of space and place. Coyle's work encompasses large-scale charcoal drawings as well as photographs and even performance. It has a dark, ever morbid edge. Coincidentally, their close contemporary, Mark O'Kelly, whose highly allusive paintings investigate the nature of representation, has a solo show in the Temple Bar Gallery at the same time. RHA Gallagher Gallery, mid-March AD
Sodome, Ma Douche/Sodome, My Love
After last year's enormous ensemble undertaking (Solemn Mass for a Full Moon in Summer), Rough Magic has scaled back for this intimate chamber piece, starring Olwen Fouere. Translated from the French by Fouere herself, Sodome, My Love is set in the biblical city of joy and excess, whose name has become synonymous with sexual vice and sin. This Rough Magic production marks the premiere of Prix Goncourt winner Laurent Gaud's work in Ireland, and is a welcome opportunity to see the endlessly watchable Fouere on the Irish stage after a year's absence. Project Arts Centre, March 16-27 SK
Whitney Houston
It's been a while since she was around, but it seems that Whitney Houston (the most awarded female artist in pop music history, with over 400 awards to her name) has come back with a bang, and with, perhaps more crucially, a sense of what she can achieve as a pop star. Her Irish shows form part of her first major tour in over 11 years, and arrive at a point when she is – for the first time in many years – in the news for all the right reasons. Expect, effectively, a greatest hits show, a few songs from her latest album, I Look to You, more than several costume changes, and a paint-stripping show stopper in I Will Always Love You. The three shows have sold out. Dublin's 02, April 17/18/20 TCL
Samuel Beckett: Krapp’s Last Tape
After his stunning performance in Beckett's Eh Joe in 2006 and Pinter's No Man's Land in 2008, Michael Gambon returns to the Gate in Beckett's iconic Krapp's Last Tape. Gambon's rich voice and expressive ravaged face are resonant with the haunted histories of Beckett's characters, no more so than with the ghostly Krapp, who sits at his desk replaying memories from the past, from a happier time: was there ever a happier time, when there was at least the possibility of some joy? Krapp's Last Tape is Beckett at his finest: both as a prose stylist and a master of the stage. This production will be directed by Michael Colgan and, running for three weeks, is sure to be the highlight of the theatre's 2010 programme. Gate Theatre, April 21-May 15 SK
Jack B Yeats: The Outsider
The Model Arts and Niland Gallery in Sligo is gearing up for an interesting year when it re-opens in spring, but a highlight has to be its major Yeats exhibition which opens in late July. This touring retrospective is curated by artist Brian O'Doherty (lately Patrick Ireland). The show will concentrate on early and middle-period Yeats, with an emphasis on his political and mystical work from the 1930s. Model Arts and Niland Gallery, Sligo, July AD
Dublin Dance Festival 2010
The remarkable Raimund Hoghe will return to the Dublin Dance Festival, two years after his Swan Lake, 4 Acts became a word-of-mouth must-see for festival audiences. Young People, Old Voices dates from 2002 and contrasts Hogue's age and particularly physicality – he has a spinal condition – with four young Dublin performers, chosen by audition. Ballet-tanz magazine's Dancer of the Year in 2008, Hoghe was a dramaturg for Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal for 10 years, before choreographing solos and group works that have won a string of awards. Young People, Old Voices won't just be an audience hit, it is also a thematic centrepiece to this year's festival, which will embrace themes around different body types and attitudes to youth and age. May 7-22, various venues MS
Alicia Keys
American urban/soul artist Alicia Keys pays her first visit to Ireland in six year. She arrives here on the back of a dozen Grammy awards, collaborations with the diverse likes of Whitney Houston (for whom she wrote songs for her recent comeback album), Jack White, David Bowie, Jay-Z and Coldplay's Chris Martin. She has also garnered praise from such an unlikely ally as Bob Dylan, who name-checked (and so virtually immortalised) her on the title track of his 2007 album, Modern Times.
All this aside, Keys is a smart cookie, with acute musical instincts and a consummate sense of professionalism. Expect her latest album, The Element of Freedom, to be up for more Grammy awards in early 2010.
Dublin's 02 on May 21 TCL
London Symphony Orchestra/Valery Gergiev
When Valery Gergiev brought his Mariinsky chorus and orchestra to Belfast in 1999 – and took the chorus to Omagh for a performance of Rachmaninov’s Vespers in memory of those who suffered in the 1998 bombing – it all seemed very much like a once in a lifetime opportunity. But, happily, the great conductor has become a more frequent visitor, and next May he will make his fourth Irish appearance in five years, when he returns to the National Concert Hall with the London Symphony Orchestra. The programme offers the early 20th century luxuriance of Stravinsky’s complete Firebird ballet, and Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (a work that’s 20th century in all but date), as well as the more astringent flavour of Stravinsky’s later Symphony in C.
National Concert Hall, Dublin, Saturday May 15, 8pm MD
Sir John Lavery
Two successive shows at the Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane, celebrate Sir John Lavery (1856-1941), the Belfast-born artist who became the most successful society portraitist of his day and who maintained a close interest in Irish affairs, commemorating in paint many of the significant occasions in 1920s’ Irish history.
These works, and those dealing with his life with Hazel Lavery, make up the second show, Passion and Politics (from June to October), while the first (from May to June) concentrates on his portraits of artists. Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane May-June AD
RTÉ NSO/Alan Buribayev
Alan Buribayev, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra's principal conductor designate will become principal conductor in September. But he's got two concerts in May to give music lovers a taste of his style. The young Kazakh conductor – born in 1979, he's the youngest person ever to be appointed to the position – conducts Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky and a new work by Jennifer Walshe in the first programme, and Mozart, Beethoven and Berlioz in the second. The soloists on both nights are pianists, Finghin Collins (the orchestra's associate artist designate), and Frenchman François-Frédéric Guy. NCH, Dublin, May 7 and May 28 MD
West Cork Chamber Music Festival
The big change at the 2010 West Cork Chamber Music Festival is a change of days. The festival will open and end a day earlier than usual, starting on a Friday (June 25th) and ending on a Saturday (July 3rd). There will be no less than five string quartets appearing: the RTÉ Vanbrughs, the Pacifica, the Artis, the Callinos and the Chiaroscuro, this last a period-instruments ensemble led by the star of last year’s festival, Russian violinist Alina Ibragimova.
The bulk of the festival’s late-night slot will be given over to performances of late quartets by Beethoven and Schubert. Early mornings will be mostly baroque (heavily featuring recorder concertos with Kate Hearne), and the adventurous Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto will also give a recital pairing Bach’s Partita in D minor with improvisations and electronics.
Also appearing will be Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti’s piano trio and, in a break from tradition, there’s a really big concert, which will see the Irish Youth Choir and the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland in a performance of Brahms’s German Requiem at St Finbarr’s Church. Other visitors include pianists Philippe Cassard and Kirill Gerstein (who took the third prize at the Dublin International Piano Competition in 2000), oboist Nicholas Daniel and clarinettist/composer Jörg Widmann.
Bantry, June 25-July 3 MD
Janet Mullarney
Born in Dublin, sculptor Janet Mullarney has spent a great deal of time working in Italy. She is a beautifully fluent carver and maker. Her work evokes an inner, imaginative world that is quite timeless, at once ancient and modern, with simultaneous references to mythic archetypes and ordinary, everyday life. Human potential, responsibility and vulnerability are at the heart of her concerns. This is something to look forward to. RHA Gallagher Gallery, November-December AD
The Rite of Spring
Having received some glorious reviews in London for its collaboration with English National Opera on Stravinsky’s one-act opera, The Rite of Spring, Fabulous Beast has confirmed that it will be bringing the work back to Ireland in 2010. Directed by Michael Keegan-Dolan, the setting for Fabulous Beast’s typically visual staging is repressed rural Ireland, where pagan rituals enable a liberation that is both sexual and physical; a vision choreographed with Keegan-Dolan’s trademark passion.
Although a date and venue have yet to be confirmed, this is a production of festival stature, so keep your eyes peeled for the Galway Arts Festival line-up announced in June and the Dublin Theatre Festival programme which is launched in August. SK
SAMUEL BARBER: centenary celebrations
SAMUEL BARBER, composer of the ubiquitous Adagio, was born on March 9th, 1910. The American composer’s centenary gives special scope to Irish promoters, for Barber was interested in Irish writers, and set poetry by Yeats, Joyce and Stephens, as well as anonymous poems by Irish monks, translated by various hands. Songs are at the heart of the celebration by Nóta, a promoter whose last venture was into Polish music.
Soprano Roberta Alexander and baritone Brian Mulligan are joined at the National Concert Hall, on what would have been the composer’s 100th birthday, by pianist Lilia Boyadjieva and the RTÉ Vanbrugh String Quartet for a programme that will include Barber’s Irish settings, the string quartet in which the famous Adagio first surfaced, and also Dover Beach for baritone and quartet, which the composer himself recorded in his youth.
Nóta is also planning a recital by leading US baritone Thomas Hampson (NCH, May 30th), and is hoping to commemorate the composer’s 1951 visit to Glenveagh Castle in Co Donegal in early July. The National Symphony Orchestra is also marking the Barber centenary. Eugene Ugorski plays the Violin Concerto on January 29th, soprano Mairéad Buicke is the soloist in Knoxville: Summer of 1915 on the orchestra’s March tour, and Philip Martin plays the Piano Concerto on April 30th.
Barber's Prayers of Kierkegaard feature in the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland's concerts with the Irish Youth Choir at the beginning of July. MD
LIBESKIND: Grand Canal Theatre
DUBLIN'S DOCKLANDSmay have lost out on becoming home to a new national theatre, but it is now the location for the impressively world-class Grand Canal Theatre – a venue that fills a gap that has long existed in the capital for the accommodation of large-scale productions and the kinds of shows that attract Irish audiences to London's West End and Broadway. With a seating capacity for 2,000, and designed by star architect Daniel Libeskind, the new three-tiered auditorium and performance space adheres very much to his multi-shaped signature style and is bound to enliven and complete a vista on the Grand Canal concourse on the Liffey's south side. The theatre opens on March 18th with a Russian State Ballet production of Swan Lake. GS
Edited by Gerry Smyth
Contributions from
DC - Donald Clarke
TCL - Tony Clayton-Lea
AD - Aidan Dunne
MD - Michael Dervan
SK - Sara Keating
GS - Gerry Smyth
MS - Michael Seaver
