The Nash Ensemble, Edinburgh

The Wigmore Hall's resident Nash Ensemble graced Edinburgh for the closing concert of the New Town Concert Society's 2011/12 series. Their programme opened with James Macmillan's 2007 Quintet for Horn and String Quartet, continuing the horn-featuring programming the Edinburgh concert scene has seen this season. This work shares the sound world of Macmillan's widely acclaimed large scale work, Tuireadh, a lament for the Piper Alpha disaster, but is for smaller forces. It also showcases the hunting and military aspects of the horn's character as an instrument, contrasting these with passages for various of the players suggesting a keening lament, further referencing Tuireadh. Of these latter sections, an extended solo for the viola – here ably performed by Lawrence Power, who featured in last week's performance here with the Scottish Ensemble – stand out and is one of the most delightful passages in the entire work.

Although the Macmillan piece was both interesting and enjoyable, for me the highlight of the evening was a sensitive and evocative performance of Brahms's lovely Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano (Op40), another work again featuring the French horn. This also shares with Macmillan's quintet the feeling of an orchestral scale of work, notwithstanding the use of compact forces, especially in this trio, it has much of the expansiveness of the Second and Third Symphonies. The works also share the element of mourning, this Trio being written in memory of Brahms's mother, who had died only four months before it was completed. Yet another parallel between the works is the referencing of the use of the horn in hunting, Brahms portraying a forest scene in the scherzo and featuring the hunting horn in it, giving a foreshadowing of Mahler.

The use of the horn gives a typically Brahmsian tone quality, as with the use of the clarinet in the chamber trio he wrote for that instrument, although there is also a clear homage to Bach. This work's emotional heart is in its yearning Adagio third movement, again a feature which draws parallels to the great Adagios of Mahler, whose debt to Brahms was vividly illustrated in this work, such as that of his Fifth Symphony.

This was followed by a good account of the Dvorak Quintet for Piano and Strings (Op81), allowing horn player Richard Watkins a well earned rest. This was a good performance of a work which although widely performed I consider over-rated; to my mind it would have been preferable to have continued with more Brahms and played his own superior Quintet, or to have selected the other major and pleasing romantic 19th century Quintet, that of Schumann.

by Juliet Williams
photo: Hanya Chlala/ Arenapal

Daring and purpose - Royal Opera House 2012-2013

Fascinating Royal Opera House 2012-13 season mixes daring with prudence – passionate. "Opera is an emotional fitness centre", says Kasper Holten, Director of Opera, because it exercises many different feelings. Through opera, we engage with the drama of being human. Running an opera house is more than just business. Its "product" is creativity. If opera houses scale back and play safe, they lose the vision that makes opera thrilling in the first place. Holten's strategy for straitened times is daring. Grow the audience from strength, giving patrons something to get excited about, whether they're new to the genre or not.

Six new opera productions, higher profile revivals and an ambitious programme of external events that will expand the reach of the Royal Opera House far beyond Covent Garden.  More live HD broadcasts, so ROH premieres can reach wider audiences. More links with smaller, independent companies. Even an experimental pricing structure. The whole atmosphere is a buzz, reflecting Holten's dual responsibilties as manager and as creative artist.

Obviously the big Wagner Ring will dominate the autumn season. It's sold out, despite sky-high prices, but Wagner's anniversary is most definitely a special occasion. This production is aimed at a more general audience than a core of Wagner aficionados. Bryn Terfel, Susan Bullock and other stars ensure its success. This is a new Keith Warner production, conducted by Antonio Pappano. Wagner is always interesting and the sheer sense of occasion is part of the attraction. It takes the Met to really destroy the Ring. The ROH Ring should keep the house afloat for years.

In December, Giacomo Meyerbeer's Robert Le Diable makes its first London appearance since around 1890.  Once, Robert Le Diable was un succès fou, a sensation to which all Europe flocked, for it marked a new style in French opera. Heinrich Heine attended, incorporating it into his poetry "Es ist ein großes Zauberstück, Voll Teufelslust und Liebe" (read the full story here).  The painting at right is Degas, Ballet from Robert le Diable (1876). Some of the arias are very well known, since Joan Sutherland was very fond of them. So hearing it in context is a great opportunity. There's a renaissance in 19th century French opera, and the ROH has been on the crest, with Massenet, Berlioz and Gounod. The cast is superb. Brian Hymel who so impressed as the Prince in Rusalka, will be singing with Diana Damrau, Marina Poplavskaya, John Relyea and Jean-François Borras. This repertoire diverges from the Italianate style so fashionable at present, so  it's good news for opera adventurers exploring "new" perspectives.

Benjamin Britten's centenary falls in November 2013, so the eyes of the world will be on how Britain honours the greatest opera composer it has produced. Britten often visited the ROH (he used to eat at Bertorelli's) but he wasn't really part of the ROH in-crowd then. So it's good that the Royal Opera House is giving him his due, and with a twist Britten would have appreciated.  Had the ROH been boring and played safe, we'd get another Peter Grimes. Instead, Holten has chosen the extremely rare Gloriana, which even Britten true believers don't know well. This is thrilling, as Gloriana is problematic to stage, for Britten experiments with Elizabethan form.  There's only one recording (dull) and an Opus Arte DVD with Opera North (brilliant) which treats the work in cinematic style, which is an excellent solution. (review here). It would be hard to top that but the Royal Opera House has resources few other have, and Richard Jones as director could make it work. Strong British cast:: Susan Bullock, Kate Royal, Toby Spence, Mark Stone and other stalwarts, conducted by Paul Daniel. Definitely a "historic event".

Three of the most important British composers are highlighted this year. Britten, Harrison Birtwistle and George Benjamin, "The 3 B's" quips Holten. Perhaps the most significant British opera in recent years, Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur, is revived at last in January. Get to this, since the DVD is inertly filmed, something I hope Holten will address at some stage, since film is the next frontier in bringing opera to audiences outside the house. Like any other part of staging it needs to be done well. John Tomlinson, Christine Rice, Andrew Watts and Johan Reuter return, and Alan Oke sings the part created by Philip Langridge (read the interview I did with him here about The Minotaur and about Birtwistle, his close friend).

George Benjamin's new opera, Written on the Skin, premieres March 8 2013. This is a very important occasion indeed, and will be heard in eight European cities. Benjamin's not a fast writer, but painstakingly scrupulous, and this is his most ambitious large work to date. The libretto is by Martin Crimp, with whom Benjamin created the masterpiece Into the Little Hill. Read more about that here. The plot's dramatic. A rich man hires an artist to illuminate a manuscriipt. The rich man kills the artist when the latter falls in love wuth the former's wife and has him baked into a pie and served for dinner. Barbara Hannigan sings the wife,  which means the part will be fiendishly inventive and demanding. That's Hannigan's speciality (read about her singing Boulez here on this site). Obviously a countertenor role to match, this time Bejun Mehta. Benjamin is a quinessentially European composer, so it's good that Written on the Skin will be broadcast live, internationally in HD.

The Royal Opera House has always been good for Verdi. The new season brings a Verdi Immersion, three operas in sucession, a sort of Verdi Ring, since his anniversary coincides with Wagner's. The series starts, appropriately, with Nabucco, in a new production by Daniele Abbado and Alison Chitty. Plácido Domingo and Leo Nucci alternate Nabucco. Domingo's presence alone will make this an attraction. He's an icon as much as a singer. Acting isn't affected by age. Domingo can project character, which is what this role needs.  Since it's Nabucco, the Royal Opera House chorus will be in their element. and they're so good they could carry the show. Nabucco is followed by Don Carlos in May and Simon Boccanegra in June/July. Although the latter are revivals, if they're worth doing, they're worth doing well, so the ROH is are injecting high-quality standards worthy of the best new productions. Antonio Pappano is taking over the conducting and Verdi is his speciality. Absolutely top quality singers - Harteros, Kaufmann, Kwiecień, Furlanetto, Halvarson, Hampson. Even if you've seen these umpteen tmes before, this time they will sound fresh.

It's good that the Royal Opera  House has in Holten a director who is a hands-on theatre person, because that ensures he's on the ball as an artist. February brings his first ROH production, Tchaikovsky's  Eugene Onegin.  Partly Russian cast with Simon Keenlyside for popular appeal. Robin Ticciati, the new incumbent at Glyndebourne, conducts. Since the ROH will be working more with other houses like the innovative Music Theatre Wales, what might this signify, if it means anything at all? Chances are that this time the audience won't mindlessly applaud the scenery as they did at the ENO, but instead pay attention to the music.

Also an indicator of new creative times is Gioachino Rossini La Donna del Lago in May, a new production directed by John Fulljames, Associate Director  This is significant because it was to have been a co-production, but the Royal Opera House pulled out and created their own.  This is radical, but it's much better to do good work than regurgitate a turkey. Operas have a long run in time, so it's a wonder this doesn't happen more often and save more reputations, time and money. Holten describes Fulljames as the ROH "dramaturge", an artistic philospher with very strong theatre skills, as anyone familiar with his work over the years will recognize. Fulljames's new production was put together efficiently, using pre-existing technical resources for new purposes. This isn't recycling, but resourcefulness, as it takes a genuinely creative mind to work round difficulties. Much trickier than working from a blank canvas. Perhaps this is a good way forward at a time of budget restraint?  The cast includes Joyce DiDonato, Juan Diego Flórez, specialists in this repertoire, so for singing alone, this new La Donna del Lago will be intriguing.

The more you look into the Royal Opera House 2012-13 season, the more there is to look forward to! Further details on the ROH website HERE and on Opera Today.
photo: Peter Suranyi

The misfortune of Miss Fortune - Royal Opera House

An absurd plot has never stood in the way of a good opera. Unfortunately, Judith Weir's Miss Fortune  at the Royal Opera House isn't much of an opera. It's an anomaly in an otherwise fertile career which has made Weir one of the significant British composers of our time. Every composer has dry spells. It's just bad luck that while Weir is getting maximum attention, Miss Fortune does not show her at her best. Better a revival of A Night at The Chinese Opera or Blond Eckbert than this mishap.

The surmise is reasonable enough. Billionaire parents instantly lose all they have. "I'll work, I'll live, I'll eat" sings Tina (Emma Bell) their daughter, "I'll find my way on the street". Perhaps, but the hardships she comes across are so sanitized that they're hard to take seriously. Of course this is a fairy tale, but real fairy tales have bite. Miss Fortune is so shallow you couldn't drown a gnat.

So don't come expecting real emotions in this opera, and certainly no element of social analysis. The whole opera predicates on the idea of Fate in the form of a doppelgänger in a natty tie-dyed dressing gown. "I'm with you everywhere" sings Andrew Watts, trying his utmost to sound convincing, but there's so little substance in this text that even he can't bring out the malevolent possibilities in the character. Fate isn't fair, it's insane. Countertenors have the range to madden and confound, but the music here is so even-tempered that it makes little impact.  When one of the breakdancers spins dangerously on the top of his head, risking his neck and spine, he expresses more about the nature of fate than anything in this music. It's not a good sign when a choreographer can say more about the meaning of an opera than a composer. Wonderful dancing, however. These men (members of the Soul Mavericks) were so good that they almost rescued the whole show.

Lord and Lady Fortune (Alan Ewing and Kathryn Harries) have parts to sing that are more slapstick panto than depth, and Weir's writing for them is very good, setting each at counterpurposes to the other, which expresses personality. But poor Tina! She's such an inept cipher that Emma Bell hardly has to do much more than follow the notes. Hassan (Noah Stewart) and Donna (Anne-Marie Owens) are stock characters too, dutifully realized. .

The problem lies in the libretto. Judith Weir is brilliant at writing atmospheric, descriptive music, but such music needs something to hang on to, like flesh needs a skeleton (another image of Fate).This libretto is so weak, it's embarrassing. The banality of the text follows the banality of the narrative, and the music doesn't rise above it.  For example, sharp-suited Simon the Yuppie (Jacques Imbrailo) comes down from his office ("it's not far away") to tell Donna the Laundromat Lady that his shirt is the best laundered and best ironed he's ever worn. That's about the level of discourse in this opera. The Deus ex machina is a lottery ticket which may or may not change Fate, but it's so artificial we don't really care. Imbrailo's singing was by far the finest singing of all, exquisitely shaped and warmed with sincerity. Imbrailo is such a genuinely nice person in real life that perhaps  he can identify with the better aspects of Simon. But the beauty of his singing was at odds with pedestrian vocal demands in the score. If only the part had been written with more substance, doing justice to this level of singing.

The staging on the other hand was superb. Wonderful set by Tom Pye, based on two triangular objects suspended above the stage, onto which were projected  a fantastic array of light effects and videos (Scott Zielinski, Leigh Sachwitz, Flora and Faunavisions). This was truly magical.  Inventive costumes (Han Feng) and strong direction by Chen Shi-zheng, who injects the proceedings with a charm lacking in the music. You could have spent the whole evening marvelling at this staging.  Miss Fortune and Rusalka are mirror opposites, one wuith good music and dull staging, the other with wonderful staging and uninvolving music. But we shouldn't go to the opera to enjoy the scenery, even when it's as good as this. It's the characters that make an opera, and their feelings, as brought out in the music.

Paul Daniel is an excellent and much underrated conductor who made his name in the ENO glory days when Weir and Turnage were in their prime. He has experience and inspired good playing from this orchestra, better than several conductors we've heard in recent months. Hopefully, he'll be back again soon - he's an asset.

There were so many positives about this production. It would be hard to imagine a better range of resources utilized to make it work. But Miss Fortune is fatally flawed because it just isn't very dramatic. I longed for Mark Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole, which has grown on me with time. Anna Nicole had its dull moments, but its grotesqueries were so engrossing that they held attention, even if they made you want to scream.

More, with full cast and more photos to come in Opera Today
Photos : Bill Cooper, courtesy Royal Opera House

Judith Weir, Blond Eckbert

Judith Weir's Miss Fortune starts tonight at the Royal Opera House. She's written many operas in the past, because she's a natural story teller. One of my favourites is Blond Eckbert (1993) which premiered at the ENO and was last staged in London at the Linbury Theatre, ROH in 2006  It was staged by John Fulljames, now Kaspar Holten's associate at the Royal Opera House, with the innovative company The Opera Group, without whom much modern British opera would be undervalued.  This is what I wrote at the time:

"The dark, wild forests of Germany were powerfully symbolic in folklore. Hidden in the forest, strange, elemental forces operated and in the “realm of the night” anything could happen. Fairy tales were a kind of ancient folk imagination, subverting the rational orderliness of society. Little wonder then that the Romantics, breaking away from classical sensibility, found inspiration in peasant folklore for it was like a code for exploring complex feelings, in an era before psychology give us terms to articulate them. We owe “the forest” a lot and tonight’s concert showed how powerful the symbolism still remains.

On a plain black set, a singer in white tells a story from the Brothers Grimm. Thus starts Hesketh’s Small Tales, Tall Tales. The music follows the narrative closely, just discordant enough to remind the listener that all is not what it seems. The piece flows naturally into Weir’s Really ?...and other stories. They have a natural affinity, like Ewartung and Bluebeard’s Castle. They could easily become popular staples of music theatre as they are accessible enough to appeal to a wide audience, and not too technically difficult for non-specialist performance. Hesketh’s music is inventive and filled with telling detail, such as a reference to the demented music in the murder scene in Wozzeck. Schlauraffenland, the third section, might translate as “The Land of Milk and Honey” ie. a place too good to be true. One tall tale is surpassed by the next, the delusion ending with cockcrow at dawn……..or does it ?

In Blond Eckbert, what we see as reality turns out to be total delusion, except that we don’t know where, when and how the balance shifts. The story comes from Ludwig von Tieck’s tale about a man who lives in a remote part of the Harz Mountains (heavily wooded and mysterious in those days before roads and cars). He and his wife live in isolation, independent, they think, of ties to the world. Weir originally wrote this hour long opera for large orchestra, but here the orchestration was sharply reduced to only ten players. Surprisingly, the transcription works as well as the larger version, which has been filmed and is available on CD (NMC D106). Leaving out percussion and big brass, Weir focuses on instruments that bring out a soundworld closer to early Romantic music. She doesn’t actually quote, but I kept hearing echoes of Weber, Mendelssohn, Loewe, Schumann and Brahms. It’s no accident, since Brahms also set Die schöne Magelone, undoubtedly the best known musical version of any Tieck text. This is beautiful, musically astute writing. It captures with exquisite sympathy the magical world of early German opera and Singspiele. Yet Weir’s music is unequivocally contemporary in its adventurous form and phrasing, the shifting dissonances adding wordless voices to comment on the narrative so that the ghosts in the tale seem to be in the pit as well as on stage. In his paranoia, Eckbert hears voices accusing him as “murderer”, and “criminal” and it’s brilliantly imaginative that the orchestra should add to the unsettling hysteria. The scoring for harp is exquisite and warm, and follows the voices, yet it, too, conveys an air of deceptive calm.

The chamber transcription is excellent because it works better with the mood of oppressive claustrophobia. Anyone understanding the symbolism of folktale can recognise that the dark expanse of stage that keeps Eckbert’s home squashed into a corner, is a symbol of the universal “forest”, the subconscious. The use of blinds to screen out the world from the “moderation” of his home is brilliant. It is a metaphor for repression, for keeping the unruly inner demons of the forest outside. Eckbert can pace nervously up and down, pulling at the blinds, as if dimly aware that the “temperance” that governs his life hangs by a thread – or the string of a Venetian blind.

The sense of being hemmed in is powerfully potent, for ultimately, Eckbert and Berthe cannot escape from what happened long ago in the dense woods, even if they don’t understand why. The mysterious exotic bird (sung by Claire Wild) has the freest, most soaring music, as well as being free to move about all over the stage: “ O Waldeinsamkeit!” she sings. The isolation of the woods reflects the isolation of the soul which Eckbert experiences in his mental collapse. Yet is it just Eckbert who goes stir crazy ? Is he Berthe’s brother or is that another tall story ? Or does he exist at all ? Is he a projection of Berthe’s troubled subconscious ? Berthe (Heather Shipp) may not have many lines to sing, but the whole plot hinges on her past, and her role is critical. Yet is she real, either ? That wig and 1950’s plastic stiffness may imply that she is but a projection of Eckbert’s psyche.

And then there's Walther, Eckbert’s only friend. This demanding part involves, literally, shape shifting. Has he been the mysterious old woman in the woods all along ? Is he Eckbert’s alter ego ? Is Eckbert’s realisation that he “longs to disclose” his secrets, the catalyst for all that is to come ? How does Walther become Hugo ? Owen Gilhooly’s Eckbert and Mark Wilde’s Walther are a pair. Both parts have the most innovative music, and are far more demanding than either of the female roles. I suspect too, that the more restrained orchestration has a lot to do with shifting the balances and bringing out new levels of meaning. Gilhooly and Wilde are very convincing performers, whatever it is they’re meant to “be”.

Expressing this fundamental ambiguity is Weir’s great achievement. She understands that the forest and the folktales that lurk in its depths are a symbol of the human soul. Nothing is quite what it seems. We don’t know the convoluted paths through the woods and probably never will. But as Herder, Tieck, the Brothers Grimm, Brentano and von Arnim and other Romantics intuited, you can keep the forest at bay but you can’t get ever get away from it completely. Blond Eckbert is Ewartung and Bluebeard’s Castle in one, and with a distinctive twist.

Godzilla, remembering the tsunami

It's been a year since the tsunami hit Northern Japan, followed by the emergency at Fukushima. The western news media have moved on, but for many of the Japanese involved, the trauma hasn't ended. Earlier this month, BBC2  TV ran a programme "Children of the Tsunami" (clip here). Kids are more matter of fact than adults, because they're so direct. These kids were positive and upbeat but I suspect they'd be a lot more screwed up if they didn't have good families and a supportive culture which predicates on everyone chipping in together.  One boy was so young he couldn't relate to things and became mute. It's a gradual process and full healing won't come soon. When one of the boys was asked what he'd do to reverse the disaster, he innocently said, "pick it all up and put it back in the sea where it came from". Perfectly logical if you're a kid. And presumably one who's grown up with Japanese ideas of the balance of nature.

Last year I wrote about Ishiro Honda's 1954 film Godzilla (Gojira in Japanese). Godzilla rises from the ocean and wreaks havoc on land. Everyone thinks the world is going to end. Then the scientist hears schoolchildren singing "The Prayer for Peace" and knows what he has to do. The music for the film was composed by Akira Ikufube 伊福部 昭 (1914-2006), himself a victim of radiation, but who lived to a ripe old age. Ikufube's score is evocative when you listen as music, without the film. Godziilla's main theme is poignant and beautiful, though he's a monster. When he stomps on land, and tears up electricity  pylons, the ostinato theme sounds like The Rite of Spring, only more bereft and anguished. Then, when the children sing the Prayer for Peace in a plaintive minor key, you realize it's an adaptation of the main Godzilla theme. Godzilla is much more than a monster movie, it's a parable about the power of nature, an art movie in every sense. DETAILS HERE.  Ikufube's full score is now available minus film so you can enjoy it on both levels. Also a lot of his symphonic music and non-film work. Please see lots more on Japanese film, Japanese composers and music for film on this site.

Anna Netrebko lets rip for the women of the world !

Normally I run miles from stuff like Women in the World, so pious and earnest! Real women are busy getting on with things. But this year Anna Netrebko got invited to do the "women in the arts" slot and she wowed them dead. Remember this was for people who don't listen to classical music usually, so the idea is to blast them off their feet. Which Trebs knows how to do. She's pretty down to earth, I think, and has often been spotted incognito at the Royal Opera House. Last time, she was there, for Don Giovanni, to watch Erwin Schrott undress (which she can do at home), she was sitting two seats from me. Nobody noticed, since many of the audience were first timers, which must have miffed her. At first I looked at her friend, who had a  family resemblance, and was stunningly attired. They rushed off after the first act but returned early for the second. I was meditating, as I do in spare moments, and felt a presence beside me. Looking up, straight at La Trebs, not two feet away. Beatific smile from her, genuinely friendly, though she didn't have a clue who I was. I smiled back, she smiled again. Lovely! So watch her as she shows a non-music audience what her job involves.

Meyerbeer and Heinrich Heine

Is 19th century French opera having a renaissance? Certainly seems so with so many new performances of Berlioz, Massenet and others  We're now so used to heavier Italanate singing that maybe it's a good time to hear different kinds of voices and open out the repertoire. I've been listening to Giacomo Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable.(1831). Someone once told me it's a mad mix of Don Giovanni and Faust, but I'm not so sure.  It's pretty crazy and a great vehicle for singers - soprano, high lyric tenor and low baritone. Thus most people know the opera through star arias. But once Robert Le Diable was a wild sensation to which le tout Paris flocked. The picture shows a performance in Paris in 1850, by which time the opera was a well established favourite. Wagner saw it, and Heinrich Heine, who wrote this poem. It was set by Wilhelm Killmayer and has been recorded by Christoph Prégardien. The poet is a man about town, intent on seducing a racy lady. They have an assignation in a private dining room (the 19th century equivalent of love motels - think Der Rosenkavalier, where Octavian cons Baron Ochs)

Komm morgen zwischen zwei und drei,
Dann sollen neue Flammen
Bewähren meine Schwärmerei;
Wir essen nachher zusammen.

Wenn ich Billette bekommen kann,
Bin ich sogar kapabel,
Dich in die Oper zu führen alsdann:
Man gibt Robert-le-Diable.

Es ist ein großes Zauberstück
Voll Teufelslust und Liebe;
Von Meyerbeer ist die Musik,
Der schlechte Text von Scribe.

"Come tomorrow between 2 and 3. Then shall new flames prove my passion. We'll dine together afterwards. If I can get tickets (and I'm a crafty lad). I'll take you to the opera. They're doing Robert le Diable. It's a great bit of magic, full of devilry and love. From Meyerbeer the music. Crap text by Scribe"

And here is a taster ! More soon

Walter Braunfels Jeanne D'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna

Walter Braunfels's Jeanne d'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna is a much underestimated work. It's eclipsed by the fame of Die Vögel, but Jeanne d'Arc is a masterpiece. Braunfels fought at the front during the First World War. The trauma completely changed his perspectives. Die Vögel is is an early stage in Braunfel's's engagement with the issues of the 20th century. Jeanne d'Arc is in many ways its culmination, politically, spritually and musically.
 
Braunfels started writing Jeanne d'Arc in 1938. He'd been proscribed by the Nazis, and made an unemployable non-person whose music could not be performed in public. Hitler was threatening war, staved off by British appeasement. By the time Braunfels completed the opera in 1943, war had broken out all over again on an even wider scale than the war he'd known. This time his sons were at the front.. The madness was happening all over again."We are like castaways on a desert island, around which the hurricane continues to rage", he wrote.

Braunfels's choice of subject was deliberate. Joan of Arc rallied the French against English invaders. This time France was invaded by Germans. Joan was a powerless girl who stood up to overwhelming forces. Throughout Europe in the 1920's, 30's  and 40's, Joan was a symbol  explored in plays, movies, and music. Braunfels's most direct inspiration was Paul Hindemith's Mathis der Maler, which he heard in Zurich in 1938. By connecting to medieval Christian Europe, Braunfels eschews both totalitarian anti-religion and the kind of nationalism that causes war.

Braunfels's libretto, which he wrote himself after reading about Joan's trial, places the context firmly in  a time of crisis. A chorus of villagers cry in panic, Hilfe, Hilfe! As Joan's father later says "An Himmel lohnt drer Brand von tausend Höfen". Johanna, however, is sitting by a tree from which a strange light is shining. Voices tell her that she has a mission. She';s so child-like that she sings a ditty, complete with tra la las. "Denn ein Kreiger, ein Kreiger, soll ich werden".

Braunfels's music is pointedly pure and simple. Single instrumental groups, often solo instruments, swathes of strings and winds suggest flowing movement not decoration for its own sake. Even in the scenes in the royal court, textures are clean, texts conversational. King and knights, portrayed as ordinary men. When Saint Michael appears, he's almost one of their own. For the faithful like Johanna, (and Braunfels), saints are as natural as normal people.

Braunfels uses a formal structure to frame the narrative, like a  medieval painting. Three main sections, Der Berufung (the summons) Der Triumph and Das Leiden, (Sufferings) unfold. Der Triumph, of course, lasts but a few minutes. It's preceded by a bizarre interlude, after the first Act. The Herzog de la Trémouille steps in front of the theatre curtain and sings a monologue. "When God created the Fool, he, the wisest of all, could be sure that scum (Abschaum) would arise from it". The Duke thinks Johanna is scum, for she leads "Die dumpfe Masse" (stupid masses) "From every hole there now crawls all who were poor, and who, deeply humiliated, long for a 1000 year Reich - troopers, roughnecks, greedy wastrels!". (Landsknechte, Raufbolde, geldsücht'ge Habenichste). Ferocious dark chords, skeletal discords, smoky woodwinds. The vocal part is set with angular extremes. "And I alone" sings the bass, "should be wrong because I don't follow deception and don't give in to urges". Perhaps Braunfels is referring to non-believers who distrust faith and miracles. But the references to the rise of the Brownshirts are so obvious that they can't be ignored.  Anyone who thinks Braunfels was a mindless, dreamy Romantic needs to hear this, and wonder what its upside down morality might mean.

The moment of Johanna's triumph at Rheims with fanfares. At last the music soars as one would expect, but this is no cinematic glory. Braunfels keeps his colours clear, the text simple. "Johanna ! Johanna!" the townsfolk cry, but there's a chill, which prepares us for the nest scene, where at dawn, Johanna is communing alone with her voices. This minor-key stillness seems the true heart of Braunfels's meditation,   We're spared the deatils of Johanna's first imprisonment. Each scene is preceded by a Vorpeil that creates mood, but the one that begins the third act expresses the passage of time. Johanna has been confessed and recanted, yet she's still in prison. Dark rhythms, blasting timpani, trumpets blasting, Johanna's voice ascending shooting up the scale, all sudden, tense moments cut off in their prime.  Distant kin of the jerky bird rhythms of Die Vögel and Die Verkündigung. The Vicar Inquisitor condemns Johanna in a mix of speech and stylized chant. The king and nobles call Johanna  a fraud : their music vaguely like medieval march. Then St Michael appears, a Lohengrin whom no-one can see.

Long, keening lines in the orchestra. We're now at the stake in the marketplace at Rouen. Joan is calm for Saint Michael has told her why she must die. Significantly, now, Braunfels gives Gilles des Rais (Bluebeard) an interesting aria. "Nien, niemals, nein, niemals, so endet das nicht"  He can't believe that the real miracle is Johanna's death, not her escape. Braunfels shows des Rais as sensitive, confused and desperate for certainty, "Gewissheit! Gewissheit! Gewissheit!". Perhaps it was that crisis of faith that drove the historic des Rais into madness and turned him into a mass murderer of innocent children? This is an aspect of the story few explore, but Braunfels does it by implication,  and shows it as.a very 20th century anguish.

The Bishop of Beauvais insists "Mein System war der richtiges!", but the part is written to show the strain on the tenor's voice. Yet again, we hear the bird rhythms of  Die Vögel , and how they function as exclamation points breaking up the vocal line. Not comfortable, soothing or Romantic at all.  In contrast, the deeper, more lugubrious timbre of the Vicar Inquisitor, who shows more sympathy with Johanna. The chorus howls like a mob and in a sudden crescendo, we can hear the flames ignite. Screams and  eerie"smoke" like cadences from the orchestra. Gilles des Rais appears again, his last aria tinged with extreme grief. He sees Johanna as Christ-like, but still can't understand what her death means "Satan, du hast geseigt". Only when the mob discovers that Johanna's heart did not burn do they realize a miracle has taken place. "Wir haben eine Heilige gebrannt" cries the Vicar Inquisitor. By then, though, it's too late.

Braunfels's Jeanne d'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna is mock medieval, but like Hiundemith's Mathis der Maler, Hartmann's Simplicius Simplicissimuss, (more HERE) Orff's Carmina Burana and indeed Braunfel's  Die Verkündigung. (more HERE) the medievalism is but a disguise for utterly modern preoccupations.  There's nothing retro or escapist in these pieces. Far too much is made of the fact that fashion changed after the war, and this music didn't get performed.  After the trauma of the Second World War, people were hardly in the mood to deal with reminders of the period, especially when, up to 1989, much of central and eastern Europe was still controlled by the Soviet Union, in direct consequence of the war. Similarly, the "jazz age" and modernity of the 1920;s was a reaction against the trauma of the First World War and the forces that shaped it. As Braunfels would certainly have understood, cultures need periodic renewal..

It's nonsense to blame Schoenberg or modern music for the eclipse of composers like Braunfels. Fashions in music change all the time. No-one forced anyone to write 12 tone, it just opened up new ideas. Berg and Webern wrote in very different styles to Schoenberg.  Composers often seem to disappear after they die for no apparent reason. Schubert, for example, was obscure long after his death, revived sporadically, and the D numbers organized for the 1928 centenary. Even Bach fell out of fashion until Mendelssohn performed him and made sure he was published.

The notion that Braunfels and others were "suppressed" by modern music is as crazy as thinking you can be President if you can see Russia from your backyard. Braunfels and his peers were modern.  There are many kinds of modernity, and hearing them in the context of art, literature and the culture of their time, shows how they fit into place. So why the need to hear them as "suppressed" by modernity?
 
I don't know why only a few minutes of Braunfel's Phantastische Erscheinungen eines Themas von Hector Berlioz (read more HERE) was heard at the Proms. It was as if the composer had been posthumously castrated.  Surely those who love his work should be proud of what he achieved? But until we learn to listen to Braunfels and the composers of his time for what they really wrote, they won't get the genuine respect they deserve.

There's a very good recording of Braunfels Jeanne d'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna released late last year on Decca. Juliane Banse sings Johanna (she also sang the lead in Die Verkündigung), Terje Stensvold sings Gilles des Rais, Günter Missenhardt the Herzog de la Trémouille. Manfred Honeck, who specializes in Braunfels, conducts the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Get it. Extremely good performances, and conducting. Just as it's a good idea to avoid the sloppy molasses LA Die Vögel (Conlon) in favour of the vastly more intelligent, idiomatic 1997 Decca Die Vögel (Zagrosek and a cast who really can sing those high notes) best stick to Honeck with European orchestras.
Please also see the other things I've writte about Joan of Arc in music, film and art, and lots more on Braunfels  

Booers and Boors - How I'd stage Rusalka

Recently, someone disliked a Bruckner performance so much  that he walked out.  Big fuss in the press. Yet when booers attack Dvořák's Rusalka at the Royal Opera House, the media go wild and give more mileage to the booers than to the opera itself. Ironic huh?  The man who walked out of Bruckner knows his Bruckner passionately (and is Ken Russell's son, a chip off the old block). For every genuine music lover, there are a thousand who boo for pleasure and the satisfaction they get from imposing themselves on others. Some even go intending to be offended. Booers are boors.

Analyze some of the comments about the ROH Rusalka. Many don't know the production, the opera, the music, the composer nor even the genre. But since when did reality get in the way of determined opinion? Booing is bluff, and says more about the booer than the booed. The fuss has given the ROH Rusalka a bigger buzz than it, or most operas,would normally attract. But in the long term, it's destructive because it breeds a body of opinion that's fundamentally anti-art. Instead of opening out horizons, as art should do, it creates an extra barrier. Don't rush to blame staging, because opera is theatre, and visuals are part of the impact. When we experience opera, wer're responding through several different filters. There is no such thing as "pure" non-interpretation. Even when you read a score, you're "interpreting" how it might sound. Singers, conductors and stage directors are interpreting what the opera means to them at that time. When you hear people talking, you listen for their point of view, whether you agree or not.

We all see, but we don't all see the same thing. Everyone can see, but not everyone can understand how and why visual images work.  It's a skill as important in opera as understanding the music. It's an art in itself, which should be cultivated.  Like all art, opera is oblique poetry that tells us more than literal fact.  So the more you know about the opera, the composer and his background, the better equipped you are to take on board what there might be. One of the problems withn the ROH Rusalka is that many people think in terms of Walt Disney. But fairy tales were moral parables, warning children about the dangers of transgression. Rusalka and the Prince both want something outside their own worlds,  and both are punished in gruesome ways.  It's a horrible story. You'd have to be pretty sick to think Rusalka is "pretty". Dvořák didn't.

It's essential to respect that he thought in different terms.  Listen to his music, with its sinister murmurs and ominous undercurrents, from which sudden sparks emerge, illuminating the darkness before falling back, defeated. Rusalka and the Prince are given difficult tessituras, from which the voices must nmake heroic leaps above the stave, figuratively leaping over barriers. Dvořák knows the characters are doomed. Those high notes are a way of expressing defiance. So, a dark shadowy colour scheme where the "white", silvery textures of the two main voices stand out better, and the powerful metaphor of the Moon shines out. Rusalka's buig number is the Song of the Moon, The Prince's The Aria of the White Doe. Shining, pale colours, gutsier shades for the other characters.

If I were staging Rusalka, I'd respect that Dvořák wasn't writing Disney. Dark staging, overhanging thickets, dense, morbid entanglements. I loved the projections of microscope slides of water in the ROH Rusalka because they showed that water is teeming with life. Bacteria is part of  the ecological system and supports the life of the waters Rusalki inhabit. To them, it's not ugly, but beautiful.  Those who sneer can't understand Rusalka and her world at all.  Indeed, the less realistic the better, because we have to make an effort to understand these alien values for themselves.

It's ludicrous to knock the ROH Rusalka for semi-nudity. Even in fairy tales, water spirits and mermaids are depicted semi-naked, which is part of their allure. They seduce the unwary. Again, respect Dvořák. Act One, Scene One and already Dvořák writes the beautiful but explicitly erotic aria "He comes here frequently". The Prince has been skinny dipping in Rusalka's lake. She's seen him swim naked and has been embracing him in the form of a wave.  He doesn't know because he can't see her, but she realizes it means she has female, mortal feelings. Imagine staging the Prince inn the nude! Audiences would go berserk. But it's in the libretto and fundamental to meaning. Maybe it should be done, in some way that doesn't compromise the singer who has to do it. He has enough on his mind with the vocal challenges.

Rusalka and the Prince come from incompatible worlds, so any staging has to show how different these worlds are. Rotating sets are often a good way of doing quick changes, but how to create contrast?  Nature vs Urban, wild vs "civilized"? Lots of potential.  Even a vaguely feminist take, given the composer's thing for adventurous women (pleasae see my review of The Jacobin). The ROH Rusalka bordello scene was as true to the text as David Pountney's Rusalka in a Victorian nursery, but neither really handle all aspects oif this bizarre story. Perhaps it's too much for us mortals to cope with? Abstraction would be an option, so audiences don't lock into specifics but listen for meaning. Dvořák is remarkably impartial.

He also shows how dangerous magic can be. It's a quick fix but fundamentally wrong. I liked the quirky ROH cat, but a friend said that it should have been more sinister. Some think the cat was raping Rusalka but I thought she was just grinding her down and pulling off her fish tail (skirt). But how to stage a scene like this? Dvořák's instructions are that the cat must be able to jump and pour the magic brew down Rusalka's throat by force. I did like the way the cat turned back into a real cat later and ran off, like normal cats do.

Lots of ideas - that's what opera is about. These days "popular" may be more important than "good" but I'll stick my meck out for informed opinion. How will new audiences ever learn if they're intimidated by bullying mobs, especially those who don't know what they're talking about?  Opinion isn't nearly as important as how it is formed. It matters to learn the opera, the composer and the background, but above all,  it's essential to keep an open mind and keep learning, so your opinions continue to develop. This same attitude applies to other things, like politics. Please see a review of the ROH Rusalka here and a review of the ROH Zambello Don Giovanni, which is one of the worst cases of anti-composer travesty. Now THAT was Regietrash. But alas, "popular", perhaps with the same audiences who think the ROH  Rusalka isn't true to Dvořák.

Bartoli Rossini Otello Zürich streaming

This is MAJOR as you'll read in the review below. Rossini's Otello, Ossia il Moro di Venezia live from Opernhaus Zürich, available in full Thursday on Medici TV. Once Rossini's Otello was a huge hit, starring Maria di Malibran for example, but for the last 100 years it's been eclipsed by Verdi (and of course Shakespeare). Cecilia Bartoli is a role she relishes! Sounds like a fabulous production. James Sohre in Opera Today (FULL review here)  "Zurich's Magnificent Other Moor" says
"Right to the musical ‘score’ board: Zurich Opera stared down the mighty challenge posed by Rossini’s Otello ossia il moro di Venezia, and knocked it out of the ballpark.The reasons for this unqualified success are many, beginning with superb casting that no house could better".. 

Anna Prohaska - Wigmore Hall

Anna Prohaska gave a good debut recital tonight at the Wigmore Hall, even though she clearly wasn't well, and had cancelled a concert in Berlin earlier this week. "But this the Wigmore Hall!" she said. "The Temple of art song!". Besides, she added, friends and family had travelled to London from all over Europe to support her. "They'd assassinate me if I cancelled", she added.

All singers get sick, many risk their voices to carry on regardless. but few are so candid and charming about it. Anyone can sing, but only the really great can communicate this eloquently even before singing a note. Prohaska has star quality because she can captivate an audience and involve them in what she's doing. The mark, I think, of  someone born for the stage. As we already know from hearing her vivacious Zerlina at La Scala lasr year (read about that here)

Few singers would dare essay Prohaska's ambitious programme for the Wigmore Hall. A daring range of styles. Debussy, Fauré, Wolf, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Schubert, Haydn, Mahler, John Dowland and Henry Lawes, Arthur Honegger, Karol Szymanowski and, to cap it all Dvořák's Song of the Moon from Rusalka. Because she wasn't well, you could hear the strain, but Prohaska's professionalism won through. She can pace herself for the fiendishly difficult rhythms in two of Szymanowski's Songs of a Fairy Princess, (read here), with their exotic ululations, while resting (somewhat) in the gentler Dowland and Lawes.This programme would tax the finest and the most experienced, so it's to Prohaska's credit that she tried it at all. Eric Schneider, Matthias Goerne's regular partner, supported her well.

But the programme wasn't just a vehicle for Prohaska's talents. It served an important artistic purpose. Its title was "Song of the Sirens", songs about water spirits and seductresses associated with water and the sea. (read more about what I've written on the subject HERE and other posts on Schubert and Wolf). It's quite an achievement on its own terms - whoever devised this programme knows their repertoire well.  By no means all obvious or popular songs, but a treasure for repertoire buffs like me. Prohaska should keep this programme for the future because it's exceptionally rewarding and would make an unmissable debut CD. EXTRA ! I guessed right. She already has made a CD of these songs for Deutsche Grammophon. Must get !
Photo: Monika Rittershaus, Askonas Holt.

You can hear whole concerts on the Berliner Philharmoniker site where Anna Prohaska sings with Claudio Abbado conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker. But I thought, instead, honour where she gets some of her genes from, her grandfather Felix Prohaska. Below, he's conducting Alfred Poell and the Vienna Staatsoper Orchestra  in Mahler in 1950. This is one of the landmark performances, which everyone interested in Mahler song needs to know, still one of the best despite 60 years of competition.

The secret history of Louie, Louie

If you were old enough or young enough in the 1960's you could not have escaped Louie, Louie. It was wilder and more radical than the Beatles or Rolling Stones. Downright dirty! The slurred vocals and beefy, aggressive guitar licks suggested something so horribly indecent that it could not be articulated. In those innocent days when girls wore white socks and cardies, it was like an explosion of primitive Id. The song was immediately banned in Singapore and other polite places.

 The original song was penned by Richard Berry in 1955, and was an innocuous semi-calyposo about a lonely sailor. It wasn't a hit, but Berry tourede the Pacific North West, then a fairly conservative place where people did things like logging, farming and fishing.  Then a band of local whitebread kids covered it and the song went ballistic. The Kingsmen were wholesome, suburban from middle class homes, their band supported by their parents. But their version of Louie Louie was anarchy,  a sudden, volcanic explosion of primal Id.  Now the region is the Heimatland of Grunge (Kurt Cobain, etc).  Go figure?

While Berry pronoundced the name Louie, Louie like it was Louis XIV, the Kingsmen growled Loo-EI Loo-EI Oh Bebbeh!  like a cannibal chant pounded out with imaginary spears. Because the words were unintelligible, you could read anything into them, but the mood was unmistakable.  That driving beat that let nothing get in its way. "Me gotta go, oooh no! yeah, yeah!!"  "They can't speak English!" said my Dad. Mick Jagger seemed so tame. Being the hippest, coolest kid in the entire region, it was inevitable that I should be drawn into Louie Louie although I was a nerdy A student already absorbed in Schubert. No regrets, for Louie, Louie opened out dark territory for a sheltered kid like me, but in a safe way. And it did enhance my love for Schubert who intuits wild shores, though he does it more elegantly. At that age I was listening to Galli-curci and to bel canto. Later still, Varèse was a breeze and The Rite of Spring perfectly easy to access.  Louie, Louie has been covered many times (a fairly weak British version by the Kinks) but the Kingsmen were the most original and the best.

How to do Oberon Britten Midsummer Night's Dream

Strange comments this week about GMSD's Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream at the Barbican on the role of Oberon. Surely those who write about music would know that Britten wrote the part for countertenor? If he had wanted to write the part for tenor he would have, particularly as he had one in house. But he deliberately wrote it for countertenor. Think why.

Oberon is the King of the Fairies and appears at night, after the "witching hour", when sleep releases the unconscious and dreams. Throughout the music, nocturnal sounds, creating shadowy images and magic. So Britten wants Oberon to sound ethereal, way above the normal register, floating like moonlight. Hence countertenor, the perfect voice for otherworldly mystery. Moreover, Oberon is not a nice person. He wants Puck for unspecified (possibly unsavoury) reasons and is prepared to do Tytania harm to get the boy away from her. What he does to his spouse amounts to abuse, even though it's "magic". So Oberon has to sound weird, cool and slightly sinister - it's what the role's about. That's exactly what Tom Verney did at the GSMD performance of A Midsummers Night's Dream. and good for him. READ FULL REVIEW HERE. The secret of judging and creating performance is knowing what the music does. This applies to all things, including  Rusalka, about which I'll write more soon.

Below is a clip from a version of MSND at the Liceu in Barcelona. It looks as if it was created by someone who really understands the music and the magic in the opera. Look at the image of the moon, representing nocturnal forces, dominating the dark set. The counter tenor is David Daniels - this is one of the great roles in the repertoire. How coolly and weirdly he sings!  The roccoco oscillations are part of the supernatural magic.  But words that count thus come out sharply cut and undecorated.  Despite the high register, he's masculine and physical, for Oberon is powerful and gets his way. But the last thing you want in the voice is butch and basso.  You're supposed to be unsettled by who Oberon really is. In the Liceu production, Oberon's hair and beard are green, for he's a nature spirit, like the Green Man.The director is Robert Carsen, who did the La Scala Don Giovanni and the Glyndebourne Rinaldo (both reviewed on this site, use search box)  On the basis of this short clip, I've ordered the DVD. Anyone interested in stagecraft and in Britten might want to do the same.

Alice Herz Sommer - life is a gift

"Hatred eats the soul of the hater, not that of the hater" - Alice Herz Sommer, who will be 109 in November. She survived Theresienstadt as one of the camp musicians, so she knows extreme suffering more than most. Yet she's positive and takes each day as "a gift". And she gives back to the world.  Alice is positive therapy. "Music is God", she has said, in difficult times you feel it most". Think of the famous quandary, is a glass half full or half empty? But some will think, "completely full" as the other half is air, without which we cannot live. Drink it gratefully!  Some people, alas, get their kicks out of being miserable and inflicting it on everyone else. Not Alice!

There is a new book about Alice in the pipeline,  I've only seen the promo video. So enjoy this 2010 interview above,  read the first biography "A Garden of Eden in Hell" and watch the 2004 video below

Mambo Girl

Dazzling harlequin optical effects! The Mambo Girl dances for her friends the hottest, hippest kids in town  Later they hang out on campus (my old Alma Mater) and sing happy songs accompanied by harmonica quartet.This movie was made in 1957, soon after Bill Haley and the Comets launched Rock n Roll on the world and invented the Teenager. What's more, The Mambo Girl is a female role model, very different from Hollywood stereotypes of the time. She isn't even a stereotype of Chinese actresses, many of whom seemed to commit suicide and have sad lives.  This actress, Grace Chan Ge Lan 葛蘭 is healthy, assertive and living aged 80 in California.

The Mambo Girl  is so vivacious she lights up the lives of all around her.. She's talented, beautiful, adored and has a luxurious home and a blissfully happy family. What more could a girl want?

Papa Li (Liu En-Ja 劉恩甲) is an aimable toy shop owner who indulges the teenage crowd, though other people don't approve. There's going to be a big party for The Mambo Girl's birthday but something goes wrong. It turns out that she was adopted and she's not "true born" like her younger sister. Although there was a lot of adoption in Chinese society, often it was fairly open. But the Mambo Girl (Li Kia-ling) was found in an orphanage and had no idea. She's traumatized. "Mum and Dad can't sing or dance", she thinks, "Who did I get my skills from?".

So she runs away from her sheltered home and goes to look for her genetic mother. Crying and alone on a rooftop over the city, she has a vision of her mother appearing in the sky, singing of comfort and love. The orphanage gives her a name, Yu So-ying, who used to be a dancer. So Kai-ling  goes to seedy nightclubs to track the person down. She watches an exotic dancer called Margo the Z Bomb, a tough looking white woman who's more contortionist than dancer. It's a horrible image of sexuality and degradation. Kai-ling thinks, Gosh, no, that can't be.

A foki (waiter) in the nightclub suggests she speak to the toilet attendant. It's a lowly job, the woman has clearly had a hard life and had seen better times. She sees how wholesome and pampered Kai-ling is, so she tells her firmly  that she's not her mother. Kai-ling is bereft and doesn't know what to do. But her friends play her a recording of her singing on a huge reel to reel tape machine. (!). She then ng realizes that it is her art that will give her life meaning, not her parentage, and that she owes it to society to bring happiness to others.  So she returns to the Li family home, where the party starts again. Kai-ling dances and sings, she's in her element once more as the Mambo Girl, whoever her parents may be. Outside, we see the foki and the toilet attendant looking on, and walking away. Are they her birth patents ? No matter, they love her too much to change her new life.

This is a fabulous film for the dancing, singing and acting. Glorious! Lots of famous stars like Papa Li (Liu En-ja in one of his finest roles). Mona Fong (the toilet attendeant), before she became a producer and movie mogul at Shaw Brothers Studios and partner of Run Run Shaw (still alive aged 105). Peter Chen Ho (as boyfriend)  at the start of his career.

But it's also interesting in terms of Chinese filial values. Family is fundamental to Chinese sense of self. But Kai-ling's mother loves her so much that she'd rather the girl be happy with the Li family and have a future. For me this movie is heartbreaking. In the 1950's, after decades of war, there were millions of traumatized people. Every character in this film is a displaced person, away from their birthplace.  Even genial Papa Li and his wife were refugees, Mandarin speaking exiles in Cantonese Hong Kong. They'd struck lucky. Many ohers struggled,  like Yu So-ying, the toilet attendant. Thousands of kids in orphanages, until they, too, went out into the world.  Mambo Girl is available on DVD and online (if you search under Chinese title (曼波女郎). It's in Mandarin, with English and Chinese sub titles.