The outstanding elements of Pinchgut Opera’s latest production, entitled ‘Coffee and a Dead Canary’, were impressive, such as Melanie Liertz’s design, with a small platform on the left-hand side of the stage designed for the seven musicians. The larger part on the right was reserved for the singers, always on the move, attracting constant attention (even when the music did not quite provide the same artistic satisfaction). Director Eugene Lynch’s work offered superb eye-candy much of the time with excellent staging suggestions, but seemed to run out of invention by the final work, Bach’s Coffee Cantata, which ended the 75-minute performance.
The fundamental idea behind the caffeine-infused programme was sound: to connect Baroque cantatas relating to coffee, and thus, the link between Nicolas Bernier’s Le Caffé and Bach’s composition was firmly established. The connection to the rest of the programme was tenuous at best.
Bernier’s cantata Le Caffé consists of a series of recitatives and arias, originally written for soprano, here performed by tenor, Nicholas Jones. His delivery of the French text, which endlessly pondered about the differences between the influence of Bacchus (that is, wine) and coffee, was not easy to follow. The instrumental accompaniment was neatly but rather blandly performed by a small ensemble, which emphasised the long musical lines without bringing out delicate phrasing details. The audience’s attention was more drawn to the pantomime by an immense ‘coffee cup’ on top – black tutu and fishnet stockings from the waist down – mimicking a love affair with the hapless tenor, whose acting offered genuine entertainment, while his singing at times struggled with the demands of the lengthy role. I was reminded that the name Baroque, according to scholarly sources, derived from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning misshapen pearl.
After a witty presentation of ‘tuning in progress’ boards shown to the audience, Pierre-Gabriel Buffardin’s Flute Concerto in E minor followed with Melissa Farrow’s musical, confident solo. Her sound, as well as the harpsichord harmonies played by Music Director Erin Helyard, were extremely difficult to hear even from the sixth row – and that would have been much worse at the back of the auditorium. Without any amplification, this type of chamber music is difficult to appreciate in the City Recital Hall in Sydney, which seats about 1200 people.
The performance was nonetheless joyful, not in the least due to the humour and artistry of yet another pantomime (artist: Mitch Riley), who this time, dressed as a bird, ‘commented’ with his body language on every phrase and every cadence. His movements and gestures were a delight to watch, as – curiously – he helped to interpret the music in a different, physical way.
Georg Philipp Telemann’s Funeral Cantata for an Artistically Trained Canary-Bird, a mock-serious secular cantata featuring interesting harmonic progressions, was performed by strong baritone Morgan Pearse. The work’s amusing sarcasm was only tentatively explored, although the sepulchre in memoriam of a bird was positively comical.
Bach’s Coffee Cantata is the closest the Leipzig Cantor came to writing an opera. It featured Pearse as Schlendrian and Ariana Ricci as Lieschen, his daughter, arguing wittily about coffee, marriage and other matters, with narration by Jones. Ricci possess a refreshingly youthful voice but unfortunately her vibrato was too fast and narrow for an historically-informed performance, which diminished the enjoyment of her acting and singing. The Orchestra of the Antipodes was at their best here; in two of the arias, Farrow and continuo cellist, Anton Baba, excelled with stylish and beautiful accompagnato solos.
