When I saw the advertised programme for Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s latest appearance at the Purcell Room in the Southbank Centre, I naïvely expected a conventional event showcasing an enticing repertoire of quotidian delights. What I had in mind was a PatKopiad where our host would spend an evening ‘at home’ in the company of her good friends from Aurora Orchestra, with canapés and fizz. I was, however, regaled with a full-blown technicolour production into which a great deal of imaginative energy must have been expended. Overall, the resulting performance – a mixture of kitsch and slapstick – did not reach the heights of Olympus; however, it suggested that PatKop could have a career as an opera producer, in the manner of Peter Sellars.
The stage was decked out with a dizzying array of domestic paraphernalia, the centrepiece of which was a table set for high tea, and included such everyday things as a child’s bicycle (used as a percussion instrument) and a hair dryer (used for drying hair). Added to that mass of props were a couple of upright (and very straight-laced) pianos, a celesta, a bass drum, and a tympanum. There was also scrunched-up paper littering the floor which, early on in the performance, was unceremoniously (or playfully) lobbed into the audience. I picked up the ball that landed at my feet, thinking it might contain a lucky-dip surprise. The pleasure of unfolding it was reserved for when I was safely back at home; alas, it was only a copy of the programme...
As to the musical content of the event, I can report some intriguingly piquant offerings from four Fluxus composers, a killer send-up of a Russian master, four of PatKop’s home-made flavourings, a spicy Viennese confection, a nonchalant French side dish, and two dollops of Hungarian goulash. Pieces by Meiko Shiomo, Dick Higgins, George Brecht and Tomas Schimt referenced the 1960s fascination with text scores, and were elegantly sprinkled onto the event. György Kurtág’s deliciously wicked Homage à Tchaikovsky – a parody of the opening bars of his First Piano Concerto – was played (if that is the right word) with relish by PatKop. Selections from her own Ghiribizzi (Whims) were, as might be expected, tossed off with aplomb.
Mozart’s Musical Joke stood out for the mock-seriousness with which it was played, accompanying an enigmatically choreographed dance for tea cups and teapots. The stars of that rendition were the two horn players. During their empty bars they made two trips backstage, the first time to collect a couple of prop wine glasses, and the second time to acquire a prop bottle of wine – which they then proceeded to share. It was an elaborate pun which PatKop must have had a hoot of a time devising, and the players really hammed-up their parts. The final movement of Jean Françaix’s Octet was a slice of Gallic charm from a composer who merrily ploughed his own furrow whilst the enfants of the avant-garde were petulantly throwing passé toys out of their prams. We really ought to hear more of him.
The extravaganza was rounded off with extracts from Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre. It can still be shocking to hear the fanfare for car horns; here it might have been an irreverently self-conscious comment on the whole event. In the performance of the scene where the Chief of the Secret Police delivers her bizarre warning to the ruling Prince, PatKop set her seal on her creation; well over the top, but not without its own peculiar flavour.
