With the emphasis firmly on spectacle, the Bridgewater Hall played host to The Manchester Concert Orchestra last night, who played, with the hindrance of laser accompaniment some well-known and loved pieces from the lighter classical music repertoire.
Judging by the audience's reaction last night and their long and hearty applause, one has to assume that the concert was a huge success, despite its obvious flaws.
The audience were invited to purchase at 50p each small union flags for the concert and to wave them, Last Night Of The Proms fashion, at the appropriate times. The concert itself had 17 items, only three of which were British, and only two of these flag-waving pieces. [Elgar’s 'Pomp And Circumstance March No 1', and Thomas Arne's 'Rule Britannia!'] The concert tried to sit, (although it actually sat somewhat uncomfortably), between the Last Night Of The Proms and a 'standard' concert of popular classical music and with the conductor trying his hand at MC-ing, this fell somewhat flat. The audience didn't really understand that he was trying to make jokes and be funny, and that he was inviting the audience to react and heckle with him, until it was too late. His attempt at humour, asking us if we were 'clappists' but he would accept 'clapologists' at a pinch, left us all with question-mark expressions! To further add to this 'jocular' audience manipulation; he kept saying things like, "I think we missed a verse; we'll have to sing it again" or " That was good but it could have been better - let's try one more time" etc; and so particularly in the second half of the concert nearly all the pieces were partially reprised!
The concert was full of gimmicks. Special effects which basically screamed out, "Look at me, Look at me.... take your attention away from the bad playing and look at the wonderful effect I am creating to make you think it is brilliant and make you believe you are having a good time!" Smoke, awful lighting, colouring the stage in strange washes, with their favourite, red, being used for almost every piece; horrid and pointless specials which created swirling circles of usually green on the stage and the first few rows of audience, and 8 (4 to each side) search lights pointing to the ceiling which moved and changed colour for absolutely no reason and none of these effects added anything at all to the performance. The worst of all though was the lasers. 4 lasers, mounted on the choir stalls and in front of the organ, which projected their beams out into and over the audience for most of the pieces. Utterly pointless. They detracted and lessened the quality of the show, and didn't even have any relevance or were not even making patterns in time to, what was being played. Fan shapes, singles beams, coloured spectrums and an interesting mirror ball effect which COULD have been used quite nicely and had impact if used sparingly and at a poignant and relevant moment.
The one special effect that was spectacular and worked wonderfully was kept for the last piece on the programme, and quite rightly so. The music was Tchaikovsky, and the music, his 1812 Overture. Sadly without chorus, but we were given some lovely 'canon fire', perfectly timed fireworks and precision flames to finish. Extremely professionally executed, and this time added greatly to the piece. The pyrotechnics were by Just FX.
Again adding to the production, and making the evening worthwhile were two guest singers. Ilona Domnich, soprano; and Michael Bracegirdle, tenor. Both had truly lovely voices and were a welcome and lovely addition to the evening. "O Soave Fanciulla" from Puccini's La Boheme was superb. (Including the offstage singing). Fortunately the mic levels were sorted after a few bars of duet. [Domnich’s mic was set too low and so a techie must have realised this and altered it before it became too obvious!]. I really loved Bracegirdle's 'Faniculi, Fanicula'. (And no, before anyone writes in to comment - there is absolutely no euphemistic undertone to that sentence!). Another highlight was Domnich's rendition of 'Sempre Libera' from La Traviata. The high note (no idea what note it was - but it was indeed extremely high!) was so clear and pure. Not screeched or belted. It was beautiful. I am not normally fond of the soprano voice for the very reason that when singing high notes they either use coloratura or they belt. This was neither - it was as pure and as clear as ice. Wonderful.
The irony wasn't lost on me though when Bomnich, a Russian, came on stage draped in a union flag to sing the glorifying of a conquering nation, Britain.
However, let's turn now to the orchestra. The Manchester Concert Orchestra. They are undoubtedly proficient musicians, and under a different leader, they may well prove to be a lot more worthy. However, under the direction of Timothy Henty, the evening's conductor and compere, they were somewhat slapdash and uncoordinated. There were many instances throughout the evening where the instruments were not exactly together, or where they did not come in exactly on the note but had to either slide up or down to it when no gliss was marked. There were other instances where one instrument was overpowering the rest and the balance was wrong. The worst examples that I can think of were the celeste's entry in Ravel's Bolero which came in far too loud and screeching; the speeded-up version of the Hornpipe (just for the audience's amusement??) was out of time with the conductor's frantic arm-waving; and in one piece, I forget which, the French horn entry was not together. But there were several others too which I didn't write down. Thank goodness for the lasers! The audience won't have noticed any of this!
I really did like their interpretation of 'The Great Geat Of Kiev' from Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition though. Must give praise where praise is due. That was very well played. The changes of dynamic excellently observed, and the piece was truthful to both composer's and orchestrator's intents.
Their planned encore of The Can-Can was also very well played - and I liked the pyrotechnics here too. Again they fitted perfectly in time and mood with the music. (The laser operators, Definitive Special Projects Ltd, need to take a few lessons from you here!)
The whole evening finished with a second encore. A full company reprise of Land Of Hope And Glory. The audience went out merry and content. (Well, most of them did.)
Reviewer: Mark Dee
Reviewed: 9th April 2016
