Review: ADELAIDE FESTIVAL 2017: RUFUS WAINWRIGHT at Adelaide Festival Theatre

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Saturday 18th March 2017

Rufus Wainwright brought a double bill to this year's Festival, with Prima Donna - A Symphonic Visual Concert, and Rufus Does Judy - Highlights from the Carnegie Hall Concerts.

Prima Donna - A Symphonic Visual Concert, is a concert version of his opera, which includes a film, directed by Franceso Vezzoli, of Cindy Sherman wearing costumes once used in operas, the first being one worn by Maria Callas.

It is Bastille Day, 1970, in Paris and The Diva, Régine St. Laurent, has had an illustrious career but, as with all of us, ageing is inescapable and she is approaching the end of that career and accepting the knowledge that her remaining time is limited. She is returning to the stage for the first time in six years, after losing her voice on the second night of a new opera, Aliénor d'Aquitaine, written especially for her. Naturally, she is nervous. She is interviewed by a reporter and she mistakes his interest and fan worship for something far more romantic, crushed when she realises the truth. Her young maid, meanwhile, extols the freedom to seek uninhibited love in Paris, as opposed to the restrictions imposed at home in Picardie. The Butler from the full-length opera has been cut from the concert version.

The music, dare I say it, is derivative. One could play "spot the composer" as the references fly past. Could that have been Berlioz? That was clearly Philip Glass. It is almost a pastiche of composers and styles from all over the history of opera and orchestral music. Perhaps it was intended as an homage to the greats. The libretto, by Wainwright and Bernadette Columine, is in French, with surtitles above the stage and on small screens at either side. From the top balcony, they were extremely difficult to read and needed to be larger. The film was projected onto a wide screen across the rear of the stage. I found it rather confusing, until I realised that the top of the proscenium arch was obscuring the upper half of the film. Do people no longer check sightlines from all positions in an auditorium? It seemed irrelevant and, in any case, trying to read the surtitles, and watch the performers, left little time to watch what was really just a distraction from the main event. Whilst being critical, the sound mix left it difficult to hear the voices at all times over the orchestra.

On the positive side, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra made the often intricate scoring sound easy. It wasn't, of course, but this orchestra have played many far more complex scores and are used to mastering scores that send lesser orchestras into turmoil.

Mezzo-soprano, Jacqueline Dark, has already wowed Adelaide audiences in our Cabaret Festival, combining her talents with those of her best friend and regular collaborator, Kanen Breen, when they performed a piece called Strange Bedfellows, steeped in the tradition of Berlin Kabarett. She then returned in musical theatre mode to attract rave reviews all over Australia as the Abbess in the Sound of Music. Sadly, I did not get to see her recently interstate as Fricka in Wagner's epic, Der Ring Des Nibelungen, but the reviews were excellent. She returns to Adelaide soon to appear in Cavalleria Rusticana, her debut with the State Opera of South Australia. For an opera singer, this is a most eclectic career.

Here, though, she is in full operatic mode as The Diva, with Andrew Goodwin supporting strongly as The Reporter, André le Tourner, and Eva Kong completing the cast as The Maid, Marie. Wainwright has selected his cast wisely and well, with a trio of highly respected singers.

Andrew Goodwin blends his voice and performance beautifully with that of Jacqui Dark, matching or counterpointing the ups and downs of her time leading up to her return to her career. His self-seeking efforts to get his story only add to the sadness of her life. Goodwin successfully presents the somewhat duplicitous nature of the character

Eva Kong delights as the young maid, at the opposite end of adult life to that of Régine St. Laurent, discovering the possibilities and excited to explore what life has to offer, providing a good foil to the deep emotional trials and tribulations of her employer.

Jacqueline Dark eats and breathes the role of Régine St. Laurent, displaying the emotional turmoil through which The Diva must go in her face, posture and, most profoundly, in her singing. The final sentence of the closing aria, Les Feux d'Artifice, "The fireworks are over ... they don't last for long.", is spine tingling as her notes seem to float into the air and hang there long after she finishes singing, defying the audience to break the silent, breathless tension with their applause. Eventually, they do, and that applause was both resounding and extended. Here was a real diva at work.

Rufus Does Judy is a selection of songs from his full-length production celebrating Judy Garland's 1961 Carnegie Hall concert. I am fortunate enough to have a two CD set of the original concert, so I was in high anticipation for this half of the production. As if the evening was not already going to be sensational enough, he was also accompanied by the incredibly versatile Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, the seating rearranged with strings to the left and brass and reeds to the right, with a jazz rhythm section, piano, bass, drums, and guitar, right in the middle. The orchestra was conducted by Guy Simpson for both concerts, and the pianist was Adelaide's own keyboard wizard, Mark Ferguson, who holds a Master's degree and teaches in the Jazz Department at the University of Adelaide's Elder Conservatorium of Music. Unfortunately, he tended to get obscured in the sound mix. Wainwright couldn't have found a better group of musicians anywhere.

Like The Diva in the first work, Judy Garland was approaching the end and was not intending to go quietly into that dark night. Mental illnesses, physical illnesses, drugs, and alcohol, and a number of failed marriages and affairs, had all taken their toll on her body, her mind, and her voice, but she was still able to draw a huge crowd to her concert. It was the last of the huge successes in her career. She proved the doctors wrong, though, by living well beyond the few years that they had giving her following a particularly serious bout of illness. She was to eventually die in London in 1969, from a barbiturate overdose that was diagnosed as unintentional, aged only 47.

Wainwright recreates some of the atmosphere that must have been felt at Carnegie Hall that night, and the appreciative Adelaide audience spurred him on as he passed rapidly from one great hit song to another. He even went as far as to duplicate her stumbling and errors. Somewhere, Over the Rainbow and The Trolley Song were included of course. It would be a brave and foolish person who omitted those from a concert of her music. They drew the expected waves of tumultuous applause. Every number was followed by the expression of enjoyment from the audience as he worked his way through many of the best-known numbers from her extensive songbook, with great songs such as You Made Me Love You, For Me and My Gal, Chicago, Do It Again, You Go to My Head, Puttin' on the Ritz, Come Rain or Come Shine; the list went on. So, too, did the applause and cheering at the end of the concert.

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