Peter Viney's Blog

The Four Seasons: A Reimagining

Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe
Saturday 24th March 2018, 14.00

Composer Max Richter
Directed by Finn Caldwell & Toby Olie for Gyre & Gimble

MUSICIANS:
Solo Violin / Music Direction – Jorge Jimenez
Violin 1 – James Toll
Violin 2 – Alice Earll
Viola / Violin – Aliye Cornish
Violoncello – Sarah McMahon
Harpsichord / Synthesizer – Satoko Doi-Luck

PUPPETEERS:
Elisa de Grey
John Leader
Craig Leo|
Avye Leventis
BenThompson

QUOTE (GLOBE WEBSITE):

The performance will conjure a poetic and emotional narrative in response to Max Richter’s acclaimed recomposition of Vivaldi’s pictorial masterpiece, which has been newly arranged for the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Inspired by the mastery of Japanese Bunraku theatre, this unprecedented collaboration will explore not only the form and techniques of puppetry, but the crystalline acoustic and candlelit ambience of the space in an enchanting new way.

The Prelude to the Four Seasons is extracts from:
Vivaldi Concerto for 2 violins in D minor
Op. 3 No. 11 – 1. Allegro

Vivaldi Concerto for Strings in G minor
Alla Rustica RV. 151 – 1. Allegro

Geminiani Cello Sonata in D minor
Op. 5, No. 2 – 2. Adagio

Vivaldi Concerto for Strings in G minor
RV. 156 (complete)
1. Allegro  2. Adagio  3. Presto

Vivaldi Concerto for Strings in G minor
Alla Rustica RV. 151 – 3. Allegro

REVIEW

I first encountered Max Richter through the soundtrack to Shutter Island. Robbie Robertson took the vocal line from This Bitter Earth by Dinah Washington, and laid it over Max Richter’s On The Nature of Daylight. It was a stunning juxtaposition. The original On The Nature of Daylight also appears on the soundtrack. Then Richter produced Sleep. Eight and a half hours available on 8 CDs or one Blu-ray. It was performed in Berlin, Paris and in London with  mattresses for the audience to sleep upon. Then you could buy the highlights on one CD as From Sleep. We started with From Sleep and while we did not fall asleep, we felt profoundly relaxed after listening to it. So then I saw the complete box set. I knew the guy in the record store, and he wisely said, ‘Why buy a relaxing CD at a crystal shop or health food shop? You’ll find it’s by Keith Dancing Feather who comes from Croydon and who plays it one fingered on a synth. The next CD is the Pan Pipes of Basingstoke’s ‘Ethereal Ecuadorian Melodies for Deep Relaxation,” Why not buy a REAL composer doing relaxation music?” And he was right. And we bought it.

Then came Vivaldi: The Four Seasons. Recomposed by Max Richter, in 2012, which is where we are today. I’ve had it for several months.

I have previous on this; favourite CDs are The Electric V: A New Perspective on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (1984) and Transforming V (1990) both modernized Vivaldi by Thomas Wilbrandt. They have accompanied the Sunday papers in bed, or formed the background to parties many times over several decades. Do not mock, we have had parties with sedate modern classical music.

The Wanamaker Playhouse is doing Richter’s “reimagining” (rather than the original “recomposing”) with puppetry and candlelight, and using puppeteers Gyre and Gimble in Japaese Bunraku style. So is it music illustrated with a puppet show? Or puppet theatre accompanied by music?

Both.

The stage has been covered with gilt, gilt tree shapes at the back, gilt in the musicians gallery, which is studded with candles on the back wall for this one. Four curved tables can form a circle or be arranged in different combinations. The tops are gilt flecked, and can be lit internally.

THE MUSIC

The original studio recording used 12 musicians. Globe Musical Director Bill Barclay has re-scored this for six, and Max Richter has revised his “recomposition”. They have added a 20 minute prelude of selections. For the original 2012 recordings, musicians pointed out the difficulties of playing something so well-known slightly differently. Here the live recordings employ original 17th century instruments where possible:  Soloist Jorge Jimenez uses a 1680 Vincenzo Ruggieri violin made in Cremona and a 1797 Neapolitan Gagliano violin… the classical equivalent of a 1955 Fender Telecaster.  That’s together with the Globe’s new harpsichord (a copy  of a 1697 original), a synth, and a highly effective octave dropper on the cello.

The prelude starts with two violinists coming onto the thrust stage, and playing Vivaldi’s Concerto for 2 violins in D minor, standing up without music. They’ve learned it! The definition of a fiddler versus a violinist used to be that a fiddler stands up and doesn’t read the music, which covers these guys here. In fact, the violinists, when they return to the gallery, stand up throughout. Surely it’s rare for classical musicians to get a gig (apart from opera pit orchestra) where they play the same stuff every day for a month. They will be here.

During those opening extracts, the puppeteers came on and lit the extra candles  and prepared the stage.

I know the music well. It sounds richer and more vibrant in this setting. The puppetry smooths the silences between tracks on the original too.

PUPPETS

puppet with butterflies

I’ve never seen anything quite like it, not could I have believed that such intense emotion could be conveyed by bare wooden puppets, without costume, hair, facial expression or even gender distinction. It’s a triumph of body language, animated by five puppeteers dressed in black, who also breathe loudly at times, sigh, briefly embrace.

The story starts with a child who grows, meets someone, marries, has a child. The child plays with a cat. War comes. The father goes away with a suitcase. The mother is anguished over letters. The father fights, dies.  The mother has to identify the body. The mother, fleeing with the child is trapped by a column, presumably falling due to a bombing raid. The child swims, escapes. Becomes an adult, then graduates. Then as an adult, suitors are rejected. Memories come flooding back of the past, of the mother.  I assume the greeny-blue cloths represent the psychological trauma. The adult sits. Another adult arrives. Full circle.

The child with cat

Does it sound much? Well, several in the audience were dabbing their eyes. It was incredibly moving and poignant. Also, there were flashes of laugh-aloud humour.

The puppets assume male and female roles, but have no genitals or sexual characteristics. We both agreed that “the mother” seemed to have more slender calves and arms. A couple of reviews describe the child as ‘the boy’ but the way suitors are rejected after graduation made me switch to ‘the girl.’ We discussed it on the way home …  we were both sexist in initially thinking ‘boy’ but we agreed it was more likely ‘girl.’ It doesn’t matter.

The Wanamaker worked its magic for this production, and those hard benches are far more suitable for a no interval 80 minute production than they are for a full play. This was the last Emma Rice commissioned production at The Globe, and a glorious ending to her short regime.

*****

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

5
Debbie Gilpin, Broadway World, *****
Maria Dolores Barras, The Upcoming *****
Alexandra Coghlan, The ArtsDesk *****
4
Dominic Maxwell, The Times ****
Sarah Hemming, Financial Times ****
Jo Caird, What’s On Stage, ****
Tom Wicker, The Stage ****
3
Holly Williams, The Independent ***