Orlando is a touring programme which mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska and guitarist Sean Shibe brought to Koerner hall on Thursday evening. For some background on the show see my interview with Ema earlier this month. As promised it was more of an “experience” than a conventional song recital. The overarching theme, sometimes obvious, sometimes less so, was Virginia Woolf’s Orlando.
The first part of the programme was played without a break staring with Massenet’s Ô Souverain, ô juge, which would be echoed at the end by Laurie Anderson’s O Superman. Four Dowland works followed; a solo guitar piece and three songs with acoustic guitar accompaniment. Ema’s singing; beautiful and with straight tone, was quite emphatic. The guitar playing was gorgeous. The theme, impermanence, sleep, night. Works by Sasha Scott and Linda Catlin Smith’s Dark Light; which sets text from the novel followed. At this point we were in electronic territory with electric guitar played in conventional and less conventional ways.
Thomas Adès’ “Blanca” from The Exterminating Angel followed. “Over the sea, Over the sea, Where is the way?, Birds tell me!” And so to the first song from the original inspiration for the show; Detlev Glanert’s Orlando Lieder. “Hexensabbat” conjures up nightmares and was a total contrast with a beautifully sung version of Schubert’s “Einsamkeit” which followed. More Glanert; this time “Lied der Wehmut” led to the concluding piece of the first half; Adès once more. This time it was the “Habenera” which reflected the nightmarish aspect of the programme.
After the interval there were two sets. The first began with works by contemporary female composers; a Nahre Sol piece, Maddie Ashman’s Woolf inspired pearls and Cassandra Miller’s very weird Dream Memorandum ( It Reminded Me of the Truth). The last sets WhatsApp voice notes from Ema to the composer. Then it got more lyrical with Hans Abrahamsen’s gentle and evocative “See the Small, Limpid Well-Spring” and Schubert’s “So lasst mich scheinen”.
There was a short pause to reset the stage before the final set. A Dowland lute piece (on guitar) preceded Pauline Viardot’s Aimez-moi; a gentle love song, which led into a storming version of Bob Dylan’s Masters of War followed by a version of O Superman with impressive electronics by Sasha Scott. All the Orlando bases covered in three numbers! The encore was Alex Paxton’s Be Kind; a rather beautiful exhortation to treat ourselves and others with consideration.
This was a show that required a remarkable range of skills from both Ema and Sean. She sang and spoke in a wide variety of styles showing that she’s a superb classical vocalist whether singing Dowland or Adès but she can switch gears to meet the requirements of, say, Dylan or Anderson. She also contributed some percussion and a couple of pieces on some sort of keyed wind instrument (I think). Sean played acoustic guitar with exquisite skill and delicacy and produced an astonishing range of sounds from electric guitar using various techniques including bowing the instrument. The whole thing was extremely virtuosic.
The technical side of this show needs to be talked about. The Koerner Hall tech staff had one day to design sound and light for the show. The lighting effects were beautiful and evocative and for the most part the sound stage worked fine. My only beef would be that I think Sean was under-miked in the final Anderson piece. The one thing that was missing though was any way of following the text. There were no surtitles and the lighting in the hall ranged from dark to even darker which made the handout with texts more or less useless. Admittedly that’s often a problem with much less experimental concerts.
All in all, having an idea of what to expect going in definitely made the experience more rewarding. With no idea what to expect and the texts, and even the order of the pieces, not accessible in the dark it wasn’t especially easy to follow; especially with songs being run together in longish sets without any break, some sort of guide or programme notes would have been really helpful. It’s hard to get audiences to come to this kind of show so making it as accessible as possible just makes sense.
It was definitely an “experience”. It was cleverly curated and brilliantly performed but I think it would benefit from some work to make it more easily accessible to the audience. Unfortunately there are no photographs available from last night but I think the one at the top evokes the spirit of the show.
