Category Archives: Music

THOROUGHLY MODERN MRS: Zik’R Leicester Square: Latin Music Festival

Posted on by

For fifteen years London has hosted an annual Latin music festival, La Linea which ‘til now, I’ve always managed to miss. Celebrating the multi-cultural melting-pot that is our capital city, it promotes new artists, projects and collaborations and the show I finally went to see was itself a joyous celebration of a cross-cultural music, flamenco.

To say ‘flamenco’ is to think of Spain: it’s images of gypsies, of joy and pain, of hard living and a love of life – all bound up in iconic emotive music and proud and sensual dance. It’s easy to forget that the gypsies travelled to Spain from North India across the Middle East and North Africa before making the Mediterranean crossing that brought them to Andalucia. In this journey of generations they picked up musical elements from the lands they passed through, rhythms, melodies, harmonies and vocal styles that mixed together with the folk songs of Southern Spain, became flamenco.

In Zik’R, it’s this journey that is celebrated. Through subtle musical suggestion and instrumentation the roots of flamenco are unearthed and watered. The show which tells the story of one woman’s journey from India to Spain and is itself a metaphor for her spiritual and physical awakening, opens with a haunting harmonium drone and solo ney (vertical flute). Immediately we are placed somewhere in India or perhaps old Arabia. The stage is set in darkness and dry ice for the dramatic entrance of a single woman into this evocative soundworld.

Dressed in a black flamenco dress and in an inversion of a typical flamenco night, she dances a solea, the soulful late night yearning song of the small hours. The beats of her flashing footwork are intertwined with the interlocking rhythms of the tabla and cajon, the whole uplifted by the syncopated clapping of the supporting trio of Spanish flamenco artists and the flourishes of the Spanish guitar. The dance is proud and emphatic and in her performance Karen Ruimy brilliantly conveys both strength and vulnerablilty, the essence of femininity.

The solea beautifully sung by one of the two male vocalists sounds traditional although all the music and songs are composed by the group put together by the producer/musician Youth and Karen Ruimy. The combination of Eastern instruments within the traditional flamenco line-up works beautifully and this band of multi-instrumentalists blends tightly together to support the dancing.  This includes traditional Indian dance as a male dancer reminds us of the dervish and introduces a nuance of Sufism to the evening. A great display of machismo is offered up in the dance of the male flamenco dancer and the highlight of the evening is when the lead male and female flamenco dancers perform a duet.

The action, which is effectively paced so we keenly experience the soulful reflective moments as well as the joyous partying, takes place against a simple and effective backdrop of a graphic sun rising in the sky until the moon appears, under which the fiesta kicks off with a rousing buleria, (up-lifting fast paced flamenco). There’s a lovely female duet where the Spanish backing singer steps out into the limelight and although the lyrics throughout are sung in both Arabic and Spanish, it does not detract from the enjoyment of the evening if you don’t understand either language.

Zik’R is Arabic for ‘remembrance of God’. This evening of flamenco with its subtle, clever twist is a lovely way to be reminded that spirituality and music and dance and song and excitement can – and do – go hand in hand.

You can catch Zik’R at the Edinburgh fringe festival from the 21st. to the 30th. of August. More information here.

Written by Thoroughly Modern Mrs.

London’s Best Shows

Posted on by

As a singer, attending musical events and gigs in London is always top of my wish list but is often forgotten in favour of restaurant reviews. In the past few months I have prioritised performances and I’ve witnessed some phenomenal music and theatre.

Paul Simon and Sting – Paul Simon is one of my all-time favourite singers. His albums were the soundtrack to my childhood, and even now his songs remain top of my ‘most played’ list. When a rare opportunity arose to see him live at the O2, I jumped at it. He took to the stage with Sting and they shared an epic three hour set. It was a well-balanced evening of melancholy melodies and upbeat hits. The Sound of Silence was particularly memorable sung poignantly with only guitar at the front of the stage, and it was impossible not to dance when he performed the African-influenced songs from his album Graceland, complete with full band and gospel choir. Despite being seated in the cheapest seats at the top of the auditorium, I enjoyed every second of this momentous concert, Sting was surprisingly good too! If you ever get the chance to see this legendary man in concert I would recommend doing whatever you can to get hold of a ticket.

Alice in Wonderland – The Old Vic tunnels are a versatile space used for a range of theatrical projects and exhibitions. To celebrate the 150 year anniversary of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Les Enfants Terribles have created an imaginative production cleverly transforming this mysterious space into an immersive land of curiosities. As the trains rumble above, you will forget the real world as you follow the whisper of books down the rabbit-hole to meet the Mad Hatter and all his friends. Due to vast popularity, the show has been extended so you can now book tickets until the end of August 2015. Book here.

Sweeney Todd – I almost found out too late about this Sondheim production at The Coliseum, which was only on for a few weeks in April. I am often sceptical about semi-staged shows but with a stellar cast including Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson, I quickly felt involved in the production. The tickets (though pricey) sold instantly, so I queued up very early one morning to get myself a seat. Sitting on the front row, the singing was thrillingly chilling and the acting brilliantly intense. I hate horror films, but would never turn down the chance to see the demon barber of Fleet Street.

THOROUGHLY MODERN MISSY: Carmen, ENO, Coliseum

Posted on by

If you have been at any London tube station in recent weeks, you will most likely have seen an eye-catching advert of a blonde beauty in a sparkling pink dress on the hood of a car. No, this was not announcing a new women’s fragrance or hair colour. It is in fact the poster for the English National Opera’s latest production of Carmen. The blonde poster girl is Justyna Gringyte, who plays the title role and her eye-catching photo is an introduction to this unusual, very successful take on Bizet’s classic.

It would be difficult to find a single member of the packed opening night audience who did not know the rousing overture that starts Carmen and so there was an air of familiarity as the orchestra played the famous music and the audience waited for the Coliseum curtains to rise. This familiarity was abruptly stopped as the curtains rose to reveal a bare, dusty set decorated by only a flagpole, a telephone box and a row of barely visible, eerily placed soldiers. Calixto Bieto, opera director extraordinaire, hailed as the ‘Quentin Tarantino of the opera world’, has a clear vision with this production. Premiered in 2012, Bieto’s Carmen steers clear from Spanish stereotypes of castanets and flamenco dresses (although flamenco dresses do make a comic appearance in a plan to swindle some customs officers) and instead focuses on the seductive yet seedy undertones to the libretto. Only a Spanish flag, and the famous Osborne Bull silhouette gives the production a geographic placement.

As is the case with most famous operatic productions, traditional interpretations of the libretto don’t quite cut it anymore. Though Bizet’s Carmen shocked the audience when it was first premiered, today’s audience has become immune to that same kind of scandal. This production has kept up with the times in terms of creating that same kind of shock by including full (although not always fully explained) nudity as well as some darker undertones of child grooming and abuse. Because of these, sadly, very contemporary discomforts of modern society, the audience was suitably unsettled as the libretto is meant to make one feel.

The chorus shone both as excitable fans of the bullfight and as surly, perverted guards. The acting in this production was the best I’ve seen with the ENO and the singing was very commendable indeed. Justina Grigynte, the blonde bombshell Carmen thrived in her role as a flirtatious and confused woman caught between multiple men and although there were some slight diction difficulties which made the audience somewhat dependent on the surtitles, the tone and musicality of her singing matched her acting skills. Eric Cutler performed stunningly as a complex Don José who sang beautifully with my personal favourite, Eleanor Dennis as Micaëla.

This is a breath of fresh, yet seedy, air into a total opera classic. The excellent singing and exhilarating story telling is reason enough to go, but, as an added bonus, you also get to see how they fit six (yes, six) cars onto the Coliseum stage at the beginning of the third act. This is not a production to miss – catch it either at the Coliseum or streamed live at a cinema near you.

Carmen continues until Friday 3 July, book here.

Written by Thoroughly Modern Missy, Angelica Bomford.