Transition Projects, in their own words, explore 'a new language for live performance'. Concert works are staged, often with live manipulations of film as integral to that staging. This week at King's Place some of the team's past projects have been re-presented, alongside new bespoke performances, under the banner Darkness and Light.
The mini-festival (a form fast becoming a speciality of this venue) began with an evening that perfectly encapsulated the twin motifs of the title – a darkening Dowland recital was followed by Stravinsky at his most enjoyably mischievous – and that demonstrated well some of the strengths and weaknesses of Transition Project's innovative approach.
Countertenor Stephen Wallace was joined by the lutenist Andrew Maginley for a suite of (mainly) Dowland songs. Interspersed among the songs were instrumentals written by Ennemond Gaultier, a French contemporary of Dowland's. The element of staging was present in two thematic conceits. The poetry of melancholy, for so long associated with Dowland's music, was used as a unifying topic. Melancholy bound the chain of songs together as if they were parts of a nineteenth-century song cycle (the existential aesthetics gave credence to the association).
More unusually, and out of deference to the first theme, Wallace played the part of anxious office worker. He sat alone at his desk at night, trapped by commerce and by the thoughts of his love, she who was depicted in the films that formed the backdrop of the scene. The melancholy of Elizabethan England is meant to be able to parallel the very modern angst of capitalism and loneliness. The conceit is cute, but in practice it proved to be distracting.
The trope of the modern was to the fore in the details of the performance, but the modernity only placed a further distance on the music, which suffered a further remove than that already demanded by time. Moreover, the stage directions required Wallace to move around in such a way that his singing suffered; this was most evident in the opening (and closing, where it was repeated) 'In Darkness Let Me Dwell', where Wallace, bewilderingly, has to start with his head on the desk, almost enclosed by his arms and jacket, before gradually rising up to seated position. To make matters worse, Wallace is side-on to the audience at this point, placing a further obstruction on the voice.
The strongest parts of the performance were, in fact, those where Wallace could simply stand and deliver, thus being able to concentrate his expressive focus on the music ('Time Stands Still' and 'Shall I Strive With Words To Move' were particularly powerful). Apart from some issues of balance and coordination – Wallace frequently smothered Maginley's lute, whilst the two often failed to synchronise tone and weight – the performances were musically very strong. Wallace's voice does not match Andreas Scholl's for purity of tone and darkness of colour in this repertoire, but his warmth of tone, his fully-felt emotional identification with the text, and his deeply expressive musicianship, all impressed. The elegance of line and cadence so vital to these wonderful songs was comfortably in place in Wallace's performance. Netia Jones and her Transition team clearly have things to say, and indeed the technical skill needed to say them, but here their approach hampered an otherwise compelling performance.
An altogether lighter affair followed in the second concert of the evening. Mezzo Lucy Schaufer was joined by Christopher Glynn, Tom Hankey and a cast of non-singing children for a fun, well-conceived recital of songs and instrumental music (arrangements from larger works of the period) from Stravinsky's immediately pre- and post- Rite periods. Schaufer sang as if to the children at bedtime, with her storybook depicted in humorous videos behind, texts on the right, simple animations on the left. The children ran on and off, mimicking the animals of the songs, or interacting with the singer (the annoyed Schaufer brushing lice from the hair of one child was typical in its domesticity of the effect sought).
The Russian texts and musical idiom were handled with skill by singer and pianist. The brio of the music belies its knotty intricacy, and the performers did well to imbue the presentation with a consistent sense of levity. Hankey's interludes divided up the form very effectively. His playing was impressive; idiomatic in the folk music, stunningly-expressive in shimmering readings of the Prelude and Berceuse from The Firebird. It was a lovely feeling to have children on stage; their presence somehow insists on an extra degree of humanity in the atmosphere. The musical programme and performance put together to draw out that youthful theme made for a very pleasurable and coherent experience. I only spotted three children in the crowd, but they all seemed to be enjoying themselves. The presentation, and other ones like it, would surely be of much interest to those younger age groups.
Photo: Transition Projects at Wilton's Music Hall
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