KVT’s December Diary … 4th… Ladies’ Night @ the Opera House

5 star night’s music with the VNSO and those wonderful women

The 5 star talented women in the spotlight were internationally respected Japanese conductor Abe Kanako

Vivacious and stellar directional Japanese pianist Hagiwara Mami who is a high class international prize winner

And ever reliable and similarly vivacious Concert Master/Leader of the VNSO, Dao Mai Anh who is a soloist in her own right

These ladies and the other ladies – not forgetting the gentlemen – players of the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra took to the masculine compositions of Le Bang (Vietnamese), Saint Saens, Debussy and Ravel (French) with a fresh flair that made them sparkle.

And these 5 star females certainly made sure that the whole night’s music was full of sparklers from go to whoe!

Maestro Abe Kanako expertly steered us through Le Bang’s symphonic tone poem that celebrates the Red River’s FLOW OF A THOUSAND YEARS through and past Hanoi. Composed for the city’s 2010 celebrations the piece imbues folk tunes and modern jazz in its tumbling and triumphant flow, in parts beautifully paraphrasing the fabulous Yellow River Cantata that celebrates a more northern stream.

Le Bang successfully combines western music methodologies with Vietnamese source materials and tells of a mighty river and its turbulent history… a mighty river that is rapidly being tamed from tiger velocities to kittenish mewings as its tributaries in China and in Vietnam are dammed and dammed again and again so that Hanoi will probably never again see itself awash in floodwaters as happened in August 1971 when a reported 100,000 people perished or in 2008 when parts of the city were alive with fish swirling brown water.

Unless there’s another breach of a big dam in China today’s kids will not be able to see the islands underneath Long Bien Bridge disappear into tossing currents that annually and alarmingly used to snarl around the bridge pylons.

Saint Sean’s last piano concerto, popularly known as THE EGYPTIAN, was stunningly performed by Hagiwara Mami… though when she first floated onto the stage in flowing diaphanous gown you could have been excused for doubting the ability of such a slight figure to be able to make it all the way through the challenging work that takes us on a metaphoric trip up the Nile near Luxor.

But she triumphed. The soft and impressionistic moods in the second movement were shivery and the tumultuous rushing in the final movement meant hair on end bravos

After interval there was a gorgeously sensuous interlude with Debussy and his famous afternoon spent regarding a satyr – a half man half goat creature that symbolizes mans’s sexual desires married to his ability to be rational. The creature is resting from a hard morning’s work lustfully pursuing nubile nymphs through wooded glades and as he plays his pipes as he meditates and salivates about future conquests.

The early afternoon tingles with the melody of a flute and echoes from plucked harps, a clarinet’s call and an oboe’s lush tone – a melody that is repeated 7 times throughout the work.

Oh those sybaritic, early 20th century French composers!

Because next came Ravel’s DAPHNIS AND CHLOE, Suite 2 – the last 3 pieces from Ravels tone poem that became a sensational, if controversial, ballet.

The conductor got her musicians to fall headlong into the work’s hedonistic aspect. We heard Ravel as Ravel was meant to be heard with all its colors and textures sifting and writhing sensuously and with exciting tension lurking slightly below the skin.

The third section is in the groves of the god Pan and was once beautifully described by discography reviewer Ted Libby as: Ravel portraying the murmuring of a nearby brook at daybreak with undulating figures in the winds, harps, celesta and later the strings. In the foreground, birdcalls are sounded by the piccolo and three solo violins. As the shades of dawn give way to the colors of day, a luxuriant melody builds in the orchestra. Daphnis awakes, anxiously looks for Chloe, and sees her among a group of shepherdesses. The two throw themselves into each other’s arms, the melody reaching an impassioned climax.

When it concluded, the audience was left in that aaahhhh moment for a few seconds… and then came the roar of applause that all memorable climaxes, after intense coupling, deserve.

WONDERFUL WORK YOU WONDERFUL WOMEN… two of whom were made available to us via sponsorship from Institute Francaise Vietnam (both of the wonderful Japanese women reside in Paris) and from the perpetually indulgent Japanese… not forgetting the Sheraton and Vietnam Airlines

I’m more than a bit sorry that the concert was in the Opera House and not in the spanking new Concert Hall that was purpose built for such scintillating orchestral performances… in fact when I see an advertisement for a performance by the VNSO I am beginning to cancel out any that take to the stage at the grand old opry house, unless it has a spine tingle attached to it – just like our ladies provided.