Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Festival Theatre. 27 June 2014
For those who like their music shaken not stirred the Adelaide Festival Theatre was the place to be over the weekend. It takes a rather special event to fill the Festival Theatre and empty seats were far and few between for the ASO’s homage to all things double-o-seven. There’s no doubt about it – the James Bond franchise continues to be a remarkable phenomenon with no sign of letting up.
To date there have been twenty-three Bond films and all but one of them (“On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”) features a theme song that has been written by a songwriter/composer luminary and sung by a pop-icon of the day. The ASO together with vocalists Debora Krizak and Blake Bowden performed them all, along with some musical suites, and the bumper audience lapped it up and would have gladly traded their ‘Vesper’ cocktails for a few more encores!
There is a risk that such events remain just concerts, but with a little imagination and the right direction they can be so much more, and that is exactly what the ASO achieved. Conductor/ Presenter Guy Noble was the perfect choice to lead the event. His patter was oh-so-amusing, and his impersonation of super villain Ernst Blofeld, complete with trademark white fluffy cat, was …. gold! With tongue firmly in cheek, Noble quipped that many other notable villains have favoured such cats as pets, including dictators Bashar Al-Assad and Saddam Hussein, and Bronwyn Bishop! The programme doesn’t credit who directed/ stage-managed the show – maybe it just happened – but the humour, the superb casino-esque lighting, the choreographed movement of the vocalists on and off the stage and their interaction with audience members all added to a glitzy event that had all the hallmarks of a gala performance.
But what about the music? The thing about a symphony orchestra playing popular songs is that they first need to be arranged for full orchestra. This demands skill on behalf of the arranger and of the conductor who then needs to interpret the arrangement. All but two of the twenty-eight arrangements were credited to Coleman and Forgie, and several of them presented the soloists with challenges. Particularly in the first half of the programme, Bowden occasionally struggled to pitch correctly to the accompaniment but his well-crafted on-stage persona and strong tenor voice (almost too strong and dramatic at times) allowed him to confidently present each song. His performance of ‘From Russia with Love’ almost channelled Matt Monro. Krizak fared better with the arrangements and did particularly well with ‘Diamonds are Forever’ and especially ‘Skyfall’ (arranged by Nic Raine). Her seductive antics with a gentleman from the audience whom she brought up on stage were superb, and he was the envy of every other man in the auditorium!
Concerts such as these are wonderful eye-opening and fun opportunities for all to experience the spectacle of a symphony orchestra in full flight. Later in the season the ASO will be presenting
‘Pixar in Concert’, a multi-media show for the young and young-at-heart to enjoy. Don’t miss that one!
Kym Clayton
When: Closed
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: Closed
