Saturday 8 November, 2025
Review by Paul Neeson (Arts Wednesday)
The Australian Chamber Orchestra are famous for their innovation and risk-taking programming, but in their theatrical production of Cocteau’s Circle they ventured beyond their comfort zone, and for the first night of the national tour there were a few opening night butterflies.
The show began with a small ensemble noodling away on what could have been a 1920’s show tune (Elena Kats-Chernin’s Pre-show Intermission Music) on a darkened stage backed by a midnight blue floor-to-ceiling curtain – think a psychedelic purple haze – the floor strewn with sound and lighting cables that should have given the OH&S Officer palpitations. Sure enough, a random high heel caught in a cable – repositioning it – so that when Artistic Director Richard Tognetti arrived on stage it was wrapped around the foot pedal of his electronic music stand. But as with all class acts, with little fuss he had everything in its correct place without much ado and the show proper began.
In a blaze of black glittering tule our larger-than-life maître d’, Le Gateau Chocolat as Jean Cocteau reincarnated, bustled centre-stage to set the scene: 1920’s Paris “where the streets are full of rats and American soldiers”, a between-wars world teaming with poets, artists and writers at the dawn of the jazz era, where subversion in all its forms is the mode de jour. A world where artistic, moral and gender rigidity is being dissolved in the bubbles of champagne. And no-one takes it too seriously. But the ACO take their music-making very seriously indeed.
Musically we were presented with a mélange of classical composers who were there (Les Six) interspersed with great songs from the Parisian cabarets. Gateau’s deep baritone seemed at times incongruous against his vulnerable epicene voice, but that encapsulated the ambiguity and burgeoning androgyny of the times. He worked those 5cm nails and 3cm fluttering lashes to a tea, and the glittering gold frock (costume designer Libby McDonnell) at the end: simply stunning. One or two notes presented him with some technical difficulties, but the overall delivery was one of emotion and genuine empathy for the role and the music. His rendition of Gershwin’s Oh, Lady Be Good was particularly moving and heartfelt.
The choice of Elena Kats-Chernin to compose the interludes was an inspired choice given her fascination with rag music, a precursor to 1920’s jazz. And the interludes were seamless segueing at one point from Ravel’s String Quartet to Poulenc’s Les Chemins de l’amour.
The ACO was particularly comfortable with their core repertoire in the works by Stravinsky, Ravel and Debussy as you would expect, breathtaking precision and brilliance as always, but when it came to Daruis Milhaud’s Le Bœuf sur le toit, there was at times a noticeable tension between the classical strictness or perhaps in this scenario, the stiffness of the orchestra layered over the looseness of the jazz motifs that permeated the work. Bassist Maxime Bibeau was ultimately cool in his controlling of the jazz beat, as were trumpeter Brent Grapes and pianist Stefan Cassomenos in injecting some swing and groove into the performance.
But it was soprano Chloe Lankshear who was able to unite the disparate worlds of disciplined classical and more relaxed jazz with the three songs she performed. She was entirely comfortable with the 1920’s style of selling a song that came from a visual sense of cabaret combined with a clarity of vocal perfection. Poulenc’s Les Chemins de l’amour has a melody that you would find yourself whistling or humming as you walked out of the nightclub, and what genius to segue into Lili Boulanger’s sombre and devotional Pie Jesu. And she brought the house down with the final song of the night, Édith Piaf’s L’Hyme à l’amour. Immediately recognisable as Piaf, but so glad they didn’t choose the more obvious Non, Je ne regrette rien.
Given it was the first performance of an extended national tour, there were a lot of elements to bring together, including a high degree of theatrical elements that are outside the ACO’s usual remit. Have no doubt it was a captivating, enchanting evening.The ACO thrive on a challenge – never static, it’s one of the reasons why so many devoted fans love them, and knowing the professionalism of the orchestra and Richard Tognetti, I expect every subsequent night will be more relaxed and even more truly capture the heady progressive spirit of the time.