Soprano Aleksandra Zamojska and countertenor Armin Gramer are often inaudible when performing on the catwalk. Picture: Jamie Williams Source: Supplied
- SYDNEY FESTIVAL
Semele Walk
A show by Ludger Engels, couture by Vivienne Westwood.
Sydney Town Hall, January 11. Ends tomorrow.
IF Cocteau was right in saying that fashion is beautiful at first and ugly afterwards, then Ludger Engels and Vivienne Westwood's Semele Walk could be described as ahead of its time.
Plundering some of Handel's 1744 masterpiece for their soundtrack, the German director and the septuagenarian high priestess of punk have created an opera-for-fashionistas populated by grimy-faced models with stick legs confined in anvil-like platform shoes, and angst-ridden punk musicians on baroque period instruments.
GALLERY: Costume fitting for Semele Walk
Semele's self-destructive lust for immortality, found in Ovid, serves as the pretext for the fashion show set on a catwalk running down the centre of Sydney Town Hall, with the audience divided in two on either side. And in a response guaranteed to please any 1970s-style avant-gardist, that's how they remained on opening night, with plenty offering a standing ovation and the others a bewildered "what the . . ." look.
In a brief performance in which all genres and styles are welcomed as long as they clash, librettist William Congreve's line "Myself I shall adore" takes on new resonance when soprano Aleksandra Zamojska, cast as a harridan of an anti-heroine, emerges from a pack of 10 fashion models to intone the much-loved "Endless pleasure, endless love" before a bank of mirrors.
Well up to the role vocally, she works a runway large enough for an A380 so thoroughly that her vocal line disappears from those not in her immediate vicinity, leaving a new appreciation for Handel's instrumental accompaniment, which is all that can be heard for much of the time.
The same goes for countertenor Armin Gramer, whose fetching kilt, apparently part of the god Jove's summer collection, is matched by a beautiful voice that's inaudible to such a degree for much of the time that Handel novices receive an early lesson in why these opera things tend not to be staged on catwalks.
When the members of the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs reveal themselves as audience members dotted throughout the hall, the great choruses are turned into solos from those sitting nearest each listener.
Purists will be horrified, but no one ever said it was going to be about Handel, whose great score tends to dissolve into dissonant soundscapes created by Michael Rauter and the Berlin-based Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop conducted by Olof Boman.
Instead, it's Westwood-branding all the way, and even without as much climate-change commentary as hyped, there was plenty to satisfy fans of a label that's served customers reliably for decades.
SYDNEY FESTIVAL
Semele Walk
A show by Ludger Engels, couture by Vivienne Westwood.
Sydney Town Hall, January 11. Ends tomorrow.
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