Coliseum, London WC2; Wigmore Hall, London W1
Never accept salami from strangers ? that must be the moral, at least from the dog's point of view, of Mikhail Bulgakov's satirical fantasy of a novel A Dog's Heart, written in 1925. A starving mongrel is tempted by a doctor (brandishing a salami like a conductor's baton) to come back to his Moscow apartment and be the subject of an experiment. A man's testicles and pituitary gland are implanted in the dog and a new man/cur is created: lewd, unpredictable, on his hind legs, with a taste for vodka. Bulgakov's visceral comedy was an attack on the idea of human perfectability. A secret police informer was present at an early reading and was outraged: "Bulgakov hates and despises the Soviet regime." It was not until 1987 that the novel was published in Russia, almost half a century after its author's death.
If that informer had been able to sit in the Coliseum watching Simon McBurney's mind-blowing production of the opera based on the novel (libretto by Cesare Mazzonis), he would have furiously exhausted his notebook long before the interval. It is hard to know where to start in saluting this exuberant, original and in every way brilliant evening. But first, an approving nod to the dog himself, a cadaverous Giacometti-on-the-move. It takes three men (from the Blind Summit theatre) to get the canine movements right ? and they do. The dog even has an official tail-wagger (curious career). The outstanding countertenor Andrew Watts sings alongside the dog and contributes his "pleasant" voice. Elena Vassilieva takes on the challenge of his "unpleasant" voice ? an unearthly sound, aided by a megaphone.
Alexander Raskatov is a 57-year-old Russian composer. His score is an underscore: an unpredictable soundscape that supports the narrative and in which an enormous amount happens simultaneously. Early on, a dog's howling ? flaky with pain ? is incorporated into the music. Listening is like lying awake at night above an agitated street. The music is amazingly human ? it breathes, hiccups and gasps. It is intuitive, sometimes hysterical, full of foreboding. Occasionally, it frees itself into patches of seductive sweetness and lyricism (the salami inspires one such moment). Towards the end, noisy exhalations of brass suggest the dog/man's doom.
McBurney's work as co-founder and artistic director of Complicite is a continuing tale of the unexpected. His hallmark is invention and incongruity. And that is the visual character of his first opera production. He is aided by designer Michael Levine, whose stunning sets are trashed at every performance. The doctor's apartment starts out with shameless golden chandelier and wallpaper (modelled on Stalin's, apparently). Rising from the dog basket, Peter Hoare's man/dog ? now named Sharikov ? is a wild success. And Steven Page's Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky is superb too, powerfully conveying ? too late in the day ? his mortification at what his scientific arrogance has produced.
In the second half, the man/dog goes bonkers chasing a ginger cat ? it must be one of the hottest pursuits ever staged (puss swings on the chandelier). It ends in the destruction of the doctor's bathroom. A hole is knocked into the wallpaper through which water floods. It is a moment that sums up the production's defining spirit: uncontainability. The sense is of an all-consuming experiment in which nothing is too lunatic to try (a dozen people appear holding aloft glass jars with monkeys' ovaries in them; at another moment, the dog remarks: "Perhaps my granny had a fling with a St Bernard", while hilarious footage of a cavorting dog is projected overhead).
The triumph is that, although the doctor's experiment is a disaster, McBurney and company pull theirs off. But the greatest achievement of all ? and the one that would most have delighted Bulgakov ? is that, beneath the laughter, what one feels, overwhelmingly, is shocked pity at the spectacle of Sharikov, the new man of Russia's dog days.
It was a treat to be at the concert to celebrate the 70th birthday of Amelia Freedman, founder of the Nash Ensemble (now in its 47th year). The programme, chosen by Freedman, included works from Ravel, Schubert, Dvor�k and Spohr and half-a-dozen two-minute birthday pieces commissioned from composer friends ? Michael Berkeley, Harrison Birtwistle, Peter Maxwell Davies, Simon Holt, Colin Matthews, David Matthews and Mark-Anthony Turnage.
There were surprise appearances, too: Thomas Allen was smuggled in to sing Ravel's "The Peacock" ? about a vain monsieur stood up by his fiancee (a resounding performance). And Kim Criswell dropped in from the world of vaudeville to offer Stephen Sondheim's "I'm Still Here". Still there was exactly where we were, too, after three-and-a-quarter hours, at the end of the festively sprawling occasion.
The start could not have been more pristine: Ravel's Introduction and Allegro, which was written to showcase a harp (Debussy composed his Danse sacr�e et danse profane for a rival harp manufacturer). In the Nash Ensemble's hands and with harpist Lucy Wakeford at its centre, this piece had a ravishing, competitive edge. Then Felicity Lott, in fine voice, gave us Schubert's "The Shepherd on the Rock". And it was especially enjoyable to witness the rapport between her and clarinettist Richard Hosford, who played with flawless delicacy.The clarinet had a leading role in the programming ? it is Freedman's own instrument. And Spohr's Nonet in F major brought the first half to a close with insouciant gaiety.
The second half brought more birthday offerings (I especially admired David Matthews's subtle setting of Housman's "In Valleys Green and Still", sung by Felicity Lott, and, in the first half, Peter Maxwell Davies's Nocturne No 2, a morphine-induced trance). But all the two-minute pieces could be downed like chasers before the big event: Dvor�k's incomparable Piano Quintet in A major, an involuntary, infinitely varied, fast-flowing journey of a piece. It was exquisitely played. Altogether a tremendous Nash bash.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/28/dogs-heart-nash-ensemble-review
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