It was a special night for Kochi, with the first-ever performance by a symphony orchestra gracing the town on Tuesday. The 52-member Australian World Orchestra (AWO), comprising Australian musicians from the London Symphony Orchestra, and Vienna and Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestras, headed by conductor Alexander Briger, had arrived in Kerala, understanding fully well the challenges that lay before them.
The complexity of Western classical music could well be lost on audience who lacked sufficient exposure to the genre. But, from the very moment the orchestra opened with a dramatic overture from Don Giovanni (Mozart), the musicians had the crowd transfixed. Fun fact: Mozart closed Don Giovanni with the use of trombone, which was then rarely [if ever] used outside the confines of church music. The overture gave way to a truly virtuosic performance of the devilishly difficult Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (Saint-Saens) by solo violinist Daniel Dodds, on his rare 1700s Stradivarius. It was truly a stunning display of technical wizardry, and Dodds ended the piece—which was replete with staccatos, octave jumps and sustained triple-stops—with a flourish on a quicksilver coda.
It was then the turn of French mezzo-soprano Caroline Meng to shine, with three arias from Bizet’s Carmen. The opera was something of a revolution when it premiered in Paris in 1875. The eponymous femme-fatale—a gypsy woman Carmen—was a force of nature, a woman who was truly free and beholden to none. For the wildly erogenous display, as well as the portrayal of working class and gypsy characters, the play shocked audience and critics and was widely panned, before becoming one of the most popular operas in the world. With the arias Habanera, Seguidilla and Gypsy Song, Meng had the audience in the palm of her hand, with the controlled chromaticity of Carmen’s fiery spirit and wild abandon.
Beethoven's 7th Symphony, with its stone cold gorgeous allegretto (second movement) and the unbuckled rush of energy of the fourth movement, ended the second half of the concert on a high.
Incidentally, both Rondo Capriccioso and Carmen have strong influences of Spanish dance music, which have a strong connect to India, as the gypsies originated from the land. Was it a conscious decision made for their first concert, I asked Briger after the performance. No, he assures me. “We just wanted some songs that were popular enough for the audience to enjoy.”
“Take the case of [Bizet’s] Carmen. We have no doubt that excerpts like Habanera are very recognisable for the people here. Same is the case with [Mozart’s] Don Giovanni opera. I am sure they will recognise it from popular movies like Amadeus. Even if they don’t, we hope our set is exciting enough for the audience to be really involved in it,” Briger had told me in an earlier conversation.
Apart from the concerts, the AWO is also associated with the Centre for Autism India, with a few programmes planned for them. They have also been working with kids from the slums. “Last time [2015], we came with maestro Zubin Mehta and in association with his Mehli Mehta Music Foundation. We visited slums in Mumbai and Delhi, working alongside ASHA. We even had a show set for them. Most of them had never seen a violin, a flute or a clarinet before, so we had to show them all of it. They were so astonished. It was a moving experience. This time we will be working with the autism foundation as well,” Briger had earlier told THE WEEK.
The orchestra, which started its three-city tour in Chennai, will perform in Mumbai on September 28.