words cindy lam

A Traveller’s Guide to The 37th Hong Kong Arts Festival
It may still be three and a half months away, but the 2009 Hong Kong Arts Festival is already open for business. Tickets are now on sale and for some of the performances will, no doubt, sell out quickly. bc approached Tisa Ho, the festival’s executive director, about the direction and highlights of the festival and she pointed out that, although the festival has provoked numerous ideas, a ‘journey’ theme has emerged from many productions across the various genres. And so, with that as our guiding light, bc brings you some of the more significant ‘journeys’ in next year’s programme.

Theatrical Journeys
Never in his wildest imaginings would Lewis Carroll have thought that his story about a girl called Alice, a white rabbit and several outlandish characters in a dream world would be turned into a ballet by his country’s national ballet company. But it has happened and the English National Ballet is bringing Alice’s journey into Wonderland to the HK Cultural Centre on 4 and 8 March. The production promises spellbinding dance (look out for the dancing deck of cards), extravagant costumes and breathtaking illusions by Paul Kieve, the man who worked the magic in the Harry Potter movies and the stage version of Lord of the Rings. Tickets are $480 to $100.

Give a woman a beautiful face, a slinky walk and magic fingers, and what he-man will not be captivated? Pity if she has a lascivious mind as well, though. Alcina is a sorceress who seduces all the men who make landfall on her island. But she soon tires of her lovers and turns each into a stone, tree or animal when the next one appears. Then she meets Ruggiero and is really smitten – but she doesn’t realize until it is too late that he has the power to destroy her. The story comes from the ancient epic poem Orlando Furioso and was set to music as an opera by George Handel. Performed by the Latvian National Opera, it will be the first time baroque opera is seen at the Hong Kong Arts Festival – which is fitting seeing as it will be the 250th anniversary of Handel’s death. Alcina will be staged in the Grand Theatre of the HK Cultural Centre on February 24 and 25. Tickets are $980 to $200.

The journey in the play The Emperor Jones is that of murderer Brutus Jones who escapes from prison and flees to a West Indies island where he sets himself up as the emperor. Not everybody, however, is happy about that and soon he has to escape again – this time into the jungle with his angry former subjects hot on his trail. Although not a comfortable play, The Emperor Jones, first seen in 1920, launched Eugene O’Neill as a major American playwright and it was often performed up to the middle of last century. Then it became seen as racist and was more or less shelved until a production by The Wooster Group in 1993 cast it in more modern terms. The Wooster Group is known for radical staging of classic texts and its interpretation of the play has been hugely successful, selling out at the Philadelphia LiveArts Festival last year. The Wooster Group performs the Asian premiere in the HK Cultural Centre from February 18 to 22. Tickets are from $350 to $150.

Forbidden Journey
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk’s journey ends in suicide on a train to Siberia. Shostakovich finished the opera in 1932 and it was first performed in 1934. Adapted from a novel by Nikolai Leskov, the libretto follows Katerina, the lonely wife of Zinoviy, a merchant and mill owner. Katerina has a torrid affair with a farmhand, Sergey, but when Zinoviy and his father Boris find out, she and Sergey kill them. However, the police catch up with Katerina and Sergey on their wedding day and they are arrested for murder. Like Eugene O’Neill’s play, the opera was initially very popular. Sympathetic to Katerina, it is boldly explicit in both story and music – which is precisely why Stalin banned it in 1936, after which it wasn’t performed for 30 years. It is also why an age restriction (16 years and above) is on the Latvian Opera performances on February 27, 28 and March 1 at the Grand Theatre HK Cultural Centre. Tickets are priced from $980 to 200.

Journey to the Classics
Among the old favourites the 2009 Arts Festival is bringing back, Pygmalion must be one of the most famous. Who could forget Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison in the movie adaptation My Fair Lady? The play is among the best of George Bernard Shaw’s works and comes to the festival in a production directed by Peter Hall. The famous story of arrogant Henry Higgins transforming guttersnipe Eliza from a flower-seller into a posh lady, is seen by Tisa Ho as “a metaphoric journey from one social world to the other”. Hall, rather than playing on the light-heartedness of the musical, merges the comedy with the darkness of one human being taking complete control of another without any regard for the consequences. This fits well with Shaw’sintention – some productions (including the film), which the playwright despised, suggest in the end that Eliza and Higgins get married. It is probably needless to say Hall’s production is not one of those. Nevertheless, it was a triumph both when it premiered in Bath in 2007 and when it moved to London’s West End where it stayed for three months. Hall’s production moves into HKAPA for a run from February 5 to 8 for the festival. Prices are from $680 to $200.

Kafka’s Metamorphosis is yet another metaphoric stage journey of change and alienation, with Gregor Samsa, a sole provider for his family transforming into an insect. The absurd yet horrific changes all take place on stage with Gregor bursting out of his suit and scuttling over the set – including up the walls and on the ceiling – his parents first repulsed and then resentful of his transformation. With music by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, this production promises to be compelling and haunting. It is directed by DavidFarr and Gísli Örn Gardarsson (who also stars) and will take place in the HKAPA from February 19 to 21. Prices are from $420
to $120.

The Chinese presentations in next year’sarts festival are as celebrated as the European ones. For instance, the Shanghai Yueju Opera Theatre usher in an evening of classic yue opera stories, where all men are played by women: A Dream of Red Mansions, Love with a Fairy Carp and Romance of West Chamber will play on consecutive nights from February 13 to 15 in the HK Cultural Centre. Tickets are $380 to $140.

It may seem a bit bizarre to turn a Chinese opera based on a 400-year-old story into a classical Western ballet but that is what The National Ballet of China has been doing for the last seven years. Those who remember the huge success of Raise the Red Lantern at HKAF in 2002 will want to make sure they don’t miss the ballet company’s The Peony Pavilion, a tale of love, death and resurrection in the Ming Dynasty. The international production team includes costume designer Emi Wada, who won an Oscar for her design of Akiro Kurosawa’s Ran in 1985, and renowned German set designer Michael Simon. The National Ballet of China Symphony Orchestra will accompany the ballet in performances from February 7 to 10 in the HK Cultural Centre. Tickets are from $680 to $180.

Journey to the 55th
On a literal note, the arts festival takes a journey to the 55th floorof Two IFC, a height that the HKAF has never before reached. There in Wang Jian plays Bach @ IFC55 solo cellist Wang Jian will play Bach suites over three nights: Suite No 1 in G, Suite No 4 in E flat on March 3, Suite No 2 in D minor and Suite No 6 in D on March 4, and Suite No 5 in C minor and Suite No 3 in C on March 5. Complimentary glasses of wine, mineral water, juice or soft drink are included with the admission charge of $480– seatsare not reserved.

The festival’s Baroque repertoire will play out in more conventional music venues. Ton Koopman, a recent winner at the prestigious BBC Music Magazine Awards 2008, will bring his Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra to play the music of Bach(Orchestral Suite No 3 in D, No 1 in C, No 2 in B minor, No 4 in D) on March 4, and Handel (Water Music Suite No 1), Rameau (Suite from Dardanus) and Haydn(Symphony No 83 in G minor, The Hen) on March 3 in the City Hall. Koopman, who founded the orchestra, will conduct from his harpsichord. Tickets are $520 to $200.

He also presents the first solo organ recital in the HKAF’s history when he plays Buxtehude’s Prelude and Chaconne in C, Komm Heiligen Geist, Fugue in C, Couperin’s Elévation et Offertorium in G, Bach’s Fantasia in G, Schmücke dich in E flat and more on February 28 at the HK Cultural Centre. Tickets are $320 to $140.

The 37th HK Arts Festival will run from February 6 to March 8, 2009, at various locations around the HKSAR. For a full schedule and detailed information, go to www.hk.artsfestival.org or refer to the Programme & Booking Guides available now, from URBTIX outlets.