"The Intelligence Park"

I went out to the Irish Museum of Modern Art, where Crash Ensemble where doing a concert performance of Gerald Barry's fascinating opera The Intelligence Park. This is set in the past and is about a puppet-fancying composer who becomes obsessed with a star castrato. It was on the same night as the UK Queen and Prince Phillip were going off to some posh event somewhere, which meant that it was horrendously difficult to get around the city, with everything being under lockdown. We found ourselves stuck on the wrong side of the river while they closed all the bridges before the Queen drove up the quays. This was a bit annoying, but it did mean that I caught a glimpse of the royal car and its inhabitants waving* – and of some guy being carted off by the cops after he shouted "Fuck off back to England" at our visitors.

The worst bit of all the delay was that the concert performance was to be preceded by a wine reception – or so we had been told. When we arrived, it was not so much a wine reception as a wine bar – as in, you had to pay for your drinks. I don't know what Prince Philip would have said (which might just have happened – he and the Queen had apparently been given a compilation CD of contemporary Irish music**; having given it a listen you could imagine the Prince making his excuses and leaving whatever ghastly event he was attending so that he could catch some of this contemporary music in the flesh).

Anyway, the opera. It begins with a boy soprano singing a song. I've never really got boy sopranos before, but there was a beauty to the vocals issuing from this young fellow. I found myself almost understanding the fondness of certain people in the past for castrating boy singers so that their voices would develop an adult's strength while retaining the ability to hit the high notes. Maybe that was the point of the boy soprano's appearance – he did not seem to have anything directly to do with the rest of the action.

As I was saying, the opera was about this composer who also makes puppets and who becomes obsessed with this castrato singer. He starts mixing up the puppets and the real people and eventually loses all sense of reality, particularly after the cheeky castrato runs away with the posh bird he is meant to be marrying. I seem to recall hearing that, back in the day, castrati were very popular with the ladies and could be surprisingly saucy, so this twist was not entirely ridiculous. To the extent that the composer character was really aware of what was happening, he seemed more bothered by the loss of the castrato rather than the disappearance of his lovely fiancée and the rich inheritance she promised. Such is love.

I think a fully staged performance of this would have been fascinating. I also was interested by the way Barry worked against gender and voice stereotyping in giving lines to the characters – you might think that the castrato character would be sung either by a woman or by a counter-tenor – not a bit of it, the part was sung by a man with a singing voice that did not even hint at lacking anything in the meat-and-two-veg department. I did like the way he acted the part, however, as he did a great castrato-face***.

Gerald Barry himself was knocking around at the event. He seems to be a bit of a roffler, quite far removed from the stereotype of the austere contemporary composer. Given how enjoyable The Intelligence Park and the pieces by him on the CD IMMA gave away with Boulevard Magenta (their art magazine), I cannot but think that he is someone whose work I must explore further.

*I'm not proud – I waved back.

**including actual music by Gerald Barry.

*** Opera singer's voice: "Do you mind, that's the way I always look".

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New Favourites 2010

I have prepared a CD-R of my favourite new (to me) tunes of 2010. You can have a copy if you want; let me know and I will make one for you. Here is a list of the tunes with information on where they come from and links to where you can read more about the artist in question. Art Bears The Song of Investment Capital Overseas From a private compilation of music featuring Dagmar Krause called Some Questions About Dagmar Krause Veronica Falls Found Love in a Graveyard From the Indietracks Festival 2010 compilation Everybody Was In The French Resistance… Now Billie's Genes This riposte to Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' appears on the album Fixin' The Charts, Vol. 1 Lady Gaga Telephone From the album The Fame Monster The Blood Arm Suspicious Character From the album Lie Lover Lie Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes Home From the Rough Trade Shops compilation Counter Culture 2009, which I seem not to have reviewed online. The Duckworth Lewis Method Test Match Special From the untitled album by the Duckworth Lewis Method Electrelane To the East From the album No Shouts, No Calls Cate Le Bon Eyes So Bright From the brilliant album Me Oh My. I hope I have not buried this track here where people will not realise how great Cate Le Bon is. Cluster Heisse Lippen From the Soul Jazz compilation Deutsche Elektronische Musik: Experimental German Rock and Electronic Musik 1972-83 Fever Ray Seven From the untitled album by Fever Ray Cineplexxx Para Mi From the Indietracks Festival 2010 compilation Las Cuervas Chan Chan From the album De Mi Ciudad Te Traigo Omar Souleyman Hafer Gabrak Bidi (I Will Dig Your Grave with My Hands) From the album Jazeera Nights: Folk and Pop Sounds of Syria Group Doueh Ragsa Jaguar From the album Treeg Salaam Terrifying Tibetan Child and His Father Vocal with Erhu From the Sublime Frequencies album Streets of Lhasa Gerald Barry L'Agitation des Observateurs, le Tremblement des Voyeurs From the CD given away with the Irish Museum of Modern Art's Boulevard magazine. Trio Scordatura Invocation From the album Dubh The Streets of Lhasa From the Sublime Frequencies album Streets of Lhasa An inuit panda production

Gerald Barry [free CD with "Boulevard Magenta"]

The latest issue of Boulevard Magenta (an art magazine published by IMMA) comes with a CD of music by Gerald Barry, an Irish composer of contemporary music – two long pieces and two short, composed in the years between 1977 and 2002. I was very struck by one of the longer pieces, Things That Gain By Being Painted. It has a woman's voice, mainly talking but occasionally breaking into random notes, telling us about various things she likes and dislikes, with a very slight musical accompaniment. I had the vague idea it might be an adaptation of something by Tennessee Williams or another of that lot, mainly because the woman has an accent suggestive of origins in the American South. But actually no, the text is taken from the pillow book of Sei Shonagon*. I like this a lot – there is a mesmerising quality to the rather affected sounding woman sounding off about all the things she likes and the things she simply cannot abide.

I was also rather taken by one of the shorter pieces, L'agitation des observateurs, le tremblement des voyeurs (M. Barry – il parle bien le français, uh huh huh). It consists of series of staccato notes played on a variety of instruments, with short gaps of silence in between. And, when you listen on headphones, what sounds like crowd noise or the sound of people fidgeting. Maybe this is a performance art piece where, in live performance, they keep poking the audience to cause agitation among them; that would rock.

Can anyone tell me anything further about Gerald Barry? I seem to recall hearing about him writing an opera called The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, an adaptation of a Fassbinder film. Did anyone reading this see it when it was on in London?

Pandas that gain by being painted

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* Reader's Voice: "So you are unfamiliar with the work of Sei Shonagon, the sage of Alabama?"