This is only the second MIF. The first, two years ago (it’s biennial), had one big coup – Damon Albarn / Jamie Hewlett’s ‘opera’ Monkey. This one has lots!
My visit started with It Felt Like A Kiss, a site specific installation / film / journey from Punchdrunk. This is the fourth of their shows I’ve seen – The Firebird Ball was their take on Romeo & Juliet in a disused factory in Kennington, their version of Faust was in a warehouse in Docklands and The Mask of the Red Death, based on Poe stories, took over the entire Battersea Arts Centre building. This show covers six floors of an empty office block and starts with a walk through lots of rooms, initially 50s/60s Americana (the American Dream?) later becoming more mysterious (broken dream?). These take you to an extraordinary 35-minute film montage, which seems to show the American Dream unravelling, before you enter a more sinister phase where you are ‘processed’ in groups you are instructed to stay in but are prevented from doing so. I ended up being chased from the building by a man with a chainsaw! It has a great soundtrack of contemporary music plus an original score by Damon Albarn. I found it just as inventive but more accessible than their earlier work, largely because it was linear. A surreal 2 hours I suspect I will never forget.
I love the Royal Exchange Theatre; it’s like sitting in a spaceship which has landed inside a historic building. I haven’t been there for ages but have fond memories of Alan Price’s musical Lucky Man, an adaptation of Russell Hoban’s Ridley Walker and an all-day Count of Monte Cristo. Neil Bartlett’s Everybody Loves A Winner is a play about bingo and people who play bingo. They’ve turned the theatre into a seedy bingo hall and obtained a license so that the audience can play during the play (for a £200 jackpot!). It’s a great idea which at first seems just populist fun, but it also has a lot to say about the motivation of the players and their exploitation, without in any way patronising them. It was both entertaining and thought provoking – but I didn’t win the £200!
The Manchester City Art Gallery has put on a cracking festival exhibition called What Are You Like? based on the Victorian practice of drawing / painting your likes and dislikes. They’ve asked public figures to produce their own and, with no other rules, the variety is amazing. People like Andrew Marr and Anna Ford prove to be talented artists and there are hilarious contributions from cartoonists Glen Baxter & Peter Brookes. I’d never been to this gallery before so it was an opportunity to see their permanent collection, which majors on the Victorian period with a superb collection of Pre-Raphaelites and some good impressionists (including a wonderful one new to me, Adolphe Valette, who taught in Manchester and whose pupils included Lowry).
Rufus Wainwright is one of my favourite singers; he has an extraordinary voice and writes wonderful songs. His debut opera, Prima Donna, is a real coup for MIF and they’ve easily sold out the six performances. In many ways it’s an old fashioned opera, more like Puccini than anything else, which suits it’s subject matter – a Prima Donna who can no longer perform – as does its performance in French. There is much lush music and lovely tunes and the story (of why she can no longer perform) unfolds well. His lack of operatic experience shows as he writes beyond the range of his singers (though probably not beyond his own!) as does the lack of experience of director Daniel Kramer who sometimes gives the singers too much to do whilst they are trying to sing! It’s certainly not the finished article, but it is a most auspicious debut and suggests there is at least one masterpiece further down the line.
Architect Zaha Hadid has created a temporary chamber concert venue on the 2nd floor of the City Art Gallery specifically for the performance of solo pieces by Bach. On the evening I went it was four cello suites performed by young French cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras. In truth, 80 minutes of Bach solo cello meant it outstayed its welcome, but it was nevertheless a great experience.
This festival’s mission of only mounting commissions or other new work successfully differentiates it from others and based on this year’s programme, I shall certainly be back.
