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| Sunday, 13 July 2003 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Arts Images at Lionel Wendt on July 17 by Anjana Gamage
His fingers are so busy when he starts drawing a portrait, with his pencil on a white sheet. One sees how bold and quick he is with his eyes and fingers, looking up to glance at the model and starting to sketch. Within a few minutes, you'll be surprised, the exact figure right in front of the artist appears on a piece of paper. These magic fingers belong to the artist Wasantha Srinath. His first exhibition of portraits titled 'Images' will be held from July 17 to 20 at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery.
The exhibition will be opened on July 17 at 6.00 pm by Deshabandu Reggie Candappa, the chairman of Grant McCan Ericcson, who was instrumental in getting Srinath to join their band. From the age of seven Srinath had pursued the art of drawing encouraged by his father. He has several international arts awards such as 'Shankar' and 'Nipon'. After his A\L's Srinath joined the tabloid papers, 'Sathuta', 'Sathsiri' and 'Rasika' and then moved on to 'Kalpana' magazine. At present, he is the art director of 'Advantage' an advertising company. ************************ Concert at Russian centre Brave young performers trained by Bridget Halpe by Karel Roberts Ratnaweera This was a concert of 'serious' music, as Western Classical Music (WCM) has been called in this country ever since the dawn of Independence in days when such music was the sole privilege of the English-educated and that meant the upper and upper-middle classes. The main reason why this writer did not baulk at attending was that the programme was right up my street. And this was a Young Professionals Concert,2003, and would be representative of what many young Sri Lankan people are achieving in the field of WCM now. In years gone by,the then Ceylon produced only two musicians of world class- pianist Malinee Jayasinghe-Peris and cellist Rohan de Saram. As for music critics, there was only one who was worthy of the name and that was Elmer de Haan who is totally unknown to the young generation of Sri Lankans. It was in the eighties that a world-class star shone on the horizon;the brilliant conductor/pianist with honours from the Juillard-Rohan Joseph who in this writer's opinion is the only Sri Lankan-born conductor (there aren't many!) who can 'tackle' an international orchestra. Rohan Joseph was brought back home from the US by President Premadasa in the early eighties and formed and conducted his own orchestra in some memorable performances. But after that brief background, to the Young Professionals Concert 2003 at the small but excellent Russian Cultural Centre last Saturday evening. That remarkable woman Bridget Halpe was in charge of the whole show. Bridget and her husband Professor Ashley Halpe have been guiding lights in Peradeniya for several years. They have inspired-and continue to inspire-many young people in and around the university environs for a generation and more. Indeed a great debt of gratitude is due to them for their untiring work. The programme opened with Chopin's Nocturne's in G major Op 37 No 2 one of his best known Nocturnes, in fact, played by Shalindri Jayasinghe. She,too could be one of a young generation of pianists who may be on the way to attaining the piano virtuosity of Jayasinghe-Peris, and this is what amazed me that evening.Producing good, clear tone and an understanding of what music she was playing, this young woman gave an immediate glimpse of what she is capable of. Grieg's Wedding Day at Troldhaugen is no joke to play although it is Norwegian wedding music. She began in too easygoing a way-a too gentle treatment, should one say, because the music is strongly rhythmic and brisk. But overall her technique was good. There were some jumbled notes but this was excusable. Ruvini Kalupahana had a way of looking at the music before her in what at times appeared to be a rather belligerent way. This could have been 'nerves.' She did produce sonorous tone in her playing of the Schubert Impromptu in G Flat major D 899 No 3 but there was often too much lefthand heaviness. Later she picked up and got into the swing of things, so to speak. Again-another 'find' on the local WCM scenario, I suspect. Hasinee Halpe Andree's violin playing showed much improvement since this writer last heard her. Brilliant piano accompaniment by Bridget Halpe bonded the performance together. The Jean-Marie Leclair Sonata in E minor was out of place in this programme,belonging to a world-away period from the other composers whose music was selected for the programme. Suffice it to say that the Max Bruch Kol Nidrei could have brought tears to the eyes of several in the audience. Bruch was a German Jew whose music reflects Hebrew melodies, as this work does. The pathos of many of his themes could also put one in mind of the holocaust of World War II - although Bruch died in 1920-as does his great violin concerto. The last work Hasinee played was the formidable Danse Macabre by Camille Saent-Saens. As its name implies, the music is quite devilish and taxes the technique of violinists. As I listened, I wondered whether some music-and some instruments are more suited for male artistes to perform. On looking up at the stage the violinist's movements confirmed my thought which I express at the risk of the wrath of the Women's Movement, such as it is! Nuwan Vithanage's (piano) first notes in the Schubert Sonata in A Minor, reinforced the opinion just expressed;you could have told it was a man at the keyboard. His playing had the touch of brilliance that is not easy to come by.Given some years more and he should be 'there'-unless he,like many other young students is going into computers! The Gershwin (Two Preludes) were delightful and he sustained his strong technique through to the end. But it was the last part of the evening's programme that stunned the audience. Franz Liszt is no one's easiest composer to play. His beautiful Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12 in C Sharp minor was given a stupendous and strong interpretation by Chitrika Rajapakse-and strength is a lot what Liszt is about. Definitely a man's composer. But perhaps we are producing a new breed of more physically strong and mentally more mature young people. With the exception of a few smudged notes here and there, this was the standout performance of the whole concert, complemented by delightful Elegie in E Flat minor Op 3 No 1 (Rachmaninov) and a scintillating Etude in D Sharp minor Op 8 No 12 by that dazzling Russian, Alexander Skryabin. No encores, but this reviewer for one would not have regretted any, although there was no intermission and an elderly woman sitting behind was heard remarking halfway through that it was a good time for a drink! ************************ Gabriel Garcia Marquez on stage
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's story is about a murder in the name of family honour. Practically the whole town knew, hours before the killing that the Vicario twins were waiting to kill Santiago Nasar. A whole town, paralysed into inaction by a strange combination of forces, looked on, while the twins, butchers by profession, "carved up Santiago Nasar like a pig". The Vicario brothers had surrendered immediately after the murder - 'with great dignity' - it was said. They were acquitted. They were guilty of justifiable homicide not amounting to murder, because they had killed, so the jury decided, to redeem a debt of honour. The twin's sister Angela Vicario had married the handsome, wealthy Bayardo San Roman and Bayardo San Roman returned her to her parents that very night, when he discovered that she was not a virgin. Angela Vicario accused Santiago Nasar of despoiling her. The twins didn't ask him, nor did anyone else. The twins just killed him, in broad daylight, in the unobstructed view of the whole town. The twins were forgiven; Santiago Nasar forgotten; and the townsfolk carried on. In this adaptation of the novel, for dramatic purposes, Mark Amerasinghe falls back on the devices (used in his four previous monologues) of extensive excision, functional selection and regrouping and translocation of text. There is very little extrapolation and no attempt at re-interpretation. While adapting the text, he has tried to retain the flavour and intensity of the original, and hold the attention of an audience comprised, probably largely, of people unfamiliar with the novel. The only 'stage set' is a chair and table, as the narrator talks to the assembled townsfolk, gathered in the "theatre" of the square, about the findings of his delayed investigation of the murder. ************************ Reflections in colour
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| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
The Alliance Francaise de Kandy will present an adaptation of Gabriel
Garcia Marquez's 'Cronica de una muerte anunciada' (A chronicle of a death
foretold) as a dramatic monologue entitled: 'Who killed Santiago Nasar'?
on July 17. This dramatic monologue is scripted and presented by Mark
Amerasinghe.
An exhibition of paintings by Jayani Pinnawela will be held from July
25-27 at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery. In a series of oil painting
exhibitions, Jayani attempts to portray the many facets of nature. A
variety of subjects have been chosen to show her interest and concern for
nature and most of all the things, that are pleasing to one's eye.
