SOMTOW: Press

TOP MARKS FOR SOMTOW AND COMPANY

To much of the world, SP Somtow is the author of gripping keep-you-awake gothic horror novels but, to Bangkok arts lovers he is one of Thailand’s most inspired musicians, a man who unites his love of Thai themes with concepts from the West to create art which is helping make Bangkok a major centre of inventiveness.



If the two Somtows, the one with the SP in front to make him sound Western (his publisher wanted to give him a Western pseudonym, but he said no to that) and the one with his heart altogether in Thailand sometimes seem estranged, the union of Jekyll and Hyde finally come together in “Mae Naak”, which tells Thailand’s most famous ghost story with music that is at once essentially Thai but borrows its unyielding sense of disturbance from the musical genre of the horror movie.

The performances early in the month at the Thailand Cultural Centre were the second set in Bangkok, and they were exciting, but soulful too. True, on the first night there were elements that seemed unrehearsed and a number of passages where the drama was not entirely consummated. True, also, that the pronunciation of English by most of the singers left much to be desired – when the words are so important, as in “Mae Naak”, a lack of clarity cools the action.

This notwithstanding, the stage was a mass of colour, the ears filled with the power of Somtow’s music, and the evening a triumphant success.

Nancy Yuen sang Mae Naak. She did take a bit of time to warm up, but her passion blazed and Yuen knew how to make this ghost character live through singing that haunted and action which was larger than life. This “ghost” has measures that move us in essentially human ways, and the Siam Philharmonic, under the direction of Somtow, was on top form to help Yuen bring the dead to life.

Towards the end, Yuen took on a special unworldliness as the Abbott (Richard Cassell) bid the ghost return to the land of the dead. Yuen appeared in red and black, her presence riveting as violins were played with an unearthly sheen and the crowd was bound together (and separated by Yuen) by a string symbolic of Buddhist protection.

The children’s singing was disarming in its sweetness as Mae Naak embraced the earth, disappearing from the set Don Giovanni-like. Most of the other performances were strong, while evocative choreography, staging and costumes contributed to a sense of flow.

It is ultimately the Buddhist sense of flow that gives special meaning to this work. When Mae Nak returned to the dead, the chorus sang the Buddhist refrain, “life is a cycle”, with much spirituality, marking a mere pause and not an end of an ever-flowing journey – making this performance an exploration of the human soul and a foray into the divine.

A truly great work and an inspiring performance.

Review of MAE NAAK
From “Opera” Magazine
January 2006


The Bangkok Opera, which opened its first full season in September 2004, is the kind of company one would usually call a mom-and-pop operation, except in this case there’s only a pop. Formed in 2001 by the Thai-born composer and author Somtow Sucharitkul, who has spent a lifetime reconciling his Asian heritage and his Eton-Cambridge education, the company was born of the same cultural tension that has fuelled its founder’s art. Somtow, who extended the sonorities and techniques of traditional Thai instruments as a Boulez acolyte in the 1970s, turned to writing genre fiction in the 1980s, when his westernized fantasist’s eye gradually rediscovered Thailand’s rich folklore. With his latest musical incarnation in the 1990s as a neo-Romantic, those two creative sides have now fused together on the operatic stage.

Mae Naak, Somtow’s second opera based on a Thai theme, was billed in the local English-language press as “Thailand’s most famous ghost story”, though the result on stage was rather more complicated. In brief, the plot concerns a solder going off to war just as he finds out his wife is pregnant; years later, reunited with her, he eventually discovers she is now a ghost haunting others in the village. Out of civic responsibility, he rejects her in this life, hoping to reunite in the next.

While Somtow’s libretto bends this traditional tale to modern sensibilities, using flashbacks and other cinematic conventions, his music comes squarely from the opposite direction, stretching a post-Wagnerian Germanic language eastward. The composer’s unassuming description in the programme note – essentially, “Thai folk music meets the Hollywood horror movie soundtrack –” was fine for Bangkok’s bndding audiences, though more experienced opera listeners could follow a few shrewd brushstrokes of Berg and Bartók.

This production, largely reconceived and recast from the piece’s premiere in 2003, revolved smoothly around the director Henry Akina’s efficiently other-worldly atmosphere. The cast mixed a handful of promising local singers (including soprano Catherine Sam Harsono and tenor Francis Chan) with some solid young international performers (notably the sopranos Ronit Widmann-Levy, Saundra DeAthos, and Grace Echauri). As the soldier Maak, the Korean baritone Kyu Won Han made a particularly heroic showing.

Little in either the cast or production, however, detracted from the presence of Nancy Yuen, the Hong Kong-born, London-based soprano for whom the title role was written. Though she could deftly negotiate spans of more than an octave in a single phrase, Yuen was often more effective on a single pitch, investing each moment with a range of timbre that communicated on the surface an exquisite emotional depth.

— KEN SMITH

Enslaved to Aida

Somtow and Harrell’s reproduction of Verdi’s masterpiece brings tears of joy and endless “Bravos!”

Jonathan Richmond
special to The Nation

Somtow Sucharitkul and Richard Harrell’s mind-blowing “Aida” was a production for the world stage, put together with a vision and performed with an inspiration that are rarely found at the greatest opera houses in the world.

The production, with more than 200 performers, was BIG, but it was also directed with keen precision, making its gripping three hours fly by. It was full of colour, pageantry, action, red-blooded emotions and given one of the most compelling performances one could ever hope for. Bravo!

Some members of the cast took some time to warm up. I was not quite sure where things would lead for Aida (Jessica Hsing-an Chen) in Act I. But as the opera progressed her performance grew in stature, her musicality used for the most subtle tone-painting, guaranteed to strike at the essence of the soul. Aida sings of her country in “O patria mia”, and Chen sang movingly, with woodwinds cool as the night to lay bare the heat of the heart.

As Aida is told that she is a slaves of the Pharaohs, and not her father’s daughter, Chen shows the character’s suffering intensify. Aida is being told by her Ethiopian father to have her lover, the Egyptian Radames, betray his country, and if Aida’s emotional wounds are raw here, Chen’s powerful singing and blazing passions ensured that Radames would fall for her seduction. The orchestra slowed down, sensuous heartbeats from the strings mated with the offspring of balmy winds, and the rapture of Chen’s voice ensured that Radamaes cannot deny her demands for the hero of Egypt to be treacherous. Bravo!

Todd Geer, as Radames, took rather longer to warm up. His famous Act I number, “Celeste Aida”, fell flat, and some elements of stiffness seemed to linger until somewhere in Act II. That is when Geer managed to forget that he is a 21st-century American and began to live the triumphs and despairs of the warrior fated to die entombed with Aida, his country betrayed for love that was to come only with death. Geer’s lyricism was attractive, and in act IV, his singing was not only impassioned, but his acting compelling, too. Bravo!

In the opera, Amneris is the impossibly jealous princess who may own her slave, Aida, but cannot tear Radames’s love away from Aida and to have it for herself. The singing of Grace Echauri was more than stunning — love, envy, hatred were played off each other with directness, deceit, seeming sanity and ultimate madness by a voice of superb expression.

The silky smooth singing betrayed the guile in Amneris’s heart even as her character attempts, usuccessfully, to contain the false sentiment. And yet, what raw pain came from the mouth of Echausi as Amneris was tortured by the thought of the death of Radames, whose love would be hers in neither life nor death. This performance was just brilliant. Bravo!

Ralph Schatzki was Amonasro, a steely character for whom his daughter is only a means to a military end. Schatzki’s singing was clear, biting, engaged and alarmingly penetrating. Schatzki’s presence was a powerful one as he gave Aida a vocal flogging to make her not a woman freed from Egyptian slavery, but serf enslaved to her father’s will. Fantastic! Bravo!

Richard Harrell’s production was dazzling. The action was set in Ayutthaya, rather than Egypt, and the Thai settings worked very well.

A huge chorus (which sang gloriously), dancers and acrobats exuded boundless energy, but never took the focus from the central drama, which Harrell directed keenly.

Of course, we knew we were in Thailand when the inevitable bunch of effeminate boys turned up to expose themselves for the entertainment of Amneris, but that made sense, too, given the character’s impossible hormonal cravings. Bravo!

But the biggest bravo goes to the Siam Philharmonic and Somtow. The hearts of the characters may have come through their voices, but it was the orchestra that delivered its soul. The playing was clean, taut, and full of detail.

The famous “Triumphal March” fuelled by high-octane brass sounds was astonishing, made the more so by the use of offstage brass choirs (conducted by Trisdee na Patalung), bringing trumpets here, there, and everywhere. Strings were sharply disciplined to evoke a thousand feelings, while sensitive to exploring the depths of those emotions, once exposed. And the winds: just a single flute could enslave the whole Thailand Cultural Centre to the belief that Verdi’s extraordinary fiction was in fact true to life.

This was music of a greatness surely more splendid than anything Bangkok has ever heard before. Bravo!

POWER AND GLORY

Somtow Sucharitkul leads Bangkok�s Orpheus Choir and the Siam Philharmonic through a moving homage to tsunami suffering with Mozart�s �Requiem�

We know that nature is vast, but the human mind has been given the ability to imagine infinity,� Somtow Sucharitkul told the audience. �We know that nature can kill, but the human imagination has been given the power to think beyond death, to think that there are such things as immortality and redemption.�

Thus the conductor set the tone before leading performers from more than a dozen countries in a profound account of the Mozart Requiem at St Joseph�s Convent�s Trinity Hall on January 22.

With Her Royal Highness Princess Galyani in attendance, it was a royal command performance in tribute to those who perished in the tsunami and in aid of the survivors.

The Requiem contains some of the most serious and concentrated music ever composed, and Somtow took us to its depths, understanding the gift of Mozart to illuminate raw pain with a humanity that gives hope and provides redemption.

Instrumental performances from the Siam Philharmonic were on a depth rarely heard anywhere. The opening strains of music, with their doleful, deep wind sounds were arresting and reflective.

The chorus took some time to warm up, seeming diffused during much of the early part of the performance, but showed themselves capable of increasing focus and power in later passages.

Where human voices were not quite adequate, emotional strength and subtlety came through from the instrumental voices.

The singing of �Lux perpetua� (perpetual light) at the opening was weak, but the string bowing superb. Dark undercurrents from cellos and the clarion call of trumpets drew attention in the �Kyrie eleison�.

A frantic but crisp violin attack struck the right note for the following �Dies irae� (day of wrath), the wrath cemented in sharply-controlled and colourful trumpets. The chorus sang strongly here, the urgency of the music�s message coming through with power.

The chorus was at its greatest heights for the �Confutatis maledictis�, evoking a sense of disembodied mystery. The violin playing was highly sensitive and suspenseful, and the winds plangent.

For the ensuing �Lacrimosa�, perhaps one of the most famous passages Mozart ever wrote, the choral singing was almost unbearably moving as the concept of mourning � indescribable in words alone � came through in the music.

Orchestral playing in the �Sanctus� had great majesty. The strings were quite sensational, with a great play of currents of sound to carry emotions. Were these the currents of the sea?

The four soloists were mixed in quality. The absolute highlight came from countertenor Trisdee Na Patalung, who sang with a purity that was deeply holy and brought to life the essence of both the human and the divine.

The two sopranos, Soontharee Srisang and Catherine Sam Harsano, had much of beauty to contribute also. Tenor Sigve Vidnes sang with fluency at times, but had a tendency to exaggerate at others, which stole subtlety from the sound. Bass Ralph McDonald was unsteady, and fell short in the most demanding passages.

Overall, this was a sublime event, brought about with great human as well as musical sensitivity by Somtow, and something that will be remembered as the tsunami-lashed communities rebuild.

As the �Hostias� was performed, it occurred to me that its plea � for prayer to be accepted in place of the human sacrifice forbidden in Abraham�s time � had special significance, for it�s also at the heart of the Muslim Eid celebrations, which were in progress that weekend.

And it�s central to all of Christian and Jewish traditions. All this in an essentially Buddhist setting.

Let us pray that as the communities affected by the tsunami revive, this spirit of unity endures.

Jonathan Richmond

Special to The Nation

MCLEAN ORCHESTRA TACKLES SUCHARITKUL'S UNIVERSE

by Claudia Moore

Somtow Sucharitkul is one of the most astonishing, controversial, and colorful artists to come to the United States out of Southeast Asia. He is an avant-garde composer whose most recent major work, Gongula 3, was premiered at Bangkok's Asian Composer's Expo '78 and was called "brilliant" and "stunning" by International Newsweekly Asia Week. A month before the premiere, however, the orchestra went on strike ...

"My piece used traditional Thai instruments and Western instruments in new combinations, new sonorities," Sucharitkul said. "The orchestra decided that I had polluted the Sacredness of the ancient instruments. It took a lot of persuasion to get them to play it... but this didn't seem to bother the critics." The day before the the concert, however, which was at Thailand's National Theater, someone had hidden the piano, and Sucharitkul had to have a new one moved in.

Somtow Sucharitkul is only 27 years old, but his music has been performed in England, Germany, Holland, Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, and other countries, and has been televised and broadcast on four continents. Japan's prestigious NHK TV made a documentary about him as he toured Southeast Asia and showed it on prime time. UNESCO has designated him its official Asian music expert, and he was only 19 when he conducted his first orchestra on Dutch National TV. His works include A CATCH OF WATERS for six chamber orchestras surrounding the audience, GONGULA 3 for Thai and Western Instruments, and a new piano piece, LIGHT ON THE SOUND, in which the pianist is required to sing into the piano as well as perform astounding tricks of virtuosity. This last piece will be premiered later this year in four cities by pianist Violet Lam: in Hong Kong, Milan, Rome and Cologne.

The "Sucharitkul Sound", critics say, is a new one, different from the harshness of much modern music. He divides his orchestras into small groups and piles layer after layer on top of each other, tinkling, ringing, energetic sonorities. Often he breaks completely away from the severe restrictions of modern music, introducing almost classical melodic lines that hover plaintively over the atonal textures... sometimes he'll slip into a baroque pavane or a passage of tinkling Southeast Asian music, as though thumbing his nose at the strict seriousness of academic music. "My favorite trick", he says, "is to have it look very stark on paper and then to have it sound very rich ravishing and exotic." Pianist Violet Lam said of his recent piece: "When I saw the score I knew I was going to have to perform acrobatics at the piano. I knew it would be very, very difficult. But only when I started to play did I discover that it was also very, very beautiful."

The McLean Chamber Orchestra, winner of last year's ASCAP Award for adventurous programming, is premiering Somtow Sucharitkul's brand new work, STAR MAKER: IN AN ANTHOLOGY OF UNIVERSES, on June 7th. Even for an orchestra whose dynamic conductor, Dingwall Fleary, has established a name for himself in bringing new works to the concert platform, this work should be quite a challenge. "I admire Dingwall very much," Sucharitkul says. "He didn't flinch at all when I asked him for four toy pianos..."

STAR MAKER is a piece that just grew and grew, Sucharitkul told us. Its five movements are musical depictions of five different theories of the universe, different cosmologies from Plato to Einstein. It's a big piece, despite its brevity. "The first movement is a musical depiction of the theory of the Big Bang... it's obviously a very noisy movement. It goes further, though --- it describes an oscillating universe in which everything finally returns to its source. I did this by making not only the movement, but also every individual musical part a palindrome. It's the most mathematically exact movement, the most academically correct. The platonic universe of the second movement has the strings continually straining for Ideal Beauty, which is represented by a G major chord that is continuously sustained throughout the movement. It also has a part for a shakuhachi or Japanese flute. The third movement---with the toy pianos---is the Mechanistic Universe, which to me is an image of God as a cosmic kid playing with a cosmic Lego set. The fourth---Cosmic Dance---is a pavane. The last movement, Inferno-Purgatorio-Paradiso, is sort of a Reader's Digest condensed version of Dante's Divine Comedy. During the piece, a children's chorus screams, whispers, mutters and moans---but never sings.

"Just as the opening is very, very atonal, so the ending of STAR MAKER is very, very C major indeed..."

When we asked him why, he responded, "Why not? I don't see why I shouldn't do this. In composing school in Europe, the ultimate sin is to have a major chord, or even an octave. But this refinement of post-serialism is the result of centuries of development in the European-American mainstream. I didn't come from that mainstream, and I have to write from my own cultural ambiguity, to forge my own musical language out to the ransackings of whatever musical cultures I encounter."

Sucharitkul writes science fiction in his spare time. He started doing this because one day he found he had a writing block while trying to compose. But within a few months he had taken the publishing scene by storm, too, selling 15 short stories and a novel in the first eighteen months of his second career. His first novel is coming out from Pocket/Simon and Schuster later this year, and he is a frequent cover name in magazines such as Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine. He was a little shy in talking about his sudden appearance in this totally unrelated field, but we got him to admit that he had been nominated for a number of awards in the science fiction field and that the Philadelphia Inquirer, talking about his science fiction, praised him for his "wild imagination and colorful command of language" and called one of his stories "gasp-provoking"!

A strange, manysided artist. Five years ago the Bangkok Post described him as "the most accomplished example of an extremely rare breed...an unusually original composer." But last year a Ford Foundation representative said, much more simply, "He is a genius."

SIRIKIT CONCERTO

Orchestral manouvres: Romance, grand virtuosity, sheer brilliance � this music has something for everyone

Somtow Sucharitkul�s new Queen Sirikit Piano Concerto in D flat is a study in romance, full of novelty and displays of brilliance, and a trip to the movies all at the same time.

The work, the third of a trilogy to honour members of the Royal Family, was written by royal command of Her Royal Highness Princess Galyani Vadhana and is a gift to Her Majesty Queen Sirikit from the Bangkok Opera Foundation. It was performed in the presence of both the Queen and Princess Galyani. As a further honour to Her Majesty�s enlightened generosity in participating in an extraordinary range of welfare, educational, economic and cultural activities for the good of her country, the proceeds from the first performance of the concerto, given following a dinner on Tuesday night at the Dusit Thani hotel, are being donated to a breast cancer charity.

Perhaps not too much should be said about the music performed during the dinner itself, since the sound of cutlery and conversation made it difficult to appreciate. There were a number of recitals by members of the Siam Philharmonic Orchestra�s Apprentice Programme, and many of the young performers sounded on the nervous side, as well they might playing for Queen Sirikit and Princess Galyani. One of the musicians was notable, however. Trisdee na Patalung was the hardest to hear of all, the sound of his minimalist harpsichord easily getting lost, but his musicmaking (solo works of Rameau) had such variety, inner beauty and depth that it was inescapable. Conversations all around seemed to drain away as the musical message came through.

Somtow�s new concerto has a startling opening. Unsettled sounds come from the orchestra, then the piano rises out in a display of virtuosity, with bits of Chopin romance, Liszt brilliance, and many reminders that Khun Somtow is a writer of gothic horror novels.

The performance by the Siam Philharmonic orchestra and pianist Aleksandar Serdar, conducted by the composer, was exceptional. Ensemble and soloist enjoyed an inspired relationship with wonderfully colourful and thrilling piano playing matched sympathetically by the families of sounds in the orchestra, with only occasional thinness evident among the strings.

The dialogue between instruments was intense, but mitigated by a soft �Sirikit theme� that is repeated, pushing away the storminess around it and, according to Somtow�s intentions, transforming the dark elements of the first movement into light.

There are Latin themes in the second movement, and they come across a bit crazed, definitely fun, and with loads of life. The macho rhythms meant there was no need for coffee to keep the audience�s attention: looking around, everyone was very quiet and focused on the music. The movement was strongly played, with great discipline and excitement. The blazing virtuosity here was notable, but then transcended by the return of the romantic melody � and it was at this point that I began to develop a bit of a gripe. Yes, the music is creative and inspired, but somehow the schmaltz was being spread on just a bit too thickly and I felt that the romantic element was in need of development with more sensitivity and sophistication.

The third and final movement of the concerto presented a whirlwind kaleidoscope of sounds and continued to showcase the strengths of the Siam Orchestra, which Somtow has nurtured with such devotion.

Ultimately, however, I felt that the composition could do with more development to take it away from being salon or film music and to establish it as a classical masterwork. But then, Somtow is a man of many themes, and he has written one of those rare, modern, serious pieces that can be enjoyed by commoner and Queen alike.

Perhaps, therefore, I should not wish for yet another contemporary composition that ends up asking too many questions and, ultimately, yields more pain than pleasure.

The concerto can be heard once more tomorrow, when it is to be performed at the National Theatre in a concert that also includes music by Rossini, Johann Strauss, Richard Strauss and Sibelius.

Jonathan Richmond

The Nation

Mallworld

de S.P. Somtow
�

Mallworld de S.P. Somtow, aux �ditions Folio collection SF

Genre : Fantastique
Couverture : Alain Brion
Traducteur : Jacques Chambon, Gilles Goullet

Date de Parution :
Avril 2004

R��dition

S. P. Somtow, de son vrai nom Somtow Sucharitkul, ne se contente pas d'�tre l'auteur d'une quantit� appr�ciable de romans de S.-F. et fantasy (si on compte les recueils, le nombre d�passe la quarantaine), dont certains ont connu un succ�s notable (Starship and Haiku, son premier, a re�u le Locus Award ; son oeuvre le plus connue reste cependant la s�rie Vampire Junction). Il est �galement compositeur (des op�ras comme Madana ou Mae Naak, des symphonies comme Mahajanaka...); chef d'orchestre professionnel, et a m�me r�alis� deux films, The Laughing Dead (une histoire de morts vivants pleine d'humour noir) et Ill Met By Moonlight, une adaptation gothique-punk de Songe d'une Nuit d'Et� de Shakespeare... Vous trouverez de nombreuses informations sur le site officiel de l'auteur (www.somtow.com). Mallworld est son deuxi�me roman. Cette �dition pr�sente l'int�gralit� des neufs nouvelles situ�es dans l'univers de Mallworld, ainsi que les publicit�s correspondantes.

Enferm�s !

Les S�lespridar prennent tr�s � coeur leur r�le de babysitters de races moins �volu�s. D'ailleurs, ils nous ont confin�s dans notre syst�me solaire (� l'aide d'un mur de force), des fois qu'on aurait l'id�e saugrenue d'aller jouer ailleurs dans la galaxie. Ils nous laisseront sortir lorsqu'ils jugeront qu'on a atteint l'�ge de raison... Alors, r�guli�rement, Klutharion, le repr�sentant des S�lespridar, soumet au V�n�rable multi-n'uatitudineux P�re � cinquante �tages des Hauts S�lespridar des exemples de vies humaines sur lesquelles celui ci pourra se faire une opinion des progr�s de l'esp�ce. Ce sont ces neufs exemples qui forment les parties du pr�sent livre. Et quel meilleur endroit pour collecter ces exemples que Mallworld, gigantesque centre commercial de 30 kilom�tres de long tournoyant dans l'espace, r�ve et cible de tous les m�contents et malheureux du syst�me ?

Imp�rialisme � l'�chelle de la galaxie

Mallworld est un ensemble de nouvelles plut�t optimiste. Chaque r�cit montre que, malgr� notre tendance � nous laisser distraire par des consid�rations bassement mat�rialistes, l'humanit� n'abandonne pas si facilement ses r�ves de libert�, et prend assez mal de se faire prendre de haut par des humano�des � la peau bleue qui, non contents de retreindre notre libert�, en profitent pour venir s'amuser parmi les primitifs que nous sommes. Ca vous rappelle quelque chose ? On se demande bien pourquoi... La charge contre l'imp�rialisme et la soci�t� de consommation est cependant nettement moins f�roce, et le ton plus l�ger, que dans, par exemple, Les mailles du r�seau, de Bruce Sterling. Cela dit, une visite � Mallworld, le plus grand centre commercial de l'univers, o� vous trouverez tout ce que vous avez toujours r�v� (sur mesure, en plus, que ce soit un enfant, un suicide provisoire, une religion, ou du sexe), peut �tre un bon moyen de boycotter le centre commercial le plus proche samedi prochain...

MOZART REQUIEM
Royal Command Performance
Trinity Hall
Saturday January 22nd


The eloquence, power and sheer emotional intensity of Mozart�s Requiem provided the most perfect way for Bangkok�s musical community to reflect on recent tragic events in the Andaman Sea when the Orpheus choir of Bangkok and the Siam Philharmonic, under the direction of Somtow Sucharitkul, produced a performance of stunning quality in the Trinity Hall of St. Joseph�s School in the gracious presence of Her Royal Highness Princess Galayani Vadhana Mahidol.

�It was an evening of reflection, immense, almost overwhelming, sadness and mourning; and awe at the power of Mother Nature but through the solemnity and uplifting majesty of Mozart�s genius, there was the sunlight of hope at the possibility of redemption and the need to look forward to reconstruction and better times ahead.

�The chorus gave full expression and sharply etched clarity and meaning to Mozart�s heavenly cadenzas, with the tenors giving expressive, technically assured and deeply sympathetic interpretations of this most complex and demanding piece. The orchestra�s sensitive, evocative rendition with its ethereal strings and triumphant brass lifted the spirits and took us upwards towards better days. The depth and warmth of Ralph McDonald�s magnificent bass took us to the essence of the De Profundis, while sopranos, Sootharee Srisang and Catherine Sam Harsono reached the heavens with confidence and verve, while tenor Sigve Vidnes was calmly reassuring and poised as counter tenor; and Tristan na Patalung moved us all with his ethereal, soaring, intensely spiritual plaintive counter tenor.

Somtow Sucharitkul conducted from memory, with no score, but it was clear he was conducting from his heart as he poured energy and emotion into Mozart�s masterpiece and produced as fine a performance as one is ever likely to hear anywhere. His respect and reverence for the text and his ability to draw out such fine individual and collective performances from such a large and diverse a group was testimony to his musical prowess and his deeply felt commitment to the cause. It was a performance of extraordinary authenticity and clarity and, because of the context, it transcended the concert form with its subliminal momentum and liturgical shape, to emerge as the profoundest of memorials to the victims of the terrible Tsunami.����

�This splendid, vivid, richly textured, moving and dramatic evening was in all senses a triumph and we can only reflect and take comfort and solace from a musical performance of such staggering beauty.

TURANDOT RESTS AT LAST
Published on May 14, 2004

The much-anticipated new ending to Giacomo Puccini?s magnum opus, ?Turandot?, as rendered by Thailand?s own Somtow Sucharitkul, was anything but surprising. Perhaps that explained the rapturous delight with which Bangkok?s opera fans greeted Wednesday?s premiere of the latest update to this great opera.

The scoring for ?Principessa di morte?, the last 20 minutes or so of ?Turandot? ? which was left unfinished when Puccini died suddenly in 1924, was seamlessly furnished by Somtow in place of the long-established orchestration by Franco Alfano, an understudy of Puccini, based on his master?s sketches.

Appreciative Bangkok opera-goers gave their firm endorsement to Somtow?s idiomatically correct orchestral soundscape, which seems to faithfully reflect Puccini?s intentions and the stylistic devices that he may have been contemplating before his untimely death.

It was truly a fitting finale to this much-loved composer from Thailand, a country that?s a relative newcomer to the world of opera.

It was obvious that Somtow more than rose to the challenge, painting a fresh-sounding kaleidoscope of tone colours that underpinned the unfolding high drama, while at the same time suggesting morbid neurosis and intoxicating eroticism that so evidently infected the lead characters Turandot and Calaf toward the closing scenes in ?Principessa di morte!?

Those at the opening night of the Bangkok Opera?s production of ?Turandot? at the Thailand Cultural Centre were richly rewarded with an electrifying performance of this home-grown opera company to celebrate the birthday of the opera company?s gracious patron, HRH Princess Galyani Vadhana.

Somtow recast the opera in old Peking, and German director Anette Pollner conjured up a Shang Dynasty setting that was sparse, but imaginatively so, with much symbolism, including huge, menacing blood-red tentacles that put the audience in an appropriately precarious frame of mind.

China was not a nice place to live in those days, presided over by a doting emperor whose sexually naive daughter hid her emotional vulnerability behind an icy countenance and a penchant for beheading suitors and torturing prisoners.

Taiwanese soprano Hsing An Chen, in the title role, sent tremors through the crouching chorus of earthlings onstage as well as the audience with a glorious and powerfully projected voice.

Hsing?s take on Turandot?s supreme utterance, ?In questa reggia?, left no doubt in viewers? minds as to why the character is known as opera?s ?Queen of Mean?. All men, the audience learns, owe her a vengeful punishment for the defilement and murder of her great ancestral matriarch.

Soprano Nancy Yuen, in the role of the self-sacrificing slave girl Liu, put up a credible challenge to Turandot with her heart-felt rendition of such lyrical numbers as the first set-piece solo, ?Signore ascolta!?, which vividly conveyed a hopeless longing for a prince?s favour based on one absent-minded smile from Calaf a long time ago.

Liu?s big aria, ?Tanto amore segreto?, just before she kills herself, exemplified Yuen?s radiant, voice infused with barely concealed and deeply felt passion.

Headstrong but innocent, Calaf was masterfully fleshed out by golden-voiced tenor Mark Deaton, who displayed a wonderfully flexible vibrato while effortlessly scaling the requisite top notes in such show-stoppers as ?Nessun dorma!? (a melody popularised at the opening of a football World Cup some years back).

The Bangkok Sinfonietta, conducted by Somtow, produced a remarkable, sumptuous sound that was equally at home with ear-splitting dissonant outbursts in ?strong situations?, the shimmering, otherworldly sound which was Puccini?s idea of Orientalism and the familiar Italianate smoothness.

Put into the mix a strong cast of supporting characters and alert choruses and one got the idea of a perfect evening of an operatic extravaganza.

Somtow took issue with the long-established ?Turandot? ending by Alfano, pointing out that it was highly unbelievable that the Icy Princess would be tamed after just one kiss from Calaf. If that was the main concern that inspired his wonderful new ending to the opera, then it served the conductor/composer well.

The new music by Somtow worked like magic in conveying the psychological and emotional transformation of Turandot?s character.

But many opera fans, including this writer, found it difficult, if not impossible, to warm to the idea of redemption through love for Turandot after all the atrocities that she committed, thanks to the spine-chilling voice of Hsing An Chen.

And that?s meant to be a compliment. After all is said, Somtow proved to be a kindred spirit of the great Italian composer, both as a fellow composer and enthusiastic interpreter of his opera.

A triumph rises from a tragedy
Published on Jan 3, 2002

The September 11 attacks have led to two unique concerts in Bangkok. Both involve a Thai artiste who's lived the best part of his life in America - SP Somtow. As a composer and writer, he is something of a Renaissance figure, and who recently spent time in the monkhood.

Soon after he left the monastery, Somtow extend his stay in Thailand as a result of the terrorist attacks. Then an offer to be Musician-in Residence at Mahidol Varsity came up. Having produced Madana the country's first opera, Somtow now focused on two "Peace" concerts in Bangkok.

The first, Dialogues, was commissioned by the Royal Norwegian Embassy on the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Nobel Peace Prize. It was a unique concert in many ways as it combined music, poetry, literature and drama in a manner not seen before in the city.

The first half of the concert belonged to two dynamic Norwegian musicians: Ingrid Roynesdal on piano, and Oysetin Sonstad on cello, who used the texts and rhythms of various Norwegian poets and musicians to create a unique 'dialogue' combining textual drama with rhythmic melodies. They had worked more than a year to create this complicated piece that combined many dissolute elements to finally end in harmony.

That set the tone for the second half of the programme, "Songs before Dawn" composed by Somtow in just one month. He chose various Noble Laureate poets but admitted that they were not easy to set to music. However, it gave him a chance to indulge in his passion for mixing and merging different musical idioms and styles.

"This East-West amalgam of rhythms is what I attempted to do two decades back when I was in Thailand, but it was frowned upon and I was driven to America," laughed Somtow. "Today it's accepted everywhere and I'm part of the establishment."

Thus "Songs before Dawn" was a blend of European and Asian songs and instruments. A Japanese pianist, a Chinese harpist, Austrian violinists, a Flemish violin conductor, plus American and Thai singers. There was also the Indian tanpura, Thai 'ching' cymbals and 'mong' gongs in addition to the standard Western orchestral instruments.

As for the poetry, Somtow started and ended with his favourite Japanese Haiku. In between, was an agonising Hungarian poem on the crucifixion where he mixed the sounds of piano, gong, and kettle drums, "to give the effect of a nail being driven in."

The moving poem on Vietnam, by Polish Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szymborska, was interpreted with an intermix of loud baritone and soft soprano voices, accompanied by the violin notes of the children's choir to enact the tragedy of disrupted families during war.

Nobel Laureate Neruda's violent "Stones in the Sky" was a furious flurry of Spanish and Asian rhythms. But it was Hopkins' complex "Windhover" that Somtow admitted was the hardest to set to music. The alliterative words were very close to prose and he chose to "translate" it simply using the crystal clear voice of the soprano.

It was with the same clarity he set Rimbaud's famous "War" poem; a stark sonata where the poet asks: "I dreamed of a war of bright and of might, of unlooked-for magic."

"It is as simple as a musical phrase," said Somtow.

Is it so simple? Somtow certainly made it look easy when he interpreted Ibsen's famous poem "Swan" as an exquisite piano solo; the Chinese "Lullaby" with the succinct flavour of a Chinese opera, and the Thai poem "O Land" with the lush notes of a Germanic romance .

The climactic Bengali poem "Freedom" by Indian Noble Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, was Somtow's favourite, although difficult to translate into the English language and the musical idiom. He used the Indian tanpura with the children's violin choir as a second resonance tone, and had the poem sung in four Indian ragas with Balinese orchestral rhythms. Somtow described it as the ultimate tribute to peace and freedom and confessed that it was the first poem that came to his head when he was asked to create the "Peace" composition.

Norwegian Ambassador Ragne Birte Lund said, "It was a very unique piece, like brightly coloured mosaic stones." HM Princess Galayani thought it was "very unusual."

In the meantime, Somtow has another full-length concert coming up shortly entitled Requiem, created especially for the victims of the Sep 11 tragedy.

The concert has been commissioned by the Thai government and will be held at the World Trade Centre on January 11. "It is another mosaic of multi-cultural rhythms that I've put together with 80 musicians from different countries," said Somtow.

But the musician confessed: "When you write music you're contemplative and in a world of your own. But the final music is social and is a joint act of creation."

That's what Requiem is about - the personal interpretation of public grief. Somtow has as many connections both here and in the US making the composition more personal and complicated. That's why he agreed to do the concert, although he had only six weeks to compose the music.

Again, he has turned to poetry for inspiration, choosing three important American poets to explain the angst of the American tragedy. T S Eliot whose "Wasteland" and '"Four Quartets" are agonising, yet cathartic. Emily Dickinson's "Ashore At Last" and Walt Whitman's "Reconciliation" which augur peace and positivity.

As with "Songs Before Dawn" Somtow chose a varied range of poetical and musical idioms, moods, styles and rhythms to portray a theme which had repercussions around the world, much of it "spiritual".

Somtow confessed that even during his monkhood his "visions" were musical. Indeed, in many ways the Sept 11 incident has proved pivotal in Somtow's life. It prevented him from returning to the US, which led to the re-discovery of his homeland.

The composer has used many young musicians from Mahidol Varsity for the upcoming concert and is amazed by their talent. "They're little fledglings who need to be pushed out of the nest. All they need are the right opportunities and breaks."

Thus, Requiem will not just be a hymn to the past but a triumphant song for the future that Somtow hopes will add an extra dimension to the musical scenario in the country.

Lekha Shankar