The miraculous mandarin by Bartók, what kind of piece is that? It has a famous and catchy title and the music is performed with some regularity, but usually in the orchestral suite arrangement. Is it an opera? What story is behind it? Anyone who was there on Friday evening in the Concertgebouw will probably never forget it, and that was mainly due to the inspired puppet choreography of Duda Paivaa Brazilian dancer and choreographer who has been working in the Netherlands for quite some time.
The miraculous mandarin is a pantomime: the story is not sung but acted out. With dolls, in this case. And that happened so penetratingly that you suddenly understood every note and turn of Bartók. Three thugs force a girl to seduce passersby so they can rob them. They kick a horny old man and a shy youngster – both broke – off stage. But then the mandarin makes its entrance.
Brilliantly lit, the rich Chinese man entered the aisle of the hall and immediately had everyone under his spell. Duda Paiva made the mandarin (government official) a huge and muscular figure – it is no wonder that the girl falls head over heels for him, nor that the thugs fail to kill him, even though they stab him with a rusty sword . Only when the girl gives him her love does the mandarin find redemption in death.
Seductive puppet dance
Three dancers, Lorenzo Capodieci, Oliver Wagstaff and Yashasvi Shrotriya, performed all the roles virtuoso, using puppets consisting of only a head and long arms. With her trouser legs rolled up, one of them gave the girl legs in her seduction dance. The visual finds tumbled over each other and caused hilarity and emotion in turn. It would be a shame if this striking performance could not be seen again soon.
It was a long and full evening, because before the interval the excellent Concertgebouw Orchestra had already played new music for 45 minutes, including two Dutch premieres. Guest conductor Matthias Pintscher led two movements from his cycle shirim (2008-2019), a monumental expressionist setting of the Song of Songs. Baritone Thomas Oliemans made an impression as a vocal soloist, with conjuring phrases, a kind of calm-yearning depth and a beautiful falsetto.
In Shire IV the Groot Omroepkoor also took part, initially mainly for humming carpets of sound; but in a breathtaking sequence, which began with whispers, it blossomed into ravishing harmonies.
However beautifully and opulently detailed, the tension sometimes subsided a bit in this drawn-out shirim-to share. The music of Nina Senk (1982), a former student of Pintscher, was impressive in both sound and form. In the first three parts from her Concerto for orchestra (2019) she kept tight control over bubbling sulfur pools of sound and violent tectonics of sound masses. The enchanting climax was the hushed beginning of the second movement, with a strung harp string and cooing contrabass flageolets.