Wayfinder; Herbie Hancock and Marcus Miller in Jazz at the Bowl; Eucalyptus by Victorian Opera

There’s also a novel sound-and-light sculpture created by Robert Larsen and Nicholas Roux, which is distributed throughout the theatre. This is composed of glowing globes about the size of honeydew melons with individually programmed audio.

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Are there too many gimmicks? The multi-coloured fabric, the trampoline floor, the strobe lighting effects, the glowing balls that sing at you and everything else? Is it all too much? Perhaps, but that’s the joy of Wayfinder. It revels in its excess.

Unfortunately, the Melbourne season at the Alexander Theatre was two nights only, which is not enough for such a crowd-pleaser of a show. Later this month, the company will take Wayfinder to Mexico City for the Festival Internacional Santa Lucia.

Before then, however, this Friday and Saturday, Dancenorth will be lighting up the Geelong Arts Centre. Go and see them if you can. Go and chase this remarkable burst of happiness in rainbows all the way to Geelong. You won’t be sorry.
Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann

MUSIC
Jazz at the Bowl (Herbie Hancock and Marcus Miller) ★★★★★
Sidney Myer Music Bowl, October 19

Herbie Hancock and Marcus Miller may be the names on the ticket, but there was a lot more to the stellar Jazz at the Bowl (part of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival) at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl on Saturday night.

They’re headliners, comperes and bearers of the jazz legacy still dominated by Miles Davis. Davis comes up multiple times across the night. Miller, introduced tonight as “one of the most-recorded bassists of all time”, worked extensively with Davis (as well as Luther Vandross, Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan and others). Hancock played in Davis’ quartet through his 20s. Both are keen to impress the connections on us.

Bass isn’t typically a lead instrument, but Marcus Miller’s five-, sometimes six-piece band, particularly Donald Hayes on saxophone and Russell Gunn Jr on trumpet, take the lead frequently, and Miller slips into a backbone role. They play several numbers he wrote for Davis, including the highlight of their set, Mr Pastorius, with Gunn playing a very Davis-y muted trumpet.

My allocated seat is in an echoey corner of the Bowl (opened, by the way, the year Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blue). When I reposition myself to a mysteriously empty seat near the front, the experience changes significantly. I’m on the inside, rather than the fringe. It’s a communion, playing jazz, and you need to be close. Miller is thunderous, hand over and under the neck of his bass.

But Hancock steals the night. His five-piece band has a way more playful edge, and plenty of chaos too. He paints with piano, throwing colour across an already busy canvas, while the trumpet screams in the foreground and the drums stampede behind him.

After a killer opening medley, Hancock veers between a grand piano and a Korg synthesiser in clavinet mode.

In a long digression, he speaks at length about COVID. “There’s only one family on the planet,” he says in a heavily-vocoded voice reminiscent of Laurie Anderson’s O Superman. “Every human being is part of this beautiful, huge family,” he says. It’s sad and long and faintly absurd, and ultimately unifying.

In the last act of the set, he dons a massive white keytar, leading rousing versions of his hits (yes, a jazz instrumentalist with hits!) Rockit and Chameleon. Hancock, 84, duels with his bassist, both with (justified) grins on their faces, and plays bleep bloop noises through Chameleon. The crowd goes wild. Again, justified.

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Hancock’s music remains unpredictable, wild and truly collaborative. It’s his name on the ticket, but this is no solo show.

While introducing the band, he goes on a tangent about how guitarist Lionel Loueke just juggled multiple contradictory tempos during Doin’ It. And drummer Anwar Marshall, he informs us, is just 26.

Maybe in 60 years we’ll be back here at an Anwar Marshall show, the lineage from Miles to Herbie to Anwar remaining at the heart of some cool Melbourne night in 2084.
Reviewed by Will Cox

OPERA
Eucalyptus ★★★★
Victorian Opera, Palais Theatre, until October 19

Rossini cruelly said of Wagner’s opera Lohengrin that one could not judge it on a first hearing, and he certainly didn’t plan a second. Rossini meant it as an insult; when I say Jonathan Mills’ new opera Eucalyptus might need a second hearing, I mean the reverse.

Australian-born, Britain-based composer Mills has produced a complex, often exciting, moving yet challenging score which, based on the audience comments as they exited, showed many had struggled to grasp. In fact, Mills opens with his own homage to Wagner, a quiet low-register, gradually increasing distilling of nature reminiscent of Das Rheingold. He also followed Mozart in giving long legato lines to the principals, contrasted with scurrying tunes to the chorus.

This is an excellent production. Experienced librettist Meredith Oakes has written for such composers as Thomas Adès, and this was a convincing and clever adaptation of the Miles Franklin award-winning novel by Australian author Murray Bail about a father who offers his daughter in marriage to anyone who can identify the 500 eucalypt varieties on his property.

Oakes used the Victorian Opera chorus as a sort of Greek chorus, advancing and commenting on the narrative, and they responded with a stellar group performance.

Director Michael Gow is a noted playwright and director who brought the simple staging to vivid life. Simone Romaniuk’s effective and economical set included a semi-transparent gumtree-lined backdrop with the orchestra behind, so that conductor Tahu Matheson (who enhanced his growing reputation) appeared like a ghost emerging from a tree trunk.

This co-production between Victorian Opera, Opera Australia, Perth Festival and Brisbane Festival had an extraordinary collection of soloists, led by soprano Desiree Frahn as the daughter, Ellen. What a performance! A ferocious challenge of vocal leaps and constant high notes at full volume was met with technical and emotional conviction. Simon Meadows, Michael Petruccelli, Samuel Dundas, Natalie Jones and Dimity Shepherd also all excelled.

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