EIF reviews: Oedipus Rex | Maxim Emelyanychev & SCO Principals | Declan McKenna

Oedipus Rex ★★★

National Museum of Scotland, until 19 August

Audiences have a chance to experience opera up close in Scottish Opera’s promenade performance of Igor Stravinsky and Jean-Cocteau’s neo-classical take on Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus Rex in the grand gallery of Scotland’s national museum.

Low walkways for the performers framed the orchestra who were placed between the Atom Crusher and the jaw of a whale – somewhat apt given the trap about to ensnare Oedipus. As with most Greek theatre, the multi-faceted Chorus is a central character and this community choir had much to do, quite apart from singing in Latin.

Scattered throughout the audience they sang confidently, moving gymnastically throughout the space and engaging, even dancing, with the people around them. There were also numerous gods strolling among us in fantastical costumes by designer Anna Orton.

Director Roxana Haines, coordinated everything beautifully and came up with the conceit of making the Speaker (Wendy Seager) the museum’s cleaner. She summarises the story (in English) when she’s not attending to her duties. These included dusting down the golden coat of Oedipus as if he were a fusty relic and wheeling Jocasta off on a rubbish cart after her unfortunate demise.

Conductor Stuart Stratford kept the orchestra moving as well as synchronising the outstanding line-up of big-voiced singers who were often at opposite ends of the space or on a balcony. They excelled vocally in this challenging acoustic while also creating sympathetic characters. Shengzhi Ren as Oedipus – initially lauded for slaying the Sphinx – ends up sticking pins in his eyes when he realises he has killed his father and married his mother. 

Kitty Whately (Jocasta) sang brilliantly with the haughty grandeur of a queen: audiences parted for her like the Red Sea. Roland Wood (Creon), Callum Thorpe (Tiresias), Emyr Wyn Jones (Messenger) and Seumas Begg (Shepherd) also gave solid and captivating performances. Susan Nickalls

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MUSIC

Maxim Emelyanychev & Principals of the SCO ★★★★

Queen’s Hall

The magic of the fortepiano in a chamber music context is the influence it bestows on the expressive scale of a performance. The magic of Maxim Emelyanychev is not only his needle-sharp facility on that instrument, but the extrovert wit and charm with which he refreshes the music. It’s like you are hearing it for the very first time – even in this officially all-Mozart programme for which the SCO principal conductor was joined in various permutations by some of his orchestral principals.

First up, Mozart’s Piano Quartet in G minor with lead violinist Stephanie Gonley operating on all-gut strings, a silken complement to the fortepiano’s delicacy. The dynamic was deliciously intimate, casually conversational, the central Andante a blissful time-stopper, the final Rondo enlivened with amiable frivolity.

The “Kegelstatt” Piano Trio introduced a lyrical wind sonority – Maximiliano Martín’s clarinet in partnership with Max Mandel’s viola – and with it a rounded, reflective poignancy that held its fire till the Finale.

Emelyanychev threw in an impromptu Haydn solo Fantasy – a moment of virtuosic mischief – before turning his agile mind, along with string quintet, to Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 12. Where the earlier performances bore very minor inconsistencies, this one was unshakeably assured, magic even. Ken Walton

MUSIC 

Declan McKenna ★★★★

Playhouse 

The EIF has probably never known such shrieking and moshing from an audience as that which greeted London-based indie troubadour Declan McKenna and his band. Equally the Playhouse balcony has surely never bounced quite so perceptibly for any artist.

McKenna was in town to mark the release of his latest eclectic album What Happened to the Beach?, its songs already greeted like old friends. But then he wheeled out some even older friends and the hysteria only escalated for his galvanising anthem The Kids Don't Wanna Come Home.

Not everything landed with such vibrancy but McKenna has a way of milking the most out of each song. Isombard was exultant and pacey, while Nothing Works – a song of despair that sounds nothing like it – exuded character, unleashing jubilation in the crowd while the band ramped up the chaos.

This would be the concert climax to most ears but McKenna kept them coming, from the chunky glam psych rock of Beautiful Faces to the trim indie-pop human rights protest number Brazil, the skinny funk-meets-indie ruckus of Mystery Planet to closing beat pop number The Phantom Buzz (with its multiple fake-out endings). McKenna also opened his encore with another likely EIF first: an ABBA cover, debuting a lovely solo rendition of Slipping Through My Fingers. Fiona Shepherd