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An animated puppet film telling the story of Russian history in the middle of the 20th century is an unusual idea, to say the least. The Lenin puppet sports a carton suit. Stalin Bobs on, revolver in hand, in pursuit of Trotsky. Shostakovich behaves with a small red flag on a podium. In the end, the characters come together to dance a template at the bottom of a disused swimming pool. What does it mean?
South African artist William Kentridge Oh believe in another world was designed as visual support for Chostakovich Symphony No. 10 and began his life in Lucerne in 2022. The project generated drawings, sculptures, imprints, film installation and exhibitions.
He must surely be the best, however, to see him as planned, in the company of the powerful symphony of Chostakovich. This is how Kentridge's film was presented during this concert by the Philharmonia Orchestra, one of the high points of the Southbank Center innovative Multitudes Festival, in which orchestral music reaches out to other art forms.
Combining a symphony by Shostakovich in the film is not such an improbable idea. The composer worked as a pianist accompanying silent films in adolescence and continued to write film scores himself. Even his biggest symphonies are based on these experiences, whether in crazy energy passages or their mastery of the atmosphere.
The collage has long been a favored form in Kentridge's work. In addition to puppets, this work mixes dancers, archive films and silent film legends, because a miniature camera is making its way around a cardboard set representing an abandoned museum. The idea of a fanciful art film taking a look at this painful period of Russian history with a playful touch may seem questionable, but then its meaning is opaque to the extreme.
Essentially, the film claims to present a retrospective in Russian history from the 1920s to 1953, the year that Stalin died and that Symphony no 10 of Shostakovich had its first. It goes from early enthusiasm for communism to disillusionment of the last years of Stalin, even if it is difficult to follow.
Maybe his ambiguity makes the film strangely fit. It has been said for a long time that Chostakovich's music speaks in code during these years, when any deviation open compared to the official line of socialist realism could be fatal. How far was he expressed against Stalin in this symphony? We don't know and Kentridge is not trying to tell us.
In itself, the symphony is an extremely powerful work, the soundtrack of an era of overwhelming political forces and a small sign of hope. No performance never manages to give the Symphonic j jasting of Shostakovich all its stature and its chief of the marine alsop and the Philharmonie did not withdraw, although the rhythm was sometimes not lively.
The symphony was preceded by Leonard Bernstein Chichester PsalmsContrasted music of comforting optimism. It is a home field for Alsop, a protégé from Bernstein, and she benefited from a soloist of reliable triples (Hugo Walkom), a beautiful quartet of solo cellists and the robust choir of Philharmonia.
★★★★ ☆
The “multitudes” continue until May 3 SouthBankCentre.co.uk
