Juntunen returned for the last song Luonotar which blended the narrative approach of the earlier songs with this newfound terse style. She seared through the orchestra in tumultuous passages, assuming a luminous vocal quality in moments of sudden radiance and dissolving to nothing towards the close.
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In the second half Vanska led the SSO with exacting care through Sibelius’s Lemminkainen Suite Opus 22, comprising four symphonic poems based on the Finnish epic the Kalevala.
Vanska drew out every small refinement of orchestral timbre and balance to create interest in small moments, while also shaping the overall architecture to build exciting listener involvement.
The first movement, Lemminkainen and the Maidens of Saari, began with sensuous oboe lines and rustic rhythms before building towards a climactic moment with urgent desire reminiscent of the phrase structures of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde.
Cor anglais player Alexandre Oguey captured the essence of The Swan of Tuonela in a sound of depth and veiled mournfulness. The third poem Lemminkainen in Tuonela swirled in eddying textures capturing the unpredictable wildness of nature.
The last movement Lemminkainen’s Return was an energised gallop to the close, full of fearsome leaps, sinewy strokes and breathless abandon. It is 20 years since Vladimir Ashkenazy’s cycle of all Sibelius’s symphonies with the SSO, and Vanska has offered here a most welcome opportunity to reengage with that composer’s alluring mysteries.
COMEDY
Chris Ryan: Good-O ★★★★
Enmore Theatre, April 25. Until April 28
Comedian Chris Ryan recently came across the work of stoic philosopher Epictetus, who counselled readers to surround themselves “only with people who uplift you.” She had unknowingly been living by a very similar credo; she’s had a “strict no f***heads policy” since high school.
Having first tried stand-up comedy in her late 30s, the no-nonsense Ryan is something of a rarity on the Australian scene as a middle-aged woman still in the relatively early stages of her career.
Comedian Chris Ryan.
Entering the youth-dominated open mic circuit with some life experience has given her a different perspective, and she’s grown into a distinctive, vital voice.
Good-O introduces new wrinkles into Ryan’s comedy as it fleshes out her jaded worldview.
It’s perhaps her most personal work yet, digging into her relationship with her parents. She aspires to be more like her father, who responds to rudeness or aggression with the sign-off “Good-O’, but more closely resembles her mother, who shares her tendency towards rage.
She’s tried therapy, something her Boomer parents wouldn’t countenance, to get to the root of her discontent. Yet, as her mother helpfully pointed out: “It doesn’t seem to have fixed you.”
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The differing values across generations prove fertile comic ground for Ryan. Now, she marvels, grandparents can be an involved, nurturing presence in their grandchildren’s lives.
Back when she was a kid, their attitude to her could be summed up as: “You’re a blood relative. I guess you can have a biscuit.”
Ryan has an understated style but her writing is sharp and spiky as she winningly turns her ire on laughing yoga, motivational speakers and Instagram gurus. You sense her most complete work is still ahead of her, but for now, this is a trenchant, acutely funny hour, raging against modern malaise but never pretending to have all the answers.
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