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Conductor
James Morgan
Director
David Freeman
Libretto
Shan Kan
Conception
and
additional lyrics
Steve
Chandra Savale
Musicians
Asian Dub
Foundation -
Steve
Chandran Savale
Babu Stormz
Sanjay Tailor
Orchestra
of the English National Opera
The Third
Universal Band
Muammar
AL-Gaddafi
Ramon Tikarum
Fatima
Sharon
Duncan-Brewster
Salah
Al-Bouzaid
Riz Ahmed
King
Saiyyid
Abdi Gouhad
Ronald
Reagan
Martin Turner
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London
Coliseum
English
National Opera
6
- 16 September 2006 |
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Gaddafi: the Living Myth
is a
brave attempt to bring in
new audiences to the Coliseum.
It was as a project three
years in the gestation involving
Channel 4, the ENO, the Camden
Trust, the Gulbenkian Foundation
and other august bodies. Asian
Dub Foundation have been teamed
up with the established ENO
Director David Freeman and
the house orchestra in order
to create something with 'contemporary
relevance', to catch the imagination
of Asian youth - or just youth
generally, tempt in a new
audience to the hallowed ground
of the Opera House, and hook
them for life. What they have
produced is not a musical,
emphatically not an opera,
more than a simple interpretation
of a themed album but, ultimately,
less than a work of art. It
feels precariously balanced
between genres, seeking out
a demographic but failing
to charm an audience. The
music is interesting blend
of Asian rhythms and western
bass but the songs fail to
sustain for the period of
the 2 hour show, and the singing
- a mix between speaking and
rapping - fails to lift the
heart.
The subject matter is rich,
however, and Ramon Tikarum
is excellent as the 'mad-dog'
himself - a compelling character:
the Elvis of Middle Eastern
politics, white suits, gold
braid, oversized sun-glasses
and gun toting, camouflage
clad, long-egged female body
guards. Gaddafi was in London
in 1966, came to power in
Libya 1969, and clearly has
rock and roll sensibilities.
A couple of the big numbers
were enjoyable, and you could
feel the expectation of the
audience rise, but this was
not nearly as fun as it should
have been and was without
the instinct for spectacle
of Gadaffi himself. Perhaps
there was an underlying piety
at work, restraining the proper
exploitation of a serious
subject in the pursuit of
entertainment. Always a mistake.
The theme came from a fascination
that Steve Chandra Savale
of Asian Dub Foundation had
with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi,
but rather than an exclusive
focus on him at the heart
of the drama we are given
a strangely exhaustive rendering
of Libyan history. The play
starts in the desert, Libyans
grubbing around for a living
in the early 20th century
before the discovery of oil.
Then we have the invasion
of the Italian fascists in
the 1920s, the discovery of
oil ("The power in the sand
is the power in the land")
then its exploitation by the
West and on through history
to Gadaffi taking power in
a bloodless revolution in
1969. Lockerbie, Yvonne Fletcher,
Ronald Reagan and the 6th
Fleet all make appearances,
as you would expect, but the
musical history lesson is
at the expense of real insight
and all we have really discovered
about Gaddafi by the end of
the production is that he
is a bit of an enigma. The
shame is that there is something
here: the production obviously
fails but Gaddafi is a great
subject; Tikarum is good in
the lead role and the music
is half way there, but aside
from the well meaning committees
and strategy meetings involved
in this project someone needed
to take the whole thing by
the scruff of the neck and
turn it into a genuine entertainment.
Charlie Taylor |
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