Drag as high art

Never thought I'd use that headline, at least not until I got hooked on RuPaul's Drag Race. The diplomate was sick in bed one weekend and turned to Netflix for comfort viewing. I only had to see a couple of minutes to know that this was better than daft: a game show in which queens from all over North and Central America compete for the drag crown. The path has led from watching all the series to buying a couple of tickets to see the Series Five winner Jinkx Monsoon, a self-styled Jewish narcolept from Portland, Oregon, in action at Camden's Black Cap Club. This was the consequence of re-bonding with lovely goddaughter Rosie May, studying theatre design at Central, who's good friends with hostess Meth and was amazed when, at the end of a dim sum lunch at our Soho regular, the Joy King Lau, we brought up her favourite programme.

RuPaul's Drag Race is in turn inspired by the seminal documentary about the drag balls of 1970s New York, Paris is Burning. When I first saw the film a couple of decades ago I warmed to the wit and wisdom of the participations. Watching again, I found it achingly sad: the resilience and creativity still blaze through, but how circumscribed it was by society then, how many of the folk in it met their end through AIDS or, in one case, being murdered by a client. That all seems so far off in the relaxed, anything-goes climate of this series. No holds barred on the language: one of the catchphrases comes in the 'lipsynch for your life' finale when the two competitors at the bottom have to battle it out on the catwalk - 'and don't fuck it up'. The entrants have to display their Charm, Uniqueness, Nerve and Talent; of the two lipsynchers, Ru says to one, following the Paris is Burning lingo, 'chantez, you stay', to the other, 'sashay away'.

A more charming and encouraging drag mother you could hardly find (Ru appears for part of the show undragged, as above on the right). There are defiant mantras like 'RuPaul's Drag Show - bringing families together', and my favourite slot each season is the one in which the entrants have to drag up and make up outsiders. One deliciously skewed instance is when the grooms-to-be of engaged straight couples have to be dressed up as the bride before the couples can be married onstage. In another, mostly older gay men from the US armed forces who fought for the rights which, among other things, make the show the happy, liberated thing it is become the 'drag mothers' (or sisters). This is where I totally took my hat off to Jinkx and his/her emotionally mature response to his veteran 'drag mother', who found it difficult as an HIV-positive man on a punishing drug regime to moves easily.

Their partnership as Liza and Ethel won the game, of course, and despite being bullied by an especially insecure and spiteful fellow-finalist, our Jinkx took the crown. Watch her wipe the floor with Detox lipsynching for her life to Yma Sumac's 'Malambo No. 1'. The only decent version on YouTube doesn't seem to be downloadable so click here for the link.

What's artistic? Quite apart from the sheer 'Miss Congeniality' star quality of many of the performers - who could not adore big basso Latrice Royale,  'chunky but funky'? - some, like Jinkx can really sing at the level of any cabaret chanteuse, while the inventiveness of gown, frock and wig design in the many costume changes of each episode, can be breathtaking. It's actually not so far away from the couture of pantomime dames, which gives me the pretext of a picture interlude. The other week, I took my aged P to the latest Wimbledon pantomime, Cinderella (and got to write about it for The Arts Desk). A memory that will stay with me always is ma laughing until she cried at the ponies pulling Cinderella's coach - something she remembers from her childhood - and at the animal heads in a sylvan interlude (pure Magic Flute).

Father and son Matthew Kelly and Matthew Rixon are sisters Cheryl and Mel (photographed here by Craig Sugden in images I couldn't cram in to the review). Oddly the costume designer isn't credited in the programme, but he/she has done wonders on the breakfast frocks, the girl guides terrorising little Wayne Sleep at the country fair

and - these of course have to be the pieces de resistance - the ballwear.

As for Jinkx, she is a consummate artiste. That much was evident in her all too brief, post-cold slot with brilliant pianist Major Scales at the Black Cap: every line, ad lib, grind and bump perfectly timed. The singing voice is unique, too.

The snag - and this is why I can't go back to see Latrice - is the amplification, so distortingly loud I went temporarily deaf in my left ear. And it was pointless in that one could hardly catch a word of any of the songs. I wouldn't want Jinkx to leave the drag circuit, but she's good enough to wow much larger and more mixed audiences than this. Watch her fly. And, whoever you are, watch all of RuPaul's Drag Race as a chunk of pure seasonal escapism and joy.

2010: not over 'til the fat man sings

That's Johan Botha, whose Tannhauser we finally saw and heard for ourselves at the Royal Opera last night (production photos for the RO by Clive Barda). He is, as my controversial colleague Igor put it in a hyperbolic but mostly spot-on Arts Desk review, 'the size of a small Eastern European country', which wouldn't matter if, like Jane Eaglen in her brief golden era around the early 1990s, he acted with the voice. But he doesn't, really: one thrilling moment when he pauses before doing his no-absolution-Pope impersonation apart, the valve to his soul is indeed sealed shut. Laser-like, the heldentenor voice is infallibly secure and useful, but I'd rather hear a half-golden singer-actor able to put across the fathomless anguish of Tannhauser's state in Act 3.

The native German speakers were the ones who best expressed what meaning is still to be found in Wagner's hopelessly dated tale (Rome, shmome): sensual indulgence bad, pure Marian love good. I've admired Michaela Schuster since we saw what must have been an early performance as Kundry in Graz. The voice isn't sensuous, but it is rich and clear. Unfortunately Venus's clunky entreaties, mostly 1840s stuff, come on the heels of Wagner's most radical music, the 1860 Paris ballet, which ultimately was the most thrilling thing in the show as choreographer Jasmin Vardomon got her dancers to roll across a big table at furious speed. No mean achievement to sustain given that the curtain rose a third of the way through the overture and wave upon wave of orgiastic sound had to be varied.


Everyone said that the top-quality Gesamtkunstwerk package of the evening was baritone Christian Gerhaher, and everyone was right. How refreshing not to hear a manufactured dark sound, every colour in place and a fullness to match Botha's when necessary. He even got around the problem of the recit to 'O du mein holder Abendstern', low-lying enough to justify a bass-baritone like Terfel (who sings it gloriously on a Wagner solos disc conducted by Abbado). So Gerhaher slips in at the last minute as one of my singers of the year, along with Terfel as Sachs and the lustrous double act of Anna Samuil and William Burden as the best Donna Anna and Don Ottavio I've heard in the much-better-than-anticipated Glyndebourne Don Giovanni. Here's Gerhaher with Eva-Maria Westbroek's slightly spread Elisabeth at the end of her tether.


Everyone also said that Bychkov's conducting was a revelation. I part company a bit here: the balances were exemplary, details and colours superb. But he lacks the forward-moving sense of phrase which would paper over the longueurs in the score, and which did when Welser-Most, not a conductor of whom I'm hugely fond and due to conduct the New Year's Day concert tomorrow, brought Zurich forces to London for a concert performance. I still think that Tannhauser is the Wagner opera which gains least by being staged, and though I liked Albery's idea of Venusberg, the shelled Balkan Wartburg didn't communicate much to me. And had I spent a fortune on my seat, I'd have wanted a bit more design for my money. So, a good and at times classy evening, not a great one. And roll on six or seven weeks on the opera back at the City Lit.

Heck, I got more frisson out of Salad Days at the Riverside two evenings earlier, but that was probably partly because, as I wrote in my Arts Desk review, I was reliving a teenage am-dram production. Anyway, it really is all the more charming for not sending Julian Slade's froth up too much. And the piano playing with its intricate improvisatory counterpoint is a joy. Here are young Katie Moore and Sam Harrison as Jane and Timothy leaning on Minnie the magic piano (photo for Tete a Tete by Roy Tan).


Following the novel pattern of last year's break with travel and instead spending the hols at home or with friends was again the right thing to do. We watched selective TV between earthshattering bouts of reading and eating, and enjoyed most of what we saw. I was utterly smitten with the Birmingham Royal Ballet Cinderella shown on the 25th and still available on the BBC iPlayer for two more days - not just with the predictable beauty of that genius John Macfarlane's designs, but also with aspects of David Bintley's graceful storytelling and the captivating mug of Elisha Willis in downtrodden mode. The two production photos by Bill Cooper also feature Iain McKay's personable prince.



Above all, I was amazed by the suppleness and nuance of Koen Kessel's Prokofiev conducting (have you any idea how hard it is to find his name among various credits?). Another ballet master to watch, like Paris's Vello Pahn. Lucky Brum not to get the piped, overamplified music which accompanied Matthew Bourne's New Adventures version. Which still has its own special claim in making narrative sense of the Act 3 divertissement cut by Ashton, Bintley and Page.

Wasn't to be honest expecting great things of 'the Rattle Nutcracker', on the evidence of recent Berlin Phil disappointments. I'd got it into my head that Rattle, like Bychkov, does the sound but not the longer vision. But this doesn't always apply - there are revelations in his latest Mahler Resurrection, shame about Kozena, and here the Berlin team as well as their sound team are so obviously in love with Tchaikovsky's layered score (who wouldn't be?) Sometimes the finessing is a little over-finicky, but the spirit seems right.


There's a terrific crescendo in the Christmas Tree transformation, wonderful spotlighting for celesta and harp, a joyous Mother Gigogne and a swooningly beautiful Pas de deux. I wonder where this would stand if it had come out in time for my Building a Library. Whizz-bang Gergiev was then tops, but it's not only Rattle who's appeared in lights since: Lanchbery's light and fizzy Philharmonia version has been reissued, complete with specially orchestrated English jig (I saw this, and Mother Gigogne, danced when I went as an eight-year old to the London Festival Ballet production). God, how I adore this ballet - its bright lights are such a tonic after the slightly subdued parade of carols.

Choice of the year? Timely you asked, since Igor has just put up all our bests of classical and opera on The Arts Desk. No competition for the operatic prize, Bryn as Sachs in Richard Jones's Welsh National Opera Meistersinger, alongside my Best Concert of All Time, Abbado's Lucerne Festival Mahler Nine. Rumours abound that ENO may be encouraged to take on Jones's fabulous Wagner production - but could it ever work without Terfel? Here's one shot we didn't get to use of his Proms performance, where he got a little more tired towards the end, but that's understandable, given the cameras, the heat and the emotional demands of the occasion. The snapper is musical photographer of the year Chris Christodoulou (just look at his Proms gallery of conductors and tell me anyone catches the mood better).


Which leads me finally to Ideal Opera Production of The Future (for it can't be thrown together in the next few seasons). That would have to feature Bryn as Jupiter and Anne Schwanewilms as his beloved mortal in Strauss's Die Liebe der Danae. Those two are essential; to stage it, take your pick between Jones, Robert Carsen or David McVicar on top form; to conduct it, Fabio Luisi or Antonio Pappano. Some hope, but I can dream, can't I? Happy New Year!

Anglo-Russo-Japanese alliance

Forged, not least, by what Hiyoko's website describes in quaint English as 'the famous confection loved throughout Japan for its pretty baby chick shape'. I received my first box of these beautifully-presented delights from a former Goldsmiths student of mine now back in Japan, Yumiko Nunokawa, who travelled all the way to London with Shin-ichi Numabe, at the evening to remember Noelle last Thursday.

More about the serious stuff shortly, but can I trouble you with Hiyoko's legend about its chicks, information about which I am grateful to both Shin-ichi and Christopher Cook's partner Mitsuo for supplying?

'About the famous confection Hiyoko

'Hiyoko is produced in 1912 by Shigeru Ishizaka, the owner of a confectionary shop who wishes to make a Japanese sweet that will become a favorite of sorts among many more people unlike ordinary circle-shaped buns. Now, after a hundred years since then, Hiyoko is loved and well known to everybody in Japan.


'Commitment to ingredients

'The secret of Hiyoko’s daintiness is the carefully selected ingredients. The savory bun is made of flour from Kyushu to give a distinctive flavor. Mildly sweet yellow filling is made of fine choice of haricot beans. We select well-grown beans only and mush them deliberately. After our experienced confectioner puts the bun and filling together and bakes it in an oven until it becomes moist, melting texture, a delicious ‘Hiyoko’ is ready for you!'


Here at home, though we both loved their little staring eyes (with just a hint of the blandly malevolent penguin Feathers McGraw in Wallace and Gromit's The Wrong Trousers), we are divided over the deliciousness of the Hiyoko chicks. I like them very much indeed, J does not, but he was quite wrong that the various recipients wouldn't care for them either.

Though this was the most delightful surprise of my all too brief meeting with Yumiko and Shin-ichi, they came bearing even more valuable intelligence. I had already had a fascinating email exchange with Yumiko about Prokofiev's duo partnership as pianists with the French-Belgian violinist Robert Soetens, during which I saw a photo of them playing together which was completely new to me.

Now we know that perhaps my favourite photograph of the young Prokofiev


was taken not in 1915, as the archive and my book both have it, but in 1918 on his visit to Japan, as both the white suit and the same background reveal. For here is the young wizard meeting his greatest Japanese supporter, Motoo Ohtaguro (right), and A N Other on 2 July 1918.


Noelle, who wrote an article in an early Three Oranges journal called 'getting it right', would have been delighted.

After the big event last week, the obvious next step was to go and hear what Matthew Bourne had made of Prokofiev's score for Cinderella. I didn't see that production the first time round, when it was regarded as a bit of a mess. And to my mind it still is, though my Arts Desk colleague Ismene Brown thinks otherwise, and doesn't even worry about the over-amplified, pre-recorded orchestra. Granted, the idea of setting the fairy-story in the London Blitz of 1940, around the time Prokofiev composed the score, yields increasingly beautiful ideas amid the confusion.

The best thing in Act 1 is bespectacled Cinders' routine with a tailor's dummy that turns into her dream airman. Here are Sam Archer and Kerry Biggin in the first of four production photographs by Simon Annand for New Adventures Productions.


Quite how the airman's wounded self ties in with the Fairy Godfather's plans I didn't quite grasp. And the flight through the strafed streets is confusing, too, though the 'Autumn' variation of Prokofiev's seasonal divertissement - the wistful 'Winter' number is unique in getting the chop - strikes a not inappropriate note of terror as gasmasked 'dogs' create havoc.

Loud explosions and timewarp chaos reign in Act 2, too. It's clever how the Godfather turns the clock back on the carnage at the West End's Cafe de Paris and lets his Cinders make her glammed-up entrance down the big staircase.


Incidentally, one of the last times I danced around someone's handbag (and to that terrific Kylie number then all the rage) was at the Cafe de Paris, many hours into an absinthe-fuelled Gotterdammerung for the consultants of the cable radio station I used to opera-advise, Music Choice. The lethal alcohol plied by a small personage dressed up as Toulouse Lautrec left several folk unconscious, though having knocked back only three glasses I just about got home in one piece.


Anyway, as in the Bourne Nutcracker, Act 2 'was only a dream' (as four-year-old Carla said very loudly the second time we went to see that wonderful show). Bourne's coup is really the last act. Like that even wackier genius of the stage, Richard Jones, he can pull haunting theatre out of a composer's less inspired moments.

I felt Jones did that with the very sinister party scene of his Queen of Spades, and Bourne is determined to claw back the world-travelogue dances Ashton and most others cut from Act Three. And here the narrative tightens up, as the battered airman runs around London with the single lost slipper - down the Underground, where tarts straight out of the film Waterloo Bridge strut, and along the Embankment. Lez Brotherston's quick-change designs really come into their own here. And then there's a very disturbing scene in a hospital, for which, sadly, no press images had been approved. Frightened they might scare the punters away? Well they might be.

All ends well, and better than the visual inspiration, Brief Encounter, at Paddington Station. I wished they hadn't done an encore to 'In the Mood', which dispelled the disquieting aspects of Prokofiev's music in a feelgood sham. The recording was much too loud, muffled and boomy, but from what I could make out the woodwind soloists played especially well for that conducting doyen of New Adventures, Brett Morris. And though there's even less real ballet than usual in Bourne's choreography, he is always sensitive to the score's finer nuances.


Like I said, many good and striking ideas derived from the Blitz setting, but for a more coherent homage to A Matter of Life and Death et al I'd have to give the palm to the supposedly more impressionistic and very low budget brilliance of Pants on Fire's treatment of Ovid's Metamorphoses, the best thing I saw at Edinburgh and indeed in the theatre during the whole of 2010. And, hurrah, they've finally got their publicity act together with a brand new website, production photos and a little film they've put on YouTube which should whet your appetite.



Pants on Fire take up their prize visit to the New York fringe in January, and then they're back on tour, with only one performance in London at Islington's Little Angel Theatre in March. More, please, much more: this show deserves a proper West End run.