Songs My Mother Taught Me

The best way to describe Tina Area’s stage presence?

The Cabaret Pageant inventive director isn’t all the time on stage for this two-hour celebration of music’s position within the private histories of a few of Australia’s most distinctive performers. However her spirit is right here: she’s authoritative, in the best way {that a} severe performer must be; however she additionally is aware of tips on how to have enjoyable.

And that’s what occurred on this oftentimes extraordinary night time on the cabaret.

In two hours, Area transports us to her household’s sunroom in Moonee Ponds, swaying alongside along with her mom and sisters to the melodramatic ’80s ballad, Maledetta primavera (Cursed spring), whereas her fellow performers give us a blinding tour encompassing Chinese language rock ‘n’ roll and Zimbabwean lullaby, Torres Strait gospel singing and Yom Kippur prayers, Scottish people music, some Future’s Baby, and one of many biggest variations of an Area hit you’re ever prone to hear.

Underneath the course of Johanna Allen, the Her Majesty’s stage is about with stringed lights and an array of lampshades. Area welcomes the viewers to the singers’ dwelling – a slowly constructing (and really sudden) model of Insanity’s ’80s hit Our Home introduces the idea.

On stage with Area are Australian singers from an array of cultural backgrounds: Sophie Koh, whose background is Chinese language-Malaysian, Israeli-born Lior, French-Canadian Wendy Matthews, Jess Hitchcock, whose household hails from Saibai within the Torres Strait, and Melbourne-based, Zimbabwean-born Thando.

After Area begins with the beautiful sway of Maledetta, Koh bursts onto the stage with a Chinese language call-and-response rock ‘n’ roll celebration, the Fifties quantity Wo Yao Ni De Ai, earlier than sitting on the piano for one among her personal items, “Yellow Rose”, devoted to unsung Chinese language poets.

Thando, a strong soul singer, kicks the night time to a brand new place along with her favorite music as a nine-year-old, “Survivor” by Future’s Baby, earlier than beautiful the viewers with a hovering lullaby, Tula, Tula, as soon as sung to her by her mom, that she now sings to her daughter.

By this stage, it was clear this was a novel efficiency – an opportunity to traverse cultures and kinds in a approach that’s prone to be a once-off. Singers performing items of nice private which means, was vital within the energy of the supply.

The household theme prolonged to the native musicians on stage. Together with a string quartet, a band led by Adelaide’s Mark Ferguson on piano additionally included his household – the mother-daughter back-up singing duo of Sue and Ciara Ferguson have been a pleasure to look at and take heed to.

Lior’s flip: an impossibly cute rendering of his favorite music from his favorite youngsters’ album as a younger little one in Tel Aviv; then an unadorned Yom Kippur prayer for compassion, with the singer turning on a two-cent piece to show the cabaret stage to sacred area, from a bounce-along ditty to a hovering invocation.

An analogous flip got here subsequent from Jess Hitchcock, who certainly will quickly acquire extra consideration for her effortlessly highly effective and wealthy voice. After a nod to her Mum’s love for ’50s and ’60s rock with “Silly Cupid”, she was joined by Sue and Ciara to boost the roof with a strong gospel rendering of a Torres Strait hymn, Baba Waiyar.

Wendy Matthews informed tales of her youth in Canada, beginning with Cherokee Louise by Joni Mitchell (“I lived inside her feelings…”), after which her personal hit “Standing Robust”, her distinctive voice good for a cabaret setting.

After the interval got here a spotlight: Area and Hitchcock duetting on Area’s hit “Sorrento Moon (I Bear in mind)”, given a brand new nostalgic glow with a slower tempo. Beautiful.

From way back summers within the Victorian seaside city, we’re again on the streets of Tel Aviv – that horrible day in November 1995 when Israeli prime minister Yitzchak Rabin was assassinated, with all of its horrible meanings for peace in that nation. Earlier than the killing, a crowd of 100,000 sang a prayer for peace – Shir L’Shalom – which Lior dropped at the stage together with his ringing tenor voice.

And so the night time continued on this emotional vein. There have been two highlights from right here: Wendy Matthews singing her heartbreaking 1992 hit “The Day You Went Away”, principally in French, leaning in opposition to the grand piano, her whisky-and-cigarettes timbre taking us right into a late-night reverie.

After which, Area, commanding the stage, delivered a searing model of “Caruso”, the story of the aching recollections of a person about to die in that different Sorrento, in her Italian homeland.

An ideal ending was delivered with every singer contributing in their very own language to Lior’s wedding ceremony music favorite, “This Outdated Love”, adopted by an Italian wedding ceremony type sing- and dance-along with Tinarella Di Luna.

This was a genius idea and, maybe, the crowning achievement of Area’s oversight of this 12 months’s Cabaret Pageant.

Encore, please!

Songs My Mom Taught Me performs once more at Her Majesty’s Theatre tonight, June 25.

See all InReview’s protection of the 2022 Cabaret Pageant right here.