The pairing of Olivier Messiaen's tumultuous Turangalîla-symphonie with a hyperactive animated film could have been a disaster, but the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's collaboration with 1927 Studios proved a triumph at London's Royal Festival Hall. Part of the Southbank Centre's Multitudes festival, the performance blended the 20th-century masterpiece with a silent-movie-inspired visual feast.
Conductor Vasily Petrenko led the orchestra through the score's complexities with unusual clarity, generating vast emotional peaks without smudging the composer's vivid colours. Pianist Steven Osborne excelled in the fiendish solo part, while Cécile Lartigau's ondes Martenot cut cleanly through the orchestral maelstrom. The 80-minute symphony, steeped in the legend of Tristan and Isolde, culminated in a joyous outpouring of love.
The film, projected above the stage, combined live-action characters echoing silent-film stars like Gloria Swanson with surreal stop-motion collages. Initially threatening to overwhelm the music, it soon proved perfectly attuned to the score's expressive heartbeat. Petrenko even appeared in the film, winking at the audience, while blood-red roses sprouted from lovers' orifices. The lighthearted visuals were remarkably in tune with Messiaen's intoxicating music.
