Image Credit: Pete Woodhead
(4 / 5)
This first trip of the Southbank Center’s Multitudes 2026 festival was for me, familiar fare and a new creation. Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about film screening with a live orchestra. With Fritz Lang’s Metropolis getting its century next year, I think we really should be seeing more of these.
Leading to this opening concert, the fittingly named 1927 Studios got their collab on with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for a wonderful take on Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie. 1927 Studios are best remembered for their expressionistic Magic Flute, seen in Edinburgh and beyond. Their love of early cinema is second to none and they seen to get away with what they do. Taking Messiaen’s symphony on face value, the Tristan myth is the narrative fabric of their film work. I did wonder if Turangalîla had the capacity to be a camp classic. 1927 Studios prove this!
We are treated to a time capsule, a faithful recreation of cinema gone by. Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin comes to mind, a rare thing in cinema today to honour the past in such a way. Many of these trappings are cleverly featured on screen. We get all the stagey, awkward acting, character glaring at the camera and old timey intertitles. The frequent orbs, colour fading and screen wipes are fun. The leading actors are always highly effective: a dashing Jake Cecil and a brooding Esme Appleton as the Celtic couple destined to doom. All supporting actors got the memo about how to Jam it up in a odd thing like this and there were several laughs abound. The animation of Paul Barritt and and Francesco Roych never takes itself to seriously with flowers, frolicking and fornication, all relevant to the themes and setting. Their cut-out fairy-sprites design would fittingly suggest Dada and naturally Monty Python all springs to mind as well.
Image Credit: Pete Woodhead
Whilst the film was noteworthy, I must also say how well done the orchestra and soloists were. Conductor Vasily Petrenko always delivers and in this massive, outrageous work, he appears to excel. Sad to see these amazing musicians dimmed on stage, yet the glowed with a radiance this silly piece demands. The percussion is worthy, a battery on the stage. The winds and brass get many alarming, bombastic passages, often thrilling, always incredible. The strings astound with vigour and tenderness, Indian melodies meld with piercing romance. The beauty of Messiaen is his juxtaposition as well as variety of styles. On piano, Steven Osborne got mighty moments, absurd drama in slamming and flutters on these keys. The ondes Martentot, the early electronic instrument made famous by Messiaen (and later the band Radiohead), was here from Cécile Lartigau. This must be a delight to play on ondes, its range vast, its joy unbounded. Lartigau played it with graceful ease, you don’t require a virtuosic scope for the instrument, I’d imagine. But it is always wonderful, I’d say a rare thing, yet we hear it now in concert and films most often.
Multitudes continues at the Southbank Centre till 30th April 2026.