COCTEAU'S CIRCLE - Australian Chamber Orchestra - Llewellyn Hall - Canberra

 

Richard Tognetti (conducting) -Stefan Cassomenos (Piano) - Le Gateau Chocolat 
performing - "Cocteau's Circle"

Music Director and Violin: Richard Tognetti – Staging Director: Yaron Lifschitz

Costume Designer: Libby McDonnell – Interstitial Music Composer: Elena Kats-Chernin

Maitre d’ and Voice: Le Gateau Chocolat – Soprano: Chloe Lankshear

Australian Chamber Orchestra – Llewellyn Hall, Canberra – 22^nd November 2025

Reviewed by BILL STEPHENS

Richard Tognetti with The Australian Chamber Orchestra.

It seems that Jean Cocteau was as famous for the company he kept as he was for his contribution to the art scene of twentieth century Paris. 

A prolific poet, playwright, novelist, designer, film director, visual artist, ambulance driver and critic, Cocteau pushed boundaries with his collaborations with the likes of Picasso, Diaghilev, and Stravinsky, while providing inspiration for composers such as Ravel, Debussy, and George Gershwin.  

Even also for twenty-first century boundary-pushers like Richard Tognetti and Yaron Lifschitz, who between them, conceived this mesmerising concert, which received the final performance of its national tour in Canberra.

A sense of ennui might have been expected among the musicians, who, the previous evening, had performed a gala concert in the Sydney Opera House to celebrate exactly 50 years since the orchestra’s establishment in 1975. But that would have underestimated the professionalism of this extraordinary ensemble of musicians, because no such mood was discernible.  

Indeed, the mood was festive, even casual, as the musicians took the stage to perform Elena Kats-Chernin’s “Pre-show: Intermission Music”, one of several specially commissioned pieces from Kats-Chernin, dotted through the program to provide clever musical segues connecting the disparate compositions which made up the program.

Works by Georges Auric, Igor Stravinsky, Arthur Honegger, and other composers who sought artistic freedom beyond traditional conventions were showcased.  

The Soldiers Tale (  L’Histoire  du soldat: Ragtime) , inspired by a story of a young soldier who sold his violin to the devil; and Three pieces for a String Quartet (trois pieces pour quator a cordes)  displayed Stravinsky’s use of dissidence, as did Honegger’s, Wedding Party on the Eiffel Tower (Les Maries de la tour Eiffel: Marche funebre).

While the superbly rendered orchestral selections illustrated the inventiveness of the more forward-thinking composers of the day, an inspired choice to include British shapeshifting drag performer, Le Gateau Chocolat, and soprano, Chloe Lankshear in the program, allowed reference to the work of iconic cabaret artists like Josephine Baker and Edith Piaf and their role in popularising the works of those composers.  

Le Gateau Chocalat and the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Le Gateau Chocolat represented the subversive Black avant-garde artists who flocked to Paris during this period. His deconstructions of George Gershwin’s “Oh Lady Be Good”, from the musical of the same name, “I loves You Porgy” from Porgy and Bess, then later his compelling version of Janis Ian’s “Stars”, echoed the type of performance that attracted Cocteau to the cabarets of Paris.

He also offered visual splendour with his extravagant costumes, each more dazzling than the last, along with poems and monologues.   

Lankshear, by contrast, stayed with her chic black trousers and tuxedo, preferring to fascinate with her voice and personality which perfectly reflected those of artists of the period who appeared in operettas like Henri Christine’s Phi-Phi, from which she offered a stylish rendition of “Bien Chapeautee”.

Chloe Lankshear - Stefan Cassomenos (piano) and the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Later, Lankshear captivated with a swooning version of “Les Chemins de l’amour” (The Ways of Love”), written by Francis Poulenc for Yvonne Printemps to sing in the play “Leocadia”, and a heart-stopping rendition of Lili Boulanger’s “Pie Jesu” which Boulanger dictated from her deathbed to her sister, Nadia.  

Performed without interval, before an artfully lit translucent curtain, floor candles and haze, the concert flowed uninterrupted for a riveting 90 minutes, arriving at the major work of the evening, an exhilarating performance of Darius Milhaud’s effervescent, “Le Boeuf sur le toit” (An Ox on the Roof”) written to accompany a Charlie Chaplin movie, but premiered as a ballet choreographed by Jean Cocteau in 1920.

This item was delivered with such infectious joie de vivre by the orchestra, that it was impossible not to be captivated by its ability to retain the impeccable balance between instruments for which it is justly celebrated, while seemingly abandoning itself to the playful mood of the music.

The thunderous applause which greeted this performance was gently subdued by a superb rendition by Lanshear and Chocolat, of “L’Hymne a l’amour “written by Cocteau’s friend, Edith Piaf following the death of her lover in a plane crash. Piaf herself died just one day ahead of Cocteau in October 1963.

                                                            Images by Daniel Boud.

    This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.artsreview.com.au