FORM-Idea

The lovely K-Music festival returned this November for yet another intriguing look at the rich musical landscape of South Korea.  This year’s festival showcased its usual eclectic blend of ground breaking music for all musical taste.

The year’s festival opened with an astonishing production of King Lear at London’s Barbican centre.  It was the National Changgeuk Company of Korea’s production and what a revelation it was.  The production combined both traditional Korean opera alongside the ever-popular Pansori, a traditional musical form which dates back to the 17^th century.  Having seen the same company’s staggering restaging of The Trojan Women a few years, this production of King Lear was no less innovative.   The mark of a great production is its ability to make you rethink a classic you may have seen a hundred times before and this production of King Lear did just that.  It was both beautiful and heart-breaking.   The use of the music simply heightened line reading which through their familiarity can lose all meaning.  The lead actor’s Kim Jun-Su performance was breath-taking and even more so once you find out that he is in his thirties, far younger than most western actors who would typically be cast in the role.   And as such he seems less determined to make his performance a culmination of an illustrious career but one which is multi-faceted and rooted in reality.  His final scene over the corpse of his now dead daughter is truly devastating.  A timely reminder that age does not automatically confer wisdom.

Elsewhere in the festival was the beautiful soprano Hera Hyesang Park a graduate of New York’s prestigious Juilliard school.  She along with the tenor David Junghoon Kim performed a lovely programme of both traditional opera classics along with traditional Korean songs.

One of the concluding performances of this festival was that of the visionary Heemoon Lee an almost indescribable artist.  He challenges traditional gender roles to inject a new vigour and style in traditional Korean music.  If you think of a Korean Tim Curry, via Rocky Horror Picture Show you will have some idea of Heemoon Lee’s electrifying style.  With a vocal range that’s dazzling and capable of singing both female and male roles he is an extraordinary performer.   By the end of the evening, he had entire audience in the Purcell Room up dancing. No mean feat for a notoriously traditional venue. 

The K-Festival is such a welcome fixture in London since it shines a light on why South Korea for so many artists now, is the place to go since it produces some of the world’s most dazzling performers.