Call it rubbish or call it art, it's a capital show

BRIAN RUDMAN shifts his focus down south to give a critical overview of the firstweek of Wellington's two-yearly arts extravaganza.

Auckland sculptor Gregor Kregar may have found a solution to the rubbish disposal crisis - call it art and export it to Wellington.

The first shipment has certainly fooled our southern cousins. They've piled it at the grand entrance to their civic square as the first exhibit in the sculpture walk created along Wellington's wonderful waterfront promenade for New Zealand Festival 2002.

Kregar's "gloriously subversive Arc de Triomphe", to quote the catalogue, is made up of packing cases, fridges, televisions, a wheelbarrow, laundry basket - you name it, even the kitchen sink - picked up from Auckland streets during inorganic rubbish collections, assembled in a scaffolding frame and spray-painted blood red.

A recent migrant from Slovenia, Kregar says all objects are in "a continual state of transformation" and wants Wellingtonians to take home a piece of his sculpture when the festival is over. If they fall for it, Auckland's rubbish woes could be over.

The 13 other sculptures in the walk are for sale, ranging from a rather damaged Japanese imported sedan, offered by Pt Chevalier artist Caroline Rothwell for $6000, through to an intriguing bronze by Paul Dibble of Palmerston North, a snip for the backyard at $92,000. Other offerings include a large model of a blown-out umbrella and a dinky psychedelic show-home by corrugated-iron expert Jeff Thompson.

Together the works provide an attention-grabbing advertisement that the two-yearly festival, a vital part of the national cultural landscape since 1986, is back in town for three weeks. And if the sculptures don't catch the eye, British installation artist Angus Watt's billowing flag farms, one on the waterfront the other halfway up Mt Victoria, certainly will.

A centrepiece of each festival is the opera, and who could not be seduced by this year's sublime offering, the New Zealand premiere, 90 years late, of Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier.

There were plans to open the Aotea Centre with it in the 1980s, but faint hearts worried that an opera that opened with two females (one playing a teenage boy) writhing on a bed might not be suitable for sensitive Aucklanders. We got Kiri Te Kanawa in La Boheme instead.

The present production reveals what an opportunity was missed. With an international cast starring Yvonne Kenny, Louise Winter, Miah Persson and Alan Ewing, and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, this was world-class music-making.

The lunchtime concert series in St Andrews on the Terrace have always been an integral part of the festival. The hour-long recitals featuring New Zealand artists and/or music have been a showcase for established and emerging performers.

After the 1998 festival the series was controversially dropped, as a cost-cutting exercise, from the official programme. Fortunately, Wellington music critic Lindis Taylor and friends have kept it alive with the aid of local benefactors.

On Monday came the Auckland/Hamilton-based Kowhai Baroque ensemble of recorder, baroque cello and harpsichord, with Wellington early music specialist, soprano Pepe Becker for a quick tour of 17th century musical highlights.

Next day it was emerging soprano, Deborah Wai Kapohe's recital with pianist David Harper of Spanish songs.

On Wednesday came Felix the Quartet - named after the cat food but let's not go there - a group of NZSO players including concertmaster Wilma Smith. They started with an early Beethoven quartet, then were joined by NZSO colleague Patrick Barry to bring us the autumnal beauty of Mozart's Clarinet Quartet. For $15, this series is surely the musical bargain of the festival. Even if, strictly speaking, it's not a part.

While an hour is a great length of a midday concert, it seems hardly adequate for an evening show. Yet this seems to be the worrying trend.

At more than 3 1/2 hours, one can't complain about being short-changed with Der Rosenkavalier. But three of the five evening shows I paid to see in the festival proper came in at between an hour and an hour and a quarter long. You're out on the street before you've perfected the view around the person in front. Would it have been such a trial for Mr Gerhaher to sing a few more songs or for the Companhia de Danca Deborah Colker to have danced another number to take us beyond the miserly 60 minutes we got.

I hasten to add that the 60 minutes of Rota, the show this Brazilian dance company performed, was spectacularly exciting and beautiful.

Imagine the quality of a Douglas Wright, gymnastic-rooted dance company drawn from a population the size of Brazil's and you get an idea of the standards and talents of this group. In the last quarter of the show, the dancers enter a new dimension, hitching rides on a giant self-propelled ferris wheel to take their performance skyward. It's spectacular.

Not to be missed are Sir Sydney Nolan's Ned Kelly paintings about the legendary Australian outlaw. "Such is life," were Kelly's farewell words from the gallows. Nolan has captured this life with stunning effect. The powerful images of Kelly in his jet-back armour follow you around the gallery. They're at the City Gallery until May 19, 2002. Another must-see are the Henry Moore sculptures at Te Papa until June 4.

Finally, for light relief, there's the welcome return of the Dutch group Vis a Vis who wowed us back in 1994 with Topolino. Their latest offering, Picnic, starts with a camper van and a picnicking couple and ends with dead bodies everywhere. Part splatter movie in the flesh, part Keystone Cops, you'll never think the same about the Dutch after this. Or about camping. It's on until March 17.