(Pareles) RALPH STANLEY (Sunday) Mr. Stanley's stark, unflinching "O Death" leaped out of the soundtrack of "O Brother, Where Are Thou?" and introduced a few million new listeners to a gripping, venerable singer whose songs about sin, temptation and salvation are cornerstones of country music.
After the verdicts Jackson's attorney, Thomas Mesereau, gripped the singer's forearm.
When they reach the chorus – "I just want to be a better man" – Pete, who was absent for part of Robbie's childhood, grips the singer's hand.
But Mahler is at his most gripping — and offers a singer the greatest expressive opportunities — in songs of soul-wrenching conflict or pained resignation.
Keith Warner's staging was ingenious, gripping and, for the dozen young singers who had to hurl themselves around in the tiny, candlelit Sam Wanamaker theatre, heart-in-mouth risky.
It's all fascinating and sharply entertaining, not least for the curious dislocations, like a gripping performance from the Swan Silvertone Singers, who sound a little bewildered by their generous reception.
Though filled with restless, pungently modern and often gripping music, this 10-minute work for solo singer and orchestra, inspired by the drawings of Antonin Artaud, has no story and no text.
The tragedies gain awesome power when done this way; the cosmic, measured outpourings of the orchestra and the stately chanting of the singers, rising to impassioned cries, are constantly gripping.
When David Pountney's English National Opera production of "Macbeth" was new in 1990, the dancers (members of the Second Stride dance company, choreographed by Ian Spink) were integrated with, and almost indistinguishable from, the singers, making the nightmarish choreography for the witches gripping.
