Gentle notes
CAPTURING HEARTS Malladi Brothers' melodic style was much appreciated by the audience
Malladi Brothers, Sriramprasad and Ravikumar, won a lot of admiration for their pleasant and non-aggressive vocal duet performance at the Fort High School premises for Sri Ramaseva Mandali, Chamarajpet. Opting for a gentle melodic style, they opened their recital with a Kambhoji varna ("Sarasijakshi"). The content of their recital had some rare krithis and rare ragas, neatly and effectively rendered. Notwithstanding their love and temptation towards the higher notes, I was convinced with their mastery.
Rare kritis
Rarely heard kritis such as "Mosa pokuvinave" (Thyagaraja, Gowlipanthu), "Karunakara" (Swati Tirunal, with fine alapana, Begade), "Rama Baana" (Thyagaraja, Savrri, with raga, sahitya and swaravistaras) and "Nannu Vidachi" (Thyagaraja, Reetigowla), and infrequent ragas like Salagabhairavi (Thyagaraja, "Padavini") and "Nagagandhari" (Dikshitar, raga with the same name) made the concert a rare one. It invoked the quality of a vivid kutcheri performance and with maintained a uniform artistry, sweet and notable, the vocal-duo gave considerable satisfaction to the rasikas of music. Mysore Manjunath (violin), Tiruvarur Bhaktavatsalam (mridanga) and V. Suresh (ghata) assisted their show with well-attuned proficiency.
Budding dancer
Though nritta or pure dance seemed to have won praise for Umashree, a budding and ambitious Bharatanatya dancer and a proud disciple of natya vidushi Jaya, her recital at Ravindra Kalakshetra had a scrubbed clean look where precise movement never overstepped the grammatically prescribed contours. Yes, I wished for a more precise ardhamandalis and precision in mukhabhinaya. But still, her trim and compact appearance and the good dance won the game for her. She was a bit slow at the outset. But soon she came into her own and could successfully manage the demanding mishra alarippu and Sriraga jathiswara, studded with fast paced and intricate nritta. Umashree's acting abilities came to the fore in the sketching of various exploits of the Devi on the basis of a popular ragamalika krithi, "Sri Chakraraja Simhasaneshwari".
The yearning of a virahothkhanthita nayika as sketched by K. Dandayudhapani Pillai in his Poorvikalyani varna ("Swamiye vara cholladi") and the greatness of Lord Muruga were artistically captured by the dancer in his simple abhinaya. While she was good in its nritta and nrithya parts, she could have been more profound in the sancharis.
Mercurial movements
The "Shivanavarasa" (exposition of navarasas on the basis of different episodes connected with Lord Shiva) was enjoyable for her crisp and mercurial evocation of nine rasas.
Umashree's adventurous Guru Naatya Vidushi Jaya (nattuvanga), Srishuka (vocal), Sridhar (violin), Purushottam (morsing), Srihari (mridanga) as the members of the musical ensemble contributed their talent to the success of the recital.
M. SURYA PRASAD
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