BLOG.CNYCAFEMOMUS.COM

If a picture is worth a thousand words the right facial expression might well be worth twice that number, at least if they’re the ones on Caroline Fitzgerald’s face in Vigil, currently at Redhouse. Fitzgerald, arguably the grande dame of local theater, plays a lonely old woman into whose house a stranger (John Bixler, as Kemp) has stumbled while in search of his aunt—who may or may not be Grace, the Fitzgerald character.

Bixler has 99-percent of the dialogue in this play. Fitzgerald has the other one-percent, but don’t assume that all of Bixler’s dialogue is really a monologue. Fitzgerald’s facial expressions tell us more about what’s going through her mind than words ever could—from shock to despair, to joy, to sadness, to delight, to concern, to… well to just about every emotion a person can have.

The script by Canadian playwright Morris Panych is kind of a sentimental black comedy, and it’s treated carefully and lovingly by director William Morris. Kemp arrives at Grace’s house and immediately makes himself at home. He drops his suitcase on the floor, awakens Grace and announces he’s come to be with her until she dies—which according to the information he has should be pretty soon.

Kemp is neither some kind of death-loving ghoul nor your average, everyday nephew. He’s received a letter telling him that his only living relative—an aunt whom he barely remembers from visits years ago when he was a kid—is dying, and he’s there to make the necessary funeral arrangements and be with her to the end and beyond. “Do you want to be cremated?” he asks Grace, whose face registers shock and surprise. So intent is he on his own concerns he doesn’t notice. Black-out!

These brief encounters, followed by the lights going out, continue—as does the lack of communication. He talks about whatever he wants: his past, his parents and his old job. She reacts and he doesn’t seem to notice. Indeed, the first act is almost entirely one-way. We soon realize that Kemp’s interpersonal skills, on a scale of one to 10, are probably about a minus-three. The same goes for his sensitivity to others. At one point he’s sitting in plain sight of Grace, reading Grieving for Dummies. He announces, apropos of nothing at all, “I used to smoke. I looked ridiculous. But I did it anyway.” Bewilderment on the face of Grace. Blackout, again.

Throughout everything but the last few moments of the first act, Grace never utters a word. And yet there is drama in what he says (and doesn’t say) in her reactions. The lines are funny and Kemp delivers them absolutely dead-pan. We learn he’s always been a lonely guy. To say that his family was dysfunctional is to put things mildly. But never mind, his mother and father are dead. He left his drab job and has come to claim Grace’s house and her possessions after she dies. About all he knows how to cook for her is butterscotch pudding. He wonders why the lady sitting in the house opposite keeps looking in at them. He gets annoyed by kids playing outside. These seemingly unconnected tangents do get tied up in the end. At least most of them.

Kemp in his own way takes care of Grace for days, weeks, months, even seasons. Still, she stays alive—to Kemp’s dismay. Grace remains in bed except for rare excursions, on one of which she discovers that the suitcase he brought is empty. Kemp comes in and out and wonders aloud why she isn’t yet dead. He tells her of the funeral arrangements he’s made.

This is all funny, thanks to Bixler’s ability to deliver one-liners and to Fitzgerald’s expressions as she reacts to them. But after a while the joke begins to pale, and the situation fails to build until a surprise sight gag, including a demonic machine he’s created, gets misused by him and the act comes to an end.

Act Two is stronger. Kemp is getting desperate. Grace is madly knitting something. Odd things are going on outside her windows. Christmas comes, and then New Year’s, and slowly the two are clearly developing a relationship—of sorts.

The climax, when it comes, leads to a pleasantly sentimental ending (not to be given away here), and we find that we have been immersed for two hours in the lives of a man who can barely communicate with words and a woman who barely has a chance to use her voice. Yet in their own odd ways, the two ultimately connect.

William Morris directs deftly and gently. Tim Brown’s costumes seem right for these two, and his set creates a sense of being closed in but not claustrophobic. Jeremy Johnston’s sound design is spot on—light 1950s ballads, such as Mr. Sandman (Send Me a Dream), which opens the play.

Over 25 plays by playwright Panych have been produced in the U.S., Canada and Great Britain. Redhouse and Morris deserve much credit for thinking outside the box in this play selection, not simply because Canadian plays are too rarely done in the U.S. but because the characters in this one are so interesting oddball—as is the script itself.

Details Box:

What: Vigil, by Morris Panych.
Where: Redhouse Theater, 201 South West St., Syracuse.
When: May 9-12 at 8 p.m.
Length: One hour and 40 minutes, with 15-minute intermission.
Tickets: $25 general admission; $15 Redhouse members; call (315) 424-0405 or https://secure.vertiglo.com/831/redhouse/MAY3VIGIL.html

Family guide: May not be appropriate for young children.

Posted by David Abrams at 5/8/2012 7:06 PM | Add Comment

May 4 NYS Baroque: Songs of Love and War

NYS Baroque makes love—and war—in Syracuse season-closer

Scholar-performer singers and instrumentalists bridge past and present in persuasive program of Italian early-Baroque works

By David Abrams

Are love and war mutually exclusive terms? Not to those who’ve been married as long as I have, perhaps. And not to those able to “read between the lines” of Italian late-Renaissance poet Torquato Tasso’s epic poem, Gerusalemme liberata.

Friday evening’s program by NYS Baroque (aptly titled Songs of Love and War) afforded the listener a fresh look at the Tasso narrative that vividly recounts a duel-to-the-death by two armed warriors. Along the way, the poet weaves through countless metaphors and ironies (the combatants, unbeknownst to one-another, are lovers) until arriving at the bittersweet ending.

The story is brought to life within a dramatic musical setting by Claudio Monteverdi titled Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda—part of the composer’s colossal 8th Book of Madrigals (subtitled Songs of Love and War), which closed Friday’s program. The great Italian Renaissance-Baroque master fashioned the work as a cantata for three singers: a narrator (tenor Sumner Thompson); a warrior, Tancredi (tenor Aaron Sheehan) and his female lover, Clorinda, disguised as another warrior (soprano Laura Heimes). The singers are accompanied by strings and continuo.

The 11-piece period ensemble breathed life into this evocative work—capturing the drama, pathos, torment and heartbreak endemic to early Baroque opera (this cantata is, in essence, an unstaged tragic opera)—with a historically informed and brilliantly executed performance that faithfully and accurately depicted the manner and musical conventions of the period.

The narrator has the lion’s share of the work here, and Thompson produced a stunning vocal tour de force with a bold and dramatic intensity of tone and expressive delivery that did justice to Monteverdi’s customary stil concitato (excited style), with convincing fervor and fury. (One had only to watch the expression on Thompson’s face to grasp his level of commitment in this role.)

Thompson’s powerful operatic vocal presence, with its wide dynamic range and crisply articulated Italian diction, helped make this work appear as a timeless treasure that transcends the centuries-old writing to bridge past and present.

Heimes and Sheehan, in the more muted roles as the ill-fated lovers, complemented Thompson’s performance through faithful devotion to the dramatic elements in this cantata.

Heims paid great attention to nuances of dynamics and expression, particularly in her moment of ultimate resignation, with the touching words Amico, hai vinto (Friend, you have beaten me). Unfortunately, Heims’s diction throughout the evening, and to a lesser extent that of Sheehan, was difficult to grasp within the lively acoustical environment of the First Unitarian Universalist Society sanctuary. (Handouts with the printed text, along with the translation, were a great help to the listener.)

The attentive instrumental ensemble, led by Baroque violinist Julie Andrijeski, handsomely nourished Monteverdi’s concertato style writing, pitting the contrasting textures of voices and instruments suitably in early-Baroque style.

Tenors Thompson and Sheehan were joined by bass Steven Hrycelak (and continuo consisting of guitar, harp, violone and harpsichord) in a charming rendition of Monteverdi’s O mio bene—a gentle madrigal punctuated by stark use of augmented chords. The three male voices returned in Monteverdi’s Lamento della ninfa (this time with continuo comprising harp, theorbo and harpsichord), a hypnotic work set over a repeating four-note descending ground bass pattern that recalls Dido’s lament in Purcell’s When I am laid in earth. The three male voices blended well together, in spite of occasional pitch inconsistencies between the two tenors.

Hrycelak’s splendid bass-baritone was especially evident in Giulio Caccini’s Chi mi confort’ahime, one of the gems from the composer’s collection of airs titled Nuove musiche. Accompanied by continuo of theorbo and harp, Hrycelak drew some of the most enthusiastic responses of the evening from the audience, with depth of resonance in his deep pedal tones and firm command of coloraturas in the aria’s ornamental sections.

In similar fashion, Heimes—a frequent guest with NYS Baroque—satisfied the crowd with her sparkling coloraturas in the virtuosic embellishment sections of the solo madrigal for soprano and continuo, Voglio di vita uscir, attributed to Monteverdi. Heims delivered the two-part aria (accompanied here by continuo of harp, violone and harpsichord) with deep expression and anguish, and the handsome quality of her rich soprano cut straight to the soul.

Heims’s usual command of pitch eluded her at times during Monteverdi’s Più lieto il guardo, where she experienced trouble when reaching for the high notes in this Spanish-flavored aria—made all the more Spanish by the inclusion of the Baroque guitar, played ever so attractively by Deborah Fox—who also managed the theorbo (bass lute) parts during the concert.

The purely instrumental sections of Saturday’s program also shined. Giovanni Paulo Cima’s Sonata no. 2 for violin and continuo gave Andrijeski a chance to display her considerable talents, while Girolamo Frescobaldi’s Toccata no. 1, Book 2 gave harpsichordist Adam Pearl ample opportunity to dazzle the crowd in the rapid running passages that alternated with improvisatory rubato sections of this work. (It was nevertheless difficult to ignore that the harpsichord began to drift out of tune.)

Harpist Christa Patton gave the listeners a taste of the Baroque triple harp with her performance of Giovanni Leonardo Dell’Arpa’s Lucretia gentil, while Baroque cellist David Morris enlightened the crowd with an explanation of the lirone—a cello look-alike with nine to 16 strings (instead of the usual four) that was born in the Italian Counter-Reformation and died shortly thereafter. (Morris is one of a dozen or so musicians to own and play a replica of this rare instrument.)

It’s always a pleasure to have NYS Baroque come to Syracuse. The period-instrument ensemble brings music from the past to audiences who may not otherwise find exposure to early-music treasures such as the works on Friday's program. What’s more, they do it right—with authentic performance practices that require both scholarship and mastery of a large assortment of unusual and challenging instruments.

These scholar-musicians are truly worthy of our attention.

Details Box:

What: NYS Baroque: Songs of Love and War
Where: First Unitarian Universalist Church, 109 Waring Rd., Syracuse

When: Friday, May 4, 2012 at 8 p.m.

Time: One hour, 55 minutes

Information: call (607) 533-4383

2012-2013 Season (Syracuse): La Vida Bona, 4 p.m. Sep. 16; Handel’s Apollo & Dafne, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 5; Fleurs de Lis, 7:30 p.m. Mar. 1

Ticket prices: $25 general; $20 seniors; $10 college; K-12 students free

Posted by David Abrams at 5/6/2012 10:44 PM | Add Comment

April 27 SU Drama: As You Like It

SU Drama’s ‘As You Like It’ the way we like it

Lead roles are outstanding in the department’s cross-dressing, gender-bending final production of the season

By David Feldman

It's awfully easy to confuse Shakespeare’s comedies.

Is As You Like It the one with the two brothers tossed up in Sardinia, or wherever? Or is it the play where some of the people get turned into animals and the 99-percent occupy a rude comedy? Or how about when the bad duke sends our hero and heroine into the woods and the one girl dresses like a guy and the one guy loves the guy when he was still a girl and writes poems about her and then plasters them all over the… whoa… that’s the one currently at the SU Drama Department—which for this excursion into Shakespearean cross-dressing and gender-bending is at the Archbold Theater and not the Storch (which currently houses The Brothers Size).

The production moves so quickly throughout its 2 hours and 40 minutes that it manages to make time pass about half as long as some two-hour Christmas-type productions I’ve seen.

And there’s a lot of action to stuff into that time. Strong and handsome Orlando is kicked out of the evil Duke Frederick’s court. Soon enough, perky-pretty and strong-willed Rosalind, who has fallen precipitously in love with Orlando, is also sent into exile, basically because evil dukes are like that. The duke’s daughter, Celia, goes with her because she and Rosalind have been, like, BFF since they were babies. And besides, Shakespeare needed somebody for Rosalind to talk with and keep the plot moving. As they head into the Forest of Arden Roz disguises herself as a man, because that’s what Shakespeare liked to have his young male actors do, while faithful Celia dresses down for a trip into the forest.

By now, Orlando has been writing love poems to Roz and tacking them up thither and yon all over the woods. Elsewhere in the forest is the good Duke Senior—bad Duke Frederick’s exiled brother and Roz's father who, extolling the joys of life in the wild, tells us famously that “sweet are the virtues of adversity.” With him are his rustically dressed courtiers, including the ever-melancholy Jaques (“All the world’s a stage,” etc.).

Also wandering around are a bunch of local residents, none of them terribly bright, but they are ever at the ready for various well-born types to interact with. Amazingly, Orlando happens to run into Roz just hanging out in that big forest. More amazingly, he doesn’t even recognize his own true love, costumed as she is as a male. But he does go along with her/his clever idea to pretend to be a girl named Rosalind (hence, girl dresses as a man and then pretends to be herself) so Orlando can practice his wooing skills with her/him/her. (Or, as done on the Elizabethan stage, him/her/him/her.)

This is the main stage directing premiere of SU Drama Department Chairman (his second year here), Ralph Zito. Zito elicits outstanding performances from a young cast: verve, pace, élan and style are the order of the day. Zito surgically excised enough of the marginal business to cut the running time without doing serious damage to the play.

The cast works hard, but he and they make it look easy—a rare but much appreciated quality. Among the standouts: a lovely, pert and flirty Rosalind (Hayley Palmaer) who ties with one other cast member for the most graceful hand gestures in the production; the other set of hands belongs to tall, somehow enigmatic Olivia Gjurich as moody Jacques, a male in the original but a woman here—and why not? It works just fine.

Throughout the production there’s careful attention paid to small gestures, and there’s nicely paced movement about the stage—the kind of things both large and small that in sum create a sense of high quality work.

There are delightful comic turns by Sammy Lopez (Touchstone, a very foppish fool), Sidney Patrick (as Audrey, for whom the fool lusts and vice versa), Helene Morse (Phebe who pines for Roz, thinking she’s a he) and Joseph Fierburg (Silvius, the shepherd who pines for Phebe).

Kyle Anderson’s Orlando is played nicely beamish and boyish—not easy to do in a role that demands he be mostly a foil for Rosalind.

There’s some delightful stage business when Celia (Rebeccah Singer) unrolls and unrolls and almost drops and… unrolls again a scroll that brings us up to date about what’s been going on back at court.

This is one of the few productions I’ve ever seen (other than at the Royal National Theatre in London) that uses a stage turntable as one of the major players. Credit scenic designer Alexander Koziara for a well-integrated device to help create segues between the scenes. Director Zito uses it to maximum effect—as when Orlando on one side of the slowly moving turntable fishes out the locket given him by Rosalind, while simultaneously 180 degrees away on the other side Rosalind sighs over a mask Orlando wore early on. Watching them, you can’t help feeling that love is grand even when the two lovers fear they’ll never see each other again.

The costumes by Maria Marrero are 18th century rather than Elizabethan, which works just fine establishing a sense of distance in time plus a certain elegance for the young cast. And As You Like It takes place in a timeless time, anyway.

There’s touchingly romantic music for this, one of Shakespeare’s most musical of plays, by Sound Designer Kate Foretek.

I wasn’t wild about a wimpy-looking wrestler for Orlando to go up against. The match, staged as a modern professional wrestling bout done in slow motion, seems too heavy in a production that for the most part is light and gentle. There’s a fair amount of variation in the quality of the performances, notably some of those in minor roles needing seasoning until they get to the genuinely professional level of most of the leads. And there are some really weird, near-homosexual moments between Orlando and Roz who is at that point, he believes, a man—while she and we know she ain’t.

It’s not easy for American performers to do justice to Shakespeare’s English. Fortunately the cast doesn’t try, choosing instead fast and basically standard American English that clips along well, except for a few stumbles: Some dialogue gets lost at times and Jaques’ last speech spoken from nearly offstage down left to rear of the theater gets thrown away. And the “seven ages of man” soliloquy seemed to me to be more mannered than melancholic.

Then there’s the problem with the ending—not the production’s, but Shakespeare’s. The slap-dash, stitched-together ending wraps everything up not very neatly, with off-stage conversions and the sudden entrance of Hymen, goddess of marriage (sweet voiced Samantha Blinn) to tie things up. But then again, if Will hadn’t finished it off so abruptly the play would still be going on and on without ever ending. And the original Old Globe would still be standing on the south bank of the Thames.

But well-crafted endings aren’t necessary for comedies to delight us. And this one does exactly that. The bottom line for this, the department’s final production of the season, is that it imparts a delightful sense that at all times we are watching the creation anew of a lovely artifice done artfully well.

Details Box:
What: As You Like It, by William Shakespeare, performed by the Syracuse University Department of Drama
Where: The Archbold Theatre, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse
When: May 3, 4, 5, 11 and 12 (Matinee at 2 p.m. for May 12 production; others at 8 p.m.)
Length: Two hours and 40 minutes, including a 15 minute intermission
Tickets: Adults, $18; seniors and students, $16; rush tickets $8 one hour before each performance
Call: (315) 443-3275 or visit SyracuseStage.org
Family guide: Suitable for all ages

Posted by David Abrams at 5/2/2012 9:06 PM | Add Comment

April 21 Kalichstein Laredo Robinson Trio

After 35 years, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio remains in top form

The celebrated piano trio closes out the Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music’s 62nd season with impeccable ensemble

By David Abrams

If you’ve been having trouble finding Ponce de León’s legendary Fountain of Youth, perhaps you should follow the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio on its next trip to Florida.

The celebrated chamber ensemble comprising violinist Jaime Laredo, cellist Sharon Robinson and pianist Joseph Kalichstein has been touring the circuit and turning out recordings ever since its White House debut at President Carter's Inauguration in 1977. Saturday evening’s Syracuse performance—perhaps a warm up to the ensemble’s upcoming Alice Tully Hall program May 6 at Lincoln Center with André Previn—suggests the ageless trio has lost neither freshness of approach nor spontaneity of delivery since its Jimmy Carter gig.

There was much to enjoy in the group’s stylistically appropriate and technically precise performance of Mozart’s Piano Trio in B-flat Major (K. 502), which opened the program. While technically a chamber work, this charming Trio is more akin to a piano concerto in that the keyboard predominates over the other instruments throughout the work—an imbalance that afforded listeners an opportunity to savor Kalichstein’s formidable pianistic skills.

To play Mozart convincingly a pianist must have the delicacy of touch necessary to delineate the composer’s elegant phrases, steady fingers to balance the crystal clear passagework evenly, and the technical facility to execute turns, trills and other ornaments with suitable grace and polish. Kalichstein has all this—along with the ability to inject spontaneity and artistry into his playing.

Kalichstein’s sensitive phrasing allowed the elegant Larghetto (slow) movement to sing, as he massaged the shapely melodies with just the right touch of rubato. At times the sensuous give-and-take of tempo was such that I thought I was listening to an Italian bel canto aria. He adroitly negotiated the many turns and ornaments of the final movement rondo, echoed beautifully by Laredo, producing a joyful and thoroughly enjoyable listening experience.

Stanley Silverman’s Piano Trio No. 2, commissioned by the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and premiered by the group last September, is a work written in dedication to a man who was among those who perished in the World Trade Center tragedy. But far from being a solemn tribute to the deceased, Herman Sandler, this work revels in the humor of the incongruity of his eclectic tastes—such as serving dinner guests candy bars for dessert following the gourmet meals he had prepared for them.

Silverman’s tribute to Sandler is eclectic, as well—reflecting the composer’s training and hybrid career as a composer-arranger. (He studied with ultra-serialist Pierre Boulez yet orchestrates and collaborates with James Taylor, John Williams, Sting and Paul Simon.) His Trio is a striking amalgam of several different musical styles that takes the listener on a zigzag journey from art music to pop-music and from Latin dances to contrapuntal procedures.

The intermingling of styles is especially evident as the Cuban dance Guajira bobs in and out of the somber lute song, Fear No More Heat o’ the Sun. As Joseph Kalichstein explained in his pre-performance talk, Silverman got the idea from listening to his radio, whose tuning dial separating the adjacent classical music and salsa stations is so narrow that the two channels fade in and out on one-another.

The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio took the work seriously, rendering a tightly knit performance that was persuasive throughout the many stylistic twists and turns. Beyond the first-rate playing, however, Silverman’s Trio comes off as a novelty—how else might you explain the unabashed juxtaposition of incongruous musical styles, tongue-in-cheek writing and musical quotations? (Most notably Paul Simon’s You Can Call Me Al, the genesis of the lengthy final movement.) And like most novelties, freshness has a tendency to fade when it goes on and on—as this piece does. After 10 or 15 minutes, the smile on my lips began to fade.

When the piece at last drew to a close I felt that my life had somehow been enriched as a result experiencing this work. But I have little desire to enrich it further by listening to the work a second time.

One piece I’ll never grow tired of is Beethoven’s mammoth Piano Trio in B-flat Major, more commonly known as the Archduke Trio.

The last of Beethoven’s cycle of piano trios, the Archduke is among the composer’s most melodically inclined works, and the generally relaxed tempos are a stark departure from his middle-period chamber works. The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio gave this piece all the breathing room it needed to blossom into a fulfilling listening experience.

The performers’ good ensemble and evenness of timbre was evident from the opening exposition of the Allegro moderato movement. The good blend of sound was particularly apparent in Laredo’s sweet tone, which provided a complementary—rather than soloistic—collaboration with the other players. The lengthy pizzicato section between Laredo and Robinson was nicely balanced and well synchronized.

The piano part in this work is not easy and Kalichstein dropped more than just a few notes throughout the four movements, especially during the busy sections of the second movement Scherzo. But after all, Beethoven himself struggled at the first public performance of the work in 1814. According to composer Louis Spohr, "In forte passages the poor deaf man pounded on the keys until the strings jangled and in piano he played so softly that whole groups of notes were omitted." (Not surprisingly, a subsequent performance of the work a few weeks later marked Beethoven’s last public appearance as a pianist).

But whatever Kalichstein missed under the fingers he captured in style and manner of interpretation, particularly in the intoxicating variations of the chorale-like slow (Andante cantabile) movement that Beethoven is believed to have written for his “Immortal Beloved.” The inspiring playing here, and sensitive delivery, proved to be the artistic highlight of the evening.

Prior to the start of Saturday evening’s program the winners of the 2012 SFCM Youth Chamber Music Competition, the Tanka Quintet, took center stage with the first and third movements from Schumann’s sprightly Piano Quintet in E-flat Major.

One of the great warhorses of the piano quintet repertory, the Schumann Quintet presents a formidable challenge for even the most seasoned chamber ensembles. But the Rochester-based Tanka Quintet, an ensemble of immensely talented high school students under the able coaching of the Eastman School of Music’s George Taylor, exceeded all expectations.

Led by the strong skills of first violinist Ilya Kim, a junior at Wilson High School who had previously studied at the Moscow State (Tchaikovsky) Conservatory Ensemble, the ensemble of five able players has no weak links. Ensemble was tight throughout the two movements (played up-to-tempo), and pulse was even throughout the metronomic-like Scherzo movement.

When this dazzling movement concluded, an incredulous SFCM audience rose to its feet in a rousing demonstration of appreciation, if not astonishment, and the promise of a new generation of performers to carry the torch of chamber music for years to come.

Details Box:

What: Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio

Presented by: Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music

Where: Lincoln Middle School, 1613 James Street, Syracuse

When: April 21, 2012
Information: call (315) 682-7720

Ticket prices: Regular $20, Senior $15, Student $10

Website: http://syracusefriendsofchambermusic.org

Posted by David Abrams at 4/26/2012 12:39 PM | Add Comment

April 22 Syracuse Opera: Madama Butterfly

Syracuse Opera delivers a handsomely understated ‘Madama Butterfly’

Patricia Hibbert’s colorful, authentic looking costumes trump the production’s budget-minded set in the company’s 2011-2012 season closer

By David Rubin

A handful of operas depend for their success on the performance of one character. Strauss’s Salome, Puccini’s Sour Angelica, and Verdi’s Otello all require singers in the title roles who carry an inordinately large burden. If they are not up to the task, nothing else matters. If they are, the performance will be a success. Puccini’s Madama Butterfly is surely among this group.

Syracuse Opera was fortunate, therefore, in having Mihoko Kinoshita in the title role. Kinoshita, a native of Japan now living in New York City, has sung this part over the last decade in opera houses from Tokyo to Vancouver, and from London to Sofia. While she has a wide repertoire, Butterfly is clearly her specialty.

No Butterfly can meet Puccini’s requirement in the libretto that she be 15 years-old at the time she foolishly marries the caddish American Navy Lieutenant, B.F. Pinkerton. Kinoshita isn’t, doesn’t look it, and, wisely, didn’t try. She was dignified and reserved throughout, even a bit matronly. She kept to a minimum the stock Japanese gestures adopted by many non-Japanese Butterflies. Her acting was subtle, such as a quick embrace of her maid Suzuki once the decision to commit suicide was inevitable. She stood immobile, and nobly, throughout the long orchestral prelude to Act 3, looking out to the harbor as she waited for Pinkerton’s arrival.

All the cast members seemed to take their cues from her understated style. Credit for this should also go to stage director Dean Anthony, who enticed natural performances from everyone. Baritone Cory McKern was an anguished and embarrassed American consul, Sharpless. Sarah Heltzel was a Suzuki with a spine, wise to the drama being played out but powerless to stop it. As Goro, the marriage broker, Jason Ferrante was appropriately oily and sinister as he flitted about the stage.

Patrick Miller had the easiest acting assignment as Pinkerton, a part that almost plays itself. He looked great in his dress whites, was properly romantic in Act 1, and then thoroughly cowardly in Act 3 when he returns to claim his child. In this version he arrived in time to cradle the dying Butterfly, who recognized him and stretched out her hand to him, giving Pinkerton a faint touch of humanity.

Even Butterfly’s child, Sorrow, played by Elena Colegrove, was more subdued than usual.

Vocally speaking, Kinoshita had the stamina for this long part. Her voice was strongest in the upper register, weaker in the middle and low ranges. She was occasionally covered by the orchestra, as were others in Act 1. Her sound is somewhat monochromatic and slightly tremulous, but she was always in command and on pitch. Her touchstone aria Un bel di was greeted warmly by the packed house, which sat rapt and totally engrossed in the performance.

Both McKern and Heltzel also sang well. McKern is a baritone with a future. This house (2,117 seats) is a bit large for his voice, but he has a distinctive sound and the ability to convey anger and resignation with his singing. He and Heltzel were splendid as two-thirds of the trio early in Act 3 when they acknowledge the catastrophe that is about to overwhelm Butterfly.

Pinkerton, of course, is the third part of that trio. Miller has an attractive middle voice, but what should be his thrilling top notes are often tentative and weak, and when he had to sing out in the best manner of an Italian tenor, he pulled back. This kept his love duet with Butterfly from taking wing. Miller should not force his voice to fill a house this large.

Neither Ferrante as Goro nor Marc Webster as The Bonze, Butterfly’s outraged uncle, had voices large enough to make the necessary impression. This Bonze would not have frightened anyone.

Given Syracuse Opera’s tight budgetary circumstances, it was wise for them to invest in costumes, and not in a set. The latter, designed by Penny Gilbert, was about as bare as can be: a small Japanese house with sliding panels at stage left; a little red bridge over an unseen stream at stage right; and, next to the little bridge, the outline of a wild black tree with no leaves. This served as the backdrop for all three acts.

The costumes, however, made up for the lack of variation in the set. Designed by Patricia Hibbert, they were far better than the generic costumes Syracuse Opera often rents. They appeared highly authentic, from the consul’s waistcoat and Pinkerton’s Navy whites, to the apricot, lavender, and turquoise dresses worn by Butterfly’s family members. Whenever the family was on stage, Hibbert gave the audience a riot of color, complete with matching parasols.

Conductor Douglas Kinney Frost, who is also the company’s Director of Music, is getting the very best out of Symphony Syracuse. The orchestra played with passion. After a scrappy start in the strings, the ensemble settled down and delivered a satisfying performance. Kinney Frost’s interpretation was on the slow side, enhancing and underscoring the grim proceedings. There isn’t much major key, up-tempo, cheerful music in Butterfly to begin with, and Kinney Frost minimized what there was. This contributed to the emotional punch of Butterfly’s suicide at the curtain.

This Butterfly was another large step in the company’s artistic renaissance under Kinney Frost. Given his way with Puccini, next season’s first offering, Tosca, should be just as impressive.

Details Box:

What: Puccini’s Madama Butterfly

Who: Syracuse Opera

When: 2 p.m. Sunday, April 22, 2012

Where: Crouse-Hinds Theater, John H. Mulroy Civic Center, 411 Montgomery St., Syracuse.

Tickets: $18 to $165

Contact: Box office: (315) 47-OPERA or http://syracuseopera.com

Posted by David Abrams at 4/24/2012 9:54 PM | Add Comment

April 20 Syracuse Stage: The Brothers Size

Label ‘The Brothers Size’ extra-large, both in drama and power

The staging in Timothy Bond’s Syracuse Stage production keeps the audience close to the action—both literally and figuratively

By David Feldman

There are sighs. And there is size. And there are sizes that don’t fit and those that do. You can do all sorts of wordplay with the title of The Brothers Size at Syracuse Stage, and nothing should be dismissed out of hand—because playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney likes to play with names.

The brothers of the title, for instance, come in two sizes.

One Size is the brawny, dependable older brother Ogun (Joshua Elijah Reese), whose name in the Ifa religion of the Yoruba peoples of western Africa means one who works in iron. The Ogun deity also promotes people’s search for a life song, and among his manly pursuits is repairing vehicles. So, no surprise, this African-American man runs a car repair shop in a small Louisiana bayou town in “the distant present.”

The younger brother is smaller, more lithe and less settled than Ogun. Oshoosi Size (Rodrick Covington), recently released and on parole from a prison term, is searching like many a young man to find out who he is and how he fits into the world. The Yoruba deity Oshoosi is a wanderer and forest spirit, so you shouldn’t be surprised to learn by the end of the play (directed to stunning and powerful effect by Timothy Bond) that Ogun will help brother Oshoosi find his own life song.

But you will be delightfully surprised that the most tender moment in this riveting and brilliant play about the bitter world of young African-American men comes when these brothers Size emotionally connect after years of sibling animosities while listening to (and singing and dancing to) Otis Redding’s Try a Little Tenderness. It is a scene at once exuberant, hilarious and charming.

The play opens with music that has its origins far from America (although not all that far from its most characteristic music): the rhythms of African ritual and dance. Three figures weave in and out of the circle one has laid out at the center of the Storch Theatre. Seating surrounds the playing area on three sides, bringing the audience close in to the action. Lest we ever forget that this drama, like all good theater, is intended both to draw us in and simultaneously let us know that this is a performance for our entertainment, some of the dialogue is spoken directly to the audience, while some of the stage directions for the characters are spoken aloud by the characters whose actions those stage directions describe. This may seem like a gimmick at first (and I don’t know if the concept is Bond’s or McCraney’s), but believe me—after a while it works very well and we accept spoken stage directions as a convention as normal as lighting or set design.

The circle drawn on the stage encloses the home that Ogun provides for himself and Oshoosi and it suggests the protection Ogun, the older brother, tries to provide for his charming and impulsive younger brother. Beyond the circle lies the rest of the world: an America that locks up black men for small offenses in an attempt to get them off the streets, and where it’s damned hard to make a decent living if you were born at the bottom of the economic pack. And in the most basic theatrical sense, beyond the circle we are in the audience watching three black men enact an elemental drama. Looming ever in the background is set designer Jess Ford’s brooding backdrop—a modernist sculpture that suggests an altar, a prison cell and things that are not quite finished. The action unfolds on a floor that’s the deep-red color of African earth.

The third brother isn’t connected to the other two by blood, but he is connected to Oshoosi by the bond of brotherhood that exists among former prison mates. His name? Elegba, a Yoruba trickster figure. Things remain in relative stasis, the play heavy with narrative and back story until Elegba’s entrance. After that, the stage explodes with action and emotion.

Elegba is himself fresh from prison. His arrival disrupts the relatively peaceful life the brothers have developed since Oshoosi returned. Ogun has had to drag Oshoosi out of bed and get him to work at the repair shop. Oshoosi is cranky and restless; he wants to celebrate his freedom with a car of his own and women to drive around in it.

The relationship between Elegba and Osooshi in prison was homoerotic, and Elegba has come to seduce Oshooshi away from his job at Ogun’s repair shop and, indeed, away from the brother. He tempts Oshoosi with an offer of that quintessential American symbol of freedom: a car. Oshoosi tries to resist, but resisting temptation has never been easy. And the results, as anyone who has given way to powerful temptation can attest, can be as they are here—tragic.

These are African-American men, and protection from the dangers of the white world outside the home circle are varied and few. And the law leans heavily on young blacks who have been in trouble, even if only once. The car leads to just the kind of trouble that the law likes to bust black men for. Oshoosi, innocent of anything worse than just wanting to have fun, finds himself entangled in a situation that he can extricate himself from only through a sacrifice by his brother.

You don’t need to know anything about the names of Ifa deities or about African ritual and music, or even about the limitations the white world places on African-American men trying to make a living (or staying out of trouble) to appreciate the play and this fine production. It ends where the most powerful dramas do—Greek, Asian, American Indian or African-American—in a tragic moment where the gods who rule a culture for their own inexplicable reasons bring the power of fate down on characters locked in elemental drama. In The Brothers Size, as in the best tragic theater, the result is loss. But along with loss comes a moment that lets us see into the inherent nobility of some human souls.

There are those who will be uncomfortable with the language in the play. There’s a lot of the “n-word” whose use, while acceptable by black youths speaking to other black youths, will no doubt ring uncomfortably to many white ears. And it has a lot of the “f-word,” too. But there’s nothing here that would faze the sergeant I had in Army basic training, or even most of the guys who hang out at the gym.

This is a brilliant play, and a powerful one as well. It deals thoughtfully with the subject of race without ever being preachy. McCraney is frequently mentioned as one of the rising stars of American theater, and rightly so. He has a wonderful ear for language and the ability to create powerful and interesting characters and involve them in riveting dramatic action. But The Brothers Size is not what is sometimes called “a director-proof, actor-proof play.” It demands a strong director, one who is sensitive to the play’s genuinely unique qualities, and it demands three actors with energy and passion, as well as the skill to inhabit their roles. All these are present in this powerful and touching production.

DETAILS BOX:
What:  The Brothers Size by Tarell Alvin McCraney, at Syracuse Stage
Where:  Storch Theatre, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse.
When: Through May 12
Length: 90 minutes, without intermission
Tickets: Adults, $28 - $50; 40 and under, $28; 18 and under $18; senior discounts for all performances but Friday and Saturday evenings. Rush tickets day of performance only: $20 -25 general public; $18 with valid student ID, subject to availability. Call (315) 443-3275 or visit SyracuseStage.org.
Family guide: Strong language and action; recommended for adults only

Posted by David Abrams at 4/23/2012 5:56 PM | Add Comment

April 14 Met simulcast: La Traviata

Courtesan light: A ‘Traviata’ without the glamour and glitz

The Met’s quasi-surreal production, which examines Violetta’s soul but casts aside her flamboyant lifestyle, dies long before the sickly heroine

By David Abrams

Willy Decker wasn’t the first man to try and gain a better perspective of the courtesan Violetta by examining what lay beneath the iconic red dress. But I have to wonder whether the German director’s psychological undressing of the heroine in the present Met production has uncovered anything more revealing than his predecessors.

Violetta, the Camille of Dumas’s play from which Francesco Paive’s libretto formed the genesis of Verdi’s La Traviata, leads a colorful and glamorous lifestyle that the audience longs to experience—if only vicariously. (Who doesn’t long for a glass of the bubbly during the Libiamo?) The courtesan nonetheless abandons her lavish lifestyle in exchange for “true love,” only to relinquish her newfound happiness for the sake of the one she loves so dearly.

Violetta’s sacrifice comes at a cost, of course. But in order to appreciate the magnitude of this sacrifice, the audience must first savor the extravagance of the culture in which she has immersed herself. In stripping Violetta of her lavish possessions and removing all sense of gaiety, however, Decker—aided and abetted by Wolfgang Gussmann’s bare-bones set and colorless costumes—confines his examination of the heroine to her soul. So while Violetta’s conversion seems real enough, her courtesan alter ego has now been demoted to that of a monochromatic, abstract state of mind. Now, when she sings the Sempre libera at the close of Act 1, affirming her determination to live only for pleasure, it’s anybody’s guess what these pleasures might be.

Those who had hoped to discover in the singing the pizzazz missing in the set and costumes were likely to have been disappointed.

In her Met debut as Violetta, Natalie Dessay forged a sympathetic (if not overly fragile) character who, under the close-up camerawork of TV director Gary Halvorson, appeared so exhausted and sickly I wondered whether she would last through the final curtain. Indeed, Dessay seemed uncharacteristically weak in voice—and perhaps a tad hoarse as well, judging from her speaking voice during the backstage interview with Deborah Voigt. She struggled with some of the high notes, including the optional final E-flat at the end of Act 1.

The quality of Dessay’s voice, while muted, nevertheless retained the beauty of timbre to which we have become accustomed in prior Met simulcasts, such as in last season’s Lucia di Lammermoor. The coloraturas in the Sempre libera were sufficiently elastic, and her Addio! Del passato—in which she bids a whisper-quiet farewell to life—evoked sufficient sympathy and a tear or two.

As Alfredo, Matthew Polenzani sang with a pleasant but oftentimes tame tenor. I thought it odd that he didn’t muster up a larger, more powerful vocal presence in both the splashy Libiamo and the second-act De’ miei bollenti spiriti, where he reflects upon his new life with Violetta (it's possible he did not wish to overpower Dessay). Nor did Polenzani’s acting—convincing only during times of anger (such as in his rage and fury denouncing Violetta in Questa donna conoscete? at the end of Act 2)—do much to enhance the drama.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky cut an imposing figure as Alfredo’s manipulative father, Giorgio Germont. The Siberian singing sensation, as some prefer to call him (and not without merit), looked somewhat like a grey-haired Arnold Schwarzenegger. He carried a handsome and weighty baritone as he importuned Violetta in the second-act to make a great sacrifice and give up Alfredo for the good of Germont's daughter (Pura siccome un angelo), and again in his signature aria, Di Provenza, consoling his son after the latter had been devastated after reading Violetta’s “Dear John” letter.

Hvorostovsky did however have an occasional tendency to sing sharp throughout the afternoon, especially in the louder sections—such as when he reprimanded Alfredo for his inexcusable behavior in publicly humiliating Violetta.

The set, reprised from the Met’s 2010-2011 production of La Traviata, comprises a curved, amorphous structure that resembles a prison courtyard surrounded by tall walls over which the chorus, dressed alike in unisex black tuxedos, voyeuristically watches the action below. A large clock rests within the walls, casting an expressionist-surrealistic look at time and space that seems detached from (or at least indifferent to) the opera’s plot.

But whatever one may think of Decker’s controversial set, the director deserves to be credited with a number of effective (and occasionally memorable) staging effects—such as the pantomime during the prelude to Act 1 that reveals the dying, consumptive heroine slowly staggering across the stage to the mysterious Dr. Grenvil (Luigi Roni), who in this production is made to double as The Grim Reaper. And I’ll never forget the spectacle of the enraged Alfredo in the Questa donna conoscete as he tosses his gambling winnings, one bill at a time, at the browbeaten Violetta as she lay stretched motionlessly over the set’s giant clock. Finally, there’s the clever segue from Act 2 to Act 3, where the curtain remains up and the action continues uninterrupted as the characters slowly exit the stage, walking backwards step by step, leaving only a dying Violetta sprawled onstage beneath the solitary spotlight that illuminates her.

Conductor Fabio Luisi had his work cut out for him during the performance, possibly due to staging problems that may have affected the performers’ line of sight with the podium. The chorus in particular had ensemble problems, rushing ahead of Luisi’s baton during several of its numbers, such as while looking down at the stage from above the walls in Act 1, and while at ground level during the frenzied gambling party at in Act 2. Dessay, too, had a tendency to rush ahead of the beat, including her entrance in the Libiamo and again near the conclusion of the great second-act duet with Hvorostovsky.

The Met Orchestra was outstanding, as usual. What a pity the singers couldn’t stay with them. I especially enjoyed the ethereal high-register reminiscence motif, whispered by eight stands of violins, that portends Violetta’s fatal illness both in the opening prelude and again in the beginning of the final act.

Perhaps the orchestra should have included a death motif for this austere production, as well.

Details Box:

What: Verdi’s La Traviata, Simulcast Live in HD
When: April 14, 2012

Who: Metropolitan Opera
Running time: Approximately 3 hours and 5 minutes, with intermission

Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York

Encore performance: May 2, 2012 at 6:30 pm EST

Posted by David Abrams at 4/19/2012 9:18 PM | Add Comment

April 17 Special events: Stomp

‘Stomp’ gets the feet tappin’ and the hands clappin’

Got rhythm?

By Robert Bridge

Contributing writer

Stomp is a percussion/dance/theater experience that’s not as easy to define as you might think. They find music in a variety of found and contrived objects, then fashion it in a variety of ways to portray drama, joy, sorrow, surprise, and humor. And it is this variety that grabs—and holds—the audience’s attention.

The travelling troupe did a “bang up” job Tuesday evening. You might even say it was real “hit,” and a “smashing” success. Formulaic and predictable? Of course. But fun from start to finish.

As a musical event, Stomp could be described in musical parlance as an extended arch form with a coda. The ensemble continually built sections up from one player to eight (and sometimes reversed the process to end the section). Themes were concise (motifs might be the better word), and reappeared in different guises throughout the program. Almost all the sections or movements were based upon American rock or Brazilian samba, although one of the soloists played in a West African style. She performed well, but the rhythms and sensibility appeared oddly out of place. I think this says something interesting about the music of the new world: While obviously owing a huge debt to Africa, they are growing up and taking on our own personalities.

As a dance event Stomp kept its signature urban look and style, while employing a variety of techniques. One of the challenges that percussion pageantry groups face is how to present a unified look during unison musical phrases, as this idea started with military groups. Stomp achieved this with perfectly executed choreography and clever lighting effects. That is to say, they remained individuals within a singular visual aesthetic.

Stomp is not a story in the teleological sense. The closest theatrical analogy might be a variety show with a theme. There are however eight individuals on stage, and they leverage the personality of each quite well. I suspect their auditions have more to do with charisma and stage presence than either drumming or dancing.

The shoe opened with one of Stomp’s more famous numbers, Brooms. (Stomp, first created in 1991, is old enough now to have “Greatest Hits.”) The broom rhythms were crisp and alternated between sections in duple and compound meters. The individual notes were myriad: sweeping sounds; taps with the side, bottom and top of the broom head; slams with the side and top of the broom head; taps and slams with the broom handle, and foot stomps. Rhythms were often offset to generate more sonic velocity and visual interest—the stuff crowds love to watch and hear.

After the brooms cleared, John Sawicki (acting as the group’s leader for the evening) taught the crowd a simple two-note clap pattern that was to return often throughout the evening. Through a series of grunts and groans (words were never used) he led the crowd to a fairly tight performance of the two notes. This small amount of participation really had the audience feeling like “insiders.”

Matches, a number for four performers, proved the quietest number of the evening. Each player had a small box of matches that they played by shaking or striking them—a technique that recalls Brazilian samba rhythms and techniques. And like many of the works played throughout the evening, there was ample room for individual expression and improvisation.

Another low-volume production was Pipes, in which the eight performers used a piece of plastic pipe (each tuned in the western tradition) to forge melodies and harmonies. This was the only number to use pitches, and I found myself longing for more such works.

One of my favorite productions involved no instruments beyond Stomp’s Hands and Feet. Part of the joy of Stomp is that there are eight individual personalities on stage, some of whom are accomplished tap dancers. This was surely a piece that Savion Glover would endorse. The audience two-note clap pattern came back a few times in this number.

Lighters was a crowd favorite. Imagine 16 lighters in the dark, turning on and off in a variety of patterns. The music was minimal, but the visual effect was strong.

Cans began with Guy Mandozzi, the comedian of the troupe, catching large paint cans being thrown at him from the wings. Each toss was more difficult than the previous one, and he played these for the laughs. The ensemble slowly joined him with small paint cans, as the mood became more serious and the music more intense. Soon, the players set a rhythm and began to juggle or throw the cans, all the while keeping the rhythm intact. Just at the moment when something should be expected to happen to the theme, Mandozzi jumped back on stage with a cart of medium paint cans and slowly swapped them for the small cans—a paint can “modulation,” to use musical jargon once again. This is how real music works, and Stomp makes a convincing argument that they are real music. The group “changed key” once more by picking up the large cans from the beginning of the piece and recapping the beginning. The mood lightened when Mandozzi played the crowd’s earlier two-note pattern.

The set was a wall of urban junk that functioned as a soundscape. The show quite literally included he proverbial kitchen sink. (Four sinks to be exact!) They used both sand and water to create sounds, and even played a trio with bags (Bags Groove).

The Finale was very much a Brazilian samba. Dumpster sordus, frying pan agogos, trash can lid cymbals, and a samba whistle all came together for this piece. Towards the end, Sawicki engaged the audience in a clapping call and response.

Overall, Stomp proved a great experience—part performance art, part dance, part theater, and almost all infectious music. The sonorities are numerous and there was significant variety in the rhythmic content on the program. I heartily recommend it for people of all ages who appreciate dance, rhythm and theater.

Robert Bridge received the Doctor of Musical Arts from Eastman School of Music. He is currently Professor of Music at Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, NY, where he was recently honored with the State University of New York’s "Chancellor’s Award for Scholarship and Creative Activities." He is an active recitalist and has appeared with several symphony orchestras. In the fall of 2010, Bridge performed a solo recital and taught at the Shenyang International Percussion Festival in Shenyang, China.

Details:

Who: Stomp

When: Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Where: Landmark Theater, Famous Artists Broadway Theater Series

Attendance: About 2800

Tickets: From $25 to $50

Time: 1 hour 45 minutes, without intermission

Information: Call 424-8210 or visit FamousArtistsBroadway.com

Posted by David Abrams at 4/18/2012 10:15 PM | Add Comment

April 15 Civic Morning Musicals: Marcus Haddock in Recital

Marcus Haddock returns to the concert hall with part of his voice—and all of his heart

The internationally renowned tenor, in his first comeback recital since a paralyzing stroke halted his career, begins the road to recovery with an emotionally charged performance—and a hint of good things yet to come

By David Abrams

http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html

Things have been anything but easy these past three years for Marcus Haddock.

Once a world-class tenor in the midst of a successful operatic career that had already landed him title roles at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Chicago’s Lyric Opera, Milan’s La Scala and the Vienna State Opera, Haddock suffered a pair of debilitating strokes in quick succession in March 2009 that forced cancellation of several European engagements while he underwent intensive treatment and rehabilitation.

The path to physical and mental recovery hasn’t been an easy one, explained Haddock to a full house comprising friends, well-wishers and the just plain curious at the Everson Museum of Art’s Hosmer Auditorium Sunday afternoon. Indeed, it was obvious to all in attendance that Haddock continues to struggle walking and using his left arm. But Haddock insists the music must go on, and with Sunday’s concert—the tenor’s first formal recital since the stroke—the journey to musical recovery has begun in earnest.

Haddock sang in five of the eight works on the program, and it was clear from his choice of repertory that the arias were programmed to work their way gradually through the upper register, affording the tenor time to pace himself and stretch his vocal range, and stamina, as the afternoon progressed.

His voice appeared tight and slightly labored at first in the opening Handel aria, Ombra mai fu, suggesting perhaps that he was either nervous or insufficiently warmed up. He was somewhat more relaxed in the Bellini aria that followed, Vaga luna, che inargenti, as the handsome quality of his tenor began to shine forth. Pitch was generally good, if not just a bit shaky at times, and his diction here—and throughout the afternoon—was first-rate: clean, crisp and articulate.

Haddock struggled a bit with the Bellini aria that followed (Sogno d’infanzia), with occasional hesitation in his delivery that compromised evenness of pulse. But collaborative pianist (and wife) Kathleen Haddock kept with him every step of the way, smoothing out the rough edges to the point where I dare say most in the audience never realized anything was amiss. From this number on to his final two arias, Haddock’s voice began to open up and project, as if he finally opened the throttle and coasted through the rest of the journey.

Two Verdi arias were scratched at the last moment, suggesting that Haddock’s eyes may have been bigger than his stomach when he initially programmed them. Still, the final two works on the program were challenging enough, comprising Donizetti’s Spirto gentil and Umberto Giordano’s short but power-packed Amor ti vieta—each of which pushed Haddock’s high register and stamina to loftier heights that did the first three works on the program.

It was these final two works, and in particular the Giordano aria, that stoked the flames of optimism for a successful vocal recovery, as Haddock hit the high notes securely and belted out the louder passages as if gaining strength with each work performed. Prolonged and enthusiastic bravos followed, along with an immediate standing ovation—a sight Haddock had no doubt seen and heard so many times in his career throughout the great opera houses spanning the globe.

To help add some precious rest time between his vocal numbers, Haddock delivered a trio of lecture-demonstrations that included Italian bel canto style as well as the Baroque era reign of the castrati singers (male sopranos who were castrated prior to puberty to maintain their soprano range). “Over 4,000 castrations each year were performed in Italy yearly during the Italian Baroque,” Haddock informed the crowd—which by now included scores of men doubled-over in an imagined pain below the waist. “Perhaps this explains why there were so few soldiers during World War II.”

The balance of the program, a potpourri of mostly bel canto (Italian) arias spanning Handel to Giordano, included performances by soprano Janet Brown, mezzo-soprano Carolyn Weber, bass-baritone Phil Eisenman, clarinetist Thomas McKay and Kathleen Haddock. The addition of the others, no doubt intended to ease the burden on Haddock’s vocal stamina at this early stage of recovery, provided the listener with a pleasant change of timbre.

Janet Brown’s sinuous lyric soprano was especially rewarding, as she delivered the gentle phrases in Handel’s da capo aria Piangerò la sorte mia with great delicacy and nuance of expression. I especially enjoyed the deep color of her lower register, which oftentimes evokes the darker hues of a mezzo-soprano. Also impressive was Brown’s command of the coloratura and trills passages, as was the tasteful embellishments in the repeat (da capo) of the initial melody that speaks well of her level of training and artistry.

Details Box:

What: The Art of Bel Canto, featuring Marcus and Kathleen Haddock

Also performing: Janet Brown, Carolyn Weber, Phil Eisenman, Thomas McKay

When: 2 p.m. Sunday, April 15, 2012

Who: Civic Morning Musicals

Where: Hosmer Auditorium, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse NY

Information: 699-5856 or http://civicmorningmusicals.org

Posted by David Abrams at 4/15/2012 10:21 PM | View Comments (3) | Add Comment

April 3 Dance: Riverdance

Waiving goodbye with its legs, ‘Riverdance’ hands Syracuse a final, fitting farewell

But it was difficult to see and fully appreciate the world-class dancers, fiddlers and drummers from the flat floor of a sports arena

By Laurel Saiz

Three things can easily be said about the Riverdance performance at Onondaga Community College on Tuesday, April 3: Riverdance has had long legs—pardon the pun—as a marketable entertainment brand and consistent big-ticket seller. Irish dancing is truly an amazing, stupendous dance form. And, OCC’s SRC Arena is a less-than-desirable performing arts venue for this.

Riverdance, the Dublin-based dance and music troupe, is currently on what is billed as its last Canadian and American tour. The show’s website has a digital counter, ticking down the days and hours to the final North American show. The Belfast Telegraph notes that the producers have promised to present Riverdance in any city where it had previously been seen—a process that will take a full three years for the “final tours.” Riverdance has come through Syracuse before, the last time being in 2010, hence its need to return for a “goodbye” performance here.

Riverdance also bills itself as “Original…. The Best” to differentiate it from another Irish music and dancing mega-show, Michael Flately’s Lord of the Dance, also currently doing U.S. performances. Flately was one of the Riverdance’s original star performers when it started following a successful launch on the famous Eurovision Song Contest in 1994, but he left a year later due to “creative differences.”

With an extremely loose story arc that follows the Irish people from their days as Celtic pagans to their immigrant journey by ship to America, Riverdance includes a script that might be seen as either beautiful and allegorical—or corny and hyperbolic. “The sun is our lord and father, bright face at the gate of day, comfort of home, cattle and crop, lord of the morning, lord of the day,” is a typical example of the narrator’s voiceover. “The other primeval mystery, the salmon swimming upstream, the blind urgings of nature, heart yearning to heart” is another.

However, people don’t go to Riverdance for the weak storyline. They come to see world-class precision dancers and hear incredible fiddle players and drummers.

The dance showstopper Harbour of the New World – Trading Taps was Riverdance’s version of Step Up. Rather than a hip-hop street dancing completion, as in that movie franchise, it’s a dance-off between Irish lads and African-American tappers spotlighting the similarities between these two dance forms. Tap has its roots not only in African juba dancing, brought by American slaves from their home countries, but also in these Irish traditional dancing and English clog dancing.

The common roots of dance and music were also evident in several other numbers, such as Harbour of the New World – Macedonian Morning and Harbour of the New World – Andalucía, the last featuring a sinuous, passionate flamenco dancer. The title of the number doesn’t clarify how the flamenco dancer got from Spain to America, but the beats and footwork showed keen similarities in technique and artistry.

Heartland, another showstopper in the second act, features a similar crescendo of escalating rhythms—this time between two amazing drummers. To provide variety in the offerings, the more energetic drumming and dance numbers were contrasted by more lyrical vocal numbers and mystical music.

Unfortunately, a good view of these fabulous performers was difficult for many in attendance. Soon after the lights had dimmed, people on the large flat floor of the arena (it is a sports venue, after all) began migrating to the bleachers in an effort to see above the heads of the rows of people in front of them. After intermission, the middle to rear of the ground-level seating thinned out as people sought higher ground and better sight lines.

For example, a pleasant white-haired gentleman and his wife moved up to two open seats in front of me. During intermission he lamented the fact that he had missed much of the first numbers. “That guy with the white shirt, I couldn’t see his legs!” the man said of the first solo dancer.

Being in the bleacher seats was also not ideal, as you had to turn your head in one direction the entire evening to get a good look. Other attendees, sharing their thoughts after the performance, told me they were sitting in the bleachers closer to the stage on the left and were unable to see the drummers, who did much of their rousing percussion work away from center stage.

Driving up to campus on Onondaga Hill prior to Riverdance, one could see the long line of cars, moving bumper to bumper, their headlights visible in the distance as they went around the curves on the perimeter road. It evoked the last scene in Field of Dreams, as the cars approached the farm as dusk descends and the magical baseball game is about to begin.

It’s clear that if a local venue holds a Riverdance performance and it is billed as “THE LAST TIME EVER!” that, yes, people will come. As a matter of fact, the production company’s homepage has a contact us box with the tag line “Notify me about future tours.” Let us hope that if Riverdance is more long-lived than its press release professes to be and it does return to Syracuse, that it is presented in more conducive surroundings.

DETAILS BOX:
What: Riverdance, farewell North American Tour
Where: SRC Arena, Onondaga Community College
When: April 3, 2012
Length: Two hours, one intermission
Tickets: $30 to $60

Posted by David Abrams at 4/7/2012 8:20 AM | Add Comment

Mar. 30 SU Drama: Quilters

SU Drama Department’s production of ‘Quilters’ in need of mending

The Department’s current version of the Patricia Cooper/Norma Bradley Allen book depicting the tribulations real-life quilters on the American prarie falls short of its dazzling 1985 production

By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html

The prairie women depicted in the current Syracuse University Drama production of Quilters frequently refer to their precious bags of scraps, from which they piece together intricate quilts.

One character, arranging two large canvas gunny sacks next to her, notes that one is filled with light-colored calicos and other bright fabrics, while the other is filled with scraps of dark colors. The dark remnants are used to make the log cabin stand out from the background in the log cabin block design. The dark fabric scraps, she notes solemnly, are also good for the “shadow quilts”—those that represent life’s sorrows.

From the stories of those depicted in Quilters, their lives were virtually an unrelieved “shadow quilt.”

Directed and choreographed by Patdro Harris, with musical direction by Brian Cimmet, Quilters is less a musical and more a collection of vignettes with bursts of music. The show opens with a grey-haired mother, Sarah, played by Erin Nishimura, talking about the final quilt she is sewing as her long life draws to a close. Her daughters, played by Katie Anderson, Avery Bryce Epstein, Heather Siemienas, Danielle Spinelli, Eve Steuer and Bailey Lauren Thompson, enter one by one.

In a series of stories depicting the hard life of real-life quilters, the young actresses take on varied women’s characters and different personas, including husbands and fathers, farmers and cowboys. It is based on the book The Quilters: Women and Domestic Art: An Oral History, by Patricia Cooper and Norma Bradley Allen. The play, which had a brief Broadway run (24 performances) in 1984, draws on the reminiscences of elderly Texas and New Mexico quilters, interviewed by Cooper and Allen in the 1970s.

The stories and the show’s costumes, however, seem to reflect an indeterminate time in the 19th, rather than the 20th, Century. The quilters speak of sod dug-outs and log cabins and describe being the first settlers in a new land, looking out and seeing… nothing. Each story and musical number has a particular quilt square pattern as a starting point and central metaphor. The tales tell of perseverance through Great Plains fires, blizzards and tornadoes, courting and marriage, and birth and death.

Thompson is a stand-out in this cast, a strong actress of formidable range. Interestingly enough, Thompson has both the most hilarious and most horrific of the pieces. She is comedic in an account inspired by the quilt block pattern “Sun Bonnet Sue.” Her character recounts how her sister sews quilt after quilt with darling Sun Bonnet Sues. When it’s her turn, she crafts her Sues in far more edgy poses. One hundred years later, this character would be a Goth dressed in black, while her sister goes to the prom in a sparkly pink gown.

Thompson was the focal point of the darkest oral history of the bunch—one that has all too much relevance today in the continuing controversy about contraception, abortion and public health policy. What does a woman do—out in the prairie, living a hard-scrapple existence and facing a twelfth pregnancy with 11 young mouths to feed already at home? The young mother’s dilemma is somber and chilling.

Some levity is provided by the more rollicking numbers, such one depicting a quilting bee gathered to sew a lad’s 21st birthday quilt. Each of the pretty stitchers secretly believes that she is the going to be the young man’s intended. Another charming number concerns a “Mean Girls” scenario when the teenaged girls compete with one other over who is the first—and last—to get their monthly “curse.”

Unfortunately, the power of the true voices of these quilters is marred by production elements that don’t showcase the story, music and dance.

For a play titled Quilters, in which fabric and thread are constantly mentioned, it is ironic that the substance that dominates the setting and action is not fabric, but wood. The set is made up of a number of low, wooden square platforms on rollers. The wooden platforms open and close, and are moved around in different configurations, with the cast members themselves doing the pushing, pulling and anchoring. These large wooden pieces left little cleared space for The Lone Star Waltz, a rousing dance number that could have been a showcase for Harris’s choreography. Wood also figures heavily elsewhere as the women carry around pretty substantial planks and then use them as a log cabin. The clunky sounds of the tramping on the wood and the heavy-handedness of the log cabin plank numbers were distracting.

In addition, one would think that for a play called Quilters the individual quilt pieces themselves would be key production elements. The quilts were generally of an earthy, muted palette that did not stand out at all, and in fact did not even look quilted, but rather painted (or even airbrushed) in. The squares were not visually dynamic and the edges of the individual pieces in the blocks were not precise—perhaps in an effort to make them look aged. This reviewer fondly remembers the incredibly impressive quilt pieces and resulting large quilt raised on the scrim in the SU Drama Department’s earlier production in 1985. In that production, audience members gasped with delight when the assembled quilt was raised in the moving final number. Alas, in this production, the quilt blocks themselves could not compete with the lumber.

As a whole, Quilters is more heart-rending than heartwarming, and more historical and educating than entertaining.

DETAILS BOX:
What: Quilters, book by Molly Newman and Barbara Damashek, music and lyrics by Barbara Damashek, by Syracuse University Drama Department
Where: The Storch Theatre at Syracuse Stage, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse
When: Through April 7
Length: Two and one-half hours, including intermission
Tickets: $16 to $18. Call (315) 443-3275, or vpa.syr.edu/drama
Family guide: No strong language, some adult themes.

Posted by David Abrams at 4/1/2012 11:49 AM | Add Comment

Mar. 20 Special events: Tao The Art of the Drum

Traditional Japan meets heavy metal in ‘Tao: The Art of the Drum’

Choreographed Taiko drummers pack a punch, despite some visual disconnects within the mammoth-sized SRC Arena

By Robert Bridge

Contributing writer

The energetic percussion spectacle Tao: The Art of the Drum, handsomely choreographed to generate maximum audience reaction, was pleasing to eyes and ears alike and generated much variety of musical style and timbre. But while Tao was almost always good, they were—for a variety of reasons—rarely great.

The stage seemed small in the spacious SRC Arena, the new 60,000 square-foot multipurpose facility located on the campus of Onondaga Community College capable of seating some 6,500 people. The color scheme on the two-tiered stage, which stood before a giant painted waterfall backdrop, was black and grey. The overall visual mood may best be described as “traditional Japan meets heavy metal.”

The concert opened with a solitary dancer and solo flautist, who were slowly joined by the drums. Here was one of several moments where the logistics of the Arena intruded upon the show, as many in the audience had difficulty locating their seats (marked by chalk numbers on the ground at the end of the rows) once the lights dimmed. It took about 10 minutes for everyone to be seated, and the continuous shuffling marred what should have been a beautiful opening segment of Tao’s production.

The flutes in this number were shinobue, or Japanese transverse flutes, whose tuning is very close to that of the traditional western scale. Amplification was necessary for their harmonies to be heard over an increasing number of drums. Visually, the audience was led from the free flowing movements of a solo dancer to the rigid, rhythmic, synchronized work of nine male drummers. The drum ensemble-work was what most people came for, and the woodwind playing offered beautiful contrast in this opening number, which proved a harbinger of the good things to come.

Tao’s second number provided a drastic change. It began with a solo drummer working a paddle drum (which strongly resembles a tennis racket), playing as if bouncing a tennis ball. Eventually a second paddle drummer appeared and they played as if having a volley. The number of players increased and the volley became more and more complicated. If the first number’s overall aesthetic seemed modern with a respectful nod to the past, this was comedy with a nod to the popular percussion ensemble, Stomp.

The highlight of the evening was a stirring duet between shinobue and the largest drum, odaiko. The shinobue provided a stunning melody, played beautifully within a slow tempo. The drumming was precise but the technique may have been closer akin to ballet. Really good ballet. Here was the moment when staging, lighting, sound and performers all seemed to come together. And the quality of individual musicianship was outstanding.

The first half ended with an ensemble production that seemed a bit perfunctory. While there had been multiple changes in timbre (including many different drums, different moods, woodwinds, string instruments, and lighting/scene changes), almost all of the drumming to this point had been in duple time (kizame), with virtually no dynamic contrasts. In short, the first half of the program may have been one number too long—a sentiment that, based upon the light applause, appears to have been shared by the rest of the audience.

The second half opened with an ensemble production that eventually became a showcase for the soloists. The groove had finally changed to compound meter (ukare), and the number was well performed. The musicians were all smiles throughout the work, and it was clear they were having fun.

At this point in the performance I began to notice a disconnect between the music and the visual elements of the production. The costuming for the second half was dark and rough, yet most of the numbers on this half of the program were comedic, or at least happy in spirit. Having lived in Japan I can tell you that the Japanese have no cultural problem with lighter colors, so I remain perplexed at this enigmatic coupling.

The musical low point of the evening was reached during the quintet for two flutes, two kotos and a drum. The bass notes on one koto were sufficiently out-of-tune to ruin an otherwise beautiful moment. This number also coincided with the SRC Arena’s low point, as the mood of this number—achieved by a stark dimming of the lights—succumbed to the bright lights of the beer fridge on my right that, curiously enough, was in the process of being restocked. How distracting. (Although it did make me consider a purchase.)

Also featured on this half of the show was a three-stringed, banjo-like instrument called the shamisen. The style of play was almost always modern and evoked a heavy-metal look more than anything that might be considered traditional. This was especially jarring when the shamisen was paired with the koto.

Predictably, the set ended with a large ensemble number featuring highly choreographed drumming. (Perhaps due to fatigue, the unison drumming was not always at the highest levels here.) There was only minimal applause, and the SRC Arena fluorescents came on rather quickly. Then (and to say this was awkward would be an understatement), the lights dropped and the performers came out for an encore I assume was a traditional Japanese song. It was the only choral number of the evening and I enjoyed the change in timbre, although I had trouble hearing the voices over the drums.

Overall, The Art of The Drum production was good—if perhaps just a bit too formulaic to be anything better. The variety of emotions tapped was impressive (it was two hours of drums after all!) But the scene changes became tedious and the larger numbers were “just okay.” Still, despite some visual disconnects and issues with the arena, one thing is clear: The individual musicians were almost always outstanding.

Details Box:

What: Tao: The Art of the Drum

When: Tuesday, March 20

Where: SRC Arena, at Onondaga Community College

Attendance: About 2,000

Tickets: $25 – $35

Time of Performance: 2 hours and 15 minutes, with intermission

Call: 315-498-2SRC (2772)

Posted by David Abrams at 3/24/2012 9:15 PM | Add Comment

Mar. 9 Syracuse Stage: Red

‘Red’ examines complex colors of abstract painter Mark Rothko but sees little beyond black and white

Syracuse Stage mounts an intense, if uneven, portrait of the troubled artist in its production of the 2010 Tony Award-winning play

By David Feldman

John Logan’s Red was the most talked about British theatre import of 2010. It moved from London to New York with its original cast—Alfred Molina as the color-obsessed abstract expressionist, Mark Rothko, and Eddie Redmayne as Ken, Rothko’s fictional assistant. The production garnered raves from the critics and got a Tony Award for best play. A knowledgeable theatergoer friend said of the London production, “Rothko was… manic depressive, and appeared at times as a bull in a china shop, intense, powerful, explosively passionate about his art.”

I found the Syracuse Stage production to be pleasant but not powerful; interesting but not touching; and Joseph Graves (Rothko) depressive but rarely manic. Intense, yes, but powerful and passionate? Only sporadically. The play brings us into the life of one of the 20th Century’s greatest artists. In Red our artist is assessing his career, meditating on the impact of color and form and spending a lot of time staring at works in progress. Or perhaps glaring, which is what Rothko is doing as the play opens. And towards us in the audience, through the fourth wall.

But his look isn’t directed at us, although it’s a hell of a stunning way to start a play. (If you haven’t turned off your cell phone you’ll probably feel sure that Rothko knows it’s in your pocket, and you’re in serious trouble.) Rothko is studying a painting he’s been working on, one of a series that’s been commissioned for the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York’s brand new Seagram Building. Payment for the series is $35,000—a pretty tidy sum in 1958—and it means that Rothko, with his unique abstractions, has reached the top tier of American painters. Or, and this is part of the play’s tension, has he simply become another painter who will sell out his principles and his art to the goddess, Fame, and her companion, Money?

A painting of the commission for Rothko’s signature floating red rectangles hangs from a wall behind him; others are scattered about William Bloodgood’s broad and open set.

“What do you see?” ask Rothko, and for a moment we think he’s asking us, the audience—and in a sense the play is indeed about what we see when we look at art, especially abstract art. But the question is addressed to his assistant, Ken (Matthew Amendt), who has just arrived to begin his first day on the job. It won’t be a whole lot of fun working for the curmudgeonly but brilliant Rothko, but it’s an education for Ken—and for us—in how a creative artist goes about his business. Ken, also a painter, will spend the next two years mixing paint, keeping the studio relatively clean, talking with Rothko, learning from him and enduring his sarcasm and anger. By the end we realize that he’s been mentored, as well.

Graves’s Rothko seemed almost avuncular to me early on during the opening night performance. And until midway through the production, the famously fierce Rothko temperament was smoothed down, its sharp edges softly whittled. Lines that could be delivered as powerful expressions about art, Rothko’s paintings and his friendships struck me as being angled toward the warm-hearted and even comic. Things tighten up as conflicts between Rothko and Ken develop later on, although some of the action proves distracting.

At one point Amendt has to sweep the floor, and he looks for all the world as if he’d never pushed a broom in his life (on opening night he missed several spots). Rothko was famously a chain smoker, but Graves—puffing away on one of those tobacco-less stage cigarettes—looks like a guy pretending to be a guy who actually smokes.

What should be a powerful scene as Rothko and Ken mount an enormous white canvas on a wall seemed flat. They prepare the canvas’s first coat in what could be a delightful, furious ballet. But as performed, the segment all but shouts “here we are doing this terrifically clever stuff and you out there had better appreciate it!” It was, in short, stagey.

Also stagey is the scene where Ken walks into the studio, wanders around for a few minutes and nearly stumbles upon Rothko—on the floor, his wrists covered in blood. Good God, I thought, I never knew that Rothko slit his wrists in the late 1950s. For heaven’s sake, Ken, discover him already and save his life! Whoops, and gotcha! Rothko had had a bad night and came into the studio to mix some of his favorite color paint. He then collapsed, spilled the paint over himself and fell asleep. As Ken cleans him up Rothko explains he’d gone to the Four Seasons and was so turned off by the patrons, the atmosphere and attitude of the staff in this fancy restaurant where the elite come to meet and greet that he decided to… ah, but that would be giving away the play’s climactic moment.

But there are some stunning moments, too, such as when Ken reveals a painful secret from his own past. And there are wonderful scenes that permit us a glimpse into the soul of the artist: Rothko says he fears being weighed in the balance and found wanting. “That,” he says, “is what black is to me”—the absence of color, the fear of a life unfulfilled.

Red is an intriguing play and one that every wannabe painter wanting to know what success means for an artist, and at what personal cost, should go see. Even for those whose talent was at its limits with first grade finger painting, Red illuminates the artist’s world and his art.

While the dramatic thrust of the play centers on the conflict between Rothko and Ken, Red is, at its center, a play whose tensions are less a matter of struggle between antagonists than between Rothko and his ambivalent relationship with success; Rothko and the gallery owners and the critics; Rothko as a child of immigrants and as a painter who struggled to find his true voice in abstraction and color; and finally, between Rothko and his art.

Red is one of those rare plays that fairly begs to move with us following the final curtain, so we can talk about it and its subject matter afterward. Which I did. And then I went home with a deepened appreciation for the Rothko poster that hangs in my living room.

DETAILS BOX:
What: Red by John Logan, at Syracuse Stage 
Where: Archbold Theatre, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse 
When: Through March 25 
Length: 95 minutes, no intermission
Ticket: Adults, $28 - $50; 40 and under, $28; 18 and under $18; senior discounts for all performances but Friday and Saturday evenings. Rush tickets day of performance only: $20 -25 general public; $18 with valid student ID, subject to availability. Call 315-443-3275 or www.SyracuseStage.org  
Family guide: Not recommended for young children, some strong language

Posted by David Abrams at 3/18/2012 12:29 PM

Feb. 25 Met simulcast: Ernani

The Met brews up a production of ‘Ernani’ that’s about 97-percent caffeine free

But conductor Marco Armiliato’s lackluster rendition of Verdi’s passionate score suggests he could have used a double shot of espresso

By David Rubin
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Rubin.html

Perhaps the plot of Verdi’s fifth opera and early hit Ernani appealed to his audience in 1844. But in 2012, this tale of a woman pursued by three men, ending in a double suicide, is tough to embrace.

I saw this live Met HD performance with a young operagoer who had attended Wagner’s Gotterdammerung two weeks earlier. She found that its six hours seemed considerably shorter than Ernani’s three and a half. She is perceptive.

The four principals are Elvira, who is in love with the depressed rebel Ernani; King Charles of Spain, who lusts after both Elvira and the post of Holy Roman Emperor; and the nobleman Silva, who is Elvira’s aged uncle and her third suitor. Not one is remotely believable as a flesh-and-blood character. So Verdi’s youthful, hot-blooded, tuneful music must make the opera’s case.

It can, under the right circumstances. Just listen to a recording of the Met's matinée broadcast from April 10, 1965 with Franco Corelli as Ernani and Leontyne Price as Elivra, Thomas Schippers conducting. The performance oozes passion. Schippers has the pedal to the metal, and the singers are clearly feeding off each other and the energy of the audience.

This Ernani, however, was led by Marco Armiliato. He has proven to be a reliable conductor of Italian opera at the Met, but Ernani requires much more if it’s going to succeed. (The premier of this production, in 1983, was led by James Levine. Enough said).

Armiliato began with a limp prelude lacking in menace. The chorus of bandits who set the scene in the mountains did not rock, as the music suggests. Ernani’s opening aria was cautious, perhaps because tenor Marcello Giordani was tentative. This was followed by one of Elvira’s big moments, Ernani involami, and while Angela Meade delivered it expertly, it made little impression. Time and again when Armiliato should have been setting the house on fire with his tempi or urging the singers to go for broke in their cabalettas, he was polite and dull.

The opera has many pre-echos of Rigoletto and a conspiracy scene (picking names from a hat) that turns up again in A Masked Ball. Already Verdi is magically transforming duets into trios and trios into quartets. The large chorus of soldiers, bandits, and courtiers has a lot to do. Characters confront each other at every turn, daggers drawn, passions raw. But Armiliato seemed embarrassed by Verdi’s energy, toning it down repeatedly.

The production, almost 30 years old, is far from the aesthetic that the current Met boss, Peter Gelb, prefers. There are no video projections and no effort to make the story relevant or modern. Director Pier Luigi Samaritani set the piece where it belongs, in Spain and the Aachen Cathedral in 1519. The sets are enormous and require all the strength the stagehands can muster to wrestle them into position. A sweeping stone staircase is the chief architectural feature. It dominates Silva’s castle in Acts One and Two, winds around the tomb of Charlemagne in Aachen in Act Three, and appears in Ernani’s castle in Aragon in the final scene.

The prevailing color is black, perhaps because there was no electricity in the 16th-century, or apparently even daylight. The only exception to the murky color scheme is Elvira’s apartment within Silva’s castle in Act One.

The lush costumes, designed by Peter J. Hall, provide what relief there is from stage pictures that look like faded Old Master paintings under three coats of varnish. Pride of place goes to an exceptional cloak of wine red and gold for King Charles. Baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky wore it proudly, standing on that staircase next to the statue of Charlemagne atop his tomb. In the theater, the movie screen was entirely black except for Hvorostovsky with his trademark flowing mane of white hair (no wigs for him), and that cape. It was the most arresting image from the HD production.

The interaction amongst the characters was almost non-existent. It might as well have been a concert performance in costume. There was little chemistry between Ernani and Elvira, despite the fact that each chose to die for the other. Perhaps this lack of direction is natural given the age of the production and the distance from Samaritani’s initial conception of the piece (Samaritani died in 1994).

In these circumstances, the excellent cast did what it could to salvage the afternoon, and that was quite a lot. At the premier in 1983, the Met offered Luciano Pavarotti as Ernani, Sherrill Milnes as King Charles, Ruggero Raimondi as Silva, and Leona Mitchell as Elvira. With the exception of tenor Giordani, who could not compare to Pavarotti (who could, except perhaps Corelli?), the others held their own by comparison, and then some.

Angela Meade, at the start of what should be a glorious opera career, made her debut in this role in March of 2008 when she substituted for an indisposed colleague. The host for the HD telecast, mezzo Joyce DiDonato, compared her to a young Joan Sutherland. We shall see. Still, Meade he has a voice of sufficient power and beauty to handle the big Verdi soprano roles. She also has the agility for bel canto roles. I can imagine her in everything from Mozart to Strauss. She sang a bit sharp at times, but otherwise Meade displayed a memorable voice of middling weight with a secure top and an excellent trill.

Veteran bass Ferruccio Furlanetto is the perfect Silva. His angular, craggy face projects evil intent. His voice is still in great shape. He never resorts to barking. His sorrowful singing in Act One when he discovers Elvira in the company of not one but two rivals in his own castle was moving.

The role of King Charles fits Hvorostovsky’s baritone like the wine red and gold cloak. Two of his arias lay on the high side, which is his strength. While he sometimes has difficulty projecting in a house the size of the Met, on HD he was ideal. His aria in Act Three in Aachen, when he laments the way he has led his life, was moving and beautifully delivered. He confirmed his status as a leading Verdi baritone.

Giordani is an unpredictable singer, and not just from opera to opera, but within an afternoon. His voice lacks the liquid beauty of Bergonzi, the sweetness of Pavarotti, or the trumpet-like ring of Corelli. Occasionally he projects the squillo quality that cuts through the orchestra, but this is a bel canto opera and his singing is no longer so beautiful. He sings a lot of varied repertoire, and it’s taken a toll. He started tentatively but warmed up as the afternoon proceeded. His suicide was moving. Overall he offered a decent account of the role.

My student companion said that this Ernani would have been more rewarding for her if she had heard it first on CD. No plot, no set. All she needed was the hot-blooded music and a more incisive conductor to light the fire. I’ll give her that Schippers matinée performance.

Details Box:
What: Verdi’s Ernani, Simulcast Live in HD 
When: February 25, 2012
Who: Metropolitan Opera 
Running time: Approximately 3 hours and 50 minutes
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York
Encore performance: March 14, 2012 at 6:30 pm EST

Posted by David Abrams at 2/29/2012 11:34 PM

Feb. 24 SU Drama: The Lower Depths

Down and out in Russia: SU Drama pulls Gorky’s The Lower Depths out of the flophouse and onto the stage

CNY theatergoers are afforded a rare opportunity to see Maxim Gorky's classic drama examining impoverished souls stuck in the bowels of turn-of-19th-century Russia

By David Feldman
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Feldman.html

When it was first produced at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1902 Maxim Gorky’s The Lower Depths was a stunner. It focuses on the down-and-out denizens of a flophouse in a provincial Russian city and fixes an unflinching eye on the sordid lives of characters rarely portrayed in conventional theatre of the day. The basement houses gamblers, petty thieves, deadbeats, drunkards, a vicious landlord, a fallen member of the minor aristocracy, and other down-on-their-luck souls, all in sordid poverty, living literally and figuratively at the lower depths of Russian society.

In that 1902 production was the Art Theater’s founder, Konstantin Stanislowski—who performed the role of Satin and co-directed. Gorky was one of the Stanislowski’s great discoveries (among others writing for the theatre was Anton Chekhov, who was also a friend and an admirer of Gorky).

The Lower Depths is a rare example of true “slice of life” naturalism, more extreme than realism in its disdain for the artificiality of earlier 19th-century literature and in its presentation of lower class life, stressing the effects of heredity and environment upon society and the individual. Gorky was at the extreme edge of the movement, discarding conventional scene structure for an almost photographic reproduction of lower class life, and abandoning the usual centrality of plot in favor of character.

The characters in The Lower Depths are impulsive, often irrational and complex and occasionally violent. Contemporary audiences, dulled by a surfeit of violence-strewn plays, films and television, aren’t likely to find much to be startled by here. At the time, though, The Lower Depths shocked theatergoers out of their well-fed complacency. Which was what it intended to do. It was also a great success. But it is not a play that modern student performers, like those in the current S.U. Department of Drama production directed by Gerardine Clark, are likely to find easy to do.

Gorky’s directions stipulate “a cellar resembling a cave,” but instead of a crowded basement, the Storch stage’s appropriately scruffy-looking set by Ryan Shaules sprawls broadly left and right. Well, the characters need space to brawl and gamble and sleep and carouse, of course, but it seems to me the set provides more space per person for the production’s 17 characters than some Manhattan apartments I’ve been in. And although this is the dead of a Russian winter, only a few characters ever huddle near the large Russian stove situated stage left. Moreover, even the most drink-crazed denizens of such a miserable space would know enough to shut the open window through which I swear I felt the wind blowing in off the Ural Mountains on opening night.

Much of the dialogue is disjointed, as it would be in any flophouse, I suppose. People exit and enter randomly, just as they do in the real world. They pop in to get warm—or go out to head for the local tavern or into the offstage kitchen where two sisters fight viciously over the tenant they love. The two women are played artfully by Maureen Boughey and Anto Pereira, as is the man they hope will rescue them from the place, Derek Goh, as Vaska Pepel, a thief.

There are times when the cast almost inhabits Gorky’s disjointed action. This is especially true in the opening moments with The Baron (Johnny McKeown); Kvashna (Blaire Beasley); Bubnov, a cap maker (Max Miller) and Kleshch, a locksmith (Peter Sansbury), all sitting around a table arguing over the romantic novel that Kvashna is reading, whom she should marry, and who tells the truth and who doesn’t. Meanwhile Kleshch’s wife Anna (Zora Crews) lies dying in a corner near the stove, the Actor (Doug Pemberton) is sleeping on the stove, Bubvnov (Max Miller) a hat maker, is seated on his bunk and Satin (David Siciliano) stretches out on his bunk grunting and barely awake.

A fight scene directed by Felix Ivanov swirls about the stage with rapid-fire and violent action. And there are some fine moments in the monologues that open Act Four as Satin (probably the character most like Gorky) enunciates the play’s central theme—that (according to my Jenny Covan translation) lying is “the creed of slaves and masters of slaves,” while, “Truth is the religion of the free man!” And make no mistake, the truth, however unsavory, is what Gorky wants to confront us with. One character, Luka (Will Pullin), an aging hobo without papers, comes closest to connecting the play’s divergent strands as he tries (and occasionally succeeds) to “understand the ways of man.” Along with Satin, Luka speaks for Gorky—who spent much of his youth wandering around Russia.

There are some nice touches in Kate Foretek’s sound design: Crows caw at the opening, then we hear songbirds at the beginning of a later scene outdoors, and dogs bark before the final act, all setting a tone for what will follow. Elizabeth Engstrom’s lighting is appropriately dim without obscuring the action, and Danielle Hodgins’ costumes seem as Russian as a samovar.

There are some moments that are powerful and some that are delightful, such as when three of the characters sing a Russian song and dance wildly in drunken joy. The production may be a must see for theater buffs who will rarely get an opportunity to see this classic performed. But there are times when the pacing drops or the action lags—and times when bringing alive the sad and sordid lives of poor souls caught in Russia’s turn-of-the-century lower depths seems just beyond the reach of the cast.

DETAILS BOX:
What: The Lower Depths, by Maxim Gorky, presented by the Syracuse University Department of Drama
Where: The Storch Theatre at Syracuse Stage, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse.
When: Runs through March 4
Length of performance: Two hours, 40 minutes, including two intermissions.
Tickets: $18, adults; $16 students and seniors; $8 rush tickets available at the door one hour before curtain. Call (315) 443-3275, or http://vpa.syr.edu/drama
Family guide: Strong themes and action, but none that are likely to disturb audiences 14 or older

Posted by David Abrams at 2/28/2012 9:24 PM

Feb. 25 Jasper String Quartet

Jasper String Quartet’s energy has no limits—but its youth does

The enterprising ensemble, known for its “guerilla” tactics in reaching new audiences, has not outgrown its need for good coaching

By David Abrams
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html

There’s lots to like about the Jasper String Quartet, the youthful up-and-coming chamber ensemble with a string of prestigious competition prizes and awards to its credit that has been steadily gaining notice in the music world through “guerilla chamber music” initiatives such as spontaneous performances at malls.

For starters, Jasper plays with spunk, energy and rhythmic vitality—and its firm sense of pitch and intonation among the four players is nothing short of astounding. Moreover, the ensemble knows how to work the crowd though a liberal display of gesticulations (all seemingly genuine) that connects with the listener to forge an interactive musical experience. What, then, could possibly be the problem?

In a word, maturity. Musical maturity.

For all Jasper’s exuberance and animated performance style there is nevertheless a certain lack of direction and interpretative savoir-faire at this stage in the quartet’s development that compares unfavorably with more seasoned chamber ensembles, both past and present. Listening to Jasper’s performance Saturday evening reminded me of that pot of soup on the stove just beginning to smell oh-so-good—until a closer examination reveals the need for additional seasonings and a good hour or two more to simmer.

Saturday’s three-work program of Russian (or Russia-inspired) music opened with Alexander Borodin’s tuneful String Quartet No. 2 in D Major, a work whose melodies you’ve probably heard without realizing they were Borodin’s. It’s a delightful work, and whatever may be lacking in form, structure and thematic development is more than made up for in sheer melodic appeal. Jasper delivered a playful rendition of this piece that shimmered, despite a few ensemble blemishes.

Blend of tone in the Borodin was generally excellent, as Jasper produced a collective sound brimming with warmth and color. Theirs was not, however, a homogenous sound. Legato was curiously choppy in the lyrical passages—as if the players could not see the forest for the trees when deciding where Borodin’s phrases were headed. Problems with legato were also evident in the playing of cellist (and founding member of Jasper) Rachel Henderson Freivogel, who appeared to have some degree of difficulty negotiating the wide-interval leaps in the alto and high tenor registers during the opening and final movements of this work, and again in the Lera Auerbach Quartet that followed.

Ensemble-work among the four players was tight throughout, except for a lack of agreement between first and second violins in the rhythm of the prominent triplet figures near the end of the beloved Notturno movement. Everything came together nicely in the fourth movement finale, with sixteenth-note runs passing smoothly from player to player and some impressive passagework between the two violins playing an octave apart.

Russian-American composer and pianist Lera Auerbach described her String Quartet No.2 as “an intense act of soul searching.” And intense is exactly the word to characterize the deeply morose writing here.

In his informal pre-performance talk from the stage, violist Sam Quintal urged the audience to look for “the beauty that comes from darkness.” And to be sure, there is no paucity of darkness, gloom and depression in this work (which appears to combine the hopeless resignation of Shostakovich’s late string quartets with Bartok’s extended string techniques and neo-tonal construction). What a shame Auerbach offered the listener nothing in the way of contrast of tempo or mood. All six movements are slow, and before long the “darkness” begins to generate more monotony than it does beauty.

Clearly, Jasper is a devoted champion of Auerbach’s Quartet. One could see it in the faces of the players as they passed the mournful, dirge-like lamentations to and from one-another. From a listener’s perspective, however, this piece is a hard sell. When it finally came to an end I felt as if I had just sat through a 24-hour Ingmar Bergman film marathon.

Following the intermission Jasper tackled the first of Beethoven’s three mammoth Razumovsky Quartets, Op. 59 no. 1. This lengthy masterpiece from the composer’s middle period is tightly constructed and demands a firm command of the tricky rhythmic figures to string together the relentless motifs into an organic whole.

The Jasper Quartet forged a respectable interpretation of this warhorse, particularly in the third movement Adagio, where the players captured the tenderness of Beethoven’s phrases while stressing all the right notes at just the right places. The opening of the first movement Allegro sizzled, with robust dynamic shifts and alert delivery of the eighth-notes figures that propelled the rhythmic drive forward.

The highly energized second movement scherzando demands a steady, metronomic beat and lots of muscle to propel the rhythmic motifs. It didn’t get either. The Russian dance of the Finale (Beethoven’s commission for the three Razumovsky quartets mandated a Thème russe in each work) had sufficient energy and vitality, but here too there was a lack of clearly defined rhythmic execution, such as the eighth-note followed by two sixteenths motif.

Quintal returned to the microphone prior to the performance of the Beethoven quartet, this time to deliver a music appreciation style lecture on this staple of the chamber music repertory that included excerpts played by the cellist and second violinist. The talk, which incredulously avoided the elemental term “motif” when describing the fragmenting of thematic material throughout the movements, seemed hardly necessary considering the sophisticated and musically literate Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music crowd—some of whom have been attending these concerts since the days of Louis Krasner more than half a century ago.

The Jasper Quartet deserves praise for spreading the word to new audiences but must recognize that it’s not necessary to lecture established audiences on familiar repertory. For those who know how to listen, Beethoven’s music speaks well enough for itself.

Save the talks for the mall crowd.

Details Box:
What: The Jasper String Quartet, presented by Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music
Where: Lincoln Middle School, 1613 James Street, Syracuse
When: February 25, 2012, 8 p.m.
Time: about 2 hours
Information: call (315) 682-7720
Ticket prices: Regular $20, Senior $15, Student $10
Website: http://syracusefriendsofchambermusic.org
Next: Borealis Wind Quintet, with pianist Leon Bates, 8 p.m. March 24

Posted by David Abrams at 2/28/2012 10:07 AM | View Comments (4)

Feb. 11 Met simulcast: Gotterdammerung

The Met, Lepage save best for last in a ‘Götterdämmerung’ driven more by characters than machinery

The final installment of the Met’s mammoth ‘Ring Cycle’ invites multiple interpretations of Wagner’s myth—and a daring musical interpretation by Fabio Luisi

By David Rubin

Director Robert Lepage’s highly successful mounting of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung demonstrates, finally, what this new Ring contributes to the Metropolitan Opera’s repertoire for the next 20 years—and what it does not.

Now that all four operas have been presented, Lepage’s Ring is not what many people, myself included, hoped it would be: a 21st century Star Wars response to the Ring that would put on stage all the fantastic images in Wagner’s libretto and score. The enormous expense of the project, the set consisting of a 90,000-pound computer-controlled “machine,” and the extravagant pre-opening hype all conspired to raise such Star Wars expectations. They were meant to.

But fantastic images were few in this Ring, and almost entirely absent in Götterdämmerung. The production suffered from the anticipation of what Lepage apparently never intended to deliver.

While the entrance of the gods into Valhalla in Das Rheingold was arresting, as was Brünnhilde’s vertical suspension from her rock at the close of Die Walküre, only one such image sticks in the mind from Götterdämmerung: Siegfried paddling down the Rhine on a raft with the mechanical horse Grane as his companion. Otherwise the computer-controlled panels were used mostly as they were in the other operas, as a backdrop for video projections of rushing water, a forest, and kaleidoscopic swirls of color suggesting the Gibichung palace.

Nor did Lepage offer a “concept” Ring such as Francesca Zambello’s 2011 “Eco-Ring” in San Francisco that charts the despoliation of the planet. Nor is it an anti-capitalist Ring, or a critique of industrialization, or of a broken legal system.

Rather, this new Ring is not new. It is similar in spirit to the traditional staging it replaced at the Met from director Otto Schenk and set designer Gunther Schneider-Siemsen. Lepage invites the audience to make what it wants of the myth, and the stage pictures encourage pretty much any interpretation, or none. It’s exciting to look at, just as the Met’s successful productions of La Bohème and Turandot are lush without distorting the composer’s intent or challenging the audience.

For a production that will probably come back four or five times in the next 20 years and have to sell 180,000 tickets, this is a safe Ring that should draw the curious as well as the Ring nuts. To amortize its cost, it will have to.

While Lepage was justly criticized for stinting on direction of the characters in the first three operas, Götterdämmerung was successful precisely because he paid them some attention. The virile, young, and athletic Siegfried of Jay Hunter Morris and the radiant Act One Brünnhilde of Deborah Voigt were entirely believable as a couple who had been making love on her god-forsaken rock for ages. The agony expressed by Waltraud Meier as Waltraute when she cannot persuade Brünnhilde to save the world by giving back the ring was scary. At one point she grasped Voigt around the neck so tightly that Meier’s veins were popping in her neck and shoulders. I thought she was about to strangle her Valkyrie sister. Siegfried’s by-play with the Rhinemaidens in Act Three was properly amusing, flirtatious, and menacing. Gunther’s shock at witnessing Siegfried’s murder was evident.

Not everything worked. The end of the world is beyond a convincing staging, even with sophisticated projections. Putting Voigt on the metal Grane with his head bobbing as he approached the conflagration was foolish. The fire and the flood were small scale. Having the hefty Hagen of Hans-Peter König hop into the flooding Rhine to retrieve the ring as he yells the final words of the opera was far too dainty. He should have been in a raging panic. Hagen’s vassals—hemmed in by the panels—simply stood and delivered their heroic chorus in Act Two, thrilling though it was, and always is.

Nevertheless, Lepage made his characters come alive. Gunther (Iain Paterson) and his sister Gutrune (Wendy Bryn Harmer) were not the usual simpering, weak-kneed pair. Paterson, looking like a British toff but singing heroically, made Gunther a more complex character, and Harmer put some backbone in Gutrune, often a thankless part. Often these two get lost in the opera, but not here.

Musically this Götterdämmerung could hardly have been better. Conductor Fabio Luisi told the international audience during a live intermission feature that he was hoping to make his Ring less Germanic and to give it “passion” and “swing.” I would add that he provides light textures and fleet pacing, much appreciated in a six-hour afternoon. The woodwind playing was glorious, particularly from the clarinet and bass clarinet. The brass players were generally on their game, a couple of entrances aside. The orchestral interludes were properly magisterial. In Luisi the Met has found a worthy successor to James Levine. He is a conductor who is not afraid to put a much different stamp on Wagner.

It’s hard to imagine where the Met would be if Morris hadn’t suddenly appeared from the cover ranks. Siegfrieds do not grow on trees. Already he has to be one of the three or four best available anywhere for this part. He did not age much, either emotionally or physically, from the “young” Siegfried of the previous opera. He remained the slightly goofy, lovable braggart with a linebacker’s build. His voice is slightly nasal but strong and accurate. He tired only slightly in the rigors of Act Three. He sings with confidence, and the audience was with him all the way. He clearly loves to sing this part, and he’s not afraid of it.

Voigt has been taking some critical lumps of late, unjustly in my view. Her voice doesn’t have the steely ring of Birgit Nilsson, but it’s warm and lovely and powerful enough (although this is hard to judge in the HD transmission). She might have been more furious in Act Two when she is dragged to her wedding with Gunther, but overall she was a believable Brünnhilde and a good match for Siegfried. She was greeted with bouquets at the curtain calls.

Everything about König’s Hagen is big—the frame, the face, the voice. He might have been more evil in his acting. He let his voice do most of that for him. He was at his best in Act One when, sitting on the Gibichung throne, he proclaimed that finally he was going to get the ring back. You had to believe him.

Meier was luxury casting as Waltraute, and Erich Owens returned for his cameo as the aged (or ghostly) Alberich at the start of Act Two. For lovers of the bass voice, hearing Owens and König—stage father and son—growl at each other was a real treat.

If I had the money to see only one of the Ring operas, and if the Met were to sell single tickets this spring during presentations of the cycle, I would see Götterdämmerung. It’s the team’s best work, and it will leave you limp.

Details Box:

What: Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, Simulcast Live in HD
When: February 11, 2012

Who: Metropolitan Opera
Running time: about 6 hours, including intermissions
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York

Encore performance: Not yet determined

Posted by David Abrams at 2/14/2012 9:57 AM

Feb. 10 Syracuse Opera: Carmina Burana

Syracuse Opera’s ‘Carmina Burana’ a resounding success

The staging of Orff’s popular cantata, including projections onto split screens and the inclusion of dancers, provides a handsome spectacle

By Leah Harrison

Syracuse University's Goldring Arts Journalism Program

If you were sitting in the orchestra section of the Mulroy Civic Center Friday night you may have wondered if you’d accidentally joined a cult. As Syracuse Opera opened its production of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, singers in burlap cloaks and hoods wandered down the aisles and onto the stage, a small votive illuminating their lips as they quietly chanted indistinct melodies.

When everyone reached the stage, O Fortuna erupted, familiar to most western ears from a slew of NBA and Gatorade commercials, dramatic Arthurian films, or WWF Wrestling entrances. No piece of music represents the epic this well, and the Goliardic text bears as much relevance today as it did during its 12th-century authorship and 1936 musical setting: Oh fortune, like the moon you are changeable. The hardship of fortune’s ever-turning wheel resonates loudly with the American economic status and all it touches, evident by the masterwork’s place on so many programs this season throughout the country.

Carmina Burana is a manuscript compiling approximately 250 poetic texts from the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. The authors were students and clergy, and the poems are in Latin, Middle German, and Old French. Many are satirical and cover topics spanning religious piety to tavern songs. Carl Orff composed the music for 24 of these.

The Syracuse Opera Chorus is a bit too small to make up the two choirs for which Orff had intended, so the drama of the opening number suffered somewhat. They sounded good, but their force was not enough to create the desired impact. After the introduction, the quiet brooding sections lacked energy and forward motion. This wasn’t a problem throughout the performance, only during the two iterations of O Fortuna (the number is reprised at the end of the work). A true representation of turning fate, but it’s too bad Lady Fortune began and ended at the bottom of her wheel.

The most developed staging occurred during O Fortuna, including a horizontally split screen covering the entire stage: On top, an opaque screen, and mesh on the bottom, behind which stood one of the choirs. A montage of culturally significant turmoil and achievements was projected on the top screen: first flight, various wars, portraits of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.; the mesh screen displayed shadowy, dancing figures, reminiscent of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave; the wheel of fortune turned on top of it all. It was busy, but effective. Other projections throughout the performance were mostly simpler and were contained within the top screen, like a detail from an illuminated manuscript.

Symphony Syracuse occupied the pit and played with passion, gusto, and sensitivity throughout the evening. Technical issues were completely out-of-mind, their skill heard clearly in each movement. The music is intricate, combining medieval modal leanings with early 20th-century rhythms, and the musicians showed depth and comprehension of this complexity.

Conductor Kenneth Kiesler made his debut with Syracuse Opera and generally did a nice job. His tempos were quite brisk, and at times the consonant-heavy Latin or Middle German text seemed jumbled, or at least not entirely together. There were also moments in the music that beg to linger, but the lush expansion was lost because of speed. There’s only about an hour’s worth of music here, so we had time to pull back on the reigns. Otherwise, Kiesler’s score interpretation was very exciting, with a great many variations in tempo and mood.

Also making a debut was Caitlin Lynch, who sang the soprano role. To say her tone was astounding would be putting it mildly. What a pleasure to have such magnificent talent on our stage! Rich in the highest and lowest ranges of the role (and everything between), her voice contained maturity and grace while maintaining its purity. Her liquid phrasing made her role as the benevolent goddess entirely believable.

Baritone Dan Kempson was a last-minute substitute for Craig Verm. Kempson matched Lynch’s eloquence in every way, despite having arrived in Syracuse less than 24 hours before the performance. His staging was flawless as far as I could tell, and he never lost chemistry with Kiesler. Kempson’s voice is smooth, warm and totally captivating. Even when he wasn’t singing, his stage presence drew you in. His character’s experience was at once universal and intimate. Kempson will be performing this role next week with the Florida Symphony Orchestra, and they are in for a triumphant experience.

Given the nature of this collection of works, the scenes in Carmina Burana are not necessarily meant to connect through narrative. Syracuse Opera nevertheless chose that route, connecting the individual songs by allowing each scene to happen to the same character (the inclusion of a single plot appeared to make it more operatic). It was constructed as trials and triumphs every man encounters as fortune changes, and the concept was a success. Towards the end, as the baritone is experiencing redemption, both he and Lynch were transcendent in their representation. I scooted to the edge of my seat and leaned forward. Both soloists are tremendous actors, a highly valued quality that’s rarely present in such young singers. Again, it was a great privilege for Syracuse Opera to host them.

Neal Ferreira debuted in the tenor role, featured during the In Taberna (In the Tavern) section. Portraying a tortured swan roasting on a spit, the tenor’s part is written extremely high (some notes even out of range) to give a strangled effect. Ferreira was incredibly convincing, his terror palpable and yielding a great deal of power. It’s too bad the tenor role has only one solo; I wanted to hear more from him.

The third and final section of Carmina begins with a children’s chorus, which was directed here by Joseph and Mary Buchmann. The children were very well prepared and sang beautifully, especially in some of the trickier parts. I was very impressed.

Productions of this work sometimes include a ballet, so Syracuse Opera used a pair of dancers, Nick Ziorbro and Morgan Drake. They performed traditional moves, which greatly enhanced the Primo vere (In Springtime) and Uf dem anger (On the Lawn) numbers. A slow-motion film of their dancing was projected on the top screen as they danced in real time, which gave the production a French, mixed media feel.

Syracuse Opera can certainly chalk this production up as a success. The performance gave the audience an opportunity to hear how interesting Orff’s music is (aside from the familiar O Fortuna), which was a treat. The production brought together a great deal of creativity and was a joy to attend. This weekend, Lady Fortune smiles on Syracuse.

Leah Harrison is a graduate student at Syracuse University's Goldring Arts Journalism Program, based at the college's renowned S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. A pianist and musicologist, Ms. Harrison holds a master’s degree in musicology from Florida State University and a bachelor’s degree in music history from Converse College. A native of Campobello, South Carolina, Ms. Harrison enjoys professional cycling, travel, and southern mountain music and culture.

Details Box:

What: Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana

Who: Syracuse Opera

When: 8 p.m. Friday, February 10, 2012

Final performance: 2 p.m. Sunday

Where: Crouse-Hinds Theater, John H. Mulroy Civic Center, 411 Montgomery St., Syracuse.

Tickets: $18 to $165

Contact: Box office: (315) 47-OPERA, http://syracuseopera.com

Posted by David Abrams at 2/11/2012 11:14 PM | View Comments (1)

Feb. 3 Syracuse Stage: Caroline, or Change

‘Caroline, or Change’ a richly rewarding study in language, character and form

Syracuse Stage's production of the Tony-nominated Broadway musical reprises Greta Oglesby’s acclaimed Guthrie Theater performances in the title role

By David Feldman

I really dislike the current fad of giving standing ovations for almost anything that limps or snuffles across a stage. Save the grand gestures for the grand performances, I say—which is why I had no hesitation about rising with the full house on opening night at Syracuse Stage to applaud the current production of Caroline, or Change. I may have even let loose a “hurrah” or two of my own.

Just about everything you want in a satisfying stage production is here: A strong book and powerful lyrics (Tony Kushner); Tony-nominated music ranging from blues to klezmer, gospel to classical, Motown to folk (Jeanine Tesori); an outstanding 10-piece orchestra under the deft direction of Christopher Drobny; a standout cast superbly directed by Marcela Lorca (who also did the choreography).

Caroline, or Change comes to Syracuse Stage with a substantial resume. It opened at New York’s Public Theatre in 2003, moved to Broadway for 136 performances and also played at the National Theatre in London. It’s been much produced in the U.S., including The Guthrie with the superb Greta Oglesby as Caroline (she revives the part here). It was nominated for six Tony Awards, and the London production won the Olivier Award for best new musical.

The “change” of the title refers to two interwoven plot-theme threads.

First, the action takes place in 1963 against the background of the assassination of JFK, the early years of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights struggle, especially as all these affect the title character, a black maid working in a Jewish household in Louisiana in 1963. Caroline is from the old school of southern maids—and change doesn’t come easily to her. But it butts up against her with the news of the period coming from her radio (she can’t afford a television on her $30 a week), and in the form of both another maid (probably the only black person Caroline has ever known who goes to college) and Caroline’s teenage daughter, who is swept up in the anti-segregationist fervor of the day.

And then there’s the jingle-it-in-your-pocket kind of change. Caroline keeps finding some in the pants she’s preparing to wash in her hot and uncomfortable laundry down in the basement. Pants and change belong to eight year-old Noah, who lives in the house with his father and stepmother. Caroline faithfully puts the change in the bleach cup in the laundry until the day Rose, the stepmother, alters the rules. She tells Noah that change left where it shouldn’t be by a boy who has to learn the value of money will now go to Caroline.

Nobody in the household has adjusted to the death of Noah’s mother or to the father’s marriage to Rose—especially Noah, who sees Rose’s interference as coming between him and Caroline, the only person in the house he can connect with. Piper Goodeve is spot-on as Rose, a Manhattan expatriate who can’t find her emotional place in the home or in the South of the period (“I miss the Upper West Side”) and can’t connect to the emotionally distant Stuart Gellman, who hasn’t stopped grieving for his first wife. Caroline takes the new rule as an insult. She is determined not to keep the money. However she’s tempted. She has money problems of her own—her pay isn’t enough to buy the television set her three kids keep bugging her about, or even to give them a little change to buy a treat every so often.

The two changes—pocket change and social change—collide after Caroline finally decides to take the money that used to be put into the bleach cup. Matters intensify when Noah leaves a $20 dollar bill in his pants. It’s a Hanukkah present from Rose’s father (played to a perfect turn as a fire breathing, diminutive, ex-Depression-era radical by Larry Block). And the dramatic confrontation over that $20 dollar bill (a fairly substantial sum in 1963) between the young boy and Caroline leads to a confrontation that degenerates into racist and anti-Semitic remarks. And that leads to what I first thought was a smudgy denouement. Plot threads don’t come together, or they do in what seems to be underwritten resolutions.

But Kushner is ever the experimenter in language, character and form. We find ourselves in the middle of… something… a dream sequence? …a bit of magic realism? …where Caroline and Noah reconcile their conflict across space, or perhaps imaginations. The problems that exist between them (and between cultures) can’t be easily resolved within a pat conclusion. Kushner wants character to trump plot by focusing on two powerful, musical monologues. And it works.

One monologue belongs to Caroline—a long, anguished lament about how the world has changed around her and has tried to change her, but she cannot change. Oglesby is stunning here. It’s one of the few times in a long enough life of reviewing theater that I ever jotted down in my notes: “show stopper!”

The other is an epilogue when Caroline’s daughter, Emmie (the winning Stephanie Umoh), lets us know that the torch has indeed been passed to another generation—and she is ready to take it up and run with it into the future. “For change come fast,” she says, “or change come slow, but everything changes.”

Plot structure isn’t the only non-traditional aspect of Caroline. Some of the songs are performed by a three-singer chorus: Radio 1 (Caitlainne Rose Gurreri), Radio 2 (Christina Acosta Robinson) and Radio 3 (Gabrielle Porter). This radio of three women who bring the important news of the day to Caroline are part of the musical’s non-standard cast—including a Dryer and a Bus (both by Doug Eskew, whose expressive body, thousand-watt smile and effortlessly deep and booming voice command your attention whenever he’s onstage); a character named Washing Machine (the delightfully flouncing Danielle K. Thomas); and a very radiant moon played by Emily Jenda.

Fourth-grade Cortland resident Séamus Gailor delivers a polished performance as the neurotic, forceful and independent young Noah. He manages to be cute without being cutesy-poo, drawing our attention to his character and not to his own personality—not an easy trick for a young performer. Hurrah!

Caroline, or Change is an enormously interesting stage piece. It plays with form, deftly placing music, character and theme at the play's center of gravity rather than going for any knock-down climactic moment, and it never loses our interest.

Some people, myself included, found it hard to hear the lyrics on opening night. But that quibble aside, Hurrah one more time!

DETAILS BOX:

What: Caroline, or Change performed by Syracuse Stage

Where: Archbold Theatre, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse NY

When: Through Feb. 26

Length: Two hours and 30 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission

Tickets: Adults, $28-$50; 40 and under, $28; 18 and under $18; senior discounts for all performances but Friday and Saturday evenings. Rush tickets day of performance only: $20-25 general public; $18 with valid student ID, subject to availability. Call 315-443-3275, or www.SyracuseStage.org

Family Guide: Recommended for audiences of all ages

Posted by David Abrams at 2/10/2012 10:14 PM

Jan. 12 Met (Live): The Enchanted Island

The Met’s ‘The Enchanted Island’ an especially pleasant and lavish place to drop anchor

Despite the clumsy patchwork of two Shakespearian plots, this pastiche of Baroque opera proves a feast for both eyes and ears

By Leah Harrison

 Syracuse University's Goldring Arts Journalism Program

How many countertenors does it take to screw in a light bulb? At the Metropolitan Opera’s production of The Enchanted Island on January 12, it took three.

When David Daniels (cast as Prospero) became ill after Act I, Anthony Roth Costanzo stepped into the role, leaving his original casting as Ferdinand vacant for Jeffrey Mandelbaum. Costanzo’s Forgive me, please forgive me aria was stunning, the climactic note of the final phrase penetrating the lavish production with purity — my jaw actually dropped. Mandelbaum handled the transition with less elegance, his nerves causing issues with intonation and a dragging tempo, though his voice had a sweet tone.

The Enchanted Island is a pastiche — a popular genre during the Baroque era consisting of cherry-picked arias from various composers that are appropriated to a new plot. Jeremy Sams produced a hybrid plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest, plugging in arias, choruses, and dance suites from Vivaldi, Handel, Rameau and others. The choice to produce something with such flexibility allowed the opportunity to alter the notorious tedium of opera from this era, and the production is largely successful even though there are scads of characters with minimal stage time to keep straight.

A pastiche devised in the 21st century (Peter’s Gelb’s good idea) gives way to technology-enhanced opulence befitting the Baroque, and Phelim McDermott was at home with a production suited for imaginative costumes and sets. Prospero’s exotic island is only slightly less exotic than Neptune’s ocean-floor home. From a view of a spinning globe among perfectly shaped clouds, the visual projections dove from outer space to the sea god’s palace, passing outlined continents and furious bubbles as the viewer penetrated the salt water. A giant clam throne flanked with floating mermaids beheld Plácido Domingo, adorned in a composite of a Roman Emperor and blue-green scales, and with trident in hand — the presentation a valentine to the famous tenor. Ariel, Prospero’s spirit, arrived in a comical atmospheric diving suit.

The detailed electronic projections and more traditionally constructed sets (Maurice Sendak-esque trees and vines as well as a ship and waves) worked well together. The shipwreck scene was especially impressive, complete with digital raindrops.

Though Daniels felt poorly, his performance was measured and precise in his portrayal of a frustrated old man trying to set things right. Danielle de Niese, whose mischievous, cheeky character was as endearing as her brilliant coloratura, masterfully sang Prospero’s exuberant spirit, Ariel. Her aria I can conjure you a fire was reminiscent of Peter Pan’s showboating, youthful spirit.

Joyce DiDonato played the spurned sorceress, Sycorax, who steadily regains her strength and beauty as the plot progresses. DiDonato’s performance was flawless throughout, her rich mezzo convincing listeners to embrace her vengeance. The brawny Luca Pisaroni, costumed to look like a combination of Tarzan and Uncle Fester, played Sycorax’s only son, Caliban. Pisaroni portrayed the simpleton with great skill, though it’s hard to hear Pisaroni’s voice as anything but complex and intelligent.

Domingo, whose legendary voice was alone worth the price of admission, delivered lustrous, melting high notes — although his English diction was awkward in Act II. William Christie conducted the singers and instrumentalists with grace, and the tempos were lively. His tempo for the overture was perhaps a bit too quick, but most everything that following was suitable. The Continuo, comprising Bradley Brookshire and David Heiss, used parts taken from pre-existing operas as well as newly composed sections. Various reed solos throughout the evening were beautifully done, especially those by the bassoon.

The shipwrecked quartet of Layla Claire, Paul Appleby, Elliot Madore and Elizabeth DeShong (especially sultry) put forth a fine performance. Lisette Oropesa’s role as Miranda was delightfully sung, her sweet, seemingly effortless voice flitting girlishly throughout the evening.

Some of the musical selections seemed to jerk the plot from light, frothy humor to abrupt anger or sadness. For example, Lysander’s aria Curse you, Neptune did not fit well with the overall tone of the production. His disproportionate anger seemed unnecessary for the plot (Neptune only mentioned it once and had other reasons for emerging from the sea). Moreover, we never again hear from Lysander. Similarly, Prospero’s lamenting forgiveness aria, while beautifully performed and a musical high point of this production, appeared much too serious to match the overall mood. These offenses may not have been so pronounced had they not involved Shakespeare’s plots, which are so remarkably constructed that deviations tend to stand out.

The goal to avoid stagnant stretches common to Baroque opera was largely successful, though a bit awkward during the da capo sections of the arias. In the beginning, there are several moments where Ariel and Prospero circle each other in anger or trepidation, although they’re really just waiting for the music to come around again. You can tell.

Particularly delightful was the Rameau dance suite resulting from a spell Caliban casts after being spurned. A dance troupe of masked figures moved to the lilting French music as if in a trance, enthralling and then frightening the poor monster. The climax of costume came with the unicorn headdress worn by the prima ballerina. As Caliban becomes increasingly concerned about the delights he’s created (like Pinocchio in Funland), Prospero rescues him and dissolves the fantasy.

McDermott’s production maintained excellent integrity with respect to the aesthetic of the Baroque while enhancing the spectacle with modern methods. This ornate experience is a delight to encounter several centuries after its vogue: a present to Vivaldi, if not an abomination of Shakespeare!

Details Box:

What: The Enchanted Island, Live at The Met

When: January 12, 2012 

Who: Metropolitan Opera 

Running time: 3 hours, 35 minutes

Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York 

Live HD Simulcast: January 21, 2012, 12:55 pm ET

Posted by David Abrams at 1/17/2012 9:35 PM

Dec. 10 Met simulcast: Faust

Salvaging The Met’s new production of ‘Faust’ may require deal with devil

The singing is fine, but Des McAnuff’s unimaginative, cliché-ridden production is disappointing

By David Rubin

It’s a pretty safe bet that those who were listening to the Metropolitan Opera’s live radio broadcast of Gounod’s Faust on Saturday had a much better time than those of us who had to watch it live in HD.

Contemptuous of offering another Faust featuring Mephistopheles in red pointy shoes and feathered cap, director Des McAnuff updated the fable of the philosopher Faust who, weary of life, sells his soul to the devil for pleasures of the flesh. Our current era has no shortage of potential Faustian stand-ins who no doubt regret how they’ve lived their lives. How about Bernie Madoff as the Faust character, set on a trading floor; or Governor Rod Blagojevich as Faust, set in his office, speed-dialing donors; or steroid juicer Barry Bonds as Faust, set in the trainer’s room at the Giants’ ballpark?

Alas, McAnuff had nothing that imaginative for us. He took the predictable way out: Faust as a disillusioned nuclear physicist in 1945. John Adams was there already in Doctor Atomic, but there’s plenty of guilt to go around in the nuclear physics crowd. It’s worth another go.

So once Mephistopheles has transformed Faust into a young man through the magic of dry ice and a quick trip off stage, I assumed we would emerge in a town square in Los Alamos, New Mexico, home of the A-bomb. Mephistopheles would be disguised as some mad Air Force general, or maybe even Harry Truman on the eve of Hiroshima. Marguerite would be that cute lab technician who never gave Faust a tumble.

Instead, McAnuff sends us to France during World War I. Nuclear physics disappears for about three hours, until he brings it back with the most damnable cliché one can imagine. Go ahead and guess. Yes, a projection of a mushroom cloud.

That’s the concept, but not the end of the clichés. Faust and Mephistopheles descend through a trap door in the stage. Marguerite is saved as she walks up a staircase to heaven, bathed in the light of salvation. Mephistopheles taps his magic walking stick on a water cooler and turns it into red wine. Wow, what an effect!

A trio of committed actors might have shaken off this nonsense and made the old warhorse work its magic. However, the chemistry between tenor Jonas Kaufmann as Faust and soprano Marina Poplavskaya as Marguerite was so inert that even an atomic bomb wouldn’t have warmed them up. Poplavskaya is as gloomy as a Russian winter. She barely smiled for four long hours. Her range of emotion is from weary to really weary.

Kaufmann is a handsome man, and director Robert Lepage pulled a convincing Siegmund out of him in Die Walküre at the Met in May of 2011. Here he seemed flummoxed by his icy Marguerite. Dressed in a spiffy tux, he was a refugee from a party scene in the Met’s The Great Gatsby.

René Pape knows "stolid," too. He is always acting King Marke in Tristan, no matter what the part. He made a bore of Boris Godunov at the Met. He has the perfect face for a devil with evil blue eyes, arching eyebrows, a pencil-thin mustache, slim goatee, high cheekbones, and a vaguely Mongol look. But he’s not really oily and slithering. He doesn’t move easily about the stage. One attempt at a little soft shoe was stiff. He didn’t inject any fun into the part, and what’s a devil without some mirth?

When Act 2 opens in France, we are not outside in a town square or at the fairgrounds, as Gounod asked. Maybe Los Alamos doesn’t have a town square. We are inside some sort of warehouse. The all-purpose frame for this and other scenes is a bare stage flanked by winding metal fire escapes that permit lab technicians, Faust and Mephistopheles to peer down on the action below. The bare stage became a tavern of sorts in Act 2 with a few rectangular tables, chairs, and drinking glasses. In Act 3 it became Marguerite’s house and garden with the addition of a Singer Sewing Machine. This may be perfect for an impoverished New York City Opera production, but for the Met?

Where are they going to dance, I asked myself at the start of Act 2? This Act opens with the spirited kermesse and ends with one of the greatest waltzes in all opera, Ainsi que la brise légère. Even the audience is ready to dance, but McAnuff didn’t feel it. His chorus wiggles a bit in the kermesse and, hemmed in by the tavern tables and fire escapes, attempts a bit of waltzing at the close. At this point I knew it was game over. McAnuff doesn’t hear the music he’s setting.

All of this worked pretty well on the radio. Pape is among the world’s pre-eminent basses. His Mephistopheles was rich and full. One of the two vocal highlights of the afternoon was his Act Two delivery of Le veau d’or. With this he injected the first real jolt of energy into the performance.

The other vocal highlight was Kaufmann’s ability to sustain a melting diminuendo as he pulled back after the full-throated high note at the close of Salut! Demeure chaste et pure in Act 3. Goosebumps for that one. It was impressive singing. While his voice lacks Gallic tint and seems more suited to the German repertoire, he offered a clarion Faust.

Poplavskaya has become a favorite of Peter Gelb and is singing a great deal, including Violetta in La Traviata and Elizabeth in Don Carlo. I am not sure why. Her voice is accurate if a bit pinched. She has the high notes. But it is not a distinctive voice. It has no special colors. Nor does she act with her voice. Her face, with its enormous jaw line, is a dull mask. The King of Thule ballad in Act Three (delivered while sitting at that Singer Sewing Machine) and the Jewel Song were competently done but didn’t make this Marguerite a sympathetic character. The opera can’t work if the audience doesn’t take Marguerite’s side, but Poplavskaya won’t woo an audience. She is not a generous artist.

With Kaufmann and Pape, she held her own in the glorious trio of salvation at the end, but I think that’s mostly Gounod’s doing. It was worth the wait, even in this production.

The most fully formed performance came from veteran baritone Russell Braun as Valentin, Marguerite’s brother. His big number in Act 2 — Avant de quitter ces lieux — made a good impression. Upon his return from the war in Act 4 he threw himself into the fatal duel with Faust (realistically staged), and cursed his sister with relish for her out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Braun’s performance made clear what was missing from everyone else.

Michele Losier was too feminine in the pants role of Siebel, although her singing was pleasant.

The young dynamo Yannick Nézet-Séguin led the Met Orchestra in a performance that was accurate, well-paced, and often exciting. But Gounod doesn’t give the orchestra enough of interest to do so that a conductor can carry the opera. It’s not Wagner. So he could provide no antidote to McAnuff. It would have been fun to hear him conduct the Walpurgis Night ballet, but it was cut.

Surely Faust needn’t be set in the 16th-century to work. I really would like to see a production with a disgraced financier named Faust contemplating suicide if his short position doesn’t pan out. Hasn’t Wall Street already made a bargain with the devil? But McAnuff couldn’t think beyond the obvious.

Details Box:

What: Gounod’s Faust, Simulcast Live in HD
When: December 10, 2011
Who: Metropolitan Opera
Running time: About 4 hours and 10 minutes
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York
Encore performance: January 11, 2012 at 6:30 p.m. EST

Posted by David Abrams at 12/12/2011 9:42 PM | View Comments (1)

Dec. 3 Met simulcast: Rodelinda

The Met’s ‘Rodelinda’ relives the glorious reign of the singer
One never has to wait long for the next aria in this 30-odd parade of Handelian hits

By David Abrams

Retrofitting a Baroque opera such as Rodelinda into the 3,800-seat Metropolitan Opera House makes about as much sense as renting Yankee Stadium to stage My Dinner with Andre. Beyond the mismatch in venue, however, there’s little to criticize in the Met’s supersized production of Handel’s richly lyrical opera seria. The December 3 live simulcast, buoyed by the strong ensemble efforts of a superb cast of singer-actors led by Renée Fleming, sparkled and shined for the better part of its four-plus hours.

The current Met offering, only the fourth Handel opera to be presented there, reprises the 2004 production debut of this largely forgotten opera seria, updating the plot from a medieval tale of intrigue to one roughly contemporaneous to the time of Handel’s tenure in London. In addition to Fleming (Rodelinda), veterans of the 2004 cast include Stephanie Blythe (Eduige) and conductor Harry Bicket.

Rodelinda, written for London’s Royal Academy of Music and first performed at the King’s Theater in 1725, tells the tale of the dethroned King Bertarido, whose wife Rodelinda and young son are held in captivity by the man who would be king, Grimoaldo. But let’s not get hung up here on the storyline: The true mission of early 18th-century opera seria was to showcase the lead singers (sopranos and castrati, mostly) via a steady stream of da capo arias designed to allow these prima donnas to show off their wares.

For those in need of a refresher course in Opera 101, a da capo aria is constructed in three-parts [ABA], where the initial melodic section [A] is followed by a contrasting section [B], after which the music returns to the beginning [A] — only now the singer is expected to decorate the returning melody with improvised embellishments such as trills and rapid scalewise passages called coloraturas.

By Handel’s time, lead singers wasted little time trying to outdo their competitors with (mostly superfluous) vocal pyrotechnics. Enter the reign of the singer. Opera divas and male altos (castrati) became the superstars of their day, commanding greater attention (and larger salaries) than the opera’s composer.

Handel designed Rodelinda to showcase the celebrated diva, Francesca Cuzzoni. The Met does likewise, only here it's Renée Fleming. As the title character, Fleming has the lion’s share of arias in this work, and while her golden soprano may have lost some degree of weight and substance from years past, our modern-day Cuzzoni proved that she has what it takes to deliver this role with grace, élan and no small measure of flamboyance.

Fleming’s flexibility of voice in the coloratura passages throughout the performance was often breathtaking, and she rarely chose the safe path when embellishing her arias. She peppered the da capo repeat of the second act Spietati, io vi giurai with an array of daring coloraturas and trills that few sopranos today would risk. Fleming was equally impressive in the expressive numbers, particularly in the poignant lament, Se'l mio duol non è sì forte — massaging the tender, dirge-like phrases with sufficient feeling and emotion to bring a lump to one’s throat (live simulcast audiences no doubt saw the tears in Fleming’s eyes as she sang this).

As the alternately love-struck and vengeful sister of exiled King Bertarido, Stephanie Blythe as Eduige was sturdy in voice throughout her four arias. Blythe’s second act aria of vengeance, De' miei scherni per far le vendetta, breathed fire into the heavily caffeinated runs, coloraturas and embellishments. The dramatic soprano’s smooth delivery throughout the rapid changes in vocal registers revealed a liquid legato worthy of admiration from even the most particular of Handel worshippers.

Tenor Joseph Kaiser, as the slick (albeit not entirely evil) would-be successor to the throne, Grimoaldo, forged a character initially self-serving and evil but who grows sufficiently enlightened to reshape himself by the end of the story into the architect of a new Milan — with a restored King Bertarido. Kaiser’s captivating tenor, while not especially strong during his first act aria, Io già t’amai, came to the fore in the exquisite second act aria, Prigioniera ho l'alma in pena, one of the two or three most memorable numbers in this opera.

Shenyang, the promising young Chinese bass-baritone, crafted the role of Grimoaldo’s adjutant, Garibaldo, with just the right balance of arrogance and villainy. His imposing physical presence recalls Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca (a role for which I imagine his voice is well suited), and his handsome and resonant baritone carried sufficient dramatic weight to achieve credibility of character.

Shenyang’s da capo arias, however, revealed a lack of vocal flexibility necessary to propel the rapid 16th-note coloraturas without dragging behind the beat (on one occasion during the first act he trailed the orchestra by nearly a full beat). How I wish singers would take a cue from instrumentalists when they find themselves falling behind: Just drop a damn note or two and catch the next downbeat!

Rodelinda calls for two countertenors, and both acted well and sang with penetrating expression. Still, it was impossible to ignore the striking timbral differences between the alto voices of Andreas Scholl and Iestyn Davies, performing the castrati (males castrated before the onset of puberty) roles of King Bertarido and Unulfo, respectively.

Davies, in his Met debut as the deposed king’s loyal ally, showed a greater consistency of tone when crossing from high to low alto registers than did Scholl, and he delivered his three arias with hardly a suggestion of falsetto. The promising British countertenor overcame some unevenness in the 16th-note runs in his first act Sono i colpi della sorte to deliver a very impressive Fra tempeste funeste in Act 2 (one of the catchiest numbers in this work), with well-timed melodic ornamentations that fitted comfortably within the steady pulse of the music.

Scholl, in the role of the unlucky king made famous during Handel’s time by the great castrato, Senesino, sang with incredible expressiveness and delicacy of tone throughout the production, particularly during the irresistible second act sicilienne, con rauco mormorio. His intonation throughout the performance was impeccable.

Scholl’s faux alto in this performance nevertheless revealed a pronounced timbral contrast between high and low registers that sacrificed strength and focus in the low notes. On one occasion, while singing a descending melodic line in the low register near the end of the B section of Confusa Si Miri, Scholl’s voice briefly morphed into his (normal) baritone voice. Occasionally, the sound of his voice in the deep alto register invited unwelcome comparisons to Mickey Mouse. And although his embellishments were solid, Scholl tended to shy away from the customary trills at cadences.

Production director Stephen Wadsworth animated the stage action by keeping the non-singing characters in motion during the stagnant arias. His daring choreography of the swordfight between Scholl and Kaiser, which at times looked a bit too real for comfort, provided the audience an entertaining visual divertissement.

With the help of moveable platforms taxied from right-to-left by two wagons, Set Designer Thomas Lynch’s handsome and richly detailed period set created a panoramic look and feel to the scenery that broadcast hostess Deborah Voigt observed "seems to go on forever." Costume Designer Martin Pakledinaz’s early 18th-century costumes gave the principal characters a faithful and distinctive period look.

Conductor Harry Bicket, who led the Met Opera Orchestra at the original 2004 production, divided his time between the podium and one of two harpsichords in the pit, from which he accompanied the recitatives. A scaled-down Metropolitan Orchestra, which except for the addition of two recorders made little attempt to capture a sense of period-instrument authenticity, responded well to Bicket’s generally brisk-paced tempos.

Young Moritz Linn, in the ubiquitous non-singing role of Rodelinda’s son, Flavio, convincingly played his part as the innocent heir to the throne to perfection. When Rodelinda dares Grimoaldo to slay the boy, Linn stands tall — staring down the knife-wielding villain with puppy-eyes that that could disarm a hungry lion. Not surprisingly, it was Grimoaldo who blinked first.

Perhaps there’s a promising future for this boy as a singer, as well. But please, don’t touch the scissors…

Details Box:

What: Handel’s Rodelinda, Simulcast Live in HD
When: December 3, 2011
Who: Metropolitan Opera
Running time: About 4 hours and 15 minutes, including two intermissions
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York
Encore performance: January 4, 2012 at 6:30 p.m. EST

Posted by David Abrams at 12/11/2011 11:04 PM

Dec. 2 Syracuse Stage: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

Syracuse Stage’s ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ not targeted to adults

Cutesy-poo staged version the C.S. Lewis fable great for kids — but adults beware!

By David Feldman

OK, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. If you want to know whether this Christmas entertainment at Syracuse Stage is worth your attention as Serious Theater, the fast answer is: no. If you’ve already committed to taking a Young Person (or several of them) to see it and want to know what you’re in for, read on — but keep the aspirin handy.

The National Association for the Preservation of Adult Theatergoer Sanity requires that we publish the following warning in case you’re in danger of being talked into taking a Young Person (or several of them) to see this production but there is still time for you to back out: Sir or madam, read no further — beat a hasty retreat to the easy chair and turn on the TV while you can.

This staged version of the C.S. Lewis fable is cute; and there are lots of terrific voices for its music; and Anthony Salatino’s choreography is as usual first rate, if not as exciting as it has been at times (due to no fault of his own, as he’s confined by the requirements of the genre); and the spectacular set by Cary Wong along with certain very clever magic show-type tricks are worth the price of admission (except that you have to sit through the entire production to see them); and the costumes by Catherine Hunt are exceedingly clever and at times stunning (if occasionally a little too-adorable for some tastes); and Rick Paulsen’s lighting is spot-on (pun here); and the music under Dianne Adams McDowell’s ably wielded baton is fine indeed and never obtrusive (although the songs themselves aren’t what even a forgiving person might call memorable); and Linda Hartzell’s direction keeps the stage aswirl with plenty of activity; and the scattering of Equity performers among the cast adds depth to the SU Department of Drama’s students’ energetic (if at times not entirely top-notch) performances.

The plot is thin as air and has as much drama as instant oatmeal without the raisins. Four young sibling Brits are evacuated from blitz-imperiled London and find themselves at a country house that has a very large wardrobe with unusual magical capabilities: children who enter it often come out the other side into... get this... Narnia! Once there, they encounter lots of fantastical creatures including a White Witch (Jacquelyn Piro Donovan) who out of understandable perversity has cast the entire realm into cold and snowy winter for a century. That means there has been — better sit down now — No Christmas In All That Long Time!

Think about it, those of you who still haven’t decided what presents to buy Aunt Nell and your sister-in-law’s vicious offspring, not to mention their dog — which even after nearly a decade isn’t fully house-trained. Think about it, and remember that spot on the good carpet that you still can’t get out. Some may find a Christmas-less season a trial, but I call it pre-heaven.

Inevitably the four juveniles run into the expectable bunch of fantastical creatures. Among these are two English yeoman and -women types, who are for also Beavers. As portrayed by Eric Leviton and Jayne Muirhead they are a delight. I wish there had been more for them to do besides serve a meal and hasten the Young Persons to their destiny, but soon enough danger arrives in the form of a lion called Aslan (the powerful voice here belongs to Jordan Barbour), who threatens to vanquish the hard working Witch who disposed of Christmas. The play is essentially tragic: The well-meaning White Witch is defeated and a wicked Father Christmas (James Judy) arrives to distribute presents, some of whose magical powers serve to bring us more quickly than otherwise would have been possible to the ending of the play, but not one of which would have satisfied Aunt Nell, for instance.

One of the things I liked best about this show is that it has a character named Face on Butt (Tara Carbone, who also plays a wolf) and another called Snozzy Bosch (Katie Lamark), who like Ms. Carbone is a student in the Drama Department, and it is a Very Good Thing that this production with its enormous cast gives the students a chance to learn their trade by working with experienced performers and to perform on the main stage in front of a large audience (a great many of whom will, of course, be Children for this production).

Following the Christmas presents business, spring arrives rapidly — which serves to show emphatically that Narnia is not Syracuse. All of this is done in spectacular fashion with terrific lighting and sets and effects. Kids who are hooked into the 21st century’s electronic whizz-bang will probably find it “awesome” or “all right,” or whatever it is that they say too often — that is, so long as the kids aren’t over 15.

But you, serious theatergoer? Oh no. Go get tickets to NT Live at local movie theaters and see something like the terrific Collaborators I saw last week. Great work although I’ve liked Simon Russell Beal better at times, and less other times. It’s a clever play about the Russian playwright Mikhail Bulgakov and Joseph Stalin in 1938. Coming up are: Traveling Light, about Eastern European immigrants who played an important part in Hollywood’s golden age; The Comedy of Errors and She Stoops to Conquer.

Uh… where was I?

Oh... Syracuse Stage. Right. Back to that. I suspect the play has been winnowed down to the kind of thing that Young Persons go for and it’s missing what I assume are the resonances and textures and any possible significant meaning of the original Narnia tales. I wouldn’t know — I’ve never read them.

Oh… there’s also a character named Warts played by Jonalyn Saxer, who didn’t seem to have any as far as I could tell, but who also played a Nyad, a Reindeer, and a White Stag. The actors go through an amazing number of costume changes, and praise is due to whoever helps them backstage. Anyway, Warts — what a wonderful name for a character.

The script, such as it is, is all very archetypal: Young Persons return from their Hero Journey now much wiser than they were before about magic, faraway imaginary places, and about Lions, Life and funny human-sized Beavers and various fantastical creatures. And they don’t seem much the worse for having portentously been referred to by the inhabitants of Narnia as “Sons of Adam” or “Daughters of Eve.” That kind of dialogue sets my nerves afire, but perhaps Young Persons won’t notice because of all the dancing and singing and pieces of the set being whizzed in and out and other clever effects, plus fierce sword fights and similar delights that Young Persons seem to enjoy at entertainments of this sort. And we all agree that anything that takes them away from texting and video games and making it impossible for adult humans to watch the football game if there’s only one television set in the house is a Very Good Thing, indeed.

Well I know, I know: bah humbug — mean old me and all that. But really, it’s all more than slightly cutesy-poo. OK, one supposes, for doting uncles and aunts, grandmothers and grandfathers and such who are looking for a Christmas gift that will get some brat away from those damned computer games and cell phone cameras and Facebook business and into a real theater where — and this is of inestimable value — one isn’t allowed to muck around with electronic devices.

So, to sum up: Fine for the pre-pubescent, and probably OK for those who are recently post-pubescent if they have somehow retained some of their innocence. Otherwise… don’t say you weren’t warned.

DETAILS BOX:
What: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis, dramatized by Adrian Mitchell, music by Shaun Davey
Who: Syracuse Stage
Where: Archbold Theatre, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse
When: Through Dec. 31.
Length: 2 hours, including a 15-minute intermission.
Tickets: Adults, $28 - $50; 40 and under, $28; 18 and under $18; senior discounts for all performances but Friday and Saturday evenings. Rush tickets day of performance only: $20 -$25 general public; $18 with valid student ID, subject to availability. Call 315-443-3275, or www.SyracuseStage.org
Family guide: The kids will love it; not for all adults

Posted by David Abrams at 12/6/2011 9:41 PM | View Comments (1)

Nov. 12 Jupiter String Quartet

Jupiter String Quartet’s engaging SFCM program rewarding, persuasive

The quartet maintains a firm grip on the listener’s attention throughout the versatile program of works spanning three eras

By David Abrams

http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html

It’s always a pleasure to hear good music, well played. The Jupiter String Quartet delighted the Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music audience Saturday evening with an eclectic program that was both entertaining and musically rewarding — the kind of program that keeps us coming back for more.

For an ensemble named after a planet, Jupiter is amazingly down-to-earth. The players addressed the audience from the stage, signed autographs at intermission and mingled with the crowd at the post-concert reception. Yet beneath the relaxed exterior is a first-rate ensemble, equipped with all the necessary ingredients required of a professional string quartet: a unique sound (anchored by the big and rich tone of cellist Daniel McDonough), a strong and dependable first violinist (Nelson Lee) and a firm command of ensemble interplay that synchronizes all aspects of its playing.

As if all this weren’t enough, the four players actually look as if they belong together — which, in a way, they do. McDonough is the husband of the quartet’s second violinist, Meg Freivogel, who is the sister of violist Liz Freivogel. Family notwithstanding, it’s obvious these musicians enjoy each other’s company — one can see it on their faces and hear it in the manner in which they interact with one another.

Jupiter appears to relish the challenges of a stylistically diverse program. The three works performed Saturday evening took the ensemble from Classicism to Romanticism to the 20th-Century, and in each case Jupiter proved it has sufficient command of style to bring the music to life.

The players wasted little time capturing the young Beethoven’s playful spirit in the Quartet in B-flat Major, Op.18 no. 6 (1798-1800), with alert execution of the sharply defined dotted-rhythmic figures that permeate the vivacious opening movement (Allegro con brio) and tight interplay between the middle voices (second violin and viola) during the closing theme of the exposition.

The warmly expressive dialogue between first and second violins in the opening of the second movement (Adagio) set the stage for the snappy syncopations of the vivacious Scherzo that followed. Here, the players danced through Beethoven’s maze of tricky rhythmic twists and turns as if they were playing jump rope. Jupiter’s well-paced passing from the melancholic opening of the final movement to the jovial, dance-like Allegretto, along with the shapely rubatos the ensemble produced throughout this movement, placed the finishing touches on this enjoyable and fulfilling listening experience.

Prokofiev’s Quartet No.2 in F Major (1942) owes its heavily ethnocentric flavors to the indigenous cultures intersecting the northern Caucasus mountains, where — according to McDonough’s pre-performance talk — the Soviet government relocated its best and brightest artists ahead of Hitler’s advancing armies during the Second World War.

Jupiter is clearly a champion of this demanding work, and it showed in its playing.

The four players dug into the music fearlessly, with a tone that oftentimes bordered on raucous, in a relentless effort to recapture the raw, authentic folk melodies of the Caucasus region unsanitized by the listener’s Western sensibilities. They put lots of muscle and brawn into the thickly seasoned ethnic flavors of the outer two movements, where Prokofiev to a large extent mirrors what Bartok had done with the Magyars decades earlier. I especially enjoyed the middle (Adagio) movement’s Kabardian love song (Synilyaklik Zhir), a sweet and haunting solo perched high atop the cello’s upper register, which McDonough played with a silky smooth legato.

Perhaps the most persuasive effort of the evening came after intermission with a superlative performance of Mendelssohn’s masterful Quartet in D Major, Op.44 no.1.

Jupiter found a smart balance between angst and warmth of expression in the weighty first movement and demonstrated alert ensemble execution, from the persistent dotted rhythms of the opening measures to the five-note motif that passed seamlessly from player to player.

Although the Minuet movement may have been a bit too fast to remain faithful to the composer’s tempo indication (un poco allegretto), I reveled in Jupiter’s poignant delivery of the wistful third movement, an Andante espressivo gently sprinkled with pizzicatos, that brought a lump to my throat.

Jupiter raised the roof in the effulgent finale (Presto con brio), spinning off sets of dazzling sextuplet runs that all but lit the auditorium like bolts of lightening, sending the crowd to its feet in a prolonged, and well deserved, standing ovation.

Details Box:

What: Jupiter String Quartet

Where: Lincoln Middle School, 1613 James Street, Syracuse

When: November 12, 2011

Information: call (315) 446-3424

Ticket prices: Regular $20, Senior $15, Student $10

Website: http://syracusefriendsofchambermusic.org

Next: Jasper String Quartet, 8 p.m. February 25, 2012

Posted by David Abrams at 11/15/2011 12:35 AM | View Comments (1)

Nov. 5 Met simulcast: Siegfried

Singers, orchestra dwarf Lepage’s mechanical monstrosity in the Met’s ‘Siegfried’
The über-expensive set offers little dramatic insight into the production and, if anything, impoverishes Wagner’s music drama. But with a performance this good, who cares?

By David Rubin
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Rubin.html

Audience reaction to the first two operas in the Metropolitan Opera’s ongoing new Ring cycle, produced by Robert Lepage, has been close to unanimous.

The Met orchestra, under both James Levine and Fabio Luisi, has played at a level even Wagner, exacting as he was, would have admired. Much of the singing has been the best the world can offer today, especially the booming Alberich of Eric Owens in Rheingold, the clarion Fricka of Stephanie Blythe in Rheingold and Walküre; and the virile Siegmund of Jonas Kaufmann in Walküre.

Lepage’s massive, computerized machine of a set, also massively expensive, was supposed to provide a Star Wars experience. But only occasionally has he offered jaw-dropping effects and stage pictures; the machine has just as often rumbled and grumbled and stopped altogether. As a director of flesh and blood characters, Lepage has failed utterly, leaving the gods and demi-gods to fend for themselves. If Lepage has an overall conception for his Ring, other than to make it eye-popping, it has eluded me.

Now comes Siegfried, the "chamber" opera of the four, impossible to attempt without a credible Siegfried who can handle Wagner’s punishing dramatic and vocal demands. Arguably there is no one in the world today who can sing this part nearly as well as the Met orchestra can play it.

The Met originally cast Gary Lehman, who withdrew during rehearsals, pleading a virus. Up next was Jay Hunter Morris, a Texan with a twang, who sang the young Siegfried in San Francisco this past summer in the Francesca Zambello "Eco-Ring" to good reviews, this critic among them.

Had Morris not been available, that wonderful New Yorker cartoon would have played out for real on Saturday, with the stage manager standing in front of the curtain to ask, "Is there anyone in the house who can sing Siegfried?"

But Morris didn’t cancel, and there was definitely no need to call for help. Morris delivered a performance that was stunning for his vocal assurance and power and his confident stage presence. Here is a true Wagnerian heldentenor who, somehow, has not made his way for years through the roles of Lohengrin, Stolzing, and Siegmund to prepare for Siegfried, the challenge of all challenges. Six months ago in San Francisco he was a cover artist, only called into action because the tenor originally cast (Ian Storey) opted out. Now he has already triumphed at the Met. This is not supposed to happen. The Met audience recognized what they had just heard and awarded Morris with an ecstatic standing ovation (fortunately not so common).

Morris told interviewer Renée Fleming in an intermission feature that he learned from a voice teacher his loudest notes are not necessarily his most beautiful notes. He has clearly taken that advice to heart. He never seems to strain. His face betrays no performance anxiety. He really seems to be having the fun he claims he is having. He wasn’t even sweating until his Act 3 confrontation with the Wanderer, his grandfather. The forging scene in Act 1 was rhythmically precise. So often this goes off the rails, but not here. He eases comfortably into his high notes. He tired a bit in the final love duet with Brünnhilde and his voice turned a bit tight and nasal. But for five-plus hours he was a pleasure to hear, and to see.

Morris is built like a linebacker with strong arms and a hefty chest. He is clearly in great shape. He has the chiseled face of a western cowboy hero. He acts better than John Wayne. (OK, that’s not saying a whole lot.) He did not try to play Siegfried as the gawky teenager. Morris offered dignity and presence immediately, but he did age subtly through the three acts so that he was indeed ready for his first encounter with a woman — and the mystery of sex.

I offer one caveat. I heard Morris in San Francisco, where he delivered an equally satisfying performance. However, his voice did not carry live in San Francisco quite as strongly as it came across in the HD telecast. It is dangerous to judge how a voice sounds live in the house based on the HD relay. Judging from the boisterous Met audience, however, they must have heard him just fine.

Overall this was a great afternoon of singing, the reason opera fans are opera fans. I attended with three people who had never seen any Ring opera before, and this is not the one I suggest for starters. But all three were fully engaged by what they saw and heard.

Gerhard Siegel sang Mime with a strong tenor voice. He was not as mobile as some Mimes, perhaps because of the treacherous set. Most of his acting was in his highly expressive face. This production presents him as a hunchback with spectacles, wispy hair, and a nervous facial tick. He held his own vocally with both Bryn Terfel’s very strong Wanderer in the exchange of riddles in Act 1 and with the cavernous Eric Owens as his brother Alberich in Act 2.

Terfel was more comfortable vocally as the Wanderer than he was as Wotan in the two earlier operas. Perhaps he identifies with the world-weary character who finally comes to embrace his fate. His performance grew stronger as the afternoon continued. His voice is sturdy, secure, and impressive from top to bottom. It is, however, a bit characterless in color. Perhaps it’s my fault that I don’t have a "Terfel sound" in my ear to compare with, say, James Morris’s sound, which is instantly recognizable. But Terfel delivers the goods.

In her thirty minutes in Act 3 Deborah Voigt was an ardent, secure, and soaring Brünnhilde, only shorting the very last note of the ecstatic love duet. She looked with genuine affection on her amazing young lover-to-be.

The rest of the cast made strong contributions: Patricia Bardon as an Erda with a voice of velvet; Mojca Erdmann as a sweetly piping woodbird; and Hans-Peter König as a thundering Fafner.

Fabio Luisi adopted much quicker tempos than has been the case with James Levine. Coordination between singers and conductor was, for the most part, excellent. The Met Orchestra continues to play Wagner as only it can — for Levine and now Luisi.

Which brings us to the production. Sadly, Lepage offers no more insight to Siegfried than he did to Rheingold or Walküre. Some of his stage pictures worked, including the projection of a forest floor crawling with bugs and snakes, a wall of flames surrounding Brünnhilde, and an image of the Wanderer, at the beginning of Act 3, rising high above a lake on the stage, creating a wave with his spear. Most amazing was Lepage’s ability to create a reflection in the stage water in Act 1 so that Siegfried could see himself. This reflection was clearly visible to the audience. One of Lepage’s assistants explained during an intermission feature how they pulled this off digitally, but he lost me.

But so many important moments flopped. The splitting of the anvil at the end of the forging scene wasn’t equal to fireworks at a backyard July 4 celebration. The dragon slain by Siegfried could have been created for a 1950 production and wouldn’t frighten elementary school children. (He did have lively yellow eyes, however.) The climactic moment when Siegfried breaks the Wanderer’s spear, signifying the end of the old order, was botched because the Wanderer was lying on the set and the audience couldn’t see the spear. At this point the Wanderer wasn’t even blocking Siegfried’s path, as the music signals he must.

So the problem with this Ring remains: too much time and money spent on meaningless technology, and not enough time spent on thinking about how best to present the key moments in the drama, or even on what the drama is about.

But so what? With singing and orchestra playing like this, put them all in evening clothes and let ’em rip.

Details Box:

What: Wagner’s Siegfried, Simulcast Live in HD
When: November 5, 2011
Who: Metropolitan Opera
Running time: About 6 hours, including two intermissions
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York
Encore performance: Not yet determined

Posted by David Abrams at 11/7/2011 3:58 PM

October 29 Met simulcast: Don Giovanni

The Met’s ‘Don Giovanni’ eschews gimmickry, lets Mozart’s masterpiece speak for itself

Mille e tre critics can’t be wrong — or can they? Michael Grandage’s controversial new production is better than the nay-sayers would have us believe

By David Rubin

Is there, really, much new that any director can say about Mozart’s Don Giovanni without doing violence to the work? Critics of Michael Grandage’s new production at the Metropolitan Opera in New York complained that it was traditional; that is, set in the right time period with authentic costumes, faithful to Da Ponte’s libretto.

Indeed, it was precisely this conservative approach to the opera that appealed to the Met’s Giovanni, Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecien, who was singing the role in New York for the first time. Kwiecien told interviewer Renée Fleming during the intermission of the HD telecast that he and his colleagues Barbara Frittoli (Elvira) and Luca Pisaroni (Leporello), who have sung the opera together often, appreciated Grandage’s production because it is not freighted with high-concept baggage. They could focus on the singing and the acting.

And do they ever. With the estimable Fabio Luisi in the pit and a true ensemble of eight strong singers on stage, this is a Don Giovanni for those who like it without directorial gimmicks. Grandage provided a worn Spanish street scene as a constant backdrop, the residences marked by peeling paint and crumbling plaster. He stacked small apartments in cellblock fashion, each with a balcony. The windows on three levels provided a variety of playing spaces for singers and supers.

Grandage pulled apart this façade to reveal the wedding scene for Zerlina and Masetto in the first act, and to transport the audience to Giovanni’s equally worn palace, dressed up with a few chintzy chandeliers. This bleak set did force the singers to the front of the stage where most of the action played out. This permitted the HD audience to focus almost exclusively on the interactions among characters, and on the singing.

Grandage conjured a few deeply satisfying stage pictures. Zerlina became a wishbone as Elivra tugged on one arm, Giovanni on the other, she trying to save Zerlina from rape, and Giovanni dragging her to it.

The Commendatore entered the Don’s palace in a ghostly light and dispatched him to hell in a nightmarish scene of real flame and enough smoke to alarm a fire department.

In Leporello’s catalog aria, a sample of Giovanni’s female conquests appeared in the windows of the small apartments, dressed and lit as if in paintings by Vermeer. It was, or at least could have been, a stunning effect, but it was ruined in the HD telecast because the video director insisted on cutting away from these images quickly to resume the tight close-ups of Leporello and Elvira. Such relentless close-ups now regularly disfigure these video presentations. Is Met boss Peter Gelb, the architect of these highly successful telecasts, aware of how annoying this camera work is?

So strong was this cast that no disrespect is meant by first praising the Zerlina and the Ottavio — not the most important characters.

Making her Met debut as the peasant bride was the German soprano, Mojca Erdmann. Here the close-ups served the HD audience well. Erdmann has a magically pliable and expressive face of impish beauty, perfect for a Zerlina who does want to be ravished, until she doesn’t. Every emotion of her character flickered across her face. She is model-thin with strawberry blond hair and twinkling eyes. She had Masetto wrapped around her finger, as any good Zerlina must. Her voice is agile, pure and clean. Both Batti, batti and Vedrai, carino brought great pleasure.

Veteran tenor Ramón Vargas was Ottavio, and for a change Ottavio was not a wimp. Vargas has a more robust tenor than many who assume this role. He has both volume and sweetness, and his soft singing in Dalla sua pace was melting. Vargas made an excellent case for casting a tenor who also sings heavier roles, as he has, such as Riccardo in Un Ballo in Maschera and Rodolfo in La Bohème. The endlessly vacillating and selfish character of Donna Anna was lucky this Ottavio was interested in her at all.

Kwiecien was singing his first Giovanni at the Met. The HD relay was his second performance. He seemed fully recovered from emergency back surgery that kept him on the sidelines opening night. His voice is more baritone than bass, so don’t expect Cesare Siepi or Samuel Ramey. He delivered the serenade to Elvira’s maid sweetly and sensitively. Finch’han dal vino and Gia la mensa e preparata were feverish, fast, and frightening in their intensity. Grandage clearly wanted an unhinged Giovanni from the beginning. With his small eyes, somewhat pinched face, and athletic swagger, Kwiecien was a constant menace to all those around him.

Pisaroni’s catalog aria was not as funny as some, but he makes a luscious, round sound that contrasted nicely with Kwiecien’s. The two were at their best in the recitatives where their experience in the roles together paid dividends.

The two ladies were an unusual pair. Frittoli is a singer of great dignity and pathos. She has been a heart-stopping Sister Angelica and a sensitive Desdemona at the Met. She was not a fiery or half-mad Elvira, as the role is often played. She is too sane and dignified to have been chasing around this Giovanni. But as a road-weary Elvira, used and abused, she was a good foil to the younger and fresher Anna, sung by Marina Rebeka, who was making her company debut.

Their voices were also a logical dramatic contrast. Rebeka has a gleaming top with lots of power and agility, but her voice is a bit characterless. This fits Donna Anna, a naïve and puzzling woman. Grandage suggested that she was hardly being assaulted by Giovanni in the opening scene, despite her later protestations. But who knows? Only Da Ponte. Frittoli’s voice is heavier, not as agile, but loaded with personality and the wisdom of experience.

As Masetto, Joshua Bloom might be a brother to the Rocky of Sylvester Stallone. He cuts a muscular figure, sang strongly, and acted as the perfect complement to his Zerlina. Stefan Kocan was sufficiently booming as the Commendatore.

Luisi’s conducting was so perfectly judged that one forgot the opera was actually being conducted. Every tempo seemed right. Don Giovanni is a long opera, but under Luisi’s direction, and with the heavenly Met Orchestra playing at its usual level of perfection, the afternoon was too short.

The Met has not had good luck with this opera for many years. While some critics groused about the production, it proved to be a very satisfying musical and dramatic experience. Grandage lets the work speak for itself. Would that more directors took his cue.

Details Box:
What: Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Simulcast Live in HD
When: October 29, 2011
Who: Metropolitan Opera
Running time: approximately 4 hours
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York
Encore performance: November 16, 2011 at 6:30 pm

Posted by David Abrams at 11/2/2011 9:14 PM | View Comments (6)

October 21 Syracuse Stage: The Boys Next Door

Syracuse Stage’s thought-provoking ‘The Boys Next Door’ takes a closer look at the developmentally disabled

Production overcomes a weak first act to shed light, humor and understanding upon those whom society would just as soon sweep under the carpet

By David Feldman

http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Feldman.html

Terrific first acts are too often followed by a weak second act. Rarely do you see the reverse: a weak beginning blossoming into an outstanding second-half of the play. But that’s the case with The Boys Next Door, currently at Syracuse Stage.

Too bad, then, for the few patrons who on opening night left after Act 1, because they missed a wonderful Act 2. Not only does Tom Griffin’s script shuck the bathos, the easy laughs and some sentimentality early on in favor of genuine sentiment and interest-provoking drama in the second act, but Director Timothy Bond and his cast of merry misfits rise to the challenges of the script.

The lights come up on Michael Vaughn Sims’ naturalistic set (it even has a partial ceiling) of an apartment in a group home somewhere in New England. Residing there are four men ― two developmentally disabled, one operating on the ragged edge of schizophrenia, and one with a disability I couldn’t quite catch because the lines of Demetrios Troy, as the group home’s supervisor, Jack, were muffled on opening night.

That wasn’t a total loss, as the characters’ own actions pretty much speak for themselves.

As Arnold, Michael Joseph Mitchell is nervous, cranky, easily confused and quick to tell everybody that he’s going off to Russia if he isn’t treated as he deserves. If he seems a little nutty at the end, waiting in a New England station for the Moscow train, his feelings of bewilderment and despair are as normal as those of anybody in the audience ― with the slight exception, perhaps, that he doesn’t realize there’s a lot of water between the train station and his intended destination.

Samuel Taylor as Barry is clearly the schizoid one. He thinks he’s a golf pro, although his lessons tend to center on such matters as how to deal with a golf course’s hedges (as opposed to his student named Hodges) rather than what’s the correct iron to use. Barry is all loud golfer clothes, sight gags and one-liners in Act 1, but in the second act a painful encounter with his father leads to long, silent and powerful moments when we learn what it’s like to have your joys become bottomless despair. You don’t have to be schizophrenic to understand (Carey Eidel crafts a remarkable performance as Barry’s father).

Then there are the two developmentally disabled characters: the doughnut eating, romance-seeking Norman and his easily confused apartment mate, Lucien, played by William Hall Jr. ― who quite amazingly came into the production only a week before opening night, although if you didn't know that you'd think he'd been with the cast from the first rehearsal.

Norman (the enormously talented Sean Patrick Fawcett) can’t function very well without the reassurance of the keys he wears on his belt. He has grown fat from eating far too many of the free donuts he gets in his job, and he falls in love with as many fears and apprehensions as any “normal” human I know. If his girlfriend Sheila (played touchingly by Alanna Rogers) seems at times to want to make his keys her own as badly as she desires him, she also lends herself to a charming pas de deux with Norman, sensitively staged by Director Bond, that ends the first act and reveals to us (if we ever had doubts) that the disabled can feel the sweet joys and the pangs of romance as strongly as the rest of us.

William Hall’s confused and awkward Lucien prides himself on a library card with his own name on it, although he can barely get halfway through the alphabet. But he knows, and lets us know, that his pain and confusion make him no less human than anybody sitting in the audience.

All four main characters follow their own trajectories as they welcome guests to their home, try to catch a rat that turns out to be something other than the presumed rodent, go off to their menial but satisfying jobs, and so forth. Each comes to a moment when his innate humanity is confirmed by his actions and words.

Director Bond does something quite interesting in the ways he structures these moments: They move from something close to strict naturalism ― the inhabitants’ household tasks, missing welcome mats, a visit by a neighbor next door, and such, to a moment when the performances slip from naturalism into magic realism. In these moments the action and time stop. We see in Barry’s silence the pain and depth of his depression. As Norman and his new girlfriend Sheila dance at the end of the first act we see for a brief moment a transformation: These awkward, mentally and physically challenged individuals step out of character and suddenly dance gracefully to the music (nice work here by Sound Designer Jeremy J. Lee) and we see them not as the world sees them ― awkward, mentally and physically challenged ― but rather how they see themselves in their own souls as tender, loving and graceful people.

For Lucien, too, there is a moment that goes beyond the script into the wonder that far surpasses what words can express. He is called upon to meet with a governmental committee examining the plight of the disabled. After he delivers his confused, barely articulate testimony, he steps out of his role as a disabled person, comes forward into a spotlight and speaks to the audience, in measured phrases like a practiced orator, about what it is like to be abnormal in the eyes of the world when, in your heart and in your soul, you are ineffably as human as anyone in the audience.

I thought that Bond’s direction too easily lets the performance slip into sight gags, little vignettes and easy one-liners in Act 1. Part of that lies with the script, which lends itself to overdone exposition and hesitant dramatic progress. But the performances can't withstand the tug-and-pull of the script, and things end up a bit too cutesy and saccharine in this act. And while at first we laugh too easily (and a little uncomfortably) at what are stereotypes of the disabled early on, by the end we laugh in understanding along with the residence supervisor, Jack, who will be moving on to a new job and must leave the three remaining people in the home to fend for themselves with a new caregiver.

We, like Jack, have been shown what is human and universal in those individuals whom society has too often tried to tuck away at its margins. Their souls are as beautiful as any "normal" person's, and their lives can be full when they are allowed to participate, as the rest of us, in the complexities of everyday life.

DETAILS BOX

What: The Boys Next Door by Tom Griffin, performed by Syracuse Stage.

Where: Archbold Theatre, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

When: Through Nov. 6

Length: 2 hours and 20 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission

Tickets: Adults, $28 - $40; 40 and under, $28; 18 and under $18; senior discounts Call 315-443-3275, or http://www.SyracuseStage.org

Family guide: Recommended for audiences of all ages

Posted by David Abrams at 10/27/2011 10:29 PM

October 22 American Chamber Players

American Chamber Players in no hurry to satisfy hungry Syracuse crowd

Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music audience wondered “where’s the beef?” but got their just desserts in the end

By David Abrams
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html

Good things come to those who can wait, or so they say. But don’t tell that to a hungry crowd of music lovers.

Classical music aficionados in Syracuse have worked up a hearty appetite for professional ensemble performances since the demise of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. Just look at the sold-out houses, overcrowded parking lots and long lines waiting to enter the auditorium at the first two Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music concerts this season.

The crowd’s craving for musical substance had to be placed on hold once again, however — this time during Saturday evening's four-work program presented by the American Chamber Players. Like last month’s SFCM program with the Orion Quartet, American Chamber Players chose to save the meat and potatoes for the final two works on the program.

Mozart’s light and fluffy Quartet for Flute and Strings in A Major, K.298 (1786), which opened the concert, is a straightforward and uncomplicated work in the style of a divertimento, with simply constructed melodic lines that unfold predictably. Save for some grace-notes and turns, the writing makes precious little demand on the technical capabilities of players.

The flute throughout the three movements is treated here not so much as a soloist than as an equal player in a homogeneous, chamber-like texture of four players. Flutist Sara Stern’s generally reserved style of delivery proved well suited to such an arrangement during the innocuous set of variations that opens the work, and her modest-sized but polished tone consistently maintained a suitable balance with the strings.

Perhaps the most engaging movement of the Quartet is the amiable Rondieaoux finale — a whimsically titled rondo based upon a borrowed tune from Paisiello’s opera buffa, Gli schiavi per amore. The four players here achieved a relaxed and cozy ensemble, generating a level of comfort that underscored the easy-listening character of this work.

Ernest Bloch’s Concertino for Flute, Viola and Piano (1948), which followed the Mozart, begins with an attractive folk-like theme in the style of Bartok and then begins a slow spiral downward into a bland, amorphous musical experience lacking in substance and imagination. The writing is aimless, consisting principally of a meandering potpourri of musical styles that include brief touches of Bartok and Ravel.

A work such as this requires careful crafting (and a consummate performance) by the players in order to smooth out the rough edges and turn the music into a persuasive listening experience. It didn’t get it.

The ensemble comprising Miles Hoffman, Stern and pianist Reiko Uchida never gelled into a cohesive whole, although in their defense they didn’t have a whole lot of substance with which to work. There were also pitch problems, as Bloch’s writing for the viola, which often sits in the higher registers, invites problems of intonation that Hoffman could not always solve. Moreover, Hoffman’s big, portly tone — which helped produce several thrilling moments in the Dvorak Quartet later in the program — dominated the three-voice texture and created balance problems that dwarfed the other players.

If the Bloch piece had to be programmed, it would have made better sense to do so after Phillipe Gaubert’s Three Watercolors for Flute, Cello and Piano (1926), an attractive French work of far greater harmonic substance, passion and intensity. This would have provided a weighty stylistic contrast to the lighthearted Mozart Quartet.

Gaubert, a flutist and composer, was one of a long line of Paris Conservatoire composers known for his many solos de concours (contest solos) showcasing the flute. The music looks, feels and sounds so French you can almost smell the perfume.

Set as a series of mood pieces, Watercolors takes the listener on a pleasant journey from morning to evening, ending in a serenade seasoned with Spanish exoticism. The harmonies are often unpredictable and the juxtaposition of timbral colors is consistently pleasant. In this performance, Stern and Uchida were joined by cellist Stephen Balderston — whose playing throughout the evening was consistently first-rate.

The opening of the sensuous first movement (On a Clear Morning), consisting of a nicely shaped phrase set in unison between cello and flute, was a sign of good things to come. Stern’s tone, while still somewhat small, was shapely and balanced, and her pitch throughout the evening was exceptional.

Balderston’s opening solo in the second (Autumn Evening) movement was handsomely shaped, and he played with deep expression throughout this work and the Dvorak Quartet. The captivating final (Serenade) movement, with its pronounced Spanish exoticism, gave pianist Uchida a chance to display her talents mimicking the arpeggiations of a harp — a clever piece of writing, indeed.

Following intermission, the American Chamber Players served up its most satisfying effort of the evening with a superb rendition of Antonin Dvorak's mammoth Quartet in E-flat Major for Piano and Strings, Op. 87 (1890).

Violinist Joanna Maurer, dormant since the Mozart Quartet that opened the program, joined Uchida, Hoffman and Balderston in what proved to be the program’s tour de force. The three players ripped into the sharply defined dotted-rhythmic figures that permeate the opening Allegro con fuoco with flamboyance, capturing the Bohemian/Gypsy ethnic flavors of this movement in convincing fashion. Blend of sound among the three strings was especially rewarding, with a combination of warmth and vigor that captured each mood Dvorak laid before them.

The slow (Lento) movement, which carries as much dramatic weight as the colossal first movement, reminds me of the slow movement of Schubert’s celebrated C Major Quintet with its ethereal opening and cathartic, contrasting middle section (which the four players milked for all it’s worth). Balderston’s large and mellow tone in the cello’s tenor register was a treat to the ears, as was Uchida’s passage-work, which spanned virtually every dynamic level.

The tongue-in-cheek third movement, a Viennese waltz that the players seasoned with a generous garnishing of schmaltz, eased the tension generated in the prior two movements. The relentless, driving rhythmic propulsion of dotted-note figures in the middle section recalls Schubert’s Death and the Maiden Quartet. Uchida produced some brilliant moments in this movement during the many delicately shaped, rapid finger-work passages.

The Quartet concluded with an irresistible Gypsy dance that had the crowd’s feet tapping in unison. Balance and ensemble interplay was tight, as the movement’s four-note motif passed seamlessly from one player to another. This is the piece they came to play, and this is what sent the listeners home content. And on a full stomach.

Details Box:
What: American Chamber Players
Where: Lincoln Middle School, 1613 James Street, Syracuse
When: October 22, 2011
Time: about 2 hours, with intermission

Attendance: About 400 (sold out)
Information: call (315) 446-3424
Ticket prices: Regular $20, Senior $15, Student $10
Website: http://syracusefriendsofchambermusic.org

Next: Jupiter String Quartet, 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 12

Posted by David Abrams at 10/23/2011 10:02 PM

October 21 Syracuse Opera: La Traviata

Syracuse Opera’s season-opening ‘La Traviata’ favors the ears, not the eyes

Singers score well in this sparsely staged production, but acting under Jerald Schweibert’s stage direction leaves much to be desired

By David Rubin

Douglas Kinney Frost, the Director of Music at Syracuse Opera, continues to pull the company out of its singing doldrums that undermined performances in recent years. With Frost on the podium, Syracuse Opera offered a well-sung La Traviata that showed his eye for young talent.

Soprano Danielle Pastin took on the enormous challenge of Violetta, the courtesan with consumption. This was only the second time Pastin has sung the part, the first coming in 2009 with the small New Rochelle Opera. She is highly regarded in Santa Fe, an important training ground. She received a big break there last summer going on as Mimi in La Bohème.

She has an attractive, agile voice of medium weight with the ability to fill a large hall with sound. She offered solid interpretations of all her big numbers including the Act 1 Libiamo and the double aria Ah fors e lui and Sempre libera. Her confrontation with Giorgio Germont in Act 2 was powerful, her farewell to life (Addio, del passato) early in Act 3 appropriately anguished. She wisely chose not to take the high-note variant for Sempre libera, but the rest of her singing was assured and professional. The role seems to hold no terrors for her.

Alfredo was sung by Nathaniel Peake, whose resume is more advanced than Pastin’s. He has won a fistful of major awards for young singers, including those from the George London Foundation, the Richard Tucker Foundation, and Placido Domingo’s Operalia Competition. He was a 2010 Metropolitan Opera National Council Winner. He has major roles coming up as Pinkerton in a Houston Grand Opera Butterfly and Tamino in a San Francisco Opera The Magic Flute.

Perhaps because he was a very young Resident Artist with Syracuse Opera in 2008-09, his mentor Frost had a chance to bring him back even though his fee is probably beyond what Syracuse can offer. His loyalty is commendable. He is clearly being groomed for big things as a lyric tenor. Those in the Traviata audience in Syracuse may be able to say, “We heard him when...”

He does, indeed, have a sweet, ingratiating voice when it is not under pressure. But Alfredo is a touch too heavy for him at this point in his career. His top notes are not as secure or as easily produced as they no doubt will become. The conclusion of his wicked cabaletta that ends Act 2 was hasty rather than thrilling. He was at his best in the Act 1 drinking song, his duet with Violetta in Act 3, and in all the sections of lyrical dialogue when he didn’t have to force. He was generally a great pleasure to hear.

Baritone Luis Ledesma, who sang Alfredo’s father, Giorgio Germont, is the most experienced of the three leads. His signature role seems to be Escamillo, but he has a wide-ranging repertoire that embraces Rigoletto and Enrico (in Lucia). His voice doesn’t have the weight of the best rolling Verdi baritones. It lacks resonance and a honeyed quality. But he delivered Di Provenza very well in Act 2 and proved a good foil for Violetta in their confrontation over Alfredo.

All in all, it was a very good night for the singers. Still, the performance failed to touch the heart, and that is because none of the singers yet acts well or received sufficient direction from Jerald Schweibert, who was making his company debut.

Peake mainly stands and delivers, hands at his side. He is a large man, not assured yet on stage and a bit gawky.

Not for a minute did Pastin seem consumptive. Admittedly, Violetta is an acting challenge beyond most sopranos, demanding as it does in the course of the evening a jaded courtesan, an ingénue, a coquette, a tragic heroine, and a dying consumptive. Pastin was not really any of these Violettas.

Ledesma didn’t engage either Alfredo or Violetta as he must if these two confrontations are going to galvanize an audience. He was too far away from them and too wooden.

The emotion in this opera came more often from the pit, where Frost led the remaining members of the bankrupt Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, now performing under their own management as Symphony Syracuse. They often played as if their professional lives depend on it, which they probably do.

Rhythmically this performance was very exciting. The orchestra took top honors throughout Act 2, particularly in the gambling scene when Alfredo throws money at Violetta. String figurations were sharp, angry, and persistent.

Frost favored slow tempos in the overture and in Violetta’s more anguished moments, but otherwise he moved proceedings quickly and whipped up a storm in the brass and percussion, both of which had a good night. The cellos provided strong underpinning. While the orchestra often played with great volume, Frost was attentive to his singers and rarely covered them.

The Symphony Syracuse players deserved the many ovations they received from the audience, which clearly misses them in their regular guise as the SSO.

The non-musical aspects of the performance might have come across more effectively if the sets had not been so minimalist. Indeed, this was close to a black box production. The stage was framed with black curtains left and right. The back wall had a light blue curtain for Act 1, a mauve curtain for Act 2, and black for Act 3. Lighting provided whatever atmosphere there was. Props in all three acts were a few tables, chairs and a bed with pillows. In various arrangements these were meant to suggest everything from Violetta’s Paris apartment to her country house and Flora’s salon. This is a lot to ask of an audience.

Costumes were mostly black tie for the men and mid-19th century ball gowns for the women. The gowns added some color to the proceedings, but this was a production whose dominant color was black.

This might have worked if stage director Schweibert had been able to do more with his singers. In the event, however, the audience was left to fill in the many blanks from its memory bank of past Traviatas. Schweibert’s main virtue was to deliver an economical staging that did little harm. That is a valuable skill in this period of economic depression for the arts.

The audience at the Crouse-Hinds Concert Theater in the Civic Center was large and filled with young people. One hopes they will learn that opera can be more emotionally engaging than this Traviata.

Details Box:

What: Verdi’s La Traviata

Who: Syracuse Opera

When: 8 p.m. Friday, October 21, 2011

Final performance: 2 p.m. Sunday

Where: Crouse-Hinds Theater, John H. Mulroy Civic Center, 411 Montgomery St., Syracuse.

Tickets: $18 to $165

Contact: Box office: 476-7372, http://syracuseopera.com

Posted by David Abrams at 10/22/2011 3:20 PM

October 15 Met simulcast: Anna Bolena

Anna Netrebko packs house — and costume — in Met’s new production of Anna Bolena

Girlish figure may be gone, but the Russian soprano cuts an otherwise convincing image as the tragic wife of Henry VIII in Donizetti's opera

By David Rubin
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Rubin.html

As compelling musically as portions of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena are, it is a far cry from his Lucia di Lammermoor. Audiences are not dumb. Thus Lucia is on the boards in every major opera house all the time, while Anna awaits a Callas or a Sills (or in this case Anna Netrebko) to bring her to life.

So it is not a shock that the most memorable part of this new production that opened the Met's 2011-2012 season is the costuming. Indeed, David McVicar, who is in charge of the production, made his wisest choice when he engaged Jenny Tiramani to design the costumes.

Tiramani is an acknowledged expert in 16th and 17th century English dress. She researched the clothes being worn at King Henry VIII’s court in part from Holbein portraits.

As Tiramani told interviewer Deborah Voigt during the intermission, she wanted the costumes to be as accurate as possible. Anna, Henry, and Anna’s rival Jane Seymour appeared in multi-layered clothing that starts with linen undergarments. The outer garments — doublets, sleeve jerkins, gowns — are as close to real as Tiramani could create. As tenor Stephen Costello implied (he plays Richard Percy, Anna’s suitor before her marriage to Henry), once you are in one of these costumes you are in it! Forget a bathroom break.

The Met’s HD telecasts are shot so tightly that the movie theater audience could see the careful detail lavished on these costumes, plus the many jewels Henry, Anna and Jane wore — surely a window-full at Bulgari.

Indeed the costumes were the production. There was little else to look at. For backdrops McVicar offered stone, arches, and more stone. We were in Castle Anywhere, without a warming fire in sight. Pieces of this castle rearranged themselves for different scenes, but it was all so murky that after a while one simply focused on the costumes and the voices.

McVicar didn’t bother much with direction or blocking, either. The characters were left to their own devices. The chorus of courtiers stood around in stock conspiratorial mode, whispering or looking pained as the plot rolled to the inevitable beheading. Henry was bug-eyed with feigned outrage most of the time. Anna was bewildered, angry, or loony, as the plot demanded. It’s hard to imagine that anyone on stage or in the audience thought this plot offered anything other than a chance for a good sing.

The New Grove Dictionary of Opera says this was Donizetti’s first big hit, the opera "that gave him his initial exposure to Paris and London." It premiered in 1830 in Milan, and he was fortunate to have Giuditta Pasta as Anna and Giovanni Rubini as Percy, two legends who make one long for a time machine.

The opera’s strengths are a mad scene for Anna that concludes the piece, and a variety of confrontations between the characters that ratchet up the tension: Anna and Percy reunited with Percy still ardent in his love; Jane admitting to Anna that she is Henry’s new lover; Henry breaking into Anna’s bed chamber to confront her with Percy and her page, Mark Smeaton. All these are effectively written. But none has the melodic allure of the Sextet from Lucia or its celebrated mad scene.

Further, if one knows the scene from Verdi’s Don Carlo in which Carlo, also a crazed lover like Percy, approaches another queen (Elizabeth de Valois) to plead his lost cause, the weaknesses of Donizetti’s writing become all too clear. Verdi’s scene is riveting, searing and truly pathetic. Donizetti’s is tepid.

Moreover, much of this music is simply inappropriate to the story. The overture could be from a Rossini comedy (Donizetti’s debt to Rossini is all over this score). Donizetti uses flutes in his orchestration at the most inopportune times. When the situation demands a black or menacing sound, we get flutes.

So why revive this? For Netrebko, of course. She is a Gelb Golden Girl (Peter Gelb being the boss of the Met) and, presumably, a box office draw, even in this. She sang very well, handling the coloratura demands with ease. Her voice has both weight and agility, and the sound is a very attractive one. The mad scene was a triumph. Physically, however, the girlish figure is gone. She has become Mamma Lucia overnight.

Perhaps because this HD telecast was the first beamed into Russia, two of the other lead singers were also Russian, surely strange casting for an Italian opera. The stronger of the two was mezzo Ekaterina Gubanova, as Jane. She matched Netrebko in intensity during their Act II confrontation over Henry. Her voice is accurate and attractive, although the carrying power is impossible to judge in the HD relay. Bass Ildar Abdrazakov, as King Henry, seemed a bit underpowered compared to the ladies, with a cloudy lower register.

Mezzo Tamara Mumford was outstanding in her two arias as the foolish page, Smeaton. This is a trouser-role for a Cherubino-like character who is hopelessly in love with Anna. But unlike Cherubino, Smeaton does some real harm when he lies about a supposed affair he had with the Queen, helping to send her to the block. McVicar did a disservice to Mumford by covering her in blood and stripping her to a tunic with bare legs after she has been tortured, forcing her to sing in an ensemble in this condition.

Some of the most exciting singing came from tenor Stephen Costello, as Percy. His voice has a Juan Diego Florez-like sound, except it’s heavier and not as agile. But it’s an attractive sound, occasionally thrilling. He is a decent actor, believable as the foolish Percy lured into a trap by Henry. He has Nemorino in Vienna and Alfredo in London on his schedule in the next few months, so his time is now. The Met should make good use of him in Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti and some Verdi roles.

Conductor Marco Armiliato took a critical beating for his conducting on opening night, but he moved matters along at this matinee and got out of the singers’ way.

Two points of note about this HD presentation. Weather conditions, we were told, led to a blank screen on three occasions — once before the music started and twice in Act 1. Each lasted for only a few minutes, but broke the mood.

These productions are now being shot in such relentless close-up that my companion and I simultaneously exclaimed during the mad scene that we could see Netrebko’s molars. The camera was down her throat. Never once did the director pull back so that the audience in the movie theater could get a sense of the entire stage picture. Despite what Peter Gelb might think, none of the singers can take this sort of microscopic inspection.

Details Box:
What: Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, Simulcast Live in HD
When: October 15, 2011
Who: Metropolitan Opera
Time: About 4 hours
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York
Encore performance: November 2, 2011 6:30 pm
Next simulcast: Mozart’s Don Giovanni, October 29, 2011, 12:55 pm

Posted by David Abrams at 10/18/2011 9:22 AM | View Comments (2)

October 3 SU Drama: The Cradle Will Rock

Strong SU Drama cast, dazzling choreography overcome didactic script in ‘The Cradle Will Rock’

Rodney Hudson’s slow-moving staging heightens the impact of the anti-establishment message set in the labor-unfriendly factory town, Steeltown USA

By David Feldman
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Feldman.html

Corrupt corporations… union breaking… millions out of work… the economy in a deep swoon. Sounds like 2011, right? Well, the more things change… it’s the world of The Cradle Will Rock, the 1937 musical with book, music and lyrics by Marc Blitzstein. The original New York production was directed by Orson Welles, produced by John Houseman and funded by the Federal Theatre Project of the Works Project Administration (three cheers for government funding of the arts!). The SU Department of Drama is running a vivid production of this rarely done piece of left-wing theatre not in their usual home base, the Storch Theatre, but in the larger Archbold.

And this is not at all a typical use of that space. Newsreels of demonstrators and the jobless fill a scrim before the action begins. When it does start, there’s no standard musical-style big production number with a chorus and introduction of the major characters. Instead, several silent and ominous figures push their way onto a darkened stage, shining flashlights all over ― including into our eyes ― as if there were no fourth wall separating us from them. And lest we miss that important point, Felix E. Cochren Jr’s sprawling, multi-level set has a broken proscenium running part-way across the stage.

Director Rodney Hudson’s staging borrows much from Bertolt Brecht’s playbook, which should come as no surprise: Blitzstein translated The Threepenny Opera and was much influenced by Brecht and Kurt Weill. So Cradle uses Brecht’s alienation effect, slowing down the action so we don’t miss its message, having performers speak directly to us ― even bringing the students into the audience for the play’s final moments (a bit flat for an ending and too Brechtian, I thought) ― and leaving a few strikers onstage, all of which work to emphasize social and political themes by keeping us from becoming immersed in the action of the drama.

Truth to tell, though, Brecht and Weill did it a whole lot better than Blitzstein: The lyrics limp when they should soar, the music never has the unmistakable funky-jive quality of Weill’s, and Cradle’s book is fairly heavy-handed and didactic. On the other hand, the students do terrific work, Hudson elicits some outstanding performances ― and where would we be if academic theatre didn’t occasionally trot out such socially and historically significant plays as this?

Those ominous intruders are followed by an actor who comes downstage center and hands orchestra conductor Brian Cimit the score and a trumpet. Hudson isn’t going to let us think for a moment that this is a conventional play. Back onstage strikers are brutally beaten by goons, and LilyAnn Carlson (as Moll) stands stage right and tells us how she came to town to work in the mill but there’s only work for her two days a week, and so to make enough money to live she has had to become a streetwalker. OK, nothing new about that, maybe, but Carlson is plaintive and winning as Moll and she does standout work with the song that sets the stage for what will come: "Moll’s Lament."

We are in Steeltown USA, an allegorical factory town where everything is run by Mister Mister (Amos Vanderpoel, with a powerful voice and a commanding presence), owner of the mill and corrupter of the justice system, the newspaper, and just about everything else except the workers (who are on strike), including Moll and the protagonist, Larry Foreman (the riveting and charismatic David Siciliano).

The action moves to a courtroom where the script assumes epic theater form with short, almost vaudeville-like vignettes. Each one shows how the Misters (including Mrs. Mister, of course) or their minions have corrupted so many of the town’s leading figures. So we see how Harry Druggist’s son was destroyed by the system, how the minister was paid off, and how even artists (Maclain W. Dossatti as Yasha the violinist and Sean Coyle as Dauber the painter) can be bought. As the names suggest, the characters are stereotypes. And each scene ends the same way ― a serious weakness in the script whose impact oozes away as we are hammered with lesson after lesson of how power corrupts. Fortunately the students save the day with a large number of stunning performances, including Ross Baum as Harry Druggist, and Katie LaMark as a limber, bouncy Sister Mister. I was less-than-enthralled by the directorial choice to make Sister and Junior Mister an incestuous brother-sister pair: It’s not in the script and raises a more contemporary concern that dilutes Blitzstein’s Marxist critique of greed as the sin that destroys the democratic ideal in this musical, and in American life.

Even when struggling with a script that flounders under the weight of too much didacticism, too much message and too little dramatic conflict, the cast is outstanding ― thanks to the way Director Hudson keeps his students moving over every available inch of the stage and to Andrea Leigh-Smith’s bouncy and energetic choreography.

The book’s not much, the lyrics don’t soar, the music doesn’t set you to humming, the politics are out of date (too bad), and it’s almost slavishly derivative of the Brecht and Weill Threepenny Opera. But the set’s impressive, the choreography’s dazzling and you’ll walk away shaking your head in disbelief that those were all student actors up there on the Archbold Stage, getting a chance to shine in a musical that is dauntingly different. And we get to see a fine production of a rarely done play that is one of the major works of the canon of American theatre.

DETAILS BOX:
What: The Cradle Will Rock, book, music and Lyrics by Marc Blitzstein performed by the Syracuse University Department of Drama
Where: The Archbold Theatre, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse
When: Oct. 6. 7 and 8 at 8 p.m.
Length: 1 hour and 50 minutes, including a 15 minute intermission
Tickets: Adults, $18; seniors and students, $16; rush tickets $8 one hour before each performance, subject to availability. Call 315-443-3275, or www.SyracuseStage.org
Family guide: Some adult themes and actions

Posted by David Abrams at 10/6/2011 9:54 AM

September 24 Orion String Quartet

Orion Quartet: a class act in need of a makeover

It takes more than just accomplished playing to fulfill an audience’s expectations

By David Abrams
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html

There’s nothing wrong with the Orion String Quartet that a good drama coach can’t fix.

The 25-year-old ensemble, which came to Syracuse Saturday evening to open the 62nd season of the Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music, has what it takes to stand tall among the best in the chamber music business: a handsome blend of tone, finely honed ensemble-work, dependable playing, gutsy delivery and, when needed, pizzazz. But the four middle-aged players, colorful neckties notwithstanding, need a pointer or two on how to work the crowd.

The eager, sold-out crowd of 400 arrived early, battled one other over available parking spaces, waited patiently to get into the auditorium and then shuffled about in a quest to find the best seats in the house. By 8 p.m. they were chomping at the bit, in a state of excited anticipation, to hear a program spearheaded by Haydn’s buoyant String Quartet in D minor, Op.76 no.2 ("The Fifths"). But while the Haydn quartet may have been the logical and expected choice to begin the evening’s fare, the audience instead received a solemn lecture on contrapuntal procedure: two Contrapuncti from Bach’s The Art of the Fugue.

Concert Experience 101: The opening work on a concert program, like a tasty dinner appetizer, should set both mood and flavor of the experience to come. In the case of Saturday’s program, why not start with Papa Haydn and then segue into the abstruse machinations of the mighty contrapuntist? And while we’re at it, is there any musical merit to dividing first-chair responsibilities between violinist brothers Daniel and Todd Phillips?

Todd, who on this program played first chair only in the Haydn quartet, has a more aggressive and extroverted playing style than does sibling Daniel (as might be expected from the former’s bright cranberry-colored shirt and argyle socks). That’s not to say that Daniel is unworthy of the first-chair. Quite the contrary, he is a solid and dependable lead player, despite of an occasional tendency to sag slightly in pitch. But to the discerning ear (and the Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music audience is arguably the most educated and musically erudite in Central NY), the sound and character of a string quartet change significantly when a different violinist is at the helm ― and this changing of the guard does little to advance Orion’s image as a quartet with a unique sound and identity.

When the ensemble finally got to the Haydn quartet (third on the program, preceding intermission), it proved well worth the wait.

Of the many sets of quartets spanning Haydn’s creative years, Op. 76 stands at or near the top of his brilliant chamber music output. Here is the 65-year-old "Father of the String Quartet," as he is often called, in full-bloom at the pinnacle of his long and illustrious career. Nicknamed "The Fifths’’ (no doubt because of the descending intervals of a Perfect-5th that punctuate the opening of the work’s first movement), the D minor Quartet, Op.76 no.2 is a staple of the string quartet repertory and, next to the Emperor Quartet (Op. 76 no.3), my personal favorite of the set of six quartets.

With Todd now at first violin, Orion at once achieved a handsome and engaging blend of tone that made me forget, for the moment, the dry acoustical properties of Lincoln Middle School Auditorium.

The players dug in to the first movement with enthusiasm and gusto, particularly during the rugged transition (between themes one and two) and the tension-building development section. Orion’s approach to the work’s second movement (Andante o più tosto allegretto) was original and refreshing. In place of the customary gentle legato that connects the phrases of slow movements such as this, Orion relaxed the tempo considerably and evoked wistful phrases that gently seasoned the melodic lines, crafting an interpretation that perhaps looked forward a decade and a half later into the Romantic period. The result was a movement full of charm, poise and beauty.

The third movement canon, where four instruments meld into two pairs of voices playing in parallel octaves, was slightly top-heavy as the violin pair overpowered the viola and cello pair. Still, Orion’s rhythmic propulsion in both the Minuet and the Trio made for some exciting and invigorating moments. The four players went for the jugular in the fourth movement Finale, digging into the strings with confidence and vigor, and bringing the work (and the first-half of the program) to an exhilarating close.

Stravinsky’s Concertino for String Quartet (1930), which followed the Bach, recalls the style and feel of one of the composer’s better known chamber works, L’Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale). Orion delivered the spunky rhythmic ostinatos that permeate the work’s neo-classical framework with suitable flamboyance, while Daniel tossed off the ubiquitous double-stops with grace and élan.

Although the Bach Contrapuncti may not have been an especially wise choice with which to open the program, I must admit I was impressed with the solemnity of Orion’s interpretation. The four voices were well-balanced and equally weighted, as good contrapuntal textures should be, and the ensemble’s addition of a wide variety of dynamic shifts gave emphasis and drama that transcended Bach, at times recalling late Beethoven (particularly the Grosse Fuge).

Those who follow my reviews may find it difficult to believe that it’s possible for me to dislike anything written by Johannes Brahms. For one thing, the archetypical perfectionist burned all the works (particularly his string quartets) he considered unworthy, and whatever works remained are, well, mighty good. This having been said, the String Quartet in A minor, Op.51 no.2 (1873) contains the only slow movement by Brahms (the intolerably long second movement) I wish had gone up in flames with the others.

Orion’s tempos throughout the work suggest a thorough understanding of the composer’s fondness for relaxed tempos, particularly in opening movements. Orion’s leisurely tempo during the first movement allowed the expansive melodic material to breathe and blossom, and the players used the give-and-take of tempo (rubato) to caress the phrases to great effect. Brahms also demands a warm blend of tone in his string chamber music (one of Orion’s strong suits), as well as the ability to craft playful pizzicato accompaniments to the shapely melodic lines, which Orion also does quite well.

Whatever may be lacking in the lengthy second movement is more than compensated for in the mournful third movement (Quasi Minuetto, moderato), an expressive piece of writing that is rich in warmth and pathos. The Finale, too, provided a worthy vehicle for Orion’s sensitive manner of delivery, but by this time Daniel’s pitch was beginning to drift to the flat side, which soon began to detract from the overall mesmerizing effect of Brahms’s music.

Although I was generally impressed with Orion’s delivery and perspicacity of style in the Brahms quartet, I wished their performance had that one elusive element that could have made a good performance a great performance: spontaneity. The players appeared to me to have been just a shade too tired to tackle a work of this magnitude and make it seem as though the notes were distancing themselves from the sheet music. Still, I commend the ensemble for having the good sense to place this piece at the only suitable location on the program: last.

Now, if only they’ll pay as much attention to the beginning…

Details Box:
What: Orion String Quartet
Where: Lincoln Middle School, 1613 James Street, Syracuse
When: September 24, 2011
Time: about 2 hours, with intermission
Attendance: About 400 (sold out)
Information: call (315) 446-3424
Ticket prices: Regular $25, Senior $15, Student $10
Website: syracusefriendsofchambermusic.org
Next: American Chamber Players, 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 22

Posted by David Abrams at 9/25/2011 10:37 PM | View Comments (1)

September 23 Syracuse Stage: The Turn of the Screw

Syracuse Stage’s season-opening ‘The Turn of the Screw’ well-staged, well-acted

Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaption of the Henry James novella stresses the psychological over the supernatural, and atmosphere over dramatic conflict

By David Feldman
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Feldman.html

How fitting that Syracuse Stage begins its 39th season by returning to the place where it was born, so to speak. In 1974 the company welcomed its first audience with a stunning production of Waiting for Lefty. The show’s director then was the company’s founding Producing Artistic Director, Arthur Storch. The venue was the very same Experimental Theatre, now named for Storch, where current Producing Artistic Director Timothy Bond introduced the new season’s first offering, itself a stunning production of The Turn of the Screw, on a reconfigured stage.

The Storch has always been the more intimate of the two theatres in the Syracuse Stage/Drama Department complex, but it never was experimental by any definition of the word. Up to now the Storch has been fairly conventional, with the audience space spread wide and facing the broad stage head on. Genuinely experimental or not, there’s always been an intimacy about the theatre: The audience was close up to the action and performers couldn’t help but be aware of audience response to what they were doing. Not so at the Archbold Theatre, home to Syracuse Stage now for decades. It’s thoroughly conventional. The hall is a deep rectangle with the seats going back, and back, and back some more, and then up to the balcony. The audience faces a relatively narrow proscenium-style stage way down past the front rows.

The newly reconfigured Storch retains the old horizontal seating but adds 75 seats both to the left and to the right of the stage, creating a thrust performance space with the audience seated three-quarters around it. Still intimate, but 150 more seats. And the stage itself has been lowered to floor-level.

The new arrangement is ideal for this Jeffrey Hatcher adaption of the Henry James novella. Hatcher has turned the gothic, multi-character novella into a two-person stage piece. And director Michael Barakiva takes every advantage of what the rearranged theatre has to offer.

Shoko Kambara’s open, angled set has almost no scenery. There’s one chair. There’s a chandelier hanging over the front of the stage. And there’s a three-frame window at the rear. Everything else comes to us through costumes, lighting, sound and two performers ― one playing three different roles without ever changing costume. These are tour de force performances by Kristen Sieh as the romantically inclined but sexually innocent governess who comes to a rambling old English estate, and by Curzon Dobell in the three roles.

The First Dobell is the estate owner who never visits his property and who hires the governess to go there and take charge of his young niece and nephew (but never to bother him with what’s going on there). Then, without change in costume, Dobell becomes the housekeeper who knows about the terrible past of two former servants in the place and how their erotic relationship had affected the two young children. And Dobell plays the 10-year-old boy who arrives back at the estate after having been thrown out school for being "bad" in what seems to be unspeakable ways. Oh . . . and he also is responsible for sound effects of creaking floors and muffled footsteps, and more.

The ambiguous undercurrent that propels the action centers on the question of whether these are really ghosts of the former governess and her lover, both of whom died rather gruesome deaths. Do the children really see them? Does The Governess? Or are these apparitions simply manifestations of the sexually repressed governess ― or of the too-sexually-aware young children? And what happened that caused the younger, a girl, to be unable to speak a word?

And will I answer any of these questions? Of course not. Not because I wouldn't want to give away the ending, but because beyond the standard ghost story touches of gothic setting ― innocent children put in danger (or is it not-so-innocent children putting others in danger?), creaking floors and gloomy lighting with variations of light and dark (terrific work by lighting designer Thomas C. Hase) ― there’s really not a lot in the script to send a chill up the spine or make anybody but those on stage cry out in fear of what will happen next. Things are more psychological than supernatural here.

Barakiva makes wonderful use of set and stage, as actors pace the edges of the stage as if they were balancing on the edges of sanity. They also talk to each other, to themselves and directly to us, and often address ghostly apparitions that may or may not be real. These are not the kinds of things that would have worked well on the Archbold stage. Hatcher’s is a script that stresses language over plot, atmosphere over dramatic conflict. It doesn’t fully succeed in turning turn fiction into theater, though.

The script does however provide lots of opportunities for the two performers to do fine work. Sieh is perky, piquant and sprightly ― her actions never entirely disguising her sexuality or the fact that she was romantically taken by the seductive estate owner. For his part, Dobell uses the slightest changes in mannerism and tone to change himself from the uncle of the two children into the housekeeper. Dobell simply sits, spreads the tails of his jacket over his knees and folds them across his lap, until it becomes a skirt that quite properly covers the housekeeper’s knees. Then, in another effective change, he becomes a not-so-innocent 10-year-old boy.

Suzanne Chesney’s rich and elegant costumes not only seem correct for the period, but their grayish tones reinforce the fact that there is nothing either black or white, easily true or false, going on here.

The production is more atmospheric than dramatic, but it is replete with tour de force performances, enough hint of the supernatural to make us wonder what is false or terrifyingly true, plus enormously effective staging. Call it less scary than a feast for the senses.

For its next production Syracuse Stage returns to the Archbold Theatre with The Boys Next Door while the Drama Department moves back into the Storch after using the Archbold for its production (opening Friday) of Marc Blitzstein’s 1937 The Cradle Will Rock, about unions and wicked industrialists.

Details Box:
What: The Turn of the Screw, adapted from the Henry James novel by Jeffrey Hatcher, performed by Syracuse Stage.
Where: The Storch Theatre, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse.
When: Through October 16.
Length: 1 hour and 15 minutes, without intermission.
Tickets: Adults, $28 to $50; 40 and under, $28; 18 and under, $18; student rush, $20 - 25 general public and 18 for students, subject to availability. Call 315-443-3275, or www.SyracuseStage.org.
Family guide: Some adult themes and actions.

Posted by David Abrams at 9/25/2011 5:48 PM

CD Review: Ingrid Fliter plays Beethoven Piano Sonatas

In her new Beethoven CD Ingrid Fliter stands tall among the great interpreters of the past

Move over Solomon, Bruce Hungerford, Myra Hess and Clara Haskil: The Argentine pianist (and Gilmore Artist Award recipient) has outgrown her image as a Chopin specialist

By Kevin Moore

http://cnycafemomus.com/Kevin_Moore.html

I remember words of wisdom from Anton Kuerti, one of the great Beethoven players in the world today. He said that he had two basic rules for all-Beethoven recitals: no more than one minor key sonata per program and no more than one late-period sonata. Those rules elicited some embarrassment from me when I confessed that my first all-Beethoven recital had four minor key sonatas (Op.10, no.1 in C minor; Op.111 in C minor; op.2, no.1 in F minor and the “Appasionata,” Op.57 in F minor).

Argentinian pianist Ingrid Fliter’s newly released Beethoven program on EMI Classics does violate that first rule by putting together three minor key sonatas. However, she certainly makes a persuasive case for these three sonatas as a group. They are also three of the “named” sonatas, even if only one of the names (Sonate Pathetique) was given by Beethoven.

Of the 32 standard piano sonatas of Beethoven there are only nine in minor keys, and one of those is the very short Sonata in G minor, Op.49, no.1 where, in fact, the second of its two movements is in G major. And yet the popular image of Beethoven seems rooted in works like the Fifth Symphony (in C minor), the Ninth Symphony (D minor), the Third Piano Concerto (C minor) and other works of basically dark and dramatic character. Despite that image, the predominant character of the piano sonatas is one of sheer lyricism, melodic grace, and warmth of expression.

Ingrid Fliter finds all of those things in the three sonatas of her program. In addition, the slow movements of all three sonatas are in fact in major keys and provide a built-in contrast. But what makes it work first and foremost is the playing itself.

Fliter has developed a sterling reputation as an artist of impeccable taste, possessing an instinctive, natural sense of the music. Her fame grew suddenly and internationally based on her two first recordings for EMI Classics, both of music by Chopin. Her complete Waltzes were hailed as one of the finest accounts of these pieces since Cortot and Rubinstein, an opinion that I share. Her next Chopin recording had a majestic and touching B Minor Sonata, an intensely lyrical yet powerful Fourth Ballade, and a Barcarolle with all the color and imagination one could possibly wish for.

Yet not all great Chopin interpreters have impressed in Beethoven, and vice versa. For example, as beautifully as Wilhelm Backhaus played Chopin (as evidenced in the first ever recording of the complete Etudes, and also a late recording of the “Funeral March” Sonata) his career was associated mostly with the music of Beethoven and Brahms, at least with respect to the listening public. The same could be said of Alfred Brendel who was famous for his recorded cycles of Beethoven and Schubert sonatas. Despite an early recording of Chopin Polonaises, I don’t believe he played Chopin at all during most of his career. And as well as Artur Rubinstein played Beethoven, his greatest successes, and certainly his best playing, was in the music of Chopin.

Beethoven’s music requires a sense of structure and flow that is sectional and periodic, yet cumulative. When he wrote a dynamic like “forte,” or “piano,” he generally intended that to be the general dynamic until he changed it. Not so with Chopin, whose music often requires a fluid and changing dynamic level, within even single phrases. In other words, the styles of Chopin and Beethoven are built from somewhat different aesthetics and have different views of what matters most in the music. To greatly over-simplify I could say that clarity of structure matters more in Beethoven, where beauty of timbre, shaping of phrases and the emotion of the moment matters more in Chopin. What works interpretively with one often does not with the other.

Yet in this new Beethoven CD Fliter shows that she understands all that, possibly intuitively. Her playing is not focused on the studied perfection and polish that is so often the case with younger competition-winning pianists today. Rather it makes these pieces come alive with a natural and unforced quality that underscores the very real perfection of the playing. It simply grabs the listener the way great Beethoven pieces should. Fliter brings an entirely apt integrity, depth of understanding and seriousness to these classic works.

This is truly great Beethoven playing. It brings to mind the old recordings of Solomon, Hungerford, Myra Hess or Clara Haskil.

In the first sonata on the program, the Sonata Pathetique, Op. 13, she quite rightly repeats the introductory Grave along with the Allegro di molto e con brio exposition. That puts her in the minority of recorded pianists but still in excellent company (Serkin, Kuerti, Hewitt, et al.). In that opening Grave she highlights the seriousness with quite a slow tempo, sharply etched dotted-rhythms and a truly serious sense of weight and depth of sound. The Allegro di molto e con brio is brilliant and intense, yet under firm control of rhythm and tempo. She sings the Adagio cantabile exquisitely. And the Allegro finale has exceptional weight and depth to it.

She lets the music speak for itself and take its own time, while imposing nothing willful or arbitrary on it. She lets it tell its own story, which still seems painted so vividly. Every detail registers clearly, yet all sound like a natural exposition of what the piece simply is.

In the first movement of the “Tempest” Sonata, Op.31, no.2, the contrasts in tempo, mood and intensity are the essence of it all. Her slow tempos are very slow, yet flow with exactly the right sense of proportion. The faster sections seem like extensions of the slow interruptions. The famous ghostly recitatives in this movement, which are very difficult to pedal properly, are exactly as they should be. It is all remarkably powerful and dramatic, even when soft and slow, maybe especially then. Not many pianists can “explain” this movement in so convincing a fashion.

The warmth and deep lyricism of the Adagio are remarkable. And her galloping finale is done with just the right amount of restraint to maintain the wonderful sense of passion churning just beneath the surface.

Fliter’s Appassionata can be placed among the great recordings of this sonata, and I’ve heard most of them. For me the summit of the “Appassionata” Sonata was reached most convincingly by Rudolf Serkin, Solomon and Myra Hess (and also maybe Nicholai Medtner, better known as composer than pianist). But even next to those, Fliter is dramatically convincing, serious, powerful and simply magnificent. It is the kind of artistry that makes comparisons completely irrelevant and leaves me vainly striving to put into words something that’s ineffable. You just have to listen to it.

After her two Chopin albums it was clear that the Gilmore Artist Award, which she received in 2006, was well and wisely chosen. If anything, this Beethoven CD is even finer and surely some of the finest Beethoven playing that can be found. That she seems to be pursuing an upward curve artistically is an affirmation of the good that an award like the Gilmore can do. May she long continue in the same direction! I look forward to whatever she chooses to play.

Details Box:
Genre: CD review: Ingrid Fliter, piano
What: Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Sonatas Nos. 8, 17, 23

Label: EMI Classics 0 94573 2

Release date: June 7, 2011

Posted by David Abrams at 8/16/2011 6:16 PM

August 7 Glimmerglass Festival: Double-bill opera premieres

Glimmerglass premieres of ‘Later the Same Evening’ and ‘A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck’ engaging, though little more

Both productions are entertaining and well-performed, but neither opera is likely to survive the test of time

By David Rubin