Until Saturday night this year's visit by the Mariinsky Opera had consisted only of concert performances, some scenes and excerpts and some complete operas. With the final two performances the company presented the production of Prokofiev's War and Peace directed by Andrei Konchalovsky. The Saturday performance went pretty much as expected, given the sounds of the orchestra and singers from St. Petersburg in the week before. The composer and librettist Mira Mendelson adapted this sprawling, often unwieldy, but unfailingly compelling opera from Tolstoy's novel, whittling it down mostly to a story about Natasha and her various loves and then about the folly of a foreign invader daring to attack Russia. As the composition was carried out in the later years of the Second World War, the war portions of the story, in the second half, became particularly relevant. Prokofiev was never able to get the work past the Stalinist censors, in spite of the addition of some grotesquely heavy-handed nationalist propaganda in the final version, and died without seeing it produced on the stage.
Musically, even over the course of just over four hours (which seemed shorter in both halves than it actually was), it was a beautiful evening, with Valery Gergiev showing why he is the leading conductor of this repertory, shaping the orchestra's narrative to the scope of his singers. The cast varied broadly, although even where vocal strength waned enough dramatic presence remained on the stage to make the characters work, even if the singing and accompanying orchestra were almost inaudible. As expected from their turn together in Eugene Onegin the previous weekend, Alexey Markov was all polish and internal turmoil as Prince Andrei and Ekaterina Semenchuk's sultry presence made you wish that Prokofiev had written more for Hélène. Irina Mataeva was a pretty and flighty Natasha, but without the heft necessary to the part's greatest demands, while Ekaterina Krapivina was an appropriately matched Sonya (although it was odd to see her return later as Marshal Murat's Adjutant and as Matryosha, the gypsy girl who gives up her fur coat to Anatol for his gift to Natasha -- the problem with the necessary evil of multiple casting the small roles).
Among the other larger roles, Irina Bogacheva was having too much fun as Madame Akhrosimova, Natasha and Sonya's imperious godmother, the sort of knowing performance with vocal goods to back it up that comes from a singer who has been around long enough to have been named to the order "For Services to the Fatherland" and a "People's Artist of the Soviet Union." It was once again the tenors who were least pleasing, including Sergei Skorokhodov as a bratty Anatol and the leathery and occasionally cracking Alexei Steblianko as Pierre. Alexander Nikitin had a memorable presence more physical than vocal as Napoleon, and poor Gennady Bezzubenkov had the palest sound as Field Marshall Kutuzov, making his triumphant hymn to Moscow a sotto voce affair. (On a related note, I had never noticed how much the principal theme from James Horner's soundtrack for the movie Glory resembles Kutuzov's Moscow aria.)
As for the production, it is more sparing and harshly minimalistic than epic. The famous steeply banked mound that covers the stage, its top rotating from time to time (sets designed by George Tsypin), cannot help but make the viewer nervous that a singer (or more likely dancer) will slip and plummet into the orchestra pit (as one actually did when the production debuted at the Met in 2002). It made the dance scenes, filled with Prokofiev's vibrant music, doubly beautiful, the dancers frozen in poses whirled around on the turning stage like figurines on the top of a music box. Actually a lot can be suggested by nothing more than some falling snow, a few hanging windows or door-frames or columns, some smoke, some projections, and some flashing red lights (lighting by James Ingalls). One had to laugh that the obligatory "set applause" moment in the Kennedy Center Opera House came at the opening of the second half, which consisted of a large group of singers standing on what was basically an empty stage.
The costumes (Tatiana Noginova) were colorful and remarkably detailed, especially the many uniforms of the second half. Konchalovsky's stage direction is at times disturbingly heavy-handed, matching the nationalistic fervor of the libretto, something that can make one a little uncomfortable in relation to, for example, the history of someone like Gergiev's politics. No one rode a horse onstage this time, although to have a dwarf dressed as Napoleon cross the stage, point his finger and mock the Russian prisoners, and just as inexplicably leave the stage was a Twin Peaks moment that made no sense in the midst of what is, we are surely meant otherwise to think, a serious and tragic series of events. The Mariinsky Chorus, which had sounded so potent in the concert performances, did not rise to the occasion, perhaps out of exhaustion.
Is the problem with some contemporary composers that their music is more interesting as described in the program notes than performed in actual sound? That theory trumps practice? The promising inaugural concert by the new National Gallery of Art New Music Ensemble on Sunday night, called "Changes: Seasons," presented new compositions "at the crossing point of music, architecture, technology and art," although whether that was true of what was heard is open to debate.
American composers Roger Reynolds and Steve Antosca created a program supposedly crafted to the peculiar architectural and acoustic space of the National Gallery of Art's East Building atrium. Placing speakers at strategic points throughout the building, they aimed to surround the audience with a location-specific sound, using a computer program that captures the amplified sound of instruments played by live musicians and processes it electronically into something new.
With guidance from computer musician Jaime Oliver, the computer took the squeaks and growls from Lina Bahn's violin and Alexis Descharmes's cello, the flutter-tongued purring and avian tittering of Lisa Cella's flute, the low-throated bass clarinet of Bill Kalinkos and the frantic jangle of Ross Karre's various percussion instruments and spit them back out into the room. The first time that those sounds, a digital whirr or whine or whistle, sped around the space like a comet trail, it brought a smile to one's face. After 90 minutes, one was ready to hear something else. [Continue reading]
National Gallery of Art New Music Ensemble Music by Roger Reynolds, Steve Antosca, Varèse, Xenakis National Gallery of Art
We thank guest contributor Richard Rice for this review from Baltimore.
(L to R) Dina Martire (Geneviève), Samuel Bishop (Yniold), David Morris (Arkel), Lisa Eden (Mélisande), and Nathan Wentworth (Golaud) in Impressions of Pelléas, Opera Vivente (photo by Cory Weaver)
On Saturday, Opera Vivente gave its fourth and final performance of Impressions of Pelléas, Marius Constant’s adaptation of Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. Constant’s distillation removes an hour’s worth of music and convolutes the opening two scenes into a single flashback. He reduces Debussy’s lush orchestration to its “original” piano score, arranged for two pianos. It’s hard to tell how much actual arranging this entailed, but surely not enough to warrant composer credit. Curiously, the interludes that Debussy added to cover scene changes survive the cuts, despite a static stage. In the absence of true arias and other set pieces, these interludes provide most of the dramatic drive. They are also terrific music.
Performances were generally strong. Lisa Eden brought warmth and passion to her Mélisande. The character is a puzzle, and one might have wished for more of the underlying dreaminess, so amazingly evoked by Maria Ewing in the 1992 Vienna Philharmonic recording, but the sense of repressed passion was there, along with her growing hysteria. Nathan Wentworth’s Golaud was a delight. He is a singer of precision and power, the latter perfectly nuanced for the space. The undercurrent of vulnerability in the widower, entranced enough to marry impulsively, was missing. At times, this Golaud seemed simply an abusive spouse.
Tenor Kenneth Gayle gave Pelléas both boyish naivety and mounting passion. He navigated Debussy’s chromatic recitatives with the least assurance: more assured was his final arioso, declaring his love in sumptuous diatonic terms. Mr. Gayle seemed to struggle on lower notes at times, suggesting why the role of Pelléas has been sung successfully by lyric baritones. David B. Morris brought a voice of restrained authority to Arkel. Sadly, the illusion of aged wisdom and intimate commerce with Destiny was shaken by makeup reminiscent of Arte Johnson’s Tyrone F. Horneigh. In the face of Golaud’s ravings, this Arkel came off not so much fatalistic as impotent.
Emmanuel Episcopal’s Parish Hall provided necessary intimacy for a production that focused on the interpersonal elements of Maurice Maeterlinck’s symbolist play. A spare, abstract set (designed by Thom Bumblauskas) served effectively for the various settings, but staging was necessarily limited. That might have enhanced the static nature of Maeterlinck’s drama, but John Bowen's direction kept the actors moving, not always purposefully and often distractingly. Some lighting effects (Peter Jakubowski) that were intended to be moody were simply inadequate, when characters stood in darkness or cast shadows on their costars. Costumes were of late-Victorian vintage, contemporaneous with the play and opera, if not particularly evocative of Maeterlinck’s fairy tale vision. Gowns and tails suggested a world where clandestine lovers dress to the nines to keep their midnight trysts.
There is much to be said for small-scale productions that expose audiences to classical musical theater in an intimate, cost-effective way. Surely, there are operas written specifically for such treatment, and others that can benefit from it, but when applied to a score as rich as Debussy’s and a story as inscrutable as Maeterlinck’s, the result seems more like “opera workshop” than true opera.
The final production of Opera Vivente's season, The Magic Flute, runs from May 14 to 22.
Although the Chopin anniversary seems to be getting the most press so far this year, several other composers have significant anniversaries, too, including Robert Schumann, born on June 8, 1810. The Library of Congress marked the event this week and last with concerts that included all of the composer's piano trios. No. 1 was heard at the end of last week's concert by the Altenberg Trio, which neither we nor the Washington Post reviewed, but the meat of the Schumann programming came on Friday night with the Wiener Klaviertrio. This group has impressed us before -- at Shriver Hall in 2006 and at the National Gallery in 2004 -- as three musicians of matched ability, none of them perhaps a great virtuoso but all three knowing exactly when to take a back seat in the texture and when to take the wheel. Theirs is a collaboration of dialogue and cooperation more than competitive grandstanding. That is exactly the sort of performance they gave once again, especially in the second and third of Schumann's piano trios.
The evening opened cleverly with a related work, a piano trio (G minor, op. 17) by Clara Schumann that showed the many relationships between the compositional styles of husband and wife. Clara's themes are often similarly fragmented, as in the first movement, where there is a particularly effective and dramatic bridge theme in the sonata form. The work seemed the least familiar to the performers and therefore a little rough around the edges, with pianist Stefan Mendl pushing the Allegro moderato tempo of the first movement a bit and tuning between the string players a little off in the second movement. The piece was composed at an emotionally devastating time, as Clara recovered from a miscarriage in 1846, while the Schumanns were vacationing. Except for the skipping, slightly lopsided theme of the second-movement scherzo, it is a piece deeply serious in character, well worth hearing, if not necessarily best represented by this performance.
Robert Schumann's other two piano trios, however, fared much better, with the musicians seemingly on more secure footing, the performances with a tighter sense of ensemble and direction. The inner movements of op. 80 were especially beautiful, the tender duet of Wolfgang Redik's violin and Matthias Gredler's cello finishing one another's sentences in the slow movement (Mit innigem Ausdruck) and a sultry, savvy dance movement (In mässiger Bewegnung) almost tango-like in character. The outer movements had rhythmic drive, so many unusual patterns piled up in fleeting sections, with dramatic contrasts of loud and soft and a more thoroughly understood contrapuntal sense than in the fugal section of Clara's last movement.
On the second half, at the start of Schumann's third piano trio, op. 110, cellist Matthias Gredler decided to switch bows at the last minute, perhaps because he had lost a lot of bowhair in the first half. If anything, this work from the years just before Schumann was institutionalized featured even stronger playing, the sharp, perhaps nearly toneless attack of the cello most dramatically suited. The excellent slow movement had a frenetic middle section, with an impulsive third movement knocked off its stride by strong accents, and a funny, almost clownish theme in the fourth movement altered by off-beat changes each time it was repeated. Noting a lacuna in this program of Schumann's music for piano trio, the musicians offered the third movement ("Duett") of the composer's Phantasiestücke, op. 88, as an encore.
This Friday's concert at the Library of Congress, featuring cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras and pianist Alexandre Tharaud (March 12, 8 pm), is not to be missed.
Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to good things in Blogville and Beyond.
Among the many joys of having Master Ionarts singing Evensong every Sunday with his boys' choir is that in Lent we hear him around the house singing the treble line of Wesley's Wash Me Throughly from My Wickedness. [YouTube]
Funny Tweet of the Week: "Ok...so Starbucks has the Venti, now the Trenta...can the next one be the Trentasei? And, after that, the Cuarantatre?" [Olivia Giovetti]
An exhibit called Chopin à Paris opens this week at the Cité de la musique in Paris. Meanwhile, in Warsaw, a new Chopin Museum opened on the composer's 200th birthday, in the former Ostrogski Castle, and Chopin's childhood home, in Żelazowa Wola, has been restored and reopened to the public. [Le Monde]
Another funny Tweet: "Going from the Armory Show to the @NewMuseum is like going from Macy's to Saks." [Tyler Green]
There is a new museum of the neanderthal, in Krapina, Croatia. The main exhibit is a life-like recreation of the living situation of a family group of seventeen, with the mannequins made in France by sculptor Elisabeth Daynes. Krapina is the location of one of the most important archeological finds of Homo neanderthalensis, discovered a century ago. [Le Monde]
Philip Langridge, who died Friday night, was a quiet star in the world of singers. Perhaps he wasn’t a star at all, but a talented gentleman who happened to be extraordinarily successful. Even if you count only his important recordings, he has nearly a hundred discs to his name. From Handel to Birtwistle, from Purcell to Thomas Adès -- for whose The Tempest he created the role of the King of Naples, singing it on stage throughout Europe last year. And always there was the music of Benjamin Britten— -- for whose music Langridge had a particular affinity and with whom he had worked together extensively. When Chandos recorded the great Britten operas, Philip Langridge was their Peter Pears.
His voice wasn’t ever a lush crooner’s instrument -- it was rather on the dry side. But it was very well controlled, imbued with immense artistry, and it lasted him in demanding repertoire all his 69 years. I wanted to see the Frankfurt production of The Tempest, but was sick at the time. Now I have never seen him on stage. Sad though that is, my memories of him remain strong because he was “my” Grimes. During my long struggle to grasp and appreciate -- eventually love -- Benjamin Britten, it was his recording of Peter Grimes (Chandos, 1997 Grammy winner) that opened my ears the widest. Not the classic Britten-Pears, nor the famous Vickers-Davis, but Langridge-Hickox. It had stoic nobility, complexity, it was darkly dramatic, and above all it remained surprisingly mellifluous. For once I really felt for -- and with -- the Grimes character. And thus enthralled by the character, the music offered itself with natural self-evidence.
His Billy Budd is equally good and if Death in Venice were a more popular opera, he’d be famous for that, too. His Turn of the Screw, performed alongside Felicity Lott, can be found on Naxos -- one of their many fine re-issues from the Collins Classics catalog. That’s where you also find his very worthy Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, coupled with the Nocturne, op.60, and Phaedra, op.90, where the mezzo is his wife, the equally wonderful Ann Murray.
The first disc I will put on in memory of Philip Langridge will be a Hickox-conducted collection of Gerald Finzi (Decca). The music is painfully-gently touching and it opens with “Dies Natalis.” “Rapture,” “Wonder,” and “Salutation” -- movements three through five -- are exactly what Langridge’s passing asks for. The discs ends appropriately enough with “For Saint Cecilia” -- who now warmly welcomes home one of the prouder examples of her art.
À mon chevet is a series of posts featuring a quote from whatever book is on my nightstand at the moment.
That evening the Rostovs went to the Opera, for which Marya Dmitrievna had taken a box. Natasha did not want to go, but could not refuse Marya Dmitrievna's kind offer which was intended expressly for her. When she came ready dressed into the ballroom to await her father, and looking in the large mirror there saw that she was pretty, very pretty, she felt even more sad, but it was a sweet, tender sadness. [...]
Natasha at that moment felt so softened and tender that it was not enough for her to love and know she was beloved, she wanted now, at once, to embrace the man she loved, to speak and hear from him words of love such as filled her heart. While she sat in the carriage beside her father, pensively watching the lights of the street lamps flickering on the frozen window, she felt still sadder and more in love, and forgot where she was going and with whom. Having fallen into the line of carriages, the Rostovs' carriage drove up to the theater, its wheels squeaking over the snow. Natasha and Sonya, holding up their dresses, jumped out quickly. The count got out helped by the footmen, and, passing among men and women who were entering and the program sellers, they all three went along the corridor to the first row of boxes. Through the closed doors the music was already audible. "Natasha, your hair!..." whispered Sonya.
An attendant deferentially and quickly slipped before the ladies and opened the door of their box. The music sounded louder and through the door rows of brightly lit boxes in which ladies sat with bare arms and shoulders, and noisy stalls brilliant with uniforms, glittered before their eyes. A lady entering the next box shot a glance of feminine envy at Natasha. The curtain had not yet risen and the overture was being played. Natasha, smoothing her gown, went in with Sonya and sat down, scanning the brilliant tiers of boxes opposite. A sensation she had not experienced for a long time -- that of hundreds of eyes looking at her bare arms and neck -- suddenly affected her both agreeably and disagreeably and called up a whole crowd of memories, desires and emotions associated with that feeling. [...]
Just then the last chords of the overture were heard and the conductor tapped with his stick. Some latecomers took their seats in the stalls, and the curtain rose. As soon as it rose everyone in the boxes and stalls became silent, and all the men, old and young, in uniform and evening dress, and all the women with gems on their bare flesh, turned their whole attention with eager curiosity to the stage. Natasha too began to look at it.
The floor of the stage consisted of smooth boards, at the sides was some painted cardboard representing trees, and at the back was a cloth stretched over boards. In the center of the stage sat some girls in red bodices and white skirts. One very fat girl in a white silk dress sat apart on a low bench, to the back of which a piece of green cardboard was glued. They all sang something. When they had finished their song the girl in white went up to the prompter's box and a man with tight silk trousers over his stout legs, and holding a plume and a dagger, went up to her and began singing, waving his arms about. First the man in the tight trousers sang alone, then she sang, then they both paused while the orchestra played and the man fingered the hand of the girl in white, obviously awaiting the beat to start singing with her. They sang together and everyone in the theater began clapping and shouting, while the man and woman on the stage -- who represented lovers -- began smiling, spreading out their arms, and bowing.
After her life in the country, and in her present serious mood, all this seemed grotesque and amazing to Natasha. She could not follow the opera nor even listen to the music; she saw only the painted cardboard and the queerly dressed men and women who moved, spoke, and sang so strangely in that brilliant light. She knew what it was all meant to represent, but it was so pretentiously false and unnatural that she first felt ashamed for the actors and then amused at them. She looked at the faces of the audience, seeking in them the same sense of ridicule and perplexity she herself experienced, but they all seemed attentive to what was happening on the stage, and expressed delight which to Natasha seemed feigned. "I suppose it has to be like this!" she thought.
She kept looking round in turn at the rows of pomaded heads in the stalls and then at the seminude women in the boxes, especially at Helene in the next box, who—apparently quite unclothed—sat with a quiet tranquil smile, not taking her eyes off the stage. And feeling the bright light that flooded the whole place and the warm air heated by the crowd, Natasha little by little began to pass into a state of intoxication she had not experienced for a long while. She did not realize who and where she was, nor what was going on before her. As she looked and thought, the strangest fancies unexpectedly and disconnectedly passed through her mind: the idea occurred to her of jumping onto the edge of the box and singing the air the actress was singing, then she wished to touch with her fan an old gentleman sitting not far from her, then to lean over to Helene and tickle her.
-- Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, Book VIII, chapters 8 and 9 (excerpts)
This evening is the first of two performances of Prokofiev's epic operatic setting of War and Peace, concluding the visit of the Mariinsky Theater to the Kennedy Center Opera House this month. This scene of Natasha's visit to the opera in Moscow has always made me laugh, but it is a good reminder of the hurdles an opera neophyte sometimes has to leap to achieve the necessary suspension of disbelief. What is also charming about this passage is that most of it consists of the gossip and ogling of Natasha and her neighbors in the loges, most of which I have clipped out of this quotation. You can read the whole book online at Project Gutenberg.
Is contemporary classical music—and its public appreciation—vital for classical music?
No..., not really. Rather I think there is an absolute inevitability to it. Great composers compose because they need to compose. They don’t do it to help the classical musical world, they just doit because they need to. And I must say as a performer it’s the same thing: I don’t play contemporary music because it is in fashion or because it looks good in a program, but it’s because I really need that. It’s part of the experience I absolutely need. Unless there is an absolute resistance, I will always propose some new music and it makes me very happy that more than once, and more than sometimes, people complement me and say: ‘Wow, that Kurtág piece was really what we enjoyed the most, tonight’. And that’s the thing. Which is to say: classical music, contemporary or not, will live anyway. But the second part of your question, on whether it is important that it will be recognized and that it is supported: of course I think it is important—again, because it’s a passion we want… a passion that only lives and truly lives when we make it accessible to the listener. That’s the really enjoyable part and we do always have to think and review how to make it possible for the largest possible amount of listeners to enjoy that wonderful experience that new music can be, the way we enjoy it as performers and composers.
Contemporary classical music used to be dominated by a highly ideological camp around the new serialists but has become much more inclusive in the last fifteen or so years…
Yes, yes, of course… there is always an evolution. When I started in the professional world of contemporary music, joining the InterContemporain—I had played it even before then, as a student—things had already changed a lot from when the EIC had been created a bit less than twenty years before that. The EIC was only created in the 70s, but the whole movement that went into it—Boulez, Stockhausen, and the lot—presented a sort of revolution in France, a struggle against conservatisms, a reaction against reactionaries. All these ideological struggles had subsided by the time I joined in the early 90s. I know that some people regretted that, but I always thought that was a chance for new openings and new connections between different musical worlds. And I’m very happy that I live in a time where I didn’t have to choose between Boulez and Britten. In the 60s and 70s I think in a way you were either on one side or the other. And in the 90s that wasn’t the case anymore. And that despite being in the EIC and playing a lot of avant-garde music, I was able to do my first recording for Harmonia Mundi with Benjamin Britten who was, in a way, emblematic for a composer who lived outside of his time. Who used a language that was unique, and his own, but—technically speaking—quite old fashioned.
Is there such a thing as asking too much of the listener?
“I released a CD with three contemporary concertos last year [Bruno Mantovani, Gilbert Amy, Philippe Schoeller], and much to my surprise—because I thought the debate was over by now—there was one critic who was quite angry at my choice of works because they were too difficult [they’re not], saying that we’ve had enough of those people who don’t care if people actually understand their work. In a way I understand that point… but on the other hand, why would everyone need to reach out to everyone? I understand the point” Queyras hastens to add “ that music has to be composed so that people listen to it. In a way I understand. But I also understand that Die Grosse Fuge by Beethoven definitely was—and is—an experimental piece that people might not like to listen to. And yet I think Die Grosse Fuge… if it hadn’t been composed, the whole world of classical music would be different today. It is a piece of major significance, but surely it wasn’t composed with the audience in mind. I like when there is debate, but my feeling is that… Well, I personally, as a performer, I don’t have the need to think that it is ‘right’ to play music that is more accessible or that it is cheap. Or to say that it is arrogant to compose a piece that is not accessible. Or to say that it is wonderful, because it is without compromise. What I mean to say is that each composer should do what he feels and if that’s language like Brian Ferneyhough’s: Good! Maybe it will be for, I don’t know, fifty people on the planet who listen to it day and night and say “Wow!”. Good for them. And if it’s more than that, also good. But I think it is good, also, that some pieces are written for the fewer.It doesn’t prevent the others to write differently. Well, at least not anymore. There was a time where that was the case, but that’s what I said before about being glad that I’m not living in the time of the trench warfare: “On which side are you?” I love the fact that it’s not Ferneyhough or Saariaho, but both.
Has he recorded anything with his Arcanto Quartet?
“Yes, actually. Two recordings have been released so far, also for Harmonia Mundi.Bartók String Quartets Five and Six and the Brahms c-minor Quartet coupled with the Piano Quintet. And we’ve just worked in the studio on a CD with French repertoire, due out next fall, with the usual suspects: Ravel, Debussy, and Dutilleux. It’s been done a few times, but we just wanted to do it so…”
“But I must say it’s mostly classical repertoire that we play. That’s because of the reason we started the quartet—Tabea Zimmermann and I—I said to her during a chamber music tour in Japan: It’s so sad that because we have other occupations and because we can’t enter the monastic life of quartet, we are going right past that absolutely amazing and unequalled repertoire…the quintessence of string writing by most composers has been for string quartet. So she said: let’s just get together and do it… and we loved it. And we loved it so much, we started playing on stage, too. But even now, we really play it just to be able to play all these masterworks written over those centuries, this absolutely great music. The way we chose our repertoire… everyone puts a name on the wishlist and then we see, as the opportunities come along, to add a piece to the repertoire. So now we are adding the Berg Lyric Suite.”
I bring up Webern’s Langsamer Satz and Queyras lights up: “What a fantastic piece; absolutely fantastic. Speaking of Webern… there is a wonderful concert organizer in Madrid, really an amazing and visionary guy with very impressive ideas: Louis Gago. And he almost forced us to play this crazy program which was Haydn Seven Last Words, then Webern Langsamer Satz, then Shostakovich’s 15th String Quartet—the one with eight adagios. So we told him that that’s ridiculous, that he’ll kill the audience, but we did it, because it was Louis and because we trust him. And it was one of the most amazing experiences we have ever had; something about time. Really an experience that went beyond music, almost to a metaphysical level.”
The purpose of “Rencontres Musicales de Haute-Provence”, the music festival JGQ and his brother founded when they were still students, was fulfilled when the butcher and the postman and all these people who might not have thought classical concerts ‘are for them’ started to attend. The idea of classical music ‘not being for a certain people’ gets Queyras going: “This, by the way one of the most fascinating things… how these clichés endure through time: the idea of the classical world being something very closed and reserved to an elite that is cultivated and dressed in a proper way. Maybe different from one country to another, but I experience it over and over again when I speak about it with taxi drivers in any given town. And sometimes I invite them: come to the concert tomorrow—and they say ‘Oh, but it’s not for me’… But why? All of which is to say that I think every initiative that can burst that bubble is still very much needed and welcome.”
This year, the first, open concert which we call “Journée Continue de Musique de Chambre” is on Sunday, July 15th and the festival lasts until July 30th. Of course it’s a little exaggeration because it does not really go on all day… but all afternoon and through the evening. I just hope the website—which I must admit: websites are not my forte—is up soon. Both, my website and the Festival’s, have been a bit dusty—but they are being worked on and should be OK. At least they programs should be on it now.
Chamber Music & Friendship:
“I feel so privileged that I have the possibility to play chamber music with people that I get along, personally, so well. I wouldn’t be able to do it, otherwise. It’s the same with the Arcanto Quartet. The three members are very dear friends and Alexandre is a very dear friend. What’s wonderful about a long collaboration like this is that when we start rehearsing a new piece, it’s fascinating for me to realize how there is so much that we don’t even need to talk about, that is clear from the moment. We see what the other one is doing, we see what the other one thinks, feels, and why he does this or that—and we can immediately react.”
Finally: if you could just pronounce your name for me… a few times. Queyras laughs: Yes, it’s a problem for everyone in the world, even in France. “Jean Guy-Yen Care-Us” he enunciates, very properly.
This year's visit by the performers of the Mariinsky Theater to the Kennedy Center features more concert performances than staged ones, but as remarked of their opening concert of Eugene Onegin, a good concert performance of an opera can allow the listener's imaginary perfect staging to unfold in his mind. That is less true of the least satisfying kind of concert opera performance, the hodgepodge of excerpted scenes, which is one step above the gala opera concert with a few arias slapped together. Rather than the two concerts of Russian opera scenes offered by conductor Valery Gergiev this week, on Wednesday and Thursday night, how much better would it have been to have two more complete operas, say, Prince Igor (or Khovanshchina) and Iolanta?
There was much to enjoy at both of these concerts in the Kennedy Center Opera House, but the excerpts of the operas just mentioned stood out for the particular beauty of their scores and the feeling and shape that Gergiev gave to them. On Wednesday it was Borodin's Prince Igor, from which we heard the entire second act after intermission. Ekaterina Semenchuk, the ravishing Olga from last week's Onegin gave another sultry performance as Kontchakovna, matched by the gorgeous, exotic music of the Polovtsian Dances and chorus of the handmaidens. Tenor Sergey Semishkur sounded in much better form as Vladimir than he had as Lensky on Friday night, rounding out the duet with Semenchuk in a beautiful way. Mikhail Petrenko, who had been a patrician Gremin in Onegin, showed a more aggressive side of his voice as the imperious Khan Kontchak entertaining his prisoner. Mikhail Kit, replacing the originally announced Evgeny Nikitin, was an appropriately proud Prince Igor.
Edem Umerov stood in for Nikitin as Shaklovity in the excerpt from Khovanshchina, switched from the probably more satisfying scenes from Act III and IV (which would have stretched out this already long concert even longer) to a scene from the second act. While Umerov's voice had a satisfying roar to it, especially in a resonant top, it was the chorus that stood out in the other two excerpts, especially the men as the drunken Streltsy in Khovanshchina and in the hushed prayers to the Virgin Mary, in the Rimsky-Korsakov rarity The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya, to protect the city from the advancing Tartar army. The opera is kind of a snoozer, but Gergiev brought out the master orchestrator's shimmering colors from his orchestra, especially at the conclusion, some magical instrumental effects to evoke the golden fog that rises to shroud the city. As heard on both nights, Gergiev's violins especially and the strings in general have an impressively unified sound for the most part, while the brass, potent and clear, have a tendency to lag behind his beat and the woodwinds have some intonation issues, especially in the flute and piccolo, while the English horn solos were outstanding.
Ekaterina Semenchuk (photo by Sheila Rock)
The second concert was given over to three scenes from Tchaikovsky operas, which did not add up to all that much, a concert that ended much earlier and, although it was lovely to hear at the time, seemed a little light on substance in retrospect. Part of the second act of Mazeppa, conducted recently by Gergiev at the Met, was a dramatic opening, with Edem Umerov, perhaps overly taxed by Gergiev, sounding large but a little shallow in the title role. The lovely soprano Victoria Yastrebova had a pleasant enough turn as Maria, sounding sweet and warm but a little thin at the top. Mezzo Elena Vitman was no match for the demanding part of Lyubov, although she flung her voice at the high notes with reckless daring. Nikolay Gassiev gave a hilarious character tenor rendition of the drunken Cossack in the execution scene. After the memorable staging of The Queen of Spades by the Mariinsky Theater at the Kennedy Center a couple years ago, it was slightly disappointing to be offered only the pastoral entertainment from the second act. Tchaikovsky's skillful evocation of Mozart was airy and delightful certainly, especially the soft second section of music played by the orchestra, but also the pairing of the voices of Irina Mataeva and beefy mezzo Zlata Bulycheva.
Ultimately what had drawn most people in the hall, which was still somewhat surprisingly not sold out, was a rare appearance in Washington by superstar soprano Anna Netrebko. She entered the stage, in a striking turquoise Valentino gown, at the appropriate point in the final selection from Iolanta. Some of the best singing we have heard from Netrebko was on her Russian Album, made with Gergiev and the orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater, which included a section of this gorgeous opera, not well known outside of Russia. Indeed, Netrebko scored a big success in the Mariinsky production of it, and it was disappointing to hear only a rather short section of it. She was seconded brilliantly by Alexey Markov, the fine Onegin from Friday night, as Robert and less so by tenor Sergey Skorokhodov as Vaudémont -- an earnest sound, slightly indistinct of pitch because of a nervous flutter but overall a pretty, light sound. In short, Netrebko's appearance felt like little payoff for a lot of build-up.
The real climax of the Mariinsky Theater's visit is this weekend's staging of Prokofiev's epic operaWar and Peace(March 6 and 7), in the Kennedy Center Opera House. This is the recent production directed by Andrei Konchalovsky for the Mariinsky Theater, featuring a cast of two hundred, with all of the sets and costumes brought from St. Petersburg in a coup of advance planning and transportation rivaling the Napoleonic invasion itself. Tickets are sold out, but call the box office directly to inquire about cancellations.
When the young British choral group Stile Antico made their recording debut with Harmonia Mundi, it was with a disc of motets by the two acknowledged masters of English Renaissance polyphony, Tallis and Bird, plus a few selections by Sheppard. They went back for more Byrd and Tallis in their 2008 disc, Heavenly Harmonies, and although I have yet to hear their 2009 release, a collection of motets on texts from Song of Songs by Palestrina, Guerrero, Gombert, Victoria and Lassus, it received lots of awards and critical accolades. The group's latest release returns to the third composer on the debut CD, a composer less known but no less worth knowing. John Sheppard (c. 1515-1558) was a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal at roughly the same time as Tallis, but Sheppard's choral music was never published, circulating in a very limited way in manuscript form. As a result, eventually choirs no longer performed Sheppard's music as Anglican music evolved in style. Even attempts to revive his music in the 20th century ran up against incomplete and confusing sources that made scholarly reconstruction difficult.
Although two competing collected works editions were published, Stile Antico has instead prepared its own performing editions. The overall sound is in keeping with the group's recordings so far, impeccable intonation (startling in the many cross-relations) and blend (the tendency of a bass or two to growl at the bottom of large textures less noticeable here) and especially a clarity of the soprano lines, which are often suspended far above the more densely packed lower lines. The plainchant, remaining more commonly in alternatim arrangement with polyphonic sections in the Sarum use, is performed with somewhat greater vitality in this disc (better in Gaude gaude gaude Maria than in the somewhat overly solemn Te Deum). For Lenten listening one could hardly do better than Sheppard's monumental but austere setting of the Lenten antiphon Media vita (also found in the Office for the Dead, not least in the English translation of the Book of Common Prayer), an immense, complex polyphonic wrapping for the simple chanting of the Nunc dimittis (the three verses, unusual for an antiphon, found here in the version associated only with Sarum books).
Christoph Eschenbach, incoming music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, is also advising on the music programming of the entire Kennedy Center, and the announcement of the 2010-11 season, reported on by Anne Midgette today in the Washington Post, was big news. Frankly the chamber music offerings announced so far look like more of the same -- certainly good but nothing all that exciting to report. As for the NSO the season-long focus on Beethoven struck me as underwhelming, given that Marin Alsop did a Beethoven symphony cycle in her 2008-09 season. All of the Beethoven piano concerti again, and with somewhat less than thrilling soloists (Nikolai Lugansky and Radu Lupu excepted, the latter with Gianandrea Noseda at the helm for his NSO debut). Pretty much any other composer for this sort of extended scrutiny -- other than Rachmaninoff or Tchaikovsky, it probably goes without saying -- would have been more interesting.
Anne highlighted the first performances of some contemporary pieces, but frankly the composers chosen (Pintscher, Golijov, Augusta Read Thomas) are not among my favorites. The most exciting of these premieres is a new work commissioned from Peter Lieberson, which will feature on a program with Tzimon Barto playing the Gershwin piano concerto in F. I will also be glad to hear Magnus Lindberg's Parada (although a more substantial piece would have been better), especially as conducted by Susanna Mälkki, even if the rest of the program is a dud. Eschenbach's programming for the Kennedy Center's India festival will include not only Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie (with Cédric Tiberghien on the piano and Tristan Murail on on the ondes Martenot) and Zemlinksy's Lyric Symphony (with Matthias Goerne) but also the suite from Roussel's quirky opera-ballet Padmâvatî.
Some other interesting programming includes a Bruckner 6 and a Prokofiev 6 (a powerful work), some Mahler (the fifth symphony and Kindertotenlieder with Nathalie Stultzmann, the fourth symphony). Sergey Khachatryan will return to the NSO, playing Shostakovich's second violin concerto. That work is paired with Sibelius's first symphony, and the Finnish composer's En Saga features on another program with Nielsen's fourth symphony. Why not a season-long focus on Sibelius instead, please? Finally, some other guest conductors promise to be well worth the price of admission: Rinaldo Alessandrini will lead next year's Messiah (!), and Vladimir Ashkenazy will conduct Shostakovich's tenth symphony, paired with Steven Isserlis playing the Walton cello concerto.
What will the NSO sound like under Christoph Eschenbach, and how will his tenure be accepted by the orchestra? The test case comes next week with the conductor's first concerts with the orchestra since his appointment, a performance of Verdi's epic Requiem Mass (March 11 to 13). Soloists will be Twyla Robinson (soprano), Mihoko Fujimura (mezzo-soprano), Nikolai Schukoff (tenor), and Evgeny Nikitin (bass-baritone), with the Washington Chorus on the choral part.
Rafał Blechacz, the impossibly young Polish pianist who scored a triumph at the 2005 Chopin Competition in Warsaw, made his long-awaited Washington recital debut on Saturday afternoon, hosted by WPAS in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. A sold-out house including the Polish Ambassador and his wife was certainly not disappointed by the level of playing, virtuosity that was often (if not always) stunning and musicality that, while not fully formed in some pieces, was well developed for a player at this point in his career and likely to mature in ways that will make Blechacz a pianist to watch for years to come. As stated in my preview article, there is no doubt that Blechacz can play Chopin. He is not likely to supplant my favorite living players of Chopin, with Evgeny Kissin and Maurizio Pollini (who will play an all-Chopin recital here on April 15) at the top, but his rhythmically unbending and alternately driven and tender interpretation of Chopin matches my own feelings about the composer's music quite closely.
The second half, devoted to Chopin (who maintained that his birthday was yesterday, March 1), began with a somewhat unremarkable performance of the third ballade (A♭ major, op. 47). Blechacz applied rubato to this music, of course, but by using it sparingly he made those passages that were treated with some rhythmic freedom stand out more. Refreshingly he was often unyielding in terms of tempo, no matter the technical demands, even in the outer sections of the B minor scherzo (op. 20), which were ruthlessly driven and sounded almost manic. The middle section, fragile and melancholy, was matched in poetic intensity by the final piece, a dreaming wandering rendition of the A♭ major polonaise-fantaisie, marked by a few savage passages (and an awkwardly self-conscious concluding touchdown gesture). A single encore, the A minor mazurka (op. 17/4), completed the picture of what set Blechacz so far above his competition in Warsaw -- not solely the brutal technical accomplishment and more the native familiarity with Polish folk music and dance forms and an unpredictable sense of melodic fancy.
The rest of the program was not always as convincing, no less technically accomplished but without the same ease of interpretation from movement to movement. A Bach partita (B♭ major, BWV 825) was the best on the first half, with an easy-paced prelude, an overly fast Allemande (which undermined the impact of the following Courante), and a head-spinning Gigue with flawless hand-crossings. Blechacz brought out some charming contrapuntal voicings between the hands in the first minuet, although it was odd that he chose not to repeat it after the second minuet (or most of the B sections of any of the dances). Blechacz gave a fortepiano-like sound with a light touch in the Mozart sonata (B♭ major, K. 570), a little scattered by an Allegro too close to Presto in the first movement, but with a delicate, not too slow second movement and, best of all, a clownish, Haydnesque approach to the brief third movement. Debussy's Pour le piano was the least satisfying, revealing the greatest number of cracks in Blechacz's technical armor, mostly in the first movement. The second movement was the most colorful, infused with the same graceful sense of Baroque dance as in the Bach sarabande. Unlike the best of the Chopin selections, it was very good but not excellent.
The next piano recital hosted by WPAS will feature Russian pianist Vladimir Feltsman, playing a program centered on Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (March 26, 8 pm) in the Music Center at Strathmore.
Valery Gergiev brought the orchestra and singers of the Mariinsky Theater back to Washington this weekend, to help celebrate the Kennedy Center's Focus on Russia program. It is a sign of the times, unfortunately, that the two-week visit features only two staged performances, of Prokofiev's War and Peace (March 6 and 7). Concert performances have generally been a part of the Mariinsky Theater's programming here, but this time four of six performances are not staged. During the 2007 installment of the Mariinsky (Kirov Opera)'s residency at the Kennedy Center, Gergiev was conducting performances here while shuttling back and forth to the Met to conduct their production of War and Peace. The indefatigable, some might say overstretched conductor has not slowed down one bit: the date of the first concert performance, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, had to be moved up by one day to accommodate Gergiev's trip to Vancouver, to conduct at the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics.
If this particular concert performance of Tchaikovsky's masterful opera seemed a little familiar, it is because Leonard Slatkin conducted the work in a concert performance at the end of his tenure with the National Symphony Orchestra. In fact, his two female leads were the same as those cast by Gergiev: the beautiful if somewhat vocally wan Irina Mataeva (Tatyana) and the molten, gutsy mezzo of Ekaterina Semenchuk (Olga). Both were essentially as I remember them in that performance, Semenchuk a vocal revelation especially at the bottom of her voice and Mataeva lovely but lacking that last bit of vocal oomph to make a great Tatyana. Here she seemed to be intentionally under-singing in the first two acts, either to characterize the younger Tatyana's voice as more girl-like or simply to conserve her strength, and had a much fuller, rounder sound in Act III, still a little strained and unpredictable at the top.
The truly excellent Alexey Markov was a vast improvement over Slatkin's Onegin, Sergei Leiferkus, a rich, dark baritone with mellifluous legato and perfect joining of registers. The Lensky of Sergey Semishkur was the weak link, a pleasant tone that turned slightly nasal, with a noticeable strain that made the intonation sag flat, more or less depending on the situation (painful in the counterpoint with Onegin in the duel scene). The supporting cast was particularly fine, the warm, maternal Elena Vitman (Tatyana's nurse, Filipyevna) and the sturdy and stately Svetlana Volkova (Madame Larina) both overshadowed by the refined and resonant Gremin of Mikhail Petrenko. Character tenor Andrey Popov had a humorous turn as Monsieur Triquet, although not quite as charming as Robert Baker's with the NSO.
In many ways, the best part of this performance was the conducting of Gergiev, giving delectable shape to the melodic lines and always gauging the balance of the orchestra, positioned on the stage rather than in the pit, according to the heft of each singer. He captured the melancholy of Tanya's recurring theme, with that quicksilver, baton-less hand flutter, giving each statement an independent identity. The Mariinsky Theater's orchestra played exceptionally well, especially in the brilliant dance music of the second act, following Gergiev's mercurial tempo and rubato changes with only a few disjunctions of the brass and violins, as in the ball scene that opens the third act. The vocal performances were so good, with a few exceptions, that one may have wished for a staging, but sometimes concert opera, which allows that perfect production in the listener's mind to unfold as the imagined visual component, has a definite appeal.
We had to miss the second performance, of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, but the Mariinsky Theater's visit continues this week with concert performances of excerpts of Russian operas (March 3 and 4), including the Mariinsky's one-time product and now superstar, soprano Anna Netrebko, as Iolanta on Thursday. There is a special offer, two tickets for the price of one, to the Wednesday concert: mention offer number 48074 if you purchase over the phone.
Bach’s St. John Passion with a star-studded lineup of soprano Johennette Zomer, countertenor Andreas Scholl, tenor Mark Padmore, and bass Klaus Mertens, conducted by Ton Koopman, was bound to be—and indeed was—an enjoyable affair. A little over two years ago the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra performed the B-minor Mass with him, now they tackled the ‘smaller’ Passion.
The woodwind voices of the massive opening (from the usually performed 1724/49 version) stood out above a muted sea of irresistible basso continuo and strings that surged only to sweep the chorus to its entry. Stoic Joachim Held’s lute and gambist Frederike Heumann were more visual than an acoustic nod to historical performance practice. Only during the arias and the long bass arioso “Betrachte, meine Seele”—joined by a duo of viole d’amore—did they come to the fore. The reduced modern instrument forces of the orchestra crafted a fine mix of delicate restraint and liveliness—if more of the former than the latter.
Andreas Scholl’s first of two arias, “Von den Stricken meiner Sünden”, was effortful beauty—if one puts it kindly. With ungainly strain in the high notes, this far below what we know he is capable of from his two (three, if you count a dutch version) commercial recordings (Corboz and Herreweghe II in the 1725 version). “Es ist vollbracht”, the second time the alto ‘soloist’ is called upon, was much improved. Johannette Zomer, that energetic Bach siren, was her uniquely enchanting best. Strident, her voice is, even piercing perhaps—but never harsh. Klaus Mertens remains the unflinching, sonorous gentleman bass who never resorts to rumbling as some colleagues his age do.
Mark Padmore stood out even amid the impressive quartet (a quintet, if we count the pleasantly resonant Mathias Hausmann who acquitted himself impressively of his Pilatus-duties). Padmore was agile and expressive, extraordinarily strong-voiced, and delivered his part with baritonal comfort. Even as some of this security deteriorated toward the end, he still finished at a level most evangelists don’t ever reach. The BR Chorus, the jewel at the heart of this concert, is uniquely suited for such large-but-detailed choral performances… and the joy of singing Bach in some of their faces was of prayer-like beauty.
Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to good things in Blogville and Beyond.
A major exhibit on a favorite painter, Caravaggio, opened recently at the Scuderie del Quirinale, in Rome. Yes, it's another anniversary to celebrate -- Caravaggio died on July 18, 1610, 400 years ago this year. The exhibit is not large -- 24 of the 64 large canvases generally attributed to him -- but it is an impressive collection of masterpieces, including one that has never been allowed to travel -- the Entombment of Christ, sent across the city by the Vatican. [Le Figaro]
Every few years scientists make grand pronouncements about music or art, unfortunately sometimes in ways that show an embarrassing lack of knowledge of those things. A few years ago, some were on the bandwagon that tonality appeals to human ears because it is based on natural laws of sound, a pseudo-scientific dodge of countless historical problems (an issue one thinks would have been solved after Kenneth Levy shattered the theory). Now there is a book by Philip Ball supposedly using neurological findings to show that the human brain instinctively likes tonal music because it is based on "structure and patterns." This must explain, goes this half-baked theory, why audiences do not like Schoenberg. Of course, as anyone knows who has actually studied the music itself, Schoenberg's 12-tone music is obsessively based on patterns and rigorous structure. According to this reasoning, Schoenberg should be the sort of music our brains like the most. [The Telegraph]
Turkish pianist Fazil Say refused to be part of the programming of the offical Year of Turkey in France, which concludes next month. In a letter he blamed the Turkish government, in particular the AKP or Justice and Development Party, for having "censored his work." This goes back to 2007 and Say's Requiem Mass for Metin Altiok (1941-1993), which the Turkish culture minister did not allow to be performed with the projection of images relating to the poet's assassination. Since Say's critical response to the incident was published, he has received death threats and one of his concerts in Munich was reportedly canceled because of the danger of some kind of retaliation. [Le Monde]
On a not unrelated note, Algeria is not really celebrating the anniversary this year of the death of Albert Camus. A text given the title "Alert to Anticolonial Consciences" was sent to editors, university professors, and journalists to denounce the Camus anniversary, seen as an attempt "to rehabilitate the discussion of French Algeria." Seven Algerian cities were to have hosted Camus celebrations, but requests for funding made to the Algerian cultural ministry have not received any response. French cultural institutions in Algeria, one diplomat admits, are keeping a low profile and "staying underground." [Le Monde]
A new Giant Pacific octopus has arrived at the National Zoo: an "octopus cam" has been promised. [DCist]
To Alex Ross's Top 10 List of Glissandos, in honor of Xenakis Week, I would add the detumescent trombone slide at the end of the rape of Aksinya in Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. No luck finding a clip of that scene. [Unquiet Thoughts]
March 11, 2010 (Thu) 8 pm Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Music by Poulenc, Bartók, Satie, Copland Meyerhoff Symphony Hall (Baltimore, Md.)
March 11, 2010 (Thu) 8 pm Verdi, Rigoletto Baltimore Opera Theater
March 11, 2010 (Thu) 8 pm Strauss, Die Fledermaus Peabody Chamber Opera (Baltimore, Md.)
March 12, 2010 (Fri) 7:30 pm Inna Faliks, piano Embassy Series Embassy of Ukraine
March 12, 2010 (Fri) 7:30 pm Bach, St. Mark Passion (reconstruction by Malcolm Bruno) Cathedra Washington National Cathedral
March 12, 2010 (Fri) 7:30 pm Terrence McNally, Nights at the Opera: Golden Age Washington premiere (continues through April 4) Kennedy Center Family Theater
March 12, 2010 (Fri) 8 pm Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello) and Alexandre Tharaud (piano) [FREE] Music by Debussy, Poulenc, Schubert Library of Congress
March 12, 2010 (Fri) 8 pm National Symphony Orchestra Verdi, Requiem Mass (Christoph Eschenbach, conductor) Kennedy Center Concert Hall
March 12, 2010 (Fri) 8 pm Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Music by Poulenc, Bartók, Satie, Copland Meyerhoff Symphony Hall (Baltimore, Md.)
March 12, 2010 (Fri) 8 pm Puccini, Tosca Annapolis Opera
March 12, 2010 (Fri) 8 pm Strauss, Die Fledermaus Peabody Chamber Opera (Baltimore, Md.)
March 13, 2010 (Sat) 7:30 pm Bizet, Carmen Opera Bel Cantanti Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington (Rockville, Md.)
March 13, 2010 (Sat) 8 pm National Symphony Orchestra Verdi, Requiem Mass (Christoph Eschenbach, conductor) Kennedy Center Concert Hall
March 13, 2010 (Sat) 8 pm American Chamber Players: Paris in the 20s Dumbarton Concerts
March 13, 2010 (Sat) 8 pm Fairfax Symphony Orchestra With Alon Goldstein, piano George Mason University Center for the Arts
March 13, 2010 (Sat) 8 pm Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Music by Poulenc, Bartók, Satie, Copland Music Center at Strathmore
March 13, 2010 (Sat) 8 pm Narek Hakhnazaryan, cello Candlelight Concert Series Smith Theater, Howard Community College (Columbia, Md.)
March 13, 2010 (Sat) 8 pm Strauss, Die Fledermaus Peabody Chamber Opera (Baltimore, Md.)
March 14, 2010 (Sun) 3 pm Left Bank Concert Society [FREE] Music by Beethoven, Kirchner, Schoenberg Smithsonian American Art Museum
March 14, 2010 (Sun) 3 pm Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Music by Poulenc, Bartók, Satie, Copland Meyerhoff Symphony Hall (Baltimore, Md.)
March 14, 2010 (Sun) 3 pm Alexandria Symphony Orchestra With Elizabeth Bishop (soprano) and Ta’u Pupu’a (tenor) Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall (Alexandria, Va.)
March 14, 2010 (Sun) 3 pm Bizet, Carmen Opera Bel Cantanti Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington (Rockville, Md.)
March 14, 2010 (Sun) 3 pm Puccini, Tosca Annapolis Opera
March 14, 2010 (Sun) 4 pm Brahms, Ein deutsches Requiem Maryland Choral Society George Washington Masonic Memorial (Alexandria, Va.)
March 14, 2010 (Sun) 4 pm Emily Deans (viola) and Julio Elizalde (piano) [FREE] Phillips Collection
March 14, 2010 (Sun) 7:30 pm Smithsonian Chamber Music Society Music by Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart National Museum of American History
March 14, 2010 (Sun) 7:30 pm Duruflé, Requiem Mass (Poulenc, Litanies de la Vierge Noire) City Choir of Washington Cathedral of St. Thomas More (Arlington, Va.)
Until Saturday night this year's visit by the Mariinsky Opera had consisted only of concert performances, some scenes and excerpts and some complete operas. With the final two performances the company presented the production of Prokofiev's War and Peace directed by Andrei Konchalovsky. The Saturday performance went pretty much as expected, given the sounds of the orchestra and singers from St. Petersburg in the week before. The composer and librettist Mira Mendelson adapted this sprawling, often unwieldy, but unfailingly compelling opera from Tolstoy's novel, whittling it down mostly to a story about Natasha and her various loves and then about the folly of a foreign invader daring to attack Russia. As the composition was carried out in the later years of the Second World War, the war portions of the story, in the second half, became particularly relevant. Prokofiev was never able to get the work past the Stalinist censors, in spite of the addition of some grotesquely heavy-handed nationalist propaganda in the final version, and died without seeing it produced on the stage.
Among the other larger roles, Irina Bogacheva was having too much fun as Madame Akhrosimova, Natasha and Sonya's imperious godmother, the sort of knowing performance with vocal goods to back it up that comes from a singer who has been around long enough to have been named to the order "For Services to the Fatherland" and a "People's Artist of the Soviet Union." It was once again the tenors who were least pleasing, including Sergei Skorokhodov as a bratty Anatol and the leathery and occasionally cracking Alexei Steblianko as Pierre. Alexander Nikitin had a memorable presence more physical than vocal as Napoleon, and poor Gennady Bezzubenkov had the palest sound as Field Marshall Kutuzov, making his triumphant hymn to Moscow a sotto voce affair. (On a related note, I had never noticed how much the principal theme from James Horner's soundtrack for the movie Glory resembles Kutuzov's Moscow aria.)
= recommended
