La Maledizione, Hon

Charles T. Downey, Lyric Opera of Baltimore presents a worthwhile ‘Rigoletto’
Washington Post, May 20, 2013

Verdi, Rigoletto, D. Damrau, J. D. Flórez, Ž. Lučić, Semperoper Dresden, F. Luisi (Virgin, 2010) [READ REVIEW / YouTube]

The world celebrates the 200th anniversary of Giuseppe Verdi’s birth this October, but opera companies hardly need any encouragement to stage the Italian composer’s works. Lyric Opera of Baltimore’s staging of “Rigoletto,” heard on Friday night at the Modell Performing Arts Center at the Lyric, offered another chance to appreciate the mastery of Verdi’s first great achievement, given its premiere at Venice’s Teatro La Fenice in 1851.

This Baltimore production offered many excellent qualities, beginning with the powerful and emotionally intense performance of baritone Stephen Powell in the title role. Verdi’s masterful characterization of Rigoletto makes the viewer both dislike and sympathize with the spiteful court jester, and Powell captured both sides of this complex role. As the loathsome Duke of Mantua, tenor Bryan Hymel, a recent winner of both the Beverly Sills and Olivier awards, displayed a ringing top, if not always quite so much elegance at the bottom, and he also drew out the role’s hard-to-find sympathetic qualities.
[Continue reading]

Verdi, Rigoletto
Lyric Opera of Baltimore
Patricia and Arthur Modell Performing Arts Center at the Lyric

SEE ALSO:
2008 production, Washington National Opera (plus second cast)

In Brief: Almost Wagner's Birthday Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio, online video, and other good things in Blogville and Beyond. (After clicking to an audio or video stream, press the "Play" button to start the broadcast.)

• From the Musikverein in Vienna (video embedded at right), Daniele Gatti leads a performance of Rossini's Petite Messe Solenelle with the Orchestre National de France and the Singverein der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien, plus soloists Barbara Frittoli, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Saimir Pirgu, and Carlo Colombara. [France Musique]


• To mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Paul Hindemith, Markus Poschner conducts the Munich Radio Orchestra and Chorus in the composer's When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom'd. [BR-Klassik]


• Here is a concert of music by Bach and Telemann performed by Concerto Köln, recorded last summer in the Kirche Orp-le-Grand in Orp-Jauche. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Alexandre Tharaud plays Ravel's piano concerto for the left hand with the Orchestra National de France, with Daniele Gatti also conducting performances of Stravinsky's Petrushka (the 1947 version) and Ravel's second suite from Daphnis et Chloé, recorded last month at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. [France Musique]


• Watch Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic at the Dresden Music Festival, where they performed Christopher Rouse's Prospero's Rooms and Magnus Lindberg's Kraft in Volkswagen's Die Gläserne Manufaktur. [Medici.tv]


• Riccardo Chailly leads the Bavarian Radio Orchestra and Chorus in Liszt's Faust-Symphony and Edgard Varèse's Arcana. [BR-Klassik]


• Soprano Juliane Banse joins the Quatuor Voce for Berg's Seven Early Songs and the world premiere of Graciane Finzi's Mademoiselle Else, a chamber opera for string quartet and voice, plus quartets by Mendelssohn and Berg. [France Musique]


• Hans-Christoph Rademann leads the Dresdner Barockorchester and Dresdner Kammerchor in a performance of Heinrich Schütz's Psalmen Davids, with soloists Dorothee Mields, David Erler, George Poplutz, and Stephan MacLeod, recorded last October in the Frauenkirche in Dresden. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• At the Conservatoire de Boulogne-Billancourt, the Maîtrise de Radio France performs some recent choral music by Patrick Burgan, Alain Louvier, Bernard de Vienne, Vincent Bouchot, Gabriel Sivak, and Guillaume Connesson, with Denis Comtet at the piano and organ. [France Musique]


• Paavo Järvi leads the HR-Sinfonieorchester in Nielsen's fourth symphony, Edvard Grieg's Norwegian Dances, and Tchaikovsky's violin concerto with Janine Jansen as soloist, recorded last month in the Alten Oper Frankfurt. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• A recital of songs by Fauré, Hahn, Koechlin, and Duparc with mezzo-soprano Marie-Nicole Lemieux and pianist Roger Vignoles, recorded in the auditorium of the Musée d’Orsay. [France Musique]


• Tenor Mauro Peter and pianist Helmut Deutsch perform a song recital, including music by Schubert, Beethoven (An die ferne Geliebte), and Robert Schumann (Dichterliebe), recorded earlier this month in Hohenems. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• The Belcea Quartet, pianist Fazil Say, and friends perform a benefit concert in memory of Mihaela Ursuleasa, recorded last month at the Wiener Konzerthaus. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Mezzo-soprano Wilke te Brummelstroete joins the Brussels Philharmonic for a program of music by Stravinsky and Schoenberg, recorded at the Cité de la Musique last month. [France Musique]


• A rebroadcast of Handel's Giulio Cesare from the Metropolitan Opera with Natalie Dessay, David Daniels, and Alice Coote. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Leonardo García Alarcón conducts his ensemble Cappella Mediterranea in a program of early Baroque music by Sigismondo d'India and others, recorded in February at Ambronay. [France Musique]


• The Irish Baroque Orchestra and friends perform at the Internationale Barocktage Stift Melk, with music by Corelli, Torelli, Bertali, and others. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• From the Festival of Chopin and His Europe in 2011, Michal Szymanowski joins the Wroclaw Philahrmonic Orchestra for a concerto and other pieces by Paderewski, plus some other music. [France Musique]


• Listen to this 1984 recording of Ferenc Erkel's opera Hunyadi László, starring Andras Molnar, Sylvia Sass, and Denes Gulyas (Hunyadi Laszlo), with the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Janos Kovács. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Listen to the concert featuring the winners of the Concours de musique de chambre de Lyon, recorded last month. [France Musique]

It's Raining Cats and Cash

There's a cool rain falling in New York City, at the Museum of Modern Art. The Rain Room, by Random International, is a field of falling water that pauses wherever a human body is detected: there may be no need to carry an umbrella again. Think of yourself as Moses. I don't know how many sensors it takes to run this project, but it's quite interesting and fun. The faster you walk, the more you actually get a bit wet. This will be a very popular exhibit once New York starts to heat up.

Also at MoMA is, Claes Oldenburg: The Street and the Store. This is a wonderful collection of early works, made with wire, fabric, and plaster, proving that some of the best art can be made simply and quite raw. These Oldenburgs reminded me of the early work of Red Grooms, also working in NYC at this time, and some of his best, too. With success many artists have their work professionally fabricated, especially large commissions, which tends to lose the quirky spontaneity. But here at the beginning it was pure inspiration-in, inspiration-out: it had soul.

By contrast there is a two mega-gallery expo, at David Zwirner and Gagosian Gallery, by Jeff Koons that is the antithesis of the Oldenburg exhibit. It's big, it's gaudy, and about as superficial as art can get today and selling briskly for lots of cash. Something that Zwirner has avoided until now are the armies of security guards that every Gagosian exhibit has. This is his first time showing Koons, which in itself created a stir. Zwirner had only one guard during my visit, which may be a requirement to show the artist's work. The guard-ification of galleries is just creepy.

To pile on to this saga, the irrepressible and often wonderfully sick artist Paul McCarthy, in Koons fashion, is showing some very large work at Hauser & Wirth. He was also the creator of a big red Koons-like inflatable, Balloon Dog, that greeted visitors to the recent Frieze Art Fair in New York. The always dependable Roberta Smith nails the battle of the big boy's toys.

Everyone likes a little spectacle now and then. I thought the Koons mix up at the Versailles Palace in 2009 was perfect, excess beyond all excess. Maybe we are in need a revolution!

Craving some simple elegance I headed over to Lori Bookstein for a second time to see Elena Sisto's closely cropped figure paintings. Pared down to the necessities, pattern and form, total bliss.

I can walk all over New York, see hundreds of works of art, and often it's the unexpected that sticks in my mind. Not big, flaming, or loud, just sublime goodness. I found that at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, in Eleanor Ray's small, 4x4" painting Charlotte's Studio with Sheets. Ray's work is included in a six artist exhibit. I left purged and happy.

Dip Your Ears, No. 138 (Mendelssohn Organ Works)

F.Mendelssohn-B., Organ Works Yuval Rabin (Braun/Mathis organ of St.Marzellus, CH) MDG

Felix Mendelssohn B. was fond of organs and organ music and wrote idiomatically for the instrument. You just can’t hear it in his other compositions (think Bruckner, for contrast), and since you just about never hear Mendelssohn’s organ music in recital or concert either, that part of his output—limited as it is—remains ignored. A pity, I suppose, since his organ writing, like so much of Mendelssohn in any genre, can be uncommonly attractive. In the best of his organ works, he melds his gift for tunes with the structure of Bach—most of all in the wholly winning Three Preludes and Fugues (written and revised between 1833 and 1837) that open this collection.

Before delving into two of Mendelssohn’s six sonatas, Israeli organist and Mendelssohn-expert Yuval Rabin throws in the sweetly angelic Andante in D major (1844) and the brief adventurous double-Fugue of the Andante in G minor (1833). He commands the light and brightly colorful instrument of picturesque St. Marzellus in Gersau (idyllically situated on the shore of Lake Lucerne)—painstakingly restored to its original early 19^th century state just last year, mechanical action, wedge-bellows, and all—and therefore an organ very much of Mendelssohn’s time.

Comparing this recital to a recent release of Mendelssohn’s Organ Sonatas (William Whitehead, Chandos 10532), simply because it happens to be the latest one I’ve heard and was on hand, suggests first and foremost a repertoire-advantage: Switching it up, rather than focusing just on the six 1844 sonatas, makes for a much more varied and interesting program. The sound breathes naturally in the fairly short but open reverb and natural resonance of St. Marzellus, which compares nicely to the small, slightly dull sound of the Buckingham Palace organ with its domestic ring and nasal registrations.

The second of the six opus 65 Sonatas opens with a distinctive, stark motif of separate two-note cells before moving on to the much more melodic, simple, and lyrical character in the Adagio and then cumulating in the complex, busy fugue of the Allegro. The simple F major Andante loosens things up one more time before Rabin gets to work on the fourth Sonata in B-flat major: First a stern toccata (with hints of “St.Anne” / BWV 552), then an Andante religioso (with premonitions of “England’s Lane”), and—penultimately—a particularly delightful and minimally, charmingly voiced*, elegant Allegretto.

The recital closes with Ersatz-Mendelssohn of sorts: Rabin’s Hommage à Mendelssohn is a highly enjoyable set of four Variation-improvisations on the song “Yedid Nefesh” in the style of Mendelssohn… the sort of thing he often does in concerts—especially, he writes in the liner notes—those on Friday, before the Sabbath.

The liner notes are superb: every bit of information an organ aficionado could look for—including the voicing of each individual track (* Hauptwerk: sub-octave coupled Waldflaute 4’, Positif: Gamba 8’, Pedal: Sub Bass 16’, Violoncello 8’ in the above mentioned Allegretto from Sonata No.4, for example)—is included, the notes are informative, and the translation faultless. If you happen to be set up for SACD and MDG’s three dimensional sound (“2+2+2”, four front speakers; two low, two high, and two in the rear) you can enjoy the release’s already excellent sonics in even greater plasticity.

Summer Music Festivals: U.S.

Soprano Angela Meade

What would Ionarts be covering this summer if we had an unlimited travel budget? Here are our picks for the best performances of opera and classical music being presented by American summer festivals.

CINCINNATI OPERA
This may be the summer for my first visit to Cincinnati Opera, primarily because Angela Meade will be the Donna Anna in their production of Don Giovanni (June 13 and 15), and Michelle DeYoung will be the Amneris in their Aida (July 18 to 28), but also for the chance to see Philip Glass's Galileo Galilei (July 11 to 21). There is also Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier (June 27 and 29), in which Sarah Coburn should make a scrumptious Sophie.

OPERA THEATER OF ST. LOUIS
We have not been to St. Louis since 2005, but the chance to see a staging of Smetana's The Kiss (June 16 to 28) might make a trip worthwhile. The rest of the season is less essential, especially a Pirates of Penzance, although the combination of Pagliacci and Il Tabarro (June 1 to 29) has some appeal. There is also the world premiere of Champion, a new jazz opera by Terence Blanchard (June 15 to 30).

SPOLETO FESTIVAL USA
Because the South Carolina festival gets started before summer vacation does, it has been impossible for me to make it there yet. This summer offers two worthy operas, a double-bill of Puccini’s Le Villi and Umberto Giordano’s Mese Mariano (May 25 to June 7) and the American premiere of Matsukaze, Toshio Hosokawa's opera about a traveling monk's encounter with two ghostly sisters.

GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL
There are three operas at the little festival on the Finger Lakes this summer, and we would be happy to see all of them, starting with the double-bill of David Lang's Little Match Girl Passion and Pergolesi's Stabat Mater (July 20 to August 22). The Lang piece is one of my favorite new compositions of the last ten years, and the juxtaposition with the older piece is intriguing. For the Wagner anniversary, Francesca Zambello directs The Flying Dutchman (July 6 to August 24), paired with Un Giorno di Regno for the Verdi anniversary (July 21 to August 24).

Giuseppe Verdi

CARAMOOR
Speaking of Angela Meade, she will star in Will Crutchfield's complete performance of Les vêpres siciliennes (July 6), the original grand opera version of the opera Verdi composed for Paris. Match that with more Verdi in French, the four-act version of Don Carlos, starring Jennifer Check and Jennifer Larmore (July 20).

LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL
Three contemporary operas are a good reason to go to New York this summer: Lera Auerbach's The Blind (July 9 to 14), another performance of Hosokawa's Matsukaze (July 18 to 20), and Michaels Reise um Erde from Stockhausen's Licht (July 18 to 20).

CASTLETON FESTIVAL
We will always go back for more of Lorin Maazel conducting Puccini, which he does again at the festival he started at his house in Rappahannock County, Virginia, with a production of La Fanciulla del West (July 6 and 12). Verdi gets his play here, too, with the gutsy choice of Otello (July 13 to 28) -- with no tenor announced yet. Guest conductor Antonio Méndez will also lead a double-bill of La Voix Humaine, the play version by Cocteau and the opera version by Poulenc (July 20 and 27). Quite nicely, Mahler is also featured, with performances of the fourth and fifth symphonies, plus a recital of his songs.

SANTA FE OPERA
Our regular summer visit to New Mexico has been on hiatus, but this would be a good summer to go back. The highlights are Rossini's La Donna del Lago (July 13 to August 14), with Joyce DiDonato and Lawrence Brownlee, and the world premiere of Oscar, Theodore Morrison's new opera on the life of Oscar Wilde (July 27 to August 17). Also on this season are Offenbach's Grand Duchess of Gerolstein, Verdi's La Traviata (a revival of the rather odd Laurent Pelly production seen there in 2009), and Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro (a revival of Jonathan Kent's 2008 staging, again with Susanna Phillips).

CENTRAL CITY OPERA
This quirky little festival in Colorado, which we last visited in 2009, is presenting only two operas this season. It might be worth the trip to see Ned Rorem's Our Town (July 6 to 28).

SEATTLE OPERA
This was almost the summer we made the longest trip of all, to see the August Ring cycle in the other Washington (three complete cycles, from August 4 to 25). So much is good this year, including Greer Grimsley as Wotan, Stephanie Blythe as Fricka, and Stuart Skelton as Siegmund, but to make the trip would require a commitment. I do have an old college friend there...

Tanglewood

TANGLEWOOD
The whole Ionarts family loved the Berkshires so much last year that we are hoping to go back again this summer for Tanglewood's 75th anniversary season. Performances we would enjoy hearing include Mahler's third symphony with Anne Sofie von Otter and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (July 6), John Harbison's 1999 opera The Great Gatsby with the Orchestra and Chorus of Emmanuel Music (July 11), the third act of Wagner's Die Walküre with Katarina Dalayman and Bryn Terfel (July 20), the Mahler Chamber Orchestra with Daniel Harding and Paul Lewis (July 24), an all-Mozart program with Christoph Eschenbach and soprano Christine Schäfer (July 26), and a double-bill of Britten's Curlew River and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with Mark Morris Dance Group (July 31 and August 1).

For contemporary music, try Pierre-Laurent Aimard and the JACK Quartet in music of Carter, Lachenmann, and Stroppa (August 9 and 10), or the U.S. premiere of George Benjamin's opera Written on Skin, conducted by the composer (August 12).

The biggest event of them all, however, will be a performance of Verdi's Requiem Mass under the baton of Andris Nelsons (July 27), the Music Director-designate of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, as announced yesterday.

BARD SUMMERSCAPE
This festival opens with the U.S. stage premiere of Sergey Taneyev's operatic setting of Oresteia (July 26 to August 4). Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and SITI Company perform their version of that other modern ballet premiered 100 years ago (July 6 and 7), plus lots more Stravinsky (August 9-11 and 16-18).

RAVINIA FESTIVAL
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has some performances at Ravinia we would like to hear, including a Beethoven-fest with Christoph von Dohnányi and Emanuel Ax (July 11 and 12) and concerts with James Conlon, especially a concert performance of Verdi's Aida with Michelle DeYoung, Roberto Alagna, and Latonia Moore (August 3). If we win the Powerball jackpot tomorrow, put us down for the complete performance of Bartók's six string quartets with the Takács String Quartet (August 5 and 6) and a concert by the new formation of the Emerson Quartet (August 13).

[Edited to add:]
WOLF TRAP OPERA
There is nothing all that exciting from this local company this summer, but I recommend their productions in the Barns, which are generally beautifully mounted and sung. This year that includes Rossini's nutty Il Viaggio a Reims (June 21, 23, 29) and Verdi's masterful Falstaff (August 9, 11, 14, 17). The amplification required for the cavernous outdoor venue is a deal-breaker for opera in my book.

Classical Music Agenda (June 2013)

Summer is at hand, meaning that the pickings get slimmer in the monthly concert agenda for local events. On the other hand, we will also have a summer festival preview coming up, with some of the performances outside of Washington we most want to hear.

Composer James MacMillan

ORCHESTRAS:
Happily the National Symphony Orchestra is extending its season at the Kennedy Center through June, until at the end of the month the summer concerts at Wolf Trap kick in. The June concerts are far from throwaways either, with one of the violinists we most enjoy listening to, Augustin Hadelich, joining the NSO for a concert with conductor Jakub Hrusa (June 6 to 8), where he will play Dvořák's violin concerto. Mezzo-soprano Nadezda Serdyuk joins for a performance of Prokofiev's score for the film Alexander Nevsky.

Other NSO concerts feature contemporary pieces we really want to hear. Principal cellist David Hardy is the soloist for Dutilleux's Tout un monde lointain, with guest conductor Matthew Hall also leading pieces by Ravel and Vaughan Williams (June 13 to 15). Jean-Yves Thibaudet will give just one performance of James MacMillan's third piano concerto ("The Mysteries of Light") in a program also feeaturing Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra (June 20), conducted by Krzysztof Urbanski.

Hear musicians who would like to be the orchesra players of tomorrow, at the series of performances offered by the National Orchestral Institute at the University of Maryland (June 6 to 30). Concerts include free programs of chamber music, featuring members of the faculty or students, and Saturday night concerts by the festival orchestra, highlighted by Mahler's gripping sixth symphony.

If you like your Wagner without singing, check out the National Philharmonic's Wagner 200th Anniversary Celebration concert (June 1, 8 pm), in the Music Center at Strathmore.

Pianist Markus Groh

THE REST:
Happily, the concert series at the National Gallery of Art continues through the month of June, headed up by a concert from the local ensemble Inscape Chamber Orchestra (June 2, 6:30 pm). Tickets: FREE.

Washington Performing Arts Society concludes its season with a recital by pianist Markus Groh (June 1, 2 pm) in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.

The Kennedy Center is once again hosting its Ballet Across America week (June 4 to 9), which will feature performances by a selection of talented regional ballet companies from around the United States, in the Kennedy Center Opera House.

The Washington National Opera continues its American Opera Initiative with two performances of Approaching Ali, a new opera by D. J. Sparr (June 8 and 9), in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.

Finally, the American Chamber Players return to the Kreeger Museum for the annual June Chamber Festival (June 14, 18, and 21).

Debussy's 'Jeux', 100 Years Later

Tamara Karsavina (first young lady), Vaslav Nijinsky (young man), and Ludmilla Schollar (second young lady) in Jeux, 1913

As you have doubtless heard by now, we are coming up on the 100th anniversary of the first performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. The groundwork of that infamously riotous premiere was laid by the much less notorious debut of a ballet that was in many ways more revolutionary. Diaghilev's Ballets Russes premiered Vaslav Nijinsky's choreography of the short ballet Jeux at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on May 15, 1913, at which Pierre Monteux was also the conductor of Debussy's startling score. It would be the last orchestral score that Debussy completed before his death in 1918, and many writers have commented on its originality and daring, not least Pierre Boulez, who saw in it a foreshadowing of later developments in serialism.

As Vaslav Nijinsky recounted in some detail in his diary, Diaghilev's original idea for the ballet was a scenario about a homosexual encounter involving three men. In recognition of the difficulty such a story would have posed, even for the audience of the Ballets Russes, Nijinsky altered the story instead to an erotic meeting of a young man, danced by Nijinsky himself (at one point, to underscore the ambiguity of the situation, he planned to dance the role en pointe in women's ballet shoes), and two young women. To emphasize the playful nature of these events -- the title means "Play" or "Games" -- the action unfolded during a tennis match on a dusk-darkened court.

Somewhat incredibly, we have reviewed the piece live only once in the history of Ionarts, at a concert by the San Francisco Symphony in 2006. The orchestration of Jeux is among Debussy's most vivid, with glistening string divisi and knotted winds -- the whole-tone chord clusters in the prelude, which return more than once in the score, are one of many unforgettable mottos. Myriam Chimènes, who edited the score of Jeux for the Debussy Edition Critique, wrote about the timbres in the score at length for an article in Debussy Studies. She quotes Debussy writing to Andre Caplet about the score: "How was I able to forget the troubles of this world and write music which is almost cheerful, and alive with quaint gestures?" He also described the sort of orchestration he was looking for (he completed the piano score first, as was his usual practice): "I'm thinking of that orchestral color which seems to be lit from behind, of which there are such wonderful examples in Parsifal."

Debussy, Jeux (inter alia), Orchestre National de Lyon, J. Märkl (Naxos, 2008)

Debussy uses the brass -- 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, and tuba -- sparingly, at big climaxes or with mutes. The woodwind section gets more work, especially at the big climaxes, often the only points where the full complement plays (2 piccolos, 2 flutes, 3 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, bass clarinet, and 3 bassoons). There is even a part for (presumably contrabass) sarrusophone, which does not come in until well into the score (p. 69, after rehearsal 47) and is now mostly played, I think, on contrabassoon. The percussion (timpani, triangle, tambourine, xylophone, and cymbals) is often combined evocatively with the sounds of celesta and two harps.

Many recordings of Jeux have been in my ears, and I like many of them, including Boulez (Cleveland Orchestra, DG), Maazel (Vienna Philharmonic, RCA), the languorous Charles Dutoit (Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Decca), and the slightly nervous Christian Thielemann (Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, live in 2002). My favorite at the moment, however, is a recent recording by Jun Märkl and the Orchestre National de Lyon, in the first volume of their complete recording of Debussy's orchestral works. The sound is beautifully detailed and captures a vividly nuanced reading, with all of Debussy's many tempo changes -- one every two bars, as one wag once jokingly put it -- given a fluidity like few others. While some hastier performances can come in under 19 and even under 18 minutes, Märkl's luxurious pacing extends out to 19:25, while still keeping the "dance" episodes -- playful evocations of the waltz and other forms -- energized.

Jeux is thought to be the first ballet ever danced in contemporary dress, with the costumes by Léon Bakst based on early 20th-century tennis outfits. You can watch an attempted reconstruction of Nijinsky's choreography, via the invaluable YouTube: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3. I had hopes for a production of the ballet this year for the anniversary, but it has not happened yet -- the Washington Ballet's last performance of Jeux was over 20 years ago. For further reading, Richard Buckle's Nijinsky: A Life of Genius and Madness brings together some newspaper pieces from around the time of the premiere, including reviews and an interesting interview that Nijinsky gave to Gil Blas about the piece. In a chapter ("L'Adorable Arabesque") in her book Mallarmé and Debussy: Unheard Music, Unseen Text, Elizabeth McCombie has written a sophisticated comparison of Debussy's score for Jeux to Stéphane Mallarmé's disruptive poem Un coup de dés, in which the poet claimed he was after something like the effect of words given timing like "music heard in concert."

Martina Filjak @ Phillips

Charles T. Downey, At Phillips, pianist Martina Filjak offers unexpected interpretations of familiar works
Washington Post, May 14, 2013

Soler, Keyboard Sonatas 1-15, M. Filjak (Naxos, 2011)

Martina Filjak offered some surprises during her recital Sunday afternoon at the Phillips Collection. The Croatian-born pianist gave sometimes unexpected interpretations of familiar works, paired with pieces that were just unexpected. She also played with the una corda pedal halfway down most of the time, enough to keep the hammers striking all three strings but shifting their position just slightly. The goal was to force this often hard-edged instrument into a different realm of sound, and it worked.

Filjak opened with a Mozart sonata (B-flat major, K. 333), one of his sunniest and most welcoming, and she set the first and third movements at an easy-paced tempo that sounded happy, not manic. [...]
[Continue reading]

Martina Filjak, piano
Music by Mozart, Schumann, Scriabin, Prokofiev
Phillips Collection

Farewell to David Finckel

Emerson Quartet: Haydn, String Quartets Bartók, String Quartets

David Finckel has left the Emerson Quartet, with whom he has performed as cellist since 1979. The group gave their last performance with Finckel on Saturday evening, the conclusion of their Smithsonian Associates concert series at the National Museum of Natural History. As Finckel explained in brief remarks before the second half, the Emersons have played more concerts at the Smithsonian than any other venue, likely performing at one point or another every quartet they have ever learned. He also saluted one faithful listener, Carl Girshman, who has heard the Emersons some two hundred times. So it was fitting that the group marked the end of this chapter here in Washington.

That the next chapter has opened is a reassuring thought, for if we have had some complaints about their sound in the last few years -- including very minor blemishes of intonation and a tendency toward stridency of tone, heard again here -- the Emerson Quartet is an American institution. They opened this time with a Haydn quartet (D major, op. 20/4), one that the group has not yet recorded. While their Haydn would not be one of my first choices, the Emersons gave the accents of the first movement a crunchy bite, with some rushing over fast bits accounting for occasional ensemble issues, and playful metric ambiguity in the slender third Menuetto. The second movement was moving, not too gloomy and played without their accustomed zing in the tone, with a variation that featured Finckel nicely in a solo. They also had fun with the finale, its funny false starts and squawking motifs.

The Emerson's recording of the six Bartók quartets is not among my favorites either, but their take on this composer has improved over the years. This time they returned to the third quartet, and it was just as sharp and unified as when they performed it in 2008: the buzzes of the night music section, the ethereal serenade, the sighing glissandi, the folksy trills of the second movement, the lush and perfectly tuned dissonances of the third, the thrilling and ultra-fast precision of the finale. One might wonder how Finckel's successor, Paul Watkins, could possibly fit into this music, so lived in over so many years. It will take time, but it is possible, as violist Geraldine Walther showed when she joined the Takács Quartet.

Other Reviews: Philip Kennicott, With a new member, Emerson String Quartet is still masterful (Washington Post, May 13)

It was ingenious to end the Finckel era with Schubert's glorious C major quintet (D. 956), a piece that allowed Finckel and Watkins to be seated next to each other, in identical chairs on the same platform, playing the twin cello parts. The piece opens with the first cello (Finckel) alone, with the second (Watkins) waiting in the wings in silence. Thinking about this performance last week, I looked forward most to the first movement's B theme, where the two cellos begin together on a high G, then gradually split to sing that gorgeous melody in thirds. It was indeed the high point of the entire concert, a bittersweet moment that you know cannot be sustained -- both Finckel and Watkins as cellists in the Emerson Quartet -- so soft and seeming stretched out, although there is no tempo change marked in the score, the other three instruments receding into the background, as if to savor it. Indeed, Schubert seems to underscore the ephemeral beauty of the moment, switching the theme into the viola and first cello at the parallel point in the recapitulation. The sense of benediction extended into the opening section of the Adagio, a wonder of stasis that lifts the listener heavenward, with the three inner instruments in suspended harmonies, the first violin trading thoughts with the pizzicato second cello (Watkins), an angelic contemplation then disturbed by the more urgent howl of the middle section and never quite regained. The scherzo and especially the trio seemed deflated by comparison to what came before it, alternately furious and lushly soft, followed by an Allegretto finale a little too amped up in tempo, but with another memorable two-cello passage, a last moment for the other three instruments to say good-bye before the drive to a thrilling conclusion, capped by elegant turns of phrase. To a huge ovation, Finckel took a couple of bows and then disappeared.

The Smithsonian Associates will continue to host the Emerson Quartet's series at the National Museum of Natural History next season.

In Brief: Call Mom Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio, online video, and other good things in Blogville and Beyond. (After clicking to an audio or video stream, press the "Play" button to start the broadcast.)

• From last month, John Eliot Gardiner leads a performance of Bach's B Minor Mass, with English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir at Royal Albert Hall. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• In case you missed it, listen to the La Scala production of Verdi's Nabucco with Leo Nucci and Liudmyla Monastyrska, recorded in February. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• From the Cité de la Musique, a recital by Quatuor Meta4 featuring four pieces by Kaija Saariaho (including Serenatas, from 2012, and Mirage, from 2008) and the Voces intimae quartet by Sibelius. [France Musique]


• The excellent Vienna Piano Trio performs music by Alfredo Casella, Busoni, Respighi, and Wolf-Ferrari in the auditorium of the Musée d'Orsay last month. [France Musique]


• Simon Rattle leads the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in excerpts of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre (with soprano Barbara Hannigan) and Schumann's second symphony, plus music of Sibelius (Luonnotar) and Haydn, in a concert recorded last November. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Verdi's Don Carlo, recorded at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées last month (stream actually not available until May 13), with Gianandrea Noseda conducting the forces of the Teatro Regio in Turin, starring Stefano Secco, Barbara Frittoli, Ludovic Tézier, and Ildar Abdrazakov. [France Musique]


• Have a listen to a song recital (music by Poulenc, Ravel, Obradors, others) by soprano Patricia Petibon and pianist Susan Manoff, recorded last month at the Wiener Konzerthaus. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• To celebrate the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's triumph at Carnegie Hall, watch them perform Ligeti's Lontano, Chopin's second piano concerto (with Rafał Blechacz), and Holst's Planets, conducted by John Storgårds and recorded earlier this month. [Medici.tv]


• From Ambronay, a concert of Baroque music by Monteverdi, Frescobaldi, Krieger, and others performed by the ensemble Sopra il Basso. [France Musique]


• Yutaka Sado leads the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich in Bernstein's second symphony ("Age of Anxiety") with soloist Marc-André Hamelin, who also plays his own Variations on a Theme of Paganini, plus Shostakovich's fifth symphony, in a concert recorded in Vienna in March. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Peter Oundjian conducts the Choeur de Radio France and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in music by Kristoph Maratka (the French premiere of Vábení) and Smetana's Ma Vlast. [France Musique]


• Listen to the Vienna Symphony, conducted by Ingo Metzmacher last month, perform Bruckner's F minor Mass and Arthur Honegger's third symphony ("Liturgique"). [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• From the Utrecht Chamber Music Festival, pianists Roland Pontinen and Itamar Golan and friends perform pieces by Clara Schumann, Brahms, and Hindemith. [France Musique]


• Neeme Järvi conducts the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva, with music by Dvořák plus Mozart's bassoon concerto. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Cellist Yan Levionnois, violinist Guillaume Chilemme, and violist Marie Chilemme perform music by Mozart, Jonathan Harvey (Three Sketches, 1989), and Robert Schumann, at the Deauville Festival. [France Musique]


• Also from the Deauville Festival, the Ferdinand Ries chamber transcription of Beethoven's third symphony, plus Elgar's op. 84 Quintet, performed by violinist Amaury Coeytaux and friends. [France Musique]


• From the Klangraum Waidhofen last month, a recital by pianist Valentina Lisitka with music by Liszt, Beethoven, and Rachmaninoff. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Musicians from the Orchestre National de France perform music by Heitor Villa-Lobos, plus pieces by Luciano Gallet and Camargo Guarnieri. [France Musique]


• A concert by the Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine last month, with Alain Altinoglu conducting music by Debussy, Dukas, and Stravinsky (Firebird, 1919 version). [France Musique]


• Ruggiero Leoncavallo also composed an opera on La Bohème, recorded in 1981 by the Munich Radio Orchestra and Bavarian Radio Symphony Chorus, starring Bernd Weikl and Lucia Popp. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Here is a recent performance of Bartók's Duos for two violins, with Agnès Pyka and Jan Talich, recorded by Radio France. [France Musique]

Dip Your Ears, No. 137 (Orchestral Suites Reconstructed)

J.S.Bach, Orchestral Suites M.Huggett / Ensemble Sonnerie / G.X.Ruiz Avie

Monica Hugget is one of the baroque music scene’s most cherished pioneer-veterans, co-founder of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra with Ton Koopman and founding member of the Academy of Ancient Music, she also worked with Trevor Pinnock and his English Concert and has led Toronto based Tafelmusik. She is currently the head of the Portland Baroque Orchestra and the Ireland Baroque Orchestra and of course the Ensemble Sonnerie which she founded, then still a Trio, in 1982.

When someone like Monica Huggett brings out a recording of Bach’s Orchestral Suites it’s a notable event, not the least because new and exciting recordings of the Suites—or Concert-Ouvertures—are rather more scarce than new recordings of the Brandenburg- or Keyboard Concertos. It’s also notable because Mme. Huggett goes her own ways in reconstructing those three suites that we only have in transcriptions from now-lost-originals. The b-minor Suite is transposed back into its original key of a-minor and the solo flute replaced with an oboe—a version for which Huggett argues persuasively in her liner notes, and much more persuasively, still, through the performance. The Third and Fourth Suite don’t receive their Trumpet’n’Drums treatment, which are later adaptations. At least according to Joshua Rifkin, whose argumentation Huggett follows where it makes not just theoretical, but also musical sense.

So many new aspects to these Suites then—but their gorgeous familiarity is overwhelming to the point where we scarcely notice the differences, except in direct comparison. (And who listens to music like that?) But even just for the music itself—Bach’s most easily enjoyable, this disc is a little gem. With three violins per section, the HIP crew of Ensemble Sonnerie (performing on period instruments and at standard baroque pitch of 415 Hz), doesn’t fall into the skinny-extreme trend-trap, but listens to what makes for the best balance among instruments. A sound decision, as it were. And Gonzalo Ruiz’ gorgeous oboe tone alone, given unique prominence in the reconstruction—might justify adding this Bach disc to one’s collection, even if it already contains the equally fine Boston Baroque, English Baroque Soloists, or Musica Antiqua Cologne versions.

For Your Consideration: 'Kiss of the Damned'

Truth be told, I love a good vampire movie: Nosferatu, Frank Langella as Dracula, Fright Night, Guillermo del Toro's Cronos, the Swedish Let the Right One In -- excellent examples have come in lots of different forms. That predilection means that I can also enjoy a truly bad vampire movie, and that is where Kiss of the Damned, the new feature from Xan Cassavetes, comes in. This is the first feature from Cassavetes, who just happens to be the daughter of John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands, and it may be her last, at least while working from her own script. Not all directors are meant to write their own screenplays, and as these things go, Kiss of the Damned is a spectacular disaster. The audience at the screening I saw, not made up only of jaded critics, cringed and laughed at many lines of dialogue. The movie is either a tribute to the cheesy vampire films of the 1970s or it is just risibly bad.

The premise is that, if vampires did survive in today's world, they would have to be much more careful about drawing attention to themselves. French actress Joséphine de La Baume (last glimpsed in Bertrand Tavernier's La Princesse de Montpensier) plays Djuna, a self-conflicted vampire who tries to sate her bloodlust by feeding on animals. A network of vampires trying to live under the radar of human society ("Damn vampire solidarity" is an actual line in the script) provides a beautiful house in the wilds of Connecticut. When Djuna spots screenwriter Paolo (Milo Ventimiglia, the American actor best known for the television series Heroes), in a video store of all places (meaning the action must be taking place in 1995), she runs from him, afraid she will kill any to whom she gets too close. Paolo persists and happily joins her in cursed undead immortality, after which they take up a lifestyle pretty much indistinct from an upscale couple in suburban Connecticut, apart from hunting down and exsanguinating opossum and deer. The thing dreaded most by the idle rich, a visit from family, spoils their happiness when Djuna's sister shows up, played with hungry lust by Roxane Mesquida (whom you may remember as the child actress cast by Manuel Pradal in Marie Baie de Anges). Hapless humans serve as occasional snacks, like Paolo's coke-snorting agent played by Michael Rapaport (True Romance, Mighty Aphrodite).

Other Reviews: New York Times | Washington Post | Variety Los Angeles Times | Movie Review Intelligence

On the other hand, if you like the thought of watching a group of snooty vampires, led by the self-righteous and artistic Xenia (played by Anna Mouglalis of Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky), discuss how they might achieve the glories of human civilization by imposing laws of self-restraint, all while snorting down amuse-gueules of organic plasma, this is the movie for you. These vampires are, or at least pretend to be, ashamed of their blood-sucking tendencies, meaning that only the out-of-control antics of Mesquida's bad-girl Mimi provide the traditional needle-edge fun and biting humor of B movies. Cassavetes and her cinematographer, Tobias Datum (Smashed), create a slickly produced visual world, heavy on horror-movie cliches -- full moon, mist, quivering hand-held shots. At the very least, it is easy on the eyes.

This film opens today at Landmark's E Street Cinema.

Briefly Noted: 'Such the tenor man told...'

Britten, Songs, I. Bostridge, A. Pappano, X. Yang (released on May 21, 2013) EMI 4334302 | 70'15"

As noted earlier this week, the Britten centenary is yielding some welcome recordings of the composer's lesser-known works. Add to the list this disc of Britten's songs performed by tenor Ian Bostridge, who has the optimal type of voice for much of Britten's writing. Britten wrote most of these songs for his partner, tenor Peter Pears, and the poetry (like Michelangelo's sonnets dedicated to his lover Tommaso del Cavalieri) often seems to have appealed to Britten and Pears for personally significant reasons. Bostridge sings all of it with exquisite subtlety, a certain reservation and lightness with some loud and strident sounds deployed carefully. As with his performance in The Rape of Lucretia, the top of Bostridge's voice is not quite always suited, at least not when a high, heroic sound is required. That aside, these are exemplary performances of five groupings or cycles of songs, ranging from the odd fragments of Friedrich Hölderlin, at the edge of sanity, to the pacifist poetry of William Soutar and the Chinese paraphrases of Arthur Waley. The last of those was tailor-made for Pears's regular collaborator, guitarist Julian Bream, and the part is played here by Xuefei Yang. The highlight, to be sure, is Britten's extraordinary setting of the poetry of Thomas Hardy in Winter Words, especially the moving song The Choirmaster's Burial. In all of these songs, Britten's harmonic and rhythmic inventiveness -- writing as he was, almost for a private audience -- never ceases to divert the ear.

Briefly Noted: 'Giove in Argo'

Handel, Giove in Argo, A. Hallenberg, K. Gauvin, A. Z. Giustiniani, Il Complesso Barocco, A. Curtis (released on April 9, 2013) Virgin 50999 72311622 | 156'50" Previously: Berenice | Alcina | Ezio

The Handel opera revival continues apace, with the latest work rediscovered being Giove in Argo, first performed at the King's Theater in London on May 1, 1739. The less said about the libretto, a conflation of two of the love affairs of Jupiter in disguise, the better. The performances given by Alan Curtis's ensemble Il Complesso Barocco in 2007 required some reconstructive surgery on a score found only in incomplete sources. The work was carried out for the Hallische Händel-Ausgabe by scholar John H. Roberts, who laid his hands on the two arias known to be part of the opera from its libretto but which until recently had been lost. They turned out to be the work of an Italian composer, Francesco Araja (b. 1709), and Roberts restored them to the score and recreated the bulk of the recitatives, which also are found in no surviving musical source. Price may be enough to tip the scales in favor of this discounted 3-CD set, over the competition by Concert Royal Köln and Kammerchor Würzburg (Musicaphon, 2007), made around the same time as Il Complesso Barocco's first live performances (Alan Curtis did not lead this recording until 2010). Curtis and his ensemble create lithe, beautifully detailed and textured readings of the score, rich in instrumentation for Handel (oboes, bassoons, flute, horns, and trumpet plus strings). Tenor Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani makes much more favorable sounds as Jove than he did in Curtis's recording of Handel's Berenice, Regina d'Egitto, and there are first-rate contributions from pithy mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg and celestial soprano Karina Gauvin. Mezzo-soprano Theodora Baka has some nice moments in the role of Diana, mostly when she keeps her tone as simple and clean as possible, and bass Vito Priante is pleasingly forceful.

Briefly Noted: 'Rape of Lucretia'

Britten, The Rape of Lucretia, I. Bostridge, S. Gritton, A. Kirchschlager, Aldeburgh Festival, O. Knussen (released on February 5, 2013) Virgin 50999 60267221 | 105'33"

On November 22nd this year -- St. Cecilia's Day -- Benjamin Britten would have celebrated his 100th birthday. Composer anniversaries are mostly for powering the engines of publicity, but if good performances and recordings come our way in anniversary years, who are we to complain? Put in that category the chance to hear this recording of the two performances of Britten's Rape of Lucretia as they were performed at the Aldeburgh Festival in June 2011. For all of this chamber opera's weaknesses, mostly to do with the bizarre Christian frame narrative that wraps the libretto, the score has great appeal, shown in two stagings reviewed in 2007, at Lorin Maazel's Castleton Festival and at Peabody Chamber Opera. There were recordings of the work already available, all of them with advantages: the DVD from English National Opera, Britten's own version on EMI with Janet Baker in the title role (also featured in Britten's Phaedra), and the version led by Richard Hickox for Chandos. The highlight here is the narration of tenor Ian Bostridge as the moralizing Male Chorus, whose light, floating tone and pure intonation make just the right type of voice for much of Britten's writing. Add to that the warm-voiced Susan Gritton as the Female Chorus, and the plummy sound of Angelika Kirchschlager's Lucretia. The other roles are taken by less noteworthy voices, although whether the microphone placement played a part in the results is unclear. Oliver Knussen leads a detailed and subtle performance from the crack forces of the Aldeburgh Festival, with the usual caveats about live recording.

Meredith Monk, 'On Behalf of Nature'

Charles T. Downey, Meredith Monk’s ‘On Behalf of Nature’ at Clarice Smith Center
Washington Post, May 6, 2013

Monk, Impermanence (ECM, 2008) [READ REVIEW]

If nature were to rise up and speak in defense of itself, its voice might sound like a Meredith Monk theater piece. That was the goal of Monk’s new work, “On Behalf of Nature,” presented at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on Saturday night. The path-forging choreographer-composer-artist created the piece — theater without words, dance with voice — to embody “nonhuman entities” communicating through her as a spokesperson.

Monk is wise to prefer abstraction over narrative, aura over character, symbolism over clear meaning, which allows the viewer to map her work onto his or her own thoughts and perceptions. Various ideas arose in my mind in reaction to the movements of Monk and seven collaborators, three of whom also played the array of instruments to one side of the stage: tree-branch arms waving in the wind, ants marching in rows, aboriginal dances both anxious and joyously whoop-filled, a couple lost in admiration of an open vista, waves crashing on a shore.
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Meredith Monk, On Behalf of Nature
Clarice Smith Center