Easter WETA Redux No.1

Fresh back from a Easter Parsifal performance (review forthcoming), I figure it seems only (in)appropriate, on this Easter Sunday, to resurrect the two meandering 'Easter Pilgrimage bits' I wrote for WETA in 2008... which was a wonderful trip through Europe with the goal of getting as many Parsifal and Matthew Passion performances into a fortnight. (An unforeseen link: Attila Jun, then a Dutchman in Stuttgart, filled in this night as Gurnemanz.)

Easter Pilgrimage – Dutchman Detour

Classical WETA, Wednesday, 4.2.08

On the way from Amsterdam to Vienna, the Easter Pilgrimage of Matthew Passions and Parsifals I also picked up two performances of less topically related Wagner works: The Flying Dutchman in Stuttgart and Tristan & Isolde in Vienna.

Of course, just about any Wagner opera can be made to fit Easter without straining too much, given the abundance of death through redemption and redemption through compassion (and more death). Senta and Isolde, the Dutchman and Tristan: Surely there is room in their stories to see (or force) analogies to “The Greatest Story Ever Told”.

This is certainly not what Calixto Bieito sees in the Dutchman for his new production at the Staatsoper Stuttgart. Instead, Bieito takes it to be an allegory of isolation in modern society, a critique of the economic system, consumer culture, and essentially a critique of a loss of values and morality. As expected, Bieito does this in his trademark brash, genital-touting style that sells out opera houses, enrages critics, and sends – especially North American – commentators into apoplectic fits of “Eurotrash” bashing. In doing so the culture-pundits often are guilty of precisely what they fault Bieito and his ilk with: They get stuck at superficialities, unable or unwilling

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In Brief: Χριστός ἀνέστη 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.)

• For Easter Sunday, here is the Berlin Philharmonic performing Mahler's second symphony at Carnegie Hall in February 2012, with Camilla Tilling and Bernarda Fink, plus some Wolf songs. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Or there is the performance of Wagner's Parsifal at Salzburg's Easter Festival, with Christian Thielemann conducting the Staatskapelle Dresden and Chorus, with Johan Botha (Parsifal), Wolfgang Koch (Amfortas), and Michaela Schuster (Kundry), recorded on March 23. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Add to that the Vienna Philharmonic performing Olivier Messiaen's Éclairs sur l'au-delà, recorded in Vienna in January 2008. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Listen to a concert of medieval music performed by Ensemble Musica Nova, centered on Guillaume de Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame, at the Abbaye de Bonmont. [France Musique]


• Watch Daniel Harding conduct the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in a performance of Grégoire Hetzel's opera La Chute de Fukuyama. [Cité de la Musique Live]


• Music for Holy Week by Monteverdi and Gesualdo, performed by Gambe di Legno. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Listen to a concert by the Quatuor Varèse, performing quartets by Mozart and Schumann. [France Musique]


• A performance of Handel's oratorio Judas Maccabaeus, with Laurence Cumming directing the Choir and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, with John Mark Ainsley, Christine Rice, Mezzosopran, Alastair Miles, and Rosemary Joshua, recorded at the Proms last summer. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Watch a new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni, directed by Jean-Yves Ruf for the Opéra de Dijon, with Gérard Korsten conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Chœur de l'Opéra de Dijon. The cast is led by Edwin Crossley-Mercer (Don Giovanni), Josef Wagner (Leporello), Diana Higbee (Donna Anna), and Ruxandra Donose (Donna Elvira). [Medici.tv]


• Ton Koopman conducts the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in music by the Mozarts (Wolfgang and Leopold) and Haydn, at the Opéra Comique. [France Musique]


• Ondreij Lenárd conducts the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra in music by Wagner (with mezzo-soprano Veronika Hajnová), Tchaikovsky, Fauré, and Mahler, recorded in Prague last month. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• String quartets by Haydn, Bartók, and Beethoven performed by the Tetzlaff Quartet at the Auditorium du Louvre earlier this month. [France Musique]


• More from the Salzburg Easter Festival, with Christian Thielemann conducting the Brahms German Requiem, with the Staatskapelle Dresden and Bavarian Radio Chorus and vocal soloists Christiane Karg and Michael Volle. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Pianist Adam Laloum, violinist Alexandra Soumm, and cellist Victor Julien- Lafferière perform trios by Brahms and Zemlinsky. [France Musique]


• A recording of Bellini's Il pirata, conducted by Marcello Viotti at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, with Roberto Frontali (Ernesto), Lucia Aliberti (Imogene), and Stuart Neill (Gualtiero). [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Watch Paavo Järvi conduct the Orchestre de Paris in music of Rachmaninoff, including the third piano concerto with soloist Jorge Luis Prats, at the Salle Pleyel. [Cité de la Musique Live]


• Pianist Cédric Tiberghien joins the Orchestre National d'Ile de France and conductor Enrique Mazzola for a concert with music by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Andrzej Panufnik, and a world premiere by Svitlana Azarova. [France Musique]


• Listen to a performance of Verdi's Requiem, with Jean-Claude Casadesus conducting the Czech Philharmonic Chorus of Brno and the Orchestre National de Lille, with soloists Veronika Dzhioeva, Lilli Paasikivi, Stuart Neill, and Roberto Scandiuzzi, at the Salle Pleyel in Paris. [France Musique]


• Organist Mathias Lecomte joins the Choeur de Radio France for a program at the Salle Gaveau, including music by Bach, Walther, Sandstrom, and Moëne. [France Musique]


• A concert of Croatian folk music and chant by Ensemble Dialogos, directed by Katarina Livljanić. [France Musique]


• Cellist Mario Brunello performs at the Festival Présences, in the Grand Théâtre de Provence, with music by Bach, Judith Weir (b. 1954), and Giovanni Sollima (b. 1962). [France Musique]


• As mentioned earlier this week, you can watch the production of Benoît Mernier's new opera La Dispute, from the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels. [De Munt]

NSO with Janowski

Beethoven / Berg, Violin Concertos, A. Steinbacher, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, A. Nelsons B. Blacher, Orchestra-Variations on a Theme of Paganini (inter alia), Dresden Philharmonic, H. Kegel

Marek Janowski, the music director of the Rundfunk-Sinfonie Orchester Berlin, may have conducted the National Symphony Orchestra before this weekend, but Friday night's performance was the first time we have reviewed him here in Washington. Violinist Arabella Steinbacher, who has collaborated with Janowski on a couple of recordings, joined him again for Beethoven's violin concerto (op. 61). The audience was perhaps a little thin, a danger on Easter weekend, but it was an excellent concert, especially the second half.

Steinbacher played the Beethoven concerto, hardly an unfamiliar work after all, just a year ago with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. This performance left much the same impression, not as immaculate a rendition as Julia Fischer because of too many intonation issues and occasional squawks of tone (the first in the solo's opening set of rising notes), but Steinbacher has a puissant, sweet tone on the E string. She takes a lot of rhythmic freedom, and Janowski assisted by pushing and pulling back tempos, giving the piece some unpredictability, quite slow in the development and then speeding up considerably at the recapitulation. Steinbacher played the cadenzas by Fritz Kreisler, which have a lot of virtuosic flair, especially in the third movement, but are not exactly a daring choice in a large field of possibilities. The high point for Steinbacher was the slow movement, in which she was like a soprano floating above a beautifully balanced orchestra, exquisite in the orchestral pizzicato section, like a lute accompanying the soloist. (The ovation was not strong enough to merit an encore from Steinbacher, who reportedly played Kreisler's Recitativo and Scherzo on Thursday night, the same encore she played with the BSO last year.)

Janowski gets credit for bringing the Orchestra-Variations on a Theme of Paganini by Russo-German composer Boris Blacher (1903-1975), a composer reviewed live only once so far in Ionarts history. Blacher composed this piece in 1947, shortly after he returned to teaching in Germany, after being declared "degenerate" by the Nazis. Although both the concertmaster and associate concertmaster had sat out the Beethoven concerto, Nurit Bar-Josef was back for the second half, to play Paganini's original solo violin theme that introduces sixteen variations for orchestra, several less than a minute in duration and none longer than two minutes. Andrew McCredie, in his biographical sketch on Blacher in Music of the Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde: A Biocritical Sourcebook (ed. Larry Sitsky), calls these variations "a thesaurus of orchestration and contrapuntal devices." From the first variation, in which swirling woodwind runs flare away from the theme in a crazy vortex, it is a tour de force, given a varied and solid performance led with confidence by Janowski, conducting without a score. Highlights included the iridescent fourth variation, suavely chromatic; the guitar-like pizzicato eighth variation; the tenth variation, with its jazzy flute and clarinet solos, the heritage of Blacher's love for American jazz heard in Berlin; the sixteenth-note Offenbach patter romp of the eleventh variation.

Other Articles: Anne Midgette, National Symphony Orchestra’s all-German program glides from pretty to powerful (Washington Post, March 29) Emily Cary, Arabella Steinbacher makes NSO debut (Washington Examiner, March 27)

Blacher's score stood up even by comparison to the final piece on the program, Tod und Verklärung (op. 24 -- last heard from the BSO last year) by the young, prodigiously talented Richard Strauss, one of the greatest masters of orchestration. Again working without a score, Janowski led a performance of striking softness and subtlety, the rasping breath of woodwinds and fading heartbeat of timpani at the opening, describing an artist on his deathbed, his mind flooded with memories. The haze of childhood recollections, dotted with sweet woodwind solos and the halo of harp arpeggiation, was followed by the rumble of the double basses and the sounds of artistic struggle, again all with excellent dynamic balances between sections. Strauss used a signature harmonic progression in this piece, heard very early in the piece and then in a more complete form at the moment of transfiguration -- I-ii-I-V7/V, over a tonic pedal. John Williams and every other film composer has copied it, but Strauss gives it a special power, altering it with many substitutions for the V7/V chord, delaying its final return until the final moments of the score. It was the sort of thing that this performance helped make clear.

This concert repeats this evening (March 30, 8 pm), in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

Dip Your Ears, No. 131 (Pfitzner Supreme)

H.Pfitzner, Palestrina Kirill Petrenko / Frankfurt Opera & Museum Orchestra & Chorus P.Bronder, B.Stallmeister, C.Mahnke, W.Koch J.M.Kränzle et al. Oehms OC 930

I have a soft spot for most of the irreputable Hans Pfitzner’s unabashedly romantic tone. But Palestrina, his supposed masterpiece, can be dull. While I suffered through a performance with Simone Young in Munich, the Frankfurt opera, too, performed Palestrina, and fortunately Oehms was there to capture it. Under Kirill Petrenko the score sounds the way I want to hear it: delightfully crisp, full of purpose, nuance, detail, and even joy. It turns Palestrina from admirable craftsmanship into a sanguineous musical drama. The quality singers add to the delight, but the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra and its conductor are the stars.

Good Friday Musical Meditation

William Cornysh (1465-1523), Woefully Arrayed, Stile Antico
Woefully arrayed,
My blood, man, for thee ran, it may not be nayed;
My body, blo and wan;
Woefully arrayed.

Behold me, I pray thee,
with all thy whole reason
and be not hard-hearted,
and for this encheason,
sith I for thy soul sake
was slain in good season,
Beguiled and betrayed
by Judas false treason,
unkindly entreated,
with sharp cord sore freted,
the Jews me threated,
they mowed, they grinned,
they scorned me,
condemd to death as thou mayst see;
Woefully arrayed.

Thus naked am I nailed.
O man, for thy sake;
I love thee, then love me,
why sleepst thou, awake,
remember my tender heartroot for thee brake;
with pains my veins constrained to crake;
thus tugged to and fro,
thus wrapped all in woe,
whereas never man was so entreated,
thus in most cruel wise
was like a lamb offerd in sacrifice;
Woefully arrayed.

Of sharp thorn I have worn
a crown on my head.
So pained, so strained, so rueful, so red,
thus bobbed, thus robbed,
thus for thy love dead;
unfeigned, not deigned,
my blood for to shed,
my feet and handes sore
the sturdy nailes bore;
what might I suffer more,
than I have done, O man, for thee?
Come when thou list, welcome to me!
Woefully arrayed.

The performers in the embedded video, Stile Antico, will perform a program of Renaissance polyphony next month at the Library of Congress (April 17, 8 pm).

"Vieuxtemps" Guarneri del Gesù Sings Again

Charles T. Downey, Anne Akiko Meyers takes Vieuxtemps violin to National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington Post, March 29)

Air: The Bach Album, A. A. Meyers, English Chamber Orchestra, S. Mercurio (Bach's double violin concerto, with Meyers on both parts, playing her 1697 "ex-Molitor" and 1730 "Royal Spanish" Stradivari violins)

One of the most sought-after figures in classical music was heard in a concert at the National Museum of Women in the Arts on Wednesday night. The 1741 Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesu, a fabled violin valued at $18 million when it was up for sale in 2010, has staged a comeback, offering a demure program of mostly light music that showed off its mellifluous tone. After changing hands this year for an undisclosed sum paid by an anonymous benefactor, the instrument brought along its current player, American violinist Anne Akiko Meyers — who owns two other expensive Stradivarius violins — for the ride.

The Vieuxtemps has a striking sweetness of sound, capable of subtle beginnings and endings, heard in the simple and repetitive “Spiegel im Spiegel” by Arvo Part. Meyers drew out the instrument’s vocal side in Mozart’s K. 377 Violin Sonata, especially the winsome theme and variations, even while leaving out the repeats. [Continue reading]

Anne Akiko Meyers (violin) and Wendy Chen (piano)
1741 "Vieuxtemps" Guarneri del Gesù
Music by Mozart, Pärt, Ravel, Piazzolla, Falla
National Museum of Women in the Arts

'La Dispute' from Brussels

Watch video (subtitles only in French or Dutch)

The Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels has mounted the world premiere of La Dispute, the second opera by Belgian composer Benoît Mernier (b. 1964). It is based on the Marivaux play of the same title, with a libretto by Ursel Herrmann and Joël Lauwers. Patrick Davin conducts the staging directed by Karl-Ernst Herrmann, Ursel Herrmann, and Joël Lauwers. The cast features Stéphane Degout, Stéphanie d'Oustrac, Julie Mathevet, Albane Carrère, and Dominique Visse. Francis Carlin, writing in the Financial Times, found it "charming and uplifting," although it does use too much spoken dialogue:

Who is more prone to infidelity – man or woman? [La Dispute] is a delicious romp starring four Rousseauesque innocents who discover love and temptation while the fractious couple of a philandering Prince and his jealous consort Hermiane look on for inspiration. [...] The central question, of course, remains unanswered, as do our queries on Mernier’s real musical personality. His score for this mix of Così fan tutte and Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream adopts the latter’s glissandi strings, is steeped in Debussy, imitates Bartók (particularly in hauntingly beautiful night music for the woodwinds) and looks to Berg for lyrical vocal expression.

Martine Mergeay interviewed the composer about the opera for La Libre Belgique, and he gave an interesting explanation of the prominence of spoken dialogue in his opera (my translation):

I use all possible vocal forms, from the speaking voice to the aria -- where singing has its maximum emotional power -- and including le mélodrame [Sprechstimme] (speaking voice notated like an instrumental part) and recitative, secco and accompagnato. As for the instrumentation, I want a very bright orchestra, able to give color to the French, which remains a rather non-tonal language. The pit has only 35 musicians, but the writing is such that through the many shifts one will hear large variations of timbre and texture.

The theater's ongoing series of online broadcasts features a Webcast of the opera, starting today, and there is a bunch of videos on the background of the opera and production.

Watch video (subtitles only in French or Dutch)

New York City Ballet's Tchaikovsky Fest

Maria Kowroski (Odette) in Swan Lake, choreography by George Balanchine, New York City Ballet (photo by Paul Kolnik)

The New York City Ballet is in town this week, performing two different programs in the Kennedy Center Opera House. Last night was the opening of its all-Tchaikovsky sampler, three shorter works choreographed by George Balanchine, grounded on the legendary choreographer's one-act version of Swan Lake, premiered in 1951. These are heritage pieces, perfect to showcase the company on a tour that goes from Washington to the Royal Danish Theater in Copenhagen, and they looked beautiful in their current incarnation.

For this streamlined Swan Lake based on Lev Ivanov's choreography, Balanchine crunches most of Act II and part of Act IV together, leaving out the mirror role of Odile. Once you get past the jarring effect of the curtain opening with the iconic music that starts the second act, the compactness gives the work greater impetus. (Surprisingly, Balanchine left out one of the most famous sections of the score, the fourth movement, Allegro moderato, of the Dance of the Swans, but all the other popular sections are there.) Maria Kowroski was an elegant and tragic figure as the Swan Queen, matched by an athletic and warm Siegfried in Tyler Angle, although the most striking choreography is given to the corps, in their somber black costumes, entering in a snaking line to identical movements carefully timed to the music. The pas de deux, placed at the violin solo in the fifth movement of the Dance of the Swans, was particularly affecting, with Angle lifting up Kowroski, who had gone into a crouch, and propelling her about.

Other Articles: Sarah Kaufman, New York City Ballet’s all-Tchaikovsky program: A firm concept falls short in execution (Washington Post, March 28, 2013) Sarah Halzack, New York City Ballet program showcases Balanchine-Tchaikovsky artistic chemistry (Washington Post, March 23, 2013) Sara Mearns, Barre None: My Magical Moment (Huffington Post, March 22, 2013) Ryan Wenzel, Romanticism, Balanchine Style: Two Tchaikovsky Triple-Bills at New York City Ballet (rpwenzel.com, February 1, 2013) Alastair Macaulay, From Lakeside to Ballroom, Taking Tchaikovsky in Many Directions (New York Times, January 19, 2013) Apollinaire Scherr, Balanchine's one-act "Swan Lake" (foot in mouth, February 15, 2009) Anna Kisselgoff, Balanchine's One-Act Compression of 'Swan Lake' (New York Times, January 21, 1993)

In the middle slot came the shortest work, Allegro Brillante, set to Tchaikovsky's one-movement Piano Concerto No. 3. In contrast to the ice-cave set for Swan Lake (designed by Alain Vaes), this taut, abstract work played out on a bare stage, with a blue-lit back screen, with vaguely folk-like costumes in pastel colors (costumes designed by Karinska, lighting by Mark Stanley). The extended solos were danced strongly, with the high-jumping Amar Ramasar partnering the lithe, spritely Tiler Peck, light as a feather in the long solo passage accompanied by the piano solo's cadenza (played ably by Elaine Chelton). The company is traveling with its orchestra, a fine ensemble that has been without a music director for a while. The night's guest conductor, David LaMarche, did fine, but one hopes that the ongoing search for a permanent leader bears fruit soon.

The longest work came last, Balanchine's ensemble choreography set to Tchaikovsky's Orchestral Suite No. 3. Balanchine, like all great choreographers, loved music and gives it pride of place: all of these pieces open with the music and nothing else, a closed curtain, swan models gliding past on the lake, an empty stage. Suite is about longing on one level, beginning with the first movement, Élégie, where a man pursues one woman of a group, in long hair and flowing purple dresses. The couple meet and are separated, most poignantly the last time, both bending over backward in a dramatic gesture to a forlorn English horn solo. A similar pattern is repeated in the second movement, Valse mélancolique, and the Scherzo third movement, with the dancers vanishing gradually like the music. All of the groups of women form a large corps de ballet in the grand fourth movement, the Tema con variazioni, in blue and white tutus with red accents, set in a large ballroom with three arches, revealed after the smoky scrim is lifted (scenery and costumes by Nicolas Benois). Variations, of course, are ballet's bread and butter, and it is no surprise that this movement, with its rapidly shifting musical qualities, makes such good ballet. The third variation, all woodwinds, received a choreography for twelve women, in four groups of three, hands held and making lovely patterns. Once again a violin solo, leading into Variation 10, inspired a lovely pas de deux, mesmerizing in its own way, leading into a grand conclusion for the corps.

This program will be repeated this evening and Sunday afternoon, with the B program -- Carousel, Glass Pieces, and Vienna Waltzes -- on March 28 to 30, in the Kennedy Center Opera House.

For Your Consideration: 'Like Someone in Love'

Film director Abbas Kiarostami made his first film outside his native Iran a few years ago, the puzzling, rewarding Copie conforme. From that movie's setting in Tuscany, with European actors speaking dialogue in French, Italian, and English, Kiarostami has gone to Japan for his latest film, Like Someone in Love. Written and directed by Kiarostami, the film was shot in Japan and the dialogue translated into Japanese (uncredited, perhaps the work of the actors, none of whom is likely familiar to non-Japanese viewers). While Copie conforme appealed to me as an "ambulatory philosophy film," mostly featuring its two stars driving, walking, and talking in squares and cafés, Like Someone in Love is noteworthy for its grand and often immobile silences. The dialogue is laconic, often trivial, and most of what is actually going on between the characters, or happening to them individually, goes unsaid or is learned obliquely. The three main characters are all tormented in different ways, but who knows exactly how, which probably has something to do with the film's critical failure at the Cannes Festival last year.

Akiko (Rin Takahashi) is a young woman from the provinces, now a college student in Tokyo, whose family has become worried about what might have become of her in the big city. They are right to be concerned, since Akiko has become involved with an overly possessive boyfriend (Ryō Kase), a mechanic who wants to marry her. What neither the boyfriend nor her family understand just yet is that Akiko has resorted to prostitution to make ends meet. In the first scene her pimp sends her in a cab outside the city to the house of Takashi (Tadashi Okuno), a retired professor of sociology, the subject that Akiko is studying at the university. This précis gives away almost nothing that happens in Like Someone in Love, not that all that much does happen. The film's title is taken from the jazz standard by Jimmy van Heusen (lyrics by Johnny Burke), made famous by Ella Fitzgerald, among others, music that the professor likes to play at home. Love makes people do strange things, but it is difficult to guess which of the three principals in this story is the "someone in love," who walks "as though I had wings, bump into things": the jealous, abusive boyfriend, the elderly john, or the seemingly hapless young woman.

Other Reviews: New York Times | Washington Post | David Edelstein | NPR | The New Yorker Wall Street Journal | Los Angeles Times | Movie Review Intelligence

It is also hard to discern an overarching theme in the movie, although on some level it may be about a culture that traditionally revered its elders gradually losing touch with its elders. The most moving scene in the film, by far, involves Akiko listening to messages left on her cell phone by her grandmother, who has come to Tokyo to check on her. I am on the way there, I am at the train station, I am waiting at such and such a place, I am going to get some noodles, maybe I will see you -- the messages go on. Visibly plagued by guilt, Akiko asks her cab driver to circle by the train station, but she does not stop. In a way, her elderly client takes the place of the grandmother, and for his part, Takashi seems to be just as cut off from the younger generation. Although most of their interaction is extremely awkward, Akiko and Takashi discuss a reproduction of a painting by Chiyoji Yazaki (1872-1947) hanging on his wall: Training a Parrot, from 1900, in the collection of the Geidai Museum (University Art Museum, Tokyo University of the Arts). It is, Takashi says, the first Japanese painting made in a European style, and the fading of Japanese traditions implied by that shift, in the years after Japan was reopened to the outside world, weighs heavily in the film's inter-generational conflict. Whether it is enough to keep your attention will vary according to the viewer.

This film is currently playing at Landmark's E Street Cinema.

A Survey of Dvořák Symphony Cycles

Like the Beethoven Piano Sonata Cycle Survey, the Sibelius Symphony Cycle Survey, and the Bruckner Cycle Survey, this is a mere inventory of what has been recorded and whether it is still available. Favorites are denoted with the “ionarts’ choice” graphic.

The complete Dvořák Symphonies have gone through various changes in their numbering (best known is the fact that the Ninth Symphony used to be considered the "Fifth" (and Five was Three, Six was One…), since Dvořák had suppressed the first four. Those four are incidentally the real reason to get a complete set. (This is assuming you already have a Fifth, Sixth [something better than this one], and definitely assuming you have a Seventh and Eighth; if you don't have a Ninth, you stumbled upon the wrong website.) Dvořák might have thought them lesser efforts, and certainly the Second Symphony lacks conciseness and the veteran punch that the composer can deliver in the darkly grand, consciously ambitious Seventh, or the even-keeled, mature, charming Fifth with its Bohemian touch. Dvořák’s Third is “Wagner without Words” and terrific, too... you get the picture.

There’s plenty of choice out there, albeit less than with Sibelius or Bruckner. The big names—Kubelik and Kertész in this repertoire—are good, but not necessary beyond criticism. Not every recording that is Czech is therefore idiomatic; nor every non-Czech recording at a disadvantage… and sometimes little underdogs (like Anguélov and his provincial Slovak Radio band, which has also recorded for Naxos with Stephen Gunzenhauser) can take a bite out of the big boys.

Because I’ve not heard even half of the recordings I am very conservative with the “ionarts’ choice” recommendation… a recommendation for which superb treatment of the early symphonies is a prerequisite.

Not included in this list are: an as-of-yet unfinished second cycle by Zdeněk Mácal with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra on Exton which, when it is completed and if it were readily available, would be the only cycle on SACDs. Ditto the ongoing, promising cycle that José Serebrier is recording on Warner with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. (Continued below the jump.)

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In Brief: Holy Week 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.)

• Harry Christopher conducts The Sixteen in a concert recorded in February at the Wigmore Hall in London, featuring excerpts from Monteverdi's Selva morale e spirituale. [France Musique]


• Franz Welser-Möst conducts Berg's Wozzeck at the Wiener Staatsoper, with a cast led by Simon Keenlyside (Wozzeck), Anne Schwanewilms (Marie), and Gary Lehman (Tambourmajor). If you understand German, listen to this interview with Schwanewilms about the production. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Listen to Mariss Jansons conduct the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Shostakovich's sixth symphony, plus excerpts from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, and Stravinsky's Firebird. [BR-Klassik]


• Baritone Tobias Berndt and pianist Alexandre Melnikov join the RIAS Kammerchor for a concert pairing Renaissance sacred music by Palestrina and Lassus with sacred music by Franz Liszt. [France Musique]


• A performance of Emmanuel Chabrier's Le Roi malgré lui, recorded at the Wexford Opera last October, with Liam Bonner, Luigi Boccia, and others. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• You can watch the Stefan Herheim staging of Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio at the Salzburg Festival in 2006, on YouTube. [Part 1 | Part 2]


• Listen to a rare performance of Johann Adolf Hasse's serenata Marc' Antonio e Cleopatra, with Vivica Genaux and Francesca Lombardi Mazzulli in the title roles, accompanied by Le Musiche Nove and directed by Claudio Osele, recorded in Vienna earlier this month. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Pianist Maria João Pires joins members of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra for a concert of chamber music by Schubert, recorded in Munich in January. [France Musique]


• Angela Hewitt conducts and plays two of Beethoven's piano concerti with the Britten Sinfonia, recorded at the Barbican Center in London in January, plus Wagner's Siegfried-Idyll. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• John Storgårds directs the Göteborg Symphony in a trumpet concerto by Rolf Wallin, with soloist Håkan Hardenberger, plus a symphony by Korngold. [GSO-Play]


• Recorded at the Opéra Comique in February, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France performs music by Mozart including a flute concerto with Magali Mosnier and the harp concerto with Xavier de Maistre. [France Musique]


• If you have always wanted to hear Richard Strauss's Duett-Concertino for clarinet and bassoon with strings and harp, this is your chance, in a performance by the Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg, plus music by Britten and Beethoven. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Paavo Järvi conducts the Orchestre de Paris in Dutilleux's first symphony and Beethoven's first symphony, plus Bartók's second violin concerto with Gil Shaham as soloist, at the Salle Pleyel. [France Musique]


• Tenor Giuseppe di Vittorio joins the ensemble I Turchini di Antonio Florio for Baroque music by Kapsberger, Marini, and others. [France Musique]


• Watch Stanislaw Skrowaczewski conduct the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra in music by Beethoven and Brahms, plus Shostakovich's first cello concerto with Johannes Moser as soloist. [ARTE Live Web]


• Listen to Plácido Domingo's performance, as a baritone, in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, recorded in Vienna in February. [France Musique]


• Here is the 1993 recording of Tchaikovsky's opera Mazeppa made in Göteborg with Neeme Järvi conducting a cast that included Sergej Leiferkus (Mazeppa), Anatoly Kotscherga (Kotschubei), and Larissa Dyadkova (Ljubow). [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Yoel Levi conducts the Orchestra National d'Ile de France in Beethoven's fifth symphony and violin concerto, with soloist Veronika Eberle, plus a piece by Christina Athinodorou, winner of the "île de créations" composition competition, called Intermède pour une mer jamais vue. [France Musique]


• Pianist Maurizio Baglini joins musicians from the Orchestre National de France for an unusual concert of chamber music by Salieri, Rossini, Verdi, and Glinka. [France Musique]


• Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet joins the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France for music by Dvořák and Bartók, at the Salle Pleyel in Paris. [France Musique]


• From back in 2002, Lorin Maazel leads the Vienna Philharmonic in music by Mendelssohn, plus music by Bach and Mozart. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• A young trio named Trio con Fuoco performs Mendelssohn and Beethoven in the Auditorium du Louvre. [France Musique]

Washington Ballet's 'Cinderella': Spring 'Nutcracker'

Morgann Rose, Ji Young Chae, Emily Ellis, and Aurora Dickie in Cinderella, Washington Ballet (photo by Brianne Bland)
What is to prevent a ballet company from replicating its December cash cow, The Nutcracker, in the spring season? The Washington Ballet could just about make it work with its pastel-pink production of Prokofiev's Cinderella (created in 2003, last revived in 2008), made for little girls, which we saw on Friday night at the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater. Septime Webre's choreography even recycles some of the vignettes from his Nutcracker, including little kids as adorable butt-shaking bees and sweet snow angels. It is a traditional, wedding-cake kind of staging -- far from the updating of Alexei Ratmansky, the art deco vision of American Ballet Theater, or the mise-en-abyme staging of Yuri Possokhov for the Bolshoi -- but with enough wit and charm, and pleasing dancing, to keep adults engaged. Its smaller scale and use of recorded music -- the lovely performance by André Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra (EMI) -- might draw a negative comparison to the Russian National Ballet's touring version, but the evening is packed with laughs and sweetness.

Prokofiev, Cinderella, London Symphony Orchestra, A. Previn (EMI)

Most of the comic relief is due to the two stepsisters, cast as campy drag queens by Webre and hilariously realized by Luis R. Torres and Zachary Hackstock, the latter especially over the top with his grotesque smile and big-legged hamming. Exceptional beauty of movement came with the divertissement of the four seasons, with elegant dances by Ji Young Chae (Spring), Ayano Kimura (Summer), Morgann Rose (Autumn), and Aurora Dickie (Winter), and the transformation of Sona Kharatian's Beggar, all hunched form and pointed hands, into the tall, refined Fairy Godmother was remarkable. As Cinderella, Emily Ellis was youthful but more feisty than shy, not willing to submit to the (mild) abuse from the stepsisters but also not overly assertive in her steps. The Prince of Jonathan Jordan was earnest but more of a complement to Ellis, making for a lovely pas de deux, than a standout on his own. Andile Ndlovu made an athletic Jester, entertaining the Prince in the ball scene and creating many humorous diversions with the stepsisters.

Other Reviews: Sarah Kaufman, Washington Ballet’s ‘Cinderella’ enchants with humor and splendid dancing (Washington Post, March 23)

The problems for the ears remain insurmountable: a ballet without live music is deprived of half of its life, its ability to stretch and breathe, its spontaneity. Washington Ballet, faced with ongoing budget shortfalls, is doing its best to make this unfortunate situation work, and its Cinderella offers much to impress the eyes. Beautiful settings are evoked through minimal sets designed by James Kronzer -- a ghostly forest, a fireplace, chandeliers, fancy tall mirrors that tip vertiginously to reflect the waltz in the ball scene -- and the costumes by Judanna Lynn are alternately outrageous (the multi-colored bustles of the stepsisters) and sickly sweet (the cloudy pinks of Cinderella and the Prince, complete with fairy-tale trains for both). It is not a production for purists and it offers little that is new about the story, but younger viewers will likely be as charmed and thrilled by it as Miss Ionarts was.

This production will be repeated today and tomorrow (March 23 and 24), in the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater.

Dip Your Ears, No. 130 (Bach, Fresh Squeezed)

J.S.Bach, Partitas No.2, 4 BWV 826, 828, “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” (arr. Dimetrik) W.Dimetrik Gramola 98945

The accordion has a reputation problem in the US, where its esteem ranks somewhere between recorder and kazoo. But after recording three English Suites in 2007, the Austrian Wolfgang Dimetrik is back with a Bach-accordion-disc that has the power to dispel any suppressed giggles. Perhaps forced, when transcribing, to think about the music beyond what can usually be expected, Dimetrik displays an incredible sense of phrasing in the two Partitas. And his keen musical intelligence becomes obvious in the ‘slight’ piece included, the arranged famous Choral Prelude “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme”, which stirs instead of being merely catchy.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Siberian Melancholy

Rachmaninoff, Romances, D. Hvorostovsky, I. Ilja (Ondine, 2012) G. Sviridov, Petersburg: A Vocal Poem, D. Hvorostovsky, M. Arkadiev (Delos, 2004)

Two hours of depressing Russian songs -- broken hearts, cold winters, silent steppes, nostalgic pasts, crushing presents -- may not be everyone's cup of tea. When sung with exceptional diction, mesmerizing presence, and oozing musicality by Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, you can count me in. Last here in Washington in 2007 and 2006, Hvorostovsky was fresh off a run of Verdi's Don Carlo at the Metropolitan Opera, and while there were some seats left unsold by Washington Performing Arts Society in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, it was a concert made for a Russian audience. Just perhaps in a smaller hall. The audience, obviously less familiar with how song recitals work, applauded after every song -- or tried to, stopped a couple times by the wagging finger of Hvorostovsky's hand.

My usual dislike of most instrumental music by Rachmaninoff does not apply to that composer's operas and songs, where perhaps the texts he chose excuse the tendency toward harmonic and melodic schmaltz. The first half of that composer's brooding songs, most of which Hvorostovsky has recently recorded with the same pianist featured here, Ivari Ilja, was potentially stultifying: slow and somber song after slow and somber song, with little variation. Both pianist and singer took their time to let each song unfold, stretching the tempo to set the words in place and craft each shape, the molasses-like gooeyness of the rubato giving the right air of tragic longing and regret. Highlights were the dramatic crescendo at the end of In my soul and the soul-permeating melancholy of Sad Night, as well as the finely turned simplicity of How nice this place is and the shimmering piano part of Lilacs. At times one felt the dramatic leanings of this singer, who is a creature of the stage, straining against the demands of the song recital, like an actor trying to emote rather than just recite poetry.

Other Articles: Anne Midgette, Difficulties of material, venue don't stop Hvorostovsky (Washington Post, March 22) Wynne Delacoma, Hvorostovsky returns to Miami, for what may be Drucker’s last stand (South Florida Classical Review, March 20) Tim Smith, Baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky to give recital for Washington Performing Arts Society (Baltimore Sun, March 18)

That problem was somewhat alleviated by the more dramatic songs on the second half, Petersburg: A Vocal Poem, composed by Soviet composer Georgy Sviridov (1915-1998) for Hvorostovsky in 1995. Sviridov, a student of Shostakovich, wrote in a more dissonant style that provided a savory contrast with the sweet palette of the first half. The poetry, by Russian poet Alexander Blok, offered some opera-like dramatic vignettes in which Hvorostovsky reveled, like the halting, quiet ending of The Golden Oar and the drunken howl of I am nailed to a tavern counter. He gave searing intensity to the bleak existentialism that pervades the cycle, too, like the anguished rage of A Voice from the Chorus and the sincere regret of Those born in obscure years. Strong ovations coaxed forth three encores, the central (and best) of which was a preview of Hvorostovsky's Iago, a role he will debut in Vienna this September in Verdi's Otello. The Creed Aria, one of the more blasphemous moments in opera ("Death is nothingness, and heaven is an old wives' tale"), gave a glimpse of a compelling Iago, a sociopath who uses his charm to destroy. The other encores were another Rachmaninoff song (In the Silence of the Night) and a Neapolitan ballad (Tagliaferri's Passione).

The Shtick, Shpil, and Spheres of Daniel Hope

Daniel Grossmann has been leading and shaping Munich’s little, innovatively programming Jakobsplatz Orchestra since its inception in 2005. Recently he hit upon the good (indeed highly necessary and long overdue) idea to also let other conductors lead the band: It ought to be good for the band, their experience and morale, and also mitigate their reputation as a toy orchestra for Grossmann (à la Mendelssohn, who got a chamber orchestra for his 12^th birthday).

Grossmann could hardly have landed a more impressive coup than getting Daniel Hope as the orchestra’s first ever guest conductor. Hope (who looks a bit how Louis C.K. might, with a violin and minus the funny) is on the front end of a promo-tour of his albums “Spheres” and “Four Seasons Re-Composed” (see Best Recordings of 2012) and needed a backup band for his project anyway… and the Jewish community center’s Jakobsplatz Orchestra was a ready, willing, and an appropriate fit for Hope, who likes to engage in a bit of ambiguous jewishy shpil & shtick. (Always reminds me of “The Yada Yada” Seinfeld episode: “…and this offends you as a Jewish person? / No, it offends me as a comedian.”)

All kinds of composers, Spheres, D.Hope et al. DG M.Richter, Recomp. / 4 Seasons D.Hope / de Ridder / KCO DG

There he was, Monday the 18^th, going down his set list of songs, doing a chat’n’play along the way, in nearly perfect German. Right off the bat Johann Paul von Westhoff’s Imitazione delle Campane, which lends itself to anywhere and anytime, in any kind of arrangement… and it really does sound timeless. Or rather it seems to be foreshadowing (if there was such a thing) 20^th century retro-minimalism (if there is such a thing). What followed was the (in-concert) world premiere of Gabriel Prokofiev’s Spheres, modern minimalist tic-toc that already set the mood for the Recomposed Four Seasons later on. Then Philip Glass’ Echorus, which is the good man at his Glassian best and better yet: a piece originally written for Menuhin which allows Daniel Hope one of his “did you know I studied with Menuhin?!” plugs. No... really? Tell us more. Trysting Fields is Michael Nyman taking Mozart (specifically the Sinfonia Concertante) apart and reassembling it (not for the first time). It’s fun; more fun still is the Peter Greenaway movie in which it originally found use. An excerpt from Karsten Gundermann’s Faust II Reloaded was the epitome of excited violin trapeze-work above a carpet of calmly moving strings. Arvo Pärt’s evergreen Fratres (not a particularly clean performance, alas, with poor pizzicatos but impressive right-on-the-money flageolet notes) capped a first half full of very different pieces, all of which sounded the bloody same.

If Grossmann was nervous before the show about his orchestra’s performance, he need not have been. They did very well, including the co-soloists when they were asked upon. Then again, very little was asked of them in the repertoire—which relegated the orchestra to a slightly wasteful backup role not unlike using a great choir only to go “ah-umm” on two notes, alongside a starlet singer.

The ‘Max Richter-goes-Four Seasons’ album is great, if you give it half a chance. Much greater, incidentally, on record (with amplification and athmospherinization [sic]), than it comes across live. The swoosh of turning pages (not Hope, who uses a very fancy page-self-turning Kindle-like gizmo) is an element of reality that this seductive re-Vision of the Four Seasons does not need. What it needs is a car stereo and a long, late-night drive on the highway. Hope encored a bit from Summer and then, true to form (and place) his encore-staple, the Kaddish by Ravel. Yadda Yadda… a fun night, quibbles and all.

Ionarts-at-Large: Dallas SO and @violincase in Munich

Just a month after Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra toured Europe (reviews from Nürnberg & Frankfurt), the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under their music Director Jaap van Zweden [guest conducting the NSO on April 25^th] did something much the same, with their string of concerts in Eindhoven, Amsterdam, Vienna (Konzerthaus), Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Hannover. Those last three cities were also on the NSO itinerary. Conveniently the Texans first stopped in Munich, though, where I heard them last Sunday with their second of two programs: Wagner’s Prelude & Liebestod, Steven Stucky’s Elegy from August 4, 1964, and Richard Strauss’ Suite from Der Rosenkavalier pivoting around the constant of the two programs, Erich Korngold’s Violin Concerto, performed by

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Classical Month in Washington (May)

Last month | Next monthClassical Month in Washington is a monthly feature. If there are concerts you would like to see included on our schedule, send your suggestions by e-mail (ionarts at gmail dot com). Happy listening!

May 1, 2013 (Wed)
7:30 pm
Charpentier, Actéon
Opera Lafayette
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

May 1, 2013 (Wed)
8 pm
Philadelphia Orchestra
With Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor) and Hilary Hahn (violin)
WPAS
Kennedy Center Concert Hall

May 2, 2013 (Thu)
7 pm
National Symphony Orchestra
With Alisa Weilerstein, cello
Music by Elgar, Shostakovich
Kennedy Center Concert Hall

May 2, 2013 (Thu)
7:30 pm
Charpentier, Actéon
Opera Lafayette
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

May 2, 2013 (Thu)
8 pm
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Music by Higdon, Prokofiev, Adams
Music Center at Strathmore

May 3, 2013 (Fri)
7:30 pm
Anja Bukovec (violin) and George Peachey (piano)
Embassy Series
Embassy of Slovenia

May 3, 2013 (Fri)
8 pm
National Symphony Orchestra
Music by Shchedrin, Shostakovich, Schnittke
Kennedy Center Concert Hall

May 3, 2013 (Fri)
8 pm
Orchestra 2001 [FREE]
With Ann Crumb (soprano), Patrick Mason (baritone)
Music by Crumb, Czernowin
Library of Congress

May 3, 2013 (Fri)
8 pm
University of Maryland Symphony and Concert Choir
Music by Stravinsky, Verdi, Adams, Ives
Clarice Smith Center

May 4, 2013 (Sat)
11 am and 1:30 pm
NSO Teddy Bear Concert
Teddy and the Ten Hats
Kennedy Center Family Theater

May 4, 2013 (Sat)
2 pm
Carducci String Quartet
WPAS
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

May 4, 2013 (Sat)
2 pm
Gamer Symphony Orchestra [FREE]
Clarice Smith Center

May 4, 2013 (Sat)
3 pm
Aeolus String Quartet [FREE]
Clarice Smith Center

May 4, 2013 (Sat)
8 pm
Beethoven, Symphony No. 9
Choralis, Alexandria Choral Society
Schlesinger Concert Hall (Alexandria, Va.)

May 4, 2013 (Sat)
8 pm
Meredith Monk, On Behalf of Nature
Clarice Smith Center

May 4, 2013 (Sat)
8 pm
National Symphony Orchestra
With Alisa Weilerstein, cello
Music by Elgar, Shostakovich
Kennedy Center Concert Hall

May 4, 2013 (Sat)
8 pm
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Music by Higdon, Prokofiev, Adams
Meyerhoff Symphony Hall (Baltimore, Md.)

May 4, 2013 (Sat)
8 pm
National Philharmonic
With Denyce Graves, mezzo-soprano
Music Center at Strathmore

May 4, 2013 (Sat)
8 pm
McLean Orchestra
Music by Barber, Ravel, Gershwin

May 4, 2013 (Sat)
8 pm
Haskell Small, piano [FREE]
Washington Conservatory of Music
Westmoreland Congregational Church (Bethesda, Md.)

May 5, 2013 (Sun)
3 pm
National Philharmonic
With Denyce Graves, mezzo-soprano
Music Center at Strathmore

May 5, 2013 (Sun)
3 pm
Nils Neubert (tenor), Julian Milkis (clarinet), Donald Shore (bassoon), Vera Danchenko-Stern (piano)
Russian Chamber Art Society
Katzen Arts Center at American University

May 5, 2013 (Sun)
3 pm
Bach Sinfonia
Baroque music from South America
Cultural Arts Center, Montgomery College (Silver Spring, Md.)

May 5, 2013 (Sun)
4 pm
Pomerium
Renaissance polyphony
Phillips Collection

May 5, 2013 (Sun)
4 pm
Evelyne Berezovsky, piano
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

May 5, 2013 (Sun)
5 pm
University of Maryland Wind Symphony
With members of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
Music by Mozart, Varèse
Clarice Smith Center

May 5, 2013 (Sun)
5:15 pm
Ines Maidre, organ
Washington National Cathedral

May 5, 2013 (Sun)
5:30 pm
Alban Gerhardt (cello) and Cecile Licad (piano)
Shriver Hall (Baltimore, Md.)

May 5, 2013 (Sun)
7:30 pm
Smithsonian Chamber Players
Music by Beethoven, Purcell, Dohnányi
National Museum of American History

May 6, 2013 (Mon)
7:30 pm
Barnabás Kelemen (violin), Péter Bársony (viola), and Melvin Chen (piano)
Embassy Series
Embassy of Hungary

May 6, 2013 (Mon)
8 pm
University of Maryland Percussion Ensemble [FREE]
Music by Xenakis
Clarice Smith Center

May 8, 2013 (Wed)
7:30 pm
Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises
Washington Ballet
Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater

May 9, 2013 (Thu)
7:30 pm
Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises
Washington Ballet
Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater

May 9, 2013 (Thu)
7:30 pm
Mak Grgic, guitar
Mansion at Strathmore

May 10, 2013 (Fri)
7:30 pm
Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises
Washington Ballet
Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater

May 10, 2013 (Fri)
8 pm
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Screening of Modern Times with live music
Meyerhoff Symphony Hall (Baltimore, Md.)

May 10, 2013 (Fri)
8 pm
Annapolis Symphony Orchestra
With Cornelia Herrmann, piano
Maryland Hall (Annapolis, Md.)

May 10, 2013 (Fri)
8 pm
Maya Beiser (cello) and Michael Harrison (piano)
Atlas Performing Arts Center

May 11, 2013 (Sat)
1:30 and 7:30 pm
Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises
Washington Ballet
Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater

May 11, 2013 (Sat)
2 pm
Shai Wosner, piano
WPAS
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

May 11, 2013 (Sat)
6 pm
Emerson String Quartet
With Paul Watkins, cello
Music by Haydn, Bartók, Schubert
National Museum of Natural History

May 11, 2013 (Sat)
8 pm
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Screening of Modern Times with live music
Music Center at Strathmore

May 11, 2013 (Sat)
8 pm
Prince George's Philharmonic
With Michael Mizrahi, piano
Clarice Smith Center

May 11, 2013 (Sat)
8 pm
Chantry
Music by Byrd, Josquin
St. Mary, Mother of God

May 11, 2013 (Sat)
8 pm
Fairfax Symphony Orchestra
GMU Center for the Arts

May 11, 2013 (Sat)
8 pm
Annapolis Symphony Orchestra
With Cornelia Herrmann, piano
Maryland Hall (Annapolis, Md.)

May 12, 2013 (Sun)
1:30 and 7:30 pm
Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises
Washington Ballet
Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater

May 12, 2013 (Sun)
3 pm
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Screening of Modern Times with live music
Meyerhoff Symphony Hall (Baltimore, Md.)

May 12, 2013 (Sun)
3 pm
Opera Bel Cantanti
Music by Tchaikovsky (in concert)
JCCGW (Rockville, Md.)

May 12, 2013 (Sun)
3 pm
American Youth Philharmonic Orchestra
GMU Center for the Arts

May 12, 2013 (Sun)
4 pm
Martina Filjak, piano
Phillips Collection

May 12, 2013 (Sun)
4 pm
Cathedral Choral Society
Diamond Jubilee, Queen Elizabeth II
Music by Handel
Washington National Cathedral

May 13, 2013 (Mon)
7:30 pm
Apollo Ensemble
Jewish Baroque music from Italy, Amsterdam
Pro Musica Hebraica
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

May 14, 2013 (Tue)
7:30 pm
Dawn Upshaw, soprano
With Crash Ensemble
Music by Golijov, Dennehy
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

May 15, 2013 (Wed)
7:30 pm
Eugenia Zukerman (flute) and Anthony Newman (harpsichord) [FREE]
National Museum of Women in the Arts

May 17, 2013 (Fri)
7:30 pm
Verdi, Rigoletto
Lyric Opera of Baltimore

May 17, 2013 (Fri)
8 pm
Great Noise Ensemble
Atlas Performing Arts Center

May 18, 2013 (Sat)
8 pm
Chantry
Music by Byrd, Josquin
TBA

May 19, 2013 (Sun)
1 and 3 pm
NSO Family Concert
C. Brubeck, The Cricket in Times Square
Kennedy Center Concert Hall

May 19, 2013 (Sun)
3 pm
Verdi, Rigoletto
Lyric Opera of Baltimore

May 19, 2013 (Sun)
4 pm
Zuill Bailey, cello
Phillips Collection

May 19, 2013 (Sun)
4 pm
Amadeus Orchestra
With Silver-Garburg Piano Duo
Saint Luke Catholic Church (McLean, Va.)

May 19, 2013 (Sun)
5 pm
Capital City Symphony
Atlas Performing Arts Center

May 19, 2013 (Sun)
5:15 pm
Richard Spotts, organ
Washington National Cathedral

May 19, 2013 (Sun)
7:30 pm
Goldstein-Peled-Fiterstein Trio
JCCGW (Rockville, Md.)

May 22, 2013 (Wed)
8 pm
Attacca String Quartet [FREE]
Music by Janáček, Andres, Beethoven, Adams
Library of Congress

May 23, 2013 (Thu)
8 pm
Jennifer Koh (violin) and Reiko Uchida (piano) [FREE]
Music by Janáček, Salonen, Schubert, Adams
Library of Congress

May 23, 2013 (Thu)
8 pm
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
With Carlos Kalmar (conductor) and Jean-Philippe Collard (piano)
Meyerhoff Symphony Hall (Baltimore, Md.)

May 24, 2013 (Fri)
7:30 pm
Jonathan Floril, piano
Embassy Series
Embassy of Ecuador

May 24, 2013 (Fri)
8 pm
International Contemporary Ensemble [FREE]
With John Adams, conductor
Music by Stravinsky, Schoenberg, di Castri, Adams
Library of Congress

May 24, 2013 (Fri)
8 pm
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
With Carlos Kalmar (conductor) and Jean-Philippe Collard (piano)
Meyerhoff Symphony Hall (Baltimore, Md.)

May 25, 2013 (Sat)
8 pm
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
With Carlos Kalmar (conductor) and Jean-Philippe Collard (piano)
Music Center at Strathmore

May 26, 2013 (Sun)
4 pm
Phillips Camerata
Phillips Collection

May 26, 2013 (Sun)
5:15 pm
Paul Carr, organ
Washington National Cathedral

May 30, 2013 (Thu)
7 pm
National Symphony Orchestra
With John Adams (conductor) and Jeremy Denk (piano)
Music by Respighi, Ravel, Adams
Kennedy Center Concert Hall

May 30, 2013 (Thu)
7:30 pm
Chantry
Music by Byrd, Josquin
St. Bernadette's

May 31, 2013 (Fri)
8 pm
National Symphony Orchestra
With John Adams (conductor) and Jeremy Denk (piano)
Music by Respighi, Ravel, Adams
Kennedy Center Concert Hall

May 31, 2013 (Fri)
8 pm
Gilbert and Sullivan, The Mikado
New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players
Filene Center at Wolf Trap

More 'Norma'

Angela Meade in Norma, Washington National Opera, 2013 (photo by Scott Suchman for WNO)
Even theater and cinema require a suspension of disbelief, a surrendering of the doubts of everyday perception to the narrative tide presented to the senses. Opera, however, is in a class by itself in this department, as "the extravagant art" (in the memorable phrase of scholar Herbert Lindenberger) -- "an exotic and irrational entertainment," as Samuel Johnson put it. Anyone who wants to enjoy opera has to accept that in the world on that stage, people sing instead of speak, to the accompaniment of an orchestra. All sorts of far-fetched things happen, including plot twists few would be willing to accept in theater or cinema, but somehow the emotional heightening achieved by music makes it all satisfying, in a way that has little to do with realism, theatrical or otherwise. Different viewers will have different limitations on just how much they can accept visually, but with many opera lovers, including you reviewer, if the singing is excellent, many other shortcomings can be easily overlooked -- like the Norma of Angela Meade, who is in her 30s, addressing the Adalgisa of Dolora Zajick, who is twice Meade's age, as "giovinetta."

The singing in Washington National Opera's current production of Bellini's Norma, all critics agree, is excellent, indeed more than excellent. I have already written about both the cast and the production, by theater director Anne Bogart, in my review of opening night, and Robert R. Reilly added a second opinion about the second performance. The chance to hear the third and fourth performances this past week, on Friday and Monday nights, offered a chance to reassess the production. If I could have heard all six performances, I would have, solely for the opportunity to hear this cast, which is top-notch. Further hearings confirmed that Angela Meade is one of the voices you will want to hear in years to come, supported with consummate power and professionalism by Dolora Zajick as Adalgisa and bass Dmitry Belosselskiy as Oroveso. Tenor Rafael Davila actually got better as Pollione later in the run, with more security and legato smoothness at the top of his range, if still not that much sound at the bottom. Unfortunately, when I wrote that Mauricio Miranda "had a very off night as Flavio," I was being kind. It was somewhat surprising to me that he was not replaced later in the run: surely the company can produce a better singer to round out this otherwise excellent cast.

First Performance: Charles T. Downey, Meade and Zajick, Trionfo in 'Norma' (Ionarts, March 11) Anne Midgette, Washington National Opera’s ‘Norma’ takes all that symbolism rather literally (Washington Post, March 11) Second Performance: Robert R. Reilly, Second Opinion: WNO 'Norma' — Good Opera, Bad Theater (Ionarts, March 15)

If Anne Bogart's production -- static, ritualized, abstract -- did not really grow on me, it did not grate on me more either, even by the end of the third performance I saw. The libretto places the action in one of the groves sacred to the Druids (foresta sacra de' druidi), but Oroveso's first line instructs the Druids to go up the hills ("Ite sul colle, o Druidi!"), and Neil Patel's organic set provides just such a steeply raked incline. Not much later, Pollione sings of a demonic power that seems to be leading him into a yawning pit ("l'abisso aperto"), which may have inspired the sort of pit that opens up on the right side of the stage. After having sat house right at the first and third performances, I saw the show from house left on Monday night, and it is much less flattering visually, because the scene is dominated by the more squared-off façade to the right representing the Roman occupiers.

The sound is also better from the right side of the house, with the singers more direct and exposed on the left, and the two powerful crescendos at the end of the opera's final number not sounding as perfectly balanced from that position in relation to the orchestra. Conductor Daniele Rustioni settled into the score later in the run, hitting the right tempi with greater assurance and fewer histrionic gestures. The orchestra continued to sound quite good, with some bad intonation issues in the trumpets appearing during the third performance, including the off-stage banda effects. The orchestra remained in its new seating arrangement, introduced by music director Philippe Auguin in the performances of Manon Lescaut, with the strings and harp at the center, the woodwinds on the left and the brass and percussion on the right. The intention is to create a better balance in the house, and it seemed to work much better on the right side of the house than on the left.

Two performances of this production remain, on Thursday night and Sunday afternoon, in the Kennedy Center Opera House. Readers who hear any of the later performances are invited to share their thoughts in the comments section.