Stuttgart Ballet's "Onegin" comes to the Kennedy Center

Friedemann Vogel (Onegin) and Elisa Badenes (Tatiana) in John Cranko's Onegin, Stuttgart Ballet
Photo: Studio LLC

The Stuttgart Ballet returned to the United States for the first time in over thirty years last week. The company performed a choreography rarely seen here, John Cranko's Onegin, created for and premiered by Stuttgart Ballet in 1965. Cranko created this ballet about a decade after he had choreogrphed dances in a production of the Tchaikovsky opera on the same subject, but he did so without using any of Tchaikovsky's music from the opera. Instead Kurt-Heinz Stolze selected (and mostly arranged) other music by Tchaikovsky in a more or less convincing sequence, turning to selections from his piano music and excerpts from other operas. The Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, conducted by Wolfgang Heinz, played the score with panache, including especially beautiful viola and harp solos.

The cast seen Wednesday evening in the Kennedy Center Opera House offered much beautiful dancing. The opening scene evoked the atmosphere at the Larin country estate, with the light-hearted Olga of American dancer Mackenzie Brown (who grew up in Stafford, Virginia, and joined Stuttgart Ballet in 2020) dancing with eight women, while the more pensive Tatiana of Elisa Badenes preferred to read her book alone. The Brazilian dancer Gabriel Figueredo, who joined the company in 2019, made a noble, tragic figure as Lensky, balanced and perfectly upright in his turns. Veteran dancer Friedemann Vogel made an elegant and disdainful Onegin, completely believable as he scorned Tatiana's love, even rolling his eyes at her choice of book and then dancing by himself, and too proud to step back from shooting his friend Lensky in the duel concluding Act II.

Cranko wisely chose to rethink the Letter Scene, where Tatiana writes her ill-fated message expressing her love to Onegin. The scene has some of the most emblematic music in Tchaikovsky's opera, which focusing on the letter would point up by its absence. Instead Tatiana danced in front of a mirror, seeing another dancer as her reflection and then Onegin behind that, who then stepped through the mirror to dance with her. Another pleasing innovation was Cranko's adaptation of Onegin's Sermon, which in Pushkin's original he preaches to Tatiana when he returns her letter. Rather than acting out those pompous words, Onegin ripped the letter to pieces, a gesture that Tatiana repeated at the end of Act III, when she sends Onegin away with her own sermon as the tables are turned.

Cranko included elements of folk, modern, ballroom, and acrobatic dance in his wide-ranging choreography. Esteemed dance critic Alastair Macaulay did not soft-pedal his low regard for this Onegin when he reviewed a performance of it by American Ballet Theater in 2017 (with no less than Diana Vishneva as Tatiana). He described Onegin as "a ballet that debases the powerful subtleties of its Pushkin story to the level of cheap romance and bashes at its collage of Tchaikovsky music with sensationalist dance effects and coarse rhythms." Some of these more athletic moves, including Onegin hurling Tatiana around violently (pictured), did seem overdone and sensational. Still, the ballet's more poetic moments more than made up for these few tawdry excesses. Although ticket sales reportedly tanked as regular patrons boycotted the Kennedy Center after the takeover by President Trump earlier this year, the opening night audience seemed fairly full, at least in the orchestra section.

The next ballet company to visit the Kennedy Center will be the Cincinnati Ballet, presenting its Nutcracker November 26 to 30. kennedy-center.org

Critic’s Notebook: Markus Poschner's Prayer for a Meermaid

Pictures © Amar Mehmedinovic

Also published in Die Presse: Poschners Gebet für die Seejungfrau: Das RSO im Musikverein

L.Boulanger 3 Psalms; Vieille Priere bouddhique S.Bruce-Payne, J.Podger Monteverdi C&O, Gardiner DG (2002) US | UK | DE

A.Zemlinsky The Mermaid pre-2013 Version RSO Berlin, Chailly Decca US | UK | DE

A.Zemlinsky The Mermaid New Critical Version Helsinki PO, Storgårds Ondine US | UK | DE

A thrilling concert of little-known late Romanticism — as only the RSO can deliver

Lili Boulanger, with just two dozen works and 24 years to her name, remains one of the most promising composers of the 20th century – a kind of Schubert-in-extremis of Post-Romanticism. Her talent was blindingly evident to colleagues and audiences alike by force of sheer quality. As a result, even though she only lingers at the outer margins of the repertoire, she has never truly been forgotten. And anyone who finds her name on a program and enjoys music somewhere between Debussy and Mahler – or indeed Zemlinsky – needn’t fear that here, some quota has put some mediocrity on stage to appease the zeitgeist. Instead, they can look forward to the very best that symbolist late Romanticism has to offer.

That was confirmed, impressively, by the RSO Vienna and Markus Poschner on Saturday night, when they chose for the first half of their Musikverein concert two of her works: Vieille prière bouddhique (“Old Buddhist Prayer”) and the 130th Psalm (Du fond de l’abîme / “Out of the Depths”). Both were written while the First World War was raging and are, fittingly, incandescent invocations of peace among men. One might, if not paying attention to the text, take the first for a hymn to the sea – so completely did one get swept away in great waves of sound by the orchestra, the chorus (a passionately committed Singverein), and tenor Paul Schweinester from the organ loft.

The way Boulanger handles the colors of these musical forces – in the Psalm further joined by organ and alto solo – the subtlety, the suggestion of power (suggesting it, rather than throwing it about) – is deeply impressive. Boulanger does not indulge, despite the wealth of means at her disposal; she deploys them discriminatingly, if lavishly. Anyone who hasn’t heard her music might imagine a blend of the orgiastic fervor of Mahler’s Eighth and the refinement of Debussy’s La Mer. Were religiosity always this sensual, the churches would be full. As it is, it was satisfying enough that the Golden Hall was nicely filled. A highlight within the highlight: Claudia Mahnke, whose darkly glinting voice and controlled, wide vibrato suited this kind of Romanticism superbly.

It speaks for Zemlinsky’s rightly popular Seejungfrau that she did not sink after such a first half. It’s equally noteworthy, that Zemlinsky got to the nominal main draw of the concert. Despite being a perfectly conventional romantic concert by content, there is on other major orchestra in Vienna that should have dared to program two relatively unknowns like this, no matter how glorious the music. That’s something, however, the RSO can do, and which is why it is so important for the musical landscape in Vienna. If it goes at the expense of playing ungainly contemporary music for the sake of playing it, all the better.

Poschner – who loves the Mermaid and recorded it with the RSO in the course of these performances (for Capriccio) – let the mermaid bubble merrily, the waves crash high, and the orchestra surge passionately forward. That it got very loud in the front rows was, in the Musikverein (where the work premiered in 1905), hardly avoidable. At times, one could imagine how a dolphin might feel swimming past an offshore wind farm. One wished, in those moments, for the Konzerthaus, where the work’s wonderful details would have stood a better chance of survival – and where the work was re-premiered in 1985, upon rediscovery. Still, it capped an overwhelming evening.

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Notes from the 2025 Salzburg Festival ( 2 ) Alexander Malofeev and María Dueñas in Recital

Salzburg Festival • Recitals • Malofeev & Dueñas

Unlikely Duo at the Mozarteum

On paper, Alexander Malofeev and María Dueñas have only their age in common. In concert, though, the quiet, pale-blond Russian at the piano and the savvy Spanish violinist made for an unexpectedly effective musical pairing.

Kids at work: Malofeev is 23, Dueñas 22, and when Karol Szymanowski wrote his Violin Sonata in D minor, Op. 9, the Polish composer was just 21. The three met , not for the first time, at the Salzburg Festival soloist recital in the Great Hall of the Mozarteum – and they delighted the audience. Dueñas, with her wild, expressive tone — a touch of viola-like smokiness, high intensity, and more than a hint of risk (or at least the impression of it) — threw herself irresistibly into her part, lips pursed, eyes shut tight. A bit of show? Surely. But who would begrudge her.

The lanky, long-limbed Malofeev, sitting at the Steinway like the Peanuts’ Schroeder, fingered a surprising amount of music from his score. One wanted to listen to him every bit as much as to her, as seemingly simple accompaniments were turned into impressionistic studies or sounded as if he were improvising them on the spot.

That the young man would impress was no surprise, after causing a stir at the Musikverein last February (“Critic’s Notebook: Alexander Malofeev gives his recital debut in Vienna”). He is surely one of the most exciting, promising pianists of his — already well-stocked with good pianists — generation. María Dueñas, on the other hand, had so far made her mark with a meticulously planned and marketed career, stoked by media hype and record contracts, helped by rich parents and dusted with pristine “vanilla cupcake” playing (“Wiener Symphoniker: 16er-Blech und die ‚Fünfte von Brahms‘“). Musical character, however, less so.

That this combination should succeed was by no means a given when the concert was booked — though a nearly identical program intermittently performed in New York’s Weill Recital Hall had raised hopes. In any case, this recital (like most in the “Soloists’ Concerts” series) is not an indigenous Festival event but at best an ornamental garnish, that pretty much anyone can garnish their musical with, assuming they knock at the right agency’s door. That’s neither good nor bad per se; it all depends on the combination. Any Wiener Schnitzel with potato salad benefits from a touch of parsley. But only parsley — musical commodity fare — makes for a dull plate. See Grafenegg.

After the youthfully-exuberant Szymanowski — already cheered frenetically by the (nearly as) youthful crowd on the balcony — things continued promisingly with Debussy’s swan song, his G minor Sonata, written just before the composer’s death. An earthy note came into play, here, not the cliché of ether, but variety and depth. In this work, as in the first two movements of the concluding, massive César Franck A-major Sonata, Dueñas impressed not only with the energy of her playing but also with her kaleidoscope of timbres: smoky, delicate, hefty by turns.

The third movement’s hectic episodes seemed a bit aimless, and in the finale Dueñas’s personal touch — the variety that had benefited the music so far — gave way to a clean, somewhat sharp and loud tone, as if she were intent on bringing the final stretch home without mishap. But this did not diminish the overall impression — and the vociferous audience refused to let the duo go until after a third encore, among them Piazzolla, and an arrangement of Richard Strauss’s “Morgen”, tenderly, almost hesitantly accompanied by Malofeev.

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#ClassicalDiscoveries: The Podcast. Episode 018 - Penderecki: A Life in Four Quartets

Welcome to #ClassicalDiscoveries. Here is a little introduction to who we are and what we would like to achive at the first (or, in a nod to Bruckner, "double-zeroëth" episode). Your comments, criticism, and suggestions remain most welcome, of whatever nature they may be. Now here’s Episode 018, which I believe might be our best one yet! It attempts to cover the whole stylistic world of Krysztof Penderecki in just over 70 minutes! Fear not, that’s not the length of our podcast today, it’s the time it takes to perform all his compositions involving string quartet and string trio. And they conveniently trace the composer’s startlingly divergent stylistic output, from the wild-as-it-comes 1960 String Quartet No.1 via the masterly String Trio to the romanticism of the Third and beyond..

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With overtones of Antisemitism: The Cancelling of Lahav Shani and the Munich Philharmonic in Ghent

Lahav Shani, picture © Marco Borggreve

Last wednesday, September 10^th, the Munich Philharmonic published a statement, responding to the Flanders Festival Ghent having cancelled the orchestra’s concert on September 18th. The festival’s justification was the following: The chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, the Tel Aviv-born Lahav Shani, is also the music director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Or, if one were to be polemical: Shani is guilty of being a Jew.

When I wrote an editorial for Die Presse (“Der Boykott von Lahav Shani in Belgien riecht nach Antisemitismus”), it had to be fast and the Festival was not yet ready to comment on their decision. (They have since, but haven’t made matters much better.) Not having space constraints on ionarts, I might be able to insert more nuance into this commentary.

Part of the initial claim of the Festival was, that they had acted in part based on pressure from activist groups and politics in Belgium and that the decision was made to avoid trouble. If this alone were true, it was a shocking miscalculation. Shocking not just for the insensitivity towards the look, when a festival in Central Europe decides to exclude an orchestra, because its chief conductor is associated with the Israel Philharmonic (which is subsidized by the state to the tune of some 12% of its budget), but also shocking for its cowardice and lack of foresight. Alas, it is clear that the “pressure”, though the possibility of protests wasn’t unreasonable to fear, was hardly the sole motivation.

We’ll get to that in a moment. Meanwhile, let’s imagine what might have happened. Protests of irate pro-Palestine youths (very unlikely to be potential visitors of the concerts, by any stretch of the imagination, even if the latter shared some of the concerns about the war in Gaza), holding up placards that would read, explicitly or implicitly: “Don’t let Jews Make Music”? An unsavory prospect, no doubt, but surely only made worse by preemptively doing the work for them. A half-way reason-bound management would have foreseen that – and not caved to trade one bad look for a worse one.

But they didn’t and – “after careful deliberation” (according to artistic director Jan Van den Bossche) – made their choice. Because, as the explanation defending their decision made clear, they weren’t just worried about protests from the anti-Israel crowd, they shared their beliefs. After going through the motions of pointing to Jewish performers – even (!) the Israel Philharmonic – having performed at the festival in the past, and calling Lahav Shani “a fantastic artist”, they justify their decision by declaring that they “do not know where he stands in this conflict.” He just might be for genocide, you know.

Then they proceed to lamely blame others: “The attitude of the policymakers is not always clear. But there was a call from the Flemish Minister of Culture and from the Ghent cultural sector, and as an organization we could not ignore that” and end with a statement that, in light of their decision, can be excused to seem cynical: “For us, music is a connecting force, not a political statement.” Surely, it was a political statement they made, by disinviting the Jew, and an act of exclusion that precisely undermines the ‘connecting force’ they are so keen on. No use, really, to decry, in a none-too-reassuring way, that the decision was “in no way motivated by antisemitism”.

Actually, we should let them have the benefit of the doubt on this one. It is, in fact, very hard to imagine that the Flanders Festival Ghent is run by hardened (or even junior) antisemites. Most certainly they don’t think of themselves as antisemites. They don’t have a problem with the Jew, per se. So let’s take a stab, as charitably as one can, at their syllogism that led them to this decision: Israel commits genocide and is, therefore, a rogue state. The Israel Philharmonic is a representative of the state of Israel – and therefore, Lahav Shani, is, too. Thus Shani is a representative of genocide and must be – if the Festival wishes to avoid being tarnished with such a dastardly crime – boycotted. He would be a blot on their morally superior escutcheon. “Genocide” as they put it “leaves no room for ambiguity”, after all. Apparently not for nuance or common sense, either. I would bet good money, that someone in Ghent, after the decision had been made, felt smugly noble, as if they had boycotted Furtwängler from appearing in 1939. A perverse parallel to draw, if examined any closer, but not surprising in today’s environment of divisiveness and misinformation.

The Munich Philharmonic is rightly “aghast, that a festival in Belgium, in the heart of the European Union, comes to such an unimaginable conclusion.” And yet, there’s enough hatred for Israel in Europe, that Israelis, too – even those that openly engage themselves for the ideals of peace and humanity – will bear guilt by association. This is outrageous, even if one were to let stand the (deeply, profoundly flawed) premise, which the administrators, including Festival’s Chairman Jan Briers, clearly hold to be true, of Israel committing “genocide”.

There’s a certain irony a disinvitation on moral grounds due to the association of their conductor with a state deemed to be engaged in immoral, criminal acts should hit the Munich Philharmonic, some clever commentators will invariably point out. After all, Shani’s predecessor was Valery Gergiev, who was fired from this job by the city of Munich, when Russia attacked Ukraine. At a superficial glance, that would seem problematic. Alas, even if one were to let the false analogy of “Israel/Gaza = Russia/Ukraine” stand (for it is a belief that no op-ed or facts can easily change), Shani is hardly to Netanyahu’s regime what Gergiev is to Putin’s. Anyone who thinks so would be well advised to recalibrate their moral compass.

This holds (in the case of Gergiev, an intimate of the powers that be in Russia), even if we consider that criticism of the respective regime is very much possible for an Israeli whereas it isn’t reasonably possible for a Russian who wishes still to enter (much less work in) his or her country. If one wanted to put the finger onto a certain level of western hypocrisy, one might do better pointing to the case of someone like Teodor Currentzis, whose exclusion from many Western presenters does reek of collective guilt and cowardice. And further speaking of hypocrisy: If “genocide left no room for ambiguity”, one wonders why Lang Lang, for example, gets to appear without any controversy.

In the current environment, however, it is easier to target Israel and Jews to showcase one’s moral indignation – and therein lies the rub, because it’s the backdoor, through which antisemitism can squeak back in to the discussion. Not everyone who calls for a boycott of Israel and its artists, be it in this case or the European Song Contest, is an antisemite. It is only fair to concede that in the majority of cases, a heady mix of ignorance and stupidity is sufficient to hold that attitude. (For which, by the way, compassion for the Palestinian victims, laudable in-and-of-itself, is hardly a sufficient excuse.) But it is equally reasonable to assume that such calls are not also motivated by antisemitism of various degrees, by some of those that do. In kowtowing to the street and its potential reactions, therefore, such a decision invariably also caves to antisemitism. At which point it doesn’t suffice – or matter much – that one might think oneself free from such sentiments: The smell is just as bad.

This is something that did evidently not occur to those in charge of the Flanders Festival. It did, however, to Bart de Wever, Prime Minister of Belgium. Following the kerfuffle of Lahav Shani’s cancellation, he went to a concert of the Munich Philharmonic on Tour in Essen and criticized the decision sharply, calling it “irresponsible” and “a shame” – a shanda, if you will. He did this, while concurrently criticizing the conduct of Israel in Gaza and supporting “targeted sanctions proposed by the EU”, which is arguably still wrongheaded but fair enough, as it displays the nuance in a heated environment that the Festival’s leadership is lacking. Perhaps there is room for learning, yet.

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#ClassicalDiscoveries: The Podcast. Episode 017 - Kurt Weill: From Brecht to Broadway

Welcome to #ClassicalDiscoveries. Here is a little introduction to who we are and what we would like to achive at the first (or rather "double-zeroëth" episode). Your comments, criticism, and suggestions remain most welcome, of whatever nature they may be. Now here’s Episode 017, where Joe shares his enthusiasm about Kurt Weill, trying to cure my corresponding ignorance in the process.

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STC's Merry Wives of Harlem

Nick Rashad Burroughs (center), Felicia Curry, Jordan Barbour, Sekou Laidlow, and JaBen Early in The Merry Wives of Windsor at Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo: Teresa Castracane

No one is likely to claim that Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor is sacrosanct. Few would complain about updating the play's action to our era; in fact, freshening up this somewhat homely farce could be an improvement. Playwright Jocelyn Bioh has moved the action from the town of Windsor, outside London, to 116th Street in the midst of Harlem, with the Fords running a laundromat and the Pages a hair-braiding salon. Bioh, who grew up in Washington Heights as the daughter of immigrants from Ghana, jettisons much of the original text in favor of authentic evocation of various black dialects. Shakespeare Theatre Company has brought this version to Washington, seen Friday evening.

Leading a cast of mostly company debuts, Oneika Phillips and Felicia Curry play Madam Ekua Page and Madam Nkechi Ford, respectively, the former of Ghanaian origin and the latter of Nigerian descent. Like Shakespeare's wives, they rule the roost, but Bioh has soft-pedaled or eliminated most of the original sexist language. While the women proved consistently funny and entertaining, Nick Rashad Burroughs's over-the-top jealousy as Mister Nduka Ford, stole the show with his antic bluster. His alter-ego as Brook, costumed as a dreadlocked Rastafari with an outlandish Jamaican accent, was a highlight. JaBen Early’s more sedate Mister Kwame Page receded into the background as a result.

Last week, STC announced that the originally cast Falstaff, Lance Coadie Williams, had to withdraw from the production for personal reasons. Happily, Jacob Ming-Trent, who created the role in the New York premiere, recorded and broadcast on PBS's Great Performances, and is familiar from Watchmen and other television shows, stepped in. A sort of Fat Albert with a propensity for crooning like Barry White, his Falstaff seemed more absurd than abhorrent, which helped to lighten the often mean-spirited vengeance of Shakespeare’s play. Bioh reduced the fat knight’s trio of henchmen to just one, Pistol, played with confidence by Bru Aju, a strong contradiction to his dual role as the cowardly Slender.

The Welsh parody of Sir Hugh Evans becomes a Liberian pastor (the genial Sekou Laidlow), while the foppish Doctor Caius, given to self-important French affectations, is ingeniously transformed into an eccentric doctor of Senegalese origin. As strongly hinted at through the fey characterization of Jordan Barbour, he is only too happy to end up married to a man in the final scene in Windsor (Morningside?) Park.

Kelli Blackwell’s fast-talking Mama Quickly did her best to advance the causes of all three suitors for the hand of the Pages’ daughter, Anne (Peyton Rowe). Fenton, cross-dressed as a woman and played earnestly by Latoya Edwards, won this competition only by subterfuge but was welcomed into the family. Howard University-trained Rebecca Celeste earned the evening’s broadest laughs as the laundry worker who had to push the cart of foul clothes in which Falstaff escaped Ford’s jealous rage.

Anchoring the musical part of the ensemble was Shaka Zu, who led some call-and-response improvisations with the audience, aided by a conga drum. The Windsor Park fairy scene was memorably transformed into an African masquerade, complete with colorful masks and raffia skirts (choreography by Ashleigh King). The sets, designed cleverly by Lawrence E. Moten III, evoked a row of Harlem shopfronts, with colorful African-inspired costumes designed by Ivania Stack to divert the eyes even more.

The Merry Wives of Windsor runs through October 5. shakespearetheatre.org

Notes from the 2025 Salzburg Festival ( 1 ) A Recital with Igor Levit filling in for Evgeny Kissin

Salzburg Festival • Recitals | D-S-C-H • ex-Kissin | Igor Levit

Whispered Brahms, Affectatious Shostakovich

Substituting for Evgeny Kissin is no picnic – even for Igor Levit. But at least he tried.

The solo recital with Evgeny Kissin, part of Salzburg’s “DSCH” series of concerts, had to go ahead without its planned soloist who had fallen ill on short notice. He was going to play the same program he gave in late March at the Musikverein. Shostakovich, who died exactly fifty years ago that week, at least, remained the focus of the second half, thanks to Igor Levit, who stepped in for his colleague and left that part similar enough. In fact, on paper, the Second Sonata was still the same piece. Musically, everything was fundamentally different, though – including said sonata.

D.Shostakovich Preludes & Fugues op.87 Igor Levit Sony (2021) US | UK | DE

D.Shostakovich Preludes & Fugues op.87 Keith Jarrett ECM (1992) US | UK | DE

The surge, seriousness, and underlying humor that Kissin had drawn out were blown away. In their place came playfulness, a murmur, a small-small in stubborn mezzopiano – here and there interrupted by an occasional furious, note-snatching dash across the keyboard. Musical incidents that each stood like a monolith amid the whispering. Energy, when it was present at all, was derived from speed, not mass. This worked quite nicely for the Preludes and Fugues from Opus 87, as did Levit’s inclination to dissolve the notes into architectural elements. Quirky, in the best sense; a little as if Gyro Gearloose had taken up the piano.

The Largo of the Sonata no longer stood, as with Kissin, in spiritual proximity to Debussy; it was pushed toward twelve-tone music and Schoenberg. “Pointillist,” one might say. Or “frayed.” The ostentatious renunciation of loudness – especially effective in the broad expanse of the Grosses Festspielhaus – was not without appeal. Levit’s delicate, soiree-appropriate soft, and even touch was consistently admirable – especially in the Brahms Intermezzi Op. 117 and Four Ballades Op. 10 of the first half. Brahms benefits from this, to a point – though the approach shifts the burden of generating tension from the performer to the audience: either it sits in raptness (which, in the restless first half, could hardly be claimed) or one faces a certain risk of the audience nodding off.

The question also arose whether there might be such a thing as “over-interpretation,” so much did Levit demand of every phrase in these simply beautiful Intermezzi; so introspective every attack had to become; so brooding every pause: every tiniest note a carefully curated miniature. The Ballades, too, received this detail-minded, intelligent treatment. Like pulled pork, it seemed: so tender it fell apart if you as much as looked at it – a tightrope walk between touching and tiresome. The contrast of the thunderous leap into the B minor Ballade, as rough-hewn as Michelangeli liked to play it, came out all the sharper in this setting. Sweetening the close was another Brahms Intermezzo as encore – holding back the already-breaking-out just once more, and making the already-jubilation-primed remainder of the audience cheer all the harder.


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