New York City Ballet celebrates Robbins and Bernstein

New York City Ballet in Jerome Robbins's Glass Pieces (photo by Paul Kolnik)
Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein were both born in 1918, the former on October 11 and the latter on August 25. After a program honoring three of its major choreographers earlier in the week, the New York City Ballet offered a tribute to Robbins, its other co-founder, and the composer with whom he often collaborated, seen on Friday night in the Kennedy Center Opera House.

Robbins is most remembered for his hybridization of classical ballet with popular dance, a trend he began in his very first choreography, Fancy Free. Premiered in 1944 by the company that would become American Ballet Theater, it is set to a jazz-heavy score by Bernstein, in a foretaste of what they would create a decade later in West Side Story. The scene is wartime Manhattan, evoked immediately by the "overture," a minute or so of a recording of Big Stuff, a Bernstein original that sounds like a classic blues. NYCB's new music director, Andrew Litton, has changed the recording used at this moment to one made by Billie Holiday, the voice envisioned by both Bernstein and Robbins, although she had obviously not recorded the song at the time of the ballet's creation.

Roman Mejia, Harrison Coll, and Sebastian Villarini-Velez, the Saturday matinee's trio of sailors in a last-minute substitution, burst onto the stage one by one with cartwheels. The opening music, bubbling with enthusiasm, contains the kernel of the melody of "New York, New York, it's a helluva town" (the Bronx is up and the Battery's down, the people ride in a hole in the ground), from the musical adaptation of this ballet, On the Town. This trio was enthusiastic and physical, if not always as unified as they might have been. The style of choreography must have been bracing to see in 1944, still some years before Gene Kelly would popularize the style in countless big-production film musicals. It now feels rather dated, however, especially the interactions of the sailors with the three Passers-by, women who are minding their own business and end up basically getting harassed.

Other Reviews: Alastair Macaulay, Then, With a Touch of Now, and a Fully Charged Prodigal Son (New York Times, January 21, 2008) Brian Seibert, A Jerome Robbins Tribute by New York City Ballet Brims With Brio (New York Times, February 9, 2015)

The Robbins legacy came off the strongest in the first work, Glass Pieces, from 1983. Lucinda Childs had already choreographed Glass's music at that point, in Einstein on the Beach and Dance, but Robbins captured something essential about Glass's style in these excerpts from Glassworks and Akhnaten. In the opening scene (see photo above) the corps walks about busily, like the bustling city streets slowed down in the film Koyaanisqatsi, which came out just before this ballet.

Pairings and small groups of dancers in solid colors enter the scene accompanied by new musical motifs, disrupting the workaday mood with lyricism. Eventually the corps is drawn into what they are doing, a sort of metaphor for artistic inspiration. The choreography is most ravishing, however, in the slow movement, set to the "Facades" movement of Glassworks, with a gorgeous pas de deux, spotlit in front of a sort of conga-line corps silhouetted in blue light. The exceptionally strong new principal dancer Russell Janzen elegantly lifted the long-limbed Maria Kowrowski around the stage to the held, hovering notes of the soprano sax solo. The final scene, with its percussion-heavy syncopated elements, did not reveal the men of the corps in the strongest light. Conductor Andrews Sill had some trouble at times keeping musicians on opposite sides of the pit perfectly aligned in this complex, repetitive music.

The eccentric side of Robbins came across in the last piece, The Four Seasons from 1979. It is principally a choreography for the ballet of that name in the third act of Verdi's Les vêpres siciliennes, augmented by some music from the same composer's I Lombardi and Il Trovatore. The staging and costumes, with caped dancers in front of a huge, soaring crest bearing Verdi's name, seemed extremely kitschy by comparison to the week's worth of bare stages. Robbins made many jokes that matched music to movement, like the shivering ballerinas in the Winter scene. Outstanding solo work came from the poised Sarah Mearns, with an elegant, upright vertical line in the Spring section, paired beautifully with Jared Angle. Ashley Laracey was again extraordinary in the lead role of Summer, even in this least striking of the four scenes, and Ashley Bouder and Joaquin de Luz excelled in the wine-dipped concluding dances of Fall, watched over by the athletic caprioles of Daniel Ulbricht.

This program will be repeated today at 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. and tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. in the Kennedy Center Opera House with various casts.

American Ballet Theater: New Choreography at Kennedy Center

Blain Hoven and Daniil Simkin, Serenade after Plato's Symposium, American Ballet Theater (photo by Rosalie Connor)
American Ballet Theater has taken over the Kennedy Center Opera House this week, offering a smorgasbord of new ballets. The first program, seen on Wednesday night, was a combination of three choreographies from the last decade, plus a Jerome Robbins classic from 1976. The second night cast included some of the company's best dancers -- meaning that the usual vocal group of Misty Copeland followers was in the audience -- and some new discoveries.

The best part of the Leonard Bernstein anniversary celebrations, otherwise a seemingly endless sequence of celebrated mediocrities, arrived unexpectedly with Serenade after Plato's Symposium, perhaps Alexei Ratmansky's most important work to date, premiered by ABT in 2016. The music is Bernstein's, a rather gorgeous five-movement violin concerto premiered in Venice in 1954, setting to music the seven speakers of Plato's Symposium, invited to extol the virtues of love. Seven men, mostly from the group of rising soloists, brought this evening of conversation and intense philosophical argument to life, with Hee Seo taking the startling single female role, entering in a starkly lit rectangular opening in the rear curtain. Violin soloist Kobi Malkin struggled with intonation on the numerous double-stops of the solo part, but the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra supported him ably.

The Robbins piece, Other Dances, was originally a vehicle for Mikhail Baryshnikov, but it was the woman of the pairing, Sarah Lane, who most stood out for the grace and buoyancy of her movements. Emily Wong played the selection of Chopin pieces, four mazurkas and a concluding, spirited waltz, at a piano on stage.

Other Reviews: Alastair Macaulay, Review: In Gala, American Ballet Theater Is Open to Debate (New York Times, May 17, 2016) ---, A Big House, Big Names, New Twists (New York Times, May 25, 2011) Gia Kourlas, Review: At American Ballet Theater, Mostly Millepied (New York Times, October 26, 2017)

The most recent piece, premiered just last fall, was the spirited I Feel the Earth Move, with choreography by Benjamin Millepied set to music by Philip Glass. Stage hands cleared away all of the curtains and scrims from the stage, revealing the catwalks and bare walls, as well as the lighting instruments above. Danced to a rather loud recording, this ballet was hyperactive, seemingly in constant motion, perhaps an expression of individual freedom against repression, represented by the female corps, which appeared marching in step, bandannas over some of their faces.

Christopher Wheeldon's story ballets have not been my cup of tea for the most part, but this more abstract short choreography had greater appeal. Barbara Bilach took the solo part of Benjamin Britten's Diversions for Piano (left hand) and Orchestra, again conducted with abundant energy by Ormsby Wilkins. It was another beautiful score to discover, brought to life by dance, made better by it as the Bernstein had been earlier. The variations form worked elegantly for dance, as Wheeldon has crafted pairs, solos, and group numbers for each brief movement. Misty Copeland finally appeared on stage, for a time-stopping solo in the fourth variation ("Rubato"). Her pairing in the exquisite pas de deux for the tenth variation ("Adagio"), with Cory Stearns stepping in for Gray Davis, was the highlight of the evening, muscularity merged with poetry.

American Ballet Theater performs Whipped Cream, with a forgotten ballet score by Richard Strauss, tonight through February 4.

Alban Gerhardt @ LoC

Britten, Cello Symphony / Cello Sonata, Cello Suites, A. Gerhardt, S. Osborne, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, A. Manze (Hyperion, 2013)

Charles T. Downey, For cellist Alban Gerhardt, a strong start but a weak second half (Washington Post, January 18)

Many themes unified the concert that German cellist Alban Gerhardt played Saturday at the Library of Congress. All of the music he performed was from the 20th century, most of the composers were American and many of the pieces were composed for Mstislav Rostropovich. The choices were to Gerhardt’s credit, but as in his last appearance with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in June, the results were mixed.

Two excellent sonatas filled the first half, beginning with Cello Sonata, Op. 6, by the young Samuel Barber. Gerhardt filled the Coolidge Auditorium with an ardent tone, especially on the high strings, slashing upward on the first movement’s main theme but infusing the second theme with Brahmsian tenderness... [Continue reading]

Alban Gerhardt (cello)
Anne-Marie McDermott (piano)
Library of Congress

SEE ALSO:
Charles T. Downey, C Major Is C Major Is C Major? (Ionarts, June 18, 2015)

National Symphony Season Opening Ball Concert

Bach, Violin Concertos, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, J. Bell (Sony, 2014)

The National Symphony Orchestra opened their 84th season -- the ensemble's 44th in the Kennedy Center -- Sunday evening with violinist Joshua Bell and soprano Kelli O’Hara as guest artists. Following a performance of the National Anthem, under Music Director Christoph Eschenbach’s vivacious baton, the orchestra was hustled through Bernstein’s overture to Candide, which allowed opportunities galore for solos from the principal chairs. Much like the glitter and sparkling of sequins and jewels adorning many in the audience and onstage (the ladies of the orchestra wore ball gowns), the concert was largely without focus. In other words, musical flash was on the menu, and delivered in great quantity.

Joshua Bell joined the orchestra for Saint-Saëns’s Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso for Violin and Orchestra, a showpiece that put the audience on the edge of their seats rather than sitting back in their chairs to absorb longer musical thoughts. Bell’s clear, sweet sound was breathtaking and contrasted nicely to the darker tone drawn out of his violin in Ravel’s Tzigane for Violin and Orchestra, which followed. Ravel demands that the violinist play quite high notes on the fatter of their strings to help create this effect. The orchestra musicians, through Ravel’s imaginative orchestration, reinforced Bell’s earthy interpretation of the gypsy “hoedown” roots of the piece. Bell’s lyrical encore from the Nigel Hess’ film score Ladies in Lavender helped smooth the transition to the Pops selections comprising the second half of the program.

NSO Pops Conductor Steven Reineke and soprano Kelli O’Hara, singing with heavy amplification, offered a number of songs. Most memorable was Bernstein's Glitter and be Gay, from Candide, which includes the material from the boisterous coda in the overture heard at the beginning of the concert. Autumn Leaves, en français, and La Vie en Rose of Edith Piaf fame were quite fun. Maestro Eschenbach retook the podium to close the concert with Ravel’s La Valse, a surreal neo-Romantic Viennese waltz full of intoxicated impulses that the orchestra relished.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Josh Bell meets Kelli O’Hara: NSO shows pops side in season-opening gala (Washington Post September 23)

Kennedy Center Chairman David Rubenstein spoke to the audience following intermission. In addition to graciously introducing the new Kennedy Center President, Deborah Rutter, Rubenstein announced the December 4th groundbreaking of the Kennedy Center Expansion Project on the south grounds and jutting over the river. Rubenstein proudly stated that the groundbreaking will be done using the shovel used by President Lyndon Johnson at the Kennedy Center’s groundbreaking fifty years ago, and that the new facility will be dedicated on May 29, 2017, John F. Kennedy’s one-hundredth birthday. Due to a successful capital campaign, no federal funds will be used for the Expansion Project, thus making it a “gift to the federal government.”

Yo-Yo Ma Plays Dvořák

Dvořák, Cello Concerto, Yo-Yo Ma, Berlin Philharmonic, L. Maazel

Charles T. Downey, Yo-Yo Ma, National Symphony and an excellent Dvorak cello concerto (Washington Post, August 4, 2014)

On one hand, it was a foregone conclusion that the amassed public went wild for Yo-Yo Ma’s concert with the National Symphony Orchestra on Saturday night. The tickets in Wolf Trap’s Filene Center and on the lawn had sold out quickly, and people had battled the road-choking traffic, vast crowd and mild rain just to get there. On the other hand, Ma has a long history with Dvorak’s cello concerto, and he and the orchestra gave an excellent, if not perfect, performance of it... [Continue reading]

National Symphony Orchestra
With Yo-Yo Ma (cello) and Thomas Wilkins (conductor)
Filene Center at Wolf Trap

Ionarts-at-Large: OSESP & Alsop in Vienna

Follow @Konzerthauswien

The Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo (OSESP) is the orchestral pride of the South American Continent—a splendid orchestra amid, granted, no worthwhile competition. That makes trips to Europe all the more interesting and important for finding their north (as it were) and to spreading the

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Ionarts-at-Large: HJ Lim, Ken Masur, and Hints of Scriabin

HJ Lim is best known for a marketing blast by EMI, eager to promote the young Korean pianist’s recording of the (almost*) complete Beethoven sonatas which was given away for a tenner on iTunes: An audacious undertaking, accompanied by cringe-worthy high-falutin’ ‘chapter-titles’ into which Lim divided the sonatas. The accompanying essays fluctuate between astute observation and reinforcing the very stereotype meant to fight: That of a self-assured young mind (itself no crime) engaged in pouty pseudo-intellectualism and self-justification: why should a twenty-something pianist not go toe-to-toe with Backhaus, Kempf, Gilels, Arrau, and the 70-some other pianists that have tackled the Beethoven sonatas.

I passed on the effort; a few cursory dips into the late sonatas on Spotify seemed to justify the focus on other Beethoven cycles projects, recent and ongoing. But as a marketing tool it was a success, still, and when HJ Lim came through town, playing with the Munich Symphony Orchestra—the number six orchestra in town—I was sufficiently intrigued to check it all out.

For a little pre-concert concert that the MSO occasionally programs, HJ Lim had picked the concert-unrelated topic of Alexander Scriabin. After an earnest, labored spoken introduction by an orchestra official, Miss Lim came on stage and performed the brief Étude Pathétique op.8/12, one of the most readily charming picks for an audience of—presumably—Scriabin neophytes, perfectly suited to have them

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Shaham Plays Barber with the BSO

Charles T. Downey, At Strathmore, BSO’s Americana optimism
Washington Post, September 24, 2012

Barber / Korngold / Walton, Violin Concertos, J. Ehnes, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, B. Tovey

At the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s first subscription concert of the new season, heard at Strathmore on Saturday night, the orchestra played a program of classic Americana with grace and power. The music, from the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, all sounded much the same, a reminder of the era before serialism and experimental composition had taken over classical music.

The symphonic suite from the film score for Elia Kazan’s “On the Waterfront” was the first offering. It includes some of Leonard Bernstein’s most polished and searing music — from the suite’s plaintive opening horn solo and lonely wail of the saxophone, through the savage intensity of its percussion-driven fast sections to its fragile love theme massed into a raging surge. Conductor Marin Alsop led a convincing performance throughout. [Continue reading]

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
With Gil Shaham, violin (Violin Concertos of the 1930s)
Music Center at Strathmore

America; that Beautiful Noise

Deep barking brass and threatening, thundering timpani take turns with sweetly floating moments of tenderness in the first movement of Leonard Bernstein’s “Jeremiah” Symphony. The movement, titled “Prophecy” was the beginning to the latest installment of the Kennedy Center’s celebration of “A New America: The 1940s and the Arts” that ties in film, exhibitions and concerts.

The NSO did Bernstein and their conductor, Leonard Slatkin, proud with well honed playing that ended on wonderfully soft notes, reverberating into the gait of the second movement, “Profanation.” This second movement follows Jeremiah’s prophecy with another tone poem-like depiction of the priesthood’s mockery of the prophet, culminating into a “pagan celebration” with disguised reappearances of the earlier themes. (Not that I could have gathered all that just from listening. It is not that descriptive in musical terms… but Richard Freed’s program notes helped out.) “Lamentation”, the third and final movement, made use of Mary Philips’ velvety and appropriately penetrating mezzo but is slightly less involving. Well performed as it was, though, it managed to be chilling, beautiful and (mildly) shocking all at the same time.

L.Bernstein, Sys. 1 ("Jeremiah") & 2 ("Age of Anxiety"), Lenny, NYP Sony A.Copland, Sys. 3 & 0 ("Organ"), Lenny / NYP / E.Power Biggs Sony

The landscape of cello concertos is sparsely populated with true gems – and none the richer for Barber’s contribution. That is not to say that it isn’t a fine piece of music (which, by all means, it is), but the cello and tutti passages seem oddly unhinged, disjointed and lacking a discernable goal toward which they work. All that makes it a more thankless work than its junior sibling, the Violin Concerto. Of course, the 1947 New York Music Critic’s Circle who bestowed their award on the concerto, and program note writer Richard Freed, who calls it “superbly tailored to the character of the cello itself”, seem to disagree. Still, I, too, can find passages of great beauty and cohesion sprinkled between the somewhat more tedious and long solo passages of the first movement (Allegretto Moderato).

The Andante Sostenuto continues all the good elements of the preceding movement and Lynn Harrell, who was the night’s featured soloist, churned out a clean and pleasant reading for this NSO premiere. Mr. Harrell’s tone was not very thick, nor piercing… and while I could have hoped for a bit more edge and volume in some passages, it was never less than pleasing to hear him. The third movement (Molto Allegro ed appassionato) was taken at a rather leisurely pace and brought back some of the first movement’s odd calling cards. The audience, filling no more than three quarters of the Concert Hall, seemed enchanted and sustained applause called Mr. Harrell unto the stage three times.

The second half of the program was Aaron Copland’ massive Symphony No.3 – another piece played seldom enough to be special just on the account of hearing it live. Copland created this bear of a work for Koussevitzky and his Boston Symphony Orchestra upon commission, and alongside a huge orchestra (the double basses and percussionists alone had manpower enough to field two football teams), he asks for fine delicacy (especially toward the end of the 1st movement) as much as brutal force. Clipped outbursts, piano and xylophone chatter, brass orgies enliven the 2nd movement. All along it showed that this program must be dear to Leonard Slatkin’s heart: The NSO was audibly well drilled, responsive and played unusually well. A special nod to the brass section – not always the source of beaming pride at the NSO – that did a marvelous job. (The only notable flaw occurred when I jotted down the preceding sentence.)

Wondrous ethereal, soft comes along the third movement, as though exhausted from the topsy-turvy scherzo. But nothing in Copland is “wondrous ethereal, soft” for too long, and after a substantial orchestral sprawl and meandering, the delicious celesta marks the entry of the quote from “Fanfare to the Common Man”, a merry noise, indeed. It also marks the shift into the fifteen-some minute, rousing ascent to the finale that was nothing short of spellbinding and spectacular.

The almost-ecstatic audience even got a Roy Anderson encore (complete with bicycle-bell or its orchestral cousin) and a little speech that took some very vocal and very vocally cheered jabs at WETA’s decision to off their classical music service and go all-news, all-the-time. The night was clearly an American marvel of the Washington concert season not to be missed. (The Washington Post - read Daniel Ginsberg's review here - would agree.) Repeat performances take place today, Friday, and Saturday, at 8.00pm.