The Passage and More

The Henrietta Marie left London in September 1699 bound for New Calabar on the central west coast of Africa. She was carrying European goods: pewter, glass beads, guns, cloth, and iron bars that were rare in Africa. These goods were traded for enslaved Africans, gold, ivory, and spices.

For more than 250 years, Europeans forged an elaborate barter system between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Some 9 to 15 million Africans were traded and forcibly moved. An estimated 3 to 5 million perished before reaching the Americas. After trading her European goods for gold, ivory, and spices and 206 enslaved Africans including women and children, the Henrietta Marie set sail for Jamaica in the spring of 1700. Upon reaching Jamaica, only 190 slaves were recorded as sold at Port Royal.

After the sale of slaves the Henrietta Marie headed home to England with a load of plantation goods, sugar, indigo, cotton, and log wood. The route took her through treacherous waters between the Tortugas and Marquesas Keys off the coast of Florida. The Henrietta Marie was wrecked on New Ground Reef, 35 miles off the coast of Key West. She was discovered in 1972. The wreck of the Henrietta Marie will be on display in the 2nd floor galleries at the newly opened Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture, until January 8th.

The Marie is one of the many stories to be told of the African experience coming to America. On the 3rd floor, the permanent collection explores the tremendously important role African slaves played in building the country, with emphasis on Maryland. Mills, iron working, farming, seafood, and tobacco brought great wealth to this region. It would never have been possible without the labor of African slaves. This is all documented through photos, artifacts, and oral histories. In addition, the cultural contributions of music, art, athletics, and academics are also displayed in a chronologic format.

Standing in front of a case holding her nursing caps and letters was a soft-spoken woman named Esther McCready. Esther applied to the all-white University of Maryland School of Nursing in 1950. A hard-fought year-long legal battle ensued, which was overseen by a young attorney named Thurgood Marshall.

Listen to Esther reminisce about her journey, and one historical name after another comes forth. Besides the Marshall connection, she sat with Dr. King, knew Malcolm X, worked at Harlem Hospital with the son of Marcus Garvey, who got his medical degree from the U. of Maryland after she opened the path, and on and on. The horrors of lynching, the civil rights struggles, and the contributions of contempory African Americans are also extensively recorded.

The personal connections are what makes the Lewis Museum work best. There are countless untold and newly reconstructed stories. They're off to a good start with this brand-new $33 million, 82,000 square foot building. How to keep it all fresh and get enough visitors through the doors and make their budget will be a challenge. When the idea for this museum was first mentioned, my reaction was, can't this be incorporated into an existing museum? The Baltimore Museum of Art or the Maryland Historical Society? The Historical Society's collections would be a huge resource to pick from. I do however understand the need to stand alone as an institution. I wish them great success.

Summer Opera: Elektra in Paris

This summer, the Opéra National de Paris is staging Richard Strauss's Elektra. This follows on my post yesterday on Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, and all this Strauss doesn't quite make up for the fact that Santa Fe Opera is no longer doing Strauss every season but it's something. I can't go to Paris, but Marie-Aude Roux reviewed it ("Elektra", oeuvre de la tension extrême, servie par des performances vocales, June 21) for Le Monde (my translation). The cast is reportedly excellent, and conductor Christoph von Dohnanyi has extended his growing reputation as one of the great Strauss conductors, but the staging is another issue, since the crowd at the premiere loudly booed young German director Matthias Hartmann.

The vocal and dramatic performance of the American singer Deborah Polaski, as an imposing homeless princess [see her costume in the image shown here], merited her a very long ovation when the last note had faded. It was a recognition of the bravery and substantial energy deployed during the two hours and some in this crushing role, never absent from the stage, more than the beauty of singing, which was sometimes hard and unstable in the high register, but particularly touching at the moment of her reunion with Orest.

Hartmann reimagined all of the roles according to how he understood the story, even taking into account the personal appearance of each singer. Felicity Palmer, according to Mme. Roux, was an "aging Klytämnestra washed up on the Riviera" and also "simply stupefying." For a preview of the production («Elektra» sans sentimentalisme, June 17) for Le Figaro, Jean-Louis Validire interviewed Matthias Hartmann ("born in 1963," as Mme. Roux noted in her review, to underscore the director's youth), in which he described the good working relationship he had with the older von Dohnanyi:

The age difference between the director and the conductor has been more of a catalyst than a handicap. "For my generation, violence in theater, in movies, in everyday life is an immediate given. In my conception [of the opera], Orest does not want to kill, it happens against his will," explains Hartmann. The baritone Markus Brück, who plays Orest, "had at first a costume that made him look like a terrorist, but then I thought that he was a more complex character, in some ways more complete."

If it doesn't sound to you like he knows opera all that well, too, this is only the second one he has directed (and, given the reception, it could be his last, at least in Paris). However, Philippe Herlin was kinder to the staging in his review for ConcertoNet.com (my translation):

At the end, Hartmann shows us Orest recoiling before the ignominy of his actions (killing his mother!), Klytämnestra throwing herself on his knife, showing thus that the cycle of violence must stop one day! Let's push this analysis a little further by noting that the Fünfte Magd [Fifth Maid, Tracy Smith-Bessette] is dressed in a Muslim headscarf, that the yawning hole [the space used to signify Agamemnon's tomb] could be Ground Zero. Message: September 11 should not be used as an excuse for a vendetta against the Muslim world. A wink of an anti-Bush eye, subtle and simplistic at the same time. Whatever it may mean, the impact of this staging is evident: this is a renewed reading, a strong one, that brings Elektra's vengeance into our own time. A success.

Lastly, Mehdi Mahdavi published an interview with Deborah Polaski (Deborah Polaski, née pour Elektra, June 18) for Altamusica, which was interesting to read (my translation):

Many sopranos dream of singing Elektra, but few can do it. Was it a challenge for you?

It was a challenge for me the first time I sang it, because my voice was obviously younger, less developed: I sang my first Elektra when I was 35, more than 20 years ago. I dove into it with no preconceived notions, with my voice at that time, without trying to get more out of it than it could give. At the time, my agent said that it was good, but too pretty. A year ago, someone gave me a recording of that first Elektra, which I was curious to hear. It is exactly my voice, but you hear that it is 35 years old and not 46: the years of experience make the difference. Now, I know the role much better, and I know exactly where I can conserve myself and where I really have to give everything I've got. This economic approach is very important, because the role requires a lot of physical strength: you have to be able to give the least possible and to pull the most out of it in order to conserve the necessary resources for the most explosive passages. I have worked on it a lot: the problem is to know what is superfluous.

The Opéra National de Paris will present Richard Strauss's Elektra at the Opéra Bastille through July 12.

Fête de la Musique

Last year, I wrote about the annual Fête de la Musique, which happens in France on every summer solstice, June 21, and now has spread to about 100 other countries. The idea is that the whole day is given over to performances by everyone and anyone who can make a musical sound, professionals and amateurs. Of course, this does not mean only classical music, although the times that I have been in Paris to see this event, that's what I have spent most of my time listening to, as you might have guessed.

In a quick glance over the program, some interesting events stood out:

• Simultaneously at the Place Broglie in Strasbourg and the Place Salvator in Mulhouse tonight at 9:45 pm, a film of Rameau's opera Les Boréades will be shown on giant screens. The production is from the Opéra National du Rhin and was conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm and staged by Laurent Laffargueen.
  
• In Rouen at 7:30 pm, a concert by soloists from the Opéra de Rouen, in the hémicycle.
  
• At the Place Mendès-France in Lille at 6:30 pm, the Orchestre National de Lille will be conducted by Jean-Claude Casadesus, in a program including Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Ravel.
  
• In Paris, in the hall under I. M. Pei's famous pyramid at the Louvre, at 10 pm, the Orchestre National de France will play Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade, conducted by Kurt Masur. This concert will be broadcast live on France Musiques.
  
• Also in Paris, pianist Alexandre Tharaud (who was here in Washington in March) will play a recital of pieces by Ravel and Chabrier at 8 pm, in the auditorium of the Musée d'Orsay.
  
• Perhaps most interesting, at the Palais Garnier at 7 pm, the Opéra National de Paris presents violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, from the Emerson Quartet, along with director Simon McBurney, in a preview related to their upcoming premiere of Shostakovich's piece The Noise of Time.

Music is apparently on the rise in France, shockingly so. A very interesting article by Christian Merlin (Des orchestres à l'heure européenne, June 21) in Le Figaro says that "twice as many French teenagers sing or play an instrument than in the generations born before 1960. Some 800,000 students are enrolled in music schools, and 10 million young people receive musical instruction at school." Don't even get me started on the subject of musical education in the United States, especially here in the District of Columbia, where it is nonexistent except at private schools.

As I wrote in my column for DCist (Classical Music Agenda, June 21), the D.C. government's attempt to import the Fête de la Musique last year apparently has failed, since I have heard nothing about it this year. However, the French embassy is hosting an evening of events this Friday (June 24, from 7 to 11 pm), with the main act being Les Primitifs du Futur, a musette group founded by cartoonist Robert Crumb and guitarist Dominique Cravic. You will pay $20 at the door to get into this event at La Maison Française (4101 Reservoir Road NW).

Summer Opera: Die Frau ohne Schatten

One of those operas by Richard Strauss I would like to get to know better is Die Frau ohne Schatten, but it is staged so infrequently that I may never get to see it live. As I wrote in my Opera in the Summer 2005 post, I could travel to Brussels this summer, where the opera is being produced, from June 8 to 29, at the Théâtre de la Monnaie (where the opera had not been given for some 40 years). Nicolas Blanmont reviewed it (Somptueuse célébration straussienne, June 10) for La Libre Belgique. After praising Jose Van Dam as Barak (who had never sung this role in his home country before this production) and Jon Villars and Silvana Dussman (the Emperor and Empress), he has some harsh things to say (my translation):

The only shadow in the picture, if one dares to say it, is Gabriele Schnaut who, as Barak's wife, is getting a late start at the Monnaie. The singing is still valiant, but the projection uneven and the voice, at full volume, is polluted by a vibrato of disturbing amplitude. The German soprano's age and appearance also pose a problem for the character that Hofmannsthal intended to be young and desirable enough to be still capable of having the thirteen children that Barak wants and to be afraid of losing her figure.

Blanmont does have good things to say about the direction of Matthew Jocelyn and the designs of Alain Lagarde, and the pictures of the sets are gorgeous. Another review comes from Serge Martin (La femme sans ombre repeint l'amour, June 10) for Le Soir (my translation):

On Wednesday, a real wave of applause greeted all of the protagonists of Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Monnaie. It is not, however, Richard Strauss's easiest opera. The esoteric and somewhat outdated libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal certainly complicates this symbolic tale, and Strauss's luxuriant music manages to make it even heavier. Which is just to say that, today, this opera can be difficult.

You can read both reviews in full for more information.

Dip Your Ears, No. 34 (Telemann Quartets for Flute)

G.P.Telemann, Flute Quartets, Musica Antiqua Köln, R. Goebel Archiv

Telemann curiously divides opinions. Some – I among them – find his works uniformly charming and even inspired, others, just uniform. But those who think that Telemann can be boring must not know his Watermusik or his violin concertos. His famous Tafelmusik is admittedly long (it spans almost four hours, uncut) but that, too, has heaps of originality and beauty. Reinhard Goebel and his Musica Antiqua Köln have been some of the foremost and most skilful champions of Telemanns's musical cause. Their previous records were widely hailed for their imaginative and infectious playing, though there are works of Telemann that I prefer over his string concertos. This set of eight flute quartets (for flute, transverse flute, and recorder) is a delight. There have been few mornings lately when I haven't put them on for the sheer enjoyment of it.

Only two quartet-variants are repeated on this disc (and then only once), making for six different combinations of instruments. Particularly delightful in combination with the oboe, they have a lively spirit, and if the playing could be bettered, I just can't imagine how. In three and four movements, these works were probably the ones that brought the term ‘quartet’ to music in the first place. They offer beautiful melodies for up to three instruments at a time (with the basso continuo scrubbing away on the bottom) and exemplify mastery of contrapuntal writing. One quartet might be Haendel's and another – the only one written solely for strings – while not novel (such ripieno concerti had been written before) might just be imagined to be a distant precursor to the string quartet. But such dissection is quite unnecessary when the music offers such easy delight. Superficially enjoyable: yes; superficial? no.

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Classical Week in Washington (6/20)

Classical Week in Washington is a weekly feature that appears on Mondays. If there are concerts you would like to see included on our schedule, send your suggestions by e-mail (praecentor at yahoo dot com). Plan your concert schedule for the entire month of June with our Classical Month in Washington (June), or your summer opera listening with Opera in the Summer 2005.

Tuesday, June 21, 7:30 pm
Washington Musica Viva (music of Diamond, Mitsumoto, Brahms)
The Dennis and Phillip Ratner Museum (Bethesda, Md.)
See the review by Cecelia Porter (Washington Post, June 23)

Tuesday, June 21, 7:30 pm
Suspicious Cheese Lords, The Whole Enchilada (Iberian and colonial music) (Washington Early Music Festival)
The Franciscan Monastery (14th and Quincy Streets NE)
See the review by Joseph McLellan (Washington Post, June 23)

Wednesday, June 22, 12 noon
Carmina, with Keith S. Reas, organ, Ensalada Español (Vasques, Ximino, Flecha, Victoria, Aguilera, and Bruno) (Washington Early Music Festival)
St. Mark's Episcopal Church (3rd and A Streets SE)

Wednesday, June 22, 7:30 pm
I Bambini di Parnasso, Swan Song: The last gasp of Iberian early music (Washington Early Music Festival)
St. Mark's Episcopal Church (3rd and A Streets SE)

Wednesday, June 22 to Sunday, June 26 (various times)
Don Quixote (choreography by George Balanchine and music by Nicolas Nabokov)
Suzanne Farrell Ballet
Kennedy Center
See the preview by Sarah Kaufman (Washington Post, June 19)

Thursday, June 23, 12 noon
Jonathan Hudson (countertenor), Atsuko Ikeda (harpsichord), and Constance Whiteside (Baroque harp), Color de Vida (music from Renaissance and Baroque Spain) (Washington Early Music Festival)
St. Mark's Episcopal Church (3rd and A Streets SE)

Thursday, June 23, 7:30 pm
Cordelion (Keith Reas, director) with La Rocinante (Christof Richter, director), Sacred Sounds of New Spain (Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla, Manuel de Sumaya, Ignacio de Jerusalem, and others) (Washington Early Music Festival)
St. Mark's Episcopal Church (3rd and A Streets SE)

Friday, June 24, 12 noon
Elizabeth Baber (soprano) and Charles Weaver (lute, vihuela), Con dulces cantos y modos (music from Spain's Golden Age) (Washington Early Music Festival)
St. Mark's Episcopal Church (3rd and A Streets SE)

Friday, June 24, 1:30 to 4:30 pm
Early Dance Workshop with The Court Dancers (Cheryl Stafford, director) (Washington Early Music Festival)
St. Mark's Episcopal Church (3rd and A Streets SE)

Friday, June 24, 7:30 pm
The Court Dancers (Cheryl Stafford, director) and Renaissonics (John Tyson, director), The Graces of Love (Washington Early Music Festival)
St. Mark's Episcopal Church (3rd and A Streets SE)

Friday, June 24, 7 to 11 pm
Fête de la Musique, featuring guest artists "Les Primitifs du Futur"
La Maison Française (4101 Reservoir Road NW)

Friday, June 24, 8:15 pm
National Symphony Orchestra, Gershwin, Bernstein, and Barber: "American Originals"
With Kishna Davis (soprano), Arthur Woodley (baritone), and The Choral Arts Society of Washington
Wolf Trap (Filene Center)

Saturday, June 25, 4 pm
Barbara Hollinshead (mezzo-soprano) and Howard Bass (lute), Music of Renaissance Spain and the Sephardic Jews (Washington Early Music Festival)
St. Mark's Episcopal Church (3rd and A Streets SE)

Saturday, June 25, 7:30 pm
Armonia Nova (Constance Whiteside, director), La Musica de los Orbes (Washington Early Music Festival)
St. Mark's Episcopal Church (3rd and A Streets SE)

Saturday, June 25, 7:30 pm
The Korea Times: Jeanie Jieun Lee, piano
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

Saturday June 25, 8 pm
The Latest Word (program of American song, sopranos Evelyn Pollock and Marjorie Owens, Wolf Trap Opera Company)
The Barns at Wolf Trap (Vienna, Va.)

Saturday, June 25, 8:15 pm
National Symphony Orchestra, Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Mahler: "Romantic Titans" (Mahler, 1st symphony)
With Mûza Rubackyte, piano (Liszt, first piano concerto)
Wolf Trap (Filene Center)

Sunday, June 26, 3 pm
Trefoil (Drew Minter, Mark Rimple, and Marcia Young), In the Chamber of the Harpers: Music in Late Medieval Spain (Washington Early Music Festival)
St. Mark's Episcopal Church (3rd and A Streets SE)

Sunday, June 26, 6:30 pm
National Gallery Vocal Arts Ensemble (Rosa Lamoreaux, artistic director)
Renaissance a cappella choral music
National Gallery of Art

——» Go to last week's schedule, for the week of June 13.

Artscape and Ingres at the BMA

It must be summer if Baltimore's Artscape Festival is beginning. Although the festival won't begin until July 22nd, the Baltimore Museum of Art is hosting one of the exhibits, Observation Deck, curated by aerial artist extraodinaire, Gary Simmons.

Renowned artist Gary Simmons has selected a dynamic range of contemporary works by artists in the mid-Atlantic area who examine the theme of vantage point. Observation Deck encompasses works that suggest maps and aerial views paired with those that suggest the microscopic by Geoff Grace; Ellen Ross; Calla Thompson; René Treviño; Renee van der Stelt; and Nick Petr, Nick Wisniewski, and Scott Berzofsky. This show is presented at the BMA as one of the featured visual art exhibitions of Artscape, Baltimore's premier arts festival.

A huge map, a satellite image of Baltimore (shown here), is the focal point of the exhibit. It's quite a powerful image as you enter the gallery, composed of hundreds of inkjet prints mounted on foam core. There are binoculars on hand to view the piece, giving you the feeling that you're hovering over the city: it's very effective. Three artists, Scott Berzotsky, Nicholas Petr, and Nicolas Wisniewski, created this and call it Pirate Baltimore.

Geoff Grace likes long poetic titles for his work. For a very large paint-by-numberish tree in browns and beiges, he painted directly on the wall with what he says is clay and whiskey; it's titled Our songs will be carried by the water. In the center of the room facing the tree is a wooden lifeguard stand entitled Bless me indeed, enlarge my territory that your hand may be with me. Is it a call to the wilds from a place of safety? A third piece of curled acetate, For the support and celebration of total awareness, is delicately pinned to either side of the entrance to the smaller gallery space.

In this space, Ellen Ross's Long Distance Love Affair, an ink on vellum chronology of an affair which took place between New York and L.A., with credit card records and phone logs as our visual proof. A second piece is a travel primer, Easily assembled at home, and for use by those who have never traveled to lands beyond, which beckons us to step beyond our safe boundries. Also in this small space is Rene Trevino's mixed media on mylar, The propaganda series part I, which seems to be a historical documentary of male love and bonding from the time of the Incas through Rock Hudson.

The theme has great potential and this exhibit makes a fair, however uneven attempt. Where do we fit into this world? What is my place on this planet and how does that shape my individuality? It's a simple premise which asks for very complex responses. It's the luck of the draw: where you are born, where you live, and what culture you identify with will have everything to do with your perceptions.

Getting the BMA to show with local artists is a rarity, unfortunately. There are many excuses, but none can really excuse their lack of support for artists of this region. It's a long, often difficult process for an artist to build a career, and the support of the local arts organizations is critical. It wouldn't be a charitable gesture either: there are very good artists working here. Maybe this is the beginning of a renewal of that relationship. I hope so.

Another exhibit just opening at the BMA, "The Essence Of Line: French Drawings from Ingres to Degas, is a joint effort from the collections of the BMA and the Walters Art Museum. With simultaneous exhibits, this show highlights the strong drawing collections of each institution and the collecting preferences of some of the founding benefators. I haven't seen the Walters portion yet, but the large Shepherdess pastel by Millet and Berthe Morisot's Child with Hat, make this a worthwhile trip.

Tuesday I am going to the press preview for the new Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture. We've been watching it grow for some time. The exterior looks very interesting, and I should have a post by mid-week.

Summer Opera: Love for Three Oranges

So much good opera this summer. The next one on my list (Opera in the Summer 2005, June 2) was Prokofiev's strange and fun Love for Three Oranges, an opera I have never had the chance to see staged live (although I very much enjoyed the zany 1989 production from the Opéra de Lyon conducted by Kent Nagano on DVD). If only I had the time and money to go to Amsterdam, where De Nederlandse Opera is producing it this summer, in the original French version from 1921. Since I cannot go, here is a translated excerpt from someone who did: Christian Merlin's review (Prokofiev selon Pelly, June 15) for Le Figaro:

It's a French team who has scored a triumph at the Amsterdam Opera, and it's no exaggeration to say that they are doing it with a French work. Although at last year's Aix-en-Provence Festival they opted for the Russian version of Prokofiev's Love for Three Oranges, De Nederlandse Opera has chosen the French libretto of the 1921 premiere, a pertinent choice that has the advantage of showing how much Prokofiev and Les Six had in common in terms of aesthetic concerns. Stéphane Denève, the most brilliant of our conductors under 40 years old, has nevertheless not entirely played that card. Close to Poulenc in the transparency and the popular language of the score's most Parisian pages, he falls into the trap of the artillery salvos fired off by the sizable orchestra: with his mane at attention and imperious gestures, he encourages the brass of the superb Amsterdam Philharmonic Orchestra to play large, where a more cutting clarity would have been more appropriate. It's true that, from having worked with Valery Gergiev, these virtuosic musicians must feel closer to the steel factories than to Peter and the Wolf.

This massive style, which would have suited Russian singing rather than French diction, was at least of a piece both with the less than intimate dimensions of the theater and with the blockbuster staging of Laurent Pelly. What astute work and fine rhythmic sense from the busiest of our stage directors! In this crazy fable taken from Gozzi, in which the commedia dell'arte was reinterpreted with Meyerhold's glasses and a newly born surrealism, the kingdom depicted is that of the King of Clubs, and it is at a game that the magician Tchelio loses against the formidable Fata Morgana. Pelly needed nothing else to see the key of his visual universe: all of the impressive sets of Chantal Thomas are made of gigantic playing cards, and their evolution and transformation makes us admire the Amsterdam Muziektheater's resources in stage machinery. It's a sort of revival of machine opera from the Baroque period. Certainly, the evening is not only about the spectacle, and the magic scenes are as troubling as the cook's episode is irresistable. But all in all, if we are seduced, we also feel overwhelmed by the monumentality of the effects in a work that perhaps does not demand that much. There is a lack of that bit of subtlety in the ironic distance.

Merlin praises Alain Vernhes as the King of Clubs, François Le Roux (heard here in Washington last November) as Trouffaldino and the Master of Ceremonies, and Sandrine Piau as Ninette. The best performance, however, according to him, was lesser-known tenor Martial Defontaine as the hypochondriac prince. There's another singer for us to keep our eye on. Jens heard conductor Stéphane Denève at work in March at the Kennedy Center, and we know that others are interested in his career, too. Here are some pictures of the production. Performances continue in Amsterdam until June 29.