Summer Opera: "Orfeo" with Le Concert d’Astrée

We at Ionarts I wish all of our American readers a restful Memorial Day. We I take a moment to thank all the men and women who, when asked to do terrible things for our country's sake, have responded with courage and selflessness. I believe that our duty as civilians is to make sure they do not risk their lives for an unjust cause.

Available at Amazon: Claudio Monteverdi, L'Orfeo, Ian Bostridge, Patrizia Ciofi, Natalie Dessay, Véronique Gens, Paul Agnew, Le Concert d’Astrée, Emmanuelle Haïm (released on April 6, 2004)

The first production I mentioned in Opera in the Summer 2006 was a new version of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, an opera I love by a composer whose operas have received a lot of productions in the last few years. (Not in Washington, mind you, I mean civilized places. Washington National Opera has avoided Monteverdi since 1987.) French conductor Emmanuelle Haïm led her Baroque music ensemble, Le Concert d'Astrée, in four performances in the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris earlier this month. The group recorded this opera a couple years ago, with Ian Bostridge, Patrizia Ciofi, and Natalie Dessay, along with some of the regular early music names, although the singing personnel at the Châtelet was completely different. For some reason, none of the French dailies reviewed this performance (including Le Figaro and Le Monde), but we can always count on the bloggers. Caroline Alexander published a review (L’Orfeo: Le baroque entre hip hop et Vespa, May 19) at Webthea.com (my translation):

La musica, pivotal divinity in Claudio Monteverdi's L’Orfeo, rises up in a sort of square box suspended in emptiness. In a grand costume, grenadine velours gown, embroidered, with jewels and brown curls carefully arranged down her front. While she sings of Orfeo's destiny, the prologue of what is normally called the first opera in music history -- which is not precisely correct but also not completely in error -- with her image expanded on a giant screen, she moves her back and her rounded hands dance a sorceress's ballet around the actual person floating on her cushion. A bluish light bathes the beginning of the first act: a city square with open sky, motor scooters and Vespas around which a group of young people congregates, dressed like you and me, twenty years old. The sounds that rise from the orchestra pit -- lutes, theorbos, harps, viols, cornetti, and sackbuts -- are pure Baroque. The contrast is one of smiling freshness. [...]

The Italian man of the theater Giorgio Barberio Corsetti creates a mixture of genres, times, spaces, and techniques. Video often provides him the unifying thread, like those sauces that chefs use to adjust the ingredients of a dish. He films the actors, the singers, in vast, intimate scenes and choreographed movements, he makes their images float, in all poses, on the horizontal or upside down. Dreamlike reflections of actions that are unfolding on the stage... Other effects of transposition are less fortunate. Inside Hell, Proserpina and Pluto are transformed into a middle class couple glued in front of their television, the three spirits in flesh-colored leotards (they all look naked) make little cakes for them that look like white stones. Elsewhere those stones will serve, as in Le Petit Poucet [Tom Thumb], as a way to show Eurydice the way to go, behind Orfeo, to try to go back to the surface. This is the eternal problem of these radical shifts, which always run into trouble along the way -- most often, in the second half of the story -- because of some insurmountable obstacle, a detail that belongs in the original era and will not or cannot be changed.

Le Concert d’Astrée is six years old now, prestigious enough to have been invited for a residency with the Opéra de Lille. This model -- inviting a Baroque performance ensemble to produce Baroque operas regularly in a mainstream opera theater -- is becoming the norm in Europe, and I hope it catches on in the United States. This production will travel to the Théâtre Municipal de Colmar (June 9 and 11), the Théâtre de la Sinne de Mulhouse (June 17, 19, and 21), and the Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg (June 27 and 29, July 1 and 3), so there may be more reviews next month.

Summer Opera: Fielding's "Tom Thumb"

Thanks to Anne-Carolyn Bird, I learned about a fascinating production at the Northwest Puppet Center in Seattle, which I featured in my preview of Opera in the Summer 2006. It is an ingenious resurrection of an 18th-century ballad opera, Tom Thumb (based on a 1731 play by Henry Fielding, with music by Thomas Arne and Johann Hasse, as well as popular tunes), performed here by the Carter Family Marionnettes. Puppet opera was a rather important subgenre in the 18th century, especially as a relatively easy way to create parodies of popular mainstream operas, and I am delighted by modern attempts to recreate it. This particular combination, of puppeteers and live musical performers, is the most exciting of all.

I found a review by Philippa Kiraly (Rule of 'Thumb,' a lusty satirical puppet show, May 15) for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

The Carters think theirs is probably the first production in 200 years. True to tradition, they have mixed and matched from several versions and added topical comments, but it remains as it was always intended: a lusty, satirical, funny show. The opera opens with Tom Thumb's early life portrayed with small shadow puppets above the main stage, setting the mood unmistakably with a few deft vignettes. The 3-D puppets are brilliant creations, from tiny Tom Thumb bounding around, to a queen straight out of Tenniel's illustrations for "Alice in Wonderland," to a ghost, a large cow and a giantess with Wagnerian pretensions. They inhabit detailed sets, including a vaulted hall with heraldic shields and a gloomy bedroom with a curtained four-poster where the mattress rises with each bounce. [...]

Kiraly's preview of the production (Carter Marionettes tackle 18th-century 'Tom Thumb' opera, May 12) is also an interesting read:

Jonathan Swift ("Gulliver's Travels") said he only laughed twice in his life, and once was at "The Tragedy of Tragedies: The Life and Death of Tom Thumb," by Henry Fielding ("Tom Jones"), a play that was promptly developed into burlesque opera productions for adults and for puppets after its first performance in 1731. [...]

Fielding was a magistrate, and a member of the Scriblerus Club, which printed satirical pamphlets and included such men as Pope, Swift, John Gay ("The Beggar's Opera") and other literati. Fielding's gift with a pen found its target in the current rage for tragic poetic drama, which he found pretentious. "Much of the script is an attack on poetic excesses," says Stephen Carter. "The preface is hilarious." The Carters do extensive research on their period productions, and while they found a 1780s version of the libretto in the University of Washington archives, Carter's son Dmitri found a musical score from 1782 at an antiquarian bookseller in Nova Scotia.

I will simply add that this is exactly the sort of work we need right now. The Carters are taking their fascinating production to Vienna and the palace of Frederick the Great in Potsdam. [Anne-Carolyn says the Carters are not taking Tom Thumb abroad.] Sadly, there are no plans to bring it to Washington anytime soon. For some great pictures, see the post of Anne-Carolyn Bird, who sang the role of Tom in this production. Anne-Carolyn is on her way to Santa Fe again this summer, where Ionarts will happily be spending a couple of weeks in late July.

Domingo-Cafritz Artists at the Renwick

The 2005 crop of the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program at the Renwick last year

Last Saturday at the Renwick Museum’s Grand Salon, the Washington National Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program presented its current crop of singers, bringing to life a nice cross-section of excerpts from modern American opera, plus the Anne Truelove-Tom Rakewell farewell scene from Stravinsky’s A Rake’s Progress (American-adopted, one could say). The singers did not just perform in concert style, they acted out their parts in full costume with a few carefully selected props.

Seven operas, all by living composers, were grouped on either side of the Stravinsky: William Bolcom’s A View from the Bridge (Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence and Experience was well received by Charles); Henry Mollicone’s Coyote Tales, Conrad Susa’s Dangerous Liaisons, Carlisle Floyd’s Wuthering Heights, John Corigliano’s Ghosts of Versailles, Robert Ward’s The Crucible, and Mark Adamo’s Lysistrata.

These were all well-rehearsed ready-for-stage performances, the singers’ enunciation consistently clear enough that the thoughtfully provided text sheets really weren’t needed. The Grand Salon has room enough to accommodate the larger voices, such as the deep, dark baritone of Obed Ureña, who after warming up a bit, was outstanding in the Ward duet with mezzo Erin Elizabeth Smith (also excellent).

The music presented varied in quality, but each selection hued to the mainstream eclectic-modern-tonally based American opera formula, with occasional touches of Broadway, though Mr. Susa’s letter aria was perhaps too pinched and dry for the talents of mezzo Leslie Mutchler (Zulma in the current run of L’Italiana), whose warm voice made a finer impression in the Corigliano duet with soprano JiYoung Lee (the duet a melancholic reflection by the Rosina and Susanna characters from Figaro, carried forward to the French Revolution in Mr. Corigliano’s conceit).

With short excerpts from such diverse works, it’s tough to say which might be the most stageworthy, but Coyote Tales (vignettes from Native American mythology) caught the ear (too easily, perhaps?), The Crucible has made its mark on stage (the duet here finely dramatic), and the Adamo clearly has a lot going for it and got good marks from Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times. Theatrical-wise, the Young Artists saved the best for a last, with Adamo’s lively and witty duet-combat over withholding sex until men give up their martial tendencies, thoroughly chewed up by tenor Greg Warren and soprano Christina Martos. The dust was flying off the Salon’s ancient padded circular couch, and that Ms. Martos, big-voiced and agile, showed the kind of perfect pitch the Washington Nationals desperately need, at least in the bracelet-toss.

A nice showcase, both for American opera and young singers, which left the audience wanting more. Able support and direction from Young Artists conductor Steven Jarvi, and pianists James Lesniak and Matthew Ottenlips, each of whom delivered the goods without distracting attention from the singers.

Nicola Benedetti Plays Szymanowski

Available at Amazon: Karol Szymanowski, Concerto No. 1 for Violin and Orchestra (op. 35), Nicola Benedetti, London Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding (released on April 4, 2006)

Karol Szymanowski was born in a place that used to be in Poland but is today in the territory of Ukraine. We haven't had many opportunities in recent memory to hear much of his music. I heard a wonderful piece for violin and piano last fall, at the recital by my friend Sarah Geller. Pianist Piotr Anderszewski had announced that he would play some Szymanowski in his recital at the National Gallery last month, but he opted for Beethoven instead. I first heard about the young Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti about a year ago, when I read an article by Jessica Duchen. Benedetti won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in 2004, at the age of 16. Winning that prize was the key to her new contract with Deutsche Grammophon, for six recordings at the staggering salary of £1 million. The piece that won her that award was Szymanowski's first violin concerto, composed in 1915 and 1916. We have her teacher, Maciej Rakowski, to thank for introducing her to the piece, after she left the Menuhin School to study violin with him privately.

For her first recording with Deutsche Grammophon (recently released in the United States), she has set down that concerto, and what a delight it has been to discover it. Szymanowski was in his exotic phase, listening to a lot of Scriabin, Debussy, and Ravel. He based the concerto on a program drawn from Tadeusz Micinski's poem May Nights. This was the period of Szymanowski's sexual awakening, after visits as a (homo)sexual tourist to North Africa with a friend. Shortly after he composed this concerto, he wrote his novel Ephebos, now lost except for a fragment. He then met the 15-year-old Russian boy Boris Kochno, who became temporarily the realization of his pederastic fantasy, only to have him be taken up by Sergei Diaghilev, who made the young man his secretary in Paris.

A bold move, then, for Benedetti to pin her hopes to this relatively unknown concerto, definitely not one of the same old virtuosic barn-burners favored by most competitors. I am thankful for the sequence of events that brought her performance to my ears. It is a series of exotic vignettes, washed in warm Mediterranean colors, cut from the same Matisse-patterned cloth we are hearing in Stravinsky and Ravel around this time. There is the sheen of the harp, fluttering bird calls in the winds, the tinkle of metallic percussion and celesta like Anatolian jewelry. The liner notes quote a section of the inspiring poem, May Nights:

Once I wandered through these colonnades
Created by Abderraham for his beloved
In an amethyst night of Sheherezade
With talismans burning in the heavens
Pan is playing bagpipes to dancing Ephemerids in an oak grove
While the eternally young and beautiful weave together in love.

Although those selected lines are ambiguous as to the gender of the young bodies admired, Szymanowski was likely recalling his travels in less inhibited countries along the Mediterranean basin. He wrote later that one of his inspirations for the concerto was happening to look through his photographs from the trips to Sicily and North Africa.

Szymanowski composed this concerto with the advice of the violinist Pawel Kochanski, to whom the work is dedicated and whose cadenza Nicola Benedetti plays (although he was not able to premiere the work as Szymanowski wished). Benedetti's playing is radiant, on her 1751 Petrus Guarnerius violin from Venice, and the London Symphony under Daniel Harding clothes her sinewy, lush, often languid solos in a sonic cloak of many colors. If Benedetti's violin solo is the Tunisian Ganymede of Szymanowski's fantasies, she is both shy and elusive and energetically dancing. Her E string playing, in particular, even in very soft passages, is remarkably well placed.

Using this exotic work as a foundation, Benedetti has placed it at the head of a program of similar works, like Saint-Saëns' Havanaise, op. 83 (Cuba), Chausson's Poème, op. 25, and Massenet's Méditation from Thaïs (Egypt, by way of Paris). They are all lovely listening but it is the Szymanowski that stands out above them. In a touching gesture to her younger admirers, Benedetti has included a "performance track" of the orchestral part of the Méditation, so that aspiring violinists can play along themselves. They can even download their own violin part at Benedetti's Web site. For that reason among many, this CD would make an excellent gift to that young violinist in your life. Finally, she rounds out her program with two pieces created especially for her. Julian Reynolds's orchestration of Contemplation (Heifetz's arrangement of the Brahms song Wie Melodien zieht es mir) is a lovely thing, until now not recorded, evoking beautifully the poem that Brahms set (and which I find myself missing in this version). She is also the first to record John Tavener's Fragment for the Virgin, a piece the composer wrote for and dedicated to her. For much of the piece her enigmatic solo violin part is shadowed by a wreath of string dissonance in heterophony. It's pretty and catches the ear.

I do not think that Benedetti has quite the same talent as some of the other young violinists of her generation (I am much more impressed by Julia Fischer, for example), but she has great promise so let's give her time. However, I have enjoyed listening to this album very much, and I will continue to do so, mostly for that Szymanowski concerto. Nicola Benedetti's second recording, with James MacMillan conducting the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, combines Mendelssohn's violin concerto with music by Mozart and MacMillan (the Scottish composer, whose music I admire, and who also appears to be taken with Benedetti as Tavener is). It was released this past week in Europe. We'll be watching for it at Ionarts.

Live Music around the Bloch

Musica Viva, one of the many smaller performing arts organizations in the Washington area – oft overlooked but more often than not contributing greatly to the regions’ cultural life, gave a very generous program last Tuesday, May 23, at the Ratner Museum in Bethesda.

Musica Viva, anchored by pianist and Executive Director Carl Banner, is essentially a piano-with-strings quintet with guest artists. Tuesday the guests were husband-and-wife vocalists Gary Poster, bass, and Karyn Friedman, mezzo-soprano, both with Eastman School degrees. This is an impressive pair: Mr. Poster, accompanied by string quartet and Mr. Banner as continuo (on piano), gave a lyrical, well-phrased account of Bach’s Ich habe genug. Bach’s long-lost original with soprano sax (played eloquently but a bit forcefully by Rhonda Buckley) in place of oboe was used (maybe not 'original,' but Bach was never shy about transcribing his own, or others’, music). Fans of the “historically authentic” approach may question it, but this ‘bass-and-sax’ version was nice enough on the ears.

E. Bloch, Piano Quintets, Ivan Klánský / Kocian Q4t

Ms. Friedman, an attractive, skilled singer, sang Fauré’s cycle La Bonne Chanson, recently admired by Charles when Ian Bostridge performed it at the Library of Congress, with warmth and style. While the piano didn’t break through in the concluding Quintet No. 1 by Ernest Bloch, there was no mistaking the fact that Mr. Banner and the quartet really let loose here. The Bloch is a knotty, dense, multilayered work, built of melodic fragments and long rhythmic lines but with a tight, intense structure. The opening Agitato has moments that recall native American music, and the work does date from the composer’s first sojourn in the US, his adopted country. The Andante mistico was sinewy and eloquent in Musica Viva’s hands, and the ensemble let rip in the concluding Allegro energico with almost Bartókian, stunning, intensity.

Setting the Perfect Tone: Julia Fischer with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

Is the region saving up its best musical events for last? In a season that was less exciting across the board than 2004/2005, we just heard the finest opera performance in The Turn of the Screw – and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s current string of concerts with German violinist Julia Fischer delivered easily this season’s best violin concerto performance. It all seems to bode well for the remaining highlights, Kurt Masur’s all-Beethoven concert with the NSO next Thursday and the two Mahler performances of the BSO and NSO the week thereafter.

First things first: Yuri Temirkanov was back after a prolonged (well over half a year), protracted stay in St. Petersburg that apparently included post-Soviet tales of embezzlement, the Russian Mafia, and firing the St. Petersburg Philharmonic’s corrupt administration. (Read Tim Smith’s article in the Baltimore Sun.) He jumped onto the rostrum and, as if possessed, with fresh and raw energy, dove into Carl Maria von Weber’s ebullient Overture to Euryanthe. One got the idea that the BSO might have missed their outgoing music director. The music is itself the utmost of charming Romanticism – light but never smacking of the facile quality that befalls even greater composers (Mendelssohn comes to mind) every once in a while. Expanding from chamber-like moments to the broad and expansive sounds of the, now expanded, explosive opening, this is the kind of music that would charm anyone’s socks off. The BSO didn’t treat it like a throw-away prelude, either but played with zest and great engagement.

Julia Fischer is not one of the teeny-superstars of the violin like, say, Nicola Benedetti or Hilary Hahn, a few years back. For one, Ms. Fischer, born in 1983, is not a teenager. But more importantly, she is building her career judiciously, step by step with great care, some well-applied self-restraint, and what seems an immaculate intellectual grasp. If her bio and recordings (on the audiophile label Pentatone) had not proven it by now, this concert did: she is not a violinist, she is a musician.

Equipped with a prodigious technique (itself being nothing special in these days of violin-athletes), she strikes a marvelous balance between the impressive intellectualism of her senior German violinist colleagues Christian Tetzlaff, Thomas Zehetmaier, and Frank Peter Zimmerman and lyrical élan (well displayed by Hilary Hahn). Her teacher, Ana Chumachenko, may have had a hand in this; the same teacher has also brought us Arabella Steinbacher, another rising violinist from Munich whose career and style are not too dissimilar. (I’ve probably not heard enough of either in concert to truly compare – but from what I have heard, I come away with the impression that Ms. Fischer tends towards the pristine while Ms. Steinbacher is more likely to ‘get dirty’ playing a particular work.)

J. S. Bach, Sonatas & Partitas Glazunov, Khachaturian, Prokofiev, Violin Concertos W. A. Mozart, Violin Concertos

What Julia Fischer chose to play with the BSO was no less a work than the Beethoven concerto: not a razzle-dazzle piece, the flash of which is to blind the audience and stun them into happy submission, but a work that demands foremost a thinking player’s approach, lest it fail to take off. Technical perfection and bravura playing can still produce a dud (as Anne Sofie Mutter has been happy to prove with two recordings) – conception and a sense of the complete work at every instant are more important. With her ability to place emotional peaks into refined playing, with her nicely developing tone – never shy, not too big – Ms. Fischer gave this concerto both: the nobility and excitement it needs without veering either into aloof coldness on one side or showy gypsy fiddling on the other. And while the “Beethoven Concerto against Violin” can take any number of approaches, it is especially allergic to the latter.

Cutting a dashing figure in a very red dress as she did, it was not enough to detract from the sternly delicate, searing Largo, where she made the otherwise middle-of-the run, broad rendition of the work sound very special; nuances well placed called attention to the music, not her. Grace and purity abounded. Under Temirkanov’s caring hands – here was something he visibly cherished doing – the BSO performed this and the cadenza-linked last movement splendidly, even with delicacy when called upon to do so. The ripping finale topped it all off in great style. This was an example of 45 minutes of music-making as it should be – and the audience sensed it: the longest standing ovation and sustained applause (did anyone at all sneak out into intermission?) I have witnessed at Meyerhoff Hall forced an encore out of her: Paganini’s Caprice No. 2 in B Minor; delicately sawed out of the musical material if perhaps not ideally prepared. Secretly, I had hoped for some of her Bach.

Other Reviews: Joe Banno, A Violinist of Promise and Polish (Washington Post, May 27) Tim Smith, Temirkanov's return was worth the wait (Baltimore Sun, May 27) Charles T. Downey, Julia Fischer Gets In On It (DCist, May 27)

Shostakovich’s 1st Symphony does not have a nickname, but if my vote counted, I’d suggest “My Little Bombastic.” Outblaring and outgunning the two successive symphonies, it is a short, blazing trail of fire and brimstone. A student work of the 18-year-old Dmitry, the success of this symphony is not measured by the level of its sophistication (none of his symphonies are, really) or even coherence but by sheer visceral impact. Stravinsky, Mahler, and Prokofiev have their fingerprints on this work, but despite those and the early date of composition, it unmistakably spells out “Shostakovich” at every corner and with surprising clarity. The way that the unrelated themes bully each other around – the limping waltz with flute being rammed off stage by the timpani and brass-driven full orchestral forces only to suddenly make way for calm; then circus music – is Mahler in idea, Prokofiev in sound, Shostakovich in execution.

Anyone looking for particular sense in the way these divergent themes play off or against each other would do better to give up and enjoy the onslaught before the music is over. The symphony does not ask to be understood, it asks to be felt. Especially the haunting Lento, where there is respite found in (hollow?) beauty, a beauty not far from the second movement of the Ravel piano concerto, actually. And with Temirkanov once more leading something dear to his heart, the BSO following most every step of the way, it did make itself felt. A fine nightcap after one of the best Beethoven performances I have heard. So good, indeed, that I shall try to go again today. The third performance, as part of the “Casual Concert” series and without the Shostakovich, will be given on Saturday at 11AM.

Renaud Déjardin and Márta Gődény

On Wednesday night, the La Maison Française hosted a concert by cellist Renaud Déjardin and his pianist partner Márta Gődény. Last August, I went to the embassy to hear some of the qualifying round for the Rostropovich Cello Competition. I did not hear Mr. Déjardin that day, but he did well in the competition in Paris in November, receiving fifth prize. (All six finalists chose to play the same concerto in the final round, the Shostakovich op. 107, and an 18-year-old named Marie-Elizabeth Hecker impressed the jury the most.) Déjardin received a Mention, not a prize but an honor, in the 1997 competition, too.

Available at Amazon.fr: Bohuslav Martinů, Sonatas for Cello and Piano, Renaud Déjardin and Márta Gődény (released on September 1, 2005)

I will go out of my way to hear the music of Bohuslav Martinů, so when I saw the third cello sonata on the program, I added this concert to my schedule. It is a luscious work, with a diaphanous Debussy-like opening that corresponded well to the strengths of pianist Márta Gődény. This was her strongest performance of the evening, especially on the longer interludes in the work for piano alone. In the joyous 6/8 of the first movement there are delicious dissonances glistening inside the larger chords. Renaud Déjardin, too, was at his best here, especially in the slow movement, where his tone was consistently strong and urgent, with delicate pizzicati. The two players rendered the syncopated, bluesy third movement as a series of picaresque scenes. The third cello sonata was composed in 1952, the end of the Swing Era, when Martinů was in exile in the United States and around the time when in fact he became a U.S. citizen. Judging from this performance, I would guess that the duo's recent recording of the three Martinů sonatas would be worth hearing.

The duo opened with another strong performance, of the brief cello sonata by Claude Debussy. Composed in 1915, this sonata may have been a point of inspiration for the later Martinů work, as its structure and character are similar. Here also Gődény's strength as a colorist served her well. At times, especially for a former student of Pierre-Laurent Aimard at the Conservatoire de Paris, she was almost too gentle, too self-effacing. Similarly, Déjardin has a soaring sense of line, but although he is always a self-assured player, he lacked an element of daring at times. Still, this combination proves a strength at moments like the opening of the second-movement Sérénade, with the cello's evocation of a plucked lute and the piano's delicate shading.

Martinů on Ionarts: Charles T. Downey, Greek Passion in London (October 1, 2004) Jens F. Laurson and Charles T. Downey, Beaux Arts Trio at the National Gallery (October 10, 2005) Jens F. Laurson, Martinů Makes Happy (November 8, 2005) Charles T. Downey, Martinů's Juliette in Paris (February 25, 2006) Charles T. Downey, Jerusalem Symphony at Strathmore (March 1, 2006)

Least successful was a set of twelve transcriptions of Schumann Lieder (editorship unattributed -- we assume the performers are responsible), divided up into two groups of six. One or two of these would make a sweet encore, but without the poems that inspired Schumann, although the music and the playing were pretty enough, these wordless versions left me uninspired. I think more extensive adaptation -- rather than simple transcription -- is necessary to make these work on the cello, at least to have enough substance to make them interesting enough to stand on their own. This deficit was compensated for in the work that opened the second half, Schumann's Funf Stücke im Volkston, op. 102 (replacing the announced Mozart piece). The inspiration here was folksong, but the five character pieces are all created for these instruments and provide interesting challenges to the ear. Renaud Déjardin and Márta Gődény met all of those challenges in a fine performance, including the big multiple-stop section for the cello in the third movement and the Puckish melodic turns in the fourth. Not surprisingly, the best playing came in the delicate setting of a lovely, arching melody in the second movement. Atmosphere and color are this duo's strength.

The final concert of classical music at La Maison Française this season will feature the Klavier Trio Amsterdam next Tuesday (May 30, 7:30 pm). Also, American cellist Alan Toda-Ambaras, who was 14 years old when he received the Prix du meilleur espoir for best young cellist in this year's Rostropovich Competition (he was the youngest player this year), will play here in Washington in the fall. For this concert at Strathmore next winter (January 13, 7:30 pm), he will give a joint recital with violinist Daniel Austrich.

A Merciless, Glorious Turn of the Screw

B. Britten, The Turn of the Screw, Britten / Pears, Vyvyan B. Britten, The Turn of the Screw, Harding / Bostridge, Rodgers B. Britten, The Turn of the Screw, Bedford / Langridge, Lott

There was little advance notice that the season for opera in Washington got an exciting addition, but the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater was filled nonetheless when Lorin Maazel presented Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw on Monday night. Everyone who was there will likely agree: it was the best opera performance that this city has witnessed this season. By far.

Britten’s Turn of the Screw is a fantastic opera – for chamber forces, three sopranos, tenor, and boy and girl soprano – but also a difficult opera and not likely to appeal to everyone. All those who attended the Châteauville Foundation production at the Terrace Theater knew what they were in for: a dense, chilling, creepy, and creeping psychological thriller set to haunting music that matches the action (or unbearable inaction) every step of the way.

I cannot recall the last time I had – literally – chills from head to toe. Here I did, when Miles, the boy, musters his courage, acknowledges the evil done to him, and cries out against his tormentor, the (molesting) spirit: “Peter Quint, you devil.” It was but one highlight among many. The cast was very even, very good – even superb. Primus inter pares was the outstanding tenor Jeffrey Lentz (excellent diction, haunting singing, good acting) as former manservant cum ghost Peter Quint. Michelle Rice as housekeeper Mrs. Grose had a marvelous, rich voice; Anne Dreyer was a very attractively chirruping and well-acted Governess, if with less clear diction than the rest. Miss Jessel, the former governess, now haunting Chez Bly (the uncle of the children Flora and Miles) in tandem with opponent/partner in crime Peter Quint was dramatic and ethereal in equal parts, sung by Valerie Komar. Tucker Fisher (Miles) and Jessica Moore (Flora) acted and sang their parts as well as one can imagine; just towards the very end of the opera did one hear the strain on little Mr. Fisher’s soprano. But at that point, drama and acting are more important – and they both were delivered spectacularly.

The opera's story by Henry James was adapted with sly and cunning skill by Myfanwy Piper. It combines the entertainment (albeit a very dark, scary entertainment) of a Broadway show with the quality of the finest literature, compelling the viewer/listener along with music that becomes a soundtrack (but none of the negative associations of “soundtrack” whatsoever) of the most haunting sort. Unforgivingly, the story of the hidden torture that the kids have to endure plows ahead. By the end, the opera has the audience in its palm and we allow it to crush us, willingly. Neither goosebumps nor chills were caused by the air conditioning.

Other Articles: Tim Page, Young Singers Take A 'Turn' for the Better (Washington Post, May 21) Charles T. Downey, Turn of the Screw (DCist, May 23) Philip Kennicott, Maazel & Co. Make Impressive 'Turn' (Washington Post, May 24) T. L. Ponick, 'Screw' a tricky vocal turn (Washington Times, May 24) Tim Smith, Maazel, performers' 'Turn' with Britten is remarkable (Baltimore Sun, May 25)

If one takes to the music – and compelled by the drama one might more easily than by simply listening to a recording – it is impossible not to find it glorious. The chamber orchestra of youngsters under Lorin Maazel was a perfect little troupe. They supplied the passion, Maazel, probably the technically most gifted American conductor, turned them into perfection of playing and expression. Not only were the exposed and often challenging parts mastered with bravura, even the pauses and silences were masterfully judged. Piano, celesta, bells and harp play a prominent role amid four strings, flutes, oboe (and cor anglais), clarinets and horn. Fourths (alternatively threatening and joyful) and minor thirds dominate the musical mood and run through the score and story like the Ariadne-string – in ever changing, slightly different guises. Layer after layer is peeled away from the horrible truth that plagues the children. When salvation finally comes, it comes at the cost of Miles's life. The – already bitter – triumph of the Governess turns into a concluding requiem.

After this utterly moving experience, parents of small children will have been tempted to set up watch at their youngsters' bed; opera lovers meanwhile cannot wait to be granted another such gift from Maazel and his Châteauville Foundation. Indeed, the event just screamed out for the opportunity to hear other chamber or Baroque operas in the Terrace Theater with its very fine acoustic. Less expensive productions for the cognoscenti – Hindemith, Menotti, Blacher, Martinů, Glass, Henze next to Rameau, Lully or Scarlatti – would enrich the cultural life in Washington immensely. Whether that will remain a pipe-dream or not, the memory of this Turn of the Screw will remain something to feast on for a while.