NYCB's Nod to History, 'La Sylphide'

New York City Ballet in Peter Martins’s staging of August Bournonville’s La Sylphide (photo by Paul Kolnik)
Jennifer Homans, in her seminal book Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet, traces the genesis of the Romantic ballet back to August Bournonville's La Sylphide. Premiered by the Royal Danish Ballet in 1836, it is one of the oldest ballets still being performed today. (It is not to be confused with Michel Fokine's later Les Sylphides, sometimes known as Chopiniana, which has been under review a couple times in recent years.) The original version of La Sylphide, with choreography by Filippo Taglioni and music by Jean-Madeleine Schneitzhoeffer, premiered in Paris four years before Bournonville's ballet, but the Paris version does not survive. Bournonville had wanted to present the Taglioni-Schneitzhoeffer ballet in Copenhagen but, because the cost was prohibitive, he made his own version on the same libretto instead, with music by Herman Severin Løvenskiold. Sadly, it was not one of the Bournonville ballets brought to Washington by the Royal Danish Ballet in 2011. It was, however, the focus of the second program of the New York City Ballet presented at the Kennedy Center on Thursday night.

The story came by way of Charles Nodier's Gothic story Trilby, ou le lutin d'Argail, heavily influenced by Nodier's visit to Scotland and reading of Walter Scott. In the story a young wife is seduced by a demonic spirit and takes her own life when a monk tries to perform an exorcism. The roles are reversed in the ballet, as a Scotsman named James leaves his bride-to-be, Effie, at the altar to chase after the eponymous woodland spirit, which has appeared to him and beguiled him. A spiteful witch, angered because James turned her away from his fireplace, tricks him into using a charm to capture the sylph, which kills her, and also engineers Effie's marriage to James's rival, Gurn. The work is often seen now as "a quaint relic of a misty romanticism," as Homans put it, and this is in some ways how Martins's staging of the ballet, the first that he ever saw in his native Denmark, comes off in performance. Homans traces how the Paris version of the ballet incarnated the political disenchantment of the generation that lived after the French Revolution, including Chateaubriand's obsession with the story.

Due to a cast change, La Sylphide reunited Sterling Hyltin and Andrew Veyette as James and Effie, after their excellent pairing which was the best part of Justin Peck's new choreography The Most Incredible Thing, seen on Tuesday. Veyette, tall and proud in purple tartan, used his remarkable ability to lift from the stage and showily upstaged the humorous Gurn of Daniel Ulbricht in the reel scene, revealing the character's growing obsession in his movements. Ulbricht added needed comic levity with his fay imitation of Hyltin's sylph, who floated in a mesmerizing way throughout the ballet, especially in the scene where she appears to James in the window, seeming almost suspended on wires. Georgina Pazcoguin was a vengeful, bent-backed crone as Madge, the evil witch. The corps, in a light-as-air ballet blanc in the fluorescent wood scene of Act II, were accompanied beautifully by harp and solo violin. In general the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, under conductor Daniel Capps, had a better handle on this score, including the five horns, who were almost faultless.

Other Reviews: Sarah L. Kaufman, New York City Ballet suits up for courage and soars in ‘La Sylphide’ (Washington Post, March 4) ---, Peter Martins, dipping into his past while bounding into the future (Washington Post, February 26) Gia Kourlas, ‘La Sylphide’ Is City Ballet’s Bittersweet Valentine (New York Times, February 14)

The evening opened with Bournonville Divertissements, the result of Balanchine's request that Stanley Williams create some excerpts of Bournonville's works for New York City Ballet. The current version includes excerpts from Napoli, Flower Festival in Genzano, and Abdallah, a lovely companion piece to Martins's staging of La Sylphide. Troy Schumacher had impressive energy and buoyancy as the fisherman Gennaro in the Napoli excerpts, and Sara Mearns and Tyler Angle stood out in the duet from Flower Festival, she for her elegantly curved extensions, he for his physical strength. The cost of this evening devoted to ballet history in La Sylphide was reportedly $1.4 million, which compared to Peck's less successful Most Incredible Thing at $1.3 million, sounds like a steal.

This production repeats today and tomorrow, at the Kennedy Center Opera House.

#morninglistening: Goerne Winterreise

#morninglistening #Schubert Winterreise. w/C.Eschenbach & M.Goerne. harmoniamundidistribut… http://t.co/IwMO3yzuzP pic.twitter.com/fr7IwbQkp0

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) February 26, 2015

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Modern Program from NYCB

New York City Ballet, Company in Justin Peck’s The Most Incredible Thing (photo by Paul Kolnik)
Ballet has a long history of divertissements that have no dramatic coherence. The flimsiest of excuses can justify a series of pretty entrées, going all the way back to the foundation of the genre in French courtly dance. That is essentially what Justin Peck has created in his new choreography, The Most Incredible Thing, given its local premiere by the New York City Ballet on Tuesday evening at the Kennedy Center Opera House. It is an act-length ballet driven more by its quirky, colorful costumes than by dancing or story-telling.

Peck drew the story of The Most Incredible Thing from the Hans Christian Andersen tale of the same name (Det Utroligste). It concerns a contest for the hand of a princess, won by an inventor, whom Peck calls (somewhat ponderously) the Creator. His invention is a miraculous clock that produces twelve automated scenes, one for each of the hours, providing the excuse for the twelve colorful entrées that dominate the ballet. A menacing figure, the Destroyer, challenges the Creator's victory by laying waste to the clock and claiming the princess for himself. Not to worry, because the figures from the clock come back to life and save the day. Peck has softened some of the religious overtones of the clock figures, changing Moses at One o'Clock into a Cuckoo Bird, danced by the energetic Tiler Peck (no relation to the choreographer), with movements recalling the Firebird at times, and changing the Three Kings (Three o'Clock) from the Biblical Magi into sword-wielding warrior-kings.

Other Reviews: Sarah L. Kaufman, New York City Ballet injects incredible zing into new Peck ballet and other works (Washington Post, March 2) Joan Acocella, Stepping Up: The precocious rise of Justin Peck (The New Yorker, February 29) Alastair Macaulay, At New York City Ballet, Works That Tell Stories and Don’t (New York Times, February 22) ---, ‘The Most Incredible Thing’ Brings Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tale to Life (New York Times, February 3) Brian Seibert, Justin Peck Calmly Creates a Kingdom at City Ballet (New York Times, January 29)

Sadly, though, these entrées do not advance the story in any way, and they are effectively performed twice because the dancers all come back to life at the ballet's conclusion. In fact, one remembers neither the story nor the movements of the dancers, but the eclectic, brightly colored costumes (designed by Marcel Dzama, supervised by Marc Happel): the grey hoops of the Five Senses, the pointed hats of the Eight Monks, or the black-white spirals of the Nine Muses. Taylor Stanley was an earnest Creator, overshadowed by the skull-capped Destroyer of Andrew Veyette, who danced a tense pas de deux with the Princess of Sterling Hyltin. The pop-minimalist score by Bryce Dessner, guitarist of the indie rock band The National, is repetitive and, while it does not offend, it goes in one ear and out the other.

In the middle of the evening came Balanchine's classic choreography to Tchaikovsky's second piano concerto, rounding out the Balanchine-Tchaikovsky set from the company's 2013 visit. The cadenzas and solo moments played by soloist Susan Walters corresponded with beautiful solos and duets featuring the tall, lithe Teresa Reichlen. Her partner, Tyler Angle, had a charming scene in the slow movement with five women on either side, like fanned-out shadows, accompanied by a gorgeous duet of solo violin and cello.

The first act featured two short choreographies by Peter Martins, the company's Ballet Master-in-Chief. In The Infernal Machine, the movements of the dancers, Ashley Laracey and Amar Ramasar, on the darkened stage seemed to have little to do with the antic passage through countless sound worlds found in the score of the same name by Christopher Rouse. A snippet quoted from Beethoven's op. 130 string quartet flies by, half unnoticed near the piece's halfway point. Likewise in Ash, Michael Torke's often disjointed score inspired contrapuntal movements for the dancers, often separated only by a beat. It is a shame that we did not have the chance to hear the company's own orchestra, which conductor Andrew Litton now leads. His work here with the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra left some details to be desired.

The highlight was an excerpt of Christopher Wheeldon's After the Rain. The evening's best-matched couple, Tiler Peck and Jared Angle, took turns moving one another along, in a slow-moving, longing-drenched choreography that goes a long way to make Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel, a piece I find hard to tolerate in concert performance, a more complete work. Violinist Arturo Delmoni and pianist Nancy McDill provided the steady pulse of the music, with the section-ending "ping" notes corresponding to flicks of arms or feet on the stage.

This program repeats Friday evening, with a second program centered on Bournonville's La Sylphide presented in the rest of the run.

Forbes Classical CD of the Week

Later today: #Classical_CD_of_the_Week https://t.co/95eEThhG4w #Liszt #CDReview

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— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) March 2, 2016

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'Othello' at STC

Shakespeare Theater Company’s production of Othello, directed by Ron Daniels (photo by Scott Suchman)
We welcome this theater review from contributor Philip Dickerson.

When director Ron Daniels and actor Faran Tahir brought the idea of mounting the Shakespeare Theater Company’s current production of Othello to artistic director Michael Kahn a year ago, the world was a different place. As Daniels articulates in his notes, the shift in the national and international conversation towards Islam as a faith and culture has only made this tragedy more relevant. Shakespeare’s language concerning race and racism sounds all too familiar, set here in the years after World War I.

Daniels finds a comfortable balance in stressing the racial tension of the script without losing the complexities of certain characters, namely the villainous Iago, played by Jonno Roberts. Roberts allowed the natural orchestration his character is known for to drive the production. Roberts wasted no time in allowing the language to push and pull his fellow characters. In his soliloquies he had the most fun playing with pace, vowel, and gesture. The meter of the verse was stretched and manipulated as easily as those wrapped up in his plans. These solo moments may last a bit long to keep the moment of the story fluid and constant, but the ease that Roberts brings to the language is refreshing.

This ease in Roberts's performance was missing in the title character, played by Faran Tahir. While Tahir brought a gracious optimism to the stage during the first half of the production, the language often failed to come across as natural or spontaneous. Tahir also struggled to command vocally the vast space provided by Riccardo Hernandez’s set design. Made primarily of a handful of iron barrels and a raked metal floor, the open Harman Hall stage swallowed the physical and vocal power that Tahir worked hard to deliver.

Other Reviews: Peter Marks, An ‘Othello’ of psychological realism (Washington Post, March 1)

The central relationship of the production was between Othello and his new bride, Desdemona, played by Ryman Sneed. Sneed tackled her character with blunt vigor and helped move the show forward when Roberts was absent. The push to make Desdemona a character of strength and independence blurred the honest intimacy between herself and Tahir. When the erosion of Othello’s mind and spirit began to invade Desdemona’s world it was hard to identify any strong change in the way she approached this new aggression from her husband. This underwhelming relationship created issues during the climax of the production. As Othello approached the bed where his sleeping wife lay vulnerable, the struggle in making that consequential decision seemed glossed over, almost too easy to make. The action of the crime itself also seemed forced and unbelievable.

Such trouble at the end of the production affected additional relationships, namely that between Iago and his wife, Emilia (Merritt Janson). This already tense relationship boils over when all truth is revealed; yet there again was a lack of justification for Emilia’s eruption and Othello’s remorse.

Othello runs three hours, with a 15-minute intermission, and performances will continue at the Shakespeare Theater Company’s Sidney Harman Hall until March 27.

#morninglistening: Prokofiev, Bergen

#morninglistening to ear-cleaning #Prokofiev w/@Bergenfilharmon & @maestro59 as I will hea… http://t.co/E7k8Oqs5Wm pic.twitter.com/mP5CNComq9

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) October 18, 2015

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Steven Osborne's Magic Lantern Debussy

Schubert, Impromptus, D. 935 (inter alia), S. Osborne (Hyperion, 2015)

Since not long after winning Switzerland’s Clara Haskil Competition in 1991, Steven Osborne has been producing recordings that are both shrewdly programmed and beautifully performed. The result was much the same for the Scottish pianist’s second recital at the Phillips Collection on Sunday afternoon, following up on his debut at the museum in 2012.

The high point of the concert was an eclectic combination of Debussy pieces from different collections, played as a set without interruptions. “Masques,” originally planned as part of the “Suite Bergamasque” but later published separately, was forceful and adventurous, followed by a dreamy middle section. In the second book of “Images,” Osborne’s attention to sound brought out hazy details like the meandering whole-tone scales and pinpricks of floating melody in “Bells heard through the leaves.” The somber strains of “And the moon descends” were barely whispered, while the fluttered tremolos of “Goldfish” were playfully mercurial. The hammered finale of “L’Isle Joyeuse,” another movement removed from the “Suite Bergamasque,” was symphonic in scope, forming an ideal climax to the set.

Other Reviews: David Rohde, Pianist Steven Osborne Plays Rachmaninoff at the Phillips Collection (D.C. Metro Theater Arts, February 29) Erica Jeal, Steven Osborne review – colour and texture above drama and display (The Guardian, February 4) Fiona Maddocks, Schubert: Impromptus, Piano Pieces and Variations CD review – radiance and lyricism (The Guardian, October 18, 2015

Osborne’s latest recording, released last year on the Hyperion label, is devoted to the music of Schubert, including two of the D. 935 impromptus heard here. Osborne played them with a combination of Romantic anguish and Schubertian delicacy, finding countless shades of wistful sweetness in the nostalgic dialogue of the left hand in no. 1, as it crossed back and forth over the right hand. An exceptionally fast tempo for no. 4 made the passages in parallel thirds less than precise but drove the piece forward with daring impishness.

Technical prowess was not the problem in a closing set of Rachmaninov “Etudes-Tableaux” either. Osborne’s articulate introduction to the set demonstrated that he understands and cherishes this composer’s music, but the disappointing sameness across all these pieces tarnished the achievement. One has to question why Osborne chose in this concert to omit George Crumb’s 1983 Processional, which he played with this program at St. John's Smith Square in London earlier this month. Concert length seems to have been the issue, as Osborne played only seven of the Rachmaninov pieces in London, rather than the ten he played here. Three fewer Rachmaninov pieces is a price I would surely have been willing to pay. You can still listen to the BBC streaming broadcast of Osborne's London recital to see what we missed.

This coming Sunday's concert at the Phillips Collection, by viola da gambist Jordi Savall (March 6, 4 pm), is an event not to be missed, but it is already sold out.

Ionarts at Large: Blomstedt and Pires in San Francisco

Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from Davies Hall in San Francisco.

Bruckner, Symphonies 1-9, Cologne RSO, G. Wand Bruckner, Symphonies, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, H. Blomstedt

Last Thursday, February 25, 2016, I joined a largely geriatric crowd (meant descriptively, not critically, as I myself head toward 70) for a matinee performance of the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Symphony Hall. For some reason, if only from habit, I think of concerts as evening events. However, I was more than willing to turn out on an early afternoon to hear the Symphony’s conductor laureate Herbert Blomstedt, music director from 1985 to 1995, conduct a program of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, with Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires, and Bruckner’s Third Symphony. I last had the opportunity of hearing Maestro Blomstedt in 2009, when he conducted the Bruckner Ninth Symphony with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. He was then 82. Today, at 88, his artistry is undiminished.

I think of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto as a largely extroverted affair, filled with joie de vivre. However, anyone who came expecting to be jolted by Beethoven’s electricity might have been disappointed by the relatively low voltage level of orchestral energy. Blomstedt chose, rather, a warm, reflective, mellow approach. It was particularly effective in poetic stretches, but lacked an element of excitement. It served, however, as a perfectly fine setting for the sublime artistry of Maria João Pires, who, remarkably, was making her debut with the San Francisco Symphony. She played with a full range of expression in a way that made the most of every finely articulated note. The first movement cadenza was particularly remarkable. Only a deeply experienced, fully mature artist could play with the level of confidence and nuance she exhibited. If I tried to put it in a nutshell, I would say it was like listening to a female Wilhelm Kempff. In all, the performance perspective of soloist, conductor, and orchestra was toward inwardness, rather than outwardness. It showed a perhaps slightly unexpected side of this relatively youthful Beethoven.

Blomstedt chose the early 1873 Nowak edition of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3. In fact, it was Blomstedt who premiered this version of the Bruckner Third in the United States in 1998. As awkward as parts of it may be, it is well to keep in mind the remark of the famous Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache, who said of the Third Symphony: “This is the first manifestation of great, spacious, broad-plane thinking – incredibly extended – representing the essence of his later symphonic writing.” That is exactly right. In the Third, one can hear Bruckner’s greatness coming right around the corner. And in what does that greatness consist? The excellent Playbill program notes by Michael Steinberg quote Wilhelm Furtwängler to the effect that, “Bruckner is one of those geniuses who have appeared but seldom in the course of European history, whose destiny it was to render the transcendent real and to attract, even to compel, the element of the divine into our human world.” That level of greatness is more promised than realized in the Third, but there is enough of it there to reward attention.

Other Reviews: Georgia Rowe, Blomstedt and Bruckner prove a winning combination on San Francisco's Davies Hall stage (San Jose Mercury News, February 26) Joshua Kosman, Blomstedt makes a halting case for Bruckner (San Francisco Chronicle, February 26)

For the most part, Blomstedt did not aim at exaltation, and he did not make the big moments in the first movement as big as they could have been. If one missed the majestic utterances achieved by a conductor like Günter Wand, one was compensated by the sheer beauty which Blomstedt elicited with his steady, unbroken concentration and the extraordinarily fine playing by the SFS, which sounded as if to the Bruckner manner born. While not completely swept up in the early movements of the symphony, I nonetheless found myself repeatedly saying, “I didn’t realize this part was that beautiful.” Blomstedt’s approach was particularly effective in deftly revealing inner voices. My few reservations were blown away by the vivacity, vigor, and élan with which the third and fourth movements were done. The finale demonstrated that Blomstedt had only been keeping his powder dry in the fortissimo passages of the first movement, which made the closing allegro all the more exciting.