Court Ballet as You've Never Seen It Before

La Délivrance de Renaud: Ballet dansé par Louis XIII en 1617, ed. Greer Garden. Centre d'Études Supérieures de la Renaissance. Collection ‹‹Épitome musical››, dir. Philippe Vendrix. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2011. XXI+293 p., 17 b/w ill. + 68 colour ill., 190 x 290 mm, ISBN: 978-2-503-52347-7

Recently, the postman made the delivery of a much longed-for birth: after over a decade of research, collaboration, sweat, and prayer, a new book on the 1617 court ballet La Délivrance de Renaud has been published. This astounding court ballet, performed by King Louis XIII along with some of the gentlemen of his court and a host of professional dancers, singers, and musicians, was one of the works I studied in my doctoral dissertation. After completing graduate school, I began an attempt to make a critical edition of the music, only to discover that scholars from New Zealand and France were pursuing the same goal. They kindly allowed me to contribute to their undertaking, and after many years of anguish, the book has finally seen the light of day.

The luxurious (and expensive) edition, published beautifully by Brepols, includes a facsimile of the principal source for the ballet, a remarkable document that contains musical notation, a narrative account of the first and only performance (in the Louvre on January 29, 1617), and illustrations of the lavish costumes and sets, as well as an English translation of that document and a critical edition of the vocal and dance music. The first part of the book brings together essays by the team of scholars, myself included, on a range of topics related to this ballet and its unprecedented documentation in archival sources: historical context, literary inspiration, the musical performance and instrumentation, staging, scenography, costuming, and dance.

As a precursor to the development of opera in France, the court ballet in the era of Louis XIII is a frequently mentioned but little understood phenomenon. This volume is a comprehensive and beautifully presented introduction to it, and the fact that it is in both English and French, with some of the articles in only one language or the other, should make it of interest to research libraries and other collections in many places. The obvious goal of this sort of musicological research is a reconstructed performance of the work pieced together from historical sources: for more about that, stay tuned.

What to Hear Next Season: WPAS

See my preview of the 2011-2012 season from Washington Performing Arts Society at Washingtonian.com:

What to Hear Next Season: Washington Performing Arts Society (Washingtonian, June 10):

Washington Performing Arts Society brings a high-caliber roster of the world’s leading musicians to perform at the Kennedy Center, Strathmore, and the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue, among other venues. If they tend to return again and again to the same artists, year after year, it’s largely because they know their audience.

High-profile artists demand big fees, and even though WPAS’s concerts are underwritten by many generous donors, the price of its tickets can be steep. At least some of WPAS’s 2011-2012 concerts, announced last month, will likely be among the year’s biggest events in classical music, but on which ones should you spend your ticket budget? Among the big names back (yet again) on the WPAS roster, Joshua Bell (January 23) is the first we advise you to put on your calendar. The American violinist became even more famous in these parts after he took part in a stunt staged by the Washington Post in the L’Enfant Plaza Metro station, and the only criticism that comes to mind about his performances is that they are sometimes too beautiful. Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham (February 4) is known for the beauty of her voice and the intelligence of her choice of songs. Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes (February 12) returns to a more traditional program after his last, somewhat unusual recital here. Violinist Vadim Repin (March 16) has all the technical facility of Joshua Bell and a lot more grit and power, plus a killer recital program. If Murray Perahia actually plays his recital (March 18) -- he has struggled with hand injuries through the years -- he will play impeccably. [Continue reading]

Holy Heat Wave! Playing Catch Up

Was Germany more volatile from 1904/05 through the 20s than what we are experiencing in the world now? The devastation of WWI, the social conscience, the advent of expressionism -- the prints! Maybe it's happening more digitally in this era and I'm just smitten by the ink-pressed paper. Truly, I was in print heaven at the Museum of Modern Art's exhibit German Expressionism: The Graphic Impulse.

This show has almost all of my favorites. Woodcuts from Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Max Pechstein, and Emil Nolde from the Brücke and Blaue Reiter groups. Egon Schiele’s watercolors and dry point etchings are divine, including some from Oskar Kokoschka, Max Beckmann, and George Grosz.

Otto Dix's series The War is present in its chilling entirety, which immediately brought to mind Ferdinand Botero's paintings at the Katzen Center, about the atrocities at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. Yes, art can still punch back.

I have renewed respect for Emile Nolde: he was so prolific. His lithograph Young Couple, as an example, is an edition of 112, with 68 color variations! That's how you push a print to the limits. He did that on a regular basis -- I am humbled, sir.

Two shows that will remain up until the end of the month that have stayed with me and are worth seeing are the lush, impastoed landscape and portrait paintings of Leon Kossoff at Mitchell-Innes & Nash and Louise Bourgeois's fabric work at Cheim Read, stunning patterns of woven color.

This week's heat wave lingering over New York had one comfort for me, besides the chilled Pinot Grigio: it came in a group show at Lohin Geduld. Lois Dodd's Open Poppy is an 11x11" oil on masonite that just blew me away with its subtle beauty. She does that to me often.

A few blocks over and a world away at Andrew Edlin is ZAP: Masters of Psychedelic Art. Curated by Gary Panter and Chris Byrne, the show's focus is the early days when Zap artists like Robert Crumb and Rick Griffin were reinventing the comic book. It's sick, depraved, and gooey and it's up through the 25th.

If you have never been to the Museum of Arts and Design before, go. Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities, a new exhibit featuring over thirty artists, opened this week. Organized around four themes -- Apocalyptic Archaeology, Dreams and Memories, Unnatural Nature, and Voyeur/Provocateur -- the artists have assembled video, paintings, and scaled models of imagined or actual scenes. Probably most known to Ionarts readers would be Joe Fig's reproductions of artist studios. This exhibit includes the summer studio of Chuck Close, Jackson Pollack in action, and a self-portrait, Fig's own studio.

Amy Bennet's Waiting Room, a depiction of arguably the most unsettling place to spend your time -- a doctor's office -- is spot on. In June Bum Park's video 3 crossing, a human hand orchestrates the movements of a parking lot -- I wish! -- and Tracey Snelling's Foot & Ass, KFC begs the question -- is KFC really American?

Royal Danish Ballet

See my review of the Royal Danish Ballet at Washingtonian.com:

Royal Danish Ballet’s “A Folk Tale” (Washingtonian, June 9):

Ballet in Denmark goes back to the mid-18th century, when the Royal Danish Ballet was established in its home, Det Kongelige Teater in Copenhagen.

The company has brought two of its productions to the Kennedy Center this week, and the experience of Tuesday’s performance of the Danish classic A Folk Tale made it clear that the Danes are presenting ballet as one rarely sees it done here in Washington. To mark the pride of Denmark in its leading ballet company, the Queen of Denmark, Margrethe II, and her Prince Consort attended opening night, waving to the audience from their box. Not only are neither of these ballets (the second production, Napoli, opens Friday night) commonly staged, the production values of the costumes, sets, and stage effects are of strikingly high, even lavish quality. Both ballet regulars and novices to dance will be enchanted.

The ascendancy of Danish ballet goes back to a French dancer and choreographer, Antoine Bournonville. He was a student of Jean-Georges Noverre, the French choreographer who helped create the single-narrative modern ballet we know today. When Bournonville was ballet-master in Copenhagen, he had a son named August (1805-1879), who went on to become the company’s lead dancer and then choreographer. August Bournonville created most of the company’s signature ballets, which are still its bread and butter today, lending his name to a style of dance for which the company is still known. In an unsettled period at the end of the 20th century, according to ballet scholar Marion Kant, the Royal Danish Ballet struggled to balance the desire to preserve the Bournonville tradition and move into a new millennium. The company had five different directors from 1994 to 2002, and each one tried to update Bournonville in different ways. Nikolaj Hübbe, artistic director since 2008, has had the most success, and he has chosen to put his updated versions of the Bournonville classics, sharing the credit with Sorella Englund, at the center of the company’s North American tour. [Continue reading]

A Folk Tale
Royal Danish Ballet
Kennedy Center Opera House

N. Gade / J. P. E. Hartmann, Et Folkesagn, Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, H. Damgaard N. Gade, Symphonies, Stockholm Sinfonietta, N. Järvi N. Gade, Symphonies, Vol. 1, Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, C. Hogwood [Vol. 2] [Vol. 3] [Vol. 4]

En supplément:
There was not really any more room in the piece for Washingtonian to focus on the music of A Folk Tale, a remarkably beautiful score that I had never studied before. August Bournonville created the scenario of Et Folkesagn later in his career, premiering the ballet in 1854, and he reportedly thought of it as the best work of his life. He engaged two of the period's leading Danish composers to provide the score, J. P. E. Hartmann (1805-1900), who composed the heavily folk music-tinged Act II music for the troll underworld, and his son-in-law Niels W. Gade (1817-1890), who composed Acts I and III, both set in the mortal world. (Danish music was a family affair at the time: Hartmann's son, Emil Hartmann, also became a composer, who composed the score for another Bournonville ballet. In a bizarre turn of events in the 1980s, film director Lars von Trier revealed that he was actually the grandson of Emil Hartmann.)

Niels Gade was catapulted to the leadership of Danish music when Mendelssohn championed his music in Leipzig. As a result, Gade succeeded Mendelssohn as music director in Leipzig, but only for a brief time, as Prussia and Denmark soon went to war, with disastrous results for the Danes. Gade's music retains much of Mendelssohn's music: in A Folk Tale one can hear it the most in the Dance of the Elf Maidens at the end of the first act. Gade also brought back to Copenhagen the example Mendelssohn had set in Leipzig for the preservation of the musical past, organizing the first Danish performances of Bach's St. Matthew Passion and Beethoven's ninth symphony (which Gade heard Richard Wagner conduct in Dresden in 1846). Gade and Hartmann both helped to create important musical institutions in Copenhagen, including the Danish Musical Society and the Copenhagen Academy of Music.

Gade was a prolific composer, known first as a symphonist and composer of tone poems for orchestra. The symphonies, not often performed outside of Denmark, have come in for recording in the last decade or two, with complete sets from the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (the group has slowly been putting together a complete Gade set), under Christopher Hogwood, and the Stockholm Sinfonietta, under Neeme Järvi. (You can listen to a sampling of the Gade symphonies on YouTube.) As far as I can determine, this is the first time that we have ever officially reviewed any of Gade's music at Ionarts, either live or on disc.

Other Articles: Sarah Kaufman, Royal Danish Ballet’s ‘A Folk Tale’ has the human touch (Washington Post, June 9) ---, Royal Danish Ballet’s Nikolaj Hubbe, stepping boldly into the lead (Washington Post, June 3) Marsha Dubrow, Royal Danish Ballet, Queen Margrethe were welcomed royally at Kennedy Center (Washington Examiner, June 8) J. S. Marcus, A Reinvigorated Danish Ballet (Wall Street Journal, June 3)

It is intriguing to think about the crossing of Gade's life with Wagner's, seeing that they were both so interested in Norse myth. Could Wagner have known of the troll scene in the first act of A Folk Tale, where the trolls are first seen and heard inside their hill by rhythmic hammering onstage? Or could Gade have known of Wagner's ongoing work on the Ring cycle at around this time? Did Wagner know that Gade had also begun an opera, left unfinished in 1847, called "Siegfried og Brunhilde"? The closest Wagner ever got to Copenhagen was during his disastrous flight from Riga, when he and his wife Minna took a ship to escape their creditors. As they passed by Elsinore, Wagner was reportedly reminded of his youthful love of Shakespeare's "Hamlet," but Wagner had little interest in ballet. They did come into contact during Gade's travels in Germany, as mentioned above.

One final note on Nikolaj Hübbe's production: it replaced the 1991 staging by Frank Andersen and Anne Marie Vessel Schlüter, with settings and costumes designed by none other than Queen Margrethe II. That production was reportedly much more traditional, set in the 16th century. Hübbe adds an interesting wrinkle of class conflict, with Birthe like a spiteful aristocrat forcing the peasants to dance at her command in Act I, as well as a group of oppressed poor and lame people to whom Hilda gives her jewelry in Act III. Supernumeraries called the Blue Gendarmes enforce the power of the state and keep the peasants in line.

Joel Fan Bludgeons Chopin

Read my review published yesterday in the Style section of the Washington Post:

Charles T. Downey, Pianist Joel Fan performs at the National Gallery of Art
Washington Post, June 7, 2011

Joel Fan, West of the Sun: Music of the Americas

It was a relief to attend a summertime concert that did not invite the listener to turn off his mind and just relax. Pianist Joel Fan, known for his work with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project and his adventurous programming, returned to the National Gallery of Art for a solo recital Sunday evening.

Fan claimed that the choice of music revolved around two themes, “spirituality” from different world cultures and the “breakdown of tonality.” Both applied to the hair-raising rendition of Scriabin’s ferocious fifth sonata, a jumble of melodic themes and near-eclipsing cascades of notes that evoked the summoning of creative force like a sorcerous incantation. In Schoenberg’s “Three Piano Pieces,” op. 11, Fan proceeded from the same sort of post-Romantic chromatic voluptuousness, making the score’s thickets of dissonance as sensual as possible. [Continue reading]

Joel Fan, piano
Music by Schoenberg, Beethoven, Chopin, et al.
National Gallery of Art

Soovin Kim Shines with National Philharmonic

Read my review published in the Style section of the Washington Post:

Charles T. Downey, National Philharmonic and Soovin Kim: Predictable Tchaikovsky
Washington Post, June 6, 2011

Tchaikovsky, Violin Concerto, J. Fischer, Russian National Orchestra, Y. Kreizberg [REVIEW]

The National Philharmonic has found a niche serving up chestnuts of the orchestral repertory. The ensemble even packages many of these programs of old favorites by composer, such as Saturday night’s “All Tchaikovsky” concert in the Music Center at Strathmore. What the idea lacks in programming ingenuity, it makes up for in predictability. It must have sold tickets, because the orchestra will perform a similar “All Tchaikovsky” program next season, too.

Violinist Soovin Kim was the highlight of the evening, a straight-backed, patrician virtuoso on the solo part of Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto. The winner of the 1996 Paganini Competition drew a golden tone from the 1709 “ex-Kempner” Stradivarius beginning in the first quiet measures, further impressing with precise, flashing finger-work and largely spot-on intonation, even in off-the-string and multiple-stop passages. The only real blemishes on a tour de force performance were a few scratchy, off-color high flautando notes in the first movement’s cadenza. [Continue reading]

National Philharmonic
With Soovin Kim, violin
Tchaikovsky, Violin Concerto and Symphony No. 5
Music Center at Strathmore

Soovin Kim should be on the radar of more concert presenters: I would rather listen to him than some violinists who appear regularly with many orchestras.

PREVIOUS REVIEWS:
Soovin Kim: 2009 | 2005
National Philharmonic: 2006

'H.M.S. Pinafore' Plays to Crickets Chirping

Read my review published today in the Style section of the Washington Post:

Charles T. Downey, ‘H.M.S. Pinafore’ at Wolf Trap
Washington Post, June 6, 2011

Gilbert and Sullivan, H.M.S. Pinafore, R. Evans, F. Lott, M. Schade, T. Allen, Welsh National Opera, C. Mackerras

It was a dry, cool evening perfect for a picnic and the fizzy, lighthearted score of “H.M.S. Pinafore,” performed by the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players, a reputable company of specialists in this repertoire. The only element missing Friday night was a large audience at Wolf Trap’s Filene Center.

The experience was perfectly pleasant, if not much more. The light, easy tenor of Dan Greenwood suited the naive sailor and romantic lead, Ralph Rackstraw, even with some breaths taken mid-word and some high notes at the edge of control. Likewise, Laurelyn Watson Chase brought an airy soubrette voice and considerable comic charm to the role of Josephine. The other principals seemed chosen more for acting than singing ability, but the amplification system in the Filene Center makes judgment of vocal quality rather difficult. [Continue reading]

Gilbert and Sullivan, H.M.S. Pinafore
New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players
Filene Center, Wolf Trap

In Brief: It's June Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to good things in Blogville and Beyond.

• Your online listening is particularly rich this week: William Christie's anniversary performance of Lully's Atys with Les Arts Florissants at the Opéra Comique (streaming only through June 11 -- here are some video excerpts), Martha Argerich and friends in three concerts from La Roque d'Anthéron, Tchaikovsky symphonies from Valery Gergiev and the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater, Mireille Delunsch and Jean-Paul Fouchécourt in Rameau's Naïs with La Simphonie du Marais at the Cité de la Musique, violinist Janine Jansen at the Salle Pleyel, Christian Gerhaher in Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, and Mahler's second symphony with the San Francisco Symphony at the Salle Pleyel. [France Musique]


• See William Christie speak about Lully's Atys: the interview, embedded at right, is in French, but it has English subtitles. [YouTube]


• V. S. Naipaul claimed this week that he could identify a female (and, therefore, inferior) writer after reading two paragraphs. See how many of those damned authoresses you can identify in this quiz. [The Guardian]


• Anne Midgette's review of Meredith Monk's new CD, which has been in my player a lot lately. [Washington Post]


• The Mahler celebration continues with the series of online videos of the symphonies from Leipzig, reviewed by Jens last month. [ARTE Live Web]


• Also available as online video, the Takács Quartet at the Auditorium du Louvre. [Medici.tv]


• The Folger Library opens an exhibit devoted to Shakespeare's First Folio. [Washington Post]


• Speaking of cultural treasures making a trip to Washington, the National Gallery of Art will display the Capitoline Venus through September 5. Please, crazy people who flip out at the sight of nude art, just don't go to the museum. [Washington Post]