2006 First Night Boston. 12/31/2005.

NEC Youth Symphony, “The Story of Peer Gynt”. St. Paul’s Cathedral, Boston.
Opera unMet, “Aida”. First Baptist Church of Boston.

Anne and I are staying in Boston for New Year’s Eve, and we decided to attend a couple of the 2006 First Night concerts. It had been unusually warm this week, although the temperature was at freezing tonight, and about ½" of snow fell in the evening, making it a rather enjoyable winter evening to be out and about. We attended two 40-minute concerts.

The two Peer Gynt suites by Edvard Grieg are quite well-known, except before today I didn’t know the story behind them. Tonight’s NEC (New England Conservatory) Youth Symphony performance had a story-teller (O’Callahan) to do some story-telling during the program. Peer Gynt was a lazy day-dreamer whose fantasies were set into music. I had no idea the different movements of the suites were so well matched to the legend of Peer Gynt. Anne had a much better knowledge of the music and knew about the mountain king and the trolls.

The program began and ended with Viennese New Year music (a waltz and a march), and had an “Auld Lang Syne” sing-along. The young people in the orchestra all played quite well. The orchestra could use a bit more dynamic range in the performance, though. This was a well-attended concert inside a nice Episcopalian church.

“Opera unMet” is a catchy name for a group of artists consisting of Aida, Amneris, Rademas, two priestesses, a narrator and a pianist. I wish they had passed out some program notes so we could get to know the performers a bit. The venue was the First Baptist Church, a very old church located on Commonwealth Avenue in Back Bay.

About a dozen arias from the opera were chosen for tonight. With the narration, a rather complete story was told beginning with Rademas singing his love for Aida (Celeste Aida) to the final trio “O terra, addio.” The three principal singers all had good voices, although Rademas’s was a bit on the weak side. I couldn’t tell if these were professionals, but they certainly held the audience with their performance. I was surprised they needed the music though. In any case, the songs are quite demanding, and these folks put on two 45-minute programs for the evening, and every now and then the strain showed.

Nonetheless, I couldn’t help remarking to Anne this was quite a way to start the New Year, listening to a story where two people got buried alive under a temple.