NINAGAWA Macbeth. July 21, 2018.

David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center.  Tier 4 (Seat O17, $59).

Cast

Macbeth – Maschika Ichimura, Lady Macbeth – Yuko Tanaka, Keita Oishi, Macduff, King Duncan – Tetsuro Sagawa.

The unanswered question: what sort of decision process would result in a play by Shakespeare done in Japanese be part of a Mostly Mozart Festival?  Instead of answering that, one could point out some aspects to tonight’s production.

First, Yukio Ninagawa, who died in 2016, was apparently a well-known figure in Japan.  He had directed over 20 of Shakespeare’s plays, and Macbeth was “the world’s introduction to a Japanese Theater legend,” per the Program Notes.  The role of Lady Macbeth was played by Tanaka, a popular television actress.  Naturally there are Japanese elements in the production: an ancestral armor which lights up was the ghost in the play, and there were plenty of cherry blossoms.  There were a couple of “horses” that were quite well done.

When I bought the ticket at the Theater box office (at around 6:30 pm for the 7:30 pm play), I was told the seat (last row, Tier 4) had a restricted view, namely the surtitles would be blocked.  Turns out that wasn’t the case, and I could see the projected English translation.  A few problems though: I was too far back to see the surtitles clearly, the dialog sometimes happened very quickly, and the English used was Shakespearean.  The synopsis I wrote in a prior blog (for Verdi’s opera) came in handy, especially given the straightforward plot.  Unfortunately many of the nuances and famous quotes were lost on me, including “Life’s but a walking shadow … a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing.”  The surtitle projections worked most of the time, but failed at some of the most inopportune moments, such as when Mcduff claimed that he was born via a C-section (of course I don’t know if he did say it; and for the record, Macduff’s line was “Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripp’d.”)

Regardless of my misgivings, I enjoyed the play. I always have trouble understanding Shakespearean English when it is spoken, but have better luck with the written text, so the setup tonight – while not ideal – helped.  Macbeth’s story does not contain that many twists, so the drama is easy enough to follow along.  I do wonder if I didn’t know the title of the play and couldn’t see the surtitles, would I even think it was Macbeth.  (The forest of Birnam Woods wouldn’t have helped as the camouflage was provided by – you guessed it – fully blossoming cherry tree branches.)

 View from Tier 4. The last row had many empty seats so I moved closer to the center after the intermission.

The cast.  While I could see the surtitles during the play, there were clearly things happening towards the back of the stage that I couldn't see.

When I first noticed this event, I erroneously thought it was an opera.  I actually kept thinking that until the day of the performance.  Does this entry belong in a blog mostly devoted to classical concerts?  I have no other place to put it, and two pieces were used quite extensively in the play: Faure’s Requiem and Barber’s Adagio for Strings.

Anne had a commitment at church so she couldn’t go, so I took public transportation in.

Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra – Louis Langree, conductor. July 18, 2018.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra (Seat NN20, $46).

Program

MASS: A Theater Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers (1971) by Bernstein (1918-1990).

Artists

Nmon Ford, celebrant

Concert Chorale of New York – James Bagwell, choral director

Young People’s Chorus of New York City – Elizabeth Nunez, associate artistic director

Tenzin Gund-Morrow, boy soprano

Street Chorus: see photo for members

Dancers: see photo for members

First, some background material I want to record so I can reference it in the future.  This work was commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy for the opening of the JFK Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC in September 1971.  Given the controversy of Leonard Bernstein’s political views, Nixon – the US president at that time – was advised not to attend; the reason given was “this should be Mrs. Kennedy’s night.”  Not being a Catholic, I cannot tell how closely the structure of the program hews to the traditional order of mass; it appears close enough.  Except Bernstein interposes a lot of material that questions the celebrant’s faith, with the celebrant finally giving in and shattering the sacraments.  The arguing with God aspects seem to be a Jewish tradition.  Also unconventional was that the Mass was written by an atheist of Jewish descent; Bernstein did claim to be a spiritual person and wanted to write some sort of sacred music (per the Program Notes.)  In addition to traditional Latin liturgical texts, Bernstein put in some Hebrew prayers and lyrics (in English) written by himself and Stephen Schwartz (of Godspell fame.)

The music is an amalgam of various genres, including pop, jazz, classical, and 12-tone.  But the most predominant genre is broadway and street-singing.  Some recorded music was used; I also wonder how they sync up these tapes, and the transitions tonight were smooth.  The street chorus mainly played the role of doubters who constantly challenged the celebrant’s belief with “tropes” such as “I don’t know” and “Easy” that questioned the nature of sin and the worth of confession, respectively. This theme and counter-theme basically guided the rest of the music, resulting in the shattering of the sacraments.

With the aid of binoculars, one could easily observe tiny microphones worn by the singers.  The technician working the equalizer for them had a hard time keeping up with switches, resulting in some weak beginnings and an occasional loud feedback noise.  Our seats were in the second to last row of the main hall, and the voices came across fine, most of the time.  The celebrant did a lot of singing, and was on stage nearly all of the time.  He sounded uncertain at times, but generally did well.  It took me a while to locate the mic on him.

The staging was simple, with the altar as the centerpiece behind which stood the Young People’s Chorus.  Members of the concert chorale were seated in the front boxes of the first tier, women and men on opposite sides.  Dancers and street chorus used the stage to do their “thing,” and the orchestra occupied the first few rows of the auditorium.

The Program was advertised to be two hour long, without break.  It did take two hours, but didn’t feel that long; there were too many things happening that kept me occupied.

Before we decided to go to this event, we debated whether we really wanted to see it as we weren’t sure if it was worth the time (and money) to see something that might offend us.  We decided we were not that sensitive, and we had probably encountered the sentiments expressed in the work anyway.  We had some idea of what they would be anyway: Cornell made the cover of Time because of the occupation of the student center by activists, and the Engineering library was occupied for several days by anti-war protesters when I was an undergraduate.  Compared to other controversial works (Stravinsky’s, for example), this was tame.  The only cuss word used that I could catch was “goddam” and there was only one crude scene where sexual intercourse was simulated by two fully clothed actors.

When the celebrant threw the sacraments on the ground, I thought the program ended and was about to take a few photos.  Good thing I was slow, as the flute began to play a rather interesting tune (I would say also the most original) followed by singing by the boy soprano.  The Program Notes describes this as a new hope and resurrection: everything is well.  The cynical may say this simply describes the next generation of “suckers” being born.

Curtain Call.  The celebrant (Ford) and boy soprano (Gund-Morrow) are at the center.  Some members of the Concert Chorale can be seen sitting in the first tier; the Young People's Chorus at the back of the stage.

Overall, this was not a satisfactory experience, even though we had no idea what to expect.  Bernstein the composer was often maligned by his critics as being lightweight, this work would add to their ammunition.  Other than the occasional passages of brilliance, most of it sounded recycled.  The skepticism of some that the work would not have a lasting value (as noted in the Program Notes) has borne out, even to one where the anti-war, modernist movements were at the peak during his first years in the United States.  The one thing to admire was how tonight’s performance went without a hitch given the different elements involved.

A search of the web returned many positive reviews (judging by the headlines) of the performance.  The New York Times review is titled “’Mass’ Brings Out the Worst in Leonard Bernstein.”  Perhaps the cruelest remark by the reviewer was “hard to discern … why we should perform it at all – other than as a relic.”

[Note added 7/21/2018.  A couple of remarks. First was how Mostly Mozart has been transforming into A Little Mozart over the years.  The reasoning - if one can call it that - is this is "in keeping with Mozart's spirit of innovation and creativity."  The question is, which composers are thereby excluded?  The other was the similarity of my reaction to one Seinfeld had with Whatley as a Jewish comedian: that it offended him not as a Jewish person, but as a comedian.  For tonight the disappointment is not as not as much about the message as it is about the music.]

We left at around 11:30 am to have lunch with our friend Ron W in Malvern PA, and it was close to 11 pm when we got home.  A relative long day for us.  Dinner was street food in NYC.

Poulenc Trio. July 8, 2018.

Richardson Auditorium, Princeton University.  Balcony (free).

Program

Suite in the Old Style (arr. M. Krutik) by Schnittke (1934-1998).

Trains of Thought (2012) by Viet Cuong (b. 1990).

Romance, op. 97a (arr. Anatoly Trofinov) by Shostakovich (1906-1975).

A Spin Through Mosco (arr. Trofimov) by Shostakovich.

Fantasie concertante sur des themes de “I’Italian in Algeri” (arr. Charles Triebert & Eugene Jancourt) by Rossini (1792-1878).

Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano (1926) by Poulenc (1899-1963).

Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano iii. Jaunty by Previn (b. 1929).

Artists

James Austin Smith, oboe; Bryan Young, bassoon; Irina Kaplan, piano.

This was an interesting concert, with interesting stories behind several of the pieces.  Of course the combination of instruments is not common for a trio, which probably accounts for the claim that the trio “is the most active touring piano-wind chamber music ensemble in the world.”  Competition for that title is probably light, and there is every reason to believe this trio is welcomed all over the world.

Alfred Schnittke’s piece “Concerto Gross No. 5 for the Violin” is the first song (alphabetically) on my iPod, so I have listened to it many times – at least the beginning part as I usually would skip to what I wanted to listen.  The suite performed today had nothing in common, except perhaps for the rather “minimalist” approach.  Schnittke wrote in a classical (or even baroque) style.  It was a pleasant composition of five movements: pastorale, balletto, minuetto, fuga, and pantomime. The first four movements sounded exactly like their descriptions.  I didn’t know what to except of the pantomime, so was happy to ride along.  It ended with a flourish.

The second piece was composed by a young composer (he was around 22 when he wrote it).  On top of that, there was an accompanying video that was projected onto the screen when the music was performed.  Both Cuong and the animator Elizabeth Phelps made a brief remark about the work.  Cuong described the music reflected how a day-dreamer’s thoughts might move from one subject to another (“scattered brain” was a phrase he used), and when he returned to his original thought he was informed by the intervening thinking.  Phelps described her animation technique as mostly using tweezers to move objects around, and the process took nine months.

Elizabeth Phelps and Viet Cuong talked about the piece "Trains of Thought."

The music was interesting enough, so was the animation.  I unfortunately don’t have the bandwidth to process so much information simultaneously, and didn’t have time to really listen to or analyze the music while trying to grasp what was happening on screen.  The “story” was mostly about being carried away by birds in flight, and indeed the scene at the end was similar to what we saw at the beginning.  At more than 15 minutes, though, the screen play got a bit monotonous, and – by implication – the music also.  While people definitely day-dream for long periods of time, perhaps we may not find other people’s day-dreams that interesting?

My overall impression of the music was quite positive.  This naturally was my first encounter with Cuong, but I won’t be surprised if I will hear more from him in the future.  The Trio’s website has a YouTube video of the piece.  The duration was about 12:30 minutes, so it felt longer …

The first half concluded with two pieces by Shostakovich, arranged for the Trio’s instruments.

I saw the light-hearted “An Italian in Algiers” at the Sydney Opera House a few years ago, so was looking forward to hearing the “fantasie concertante” arranged by a couple of Paris Conservatory reed players.  The piece had several of the familiar themes from the opera woven into it; despite that, it didn’t sound as light-hearted as I remembered of the opera.

The Trio written by Poulenc was an example of the many chamber music works he wrote for wind instruments, and was the reason the Trio adopted its name – according to Smith.  The three movements are quite traditional: presto, andante, and rondo.

Smith joked that there is a “reed convention” every now and then, with hundreds of participants, and it was during one of those events that Andre Previn introduced his Trio.  We heard one of the movements today.

The audience was appreciative of the musicians.

We were happy that we could sit through such a concert, and I certainly got a new appreciation of how difficult these reed instruments could be (not that I ever had any doubt.)  One problem is the bassoon, especially when bellowing out low notes, is not as easy to pick up as the oboe or the piano, and I often had to consciously listen for it. The other issue was most of the attention was paid to the winds, and the pianist was mostly ignored – Smith did say there were 15x more notes played the piano, slight exaggeration.

Our second Princeton Summer Chamber concert was at 3 pm Sunday afternoon.  Melissa Bohl, the artistic director, mentioned this time slot allowed a different group of people to attend.  We did see some young children.  We stopped by Buffalo Wild Wings for an early dinner on the way back.

Omer Quartet. July 2, 2018.

Richardson Auditorium, Princeton University.  Balcony (free).

Program

String Quartet in F Major, op. 50, no. 5 “The Dream” by Haydn (1732-1809).

Four Script Styles of Chinese Calligraphy by Yiwen Shen (b. 1986).

String Quartet No. 1 in A minor, Sz. 40, BB 52, op. 7 by Bartok (1881-1945).

Artists: Mason Yu, Erica Tursi, violin; Jinsun Hong, viola; Alex Cox, cello.

For 51 years, the Princeton University Summer Chamber Concerts produces a series of chamber music concerts that is free to the community.  We have been going to them for several years, and plan to make three of the four concerts this season.

It was going to be the Zora Strings – a resident quartet at the Curtis Institute – that would be performing tonight.  For reasons not given to us (which is okay) the Omer Quartet was asked to substitute.  All the musicians look young, and are apparently graduates of Cleveland.  The quartet is now resident at the University of Maryland.

The Haydn quartet is vintage Haydn.  At some point I was wondering what the name given to it would be (I hadn’t looked at the program yet), and was surprised to see “The Dream” as I didn’t hear anything like that in the piece (or Haydn’s dreams were different from mine.)  The other interesting aspect was the glissando-sounding passages in the fourth movement.  That was the first time I heard such a sound in the violin, so I looked into the score.  The marking was “sopra una corda.”  I guess this effect is a by-product of moving the fingers up a string.

As a side remark, there are entire books devoted to early Haydn chamber music!

The sound from the first violin was brilliant.  Per the quartet’s website, the violin played by Yu is an Amati on loan to him.  He in general played very well, although I thought his intonation was off on several occasions.  The movements of the quartet are: Allegro moderato, Poco adagio, Menuetto: Allegretto, and Finale: Vivace.

Beginning of the fourth movement of the Haydn Quartet.  The effect of "sopra una corda" is like a short glissando.

Tursi talked about the Chinese Calligraphy piece written by Shen.  The two evidently knew each other (Shen has a doctoral degree from Julliard, and Tursi is a current student; per their websites) as she joked that one could call Shen about how the music should be played, but not Haydn or Bartok.

The work performed tonight consists of four movements, each patterned after a style of Chinese calligraphy: Clerical Script (隸書), Regular (楷書), Semi-Cursive (行書), and Cursive (草書).  Chinese in parentheses are taken from Wikipedia.  The last two are played attaca, but Tursi reassured the audience that they could tell by the wild finish.  I am not good at associating pictures with music, but there certainly were differences in style from one movement to the other.  As contemporary music goes, this was easy to take – being short at less than 10 minutes certainly helped.  I do have a what-if question of how things would sound if Shen had written a set of variations based on the different scripts.

Tursi also said something about the Bartok quartet.  Bartok evidently was very smitten by a pianist and wrote a concerto for her.  As a reaction to this requited love Bartok wrote this string quartet, beginning a dirge-sounding movement (Lento).  The music was ultimately uplifting after the second (Allegretto – Introduzione) and third (Allegro vivace) movements.  Along the way Bartok would incorporate these folk melodies that he collected as a ethnomusicologist.

All good, except most of what she said was difficult to prove (I looked), I did find references to a Stefi Geyer who was a violinist.  Also, the music was difficult to get on a first listen for me.  Bartok is usually easy to get in some way, tonight’s piece remained out of reach for me.  As opposed to the Shen piece, there are many recordings of this quartet on YouTube.

The viola got quite a bit of workout in this piece, which had a much better balance among the instruments than the Haydn.  The quartet should certainly be congratulated for putting out a well-coordinated performance, with seamless handoffs between instruments, and great dynamics.

Yu, Tursi, Cox, and Hong at the conclusion of the concert.  The audience was very appreciative.

The Omer Quartet is certainly a capable substitute for any other ensemble.  I would have enjoyed a more traditional programming, but what I heard tonight was fine.

We met up with the Yee’s at Panera Bread and talked about our respective musical tours.  They just spent about two weeks in Leipzig attending more than 30 concerts at the Bach Festival.

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra at Marine Park. July 1, 2018.

Marine Park, Red Bank.  Lawn seating (free).

Program

The program was announced from the stage, including the following:

Intermezzo from Manon Lescaut

Overture from William Tell

Meditation from Thais – Brennen Sweet, solo

Carousel Waltz by Rodgers

Imperial March from Star Wars by John Williams

Tribute to the Branches of the Military (army, coast guard, marines, navy, and air force)

It is my understanding that for several years now the NJSO gives a series of concerts at various (mostly) outdoor locations throughout the state.  July 1 was the last one, and Marine Park is where our boat is moored.  So we asked a few friends to come to the boat for dinner (sandwiches, chips, and fruit) and we also met some others at the park.

There was quite a crowd, and many stayed after the intermission, which is a good thing.  I think it numbered about 500, a friend said it was a couple of thousand.  So much for my (or her) ability to estimate crowd sizes.  In any case, it was a good showing of support.  Only thing missing were food trucks – I think they would have done some business.

It was hot today, the temperature was in the mid 90s at concert start.  There was a covered stage set up for the event, so at least there was some protection from the sun for the members.  The sun sets around 8:30 pm this time of the year, and we had a clear sky and a beautiful sunset.

 This was the temperature at 3 pm.  It was still in the mid- to high-90s when the concert started.

 The crowd at the beginning of the concert.  Most people stayed after the intermission.

I couldn't find the name of the conductor.  He has a strong resemblance to NJSO's Youth Orchestra music director Jose Luis Dominguez.

While I do not want to critique the performance – it was supposed to be just plain fun – I must say I enjoyed the waay Sweet played.  Meditation is not particularly difficult, but to make it sound as good as he did, in such an environment (sweating profusely, for one) was a great accomplishment.

The concert lasted about 1:30 hours, so we had time for a snack at McDonald’s after we cleaned up.

New York Philharmonic - Very Young People's Concert. June 4, 2018.

Merkin Concert Hall, New York.

This was the second such concert we brought our grandson Reid to expose him to classical music and orchestral instruments.