Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York City. Apse, center rear.
Program – Music
by George Frederic Handel and Philip Glass
Handel – Inumano fratel … Stille amare (Tolomeo)
Glass – Liquid Days
Handel Rompo I Lacci (Flavio)
Handel Lascia Ch’io Pianga (Rinaldo)
Glass In the Arc of Your Mallet (Monsters of Grace)
Handel Vivi Tiranno (Rodelinda)
Glass How All Living Things Breathe (The Fall of the
House of Usher)
Handel Pena Tiranna (Armadigi di Gaula)
Glass The Encounter (1000 Airplanes on the Road)
Cast
Painter – George Condo
Dancers – Daniel Applebaum, Patricia Delgado, Ricky
Ubeda, Zoe Zien
Orchestra
People Movers
If I am asked to have one description about this concert,
I would characterize it as a recital by the counter-tenor Constanzo. But that would be short-changing it, by a
lot. Let me explain.
Chung Shu had a ticket he couldn’t use, so I came
along. I think he told me (via email)
that the concert is called “Glass Handel,” and that his daughter would be at
the harpsichord. I just assumed it was
Handel, played in a particularly way – probably with period instruments, as the
harpsichord is involved.
That would be a fraction of half correct. Indeed the program consisted of alternate
songs by Handel and Glass. Many, if not
all, of them are arias from the composer’s operas. While one could definitely hear a huge
difference between Handel’s and Glass’s music, the same baroque orchestra (for
lack of a better description) was used.
And strangely, the whole thing felt natural.
Behind the orchestra was a screen with a painter behind
it. His shadow would be cast on the
screen as he painted on the white canvass.
He was busy at work during the approximately 60-minute duration of the
program, and managed to fill the rather large canvass with some beautiful
images.
To the orchestra’s right (from my perspective) was a
platform for up to four ballet dancers. The
location was such that I had to make an effort to look at them, and therefore
didn’t see them much. For one number a dancer
was on center stage.
To the orchestra’s left was a screen where “opera music
videos” (I would simply call them “music videos”) were projected. They ranged from the surreal, the idyllic,
the dreamy, to the melancholic.
All this was enough to keep one’s senses fully
occupied. On top of that, Constanzo went
through three costumes, from bright red, to blue, to patterns on white. By taking the layered approach, not much time
was needed as he shed the dresses during the performance. I enjoyed his strong singing voice. His name is quite familiar, and I do have
several entries about him in this blog.
The three costumes worn by Costanzo for the concert. Notice the progress in the painting behind him. The shadow of the painter could be seen while he was doing his work (not captured in these photos.)
Curtain Call. From right: conductor, dancers, guy in white shirt (painter?), Costanzo, and guy in black coat (I have no idea.)
The most puzzling were these 25 or so “people movers”
dressed in red tops and black pants who lifted the seats in the audience (with
people in them) one by one with “wheelbarrows” from one location to another. During the entire program. Our seats were “static” so we didn’t get the
ride. After a while I decided there was
no meaning I could get out of it. My
view of the stage, unfortunately, was blocked quite often. Since the people that got moved had even more
disruption, perhaps I needed a different mindset and looked at the whole
program as more than just an audio-visual experience.
There would be two performances of this program for today
and the day after, it must put quite a strain on the performers.
I took the train in on this raining day. Chung Shu and I met up at Panda for a quick
bite before the concert. By moving from
the local 1 train to the 2 train at 96 Street station, we managed to make the
9:38 pm train back home by 2 minutes.
A search of the web yielded this New York Times article from September 2018 that talked about how Costanzo went about getting the project realized.
No comments:
Post a Comment