Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Piano. February 11, 2012.

Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, Section Parquet Right (Seat Y14, $25).

Program
Divertimento on "Sellinger's Round" (1954) by Michael Tippett (1905-98).
Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor, Op. 35 (1933) by Shostakovich (1906-75).
   Louis Hanzuk, Trumpet
Pastorale d'ete (1920) by Arthur Honegger (1892-1955).
Serenade for Strings in C major, Op. 48 (1880) by Tchaikovsky (1840-1893).

Today’s concert had a somewhat unusual start time of 7 pm.  We left at around 5 pm, and got to the parking garage in less than an hour.  We actually had time to walk around a bit after a quick dinner at Lilies 57.

In general I don’t understand how a concert program is put together, and in today’s case it is even more puzzling.  Inclusion of the two pieces by Russian masters is obvious enough, but how the pieces by Tippett and Honegger fit in escapes me.

Not that there is anything wrong with either of them.  To celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, Benjamin Britten asked six composers to contribute to the Variations on an Elizabethan Theme, with the theme a famous tune (Sellinger’s Round) from the time of QEI.  Tippett wrote the second variation, A Lament.  He then went on to write additional movements to generate a complete piece.  Each movement quotes another British composer: (i) Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625): Fantasia for Strings; (ii) Henry Purcell (1659-95): “Dido’s Lament” from Dido and Aeneas (this is the movement in the QEII tribute); (iii) Thomas Arne (1710-78): “Preach me not your musty rules” from Comus; (iv) John Field (1782-1837): Nocturne in D minor; and (v) Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900): “I have a song to sing, O!” from The Yeoman of the Guard.  Since I do not know any of the quoted pieces, I cannot say how direct the quotes are.  The music is interesting, but not awe-inspiring.

The inclusion of the Honegger piece is even more puzzling.  Honegger, whom I also had never heard of before, was anointed as a member of “Les six” in 1920, the year he wrote this “Summer Pastoral,” by a French music critic Henri Collet.  At seven minutes it is a short piece.  It is generally quite slow, with the composer trying to paint a picture of a lazy, relaxed summer morning.  Nothing wrong with that, but again not awe-inspiring.

One would expect a full orchestra (say 12 first violins) to accompany a solo work of one of the modern masters such as Shostakovich.  For tonight’s performance we have a total of 25 of so musicians, five first violins.  With a large orchestra I often complain about the piano being overwhelmed, with a small one the opposite result would be expected.  Indeed that turned out to be the case, although the overall effect was okay.  Compared to the Brahms violin concerto I heard them play last, the group was much more together, even though the music can be characterized as being more chaotic.  Go figure.  The concerto itself is quite short at an advertised 21 minutes, and consists of four movements: Allegro moderato, Lento, Moderato – Allegro con brio.  The third movement was very short and continued as the fourth without pause.  As the Program Notes says, the piece contains a plethora of ideas and does not follow a standard concerto form.  I find it quite interesting, although I wonder how it would come across if it had a larger development section to it.  In any case, the overall effect was more traditional than I expected.  Even though he needed the music in front of him, Thibaudet turned in a delightful performance.

Another interesting aspect of the concerto is the quotations from Beethoven.  I could hear the one form the Appassionata Sonata well enough , but have to defer to Anne when she said she recognized the one from The Rage over a Lost Penny.  There is also a significant trumpet part in the concerto, though no so much to warrant an equal billing with the piano.

After the intermission a WQXR announcer (Elliott Forrest? I am not sure) came on the stage and interviewed a couple of the musicians about the Tchaikovsky piece.  One relayed that they did a spontaneous performance at Chicago O’Hare when they were snowed in at that airport; the other said he had played at every chair for this piece, and how things were always a bit different every time. (Turns out he led this performance.)  I know this piece very well, having played a movement of it as member of my high school orchestra at a competition (which we won, hands down: my school has dominated the orchestra category for at least 40 years.) The four movements are (i) Pezzo I forma di Sonatina; Andante non troppo – Allegro moderato; (ii) Valse: Moderato (Tempo di Valse); (iii) Elegia: Larghetto elegiaco; and (iv) Finale (Tema Russo): Andante – Allegro con spirit.  The piece is easy to listen to, and evokes the spontaneity with which Tchaikovsky composed it.  The performance was enjoyable, but I am not sure it was that much better than when our school orchestra played it.

The concert was reasonably well attended.  Interestingly, quite a few people left after the first half, and more did after the first piece of the second half.  I can understand leaving after Thibaudet’s performance, but continue to scratch my head why they didn’t stay for the Tchaikovsky piece.

After the concert we drove to Jersey City to visit Ellie and Kuau in their new apartment overlooking the Hudson and Manhattan.

Metropolitan Opera – Wagner’s Gotterdammerung. February 3, 2012.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center – Balcony Seat B10 ($71.50).

Story.  See previous post.

Conductor - Fabio Luisi.  Norns - Maria Radner, Elizabeth Bishop, Heidi Melton; Brunnhilde - Katarina Dalayman; Siegfried - Stephen Gould; Gunther - Iain Paterson; Hagen - Hans-Peter Konig; Gutrune - Wendy Bryn Harmer; Waltaute - Waltraud Meier; Alberich - Eric Owens; Rheinmaidens - Erin Morley, Jennifer Johnson Cano, Tamara Mumford.

This is the last of Wagner’s Ring operas.  We saw the new production Das Rheingold and Die Walkure last season at the Met, but we couldn’t see Siegfried because it was on during our Australian trip, so we will only manage a “broken ring” this past year.  Of course a Ring purist would say a real ring cycle must fall within the same week anyway.

We got back from Australia a few days ago, although I didn’t have severe jet lag, I was nonetheless getting very little sleep the last few days.  As I feared, I had quite a bit of trouble staying alert throughout the 5 ½ hour program, although I didn’t once doze off (that I am aware of.)  Anne had similar problems; only in her case she did doze off.  Awake or not, we both thought the opera could move along at a faster pace.

First, a few words about the set.  Remember, this is the super-expensive (latest figure $16 million) Robert Lepage production based on 24 planks.  From what I remember of the first two operas, even though I didn’t think it was worth the money, I at least grudgingly agreed that it worked to a certain extent.  For this opera, however, it didn’t work very well.  The planks by-and-large just served as a projection screen for different backgrounds (fire, bucolic scenes, castle, etc.)  Yes, every now and then they would be configured into various structures, but those were both simplistic and artificial.  Anne did wonder if the concentric rings we saw a lot of were “inspired” by the fact that this is a Ring opera.  They wouldn’t be that pedestrian, or would they?

Several interesting props were used.  The first one was Brunnhilde’s horse Grane.  It is a metal shell in the shape of horse on a dolly, but its moves were so convincing that I had to look at it again and again with my binoculars to make sure.  The final scene of the funeral pyre and self-immolation is probably one of the most anticipated scenes in opera.  I remember it as being very disappointing at Seattle, so didn’t quite know what to anticipate.  What happened was they built a pyre of (fake) logs which glowed with so much smoke that eventually not much was visible.  After Brunnhilde brought Grane to the pyre, the planks covered them up.  Finally, the very last scene was Valhalla being destroyed (or it was self-destruction, I am not sure).  Anne said she saw the statues were “pre-cracked”; I saw several people hiding behind the planks, probably backups who were called on to do their backup job.

When the opera began, there were three “Norns” weaving these heavy ropes that dislodged from the planks as the story-telling unfolded.  We were worried somehow things would get tangled up, but to their credit nothing did.  Also it is amazing how people (especially the Rhinemaidens) could move so agilely up and down (mostly by sliding) these slopes.  We were a bit worried that the four “pallbearers” of Siegfried would drop him from the make-shift carrier made from his coat and two spears; and it had to be quite uncomfortable for Siegfried.  Another major difference is harnesses were not used at all in this opera.  The Rheinmaidens were no longer suspended

So those are the physical aspects of the program.  How about the music?

The good news is after listening this many times to the Ring operas, we are getting familiar with the motifs.  I was waiting for the Valhalla motif, and (as far as I know) it came on only towards the end.  And there were many broken Brunnhilde variations which I would prefer to be more straightforward.  While I was happy to pat myself on the back every time I recognize a theme, I thought the Nothung theme was used a bit too much.

We didn’t get to hear Deborah Voigt this time.  Katarina Dalayman sang the role of Brunnhilde.  Her voice when it came through was great, but the volume was inconsistent.  The Rhinemaidens, all graduates of the Lindemann program, did a great job – having the planks right behind them certainly helped.  I assume there are no easy Wagner roles, so to everyone’s credit they made things look relatively easy.  Another standout was Waltrud Meier singing the role of Waltrude (same name, practically).

In the writeup on Das Rheingold I noted the six harps but wasn’t sure they ever did play all at the same time.  This time around I am sure they did.  The sound didn’t come through very clearly, though.  In general the orchestra did very well, especially compared to what I remember of the Seattle experience.

It was August 2009 when I first (and last) saw this opera.  I don’t recall much of that, but don’t remember it as being a particularly memorable program.  I at least found several episodes of tonight’s performance moving.  I have come to a conclusion that many people see operas (or movies, or plays) again and again for various reasons.  One is that the context is so rich that several shows are required to fully absorb the whole experience.  The other, I suspect, is few people can stay alert for the entire length of the program.  I said after August 2009 that it is unlikely I will sit through a Ring cycle again.  I may want to revisit that statement.  The test would be whether I will pick a Ring opera over some other opera.

One word about traffic (vehicular, that is).  The concert started at 6 pm, so we left a bit after 4, thinking we would beat the traffic.  The upshot is never try Lincoln Tunnel at switch over time.  The delay went from 5 minutes when we left the house to over 30 minutes by the time we got there.  We managed to park in the Lincoln Center garage ($36) with only enough time to spare to go to the restroom before the performance began.  They were also fixing the Turnpike late that evening, so we got hung up a bit in traffic also.  It was way after 1 am when we got home.

The New York Times reviewer saw Deborah Voigt in the role of Brunnhilde and Jay Hunter Morris as Siegfried.  I actually first mistook her photo for that of Dalayman, a tribute to the make-up artists, perhaps.  The review began with the remark “(this) is the most theatrically effective staging of the four works” but went on to say “Mr. Lepage has simplified the staging and used fewer of the capacities of (the) 45-ton set.”  Isn’t that another way of saying a $16 million projection screen works very well?  The reviewer also had a lengthy discourse on how Voigt’s voice had fared the last few years.  Finally, she evidently rode on Grane in the immolation scene!

I did check the Met website about the three Ring Cycles later in the year.  Many of the sections are already sold out, and the prices are outrageous.  The least expensive ticket (Family Circle, partial view) costs $95 each!

Driving in Upstate New York the following afternoon (Saturdya), we heard Fabio Luisi being interviewed during a break in the Met broadcast.  He remarked that a conductor has two souls at work, one wants to go wild with the music, the other needs to exert control.  (Or some words to that effect.)  Overall he did a great job, especially if I compare what I saw Friday with what I remember of the Seattle Ring experience.  There was also this interview with Anna Netrebko where she did say she had to play an “angry” Anna Bolena, so the constant scowl on her face was intentional: not that I agree with that approach.

Opera Australia – Puccini’s Turandot. January 21, 2012.

Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House.  Dress Circle (Seat P20, A$115.)

Story.  See previous post.

Conductor – Arvo Volmer.  Liu – Daria Masiero, Timur – Jud Arthur, Calaf – Rosario La Spina, Ping – Andrew Moran, Pong –David Corcoran, Pang – Graeme Macfarlane, Turandot – Susan Foster.

Six of us (Anne & myself, Ruth & Stephen, and Ling & Wally) went to see this opera after a simple lunch at Peking Dumplings in Chinatown.  Our row is the very last one in the theatre, but we are reasonably close to the stage.  Actually Anne and I moved up a few rows after Act I as there were quite a few empty seats.

Despite my impression that I was familiar with the opera, I had only heard it live once at the Holmdel Arts Center, as a concert.  And despite my not having seen this before, the opera felt very familiar.  Perhaps it is the simplicity of the plot, or perhaps it is because the melodies (some based on Chinese folk songs) are very familiar to me.

Bottom line: the overall performance was disappointing.  My major complaint is that it was sloppy, resulting in a muddled sound most of the time.

One performer that shone was Daria Masiero.  Her voice is not particularly strong, but she manages to convey well the emotions of Liu: her love of Calaf, and her willingness to sacrifice for him.  As a story, the sad part is that Calaf really didn’t have a lot of use for her, even though she made the ultimate sacrifice to save him from being executed.  Her two songs in Act I and Act III were the ones that came close to moving the audience.

Susan Foster as Turandot is basically a “shouter.”  She can belt out her notes clearly across the theatre, but without much drama.  Her explanation of why she was the way she was bordered on incomprehensible, and her change of heart wasn’t done with a lot of conviction either.

Most people have heard Pavarotti’s rendition of Nessum Dorma in the Three Tenors CD, and use that as the standard by which to measure performances by others.  This was poorly done by La Spina, not by the “gold” standard, but even by the standard of the amateur production I heard at the Holmdel Arts Center.  To be fair, La Spina was quite okay up to that point; but we expect the great ones to nail the difficult pieces, which he didn’t.

The stage is a bit small for the number of people they put on; you worry about them running into one another.  To their credit, no mishap occurred.  (It’s not always a given, I still remember a dancer at Madama Butterfly falling down, hard.) The color schemes are nice, but after a while you come to the conclusion that the design really doesn’t have a unifying theme to it.  Art for the sake of the artist showing off, not as part of a whole.  For my taste there was a bit too much smoke and mist.

In case you think the bashing is done, I have yet come to the orchestra and the chorus.  Here they needed to work on the most basic of orchestral and choral music: precision.  Other than for the simplest of passages (such as the song adapted from the folk song “Flower Song”), stray notes were all over the place, and imprecision was the norm.

There was very little applause during the Acts, only exception being after Nessum Dorma.  The applause at the end was quite enthusiastic, though.

I found today (23 Jan) a local review.  Another case of the reviewer needs to go out more.

Metropolitan Opera – Jeremy Sams’ The Enchanted Island. January 14, 2011.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center – Balcony A6 ($109.50).

Story.  Prospero asks the spirit Ariel to shipwreck Ferdinand’s ship so he can arrange for the marriage between Ferdinand and Prospero’s daughter Miranda.  Ariel makes a mistake and shipwrecks a ship with the couples Demetrius & Helena and Lysander & Hermia instead.  This starts the messy relationships that ensue: between Miranda and first Demetrius and then Lysander, and between Caliban and Helena.  Caliban is the son of Sycorax who was in love with Prospero but abandoned by him eventually.  Helena eventually comes to her senses and leaves Caliban, and Ariel brings together Miranda and the two couples and set things straight.  Ferdinand and Miranda falls in love, Sycorax forgives Prospero, and all is well.  Neptune comes out on a couple of occasions, once to help with the search for Ferdinand, and once to exhort people to do the right thing.

Conductor – William Christie; Prospero – Anthony Roth Costanzo, Ariel – Danielle de Niese, Sycorax – Joyce DiDonato, Caliban – Luca Pisaroni, Miranda – Lisette Oropesa, Helena – Layla Claire, Hermia – Elizabeth DeShong, Demetrius – Paul Appleby, Lysander – Elliot Madore, Neptune – Placido Domingo, Ferdinand – Jeffrey Mandelbaum.

First a few words about the genesis of this opera.  The front of the program says “A Baroque fantasy in two acts.  Devised and written by Jeremy Sams.  Inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Music by George Frederic Handel, Antonio Vivaldi, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Andre Campra, Jean-Marie Leclair, Henry Purcell, Jean-Fery Rebel, and Giovanni Battisa Ferrandini.”  To my understanding, this means the opera is a pastiche compiled by Jeremy Sams using parts of operas written by the long list of composers listed above.  Sams provided the libretto, and (probably) on occasion also adapted the music (he cites a sextet – the one sung by Ariel and the five confused lovers – based on a Handel quartet.)  The libretto is a made-up story combining elements of The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The premiere of the opera is at the end of 2011, and though I try to avoid reading a review of a performance I am about to see, I couldn’t help but read the writeup in the New York Times.  I will re-read that later, but for now remember it as being very positive, except for the fact the Domingo needed a lot of prompting (and even there the reviewer wasn’t being particularly harsh.)  While I try to make this my own writeup, I am sure I will be influenced by what I read there.

I don’t follow the singers world to see who is famous and who is not, so it is natural that I don’t recognize most of the people in the roster, with the exception of DiDonato and, of course, Domingo.  Indeed many of the artists are young, many are either in or a graduate of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.  Recently there has been a flood of them on the Met stage, and most of them do very well, a tribute to how successful the program is.

When I was reading the synopsis, I told myself it was going to be very confusing, and there was no way I could track the relationships since (given where we sat) everyone would look the same anyway.  Turns out I could follow the different characters with relative ease; probably a case of different parts of my brain work differently.

The staging is baroque-esque (so the Program Notes says) but enhanced with modern day projection techniques.  The sceneries are mostly 2-dimensional but work quite well.  There are harnessed mermaids swimming when Neptune comes out, and many sea nymphs with body suits and sea-shell bikinis (probably answering an earlier question I had for Das Rheingold).  The raindrops are quite realistic, and a bit of magic is involved, including fire eruptions and sparkle.  All in all an effective backdrop for what happens with the singers.

The stand-out in the cast has got to be Danielle de Niese singing the role of Ariel.  Not only is her singing superb, she also steals the show with her acting.  Good writing, undoubtedly, but she managed to pull it off.  There are some very demanding rapid runs that she pulled off without a glitch, and her voice carries well.  Some of the more comic moments are her coming to see Neptune in a diver’s outfit, and her carrying a small case when she leaves the scene.  A Melbourne native and a graduate of the Lindemann program, I suspect she will spend a lot of time outside her home country.

There are many examples of someone filling in a role at short notice and hits it big.  One has to wonder if that would be the case with Anthony Roth Constanzo who filled in as Prospero for a sick David Daniels.  Constanzo is listed as Ferdinand, whose role is limited to a couple of arias.  As Prospero he is a main character with a lot of exposure.  He was a bit unsteady at times and missed several words, but he improved tremendously as the show progressed.  He aria towards the end, begging Sycorax for forgiveness, earned one of the longest applauses I have seen at the Met.

The role of Neptune is well-suited for Domingo, someone close to the end of his singing career but still commands quite a presence.  (Let’s hope Domingo’s career as a conductor continues to succeed.)  We heard Domingo as Emperor Qin in The First Emperor and enjoyed his singing, even though the music was inscrutable. By that measure tonight was a disappointment: he was a bit mechanical and his diction was wildly off.  I don’t know if he was still looking at the prompts, or these professionals hide it very well.  Since he has sung close to 140 roles, I think giving him a pass is the reasonable thing to do.  Question is: does he want one?

I have mentioned on many occasions my puzzlement when women singers are used in the roles of young men.  Ariel, whom I understand to be a male spirit, is another one of those examples.  In this case things are not that bad, she has wings and is not really a person, anyway.  However, using Countertenors and their high voices in the roles of Prospero and Ferdinand is inexplicable.  I got very confused when Prospero and Sycorax were singing this duet, and sometimes DiDonato’s voice was lower than that of Prospero and I thus couldn’t tell who was asking for forgiveness and who was doing the forgiving.

If I have to characterize this story, it would have to be a comedy.  A comedy that works quite well, actually.   Memorable examples are the antics of Ariel and Lysander and Miranda discovering that their names rhyme.  Nonetheless, there are some poignant moments, in particular the one where Caliban has to come to realize that love isn’t in the cards for him.

In the Program Notes Sams laments the fact that there are too many good melodies and he could incorporate only a limited number in this work.  For instance, he uses nine from Vivaldi and claims there is at least 20 more he could have used.  Indeed at close to 3 hours (not counting the intermission) this is a long opera, but there are many repeats, several of which are “twice.”  Perhaps he could cut those repeats and make room for additional arias?  We are making this up anyway, so breaking the norm of doing repeats would be legitimate.  Of course that would involve additional orchestration and scenes, which I suspect is another factor in this.

I certainly enjoyed this more than I would have expected, but not so much as the New York Times review would lead me to believe.  The real test is what happens to this opera as time wears on?  Will it make its way to the genre’s standard repertoire, or will it eventually fade away like a ripple on a pond?

Before this, my attendance at operas based on Shakespeare’s plays always helped me understand the plays better.  No luck this time, though.  The characters are similar, but I couldn’t quite get if that’s what Shakespeare had in mind.

Anne mentioned to me as we were leaving that the Opera reminds her of Handel’s Messiah, and I said nothing of the sort, I didn’t hear any “I know that my Redeemer liveth” or anything similar in it.  And what is in the first paragraph of the Times review?  The finale is lifted from Handel’s Hallelujah chorus.  Not from the Messiah, but from “Judas Maccabaeus.”

New York Philharmonic – Zubin Mehta, conductor. January 13, 2012.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra 1 (Seat X104, $70.)

Program

Symphony No. 8 in C minor (1887/90; ed. Nowak, 1955) by Bruckner (1824-96).

If you read the Playbill a bit further, you will read under “Work composed” the words “1884-August 10, 1887; revised April 1889-March 1890; correspondence reveals that Bruckner dedicated this symphony to Emperor Franz Joseph of Austra.”  Evidently Bruckner’s work endures several characteristics.  One is his self-doubt could cause him to revise his work, often extensively; the other is that several of his students modified his music rather extensively, either at his request or on their own initiative (with the composer’s agreement, apparently).  To decide what was what probably is a musicologist’s dream, for the average audience member who may listen to any particular work once every few years, it may not matter very much.  For the record, the Nowak edition brings us back to the “Bruckner original,” or does it?

That, it turns out, is my critique of the Program Notes for this concert.  Long on historical facts, but little on what informed Bruckner when he wrote this, and whether this music broke new grounds.  The conductor Hermann Levi, to whom Bruckner sent the first manuscript, was baffled by the symphony.  Perhaps our annotator is, also?

Looking over my blog, it turns out this is the fourth Bruckner symphony I heard since I started recording these events in 2005.  The ones I heard earlier are the sixth, seventh, and ninth.  So for me it is four performances in six or so years.   I must say this is the least baffling one, if my recollection of my prior encounters serves correctly.

I always think of Bruckner’s symphonies as being very long, and this is one of the longest at 83 minutes total (both advertised and in actuality).  And everyone in the orchestra showed up (I did notice both Cynthia Phelps and Eileen Moon were not there, so it’s a bit of an hyperbole.)  The percussion section is relatively small, with only the timpani, the cymbals, and the triangle.  There are two harps, though.

There is quite a bit of brouhaha on a recent New York Philharmonic performance where Alan Gilbert halted the performance because of a cell phone alarm.  Today the lady in front of us was quite annoyed at the rustle of page-turning by the lady next to me.  Thus I wasn’t about to dig out a pen and scribble notes onto a pad.  There is no way I can do an analysis of the music, but I did try to remember something about each of the movements.

One would think the first movement (Allegro moderato) will be the longest, as with most symphonies; and one would be wrong.  It is not short, at 20 or so minutes, but not particularly long.  It contains quite a few themes that are tonal, but there is no development, climax, or any of the traditional progression one may find in a symphonic movement.  Most interestingly, the movement ended on an upward flourish that isn’t particularly dramatic.  If you didn’t know the second movement is marked “Scherzo.  Allegro moderato – Trio.  Slow. Scherzo da capo” you wouldn’t have called it a scherzo and trio movement.  But the divisions are easy to find, and one can stretch and call the scherzo a scherzo.  It is overall a very enjoyable movement.  The third movement (Adagio.  Solemnly slow, but not dragging) is the longest at around 30 minutes.  Even though the tempo is measured, it is the most dramatic movement with the music building up to clear climaxes.  It also has some of the wandering elements that so characterize Mahler’s music.  Interestingly I have not come across much on how Mahler and Bruckner influenced each other.  They were both Austria-born and had a lot of overlapping years.  But I digress … The last movement (Finale.  Solemn, not fast) sounded to me like a recap of the earlier movements, with new elements thrown into the mix.

Sitting in my seat, not being able to move much (or lacked the courage to do so), it was still a rather quick 80-plus minutes, even though I had to fight the urge to doze off every now and then.  Anne’s back was acting up and was a bit uncomfortable.  Mehta is in his 80s and didn’t show his age at all.  Not only did he conduct without the music, he also did it without the railing at the end of the podium.  He moves his body and arms quite a bit, but his feet seem firmly planted.

The applause was quite enthusiastic.  I noticed that Mehta shook the hands of the violists (Young and her neighbor) but seemed to ignore Dicterow and Staples.  Did I miss it, or were there some ill feelings from Mehta’s tenure as the Orchestra’s music director?  Cosmic order was restored when Mehta patted Dicterow on the back at the third curtain call.

The New York Times review is very positive on the performance, and references some of the problems when Mehta was leading the New York Philharmonic.  It also has a good storyline (mountain trekking) for the symphony.

Today was one of the coldest days of this so-far warm winter season.  The actual temperature was around freezing, but felt much colder with a stiff breeze that gusts to over 40 mph.  We drove in; the several blocks from the parking garage to the restaurant (Eastern Szechuan Garden) wasn’t easy.  Good thing we didn’t hit much traffic either way.

Metropolitan Opera - Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel. December 26, 2011.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center - Balcony F116 ($52.50).

Story.  See previous post.

Conductor - Robin Ticciati; Gretel - Aleksandra Kurzak, Hansel - Alice Coote, Gertrude - Michaela Martens, Peter - Dwayne Croft, The Sandman - Jennifer Johnson Cano, The Dew Fairy - Ashley Emerson, The Witch - Robert Brubaker.

We attended this opera with our children and their spouses.  Everyone is quite up to it, except for Joe whose love of Broadway musicals doesn't seem to extend to operas.  H&G isn't my first choice as an introductory opera (that would be Carmen, La Traviata, or one of Puccini's), but the other available choices are Faust and La Fille du Regiment.  Joe and Jess went up to New York earlier that day (they would stay the night there); Anne, Ellie and Kuau drove up at around 4 pm and had dinner in the area; and I took the 5:15 pm train from Metropark and met up with the five of them at the Opera House.  I stayed behind to ensure Joe and Jess's dog Ruby was okay; she had just spent the prior night at a Vet Emergency Hospital after ingesting two bars of dark chocolate, which is evidently quite toxic to dogs.

We saw H&G put out by New York City Opera in 2006.  Those were my early concert blogging days (it was number 43 or so out of the two hundred plus I have done so far), so I look back at my review with a certain degree of amusement.  Unfortunately, this review isn't going to be that much more insightful than the one I wrote five years ago.

First the sets.  One would assume the sets put out by the Met will be quite a bit more elaborate than those by NYCO.  It is debatable in this case.  The Playbill provides an interesting insight into the three kitchens designed for the three acts.  Act 1 happens in a D.H. Lawrence-inspired kitchen setting, Act 2 in a German Expressionist one, and Act 3 is in a Theater of the Absurd.  Good on paper, and brilliant perhaps to someone into this sort of stuff, but for someone like myself, nothing of the sort.

This is my assessment. Act 1 takes place in a kitchen, of unknown period.  Both the simplicity and the grayness can be attributed to the family's being poor and don't need to have anything to do with D.H. Lawrence.  (Since I don't know much about the subject, I did a web search of his paintings, and still have no idea how this kitchen relates to him.)  Act 2 is basically a long dining table inside a larger room.  There are trees that move, I assume they represent ghouls Hansel and Gretel encounter.  The 14 angels are represented by overweight cooks who would strike fear in anyone who sees them.  And what is the fish doing there?  Perhaps these are elements of German Expressionism?  The only thing absurd about Act 3 is the food fight that starts with the Witch's head pushed into a pie and his face is all covered with icing afterwards.  To me resorting to physical comedy of this sort smacks more of desperation than genius.

The music is generally easy to understand.  While Humperdinck adopted many of his mentor Wagner's techniques, it is much easier to trace how his themes are developed as the Opera unfolds.  The overture was crisp and pleasant, but there are times the music got a bit muddled, which is a bit surprising given that it doesn't sound that complicated.  Joe was marveling at how clear the singing sounded without the aid of a sound system, and in general that is quite true: the singing comes across very well.  It is interesting when the singers are in front of a curtain, their voices don't carry too well, probably because the curtain material doesn't resonate well.

We again have a woman singing the role of a young Hansel.  I guess it doesn't matter who is singing which part, and since Hansel is a young boy, his voice is probably in the treble range anyway.  We heard Alice Coote in Elijah before; she didn't leave a lasting impression then, and she didn't leave one today either.  To confuse the audience further, a man played the witch dressed in woman's gear.  The advantage is that it allowed the choreographer to put in a few crude comic moments (yes, I used the word "crude.")

I am a bit surprised at how negative I end up being with this performance.  Perhaps it is due to my high expectations going in: this is the Met, so it has to be much better than what I remember of the NYCO.  Another reason for disappointment is one would think after reading the Playbill that this will be an impressive opera at many different levels.  Instead I find it wanting at many different levels.

The New York Times review is very enthusiastic.  The performance reviewed had a different singer playing Hansel.  I attribute the enthusiasm at least partially to a charitable holiday spirit.  Who wants to say "There is no Santa Claus" this time of the year?  The reviewer also pointed out that the 28-year old conductor Ticciati is one of the youngest to debut at the Met.

Metropolitan Opera – Gounod’s Faust. December 20, 2011.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center – Family Circle D208 ($37.50).

Story.  The aging scientist Faust makes a deal with the devil Mephistopheles to recapture his youth in return for having Mephistopheles as his master in the world below; this after Faust sees the image of Marguerite conjured up by Mephistopheles.  While Valentin, Marguerite’s brother, and Wagner are preparing to go to war, Mephistopheles shows up and predicts the death of Wagner in battle, of Valentin by someone close to Mephistopheles; and that any flowers Siebel picks up will wither.  Mephistopheles then brings Faust to see Marguerite.  Siebel gathers flowers for Marguerite and they wither, holy water however restores them.  After leaving a box full of jewels for Marguerite, Mephistopheles helps Faust to seduce her, and she becomes pregnant.  When Valentin returns from battle, he fights with Faust and is killed, with Marguerite watching.  Marguerite kills her baby and is condemned to death.  Faust and Mephistopheles go to the prison to see Marguerite who dies.  Faust and Mephistopheles go down to the underworld but Marguerite is saved.

Conductor – Yannick Nezet-Seguin; Faust – Jonas Kaufmann, Marguerite – Marina Poplavskaya, Mephistopheles – Rene Pape, Wagner – Jonathan Beyer, Valentin – Russel Braun, Siebel – Michele Losier, Marthe – Theodora Hanslowe.

I heard the ending of this opera when listening to WQXR’s opera broadcast.  The announcer gave a very vivid description of the ending where Faust and Mephistopheles descended t hell and Marguerite climbed up a staircase.  She also talked about the people in lab coats becoming angels during the last scene.  When I read the New YorkTimes review, I was less impressed.  The review wasn’t all that positive, and the setting was between world wars when Faust was a scientist developing a nuclear bomb.  Eventually curiosity got the better part of us, and reasonable good seats in the Family Circle were available.

Jonas Kaufmann must be the tenor-du-jour for the Met this year (or is it tenor-du-annee?), there is no escape if you pick up a recent copy of the Playbill, and his picture is plastered all over inside and outside Lincoln Center.  This is also a reason I wanted to see this opera.  I remember a similar situation with Dudamel the conductor, in that case I was quite impressed with him.  Alas, that is not the case here.  His voice for the most part did not carry well into the rear of the opera.  Sometimes this could be attributed to the acoustics of the specific seat; but every now and then he would do okay, and many others' voices came through clearly.  To be charitable, perhaps tonight he was a bit (or way) off.

Rene Pape is a dependable bass and did quite okay.  There are quite a few grotesque figures in the opera, so there was no intention of white-washing the evilness of Satan; yet Pape didn’t sound or look menacing at all.  One can go overboard trying to play the bad guy, but it is a greater failure if the audience doesn’t feel the slightest bit of disgust at the devil’s deviousness, as was the case tonight.

I enjoyed Marguerite’s voice.  As with Pape, her acting did not elicit the expected emotion.  Her role is someone caught up in other people’s actions and had no escape except for the final redemption scene.  I felt no pity, no horror, and no relief when she in turn was abandoned by Faust, killed her baby, and ascended to heaven.

Siebel, a young pupil of Faust, was sung by a mezzo-soprano.  Not having read the Synopsis carefully before the show, I actually thought for a long time he was Marguerite, and got very confused when Marguerite first appeared.  This tradition of having a young man’s singing to be done by a woman continues to confuse me to no end.

The staging works well for the scenes called for in the opera.  The spiral staircase and walkway on either side of the stage provide a natural place for singers to linger and observe, and for the chorus to congregate.  Beyond that it does not make much sense.  When one hears of “nuclear bomb laboratory” and “Faust” one might think the bargain with the devil is to create this weapon of mass destruction.  If this is indeed the intention, the director and set designer fail spectacularly: there is amusement and puzzlement, but no horror.  If this is not the intention, they what the heck …  I really felt cheated when the “ascension” scene came along – Marguerite simply walked up a stair case, complete with landings at the turns.  The WQXR narrative made it so mesmerizing, but it was just someone in a haggard dress climbing up to the catwalk.  The few “magic tricks” (e.g., withering roses or how Marguerite transformed from being pregnant to holding a baby in her arms) were unnecessary.

The music is generally pleasant, which may not be the adjective you want associated with Faust.  This opera when it first came out was extremely popular.  Indeed what we saw was the 740^th performance by the Met.  We also heard it in French, evidently versions in other languages exist.

For me, anyway, the comparison of this with Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust is unavoidable.  The latter was not composed for the opera but I thought the Met did a good job with it.  It is interesting to note that Gounod’s work premiered in 1859 while Berlioz wrote his in 1846.  I wonder if there was any rivalry between the two composers at that time; there was no reference of it in the Playbill.

I just reread the New York Times review.  The reviewer is very positive on the singers, while I am not.  For me, how good an opera is starts and ends with the musical performance, the rest is gravy.

Metropolitan Opera – Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment. December 15, 2011.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center – Family Circle C220 ($37.50).

Story.  Marie, an abandoned infant, is adopted and raised by the soldiers of the 21^st regiment.  She falls in love with the Tyrolean Tonio, who, though an enemy, saved her life.  Tonio looks for Marie but is captured instead.  His life is spared after Marie pleads for his life.  Their plan to get married is rejected by the soldiers as Marie must marry a soldier from the 21^st regiment.  Tonio decides to join the regiment so they can get married.  Meanwhile, the Marquise of Berkenfield, who abandoned Marie out of shame because she was born out of wedlock, claims Marie to be her niece and brings her back to the Berkenfield Castle.  The Marquise also arranges Marie to marry Scipion.  Marie initially objects, but relents after she finds out that the Marquise is actually her mother.  The soldiers storm in but Marie remains obedient to her mother’s wishes; however, after Marie sings of her debt to the soldiers, the Marquise gives her permission to marry Tonio.

Conductor – Yves Abel; Marie – Nino Machaidze, Tonio – Lawrence Brownlee, Sulpice – Maurizio Muranro, Hortensius – James Courtney, The Marquise of Berkenfield – Ann Murray.

I must say at the outset I didn’t prepare for this opera at all.  All I know was that it is a comedic opera written by Donizetti.  Whether it was the lack of sleep the last few nights, or it was concert overload (five so far in December, and two more to go, for a total of eight), I just felt very tired at the beginning and had trouble staying awake after the rather pleasant overture.

Yet the show held for me several surprises …

My first surprise was Marie.  From where I was sitting, even with binoculars, I couldn’t get a good look at her, so I thought she was a middle-aged singer trying to pass herself off as a young lady.  Searching the internet during intermission corrected that misconception: she is from the Republic of Georgia, and is another of those who quickly rose to prominence a few years ago.  To have a Met debut at age 28 (as Gilda earlier this year) is certainly no small feat.  She could certainly sing, be it a soft passage or a high note.  Since she is supposed to be a tom-boy (being raised by a bunch of soldiers, after all), she tends to jump on people every now and then.  She is not small, and it was a bit worrisome when she jumped on the slightly built Tonio (sung by Brownlee).

We saw Brownlee as Rinaldo opposite Renee Fleming in Armida (April 2010).  He was quite good then, but I thought a bit on the nervous side which I attributed to being young and singing with a renowned soprano, and “predicted” that he would improve.  He certainly did very well tonight, and perhaps singing with a younger soprano helped.  His voice was a bit weak at times, though he had no trouble hitting the nine high Cs.

When the royally regaled Duchess of Krakenthorp came out at the beginning of Act 2, there was a huge applause from the audience.  I couldn’t understand why.  Then I said to Anne the Duchess looked a bit like Joan Sutherland; Anne reminded me that Sutherland is dead.  The Playbill solved the mystery: it was Kiri Te Kawana.  She had some dialog, but did no singing.  We heard her in Carnegie Hall a while back and wondered what she would be like at her prime.  [On Saturday I drove around town with the radio tuned to WQXR.  They were broadcasting Madama Butterfly, but during the intermission were interviewing Te Kawana, who shed some additional (but not much) light on her cameo appearance.  I thought she said there was a small singing part, but I certainly didn’t catch it.]

Yet another surprise was that the opera is in French.  I don’t speak French or Italian, but at least could tell the two languages apart.  Evidently French was the original, but there are versions in German, Italian, and English.  In my opinion most operas sound better in Italian, but with its many love songs, it works quite well in this case.  From this opera, I couldn’t tell if Donizetti was a Francophile or he was making fun of them.  A patriotic French song closed the opera, and a banner with a cartoon rooster (Chanticler) was lowered as a backdrop, which puzzles Anne and me greatly.

The Program Notes also mentioned that Berlioz was a music critic then and panned the opera as being too "sugary" given all the tunes in it.  I say "the more the merrier."

The script (or is it the director) calls for a fair amount of comedic actions.  Marie’s ponytails, the maids cleaning at the beginning of Act 2, and the tank that Tonio drove in to save Marie, are examples of this.  Many in the audience appreciated them, but I haven’t been turned into a great fan of the genre yet, and physical comedy doesn’t appeal to me.

Most of the arias were done well, with the appropriate amount of dramatic effect.  The trio (by Tonio, Marie, and Sulpice) calls for rapid notes and was a bit disappointing.

Today being a gridlock alert day, we decided to drive in early.  What was a 10-minute wait at Lincoln Tunnel when we got started turned into a much longer wait.  We had wanted to spend some time at the Museum of Biblical Art on Broadway but decided we wouldn’t have enough time.  So we took a stroll down to Columbus Circle and then to Carnegie Hall, having dinner at Lili’s 57 across the street.  We also waited for about 10 minutes inside the Time Warner Building for the “Light Show” which turned out to be a great disappointment.

The concert was not well attended.  Chao Ming went to the box office to buy one more ticket and got “upgraded” to Prime Orchestra (all the way from Family Circle).  We did take them back to their car parked in South River, so it was about 12:30 am when we got home.

Here is the link to the New York Times review.

New York Philharmonic – Peter Schreier, Conductor. December 14, 2011.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra 4 Left (Seat QQ11, $35.20).

Program

Messiah (1741) by Handel (1685-1759).

Artists

Soloists: Ute Selbig, soprano; Nathalie Stutzmann, contralto, Steve Davislim, tenor, Peter Rose, Bass.

Westminster Symphonic Choir – Joe Miller, director.

Feeling very much in the holiday spirit, and because Goldstar had discounted tickets on sale, we decided during our Houston trip to purchase tickets for tonight’s concert.  Today wasn’t a gridlock alert day, but an accident in Lincoln Tunnel and a water main break in Weehawkin really caused Hudson crossing and mid-town traffic to snarl up.  While the path we took didn’t involve the reported 90-minute delays, the spillover traffic was so bad that it took us close to two hours to get to the parking garage.  After picking up tonight’s concert tickets and buying several opera tickets, we had just enough time for take-out at Ollie’s.

I don’t remember having heard any of the soloists before.  And Peter Schrier evidently was a tenor from his debut in 1959 to his retirement in 2005.  The choir comprises students at Westminster Choir College.  I must have heard them before since it collaborates with this orchestra quite frequently.

As familiar as the oratorio might be, I still find some new information about the composition that I didn’t know about.  First, while it was first performed in Dublin in April, 1742, it was written in London the year before.  During the first few decades of its existence, it was more an Easter tradition than today’s Christmas tradition.  There are many versions of this work, many of the revisions were put in by Handel to accommodate the specific needs of a performance.  I couldn’t quite get what the Program Notes say about tonight’s performance, but it seems several “less popular items” were taken out from the score.  I wonder which ones, and how long would the piece last if performed in its entirety.  Tonight’s concert was 2:40 hours with a 25-minute or so intermission.

The oratorio has three parts.  Part I relates to the prophecy of Christ’s coming and the circumstances of his birth; Part II to his life on earth; and Part III to the events surrounding the resurrection and the promise of redemption.

I was quite impressed after hearing the overture, the recitative and air by the tenor, and the first chorus by the choir.  The orchestra is small (6 first violins), the choir also relatively small at 70 or so members.  Nonetheless, the voices were clear and crisp, and the acoustics for this last row in the orchestra section was good.  The bass’s first appearance (a recitative) was also good.  Then the contralto came on, and that was a great disappointment.  I still remember the last time we heard this Chung Shu likened the bass as a singer with a rock in his mouth.  I am not that good with analogies, but the sound was strange it seemed to lodge in the singer’s throat unable to come out.

Unfortunately, the contralto didn’t improve as the evening progressed, and the crispness of the choir eventually began to make us wonder about the choir.  Anne pointed out the choir simply stressed the notes a bit too much (there is a musical term that for now escapes me.)  While this technique works wonders during the 16^th note runs, it is not quite appropriate for the slower notes.  Since we are quibbling, the high notes (I think it gets to a G in this piece) also sounds a bit harsh at times.

The audience stood up for the Hallelujah Chorus (I was wondering if it would) at the conclusion of Part II.  Many people started to leave after that: some undoubtedly think it was a second intermission, but many never came back (or were not allowed to).  Which is too bad as the next Air (I know that my Redeemer liveth) was quite enjoyable.

For an orchestra like the New York Philharmonic, this must be a simple piece to perform.  And it started very well.  Surprising there were quite a few miscues later on.  Some of that may be due to working with a new conductor, some of that – I think – is simply due to lack of rehearsal time.

Perhaps it is the holiday spirit, and perhaps I feel forgiving towards a choir consisting of young men and women, I enjoyed the overall concert.

There will be altogether five performances.  I am quite impressed the concert is actually so popular, if tonight’s attendance was any indication.

New York Times has a review that is much kinder to the chorus than I am.  The reviewer made similar remarks about the contralto (impenetrable).  It also reminded me of how great the trumpets sounded.

Traffic was very light on our way home.  So I am glad we drove in.

New York Philharmonic – Daniel Harding, conductor; Joshua Bell, violin. December 9, 2011.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra 3 Center (Seat GG106, $70.)

Program

Flourish with Fireworks, Op. 22 (1988/93) by Oliver Knussen (b. 1952).

Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 35 (1878) by Tchaikovsky (1840-93).

Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) (1911-13) by Stravinsky (1882-1971).

Because of our recent travels, I didn’t pay much attention to this concert until I got to Avery Fisher Hall.  Actually I thought it was going to be a performance of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony!  I was pleasantly surprised when I found out about the details of tonight’s program – not that I would mind if indeed Mahler was going to be on the program.

The first piece was written by Knussen to celebrate Michael Tilson Thomas’s first performance as London Symphony’s principal conductor.  There is not a plot to the music, just a virtuoso piece to show off the conductor’s (and the orchestra’s) skills.  It serves that purpose quite well, as there is a cacophony of sounds that connoted a joyous celebration.  On the other hand, I have forgotten most of it as I am typing this blog two days later.  I wished I had read the Program Notes earlier and had known that the theme is based on the notes LSO-MTT (that would be A-E flat-G-E-B-B).  The sequence is atonal enough that I couldn’t get it in my head as the piece was being performed.   The Program Notes says the piece is three minutes long, I think it lasted close to four (not that it matters.)

I have heard Joshua Bell many times before, and while I by-an-large enjoyed his playing, I often found reason to quibble with his performances; sometimes I complained about his intonation, sometimes I complained about the sound of his Strad.  Tonight wasn’t one of those nights.  While Bell would (or should) be the first one to say it wasn’t a perfect performance, it came close.  And I may have finally found a seat in Avery Fisher that is perfect!  At least that’s how I felt after the first movement (Allegro moderato – Moderato assai).  The movement is among the best balanced live performance of a concerto I have ever heard, with the violin and the orchestra both coming across clearly.  An interesting thing about the concerto that I didn’t know: the premiere soloist Adolf Brodsky actually worked on it for more than two years before the first performance, and Leopold Auer – the original soloist Tchaikovsky had in mind – after first pronouncing it unplayable eventually became a believer.

This concerto is always a safe choice if you can pull it off technically.  Kind of like Eschenbach and the Houston Symphony choosing Mahler No. 5.   The demands on the artists are great, the effect ismesmerizing, and the melodies are captivating.  The audience broke out in applause after the first movement, which doesn’t happen that often.

Perhaps unfortunately for the performers, the first movement is a hard act to follow.  Indeed the second and third movements (Canzonetta - Andante; Finale – Allegro vivacissimo) don’t elicit nearly the same sense of awe.  There were balance problems here and there, and the violin was overwhelmed at times.  If these comprised the entire concerto, it would not have been as exciting an overall experience.  I do have a bit of quibble with the cadenza, which is extremely difficult: it dragged a bit.

I think I was a sophomore in college when I first heard the introductory bassoon theme to Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.  It hit home how an atonal line that is close to unsingable can be so catchy.   I am quite sure I have heard the suite several times, although most of it still sounded new.  But I am certain I have never seen it staged as a ballet (or was even aware of a ballet performance); I wonder why, the story line is not nearly as controversial or sensational as when the ballet was first staged in Paris where it caused a near-riot.

In any case, I enjoyed the performance and had fun trying to match up the music with the different scenes described in the Program Notes.  For completeness they are as follows.  Part One: The Adoration of the Earth: Introduction; Augurs of Spring (Dance of the Adolescent Girls); Mock Abduction; Spring Rounds; Ritual of Rival Tribes; Procession of the Sage; The Adoration of the Earth (the Sage); Dance of the Earth.  Part Two: The Sacrifice: Introduction; Mystical Cycle of the Young Girls; Glorification of the Chosen One; Evocation of the Ancestors; Ritual Action of the Ancestors; Sacrificial Dance (the Chosen One).  The Program Notes provides further help with a description of the choreography.  To me these constitute a plot, despite the statement “the piece has no plot.”

This is the second time we heard Harding conduct.  His movements are quite exaggerated, but he manages a good sound.

Today was a gridlock alert day, so we took the train in.  Everything worked well, we had a few minutes to spare when we got to Penn Station for our return trip.

The New York Times review is a bit on the lazy side, in my opinion.

Houston Symphony - Christoph Eschenbach, conductor. December 6, 2011.

Jones Hall, Houston, Orchestra (Seat V118, $65.50)

Program
Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor by Gustav Mahler (1860-1911).

Anne had a class during the evening, so I went to the concert by myself.  I heard Eschenbach a couple of years back, with the New York Philharmonic, but don't remember much of that event.  The tickets are "reasonably" priced; I got one in the middle price range.

Eschenbach was the director of the Houston Symphony for over ten years (1988-1999), and from the enthusiastic applause of the audience when he first stepped onto the stage, appears to be very popular with tonight's crowd.

For this evidently highly anticipated event, picking Mahler's Fifth was a safe and somewhat timid choice.  The symphony is always a crowd pleaser, as long as the brass section holds up.  And tonight the brass section acquitted itself quite well.

Jones Hall, like Brown Theater, is a large building.  It has a lot of common areas so people don't bump into each other during intermission.  But there was no intermission tonight, the 70-minute work was performed without one.  The orchestra is pretty large, I counted 15 first violins and 8 basses, for instance.  The acoustics of the auditorium is not as crisp as it could be, but quite acceptable.  The sometimes muffled sound from the orchestra could be a result of that, or the orchestra was sloppy at times.  The seats are comfortable, with lots of leg room.  It even has a bit of recline to it.

Inside Jones Hall, home of Houston Symphony.

In general it was a very enjoyable concert.  The last time I heard Mahler's Fifth was with Dudamel conducting the New York Philharmonic, which I raved about.  I don't think this is quite at that level, but still very good.

Even though I played this piece with the Cornell Symphony during my college days, I am still amazed that there are parts I didn't fully appreciate until the current hearing.  I especially appreciated how the horns led in the last movement.  Eschenbach's interpretation was a bit on the mechanical side.  I would like to have more graceful phrasing at many of the instances that a distinct downbeat was heard.  I went back to my blog about the last concert of his that I heard, the same remarks (energetic, seems to concentrate on one part at a time) also apply here.  At that concert I heard Beethoven's First Piano Concerto (Lang Lang as soloist) and Bruckner's Ninth Symphony.

The applause at the end was thunderous, and Eschenbach made four (I think) curtain calls.  I wonder if the Houston Symphony gets this kind of response every time.

When I wrote about the Houston Ballet a couple of days ago, I was musing about how the classical music scene in Houston compares to that of Hong Kong, my home town.  I was quite sure Hong Kong would not be able to stage a ballet to the level of the Houston Ballet, and I am also quite sure Hong Kong's orchestra - although quite good - isn't quite at the level of the Houston Symphony.  So, sad to say, it is settled.

I thought I lucked out again when I found an off-street parking space.  When I came out of the concert I found a parking ticket stuck to my windshield, a $70 fine.  The offense is "tow away zone, bagged meter."  The closest signs at the street corner say nothing of the sort.  I have yet to decide whether I want to appeal it or not ... A blemish on an otherwise nice evening, even though I was by myself.  On the other hand, my evening would really have been ruined if they had towed away my car.  [Note added 12/13/2011.  So I did access the Houston Parking website and appealed to the City's sense of fairness.  I just heard back from them that I am not liable.  As my son said, "huzzah."]

Metropolitan Opera – Philip Glass’s Satyagraha (M. K. Ghandhi in South Africa). December 1, 2011.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center – Family Circle E221 ($37.50).

Story.  This opera is mostly based on some of the events that happened to Gandhi while he was in South Africa (1893 – 1914).  The vocal text is by Constance DeJong and is adapted from the Bhagavad Gita, a Sanskrit text from a religious epic (Mahabharata) dating mostly probably from 5^th century BC to 4^th century AD, and is a philosophical conversation between the warrior prince Arjuna and the divine Lord Krishna on the eve of a great battle.  Act 1 Scene 1 describes some of this dialog.  The rest of the opera relates how Indians living in South Africa struggle for their civil rights.  The Sanskrit word satyagraha means “true force” which was adopted by Gandhi and others as their ideal.  Act 1 Scene 2 (Tolstoy Farm, 1910) discusses how the satyagraphis pledge to resist the European’s racial discrimination, and they set up the Tolstoy Farm to draw people to the satyagraha ideal of “fight on the behalf of Truth consisting chiefly in self-purification and self-reliance.”  Act 1 Scene 3 (The Vow, 1906) predates Scene 2, it describes the adoption of Black Act (registration and fingerprinting of all Indians) and as a consequence people attending a rally organized by the satyagrahas pledge to honor a resolution to resist.  Act 2 Scene 1 (Confrontation and Rescue, 1896) describes how Gandhi is attacked after his speeches and meetings in India are published; he is saved by his European friend Mrs. Alexander.  Scene 2 is about the publication Indian Opinion (1906) which grows in circulation to 20,000 in South Africa.  Scene 3 (Protest, 1908) describes how Indians burn their registration cards to protest the arrest of those who disobey deportation orders.  Act 3 (New Castle March 1913) describes how the government tries to impose new restrictions on Indians and how they try to organize a march to the Tolstoy Farm to force the government’s hand.

Conductor – Dante Anzolini; M. K. Gandhi – Richard Croft; Prince Arjuna – Bradley Garvin; Lord Krishna – Richard Bernstein; Miss Schlesson, Gandhi’s secretary – Rachelle Durkin; Kasturbai, Gandhi’s wife – Maria Zifchak; Mr. Kallenbach, European co-worker – Kim Josephson; Pari Rustomji, Indian co-worker – Alfred Walker; Mrs. Alexander, European friend – Mary Phillips.

I heard Philip Glass’s music once, his violin concerto, having avoided his music given his reputation of being an ultra-modern composer (turns out he belongs to the Minimalist school.)  I found the piece quite easy to listen to, so I was ready to tackle tonight’s 3 hour 45 minute (including two intermissions) opera.  Then I read the one-sheet insert in the Playbill, which is translated text of the Sanskrit.  When I came to the sentence “My very being is oppressed with compassion’s harmful taint,” I began to have my doubts.  Then I read the “In Focus” section of the Playbill and its description of Glass’s music being “entirely accessible” made me ready again.  So I was quite curious how it would all turn out before the first note was played.  I don’t quite know how to describe the opera, I must say.  And it is quite unlikely I will go see it again.

The opera is part of the “Grand Spectacles” series.  I am not sure the sets live up to that billing.  They are reasonably large and indeed some acrobatics and magic are involved, but not quite on the scale of being “grand.”  There are some clever ideas, some (such as the newspaper publication process) make sense, and some are nice visuals (such as the tapes being brought across the stage) but not quite obvious.

The choice of events included is also a bit puzzling.  Most of them make sense, but they all seem to involve protests of some sort.  I am sure Gandhi did much more than just that.  Glass mentions there are many to choose from, so it is unfortunate that the choices reflect (undoubtedly) only a small part of Gandhi’s actions and accomplishments during his years in South Africa.  Act 3 has as background a figure representing Martin Luther King Jr. on a podium.  Which brings up an issue and a question: issue – King and Gandhi are not contemporaries; question – blacks were oppressed, perhaps even more so, than Indians at that time, why was there no mention of this in the opera?  Even more puzzling was Act 1 Scene 1 where we have mythical figures talking to each other.  Finally, the story ends as describes above, with absolutely no resolution.  I guess I have made my feelings clear on what I think of the story.

Having heard Glass’s music once, the opera’s musical elements didn’t surprise me.  The “minimalist” aspect of it makes it not challenging to grasp.  The flip side, however, is that the many repetitions Glass thinks are necessary to move the story forward gets tiresome, very quickly.  For me it got so tiresome that I nodded off several times.  The singing was generally fine, given the vocal parts were not particularly difficult.  The most challenging part probably is to keep the meter correctly, from what I can tell, there is a great tendency to change from one meter to another rapidly.  Rachelle Durkin (as Gandhi’s secretary) is also a graduate of the Lindemann Young Artist program.  While she had no trouble reaching the high notes required of her part, her voice was a bit harsh.

For the reader who gets to go to this Opera, a couple of suggetsions.  First read the synopsis to get some idea of what is going on, because despite the reassurances in Playbill, the actions are not self-explanatory.  For the most part the words projected on the sets can be ignored.  But if desired they can be read up in advance to get some idea of the philosophical statements being made.  The opera may make a bit more “real time” sense if these steps are done ahead of time.  Otherwise one has to resign to try to enjoy the music and action as they unfold.

On thought I had after seeing Nabucco was that the story could be developed a bit fuller.  My view of Satyagrapha is quite the opposite.  Despite Glass’s claim that his music tends to develop slowly, I felt many parts of the opera were repeated way too often.  Case in point, the last “aria” by Gandhi consisted of a motif of three identical upward scales starting with the mediant; and this trio of scales got repeated so many times that I lost count.  And as far as I could tell, the words are the same.  When Gandhi’s voice began to break into a falsetto, I thought all the singing finally got to him.  Instead the curtain came down, so now I am confused whether the falsetto was planned.

On the way home, I listened to Glass’s violin concerto for a second time.  It was exactly as I envisioned it (I didn’t remember much of it, though), except the demands on the violinist are quite substantial.  The first two movements were quite all right, and the last movement a bit repetitive but at about 15 minutes relatively painless.  One conclusion that can be drawn from this?  30 minutes of Glass is bearable, 3 hours is a bit much.

Houston Ballet - Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. December 4, 2011.

Brown Theater at Wortham Theater Center, Houston, TX - Grand Tier Section D (Seat E2, $51).

Conductor - Craig Kier.  Sugar Plum Fairy - Amy Fote, Nutcracker Prince - Jun Shuang Huang, Snow Queen - Katherine Precourt, Clara - Allison Miller, Dr. Drosselmeyer - Christopher Coomer.

Anne and I came down to Houston to spend a few days, so far the trip has been somewhat of a disappointment.  We also looked into the classical music scene here and find it to be slim pickings.  Only performances that are on during our stay is a Houston Symphony concert, for which I bought a ticket yesterday, and several performances of the Nutcracker by Houston Ballet.

Today we got back into town a bit before six and decided to see if we could get tickets for the evening Nutcracker show.  We did.  Turns out there are very few restaurants in the area, and those we saw were a bit too formal for our taste, so we stopped by a cinema cafe and ordered a sandwich.

The venue - Wortham Center - certainly is impressive.  I was somewhat surprised to find out the Brown Theater had a capacity of only 2150 or so, it felt as cavernous as the Met.  The building's architecture is on the grand side inside and out, commensurate with "everything is bigger in Texas."

Inside the Houston Wortham Theater.

I have seen this ballet a couple of times before and wasn't that impressed.  Thus my expectations for the evening wasn't that high.  I ended up enjoying it immensely.

First, the sets.  They were quite ornate and elaborate.  Even though the stage is huge, there are sets that filled up the space nicely, and there are enough people flying around to make things interesting.  If I had not seen the Christmas tree transformation before I may be quite impressed with the growth scene.

The dancers put out an energetic and enjoyable performance.  I can quibble a bit that the slow movements are not as poetic as they could be, but there is not a lot of poetry inherent in the Nutcracker.  The athleticism of the male dancers is quite impressive.  The group dances all painted very pleasant pictures.

The choreography felt very fresh to me.  Perhaps they do the same thing year after year, but for me it is interesting and at times genuinely funny.

I usually don't pay a lot of attention to the costumes but find them quite enjoyable (if that is the right term).  The colors are bright and Anne thought border on the gaudy side.  My reaction was "well this is Houston.".

On our drive from Galveston to Houston I remarked to Anne that the classical scene in Houston is similar to that of Hong Kong, thus insulting both cities at the same time.  I have to revise that statement and say I have not ever seen anything so good in Hong Kong.  I will have a possibly firmer opinion after seeing the Houston Symphony on Tuesday.

The evening was "perfect" in yet another way: we parked right in front of the theater.  Our small rental car (Nissan Cube) was just the right size for this tiny space. Since it was Sunday, we didn't have to pay a dime.

Today (Thursday 12/8) I found this review of the Ballet on line.  The reviewer is absolutely in love with this production.

New York Philharmonic – Bernard Haitink, conductor. November 19, 2011.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, First Tier Center (Seat BB104, $70.)

Program

Symphony No. 96 in D major, Hob. I:96 (1791) by Haydn (1732-1809).

Symphony No. 7 in E major (1881-83, rev. 1885; ed. L. Nowak, 1954) by Bruckner (1824-96).

The last time Haitink’s name came up was last week:  he was listed as Boston Symphony’s Conductor Emeritus.  Today was the first time we saw him in a live performance.  Somehow I knew he was about 80 years old, so I was expecting someone in the “mode” of a Maazel, Masur, Previn, or (Colin) Davis. Let me say at the outset that proved to be wrong, for a while I thought I had to be mistaken because he conducted like a much younger person (well, someone in his 60s, maybe).  I checked my iPhone during intermission, indeed he was born in March, 1929, making him 82 years old.  The other surprise is he was greeted like a rock star (by New York Philharmonic audience standards, that is).  In addition to enthusiastic applause, there was quite a bit of hollering.  And some of that came when he first stepped onto the stage, before the first note was played.  I have been going to New York Philharmonic concerts for quite a few years, and had never heard him until today; I can’t imagine the rest of the audience has (have?) heard him much either.  While the accolades turned out to be well deserved, it was still a bit puzzling.

Haydn of course was a prolific composer, in part due to his appointment at the court of Prince Esterhazy, which required him to produce new music in great frequency.  When the court finally cut back on its arts programs, Haydn had the chance to visit London, once in the years 1791 and 1792, once in 1794 and 1795.  During each of the stays Haydn produced six symphonies which are collectively called his London Symphonies (No. 93-98, 99-104; evidently he didn’t write any symphonies between the two visits.)  This symphony also carries the designation “Miracle,” supposedly because a chandelier fell down during its first performance and no one was hurt.  Historians seem to agree a chandelier did fall during a Haydn symphony, but it wasn’t this one.  I suppose people just associate the work with “miracle,” just like the 12 symphonies probably have limited “London” sound to them.

This symphony’s four movements are (i) Adagio – Allegro; (ii) Andante; (iii) Menuetto and Trio – Allegretto; and (iv) Finale: Vivace (assai); they add up to about 20 minutes.  Compared to other Haydn symphonies I heard, this one is relatively complex, with solo lines by various instruments including the oboe, bassoon, and duets by violins.  It was an excellent performance, crispy, loud and heavy, and soft and light where it should be.  And the dynamic range was just excellent.  The last movement was especially enjoyable.  While it is technically relatively simple, I was still impressed with how precise the orchestra sounded.

On paper the Bruckner symphony would provide great contrast to the Haydn one.  It is much longer at 65 or so minutes, it was written about 100 years later, and Bruckner’s music tends to be long and (my words) more narrative.  While all that is true, the difference is not as great as one would expect.

The orchestration is on the traditional side with a few notable exceptions.  Four Wagner tubas (two tenors, two basses) were used; these are devised by Wagner for his Ring Cycle operas and not used much outside of those operas.  There was also a large brass contingent: four French horns, three trumpets, three trombones, and one tuba.  I actually counted 5 French horns and 4 trumpets, putting the total number of brasses at 17.  They never sounded too loud, though, indicating a good conductor can find the right balance among the different orchestra sections.  I do wonder whether they got the extra brass players (especially Wagner tubas) from the Met.  Come to think of it, this is one of the better performances by the brass section, despite the occasional sloppy note.  The strings were out in full force also: I counted 16 first violins, 13 second violins, 12 violas, 10 cellos, and 8 basses.  In terms of percussion, there is of course the timpani.  In the edition used for this performance, there is also the cymbal and the triangle.  There is a lot of discussion in the Program Notes about how Bruckner got talked into putting these two instruments in a revision to the original, but eventually declared them invalid (or did he?).  They only appeared once (I think the cymbal clanged only once) towards the end of the second movement.  Since the notes are played at the same time, you actually have two percussionists sitting through a 65 minute symphony feverishly hoping they got the timing right; or were they just listening to their iPods?

I do think “narrative” is a good way to describe Bruckner’s symphonies (as opposed to Mahler’s wanderings).  While the development of a movement may not be traditional, you always feel the composer is trying to lead you somewhere, and willingly go along.  There is a lot of structure to his music that is readily discernable.  For example, the first movement (Allegro moderato, about 20 minutes) was started by cellos playing a melody, when that melody reappears after 20 minutes, you know the movement is about to end.  Interestingly, the movement didn’t end on a loud chord, in a way it just stopped.  The second movement (Adagio: Very solemn and very slow – Moderato, about 25 minutes) is called the “Wagner tribute” as Bruckner had imagined Wagner (whom he called the Master) was about to die – which happened about a month afterwards.  The use of horns and the Wagner tubas make it sound quite Wagnerian, at times evoking the Valhalla motif from the Ring Cycle.

For reasons unclear to us, the tuba moved from the middle of the brass section to the end between the second and the third movement.  It may or may not have something to do with the Wagner tubas being quiet during the third movement; but the tuba didn’t move back for the fourth movement where the Wagner tubas were used again.  And it was an obvious move: the tuba is a huge (and shiny) instrument.  With this movement (Scherzo: Very fast – Trio: A little slower; 12 minutes) we are back to the sunny disposition of the symphony.  The contrast between the scherzo and the trio is more pronounced than the tempo marking would indicate, though.  The relatively short fourth movement (Finale: Moving, yet not fast; 8 minutes) concluded the piece.

The applause at the end was enthusiastic, and Haitink came out multiple times to acknowledge the audience.

The uncharacteristically short New York Times review was very positive.  It also states the opening Bruckner theme was played by violas and cellos.

Boston Symphony Orchestra – Myung-Whun Chung, Conductor; Garrick Ohlsson, Pianist. November 12, 2011.

Symphony Hall, Boston, First Balcony (Seat E37, $51.25)

Program

Overture to the Opera “Der Freischutz” (1820) by Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826).

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 39 (1962) by Samuel Barber (1910-1981).

Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74 “Pathetique” (1893) by Tchaikovsky (1840-1893).

We are in the Boston area for several days to babysit our son’s dog while he and Jess go on a short trip to Madrid.  We looked around and found there were tickets available for this concert (both Friday and Saturday.)  They were discounting Friday’s tickets, but we were a bit too tired (from driving around the area) to make the 7 pm start time.  The $45 seats (plus $6.25 fee) we ended up getting actually had a good view of the stage.  I wish we had brought our binoculars, though.

We didn’t want to pay for parking, last time we went to Symphony Hall we parked a couple of blocks away.  This time we were a good 15-minute away, but it was a nice fall evening.

If you look at the BSO roster, for conductor they list only two: Bernard Haitnik as Conductor Emeritus, and Seiji Ozawa as Music Director Laureate.  James Levine actually resigned at the beginning of the season due to health reasons.  I still find it interesting that there is no mention of him that I could find in the rather thick program, perhaps the parting wasn’t cordial?

Weber’s opera relays the story of a “free shooter” (who shoots bullets) who sold his soul.  The overture contains themes from the opera, and the horns supposedly evoke images of a forest (don’t they always?).  Still, the 10 minute piece is a delight, and started the concert propitiously.  The Program Notes contains a detailed description of how the piece is structured, and it is easy to follow along.

Barber is an all-American composer, born in Pennsylvania and died in New York.  This concerto was written for John Browning, who would perform it nearly 150 times by 1969.  It also won Barber a second Pulitzer Prize (which may or may not mean a lot; Cornell Symphony’s conductor Karel Husa also won a Pulitzer Prize for a composition that is not played much – if at all – nowadays.)

There is no doubt that this is a virtuoso piece; indeed even Vladimir Horowitz suggested simplifying a passage to make it more playable at the proper tempo.  Both the pianist and the orchestra seemed to enjoy their collaboration; and Ohlsson appeared very much in his element.  Nonetheless, sometimes the piano was simply overwhelmed: from where I sat I could see the pianist’s hands and fingers moving frantically, but couldn’t even make out the piano’s sound with my hands cupped behind my ears.  The piece sounded great when only a limited number of orchestra members played, and there were quite a few passages of that nature.  The composer himself provided a description of the music for the premiere.  The three movements are (i) Allegro appassionato, Canzone, and Allegro molto.  The second movement is a rework of a prior work for flute and piano, and highlights the flute.  The 5/8 time of the last movement retains its firm grip even as the music goes through its many gyrations.

The “Pathetique” Symphony is very much associated with the composer’s death nine days after conducting its premiere.  The second performance was part of the memorial concert for him. Various stories have Tchaikovsky suffering from severe depression because he was afraid his homosexuality would be exposed, and that he drank an untreated glass of water on purpose to contract cholera.  The Symphony has four movements: (i) Adagio – Allegro non troppo; (ii) Allegro con grazia; (iii) Allegro molto vivace; and (iv) Adagio lamentoso – Andante.

Even though many of the tunes in the Symphony sounded familiar, I have heard the whole piece only a limited number of times.  I was surprised how some themes (e.g., one in the second movement) were used over and over, without sounding too repetitious.  The third movement has a very energetic tempo, unusual for a third movement of a Symphony; and the audience applauded afterwards.  Perhaps a bit of a faux pas, but also an indication of how appreciate the audience was.  Indeed it was an enjoyable performance.  In any case, the triumphal sounding third movement wasn’t enough to overcome the overall pathos of the piece, punctuated by the fourth movement, which ended on pizzicato on strings against a pedal point dotted note in the bass.  I wonder which Symphony is sadder, this one, or the one by Mahler (“Tragic,” also his sixth).

Myung-Whun Chung is the music director of the Seoul Philharmonic, although he has spent a lot of time in the USA (New York and Los Angeles) during his early career.  He conducted the program without music, and evoked a great sound from the orchestra (except for the balance issue during the piano concerto.)  I have heard the BSO several times (including at Tanglewood), and thought one of their hallmarks is how precise they are.  By that measure they are a bit sloppy today, perhaps inevitable without a permanent music director?  But they certainly belong in the upper echelons of ensembles, at least of the ones I have heard.

The Boston Globe’s Review of the program is not all that positive.  Neither is the lengthy review by this organization called “Arts Fuse.”  There may be a bit of Levine-withdrawal at work here.

Celebrity Constellation Production Team “Land of Make Believe”. October 28, 2011.

On board Celebrity Constellation.  Celebrity Theater: Seat Balcony Left.

This is a one-hour Broadway-style mini-show with a rather old story line: a couple wants to get married, the groom’s mother doesn’t like the bride-to-be and schemes to break up the relationship, but to no avail.  At the end all is well that ends well.

Tried and true the story line might be, in the hands of a good producer, the right elements could be brought to bear to make the show enjoyable.  Alas, this wasn’t the case here.

The show does draw storylines from different shows (including Broadway’s), these include Wicked, Bye Bye Birdie, and others.  (I am not that familiar with Broadway shows, and I am typing this several days later.)

Again, you have to admire the cast’s ability to take on the workload, the same people from last night’s show were playing different roles in this production; there was even this dream sequence performed by the acrobats, who also double as actors in the cast.

[Note: We saw another evening program, this time a magic show, after this one.  Those were the three we watched during this 12-night cruise.]

Celebrity Constellation Production Team “Celebrate the World”. October 27, 2011.

On board Celebrity Constellation.  Celebrity Theater: Seat Balcony Left.

We are on a cruise of the Mediterranean with a group from church.  Many wanted to see this show and asked us to come along.  We are not fans of these variety-type shows, but decided at the last minute to go.  Anne slept through most of the one-hour show.

The show basically comprised of songs and dance from various countries, including Thailand, China, Ireland, France, and Russia.  I think they were all performed by a troupe of 15 or so artists, so one amazing thing is how quickly they could change their costumes.

Several pieces that I enjoyed were: Don’t Cry for me Argentina from the Musical, Acrobats from China, and the Irish “tap dance” where people made noise with their shoes without moving (much) their upper bodies.  Someone also sang “Nessum Dorma” but not quite up to operatic standards, as part of the Italy segment.

When the Cruise Director came out to greet the group, we thought it was a good time to leave.

One may ask, legitimately, whether shows of this kind are worth blogging about.  I decided to at least jot down my thoughts so I can recall how I feel about it, in case I wonder sometime in the future.