Metropolitan Opera – Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. October 11, 2013.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center, Balcony (Seat F125, $62.5).

Conductor – James Conlon; Oberon (King of the Fairies) – Iestyn Davies, Tytania (Queen of the Fairies) – Kathleen Kim, Puck – Riley Costello, Lysander – Joseph Kaiser, Hermia – Elizabeth DeShong, Demetrius – Michael Todd Simpson, Helena – Erin Wall, Bottom – Matthew Rose, Quince – Patrick Carfizzi, Flute – Barry Banks.

Story.  Oberon and Tytania argue about the fate of a boy under Tytania’s protection.  Oberon sends Puck to fetch a magic flower which when applied to a person’s eyelids will make her fall in love with the first creature she sees.  He plans to steal the boy while Tytania is under the spell.  Meanwhile, the lovers Lysander and Hermia have escaped from Athens so Hermia doesn’t have to by forced into marriage with Demetrius, who loves her.  Demetrius is in turn pursued by Helena.  After seeing what has happened, Oberon asks Puck to make Demetrius fall in love with Helena.  Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius, and when Lysander sees Helena, he falls in love with her.  When Tytania falls asleep, Oberon puts the juice on her eyes, and when she wakes she sees Bottom, who has been transformed into an ass.  Bottom is one of six working men rehearsing a play in the forest.  Tytania thus falls in love with Bottom.  When Oberon finds out the spell was put on the wrong person, he also pours the juice on Demetrius’s eyes.  The result is both men are after Helena.  She thinks she is being mocked, and Hermia thinks she has been abandoned.  After the four quarrel, they fall asleep, and Puck fixes his errors with the antidote, and they reconcile.  Oberon also releases Tytania from her spell, and restores Bottom back to human.  The four lovers return to Athens, and after obtaining forgiveness, are married together with Theseus and Hippolyta.  The working men put on the play.  Afterwards, the three couples retire to bed.

For someone who knows the story, my summary above makes sense.  For someone unfamiliar with it: too bad.  Even though the opera’s plot is much simplified compared with the actual play, it is still quite complicated.  According to the Program Notes, the opera cuts down the number of lines (over 2000) by half, and reduces the number of acts from 5 to 3.  The six words that are added (“compelling thee to marry with Demetrius”) are sufficient to dispense of the entire first act, set in Athens, wherein Hermia’s father tries to force her into marriage.  The opera is sung in English, thus the Met titles are in Shakespearean language, something not easy to understand at the first encounter.  Fortunately the pace is reasonable, and being a comedy there really is no need to get every word down; so I followed along without too much difficulty.  I was quite sure I would find a couple of familiar quotes in the libretto, but to my surprise I didn’t recognize any.  A search of the web for quotes from this play also yielded some obscure references (e.g., “my soul is in the sky.”)

So much for the literary analysis.  I bought a ticket for this opera mainly because of the 25% discount offer I got in the mail.  Also, I have enjoyed most of my prior encounters with operas based on Shakespeare’s plays, so I regarded this as an opportunity to learn another of his works.  A couple of years ago I saw The Enchanted Island, an amalgam of The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so I was curious what the latter play really was about.  Comedies (be they plays, musicals, or operas) generally don’t work for me.  I don’t find them particularly amusing (perhaps timing is a real issue).  I felt the same way about Falstaff, and – alas – have similar feelings towards this one, despite some clever, light-hearted moments in the plot.

But there are a lot of good things I can say about the opera and the performance. First, the music was quite accessible.  It isn’t as straightforward as the other Britten opera I saw (The Rape of Lucretia, also based on a Shakespeare work), and there is more “tune” to the sung parts, but not overly mysterious.  The Program Notes also described the three “tiers” of beings and their corresponding music: the world of the fairies with high voices and harps, harpsichord, celesta, and percussions as the main instruments; woodwinds and strings for the lovers; and lower brass for the working men (rustics.)  Reality is slightly more complicated than that, but the guide helped me tremendously.  The Notes also talked about parodies of Donizetti’s mad scene, and that the play within the play also made fun of various composers, including Britten himself.  That is something I wouldn’t have caught by myself.  In any case, the mad scenes (e.g., where the four lovers quarrel) were quite enjoyable, and they were not that long that I felt embarrassed (as with the case of some Donizetti scenes.)

It was difficult for me to know if there were any headliners from the Oberon, Tytiana, the four lovers, and several of the rustics.  In the cast of character above I did add the role of Peter Quince who was not headlined in the Playbill.  I thought his importance is comparable to the other two that got mentioned.  The only artist I remember from my prior opera experience is Kathleen Kim, who sang the role of Oscar in A Masked Ball.  She did very well here also.  For once I wasn’t too confused by a male role sung by a countertenor.  Davies’s timbre was sufficiently different from Kim’s that I could tell them apart even though I couldn’t see who was doing the singing (given how far I was from the stage.)

As with Hamlet, I didn’t quite get why it was necessary for a play within a play.  To me it just added some thirty minutes to the whole thing.  Speaking of which: the opera is about 3 hours in length, with two intermissions the event lasted just short of 4 hours.

The staging is modernist and for most part is a stylized depiction of the forest.  The addition of a crescent moon made the scene a realm of the forests.

Overall this was a pleasant experience.  The Program Notes writer has a lot of great things to say about the opera, and the New York Times review is glowing.  I suspect I will only get to that level of sophistication after a detailed study of the work, which I probably won’t get to do.

I took the train in, and by the time I got home, it was after 1 am.

New York Philharmonic – Alan Gilbert, conductor. October 9, 2013.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra 3 (Seat FF10, $34).

Program

Frieze (2012) by Mark-Anthony Turnage (b. 1960).

Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 (1822-24) by Beethoven (1770-1827).

Artists

Manhattan School of Music Symphonic Chorus - Kent Tritle, director.

Julianna Di Giacomo, Soprano; Kelly O’Connor, Mezzo-Soprano;

Russell Thomas, Tenor; Shenyang, Bass

Alan Gilbert started the concert by talking a bit about Turnage’s Frieze.  It was mostly a repeat of what he said in the Playbill.  The piece was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society, which also commissioned Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony about two hundred years ago; the idea was to respond to the monumental work.  One could interpret this as Gilbert implying that Turnage’s work may end up as immortal.  Gilbert also drew parallels between the corresponding movements of the two symphonies, saying the newer piece gave him a new appreciation of the pauses in the third (if memory serves) Beethoven movement.

If that is the implication, I can quite confidently predict that it won’t work out that way, knowing full well I probably won’t be around in a couple of hundred years to see my prediction confirmed or disproved.  Beyond that, the piece left me with little to say.  Not that I don’t want to, there is simply not much to say about it.  Well, the piece in and of itself is probably okay, but I kept trying to find all these Beethoven references and failed to do so.  Playbill has high praises for Turnage in general, and he is the composer for the opera Anna Nicole that just finished its run at the (now bankrupt) New York City Opera.  This was my first encounter with his music, though.

The piece is of bearable length at a little over 20 minutes, and consists of four movements: (1) Hushed and expansive; (2) With veiled menace; (3) ♪ = 60; (4) ♪ = 120.  I am quite sure the composer didn’t run out of ideas for the last two movements, although – again – I cannot prove it from what I heard.  The fourth movement didn’t sound twice as fast as the third, though.

The Playbill claims that before this series of concerts, the Ninth Symphony has been played 196 times.  At say 4 concerts per series, that means about 50 programs.  As the orchestra has been around for 170 years (it was founded in 1842), that means they put it out once every 3 to 4 years.  Interestingly, the last time the symphony was performed was in December 2004, about 9 years ago; thus the interval has been much longer than average.

And it was worth the wait.  I was caught up after the first few measures.  The orchestra came to life, as did Gilbert.  Their sound and movements were crisp and precise, as a great orchestra and a great conductor should be.

I am sure many people realize this, but I have never seen it written up as such.  The Ninth can be thought of as a juxtaposition of two different compositions.  The first three movements are so “pastoral” in nature that they evoke similar images that the sixth does.  (In my case, I was trying to remember the ninth’s opening theme and kept thinking I had it mixed up with the sixth.)  If the performance ends with the third movement, it will be satisfying to most listeners, other than those who worry about issues such as key signatures and that the music would end with a slow movement.  The three movements are: Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso; Molto vivace; and Adagio molto e cantabile.  The fourth movement has as its marking Presto – Recitativo “O Freunde, nicht diese Tone” – Allegro assai.  It starts in a way similar to the first movement, but launches into a majestic oratorio that demands a different sound from the orchestra and the addition of vocal parts.

A few remarks about the vocal parts.  The soloists all did fine, although I had trouble picking out the mezzo-soprano part at times.  Shenyang started the whole exercise with a strong rendition of “O Freunde, nicht diese Tone!”  If I recall correctly, he was discovered by Renee Fleming several years ago, and as they say, the rest is history; this is the first time I heard him sing, though.  I do wonder why he uses only a given name, and that of a city at that.  Like Cher, or Enya, perhaps.  (Turns out his name is Shen Yang, Shen being the family name.) I think this was my first encounter with the Manhattan School Symphonic Chorus (a search of my blog confirms it), they put in a strong performance.

The Playbill contains quite a few contradictory comments by music critics, several of which I paraphrase below: “saying that the audience received the work enthusiastically does not mean praising the work – it is beyond praise – but the audience;” “the Andante was declared by modern aestheticism to be over-long;” “I do not accept as perfect every note, every phrase, every chord; perhaps even I do not consider it in every detail a model work of art;” “it is sacred, I have often wondered why;” and “very badly set in the last.”  So even great music has its detractors: the quotes are respectively by Robert Schumann, Claude Debussy (who didn’t think it was too long), Ralph Vaughan Williams, Igor Stravinsky, and Giuseppe Verdi, not a music slouch among them.

As for me, I am moving from the “too long, too many repeats” towards the “not one superfluous note” camp.  Not quite all the way there, although tonight’s performance pushed me along considerably.  The enthusiastic applause by the audience was well deserved, and provided a dramatic contrast to the reception of Turnage’s Frieze.

Looking back over my prior blog entries, I last saw the Ninth performed by the New Jersey Symphony and I, alas, called it amateurish.

The New York Times reviewer loved the Turnage piece, and uncharacteristically had a lot of good things to say about Gilbert in general, and his rendition of the Ninth Symphony in particular.

Metropolitan Opera – Shostakovich’s The Nose. October 8, 2013.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center, Balcony (Seat C117, $87.50).

Conductor – Valery Gergiev; Kovalyov – Paulo Szot, Police Inspector – Andrey Popov, The Nose – Alexander Lewis.

Story.  Kovalyov gets a shave in Yakovlevich’s barbershop, and the barber finds a nose in a loaf of bread the next day.  As he tries to dispose of it, he is taken in by the police for questioning.  When Kovalyov discovers he is missing his nose, he goes about looking for it.  He first finds it grown in size and dressed as a Sate Councilor, but it escapes.  Kovalyov then goes on a quest to get his nose back, to no avail.  Eventually, the nose is arrested, beaten back to its normal size, and returned to Kovalyov  After a few unsuccessful attempts in reattaching the nose, Kovalyov finally succeeds, to his great joy.

First, let me prove that I can be very positive about things of this sort by writing a short summary.

This delightfully-staged and well-executed opera illustrates the absurdity of life through the tumultuous, farcical, and ultimately successful yet trivial pursuit of a person’s quest.  Under the precise direction of Maestro Gergiev, the orchestra produced a crispy sound very much in harmony with the excellent and well-time comedy happening on stage.  The audience was engrossed by the great singing of the artists, and the atonal music actually helped propel the story along effortlessly. The thunderous applause at curtain call was a fitting conclusion to a most enjoyable evening.

I guess I am still smarting from a remark someone left on this blog.  This time, however, I didn’t quote from the opera’s advertisement.  The paragraph above is entirely my own, and mostly true.

Actually, I am beginning to like Shostakovich.  This is quite a change in attitude from my days as a student reporter (for a major Hong Kong newspaper) during my high school years.  I now readily recall how much I enjoyed his cello concerto and his string quartet.  The cello concerto was written when he was in his 50s, the string quarter (No. 15) in his 60s.  This opera, however, was written when he was 22.  The Playbill notes, which I read in advance, talks about the score as being difficult to categorize, atonal, and non-lyrical (even “anti-lyrical,” whatever that means).  While all that may be true, I did find the music to be taut and sensible, and there are some passages that can be passed off as lyrical (even they may be satirical in intention.)  While the overall instrumentation is complex, most of the music is on the simple side.  Oftentimes the vocal parts have an instrument double, and the effect is quite pleasant.  I suspect I will never learn in depth how Shostakovich’s music evolved over his career, but I am sure it has been quite a few music school theses over the years.

The staging is clever and pleasant.  In addition to the set, there are projections that keep the audience glued to what was happening on stage.  There are these projected shadows that eventually coalesce into a portrait of Shostakovich and Stalin (I think) that are cleverly done.  It makes me think of Picasso’s cubism (no kidding) where he disassembles an object (often a naked woman) and then paints a portrait that only the initiated can understand (I am not among them.)  Another clever technique is the continuation of an action (say running on a catwalk) with a shadow projection.  In additional to the Met titles in front of every seat, the English translation is also projected onto the stage, sometimes on the ledge at the front, sometimes as a prop-like object in the back.  In theory the concert-goer doesn’t have to move his head up and down constantly; in practice I found it a bit confusing.

The main page of the program shows only three members in the cast.  One would think this opera would be a three-person show.  The detailed listing of the Acts and Scenes, however, shows a long list of names (some duplicates.)  There are 70 sung roles (per Playbill), although some can be combined, and lots of chorus members.  At curtain call there are 30 or so people who came out to take a bow.  Indeed some of the sung roles are quite substantial – I can think of Podtochina and her daughter, the pretzel vendor, the barber and his wife.  In that regard, the nose itself didn’t do a lot of singing, even though it is the title role and is on stage quite a bit.  I wonder how people decide what roles are the headliner ones.

How much does the opera cause me to think about the trivialities of life?  I am typing this about 14 hours after seeing the show, and the answer is “not much.”  And the applause was warm but far from thunderous.

It was a pleasant two hours of comedy and interesting music, though.  The New York Times review sings praises to all aspects of the opera.

New York Philharmonic – Alan Gilbert, conductor; Yefim Bronfman, piano. October 1, 2013.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra (Seat R111, $68.50).

Program

Alborada del gracioso (Dawn Song of the Jester) (1904-05/orch. 1918) by Ravel (1875-1937).

Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (1961) by Bernstein (1918-90).

Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 (1874-75, 1889) by Tchaikovsky (1840-93).

This was the first concert for the season for which we had tickets.  Anne had to be Washington DC for a meeting (despite the government shut-down), so I went by myself.  The 5:25 pm train got me into town early enough that I managed to exchange some future tickets for which we had schedule conflicts.

The most interesting aspect about the Ravel piece is that it doesn’t sound like Ravel at all.  (I am making the statement with full knowledge that my exposure to Ravel is quite limited.)  As described in the program notes, the piece is very Spanish in character.  Ravel’s link to Spain evidently was through his mother who spent her youth in Madrid.

Regardless, this “song” was originally a movement in Ravel’s Miroirs Suite for the piano, and Diaghilev commissioned the composer to create an orchestral version for a ballet.  The performance showcased New York Philharmonic’s ability to have a wide dynamic range.  As to the interpretation, there is an interesting excerpt in the Program Notes about the piano version: it may be the most difficult piece technically, and Ravel wanted it played tautly and in a lively tempo.  The orchestral version certainly sounded difficult enough, and was played at a respectable pace.  However, it was more along the lines of “caution occasioned by the difficulty of the work.”

West Side Story is variation on the theme of Romeo and Juliet.  Instead of Capulets and Montagues we have rival New York City gangs; at the end only one of the protagonists (Tony) dies while Maria survives.  The musical opened in 1957, and in 1961 Bernstein extracted nine sections to assemble into tonight’s set of Symphonic Dances, including the most popular tunes “Somewhere” and “Maria.”  The sections are: Prologue (Allegro moderato); “Somewhere” (Adagio); Scherzo (Vivace leggiero); Mambo (Presto); Cha-Cha (Andantino con grazia); Meeting Scene (Meno moss); “Cool” Fugue (Allegretto); Rumble (Molto allegro); and Finale (Adagio).  Per the Program Notes, the uninterrupted sequence is derived from a strictly musical rationale; I imagine that also means it is not a synopsis of the plot.

As far as I know, West Side Story is rarely staged, and I have never had the chance to see it live.  I am, however, familiar with the two tunes, and appreciated them.  The piece is 22 minutes in duration, and the phrases “too long,” “too repetitive,” and “too loud” all came to mind.  Speaking of loud: at times I really worried about the harm done to the players (not just our ear-plug wearing violist.)

During the intermission I chatted briefly with the gentleman sitting next to me (he got the seat we returned.)  He was saying Gilbert is a bit too precise for his taste, and thus far I agreed with him.  Actually, I still recall how disappointed I was with the first concert of the last New York Philharmonic season.  And by this time I was worried tonight was going to be a repeat of that evening.

So it was a good thing that Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto was on the menu after the intermission.  It certainly salvaged the overall concert.

A few things I learned from the Program Notes that are worth repeating.  First is that Tchaikovsky wasn’t “much of a pianist” and thus solicited the help of Nikolai Rubinstein on technical matters.  And it shared the same fate as the Violin Concerto (Leopold Auer in that case): Rubinstein pronounced it worthless and unplayable.  Tchaikovsky decided to publish the piece anyway, and premiered it in Boston with Hans von Bulow at an American Chickering piano and an orchestra of freelancers conducted by Benjamin Johnson Lang (described as “long-forgotten”).  He also changed the dedication to von Bulow.  The piece was a sensation.  Rubinstein did come around and led the piece in Moscow in late 1875; and Tchaikovsky also revised the score, twice.

We have heard Bronfman before on many occasions, and admire his skills as a technician and (most of the time) his interpretation as a musician.  Tonight he did well on both counts.

It is always dangerous to perform a familiar piece of music since in the listener’s mind there may be an “idealized” version of how it should be placed.  And indeed there are variations in the tempo of certain measures that I didn’t expect.  In tonight’s case they made the music more interesting.  And familiar doesn’t mean easy, and there are challenging passages in the music (at least for a non-piano player like me.)  Bronfman dispatched those brilliantly.  It was in a way that kept me on the edge of my seat, though – and I kept thinking how Trifonov’s stab at difficult runs did not worry me.  The applause afterwards was thunderous, and well-deserved.

In any case, afterwards my neighbor and I both agreed it was appropriately wild.

Alan Gilbert usually writes a couple of paragraphs on the programs he leads.  He has a lot of praise for Bronfman and expresses how much they enjoy their collaboration.  All good.  He also talks about their warm and natural relationship offstage, sharing a love of good food and wine.  I must say on that he is right on, more so for Bronfman than himself.

This was an overall good evening, although I expected more.

Note added 10/9/2013.  I found out I didn't immediately look for a New York Times review.  And here it is.

Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra – Jeremie Rhorer, conductor; Paul Lewis, piano. August 7, 2013.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra Right (Seat X2, $46.50).

Pre-concert Recital

Pieces de clavecin, from the Septieme order (1716-17) by Couperin (1668-1733).

Cello Sonata in A minor, Op. 5, No. 6 (1746) by Geminiani (1687-1762).

Four Nations Ensemble: Loretta O’Sullivan, cello; Scott Pauley, lute; Andrew Appel, harpsichord.

Program

Overture to Le nozze di Figaro (1786) by Mozart.

Piano Concerto No. 25 in C manor, K. 503 (1786) by Mozart.

Symphony No. 1 in C manor (1799-1800) by Beethoven.

Since today is a weekday, we decided to drive in.  Traffic was quite good and we got to Lincoln Center at about 5:45 pm.  After we got our tickets, we had a light dinner at China Fun and made it to the 7 pm pre-concert recital in good time.

I am even less a student of period instruments, and only find myself enjoying occasionally such a concert.  Today’s concert wasn’t one of those, although I didn’t mind sitting through the two rather short pieces (at 14 and 8 minutes respectively.)

As a side remark (first brought up by Anne), while I am not a fan of renaissance art in general, I do find some of the paintings and sculptures from that period quite interesting (I just visited Florence, after all,) and I do look at the work before then more as a means to get educated rather than as material that would “lift my soul.”  Interestingly, as far as music is concerned, the demarcation seems to be around Bach’s time, which is a few centuries later.  Not sure much can be gleamed from this, but interesting nonetheless.

For completeness, I excerpt some of the information from David Wright’s writeup below.  The two works were considered daring and bold for their time.  An “order” for Francois Couperin, a master composer for the harpsichord, roughly means a “suite.”  Today’s performance consists of five selections from the eight:La Menetou; Les petits ages(litte ages): La muse naissante (birth of the muse), L’enfantine (little child), L’adolescente (adolescent), and Les delices (delights).  It is believed that La Menetou may refer to some in Couperin’s circle, evidently a person of complex and crafty intellect.

Francesco Geminiani was an admired violinist also considered a great composer by some.  The Cello sonata is performed by three instruments.  The lute is an interesting looking instrument with a very long neck.  I had trouble telling the difference between how a lute and a harpsichord sounds.  In the short eight minutes the composer manages to squeeze in three movements: Adagio, Allegro assai, and Allegro.

Now onto the main program.  First the summary: this was a much more enjoyable performance than the one we went to last Friday.  And in the spirit of simple enjoyment of a summer evening, I should stop here ...

It helps that the program consists of three well-known pieces, and the annotator even encourages the audience to tap along (good thing no one did, as far as I could tell.)  The orchestra and the soloist all seemed to play with more spirit than they did last Friday.  The piccolo player was playing the flute today and didn’t seem to have trouble staying awake.

The strings did have some trouble with some of the faster runs (such as the one in the overture) and sounded a bit chaotic, but in general provided the light and crisp touch called for in Mozart’s music.  For the symphony things generally ran well, I do wish the trumpets could sound a bit louder, though.

The pianist put in an engaging performance.  However, sometimes I wonder whether he was playing Mozart.  There was too much pedaling and he was more liberal than usual with varying the tempo.

The applause from the audience was quite enthusiastic.  I wonder if it is more a result of their appreciation of the interpretation, or just a show of how much they enjoyed hearing some of their favorite music being played.  In either or both cases, it is all good.  If one was listening for the former, then one would find Wright's detailed writeup analyzing the compositions very useful; otherwise his summary remarks would suffice.

Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra – Andrew Manze, conductor; Emanuel Ax, piano. August 2, 2013.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra (Seat Y104, $54).

Program – ALL-BEETHOVEN

Pre-concert Recital: Sonata No. 2 in A manor, Op. 2, No. 2 (1794-95).

Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major (1795).

Symphony No. 6 in F major (“Pastoral”) (1808).

I was a little surprised to get an e-mail from Atrium Discount Tickets that half-price tickets were available for this program.  One would think with Emanuel Ax the concerts will be sold out.  Since we didn’t want to spend the entire day in the city, we decided to try our luck by taking the 4:30 pm train into town (summer Friday traffic is usually bad), which got us to Lincoln Center about 5:45 pm.  Tickets were available for the $100 and $85 seats, and we decided to splurge on the more expensive ones.  We had enough time to eat something simple at Empire Szechuan, and still made it to attend the 7 pm pre-concert.

The attendance for the pre-concert is quite good.  The sonata is early Beethoven, and is quite Mozartian in its simplicity.  The contrasts characteristic of Beethoven’s later works are not there.  As I said on prior occasions, I have a hard time distinguishing between a good and a great Mozart performance, and – to the extent this work sounds like Mozart – that applies here also.  However, I was not prepared for how disjoint the piece sounded.  And I never thought I would say I wish he used a bit more pedaling.  Nonetheless the piece was nice to listen to.  The sonata has four movements: Allegro vivace, Largo appassionato; Scherzo: Allegretto; Rondo: Grazioso.

The attendance for the “regular” concert was very good.  There were a few empty seats in our row – probably the last $100 seat row – but the rows before us were quite well occupied.  So were the first and second tiers; the third tier was closed off, though.

One would never guess the concerto and the sonata were written at about the same time.  Compared to the sonata, the concerto requires a lot more virtuosity from the pianist.  There is much discussion in the Program Notes about the concerto labeled as “second” was actually the first written, but Beethoven wanted his first published work to be more substantial.  The three movements are Allegro con brio, Adagio and Rondo: Molto allegro.  Anne and I are both certain that we have heard this many times, but we also seem to be familiar with the third movement only.

While as an “even numbered” symphony, the sixth would be considered one of Beethoven’s mild compositions.  The symphony is unusual in that it has five movements, and Beethoven’s markings also constitute a program: (1) Allegro ma non troppo: Awakening of cheerful feelings upon arriving in the country; (2) Andante molto mosso: Scene by the brook; (3) Allegro: Merry gathering of peasants –; (4) Allegro: Tempest, storm –; and (5) Allegretto: Shepherds’ hymn – Happy and thankful feelings after the storm.  Given the number of references to storm and tempest, some degree of contrast is to be expected.  And indeed there are.  Here I wished there was a bit more to the dynamics.  Several themes are repeated quite often, and can sound that way if not played well.  And it sounded repetitive.  For the storm the piccolo is used, so the player has to sit through the 40+ minute composition to put in a few loud tweets.  The poor lady seemed to have a difficult time staying awake.  The first flute had quite a workout, in contrast, and the flutist did well.

I did not expect a lot from the performance, viewing it as a good way to while away a summer evening.  In that regard I didn’t sit through the concert with too critical an ear.  I guess I could have written a simple review like “A light program providing good entertainment for a summer evening.”  Which is true.

Orchestra of the Royal Northern College of Music of Manchester. Roland Boer, conductor; Justus Grimm, cello. July 24, 2013.

Piazza Grande, Montepulciano, Italy.  E21.50.

Program

Le fontane di Roma P. 106 (1916) by Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936).

Concerto per violoncello in mi minore op. 85 (1919) by Edward Elgar (1857-1934).

Fluss ohne Ufer (Fiume senza argini) (2008) by Detlev Glanert (b. 1960).

La Mer, trios esquisses symphoniques (1905) by Claude Debussy (1862-1918).

We are spending the week in Tuscany.  This area is characterized by rolling hills, small towns built around castles, and shops that sell cheese, salami, and wine.  We have visited several of these towns, and they all seem to have some sort of music festival going on.  Montepulciano, in particular, has an “International Arts Festival” going on from July 19 to 28.  We asked about an operatic performance, unfortunately that was canceled.  However, this symphonic concert, part of the Cantiere 38 series (the name of the festival), was going to be staged.

The Piazza Grande makes for an interesting concert venue.  Even though it is at a high point in the city, it is not level.  The stage is in front of the duomo, and (perhaps) 15 rows of chairs of about 50 each arranged in front of it.  In the back there is a small bleachers section.  So perhaps 1000 people when filled to capacity (there would still be a lot of standing room around).  For tonight I estimate fewer than 300 were in attendance.

Being an open plaza, sound insulation is a problem, especially since there are a couple of restaurants that are at the corners of the square, and people here eat late.  So we could hear the clinking of silverware throughout the concert.

The program notes describes Fluss ohne Ufer in an interesting way, stating that by the time the piece is done the audience will not remember any of the orchestral themes.  There is indeed quite a bit of “shimmering” to denote water, but other than that I didn’t get much out of it.  It was close to 20 minutes in length, at least it felt that long.  The composer was in attendance and came out for a bow.  His opera will be performed this coming Friday, I think we will skip it.

The evening started with a piece by Respighi that many had no doubt heard about, but not necessarily had heard.  Of course being in Italy, things may be a bit different with an Italian composer.  The composition has four movements that evoke different well-known fountains in Rome: (1) La fontana di Valle Giulia all’Alba.  Andante mosso. (2) La fontana del Tritone al mattino.  Vivo, Un poco meno allegretto, Piu vivo gaiamente; (3) La fontana di Trevi al meriggio.  Allegro moderato, Allegro vivace, Piu vivace, Largamente, Calmo; and (4) La fontana di Villa Medici al tramonto.  Andante, Meno mosso, Andante come prima.  Having just visited Rome last week, I somewhat kick myself for not having visited any of these fountains.

I had heard the Elgar Cello Concerto once before in Hong Kong, and recall liking it.  Tonight’s soloist is German, in his 40s.  The thing that caught my attention right away was how nice the sound was, whether the high or the low register.  This is a piece that has both melodic and virtuoso elements to it, and Grimm did both well.  For encore he played Saint Saens Cygnet, accompanied by two harps.

The last piece was Debussy’s La Mer, which I have heard on several prior occasions.  It is only today that I found out from the Notes that Debussy was beginning to move away from the “debussyism” that most music listeners are familiar with.  Although I must say in this composition the deviations, if detectable, are quite small.  Knowing what I know now, I must say the piece seems to be heavier duty than your typical Debussy.  The three sections of La Mer are (1) De l’aube a midi sur la mer; Tres lent; (2) Le Jeu des vagues; Allegro; and (3) Le dialogue du vent et de la mer; Anime et tumultueux.

Overall it is an enjoyable concert.  I do wonder how they decide on the programming.  First, it is way too long.  I joked to Anne that by the intermission we already got our money’s worth and could leave.  With a late start and an intermission, we didn’t get done until about 11:45 pm or so.  This is late even for some Italians, and many left before the end of the concert, which is a pity and discouraging since there were not that many people to begin with.  While the compositions are not that esoteric (with the exception of the Glanert piece,) it still would be nice to throw in a Beethoven or something to make the program more accessible.  With music festivals you always wonder whether the programmer is trying to be popular or to impress his colleagues.  I have a suspicion much of the latter drove today’s programming.

The orchestra apparently consists of music students at this Manchester college.  Anne remarked that there were no Asians in the group, which is a bit odd.  The concertmaster, a young lady,  had quite a few solo lines to play but was unfortunately a bit weak.  The conductor did his job with a lot of animation, but I wish he had brought out more contrast from the musicians.

This area gets quite warm (around 90) during the day, but night time temperatures are in the 60s.  With a good evening breeze going, we felt quite cold towards the end.  We rushed back to the car at the conclusion for the short drive back to La Bruciata.

Teatro dell’Opera di Roma – Verdi’s Nabucodonosor. July 18, 2013.

Teatro dell’Opera, Rome.    PLATEA (Row 10, Seat 13, Euro 115).

Conductor – Riccardo Muti; Nabucodonosor – Luca Salsi, Ismaele – Francesco Meli, Zaccaria – Riccardo Zanellato, Abigaille – Tatiana Serjan, Fenena – Sonia Ganassi, Il Gran Sacerdote di Belo – Luca Dall’Amico.

Story.  See previous post.

We are on a family trip to Italy, Anne and I don’t have a lot planned other than to be with our children, their spouses, and our 6-month old granddaughter.  I found out a couple of months ago that this was going to be on during our short stay in Rome.  I tried on many occasions to book tickets over the web with my limited Italian skills, but always got to a “system down” page at the end.  On our day of arrival in Rome (July 17) we went to the Opera House right after we checked into the hotel – it is a 5 minute walk – and there were four seats left, all at E115.  While they were among the more expensive seats for the theater, we thought it was a bargain since we were in the 10^th row, slightly off to the left.  Turns out from what we would call the Orchestra section we couldn’t see the orchestra, but we had a good view of the conductor.  To our chagrin, but not surprise, none of our children wanted to come.

My expectation was this would be as Italian as things go: Italian conductor, Italian composer, and an opera with a tune (Hebrew Slave Chorus) very much identified by Italians.  There was one more Italian aspect that I hadn’t figured in: an Italian audience.  They seemed to have little qualms with whispering (as the saying goes, not as quietly as they think they do,) nor with taking pictures during the performance.  I am sure the flashes were unintentional.  They do seem to dress up more properly than a typical Metropolitan Opera audience.  I can’t figure out how the men in suits keep their cool in this warm weather (90s).

Being “very Italian” would mean the program is in Italian, and the surtitles would be in Italian.  That was okay.  While I would love to understand the words as they were being sung, I did read up on the synopsis so I could basically tell what was going on.  Of course any humor or momentary tension would have been lost on me.

Overall, we enjoyed the performance and the experience.  Most of Verdi’s operas contain many lyrical tunes, this one is non exception.  The Hebrew Slave Chorus (va, pensiero) is always enjoyable.  We got to see Muti as an opera conductor for the first time.  One would never expect how ornate the opera house is, especially given how unassuming and simplistic the façade is.  We were quite impressed and couldn’t resist taking a few pictures (not during the performance, I haste to add.)

Now the nitpicking – some nits may have hatched into lice already, actually.  I must start with the sets, or lack thereof.  Act I shows some things dropping down from the ceiling onto a conical pile on the stage.  Even now I can’t imagine what that is supposed to be.  There are some background panels: one showing an overcast sky with the sun peeking through, the other with the silhouettes of four trees that got doubled to eight for the last Act, the significance of which also escapes me.  Oh, there are also these panels to represent the temple/palace.

The singing was generally okay.  Other than the time in Sydney watching Madama Butterfly, I had never had a seat that close to the stage, so I certainly could hear the singers very well.  Those who think the acoustics is great high up in the theater, while correct, perhaps have never sit up front before.  However, to an amateur like me, most voices don’t have the refined quality I’d come to expect from opera singers.  One exception for me was Abigaille sung by the Russian Tatiana Serjan.  When I heard Maria Guleghina singing the same role at the Met in October 2011, my complaint was that she had only one volume: loud.  Here Serjan demonstrated that Abigaille can be wistful as well.  I particularly admire her courage in singing in Italian in front of this audience.

Another aspect of opera performance that I am beginning to appreciate is how engaged the conductor is with the vocal parts. Muti was no exception.  He did most of the conducting sitting down, except when he had to cue in the voices, at which times he would stand up.  As far as I could tell, he used very precise gestures to shape the lines, and even to cue the syllables.  (Anne thought it wasn’t precise enough.)

That makes the Hebrew Slave Chorus particularly disappointing.  I was closed to being shocked how imprecise the chorus members were in this relatively simple tune.  Despite my trying to just enjoy the moment, I couldn’t help noticing the many instances where some voices would come in early (or others coming in late.)  The applause afterwards lasted forever, Muti finally said something to the audience, and redid the number.  This time around I tried to follow Muti’s movements and really thought I could follow him along – of course lip sync and actual singing are two different things.  And the chorus also did better.

With the encore of this number, and with two intermissions, the 2 hour opera turned into a much longer than expected event.  We didn’t get back to the hotel room until after midnight.  We told our children we should be back by 11:15 pm, that got them a bit worried.  It was amazing that people were still having dinner so late on a weeknight.

We were glad we went.  Anne and I actually had dinner by ourselves (not quite by design) before the show.  Today was our 37^th wedding anniversary.

New York Philharmonic – Alan Gilbert, conductor. June 28, 2013.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra (Seat W11, $72).

Program – A Dancer’s Dream

La Baiser de la fee (The Fairy’s Kiss) (1928, rev. 1950) by Stravinsky (1882-1971).

Excerpts from Neige (Snow) for Piano Four-Hands, Op. 7 (1918) by Durey (1888-1979).

Petrushka (1911) by Stravinsky.

Artists

Eric Huebner, Steve Beck, Piano.

Ballerina/Columbine – Sara Mearns, The Moor (on film) – Eric Owens, Petrushka (on film) – Anthony Roth Costanzo, Lover/Puppeteer – Amar Ramasar, Shadow – Abbey Roesner, Performers/Puppeteers – William da Silver, Vincent McCloskey, Atmosphericist – Monica Lerch, Steadicam Operator – Giacomo Belletti, Tripod Camera – Matt Manning, Cover Dancer – Zachary Catazaro.

In the weeks prior to the concert, I received several emails from New York Philharmonic asking me to make sure I exchange or donate my tickets if I don’t plan to attend this concert.  There was apparently great demand for them and all three performances were sold out.  Not that we were planning not to go, the correspondences certainly heightened our interest.

The two Stravinsky compositions are ballet music, neither of which I had heard before.  Petrushka of course is the better know of the two.  The Fairy’s Kiss was commissioned by Ida Rubinstein who had left Diaghilev to form her own dance company.  It was to be inspired by Tchaikovsky whom Stravinsky admired greatly.  All together, 16 Tchaikovsky compositions were referenced.  The only tune that is familiar to me is “Strangers in Paradise.”  Of course Stravinsky knew about half of them before he got started on this piece.

The story is based on the writings of Hans Christian Andersen, and I quote the plot from the Playbill: “A fairy marks a young man with her mysterious kiss while he is still a child.  She withdraws him from his mother’s arms.  She withdraws him from life on the day of his greatest happiness in order to possess him and preserve this happiness forever.  She marks him once more with her kiss.”  The ballet is set in four scenes – The Prologue, The Village Fete, By the Mill, and Epilogue.

As with the entire concert, the more memorable aspects are the non-traditional ones.  Sara Mearns, who ended up dancing throughout most of the program, stood from the audience and walked up to the stage at the beginning of the piece.  There is a large screen hanging on stage where different images are projected.  Oftentimes the images are objects on stage shot with a hand-held camera.  For example, for the “By the Mill” scene we have a small house with a water wheel next to it, complete with a small piece of transparent plastic to represent the water. Sometimes pre-recorded video clips are shown.  There are also other dancers who sometimes double as puppeteers.  All these certainly make for very busy viewing on the audience’s part.

To join in the fun, the orchestra members are dressed up in (what one would like to pass off as) Russian garb – mostly caps and scarves.  They would also move around or otherwise make fools of themselves.  Rebecca Young actually came to the front during Petrushka and did a few dance moves that were passable as professional.

The Fairy’s Kiss ended up being about 10 minutes longer than the advertised 44 minutes.  Actually I thought they cut out the piano piece since intermission came right afterwards.  They did perform it as an Entr’Acte piece at the beginning of the second half.  While pleasant enough, there is not much memorable about the piece.  The only thing interesting is that the composer Louis Durey eventually became a composer of political music, including choral compositions based on texts by Ho Chi Minh and Mao Zedong.

Petrushka consists of four Tableaux: (I) The Shrovetide Fair; (II) Petrushka’s Room; (III) The Moor’s Room; and (IV) The Shrovetide Fair.  The protagonists are all puppets: Petrushka the clown, the Moor, and the Ballerina.  The puppet play has a simple plot: Petrushka loves the ballerina, but she falls for the Moor instead; the Moor ends up killing Petrushka; the crowd is reassured that it was all a puppet show; after the crowd leaves, Petrushka’s ghost rises.  While Stravinsky made major revisions to it in 1947, the original version - described by the Playbill as "inventive and colorful to the point of extravagance" - was performed tonight.

The stories for both ballets are simple enough.  Yet I couldn’t make heads and tails of what the dancers were trying to portray.  This is particularly true with The Fairy’s Kiss.  I don’t know in a “real” ballet who would be the protagonist character, but if it is a woman it would have to be fairy given the number of times it is mentioned in the synopsis.  And I am sure Mearns wasn’t dancing that part.  It is a little better with Petrushka as both the Moor and the Clown show up in video clips.  There my major issue is that both Eric Owens (of Alberich fame) and Anthony Costanzo (whom I liked in The Enchanted Island) were used as only actors, and taped performances at that.

Most of my mental energy was spent trying to understand the story and keep track of the happenings on stage.  If I have to say something about the performance, I have to guess it was okay.  As in the Wagner Ring Journey performance, being center stage certainly helps with the clarify of the music.

Not soon after the start of the performance, my reaction was this is like a combination of New York Pops and New York City Opera.  This can either be a statement of praise, or a statement of disdain, all depending on what your expectations are.  There certainly is no doubt that New York Philharmonic can put out a great Pops concert, but should they?  To my surprise, I did read that Mearns and Ramasar are with the New York City Opera (after I made my assessment, honest.)  Gilbert seems to want to do these edgy things every now and then.

We decided to take the train in.  The concert ended at a little before 10 pm.  We rushed out of there right afterwards and caught the 10:18 train home, with perhaps a minute to spare.  That – unfortunately - was the highlight of the evening.

The New York Times review concentrates on the dance aspects and Sara Mearns, and is mixed.

Dorian Wind Quintet. June 27, 2013.

Richardson Auditorium, Princeton, NJ.  Balcony Center, Second Row (Free).

Musicians

Gretchen Pusch, flute; Gerard Reuter, oboe; Benjamin Fingland, clarinet; John Hunt, bassoon; Karl Kramer-Johansen, horn.

Program

Quintet for Woodwinds (1948) by Elliott Carter (1908-2012).

Quintet in E flat major for Winds, Op. 88, No. 2 by Antonin Reicha (1770-1836).

Prelude and Fugue in D minor (BMV 539) (arr. Mordechai Rechtman b. 1926) by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).

Anniversary Variations on a Theme of Antonin Reicha from Wind Quintet in E flat major, Op. 88, No. 2.

This concert is the second of the four free concerts Princeton will put out this summer.  I have said on many occasions that I do not understand chamber music, and frankly a wind quintet did not hold a lot of attraction for me.  To me the music probably would be delightful but uninspiring.  I decided to go because Anne had a class to go to, and I wanted to meet up with David and Vivien since we hadn’t done so for a while.  It turns out there is nothing wrong with delightful yet uninspiring; I enjoyed the concert much more than I expected.  And it was good to meet up with our old friends.  David also provided considerable insight into the program, as he usually does.

I have heard a couple of Carter’s works before, and (looking back at my notes) heard one that was composed when he was young (1944) and one when he was much older (1996).  I found the first one quite enjoyable and the second one out of my reach.  Today’s piece was written during his “early period,” and indeed I enjoyed it.  In any case, one can only complicate things so much with five instruments.  There are only two movements: Allegretto and Allegro giocoso.

Kramer-Johansen then came to the podium to talk a bit about the first half of the program.  He described the Carter work as a great appetizer which I actually thought did the work a little injustice.  He then talked a bit about the Reicha piece.  I had never heard of Reicha before, and Wikipedia has a listing of his compositions that ends with Op. 107.  Op. 88 itself consists of six quintets.  In my (and no doubt many others’) defense, he was a contemporary of Beethoven and probably was eclipsed by him.  Many people wouldn’t have heard of Salieri either if it were not for the plays and movie that portray him as a hater of Mozart.  Here is what little I have found out about Reicha (is it Anton?): born in Prague, lived in Paris most of his life, and a friend of Beethoven’s.

The quintet doesn’t have the complexity and degree of contrast of a Beethoven work, and sounds like it is from an earlier period.  It was a delight to listen to, though.  The movements are (i) Lento – Allegro moderato; (ii) Scherzo: Allegro; (iii) Andante grazioso; and (iv) Finale: Allegro molto.

After the intermission, the clarinetist Benjamin Fingland talked about the second half’s program.  The Bach piece actually started life as a violin work (BWV 1001?) and was transcribed by the composer into an organ piece to become BWV 539 (he also added a prelude to it.)  [This would imply the BWV numbers are not chronological.]  Mordechai Rechtman, a long time a bassoonist at the Israel Philharmonic, transcribed that into a quintet.

This was another delight.  I told David afterwards that I really appreciated how easy it was – with the different instruments – to follow the different contrapuntal lines in the composition.  When it is played on one instrument by a soloist, the soloist tries to get her fingers to work independently, and the listener tries to follow along and locate the different voices.  In this transcription, the listener can simply relax and enjoy the music and the structure without working very hard at it.

The Dorian Quintet was started in 1961 (at Tanglewood), and for its 40^th anniversary celebration it took a theme from the Reicha quintet (specifically its Andante grazioso movement) and asked five different composers to write a variation on it.  They only provided the key and the notes; no composer, no tempo, no dynamics.  Fingland relayed how the different composers reacted to the theme: one ridiculed it as being lightweight, one couldn’t make sense of it and decided to use the Dorian anagram “draino” as the title, one was so generous that he wrote four variations on it (even though only one was requested.)  Not everyone knew it was a Reicha theme.

In any case, in addition to the theme, these are the variations: (1) Con eleganza – Sir Richard Rodney Barrett (1936-2012); (2) Four Variations – George Perle (1915-2009); (3) Variation on a Reicha Theme – Billy Childs (b. 1957); (4) DRAINO VARIATION – Bruce Adolphe (b. 1955); and (5) Finale: Andante; Lento; Allegro – Lee Holby (1926-2011).

While the variations all sounded modern, there are enough of the theme fragments in them that the connection was reasonably obvious.  (And The Draino variations is appropriately titled.)  To the uninitiated – and that would include me – they could have all been written by the same composer.  As with modern music, the enjoyment is more on trying to analyze things than in the aesthetic appeal of the composition.  Given the rest of the program, I didn’t mind it at all.

I also came away happy that my scope of knowledge has been expanded a bit.  I don’t believe I had heard a wind quintet at all – and would have guessed English horn as the fifth instrument instead of the French horn (which is technically a brass instrument.)  I am also glad to hear Reicha for the first time.

The attendance wasn’t all that great.  Perhaps the threat of a tornado in the area kept people away?

New York Philharmonic – Alan Gilbert, conductor; Emanuel Ax, piano. June 20, 2013.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra (Seat MM105, $66.)

Program

Piano Concerto in D major, Hob. XVIII: 11 (1780-84) by Haydn (1732-1809).

Symphony No. 3 (2011; New York Premiere) by Christopher Rouse (b. 1949).

A Ring Journy, a Suite from Der Ring des Nibelungen (1848-76) by Wagner (1813-83) arr. Alan Gilbert, after Erich Leinsdorf.

One of the tickets for this concert was an exchange from an earlier event that Anne couldn’t make.  When I checked a couple of days prior, I noticed there were only very few seats left, so I went ahead and bought one in the rear of the orchestra section.  Anne had the seat in row T, and I had the seat in row MM.  The acoustics, it turned out, was quite okay.

One would usually expect Ax to do a Beethoven or a modern piece, but instead today he chose a rather straightforward and short composition by Haydn.  The most curious about this work is musicologists have not been able to determine when it was actually composed; the only thing that is “almost certain” is that it was the last keyboard composition by Haydn.  It is a delight to listen to, but I couldn’t tell if it was a great performance.  The three movements are Vivace, Un poco adagio, and Rondo all’Ungherese (Allegro assai.)

Christopher Rouse is finishing up his first year as composer-in-residence at the Philharmonic.  Today’s work was written before he took up this appointment, it was jointly commissioned by several orchestras; his Prospero’s Rooms was premiered by the New York Philharmonic in April 2013, and Symphony No. 4 will be performed in 2014.  In a remote sense he and I had some connection: he studied composition under Karel Husa (among others,) and I played in the orchestra that Husa directed; probably around the same time.  I usually groan when it comes to listening to a modern piece like this as more often than not they are completely beyond my grasp.

The composer did write a short description of how the work (with the tempo marking ♪=176 Theme and Variations) which helped a lot in following the overall plot (plan.)  It actually made the piece understandable and enjoyable.  A seat in the orchestra section did not offer a good view of all the instruments, thus I wasn’t able to tell the difference between a Chinese cymbal, a crash cymbal, and a suspended cymbal; nor that between a tam-tam and a tom-tom.

Rouse also made a connection between this work and Prokofiev’s second symphony, making the claim that he followed Prokofiev’s architecture, and that Prokofiev was influenced by Beethoven’s last piano sonata.  He also said there was little in the way of quoted passages from the Prokofiev piece.  On top of that, the second was one of the more obscure symphonies of Prokofiev’s.  All I can say is that if I was asked to link Rouse’s work with another composer, Prokofiev would be way down the list; and I suspect I still won’t get the connection if I had had listened to it.

After reading through the Program Notes a couple of times, I still don’t quite know what Leinsdorf or Gilbert did to generate this evening’s suite from the 15-hour Ring cycle.  That this is also billed as the premiere performance of the Ring puzzles me even further as Maazel had done a “Ring without Words” when he was leading the orchestra.

Be that as it may, when you condense 15 hours into 50 or so minutes, things can sound quite interesting; especially if you extract the nicer, singable tunes, and repeat each of them several times.  The excerpts work very well as music, but there is no continuity to the story.  Having sit through the cycle three times, I can claim some familiarity to the music and the story.  All I heard were various vignettes.  When you see the operas, you listen for the leitmotivs; while they do appear here and there in this suite, they sounded more accidental than intentional.  Maazel’s adaptation was more true to the original plot; it at least started and ended with the Rhine.  The snobbish in me would say the Gilbert piece was more accessible to your typical concert-goer.

Having said all that, it was still a very enjoyable experience.  There is considerable difference when the orchestra is on center stage, where it gets all the attention, compared to when it is down in the pit.  Also, there was no need to worry about drowning out the singers.

Our friend played the lead (of two) in his section for the Haydn piece, and was at the assistant principal’s place for the Rouse and Wagner pieces.  Good for him.  Also, there were nine double basses for both the Rouse and Wagner pieces, and six harps for the Wagner piece.

I did not get tickets for this concert when I did my annual subscription, thinking it wasn’t going to be that exciting.  Both Anne and I thought it was very enjoyable.

The New York Times review is glowing.  The reviewer made the “connection” that Ax and Rouse are respectively the artist- and composer-in-residence.

New York Philharmonic – Lionel Bringuier, conductor; Leonidas Kavakos, violin. June 14, 2013.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra (Seat T105, $72).

Program

L’Apprenti sorcier: Scherzo d’apres une ballade de Goethe (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Scherzo after a ballad of Goethe) (1897) by Dukas (1865-1935).

Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 63 (1935) by Prokofiev (1891-1953).

Galantai Tankoc (Dances of Galanta) (1933) by Kodaly (1882-1967).

Suite from L’oiseau de feu (The Firebird) by Stravinsky (1882-1971).

For a concert that held such promise, this was somewhat of a disappointment.

Let’s start with the first piece.  The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is always a crowd pleaser.  It is one of the few compositions where association with a specific story line is quite straightforward – thanks of course to the Disney film Fantasia.  While the orchestra sounded precise, it sounded flat.

Perhaps my lack of excitement about the piece could be attributed to my familiarity with it.  Nonetheless, deep inside I was beginning to suspect this was going to be one of those concerts where “everything was done correctly but it still wasn’t that great”. 

I expressed my disappointment at Batiashvili’s performance of Prokofiev’s first violin concerto and was looking for a better experience with the second.  While my prior experience with Kavakos was not all positive, I did expect him to have the technique to pull it off.  Indeed he put in a much more polished and solid performance, but it was by-and-large uninspired.  In the past Kavakos’s playing reminded me of someone practicing an etude, and he was not all that different today.  The brilliant technique couldn’t make up for the emotionally flat performance.

I did learn from the Playbill a few things about the concerto: Prokofiev still lived in Paris when he began writing this piece, although he would return to Russia soon; this concerto was written quite a few years after the first, which was published in 1917; like many other Russian composers, Prokofiev is considered a great orchestrator.

During our trip to Europe last November we drove from Vienna to Budapest (well, the tour operator did) and I don’t remember passing through the town of Galanta, where Kodaly spent seven years as a child.  An examination of a map shows that the town is quite far away from the road connecting the two capitals. The piece performed today certainly sounded Hungarian; it would take a very knowledgeable musicologist to tell that it is influenced by folk songs from this specific region.  The Playbill does quote Kodaly as saying he took the principal themes from a book of music “after several Gypsies from Galanta.”  The tempo markings in the Playbill are: Lento; Allegretto moderato; Allegro con moto, con grazioso; Allegro; and Allegro vivace.  This may lead one to believe there are five different dances.  If they are, they are played without breaks, and each of the dances is not quite confined to the corresponding tempo.

The program concluded with Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite.  It at least to some degree salvaged today’s performance.  Even the Commentator’s writeup provided a lot of new and interesting information, which I either didn’t know or had forgotten.  The original ballet music was written in 1910, and the suite is much simplified a five movements, with relatively simple descriptions: (I) The Firebird and its dance; variations of the Firebird; (II) The Princesses’ Round-Dance (Khorovod); (III) Infernal Dance of King Kahschei; (IV) Lullaby; and (V) Finale.

This is a loud piece of music where things got a bit crazy, especially during the Infernal Dance.  Poor Rebecca Young, she just had to keep putting on and taking off her earplugs.  We are beginning to worry if her hearing is beginning to deteriorate; we wish her well.

For some reason, the Program Notes stresses that each composer is a great orchestrator: “dazzling orchestration” for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice; “a master orchestrator” for Prokofiev; “brilliantly orchestrated modernism” for Kodaly; and “a great showpiece of orchestration” for The Firebird.  Which brings me to the conductor, a young fellow born in 1986.  He certainly has gone places already, finishing up a six-year stint with the Los Angeles Philharmonic as its resident conductor (that means he started when he was 20!)  He is also the chief conductor of Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra, and will be its music director starting in the 2014-2015 season.

Today’s concert started at 2 pm.  Since I had no idea if the return traffic would be bad for a Summer Friday, we took the train.

The New York Times review is very positive.  It does remind me that I have seen a couple of Bringuier’s performances before.

New York Philharmonic – Alan Gilbert, conductor; Lisa Batiashvili, violin. June 11, 2013.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra (Seat T104, $72).

Program

Concerto No. 1 for Violin and Orchestra in D major, Op. 19 (1917) by Prokofiev (1891-1953).

Il prigioniero (1944-48) by Dallapiccola (1904-75).

Cast in Order of Appearance in Il prigioniero: The mother – Patricia Racette, the prisoner – Gerald Finley, the jailer/grand inquisitor – Peter Hoare, first priest – William Ferguson, second priest – Sidney Outlaw, The Collegiate Chorale (Dan Saunders, music preparation.)

This is the New York Philharmonic premiere of this opera by Luigi Dallapiccola.  It is about the experience of a single prisoner during the Spanish Inquisition, but was meant to reflect the tumultuous times experienced by the composer during the second world war, during which he had to live in concealment in and around Florence because he was part Jewish.  There is no synopsis provided in the Playbill, and the story about the jailer giving the prisoner false hope is simple enough that I am not bothering with searching for one on the web.

A rather full orchestra was used for this performance, and the Instrumentation in the Program Notes contains a long list of different instruments.  It is too bad that our seats, while acoustically great, did not provide for a bird’s eye view of the stage; we were thus unable to find out what a “suspended cymbal” or a “cymbal attached to bass drum” looks like.

I always wonder if having the singers on the same stage as the orchestra would work without any amplification for the voices.  In this case we could hear the singing because everyone was shouting at the top of their lungs.  It must have been quite a strain for Finley singing the role of the prisoner, and he did a great job.

As vocal music the composition worked quite well.  Even though Dallapiccola composed on a 12-tone scale ala Schoenberg, I found the music quite easy to “understand” and liked its structure and texture.  As an opera it didn’t evoke the emotion that I expected.  While I could follow along since English subtitles were provided, I didn’t get the anguish that should be easily conveyed by the story.  The Collegiate Chorale must have about 100 people in it (roster actually has 120 names,) and it sounded great for the few moments it was called on to sing.  A small ensemble (20 according to Playbill) was also used.  From what I could tell, they were members of this larger chorale.  The individual artists sang in Italian, and the Chorale and Ensemble sang in Latin.  Question: what was there no translation from the Latin?

The best way to describe this experience: interesting.

Prokofiev’s first violin concerto is not as familiar to me as the second.  Given our seats, I expected a great experience.  And Batisshvili put in a good performance.  She met the technical challenges – and there were many – head on, with ease.  On the other hand, I found the sound a bit on the weak side, which is unexpected for a late-Stradivarius, and the whole performance emotionally flat.  I heard her performing the second concerto a few years back and really enjoyed it.  According to my notes, she is using a different violin (now the 1715 “ex-Joachim”, then a 1709 “Engleman”); perhaps that partially explains the difference?

Turns out later this week I will be hearing Prokofiev’s second violin concerto, to be performed by Leonidas Kavakos.  I wonder how it will compare.

Metropolitan Opera – Wagner’s Gotterdammerung. May 11, 2013.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center, Balcony (Seat A108, $122.50)

Conductor – Fabio Luisi; First Norn – Ronnita Miller, Second Norn – Michaela Martens, Third Norn – Heidi Melton, Brunnhilde – Deborah Voigt, Siegfried – Lars Cleveman, Gunther – Iain Paterson, Hagen – Hans-Peter Konig, Gutrune – Wendy Bryn Harmer, Waltraute – Karen Cargill, Alberich – Richard Paul Fink, Woglinde – Disella Larusdottir, Wellgunde – Jennifer Johnson Cano, Flosshilde – Renee Tatum.

Story.  See previous post.

This concludes the third Ring cycle for me.  Overall it has been a great experience, musically and emotionally.  The story makes more sense, the music makes more sense, and there is something full circle about how the story begins at the Rhine and ends at the same place.  The immolation and the destruction of Valhalla form a sad coda to the entire saga.  I continue to have problems with the 24-plank set, perhaps seeing it a third time would make more sense?  I tend to doubt it.  Of course many of my first impressions about the Ring change as I get to explore the operas further.

The last Gotterdammerung I saw had Katarina Dalayman singing the role of Brunnhilde.  I must say there is quite a bit of distinction between her and Voigt.  Voigt certainly sang with a lot more authority, although I am not sure her acting skills go beyond raising her two arms.  She did get on Grane the horse to go into the fire while Dalayman went in leading Grane by the reins.  And I thought there was more smoke coming off the pyre, and more breakage during the Valhalla destruction scene, compared with the last one I saw.  But these are minor comparisons in light of the overall experience.

To put things in perspective, Seattle Opera is putting on the Ring cycle again in August, and there is not a great desire on my part to go see it.

This opera also concludes the Met season during which I saw 14 performances.  It was overall a good season, even taking into account difficult ones like Parsifal.

I drove to Somerville, MA after the concert.  The Westside Highway was congested, but 11^th Ave had okay traffic, even with its many stop lights.  I got in around 10 pm.

Note added May 18, 2013.  Today I read this New York Times not-so-effusive article on the possible future of "the machine" and the next Met production of the ring.  Indeed the first intermission lasted about 15 minutes longer because they had to fix a glitch in the system.

Metropolitan Opera – Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites. May 9, 2013.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center, Balcony (Seat C109, $97.50).

Conductor – Louis Langree; The Chevalier de la Force – Paul Appleby, The Marquis – David Pittsinger, Blanche – Isabel Leonard, Thierry (a valet) – Eduardo Valdes, Madame de Croissy (the Prioress) – Felicity Palmer, Sister Constance – Erin Morley, Mother Marie – Elizabeth Bishop, Javelinot (a physician) – Paul Corona, Madame Lidoine (the new Prioress) – Patricia Racette, The Chaplain – Mark Schowalter.

Story.  Blanche de la Force joins the nunnery as a novice because she lives in fear.  While in the nunnery she gets to know another novice Sister Constance.  The Prioress Madame de Croissy dies at the age of 59; she breaks down near her moment of death, which doesn’t help Blanche’s problem with fear.  The nuns get caught up in the French Revolution.  When they cast a secret ballot to see if they have a unanimous vow of martyrdom, Blanche is the only one who casts a negative vote.  She soon changes her mind and joins in the vow.  When the nuns are condemned as enemies of the Revolution, Blanche is in hiding.  However, when the nuns go to the guillotine Blanche joins them.

I knew very little about the story before I showed up for this opera.  I was just too caught up with the Ring to worry about it.  I did remember the basic outline: the Carmelite nuns were forced to give up their property during the French Revolution, but instead of acquiescing to the demand they went to the guillotine instead.  The “story” I wrote above was a summary of what I actually saw, the two major surprises: a lot of the opera was just devoted to everyday life inside a convent, while the nuns seemed to be engaged in deep philosophical discussions, I lacked the insight to understand the significance of what they were talking about.  The second surprise was this issue about the property was brought up only briefly, in the opera the nuns were condemned for being enemies of the state and not supporting the revolution.

I am trying to do this writeup tonight (Friday, a day after the opera) since I will be seeing Gotterdammerung tomorrow and don’t want to leave this hanging.  I will go back and read up on the Playbill later; I hope it will provide more insight into the opera.  If it does, I will make additional entries to this blog.

I know little about Poulenc.  Having more than 10 hours of Wagner the previous days, Poulenc certainly sounded very different.  Different doesn’t mean better, or easier to understand, though.  One thing I can say for sure, leitmotifs were not used.  He started this opera in 1953.

Stage setting is on the traditional side.  The beginning was dramatic enough, when the curtain was raised we saw a large cross on the ground, and the nuns (about 14 of them) were prostrate with their arms spread out.  As the music progressed, they all got up and left the scene.  Various backdrops and props were moved in and out for the different scenes such as the home of the de la Forcves, the convent, the chapel, a prison, and, for the last scene of Place de la Revolution where the executions took place.  The executions were carried out one by way (I lost count, perhaps 15 or so in total.)  The music was such that they didn’t feel monotonous, although the shock value did wear off as the numbers went up.  For those curious as to what happened: the nuns would walk through a curtain and you would hear the “swish” sound of a guillotine coming down.

Another noteworthy scene is the death of the Prioress.  She evidently died a rather painful death, and – despite the view of the novices – young.  She was calm and went about blessing various people around her.  However, she eventually lost her cool and began screaming and protesting why she was to die.  One is led to wonder whether she lost her faith also.

If you also take into account the unfairness of why the nuns got executed, you may reasonably ask is Poulenc trying to raise the question of “does God care?” without actually asking the question.

Since I am playing analyst (which I hate in others), I can also comment that one can also understand the opera at two levels.  On the grand level there is this chaos and mayhem associated with the French Revolution, with many innocent people caught up for no good reason.  On a personal level one can also talk about how Blanche’s fate is tied up in this, with her transforming from a fearful person to one who willingly goes to her death.

I wonder how much of this I will read in the Playbill.  Or do the commentators have additional insights.

Anne couldn’t make this because of her baby-sitting duties, so I asked Chung Shu to go along.  We had a simple meal at Europan before the opera.

The New York Times review is all positive.  It also contains a few interesting facts.  The Prioress (who dies) is sung by Felicity Palmer who is 69 years old.  Also, Elizabeth Bishop substituted for Stephanie Blythe as Fricka in Das Rheingold: no wonder her name is so familiar.

Metropolitan Opera – Wagner’s Siegfried. May 8, 2013.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center, Balcony (Seat A106, $122.50).

Conductor – Fabio Luisi; Mime – Robert Brubaker, Siegfried – Lars Cleveman, The Wanderer – Greer Grimsley, Alberich – Richard Paul Fink, Fafner – Hans-Peter Konig, The Forest Bird – Lisette Oropesa, Erda – Meredith Arwady, Brunnhilde – Deborah Voight.

Story.  See previous post.

There is now little doubt, Wagner grows on you.  At least the Ring does.  My recollection of my previous two encounters with Siegfried was that it was just this side of tolerable, with Siegfried not being a particular sympathetic character.

My impression today was completely different.  I found I was quite invested in the welfare of this character, and was quite engaged with his growing up process, from a young kid who didn’t know better than bringing a bear home, to someone who exulted in falling in love with Brunnhilde.

Three male voices were all that was heard in the Act I: Mime, Siegfried, and the Wanderer (Wotan.)  While there was not much melody in the singing, there was quite a bit of drama, with a dash of comedy thrown in.  Siegfried was particularly impressive, and I especially like the “anvil song” during which he filed down Nothung and remade it.

Having seen this production last year, I knew where to look for Brunnhilde when the mountaintop scene first appeared.  At the end of Walkure, Brunnhilde was lying upside down, this time she turned around and was in a more comfortable position.  Even knowing where to look, and with the use of binoculars, she was still a bit difficult to pick out.

I did learn a few additional things.  One is that in Die Walkure the Nothung broke when hit by the spear.  The “new” Nothung, made by Siegfried from melting down the broken sword, broke Wotan’s spear.  The other is that the dragon’s blood allowed Siegfried to understand the forest bird.  Third is that Wotan’s limitation was becoming more and more apparent.  Finally, Wagner at one point was convinced that this would be his most popular work.  On that point I am quite sure Wagner got it wrong.

While I still have problem telling what a particular leitmotif represents, by now a lot of them are quite familiar.

In any case, there is still a lot to be learned.  This cycle will end on Saturday.

Metropolitan Opera – Wagner’s Die Walkure. May 6, 2013.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center, Family Circle (Seat G208, $57.50).

Conductor – Fabio Luisi; Siegmund – Simon O’Neill, Sieglinde – Martina Serafin, Hunding – Hans-Peter Konig, Wotan – Greer Grimsley, Brunnhilde – Deborah Voight, Fricka – Stephanie Blythe, Gerhilde – Deborah Mayer, Helmwige – Molly Fillmore, Waltraute – Jennifer Johnson Cano, Schwertleite – Mary Phillips, Ortlinde – Wendy Bryn Harmer, Sigrune – Eve Gigliotti, Grimgerde – Mary Ann McCormick, Rossweisse – Rebecca Ringle.

Story.  See previous post.

Today I drove in, and it was certainly more leisurely as traffic was light during non-rush hours.

As I was hoping, I did get into the performance.  First, the singing was uniformly good.  While the beginning half of Act I was a bit slow for my taste, the three principal singers all did a great job.  I also found myself emotionally invested in many parts of the story, and how inexorably the plot developed.   There were quite a few of these scenes, such as the one where Brunnhilde and Siegmund "talked" while Sieglinde was asleep.  Also, the story made more sense to me this fourth time around.

Today’s seat was a row up and a little bit to the side of my seat on Saturday.  Perhaps because of that, or because the cast is different, the music sounded much clearer.  Even Wotan, whose performance in Das Rheingold I panned a bit, did quite okay.  And Stephanie Blythe returned from her illness and sang brilliantly as Fricka.

As I was going through my files, I noticed that Grimsley also sang the role of Wotan at the first Ring cycle I attended, in Seattle.  I think he even dressed in a similar fashion.  One noticeable difference is the eye-patch was worn on his left eye today, and on his right during the Seattle run.  (I know this because I kept a copy of the Seattle program with Wotan’s pictures in it.)

At the Act 2 curtain call Blythe walked out with a cane in her hand.  She had a lot of trouble walking.  I wish her well.

In the past I found Siegfried to be a bit on the mundane side.  Will Wednesday’s performance also change my view?

I found this interesting video on Youtube:  The Ring in 2.5 Minutes.  Some think it is sacrilegious to do something like that.  I thought it is very helpful for the uninitiated.  It actually has a very good synopsis of the plot, and includes many of the leitmotifs.

Metropolitan Opera – Wagner’s Das Rheingold. May 4, 2013.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center, Family Circle (Seat F108, $57.50).

Conductor – Fabio Luisi; Woglinde – Disella Larusdottir, Wellgunde – Jennifer Johnson Cano, Flosshilde – Renee Tatum, Alberich – Richard Paul Fink, Fricka – Elizabeth Bishop, Wotan – Greer Grimsley, Freia – Wendy Bryn Harmer, Fasolt – Franz-Joseph Selig, Fafner – Hans-Peter Konig, Froh – Richard Cox, Donner –Dwayne Croft, Loge – Stefan Margita, Mime – Robert Brubaker, Erda – Meredith Arwady.

Story.  See previous post.

I am “home alone” for a couple of weeks, so when I saw that reasonable priced seats were still available for the Ring cycles, I bought the tickets to the four performances that will constitute the last of the Met three cycles this season.  (The entire order with seats in Family Circle and Balcony came to less than $400.)  As part of our subscription I will also be going to “Dialogues des Carmiletes” this Thursday, making it five operas in eight days.  It is going to be interesting to see how this will work out.

I saw a complete Ring cycle in Seattle during the summer of 2009, after which I wondered if I would ever do it again.  When the new Met production came out, I also managed to see all four operas, although not in one sitting, nor the same order.  My overall reaction was generally much more positive.

The insert in the Playbill said Stephanie Blythe was ill and would be replaced by Elizabeth Bishop.  Blythe is one of the names I recognize, and she usually does very well, so I was somewhat disappointed.  At the end I think Bishop filled that role very well.  The Met’s website shows Blythe as Fricka for this evening’s Die Walkure.

My plan for this series of blogs is to simply to record “new” findings about the operas; we will see if I succeed.  Of course these findings have been around for a long time, it is just that I can only absorb so much new information at one sitting.

My awareness that the operas were written in reverse order was only partially correct.  Per the Playbill, only the lyrics (poems as Wagner called them) were written that way, the music was composed in the order the stories unfold.

Thanks to the Playbill, I also got to appreciate how the entire opera begins with an E-flat major chord.  The good news is now I am also beginning to recognize more of the leitmotifs.  To my disappointment, the acoustics for my seat half-way up the Family Circle wasn’t as good as I expected; oftentimes the singers were overwhelmed by the orchestra.  Nonetheless, most of them did well.  An exception would be Grimsley in the role of Wotan: his voice was on the weak side.

My recollection of the (now not so) new set was that it was put to some use in the first opera but became more and more of a projection screen in subsequence episodes.  My reaction this evening was even in this opera it was not used that much.  Thus the longer term verdict from me is getting to be less positive.

We shall see how things go, starting with this evening’s Die Walkure.  As I type this (Monday May 6) I am actually quite looking forward to them.

Since I was by myself, I took the train in.  When people were about to go into the auditorium, they were told that there would be no intermissions for this 2 ½ hour opera.  So a lot of them turned around to hit the washroom.  Perhaps because of that, the opera started about 10 minutes late, and didn’t end until 10:45 pm.  I was in a middle seat and didn’t want to run out during curtain call, so I didn’t get to the subway until about 10:55 pm.  Good thing the train came in about two minutes, so I managed to catch the 11:07 pm train back to NJ instead of having to wait another hour.  (For the record, the subway ride took 6 minutes; my walk up from NY Penn earlier that evening took 45 minutes because of the crowds.)  I was all sweaty from the running, though.  I plan to drive in tonight.