Sydney Symphony Orchestra – Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor; Garrick Ohlsson, piano. February 10, 2016.

Concert Hall at Sydney Opera House.  Circle (Seat Q19, A$119.)

Program: Ashkenazy’s Beethoven Celebration – Beethoven Triumphant

Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat, Op. 73 (Emperor).

Symphony No. 4 in B flat, Op. 60.

This is our third concert during our trip, and the second all-Beethoven program.  Tim and Whitney also came along.  I will leave Sydney before the third Beethoven program starts, and won’t be able to see it.  After hearing four of his symphonies, I already have them confused in my mind.  After we got back to the apartment we are sharing this week, Tim put on the 4^th Symphony again, and I wasn’t quite sure what it was.  A bit embarrassing, and a bit worrisome.  And that is one reason why I am staying up trying to record my thoughts on the performance, before I forget them.

We have heard Ohlsson several times before, and I always think of him as a solid technician not given to emotional flourishes.  Those attributes should serve him well with the Emperor, given its technical demands and grandiose design.  Ohlsson came through as he made the whole thing look easy.  While it may not be as frequent as Tchaikovsky, Beethoven tends to let the same themes permeate throughout the movement.  Played well, the concerto takes the audience on a majestic ride along the way; otherwise it may sound like a lot of repetitions.  To me there are times the piece sounded repetitious.  No doubt the complaint of a child during the performance contributed a bit to my lack of focus; that’s just too bad.

Garrick Ohlsson at curtain call.  Presenting a bouquet to the artist seems to be a common practice, except in the US.

The three movements of the concerto are Allegro; Adagio un poco mosso – Rondo (Allegro).  There was no break between the second and the third movements.  After the first movement there was a long pause so late-comers could be seated, which also disrupted the flow of the piece.

We also attended the pre-concert talk, given by SSO’s assistant conductor Toby Thatcher.  There were several interesting things he said (some may be reminders).  Beethoven had started on his fifth symphony when the commission for a new symphony came in, and that’s how the fourth was born.  The second movement’s introductory piano notes are the same as a tune in West Side Story – Anne got that while listening to the performance, I didn’t.  He also mentioned for those who think Beethoven can’t write a tune, Symphony No. 4 would be a counterexample.  I don’t think Beethoven had any problems with writing melodies, but if I did, I wouldn’t use this symphony to disprove it.  For some reason the audience chose to applaud after every movement.  A similar thing happened before when this symphony was played in New York, perhaps there is a tradition I didn't know about?

It was a delightful symphony.  For one that is supposedly not played that often, I have heard it quite a few times the last few years.  Tim claims this is his favorite Beethoven symphony.  The four movements are Adagio – Allegro vivace, Adagio, Allegro vivace – Trio (Un poco meno allegro), and Allegro ma non troppo.

A couple of remarks about the orchestra.  First, for all the complaints about New York Philharmonic's horn section (usually about how loud it is,) it is way better than the unsteady and unrefined horns we saw tonight.  Also, the principal bassoon is a guest, I suppose that means he is here auditioning for the job.  I would suggest the orchestra casts its net a bit wider.

We again stopped by Burger King to buy a sandwich to eat on the way home.

Opera Australia – Bizet’s The Pearlfishers. February 9, 2016.

Joan Sutherland theatre, Sydney Opera House.  Circle (Seat L32, A$99).

Story.  See previous post.

Conductor – Guillaume Tourniaire; Zurga – Jose Carbo, Nadir – Pavol Breslik, Nourabad – Daniel Sumegi, Leila – Ekaterina Siurina.

We saw a Met production of this opera about 3 weeks ago, and thought it would be interesting to see this in Sydney and compare the two, perhaps determining if my saying “they should go out more” has any truth to it or is just what a snob would say.

I saw this in Sydney more than 10 years ago (before my blogging days).  In discussions with Wendy – my nephew’s wife – who saw a different performance during the same season, we were both puzzled by the implied homosexual relationship between Zurga and Nadir.  Anne and I went to the pre-concert talk, by one of Opera Australia’s directors (not for this performance), who confirmed that there were more layers in the love triangle in the plot for the last production.  For this season they used the version believed to be closest to Bizet’s original, and that nuance would not be there.  That at least explained my puzzlement when I was seeing the Met performance.

The other point the speaker bragged about was that the Pearlfishers has been in OA’s standard repertory for the last 30 to 40 years while the Met has it on this season after about 100 years.  I have to give credit to the choice of operas by OA.  We will see Luisa Miller on Thursday, and I have not seen it performed anywhere else.  There are other operas that I first got to see in Sydney also: The Turk in Italy, or La Sonnambula, for instance.

Being the first doesn’t necessarily mean being the best, however.  I will get to the details later, but in nearly every aspect this performance fell short of the one at the Met.  I often joke that I am not a food connoisseur, and thus assign grades of B+ to the best and B- to the worst.  With music I can assign a grade of wider range – subjective, no doubt.  This is a B+ to the Met’s A.

This was a new production, and it was clear from the start that the design team wasn’t nearly as imaginative as the team at the Met.  Symmetry seems to be a big deal here, with all three sceneries (village with temple, temple close up, and Zurga’s study) neatly laid out.  And one would be hard pressed to say this is a fishing village.  There is a glimpse of an ocean in the background, but the “storm” is nothing more than some lighting/lightening flashes.

I do wonder if opera house managers talk to one another.  One would think they know their counterparts’ plans, and perhaps could discussion joint productions a little.

The performance started on an unsteady note, my remark to Anne was everything seemed a bit off.  Since this was already the seventh (if I heard correctly) time, I thought I was in for disappointment; indeed after the famous duet I had an “is that it” feeling.  As in the Met performance, the violin passage introducing Leila was botched.  Things improved a lot as the show went on, I especially enjoyed Nadir’s solo towards the end of Act 1.  Nadir ended up doing quite well, one problem was his voice was weak in comparison to Leila, so he was overwhelmed in some of the duet passages.  Zurga was a solid performer.  The orchestra, however, never came to its own and sounded just like an uncertain accompanist most of the time.  Not for lack of trying on the conductor’s part, his movements were among the most exaggerated I have come across.

As I mentioned before, we got to the venue early to hear a talk on the opera.  Perhaps I can be a bit boastful and say I knew most of what the speaker had to say, with the exception of the principals for tonight’s performance – not having bought the program, I knew nothing about any of the artists.  In this opera the priest’s role is divided into two: a mercenary part who takes in money (and does the singing), and a religious part represented by a guru-like character.  I don’t understand it, and I am sure it added at best a touch of silliness to the story.

There were enough empty seats for this performance that we managed to move up one row, and I occupied Seat K28 for the duration.

Curtain with set for Act 3 in the background.  The little blue patch seen through the arch is the ocean.

In the rush to get to the venue, we only had time for a sandwich between the two of us.  On our way back we shared a Whopper meal as we walked back to Walsh Bay.

Sydney Symphony Orchestra – Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor. February 6, 2016.

Concert Hall at Sydney Opera House.  Circle (Seat W34, A$91.50).

Program: Ashkenazy’s Beethoven Celebration – Beethoven Alive

Symphony No. 1 in C, Op. 21

Symphony No. 8 in F, Op. 93

Symphony No. 7 in A, Op. 92

We will be in Sydney for about two weeks.  During this time Ashkenazy, who used to lead the SSO, will be conducting a series of three all-Beethoven concerts.  We had already bought tickets for the second program (Emperor Concerto and Symphony No. 4), and the last in the series will happen after we return to New Jersey.  Today’s concert was the day after we arrived at Sydney, and I wasn’t sure Anne and I would be in any shape to go.  Turns out we would end up spending most of the morning in this part of town, so Anne and I decided to walk to the Opera House and see if any tickets were available.  Not wanting to pay A$145 per ticket, we got non-adjacent seats for A$89 each (plus a A$5 service charge.)  Anne had a seat in Row Y, which is the last row in the hall.

The acoustics were actually very good.  While the music sounded distant, by-and-large we could hear the individual parts clearly.  Today’s concert was also well-attended, there were only scattered empty seats here or there.

For the record, the movements of the symphonies are: Symphony 1 (i) Adagio molto – Allegro con brio, (ii) Andante cantabile con moto, (iii) Menuetto (Allegro molto e vivace), and (iv) Adagio – Allegro molto e vivace; Symphony 8 (i) Allegro vivace e con brio, (ii) Allegretto scherzando, (iii) Tempo di menuetto, (iv) Allegro vivace; Symphony 7 (i) Poco sostenuto – Vivace, (ii) Allegretto, (iii) Presto, (v) Allegro con brio.

The instrumentation for all three symphonies were identical (or very similar), although smaller string sections were used in Symphony No.1 (4 basses instead of 6, for instance.)

My first reaction is three Beethoven symphonies in one concert works out much better than three Mozart symphonies.  I had a much easier time with focusing today than I remember of the one New York Phil all-Mozart concert, despite my jet-lagged state.

I have observed multiple times before that Beethoven’s first symphony has a lot of Mozart elements in it: the relatively simple structure, the many repeated notes are two obvious examples.  Symphonies 7 and 8 were composed at around the same time (1812), and are more readily identified as “mature” Beethoven.  Having the three of them in the same program drives home the contrast.

The other thing that was somewhat surprising is how similar the three third movements sounded like.  As far as I could tell, they were all in Minuet and Trio format, played at a brisk pace.  Each of them when played as part of one symphony would sound fresh enough to feel like a completely different invention.

While all three symphonies are performed often enough that I am quite familiar with them, the second movement of the 7^th is well-known from its use in the film Immortal Beloved.  I have always thought of that as a dirge that ends on a (relatively) positive note.  The Program Notes, however, makes the interesting case that this movement, being Allegretto, is “post-funeral” and is elevated to a dream-like consciousness, freed of earthly shackles.

Another interesting aspect about the 7^th I learned from the Program Notes is Beethoven’s treatment of harmony, where keys of A, C and F are in contention.  Having read this before hearing the music, I tried to see how much of the “contention” I could get.  Indeed I could sense that different keys were at play here, I couldn’t tell if the “foreign” ones were C or F.  I have a reasonably good ear, but I can’t tell if C and F were the ones trying to elbow in the music or not.

Overall this was a very enjoyable concert, although I thought the SSO didn’t quite get to its usual level of excellence: among other things, the horns were sometimes unsteady, and the strings could be more together.  The ovation given afterwards was heart-felt and prolonged.

I knew Ashkenazy as a pianist, and indeed owned a few CDs with him as the solo piano.  Evidently he has been conducting for about 30 years.  He is in general quite effective, often economical with his actions.

We are staying in Walsh Bay, a short walk to the Opera House.  Afterwards we met up with Tim and Whitney – also visiting Sydney – and went down to my sister’s place to have a dinner with our extended families.

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra – Jacques Lacombe, conductor. January 30, 2016.

Prudential Hall at NJPAC, Newark, NJ.  Tier 2 (Seat B101, $37.60).

Program.  Winter Festival: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (published 1600) by Shakespeare (1564-1616).

Incidental Music from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (overture 1826, balance 1843) by Mendelssohn (1809-1847).

Artists

The Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey, Bonnie J. Monte, director.

Montclair State University Prima Voce, Heather J. Buchanan, director.

Karen Levandoski, soprano; Lisa Andreacchi, mezzo-soprano.

Story.  The Program Notes divides the story into three section.  (I) The Royals and the Lovers.  This is the story about Thesus (Duke of Athens) and Hippolyta (Queen of Amazon) who are about to get married.  Separately, Hermia’s father Egeus wants her to marry Demetrius.  Hermia loves Lysander and wants to elope with her, and Helena loves Demetrius.  The Fairies play a trick and all the relationships get mixed up.  Eventually Puck, henchman for Oberon the King of Fairies, restores the relationships, and all three couples get married.  (II) The Mechanicals.  Several workers of Athens, led by Peter Quince, want to perform for the Duke on his wedding day.  When they rehearse in the woods, the Fairies also play a plank on them, with Puck replacing Nick Bottom’s head with that of a donkey.  Titania, Queen of the Fairy, awakes and, through a spell cast by Oberon, falls in love with Bottom.  They are eventually released from their spells, with Bottom thinking it was only a dream.  The Mechanicals perform the play for the Duke and the Duchess.  (III) The Fairies.  Titania and Oberon argue because Titania refuses to give Oberon a changeling boy.  This causes Oberon to cast a spell on Titania which causes her to fall in love with the donkey-headed Bottom, asking her fairies to wait on him.  Oberon takes possession of the changeling, and releases Titania from the spell.  They also go to the wedding.

I got tickets to this concert because I couldn’t make one I already had tickets for, and I was running out of available concerts (and free days) to switch to.  And given our recent situation (travel, and staying in Jersey City a lot), I didn’t have time to find out what the concert was about.  All I knew was it was something about Midsummer Night’s Dream, as part of NJ Symphony’s Winter Festival.

What we read in the Program Notes certainly was quite interesting.  This is going to be an abridged version of Shakespeare’s play performed together with Mendelssohn’s music.  The Program Notes has one of the most sensible synopsis I have read about the play, of course that the three storylines are connected and intertwined in the play makes following along a bit difficult.  Add to this the difficulty I have understanding Shakespearean English, I could only grasp so much of the story, luckily enough that I had a general idea of what was going on.

Mendelssohn first wrote the overture when he was 17, and he completed the rest another 17 years later.  It would be interesting to see how Mendelssohn matured in the intervening years, but to me there wasn’t much of a “style” change at all (of course he could have revised his overture.)

Most of the time the orchestra was quiet when there was dialogue, and vice versa – although there are some occasional exceptions.  Since the orchestra took up most of the stage, the actors only had a “stage” with a 10-foot depth to work with (it’s wide enough, of course.)  There wasn’t much scenery (a couple of benches, a make-shift curtain), but the actors did wear costumes.  The actors wore mikes, our being in Tier 2 sometimes made it difficult to tell who was doing the speaking.

Although I really can’t assess how well the play went, nor could I listen to the orchestra attentively with all the action on stage, this was an overall pleasant experience.  Calling this a new art form may be too much, as both the music and play (perhaps too abridged) are standard repertoire.  The Program Notes doesn’t quite know what to call it either: “meld” and “artistic product” are two terms used to describe it.

The event was sparsely attended, which was too bad.  Out of the 10 or rows in tier 2, there were only enough people to fill two.  To be fair (to the empty seats?), we weren't planning to go originally either.  With an intermission, the concert lasted 2 ½ hours.

New York Philharmonic – Juanjo Mena, conductor; James Ehnes, violin. January 27, 2016.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat U108, $69.50.)

Program

Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61 (1806) by Beethoven (1770-1827).

Symphony No. 6 in A major (1879-81, ed. L. Nowak, 1952) by Bruckner (1824-96).

The first thing one notices about the program is its length.  A 45-minute first half, and a full hour for the second half.  While it doesn’t come close to the length of most operas, it is still a program that requires considerable stamina, both of the artists and of the audience.

In reading the Playbill, I found out two things about the Beethoven violin concerto that I didn’t know before.  One is that Beethoven actually transcribed it into a piano concerto a year after the concerto’s premiere, the other is that Beethoven actually studied the violin and was an orchestral violist.

To me the most amazing part about the concerto is how a brilliant composition was achieved with mostly scales and arpeggios.  The elegantly dressed (black tie formal) Ehnes - with his erect stance, attacking the piece with great precision – would be how one would envision a performance of the concerto.  Overall it was a good experience, although there were a few intonation problems, quite inexplicable as they occurred during the relatively slow passages.  Otherwise he had no problems with the technique required, including the many fast double stop passages.  His violin (the “Marsick” Stradivarius of 1715) makes a good sound, although it didn’t carry as well as I thought most Strads would, and we were in the middle of the orchestral section.

A Bruckner Symphony asks a lot of the orchestra and the audience.  Today it was especially so since we just sat through a long violin concerto.  The roughly 1 hour long piece consists of four movements (i) Majestos (Majestic); (ii) Adagio: Sehr feierlich (very solemn); (iii) Scherzo: Nicht schnell (Not fast) – Trio: Langsam (Slow); and (iv) Finale: Bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell (Moving, but not too fast.)  The movements are approximately 15, 20, 10 and 15 minutes in length.

My encounter with Bruckner has been limited, and this is the first time I heard this relatively obscure sixth symphony.  While it has definite Bruckner elements (think Philip Glass’s slow build up but with a much richer texture), I must say I would have a hard time identifying as Bruckner other than by a process of elimination (not Beethoven, not Brahms, not Dvorak, etc.)

The other interesting aspect of Bruckner is that his works were subject to extensive revisions, many times by others.  It is generally agreed that this symphony exists only one authentic manuscript (to quite the Program Notes.)

I still remember how impressed I was when I heard Zubin Mehta’s performance of Bruckner’s 8^th.  This one did not nearly rise to that level.  While tonight’s music was enjoyable, I couldn’t quite get the story behind it.  I last listened to this symphony three years ago (also the last series by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Eschenbach) and characterized it as “very loud.”  While tonight’s doesn’t fall into that category, it is still amazing the sound one could achieve with a rather traditional ensemble – the timpani is the only percussion.

Overall I felt this was a good concert, though not an inspired one.  I do wonder if the length of the program asks too much of everyone involved, though.  We saw Mena conduct a year ago, interestingly I also considered that concerto one that didn’t quite live up to its full potential.

The New York Timesreview was unusal in that the reviewer compares this concert with a concert at Carnegie Hall by the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Nezet-Sequin.  While the review about the Philharmonic was mostly positive, it pales in comparison to what the reviewer thought of Philadelphia.  Oh well …

Earlier today, I received an email announcement that Jaap van Zweden will be the orchestra’s next music director, succeeding Alan Gilbert.  Van Zweden currently leads both the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Dallas Symphony.  I wonder if he would relinquish both posts to take up this new one.

Orchestre National de France – Daniele Gatti, conductor; Alexandre Tharaud, piano. January 24, 2016.

Symphony Hall, Boston.  Orchestra (Seat CC33, $71.50).

Program

Prelude a lapres-midi d’un faune by Claude Debussy.

Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K.488 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Symphony No. 5, Op. 64 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

We decided to come up to Boston for our granddaughter’s birthday after our Hong Kong trip.  I looked around and found discount tickets on Goldstar for this concert.  It would be interesting to see a new orchestra, and to visit Symphony Hall again.  After church we had lunch with the Tsai’s before Joe dropped us off at the venue.

The short Debussy piece put the concert on a good footing.  Our seats did not afford us views of the back of the orchestra, but the soloist came through nice and clear.  Program Notes on this piece keep talking about a ballet associated with the music, but I have trouble picturing what it would be like, other than a fawn jumping around on a meadow as it blows on a pan flute.

The Mozart concerto was pleasant to listen to, with a good give-and-take between the soloist and the orchestra.  As usual, I can’t tell if this is a “good” or a “great” performance.  The interesting thing is both the soloist and the conductor needed the music in front of them.  (Gatti didn’t need the score for the other two pieces.)  The three movements are Allegro, Adagio, and Allegro assai.

In my prior encounters with Tchaikovsky’s Fifth I have come away with different feelings: gloom and doom at times, a ray of home at other times.  Today’s performance is more in the latter category.  While this was competently performed, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, it wasn’t quite up to the standard of my last two, conducted by Blomstedt and Dudamel.

The programming is a bit of a head-scratcher.  Of course all three are popular pieces for the concert stage, but I can’t tell how they belong together.  And for a touring French orchestra, one might reasonably expect the program would have a heavy French tilt; well, the soloist was French.

Gatti is Italian, and seems to be on his way up (if he isn’t there already.)  His next appointment is with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.  His movements are generally economical, at times imperceptible, yet he managed to keep the musicians together.  Most of the time anyway, things got a bit wild towards the end of the Tchaikovsky piece, which may be impossible to do anyway.

Perhaps it was the snow – NJ was hit hard, Boston had about half a foot – attendance was not great (80%, maybe?)  Anne noticed that her former colleague, now CEO of a startup biotech company, is a sponsor of this Celebrity Series.

New York City Opera Renaissance – Puccini’s Tosca. January 21, 2016.

Rose Hall at Jazz at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat A109, $85.50).

Conductor – Pacien Mazzagatti; Tosca – Latonia Moore, Cavaradossi – Raffaele Abete, Scarpia – Carlo Guelfi, Angelottiii – Christopher Job.

Musica Sacra, Kent Tritle, conductor

Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Dianne Berkun Menaker, Artistic Director

About 10 days ago I got an email from NYCO Renaissance announcing that NYCO had come out of bankruptcy (about 3 years ago) and it would be staging Tosca later that month.  They were also offering half price tickets.  Since the start time was a bit early at 7 pm, Anne couldn’t make it.

The announcement made a big deal out of the production set and costumes would hark back to the premiere of the opera in Rome in 1900.  Indeed when the curtain first opened, the audience applauded as it was greeted by a rather elaborate set depicting the interior of a cathedral.  On closer inspection, many corners seemed to have been cut: the walls shook when people walked on them, the water colors were hastily done; nonetheless, this was not the typical austere staging that I was expecting.  The costumes were also period, although they looked more French than Italian – of course the setting was the Napoleonic era, so perhaps the French were everywhere.

The auditorium was quite small, seating around 1100 people, and to my disappointment was still sparsely occupied at 5 minutes to curtain.  When I discovered that my seat in the first row, I was tempted to get one of the many empty seats, but then decided it might be fun to be up close.  Turns out it was also in the center, I could have easily reached the conductor’s head.  I had a great view of the action on stage; the downside is I had to try hard not to make a sound.  The other thing I noticed was people were quite well dressed: many suits and ties.

To this amateur music critic, the performance was uniformly excellent.  Being close to the stage helped, and the small auditorium certain made acoustics a non-issue.

The comedic nature of the opera is often overlooked as the audience anticipates the deaths that are to come.  To their credit the artists made the audience laugh on many occasions, I chuckled when Cavaradossi, at Tosca’s insistence, dabbed dark paint on the eyes of the portrait he was working on.  One other thing of note was the execution was carried out with a single pistol, instead of the oft-employed firing squad.  Actually that would make the whole “fake scene” more believable.  Come to think of it, the Tosca we saw in Australia also used a pistol, although in that case the strange staging was the most prominent aspect.

The singing was good.  Moore had sung several roles at the Met, and she certainly had a beautiful and strong voice.  With a permanent scrawl on her face, her acting skills could use some coaching.  “Visse arte” usually starts in a wistful manner; she started out forte and ended fortissimo.  It actually worked as the Act ends with Tosca stabbing Scarpia to death.  The other principals all did a great job.  Scarpia could have been more sinister, though.

We saw a Met production a few months back, and in my opinion there isn’t that much daylight separating the two.  The only noticeable different is Tosca leapt out of a tower in full view in the Met performance.  I will look for a review later, but I would characterize this a success (if attendance isn’t a factor in the evaluation.)  I do wonder if it is wise to throw so much money into this, given the precarious financial situation the company no doubt is in.  Of course, if this doesn’t go well, then there is no future anyway.

The review in the New York Times, with its “wait-and-see” attitude, doesn’t bode well for this renaissance.  The reviewer also had a lot to say about the singers (different cast) and the conductor.  He obvious approaches opera differently than I do.

I got to Time Warner quite late, and the long lines at Whole Food Market meant I had only time for a sandwich.  Given the short intermissions, I was back in Jersey City at around 10:30 pm.

Metropolitan Opera – Bizet’s Les Pecheurs de Perles. January 20, 2016.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.  Balcony (Seat B114, $147.50.)

Story.  Zurga is elected the leader of his fishing village.  His childhood friend Nadir returns and they renew their friendship.  The two had a fallout because they fell in love with the same Hindu priestess.  Leila, whose identity is hidden behind a veil, comes to the village to help calm the seas.  Nadir recognizes Leila as the priestess he used to love, and the two meet illicitly.  When the two are discovered, Zurga, not knowing Leila’s identity, first sentences them to death but then relents.  When Leila’s veil is torn off, Zurga becomes upset and decrees the two should die.  As Zurga struggles with his decision after he has calmed down, Leila comes to see him to beg for mercy, which he refuses as he is jealous of Nadir.  As Leila is led away, she gives a pearl to a young diver to return to her mother.  It turns out Leila saved Zurga as a child and gave Leila this necklace in appreciation.  As the villagers prepare to burn the couple to death, Zurga sets the village on fire and tells the villagers that they must go back to save their belongings.  He stays behind after he frees Leila and Nadir.

Conductor – Gianandrea Noseda; Zurga – Mariusz Kwiecien, Nadir – Matthew Polenzani, Leila, Diana Damrau.

I saw this opera in Australia many years ago, before my blogging days.  Every now and then I would hear “the duet” broadcast on classical stations, and wonder why I have not had a chance to see it.  This performance was the Met’s 10^th performance in its entire history, and the Playbill gives various reasons why the opera is more popular than it should be.  Some attribute it to the thin story line, some to Bizet being “accused” of copying other composers (Wagner, for instance.)

First, I am glad we caught it.  We came back from Hong Kong the day before, after a 15-hour flight made more unbearable by delays due to problems in the luggage hold, and being completely packed.  Yet I stayed quite awake, and so did Anne.  That the opera is short helps – it’s about two hours, plus an intermission.  Also, the three top singers did an overall superb job. Polenzani put in a great performance, his voice projecting clearly and urgently all the time.  Kwiecien as Zurga was dependable.  The slight disappointment is Damrau didn’t do as well as thought she could.  On a few occasions she seemed unsteady.

The orchestra music was generally pleasant and supported the story well.  While the tunes may not be as catchy as those in Carmen, but there are many enjoyable solos, duets, and choral numbers.  I do think the violin passage introducing Leila in Act 1 was horribly botched.  The orchestra is on the small side.

Bizet had the opera setting in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) around 1800 (perhaps), but the producers have chosen to leave the time undefined, and the location as simply a village in the Far East.  I always scratch my head when people do that, particularly so in this case as it can be assumed very few people have seen this opera before.  If one is to be sensitive, won’t all the references to Brahma and Shiva offend some people?  One could also argue the costumes would insult an entire region, if one is so inclined.  And in Act 3 we have this specter of an old black and white TV (which turned on for a few seconds) and a laptop.

However, there is a lot to be said about the set design.  When the opera began, bubbles were projected onto a mesh screen behind which are people on harnesses masquerading as divers, to good effect.  The village, with houses and piers on stilts over a bay, looks realistic.  The small houses in the back are there probably as a perspective trick, but fool no one.  Interesting, they have divers emerging from the sea and climbing into boats.  The waves probably were undulating cloth, but the effect was quite magical.

This must be one of the longest New York Times reviews ever written.  Other a few remarks about the shortcomings of the work, he proceeds to describe the story in detail, sings praises to the production team, the solosist, the chorus, and the conductor.  Evidently Bizet wasn't sure how this story ends is satisfactory, the reviewer's response is this Met performance will remove any doubts he might have.

Turns out during on upcoming trip to Australia this opera will be staged at the Sydney Opera House.  We will probably get tickets to see how different the two companies approach this.

We had to rush into the city, I ate a burger before I met up with Anne at the Jersey City PATH station, she bought a sandwich at the venue.

New York Philharmonic – Alan Gilbert, conductor; Joshua Bell, violin. December 30, 2015.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra (Seat S106, $69.50).

Program

The Swan of Tuonela, Op. 22, No. 2 (from the Lemminkainen Suite) (1895, rev. 1897, 1900) by Sibelius (1865-1957).

Symphony No. 4 in A minor, Op. 63 (1910-11) by Sibelius.

Concerto in E minor for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 64 (1844) by Mendelssohn (1809-47).

Finlandia, Op. 26, No. 7 (1899-1900) by Sibelius.

Tonight’s attendance was very good, with only a few scattered empty seats here and there.  Joshua Bell and the Mendelssohn violin concerto probably had a lot to do with it.

Gilbert talked a bit about the program, describing how his stint as Music Director in Sweden gave him a special appreciation of Sibelius.  New York Philharmonic will be doing a lot of Sibelius this season.  Which made me wonder why they decided to pick the violin concerto of Mendelssohn over that of Sibelius.  The concert would at least be unique in the sense that I have never been to an all-Sibelius program, if memory serves.  Of course an all-Sibelius program might drive the audience to drink afterwards …

This was the third time I heard The Swan of Tuonela, all performed by New York Philharmonic.  I still remember scratching my head the first time I heard it, and appreciating it more on the second hearing.  While I didn’t remember the music, and I couldn’t picture consistently the scenes it was describing, I am sure I enjoyed it this time even more than the second time.  There was much clarity in how the solo passages (by the English horn, the cello, the violin, and others) relate to one another and to the orchestra.  To quote the Program Notes, “a spirit of resignation pervades the movement, a sense of gravity, of tender melancholy, of hushed wonder at the desolation of this frigd underworld.”  The music was sad enough, but I wouldn’t go that far. Too bad I didn’t catch the “col legno” passage, that would have been interesting.

Sibelius developed a throat tumor in 1908 which was removed after 14 operations, and he gave up alcohol and tobacco for the next seven years.  Whether he was trying to come to terms with his mortality, or felt miserable because of abstinence, his fourth symphony is described by Gilbert as “deeply pessimistic and profoundly tragic.” Add this to Sibelius’s reputation, and one would imagine this would lead the listener to great despair.  I found the music to be introspective, ruminating, and melancholic.  However, one has to look elsewhere if one wants to really experience any dark superlatives.  For that, I suggest Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique, or several of Mahler’s works.  I do wonder if this depends on how it is played.

The Symphony is easy to get, and to like.  It has the characteristic that every movement ends on a quiet note.  The four movements are (i) Tempo molto moderato, quasi adagio; (ii) Allegro molto vivace; (iii) Il tempo largo; and (iv) Allegro.

In contrast, Mendelssohn’s violin concerto was a celebration of art and life through the violin.  Joshua Bell’s violin always sounded great, and today he put it to great use.  I often complained about his intonation problems; today they were minor and few.  The soloist and the orchestra just carried on a lovely conversation throughout the three movements, played without a break.  Bell played his own cadenza.

I didn’t know Finlandia started its life as music to accompany a program put out by the Finnish press as a protest to Russian crackdown of newspapers.  It was adopted from the concluding movement “Finland Awakes.”  While it is not the national anthem of the country, it seems to have the same effect on its people as Verdi’s “Va, pensiero” has on Italians.  It is just a stirring piece of music, with a nice melody in the middle, that is easy to like.  And the orchestra did such a rousing rendition that would undoubtedly make a Finn proud.

Afterwards I remarked that while the program wasn’t particularly long, it felt like two of them joined together.  An introspective first half contrasting well with an exuberant second half.  A great way to end our 2015 concert-going season.

The New York Times review critiques the program as timid, but otherwise has generally good things to say about the performance.  The reviewer also wonders why Sibelius’s violin concerto wasn’t programmed.

For the past week or so, our children and grandchildren were spending a lot of time at our house.  While we treasure get-togethers like this, the result was I didn’t have the opportunity to read up on the program notes until the day before.  We also had a somewhat circuitous way to get to Lincoln Center.  I drove a car to the East Side so our son could get back to our house.  I had a lot of time on my hands, and it was unseasonably warm at 60s, so I took a leisurely walk to Lincoln Center, enjoying some of the holiday sights along the way – Saks Fifth Avenue had an impressive light show.  Anne spent the day in Jersey City, then got to the city via PATH and MTA.  We had a simple meal at the neighborhood pizzeria before the concert.  Afterwards we took the train back to South Amboy, getting back around midnight.

New York Philharmonic – Jane Glover, conductor. December 16, 2015.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra 2 Left (Seat V13, $64.35).

Program

Handel’s Messiah

Artists

Heidi Stober, soprano; Tim Mead, countertenor; Paul Appleby, tenor; Roderick Williams, baritone.

Westminster Symphonic Choir, Joe Miller, director.

Continuo: Eric Bartlett, cello; Timothy Cobb, bass; Karin Bliznik, trumpet; Paolo Bordignon, harpsichord; Ken Tritle, organ.

We have attended several Messiah concerts before.  Since we are now staying at Jersey City, and Goldstar had tickets on sale, we thought we would take the opportunity to go.  By now I can say I am reasonably familiar with how the oratorio came to be, how it is structured, and most of the numbers.  Of course I don’t know the music enough to know what edition the performance is using; the Playbill lists the Oxford University Press edition as the one being used.

Overall it was a very enjoyable performance.  If I were honest, I must say I usually can’t keep my full concentration for the 2-plus hour performance.  Tonight I was very attentive throughout; I didn’t doze off at all, and rarely lost my concentration.  This is particularly remarkable as I felt very tired earlier in the day.  The negative comments below are just reflections on the blemishes on an otherwise great evening.

I was quickly taken with how well the choir sang.  The many sixteenth note runs were done with clarity and precision, not easy for a 60-plus ensemble.

Of the soloists, I though Williams did the best.  He was forceful where he needed to be, and clear in his delivery of the recitatives.  The countertenor part was the most disappointing.  First, I would think the part is more naturally sung by an alto.  Mead sounded unrefined and unsteady most of the time.  I first heard him in the opera “Written on Skin” this past summer, and thought his voice worked well in that context (it was the Koch Theatre, though.)  Soprano Stober’s voice carried very well, although I thought she slurred her runs noticeably, and she had this grimace on her face all the time.  Both Anne and I thought the tenor Appleby was too slow in the introductory numbers, his turned out to be a steady and dependable voice.

Bliznik was a "guest" trumpeter.  Given how great New York Philharmonic's own trumpeters are, I wonder why it was necessary.  While her sound was generally good, she was unsteady on many occasions.

From her biography, it seems Glover started off her music career more as a musicologist than a musician.  Over the years she has conducted this piece about 100 times, so it is not unexpected that she didn’t need the score.  She was quite deliberate in how the lines were to be formed, and seemed to get what she wanted from the musicians.  Unfortunately, the only “unusual” aspect of tonight’s performance was how the “like” was stressed in the phrase “all we like sheep.”  The word is not on the downbeat, and it is not the most “important” one in the phrase.  The way the choir (dutifully, no doubt) did it just sounded strange.

The New YorkTimes review was very positive.

We took the Paulus Hook ferry over to Manhattan, and had dinner at Brookfield Place before heading up to Lincoln Center.  It was a nice evening to be doing this, although I wouldn’t mind a little more nip in the air – it was around 50 degrees.

New York Philharmonic – James Gaffigan, conductor; Jeffrey Kahane, piano. December 11, 2015.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat Y103, $53.50).

Program

Symphony No. 4 in B-flat major, Op. 60 (1806) by Beethoven (1770-1827).

Split for Piano and Orchestra (2015) by Andrew Norman (b. 1979).

Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Merry Pranks), Op. 28 (1895) by R. Strauss (1864-194.

We got tickets to these concerts as New York Philharmonic was running a two-for-one sale.  As this was the holiday season, and the weather had been particularly warm the last few days, it wasn’t a surprise there were quite a few empty seats in the hall.  Actually given my last two Met Opera experience, I even consider the attendance good.

Of Beethoven’s nine symphonies, the fourth has to be the most unfamiliar to me.  Interestingly the last time I heard it performed by NY Phil was the last time they played it, on March 9, 2012, at NJPAC of all places.  Also, the Programs Notes for the 2012 concert talked about Beethoven not getting another commission from this Count Oppersdorf, there is no mention of that in today’s playbill.  Instead there is a brief description of the structure of the music that made the performance a bit easier to follow.  There is a 5-measure melody titled the “bassoon joke” printed in the program. While I could hear it, I wasn’t sure why it would be considered humorous, it sounded more like a technique showoff line to me.

I am not particularly bothered if after a particularly great movement an audience shows its appreciation by applauding.  But after every movement?  That is getting to be annoying.  In any case, the four movements are: Adagio – Allegro vivace, Adagio, Allegro vivace, and Allegro ma non troppo.

Till Eulenspiegel was a presumably historical figure, dating back to the early 16^th century, whose escapades made him a staple of German folklore (quoting the Program Notes.)  Many thought Strauss had wanted to write an opera based on this character, but ended up composing a symphonic poem instead.  Although Strauss refused to provide a program, many believe it consists of “Till racing on horseback through the market, Till the cavalier exchanging courtesies with beautiful girls, and so on to his inevitable arrest, trial, conviction, and hanging.”  The program makes some sense.  The music is easy enough to get, and I wonder why I don’t remember ever having heard it before.

Sandwiched between the two (relatively) obscure works is the premiere of Split, written by the 36-year old Andrew Norman.  On paper the piece sounded somewhat interesting.  I quote from the Program Notes: “Here three percussionists, playing an impressive variety of instruments (including such items as tin cans and flower pots), inject sounds that set off sudden changes of course on the part of the pianist or the other orchestral musicians. Sometimes these are pre-planned, sometimes not entirely, sometimes not at all.  The players may depart considerably from the orthodoxy of orchestral practice: wind players occasionally producing sounds by blowing air through the instruments without achieving the controlled vibration required to make defined pitches; in the string parts, individual players within the sections may intone notes in rapid succession, as if they were batting about a musical volleyball.  Gamesmanship plays an important role in the realization of this composition.”  The piece was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, and dedicated to Jeffrey Kahane whose playing Norman describes as witty, full of vitality, and expressive.

I got very little of that.  Most of the time the piano music sounded like a skilled pianist pounding away aimlessly at the instrument.  Kahane was quite glued to the music (on a tablet) during the performance.  I wonder if at some point he felt trapped by the music, but not the way the composer intended it.  While different members of the orchestra were used for individual solo phrases, things looked well-rehearsed – no one seeing it would call it spontaneous or volley-ball like; and the changes in course were either non-existent or too subtle for me to pick out.  I wonder when the New York Philharmonic would pick up this piece again.

The couple sitting behind us showed up after the intermission.  In explaining to folks around them why they were late (no one asked as far I could tell,) they said they had no use for Beethoven, but came specifically for Norman’s piece.  True to their word, they left before the Strauss piece was performed.  Well, at least they don’t have to spend a lot of money on tickets.

Gaffigan, also around 36, conducted with a lot of energy.  Anne thought he also showed great humor when it came to Beethoven’s scherzo and finale.  After each piece he went around acknowledging every orchestra member who had a solo line – which was a lot of people.  I wonder if he is auditioning for a job.

If one doesn’t like how I described today’s concert experience, this New York Times review is unreserved in its praise of the event, the composer, the soloist, and the conductor.

We had a quick meal at Brookfield Place.  We missed the Paulus Hook to WFC ferry by less than a minute, so took the PATH over instead.

Metropolitan Opera – Puccini’s La Boheme. December 9, 2015.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat AA35, $25).

Story.  See previous post.

Conductor – Paolo Carignani; Marcello – Levente Molnar, Rodolfo – Ramon Vargas, Colline – Christian Van Horn, Schaunard – Alexey Lavrov, Mimi – Barbara Frittoli, Musetta – Ana Maria Martinez.

Both Anne and I are quite sure we have seen this opera multiple times, but there is only one entry in this blog on this opera, although my first entry ever (in 2005) mentioned prior experience with La Boheme. We are quite sure this would be our first encounter with it at the Met.

And this was a great experience.  Our seats were towards the rear of the orchestra section, but we could hear the singers clearly, although several of them came across as a bit weak.  One of the “lesser characters” (I couldn’t tell if it was Colline or Schaunard) did exceptionally well.

The only name I recognize from the roster is Vargas.  He used to be a regular at the Met (we are talking perhaps more than 10 years ago) but now seems to appear less frequently.  While his voice was often weak, he certainly hit the notes accurately, and had great stage presence.  While Frittoli would never be mistaken for someone dying of tuberculosis, she managed to make Mimi fragile, resolved, and sympathetic as the opera progressed.  Musetta the flirt is oftentimes the show-stealer, with the well-known aria “Quando m’en vo” one of the more hummable tunes; tonight Martinez couldn’t quite pull that off, although she did quite well.  Marcello provided support, both in the singing and in the story.

Puccini often put the melody in the orchestra; Act 4 had a lot of passages like this with the voices in “supporting” roles.  Today that combination often came across as a bit chaotic and thus a disappointment.  Otherwise the orchestra was as superb as it was last week during Tosca.

The Franco Zeffirelli-designed set has been in use since 1981.  Acts 1 and 4 take place in the rooftop apartment (garret) occupied by the men.  It was functional, but I thought they could sacrifice a bit of perspective so more of the audience can see what is happening.  Act 3 was billed as “a toll-gate on the edge of Paris,” but I could find no evidence of that.  The softly falling snow on a slope, with an inn nearby, made for a beautiful sight though.  I am sure the Playbill author had Act 2 in mind when he/she called this a “spectacular production.”  Indeed the scenery is complicated: lots of houses, café Momus, Latin Quarter, thoroughfare, and parade route are all represented here.  To me it was simply confusing.  From where we sat it usually took a while for us to find out where the principals were singing.  All that distraction may be the reason why I didn’t find Musetta as compelling as she could be.

There are several points raised in the Playbill that I resonate a lot with.  One was how many of the melodies were built incrementally with small intervals; while one could debate whether this was really the case, there is not debate that the tunes carry some interesting yet difficult-to-pinpoint characteristics.  A second point was how masters (composers and lyricists) can weave a great masterpiece from a simple story of poverty, love, and loss.  I could wax nostalgic and say everyone is special … One new discovery (or re-discovery) for me was how at the end Rodolfo and Mimi quoted the exact words from their first encounter (“Che Gelida Manina” and “Si, mi chiamano Mimi”).  It ended the same way it began, and was very effective despite the simplicity of the conversation. (I switched to Italian subtitles towards the end, and remembered the names of the two arias in Italian.)

My last encounter with the opera was in Australia, about three years ago.  While I don’t remember the specific experience, I did say it was one of the best I have been from that company.  While I must give the nod to tonight’s performance, still Opera Australia had a lot to be proud of.

Our tickets were again rush tickets.  The attendance was quite a bit better than last week’s for Tosca.  This run began in November 23, and as of today (12/11) still has 12 more performances to go.  That is quite ambitious, even for the most staged opera in Met history.

Surprisingly, the New York Times reviewer saw the production with the same cast as we did.  Her words were quite brutal: after-thought, neither ... was able to summon it, wooden efficiency.  The blow is highlighted by the praise she heaped on the secondary actors.

Metropolitan Opera - Puccini's Tosca. December 1, 2015.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat BB25, $25)

Story.  See previous post.

Conductor – Joseph Colaneri, Cavaradossi - Roberto Aronica, Tosca - Liudmyla Monastryrska, Scarpia – Marco Vratogna.

We have seen this opera twice, but not with the Met.  A check of the Met website prior to today revealed that many seats were available.  The seats assigned were towards the rear of the theater, but we moved up quite a few rows after the first act (T7).  I estimate at best a 60% occupancy, one of the lowest I have seen at the Met.

I hadn’t heard any of the headliners before, but I thought they all projected themselves very well.  The only gripe I have is everyone seemed to try to belt out their lines.  Even for a fast-paced story (the entire story basically took place in a day) there had to be some pensive and rueful moments, but one couldn’t tell from how the lines were delivered.  The well-known arias (Visse Arte, E Lucevan la stella, for instance) were all beautifully done.  I thought Monastryska had a good voice, but she could bone up on her Italian a bit. In the third act Conner Tsui sang as the shepherd.

The orchestra was superb.  Today it was more than simple background, it was an integral part of the show.

In my prior encounters with the opera, Scarpia came across as someone everybody loved to hate.  Somehow today Vratogna couldn’t generate the same level of disgust.  I still remember how powerful and ominous the Te Deum felt at the New York City Opera performance – with Scarpia scheming against sacred music in the background.

The set dates back only a few years, and is of the “realistic” type.  For some reason there was a lot of hammering on stage between acts.  In the two prior shows I saw, and also in television, Tosca commits suicide by jumping off stage.  Here she jumped from a tower in plain sight (probably with a safety harness), with stage lights out as her legs left the building.

Anne and I will be spending a lot of time in Jersey City, an easy commute into New York.  We hope to take advantage of this while we are here.

New Jersey Symphony – Eric Wyrick, leader and violin soloist. November 28, 2015.

Prudential Hall at NJPAC, Newark, NJ.  Orchestra (Seat N111, $52.)

Program

Symphony No. 6 in D Minor, “La Casa del diavolo,” Op. 12, No. 4 (G, 506) (ca. 1771) by Boccherini (1742-1805).

Ancient Airs and Dances, Suite No. 1 (1917) by Respighi (1879-1936).

The Four Seasons for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 8 (1720s) by Vivaldi (1678-1741).

Eric Wyrick, the NJSO’s concertmaster, is called on as a soloist every now and then.  We heard him in Brahms’s double concerto about six months ago.  For this series he did double duty as both the soloist in Vivaldi’s virtuoso violin piece and the orchestra leader.

Two of the pieces are “old,’ composed about 250 and 300 years ago, respectively.  The other one pretends to be older (“ancient”), but was written by the modern(ish) composer Ottorino Respighi, who is better known for his “Fountains of Rome” and “Pines of Rome.”  Drawing on music from the 17^th and 18^th centuries, Respighi produced three sets of “Ancient Airs and Dances” and a suite title “The Birds.”

In this suite, the first movement (Balleto, “Il Conte Orlando”) is based on a dance-like composition from around 1600 by Simone Molinaro.  The basis of the lively second movement (Gagliarda) is attributed to Vincenzo Galilei, father of that Galilei.  The third movement (Villanella)is in a 16^th century Neapolitan song form; the last (Passo mezzo e mascherada) is a combination of an Italian form related to the French Pavane and a type of song performedat a masked ball.

All this, gleaned from the Program Notes, sounds a lot more complicated than the music itself.  A listener can be forgiven to think this is really ancient music, except – perhaps – for the occasional modern touch Respighi put in for fun.

Luigi Boccherini is best known for the minuet from his String Quintet No. 1.  Embarrassingly that’s about all I knew about him.  While he was a rather prolific composer, with more than 20 symphonies, he was unfortunately a contemporary of Mozart and Haydn, and his music suffered perhaps unjustified neglect as a result.  This rather short symphony has three movements (Andante sostenuto – Allegro assai; Andantino con moto; Andante sostenuto – Allegro con moto) and indeed sounded like an uncomplicated Haydn.  The last movement, quoting a Chaconne by Gluck depicting Don Juan’s descent to the underworld, gives the symphony the nickname “The House of the Devil.”  While one could see how the many descending phrases could describe a downward journey, for the modern listener it takes a lot more to conjure up images of the underworld.

Both pieces had a reduced but still considerable sized orchestra (e.g, eight first violins, three double basses.)  They did well without the help of a conductor, although the large size sometimes made precision a bit of a challenge.  While the sound was good given our rather good seats, there wasn’t a wide range of dynamics in the rendition.

Antonio Vivaldi was a well-known violinist.  He was also a prolific composer: about 500 concertos survive.  He wrote a cycle of 12 concertos titled “The Contest Between Harmony and Invention,” the first four of which comprise The Four Seasons.  Each of the concertos had a sonnet at the beginning, with each sonnet in three sections neatly corresponding to the three movements.  Vivaldi is thought to be the authors of the sonnets for Four Seasons.  An early example of program music.  (The sonnets can be found on the web.)

The movements breakdown for the four concertos are as follows: Spring (E Major): Allegro, Largo, Allegro; Summer (G minor): Allegro non molto, Adagio, Presto; Autumn (F Major): Allegro, Adagio molto, Allegro; Winter (F Minor): Allegro non molto, Largo, Allegro.

A smaller ensemble was used (six first violins and one double bass).  The piece still proves quite a challenge for the violinist.  Not that it calls for a lot of fancy techniques like spiccatos or harmonics, but the fast pace, number of double stops, and arpeggios make it quite the virtuoso piece.  Generally Wyrick did well, although his intonation drifted occasionally, which was a bit unexpected.  I don’t know what violin he plays on, but this one certainly had a great tone.

I forgot what my thinking was when I decided to buy these tickets; that they were on sale probably had a lot to do with it.  In contention was also New York Philharmonic’s Rachmaninoff Festival Week 3, which I really wanted to see after having seen the first two weeks.  I decided to keep things as they were, opting for a quieter experience.  CS, who went to the NY Phil concert, described it a thunderous, which I am sure was more fire-worky (?) than the storm we heard in “Summer.”

New York Philharmonic – Neeme Jarvi, conductor; Daniil Trifonov, piano. November 21, 2015.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra (Seat HH111, $64).

Program - Rachmaninoff: A Philharmonic Festival.  Week 2.

Russian Theme, Op. 11, No. 3 (1894; orch. A. Leytush).

Piano Conerto No. 4 in G minor, Op. 40 (1926; rev. 1927/41).

Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op. 13 (1895).

We had very good seats for the Thursday concert, but couldn’t make it.  There were very few seats left when we tried to do the exchange, and Anne and I ended up sitting in separate sections (she had EE101, a much better seat.)

The interesting thing about this program is all the pieces belong in the more obscure part of Rachmaninoff’s work.  Most people know of the piano concerto and the symphony.  I suspect few had heard of Op. 11, which consists of six piano duets, “a collection of straightforward pieces of limited technical challenge that range through popular musical genres,” per the Playbill.  The orchestration was done in 2011.  This is the first time the music is performed by the New York Philharmonic.

It was indeed a simple-sounding piece with the principal theme repeated multiple times.  An enjoyable five minutes, nonetheless.  It was a bit strange that the audience took a while before they started to applaud.

Rachmaninoff’s first symphony was so poorly received at its premiere that the composer stopped composing for a while, resuming only after seeking psychological help from a doctor.  The symphony itself went into obscurity, and was performed the second time 48 years later, after the composer’s death.  And this series of concerts constitute its premiere with the orchestra.

Unfortunately, I am not sure I managed to appreciate the performance any more than the first listeners did.  Among the brutal comments is this one by Cesar Cui: “If there were a conservatory in Hell, …, then he would have fulfilled his task brilliantly …” I would only attribute the scratching of my head to my limited knowledge of music.  There are nice moments and interesting constructions in the composition; and to be fair, the 45 minutes went by rather quickly.  While I didn’t know enough about Russian liturgical chants to hear them, I certainly got the many references to Dies Irae in the first movement.  The four movements are Grave – Allegro ma non troppo, Allegro animato, Larghetto, and Allegro con brio.

Compared to the two orchestral pieces, the piano concerto is downright popular.  It was last performed by the orchestra in 2004.  Last revised in 1941, it certainly showed a lot of maturity compared with the composer’s earlier works.  A couple of curious facts about the piece.  First, the 1941 version has 192 measures excised from the original version as it was considered too long.  At a tempo of (say) 90, 4/4 time, that is about 8 minutes, which would have made the “original” about 32 minutes, not all that long.  Second, Rachmaninoff considered the fact that the orchestra is almost never silent a fault; I am not sure why that’s a problem. The three movements are Allegro vivace, Largo, and Allegro vivace.

Compared to other times I heard Trifonov, today’s performance didn’t feel nearly as intimate.  Part of the can be attributed to the acoustics, the piano sounded weaker than usual and often couldn’t be heard above the orchestra.  I could hear the Gershwin influence mentioned in the Playbill, but not the Ravel.  He played a short encore that was more delightful than virtuoso, which is fine by me.

One thing I did notice about Rachmaninoff’s work: the movements often end abruptly.  When he was done, he was done; not the type that would put in a long coda.  Interesting, as his music tends to be on the sentimental side.

There are a few well-known conductors with the last name Jarvi, and Neeme is the father.  His conducting was economical, but produced a good sound from the orchestra.  He certainly showed a lot of stamina for a 78 year old.  Only curious fact was he didn’t walk offstage with Trifonov after the concerto.

The audience applauded after each of the symphony’s movements, and Jarvi turned around to acknowledge the crowd.  For me it’s just another reason to lose faith in this concert-going crowd.

I thought it is interesting to program the less popular compositions of Rachmaninoff, something probably won’t be done in a “regular” program with a Rachmaninoff piece.  A sophisticated listen can contrast how diverse the composer’s music can be.  Regrettably I don’t have that level of sophistication.  In any case, perhaps that’s why a Rachmaninoff Festival makes sense?

The New York Timesreview, titled “Resurrecting a Pair of Rachmaninoff’s Flops,” raves about Trifonov’s playing, but is harsh on the orchestra and the conductor, relegating them to an afterthought.

We have been staying in Jersey City, so the rides into and out of NYC were straightforward.  Dinner was again pizza on Columbus Ave.

New York Philharmonic – Cristian Macelaru, conductor; Daniil Trifonov, piano. November 11, 2015.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center. Orchestra (Seat W107, $69.50).

Program – Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): A Philharmonic Festival.  Week 1.

The Isle of the Dead, Symphonic Poem after Arnold Bocklin, Op.. 29 (1909).

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43 (1934).

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 (1900-01).

We got tickets to this and next week’s concerts, thinking Trifonov playing Rachmaninoff, so it must be great.  Indeed it is.

The Isle of Dead is inspired by Bocklin's painting of the same title.  James Keller, the annotator, stresses how the tone poem unrolls in three connected sections, with opening Lento in 5/4 meter, followed by Tranquillo in 3/4 time. The last section Largo starts in 4/4 time and eventually yielding to the earlier meters, particularly the 5/4. The sections in turn depict the sea, the island, and death itself.  With the help of a reproduction of Bocklin’s painting, a listener can easily imagine a somber trip to a mausoleum on an island.

I thought I appreciated this more than the last time I heard it.  Going over my notes, I didn’t catch the “Dies Irae” then, today I had no problem catching the many fragments in the composition.  I didn’t hear a complete phrase, though.  Also, I wonder if a more detailed description of the tone poem exists (like in Strauss’s Alpine Symphony we got in Cleveland recently.)  It would add a lot to understanding of how the music relates to the painting.

No doubt many superlatives have been used to describe Trifonov’s playing, deservedly so.  There are many things to marvel about his technique and musicality.  With the Rhapsody, what stood out was how fresh he made it sound.  Not an easy task for a composition that is basically a set of variations, and one of great familiarity. The changes in tempo, in intensity, in lightness of touch, all helped to make this war horse gallop triumphantly from the piano.  The freshness was also helped by the clear transitions from one section to the other, which I don’t recall from the two recent performances of this piece I heard.

That Trifonov is a great musician also came through in the concerto.  It is quite easy to dazzle by simply pounding out the notes, the virtuosity required will leave the audience in awe.  But tonight we had a real dialog between the soloist and the orchestra, with the piano often providing the obbligato part.  There was no doubt who the star was, though.  The three movements are Moderato, Adagio sostenuto, and Allegro scherzando.  The simple second movement was achingly beautiful, with the flute providing the melody.

If one wonders why there is no cadenza, the answer probably is – with a few exceptions - the entirely piece is a cadenza.

Trifonov played an encore cadenza that is a medley based on various well-known tunes.  I recall his doing a program of his own music in Pittsburgh (I believe,) so I wonder if this was his own work. In any case, he certainly seemed to enjoy himself a lot.  A great pianist writing music for himself, I wonder whom that reminds me of. He was still very "Linus" in his posture, although he did straighten himself up every now and then.

We saw Macelaru at the Mostly Mozart Festival this past summer.  He certainly led the Isle of the Dead with great enthusiasm and intensity, and the orchestra responded well.  For the Rachmaninoff pieces he had a great partnership with Trifonov.  I enjoyed today’s concert more than I did the M|M one.  Not sure if it is the orchestra, the program, or the soloist.

We noticed most of the principals were away: at least the concertmaster, the principal cello and viola, and the principal flute; our seats didn’t have a great view of everyone on stage. I know Frank Huang is in Houston (doing Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen,) what are other folks’ excuse?  Sheryl Maples had to do quite a few solo lines, and did very well.  I noticed that she moved around quite a bit more also.

I do wonder if three weeks of Rachmaninoff is too much: I don’t know if I can take so much exhilaration.

We were a bit rushed this afternoon, so only had a light meal before we drove up to the city.  We did buy some food from a street stand, and ate that in our car, before we headed home.  All that, we still got back by 11 pm.

[Note added 11/15. Here is the New York Times review.  For reasons unfathomable to me, he thinks there is no need for a Rachmaninoff Festival, but he did have a lot of good things to say about the concert.  The encore (which I mistakenly typed as "cadenza," since corrected) was indeed Trifonov's work, a "shamelessly flashy arrangement of Strauss's Overture to 'Die Fledermaus.'"]

Metropolitan Opera – Berg’s Lulu. November 5, 2015.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.  Balcony (Seat C120, $122.50).

Story.  Lulu has many lovers, including Dr. Schon, the Painter, the Physician, Schigolch (perhaps,) Alwa (Dr. Schon’s son,) the Prince, Countess Geschwitz, an Acrobat, and a Schoolboy.  She caused havoc in all her lovers’ lives, including the deaths of the Painter (who committed suicide after finding out about her past.)  Schon, fed up with Lulu’s wandering ways, demands Lulu shoot herself with a revolver, but is killed by Lulu instead. Lulu is arrested, tried, and put in prison, where she contracts but survives cholera.  The Countess helps her escape by switching places with her.  Misfortune in the form of collapsing railroad company stock and the threat of being exposed as an escape convict turn Lulu into a prostitute.  She is killed by Jack the Ripper during her first night as a prostitute.

Conductor – Lothar Koenigs.  Lulu – Marlis Petersen; Countess Geschwitz – Susan Graham; Alwa –Daniel Brenna; The Painter, the African Prince – Paul Groves; Dr. Schon, Jack the Ripper – Johan Reuter; The Animal Tamer, the Acrobat – Martin Winkler; Schigolch – Franz Grundheber; The Wardrobe Mistress, the Schoolboy, the Page – Elizabeth DeShong; The Prince, the Manservant, the Marquis – Alan Oke.

I have conquered quite a few concerts in a jetlagged state, indeed while in Hong Kong recently we attended two concerts and one opera.  Today I met my match.  We returned from Hong Kong Tuesday, and slept quite poorly the last two nights.  I didn’t fall asleep, but there were many moments of loss of concentration.  I did okay during the last Act, but attribute that more to my messed up circadian rhythm than the drama of that Act.  Now Act 3 was completed after Berg’s death by Friedrich Cerha, and it has Jack the Ripper in it; perhaps reasons for its being more compelling?

One piece of good news greeted us when we picked up the Playbills.  Inside were slips saying today’s performance would end at 10:50 pm instead of 11:15 pm.  I don’t know how to account for the 25 minutes, but indeed the two intermissions seemed shorter than usual.

Lulu for over forty years was a two-act opera.  Alan Berg died in 1935 and his widow would not allow any modifications to the work during her lifetime.  After her death, Friedrich Cerha finished the score in 1977 based on Berg’s notes.

Shortly after we got seated, a lady dressed formally came onto the open stage and sat at a grand piano.  It was obvious, even from our balcony seats, that the piano was “fake.”  Indeed during the prolog, she would pretend to play the piano while the actual pianist would pound away in the pit.  “Performer” (the title in the roster) Joanna Dudley would remain on stage the entire opera, and in addition to “playing” the piano, she would strike different poses next to, on top of, or inside the piano.  Listed as a soprano on the Met website, she did no singing at all.  Another performer, Andrea Fabi, had a lesser role as a butler.

The set reminds me of the one used in Shostakovich’s The Nose, which was done by the same designer. A lot of boards, newspaper clippings and video projections, and subtitles projected onto the stage are things that come to mind.  Although the basic set is the same, these additions made the backgrounds look quite different for the different scenes.  The intent was to support the drama on stage, but in my jetlagged state I couldn’t decide how effective it was.  In plays Lulu is often performed naked, here (for practical reasons and – no doubt – modesty) pieces of paper with breasts (and other body parts) drawn on them were pasted on Lulu’s dress to depict nudity.  There is also use of pastel colors for the costumes.  Depending on one’s perspective, one can call this trite or effective.  And what’s up with these huge gloves?

Berg was Schoenberg’s contemporary, and adopted the same twelve-tone scale.  With the help of subtitles, the singing sometimes sounded like dialog, and there were certainly no tunes one would walk away with humming.  Indeed Anne and I both wondered how the singers managed to remember the tunes, and how does one tell if someone is off pitch?

With all that caveat, the singing (or dialog) was generally good, adding to the drama.  It turns out I had heard Marlis Petersen before, as Ophelie in Hamlet.  There I had this to say about her singing: “her voice carried well, even during the softer passages.”  Even though the comment is not that specific, I won’t characterize today’s performance as such.  Interestingly, our seats for that opera were in the Dress Circle section (good thing I blog,) so it may well be the acoustics at the different seats.

I frankly got a bit loss with the many paramours of Lulu, but it wasn’t difficult to follow the story of a woman who was either manipulative or couldn’t find what she wanted eventually devolving to becoming a prostitute.  The Playbill contains quite a bit of this-and-that discussion on the philosophical and moral significance of the story.  But was Jack the Ripper really necessary?

Levine was the originally programmed conductor of this series, but his declining health forced him to adopt a less intense performance schedule, and he picked Tannhauser over Lulu.  In his place was Lothar Koenigs.  It probably wouldn’t have made any difference to me, but I had no complaints about how the music came together tonight.  I keep wondering why the Met uses so many international artists, do schools like Julliard, Curtis, and New England Conservatory not train enough qualified musicians?

The applause was quite warm.  Anne thought a gentleman sitting next to us was in tears.  At curtain call the production team members also came out, this being the premiere of a new production.

Curtain Call

In the Playbill there is an interview with the Director William Kentridge in which he had this to say about the score: “There’s no doubt that the fourth time you listen to it, it makes much more sense than the first time; and the eighth time you hear it, every note feels lyrical and appropriate and necessary.” Umm … I don’t even think they will have eight performances this season.  Considering my inability to concentrate, I heard it only half a time.

We had not seen Ellie and Reid for a while, so we stopped by Jersey City before heading into the city.  Was Reid happy to see us!

Here is the NewYork Times review.  The reviewer fills in many details that I didn’t get in my sleep-deprived state.

Taiwan Philharmonic – Shao-Chia Lu, conductor; Chun-Chieh Yen, piano. November 1, 2015.

H.K. Cultural Centre Concert Hall.  Stalls 1 (Seat J41, HK$340.)

Program

Flying Towards the Horizon by Ming-Hsiu Yen (b. 1980.)

Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 25, G minor by Mendelssohn (1809-1847).

Symphony No. 2, Op. 73, D major by Brahms (1833-1897).

This was the third concert we attended in eight days, and I must admit I was a little worn out, especially since our visit to Hong Kong has turned out to be a bit busier than I expected, even though some of the events have been social functions.

Nonetheless, I saw this orchestra in Taiwan about a year ago, and was generally happy with it.  And I thought it would be an interesting contrast to the first concert I saw during the trip: one by Hong Kong Philharmonic.  It turns out the Hong Kong Philharmonic performed Brahms’s first symphony, and this afternoon we would hear the second one.

It is unfortunate that the first thing I noticed about the concert was the large number of empty seats in the auditorium.  I would guess there were fewer than a thousand in the audience, in a hall that seats about 2000.  It is a real pity that either folks in Hong Kong are not that much into classical music, or that the promoters did a terrible job of marketing.

Yen (顔名秀)  is a young composer teaching at the Taipei University of the Arts, and this work was commissioned in celebration of the school’s 30^th anniversary.  Per the Program, “the inspiration came from observing the swallows that stayed in Taipei’s Guandu area during spring and summer in 2012.”  So the music describes how the swallows raise their young, including the death of one of them.  When I think of swallows, I tend to think of small, elegant birds flitting about, chirping gently.  The music started quietly enough, but eventually climaxed to such an extent that one would think the whole building where the swallows built their nests collapsed, with the baby birds screaming (and I wonder how they could scream so loudly.)  The piece lasted a bit less than 15 minutes, but I quite enjoyed it, even though I couldn’t quite correlate it with what I thought swallows would sound like.

Mendelssohn was all of 22 when he wrote his first piano concerto.  The relative short piece (about 25 minutes) is full of energy.  The three movements (Molto allegro con fuoco, Andante, and Presto – Molto allegro e vivace) are performed without a pause.  Certainly Yen was up for the technical demands; indeed he looked relaxed during even the more challenging passages.  The balance with the (reduced) orchestra was excellent, and the cooperation between the soloist and the ensemble was evident.  The one complaint I have is many passages sounded muddled; we sat in similar seats a week ago and the piano sounded nice and crisp.

I am not very familiar with this piece, and am glad to have a chance to hear it.  For encore Yen (嚴俊傑) played a piece based on the Wedding March from Lohengrin.  (Note: the composer and the pianist’s last names are different Chinese characters; pianist Yen also teaches at a Taiwan university.)

The Brahms Symphony was very enjoyable.  There are many places – especially in the fourth movement – that could sound quite chaotic if not executed carefully.  For the most part the orchestra did an admirable job, every now and then someone (mostly in the second violin section) would jump the gun and come in a little early.  Similarly, most “naked” brass passages were gracefully rendered, except for some tentativeness here and there.

We heard this symphony in late September played by the Cleveland Symphony.  I must say I don’t think I enjoyed that performance more.  The four movements are Allegro non troppo, Adagio non troppo, Allegretto grazioso, and Allegro con spirito.

Lu (呂紹嘉) conducted with quite a bit of movement, but drew elegant lines from the orchestra.  If he, or the others, was disappointed in the audience, it didn’t show.

I, on the other hand, just wonder if anything could be done to raise the level of interest in these cultural events.