The Seattle Symphony presents Handel’s “Messiah,” with Ruth Reinhardt, conductor. Benaroya Hall, Seattle, Dec. 15-17. 2017
By Melinda Bargreen
Handel’s “Messiah” is a long-cherished tradition at the Seattle Symphony, and one that takes a different form every year. New and different soloists and conductors; changes in instrumentation in the orchestra; cuts and trims in the score that remove certain arias and choruses.
The 2017 version has the Symphony’s first female “Messiah” conductor and a first-rate cast of soloists – and possibly the most enthusiastic of audiences. After the excellent tenor soloist finished the first aria (the beloved “Every valley shall be exalted”), the applause rang out, and continued to do so after nearly every segment in what is usually a seamless oratorio performance. (The clear body language of conductor Ruth Reinhardt finally had its effect after intermission, when most of the applause between movements stopped.)
To be fair, Aaron Sheehan’s lyrical and nimble “Every valley” was more than worthy of show-stopping applause. So were the other three soloists, each with highly distinctive voices and solid command of these tricky arias. The baritone, Will Liverman, sang with clean articulation and a beautiful timbre; his interpretations had a resounding authority. Mezzo-soprano Eve Gigliotti displayed a wide range with imaginative ornamentation and a clear sense of drama, particularly in the affecting aria “He was despised.” The high-flying soprano, Deanna Breiwick, tellingly conveyed the meaning of the words as well as the music, and rose to some spectacular high notes (you don’t usually hear a high C in “Rejoice greatly”). All four soloists sang with great expressive freedom, in a score that calls for lots of drama and interpretive impact.
Reinhardt’s energy and exuberance infused the performance, supporting the soloists admirably and cueing key entrances. At some points the Seattle Symphony Chorale could have used a little more cueing, however, particularly when the singers were required to rise and then reseat again. Prepared by director Joseph Crnko, the Chorale sang with clarity, accuracy, and considerable gusto.
Reinhardt chose some particularly brisk tempi, but nothing sounded hurried or rushed. The crisp articulations in the chorus and orchestra made everything clear -- the words as well as the music. The “Messiah” has humor as well as pathos, and Reinhardt’s bouncy take on “All We Like Sheep Have Gone Astray” underscored this witty chorus admirably. The orchestra was fleet-fingered and responsive, with some fine performances by continuo players: particularly Simon James (concertmaster), Nathan Chan (cello), and Joseph Kaufman (bass), with trumpeter Alexander White a standout in “The trumpet shall sound.”
Not surprisingly, the audience found much to cheer in the performance. And during the “Hallelujah Chorus,” it was possible to hear several audience members singing merrily along. This was a “Messiah” to inspire some hallelujahs.
Disc Review: “Last Leaf,” Danish String Quartet (ECM Label):
By Melinda Bargreen
This is the recording you’ve been looking for: fresh, gorgeous, and unmistakably Nordic.
The Danish String Quartet, famous for unusual programming and folk influences as well as unimpeachable technical chops, has recrafted sixteen pieces of beautiful folk music into an exquisitely played new recording, “Last Leaf.”
The quartet lineup includes a variety of traditional instruments as well as the usual strings on this recording. Performers Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen (violin, harmonium, piano, glockenspiel); Frederik Øland (violin), Asbjørn Nørgaard (viola) and Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin (violoncello).
By any standards, this is an unusual quartet. Three of the four members met as pre-teens in a summer music camp, and began playing chamber music so intensively that “none of us have any memory of our lives without the string quartet.” The DSQ focuses on Danish and Nordic repertoire, with all sorts of additional influences from traditional quartet repertoire and brand-new works. The players are well known for their high level of ensemble playing, their versatility, and their passionate intensity in performance.
The point of inspiration for the 16 pieces on this recording was a Christmas hymn, "Now found is the fairest of roses," published in 1732 by Danish theologian and poet H.A. Brorson. The hymn’s setting blends an old Lutheran funeral chorale with the Christmas text, and the DSQ used the hymn as a point of embarkation through “the rich fauna of Nordic folk melodies until returning to Brorson in the end," as the players put it. "It is a journey that could have been made in many different ways, but we believe that we returned with some nice souvenirs. In these old melodies, we find immense beauty and depth, and we can't help but sing them through the medium of our string quartet. Brorson found the fairest of roses, we found a bunch of amazing tunes - and we hope you will enjoy what we did to them."
These sneakily charming tracks are so lyrical and so inventive that you may find yourself returning again and again to sample them. The folk-tune sources are always clear in the melodic structure, which is given a harmonic underpinning that may surprise those acquainted with the originals. Somehow this music manages to be gently naïve and musically sophisticated all at once.
The DSQ will bring some of this music on tour in the next several months. Its current tour schedule is enough to make a travel agent dizzy: autumn dates in Europe, then a leap to Vermont and Ohio and other US destinations – and then the European capitals, and then (in February of 2018) a return to the US from San Francisco to New York, and finally off Luxembourg and Denmark and then the US again. Check their website for details (www.danishquartet.com).
Note to Pacific Northwest music lovers: the Danish String Quartet will bring some “Last Leaf” selections on tour to Meany Theater on the University of Washington campus, on Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14, 2018). They’re also playing a Bartok quartet and one of Beethoven’s lovely “Rasumovsky” quartets (Op. 59, No. 2). What a great Valentine gift for your favorite music lover!
The Seattle Symphony Orchestra presents Berlioz’s “Symphonie fantastique,” with Ludovic Morlot, conductor, and Ian Bostridge, tenor soloist (in “Les nuits d’éte”); Benaroya Hall, Thursday night (repeated at 8 p.m. Nov. 4, 2 p.m. Nov. 5; tickets 2-22, at 206-215-4747 or www.seattlesymphony.org).
By Melinda Bargreen
Special to The Seattle Times
This month the Seattle Symphony Orchestra offers a mini-festival of Hector Berlioz’s music – works for which music director Ludovic Morlot has an obvious affinity and many interpretive ideas. Judging from the success of Thursday night’s opening program, featuring the “Symphonie fantastique,” it’s fortunate that this music will be recorded for posterity on the SSO’s in-house record label, Seattle Symphony Media.
The program’s opener on Thursday evening, Berlioz’s song cycle “Les nuits d’éte,” featured the great English tenor Ian Bostridge, now 52 and at the top of his form: easy high notes, warm tone quality, and beautiful expression. A familiar figure to lieder fans everywhere, Bostridge may be a Schubert expert (he has written an acclaimed book on Schubert’s “Winterreise”), but he is stylistically right on target for Berlioz’s lyrical and very French song cycle about love won and lost. Bostridge uses vibrato as an expressive device, not as a constant, and he’s a very active performer with a wide range. He sang the entire half-hour song cycle from memory and in clear, excellent French, an impressive feat in its own right.
The “Symphonie fantastique” is a vast musical autobiography of sorts, composed when Berlioz was still in his 20s and in the grip of a romantic obsession with the Irish actress Harriet Smithson (she eventually became his wife).
“For some time I have had a descriptive symphony in my brain,” he wrote to a friend. “When I have released it, I mean to stagger the musical world.” And he did: even today, the ear is dazzled by the sheer scale of his orchestration, with the mighty brass passages and the extensive wind solos, the two harps in the “Un bal” movement (placed stereophonically on the stage with brilliant results), and the huge drum effects and heroic brass in the “March to the scaffold.”
Morlot had clear ideas about phrasing and tempo, and put his own interpretive stamp on the score (particularly in the fifth “Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath” movement). Here, as elsewhere, he was aided by some remarkable solo playing from the orchestra members: principal clarinetist Ben Lulich was a standout all evening, but the strength of all the principals’ solos was remarkable. Part of the fun of the “Symphonie fantastique” is the over-the-top excess of the score: the pounding drums, speedy bassoons, high-octane brass power, and the headlong energy of Berlioz’s exuberant orchestration. Those factors were in clear evidence on Thursday evening.
And there is more Berlioz in store: the great Requiem will be heard in two Seattle Symphony performances Nov. 9 and 11 in Benaroya Hall, with Morlot conducting. Equally heroic in quality, the Requiem is no droopy dirge; it should provide an evening of considerable musical drama.
Seattle Opera presents “The Barber of Seville,” by Rossini, in Seattle Opera production, with Giacomo Sagripanti conducting. Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, Seattle, Oct. 14 and 15 (two casts).
By Melinda Bargreen
The action never stops. Flashing colored lights, doors and windows snapping open and slamming shut; singers leaping and bounding out of the wings and onto the stage, and streamers cascading downward in the grand finale.
For sheer activity level, on a scale of one to ten, Seattle Opera’s production of “The Barber of Seville” probably scores a twelve. It’s as if stage director Lindy Hume and her production crew decided on “perpetual motion” as the concept for this opera, whose plot is already crammed with schemes, disguises, multiple identities, pratfalls, and ruses of all kinds.
From the moment of Figaro’s entrance – popping into the audience, hopping onto the stage, posturing and lighted like a particularly vain rock star – this “Barber” hits the accelerator as cast members appear and vanish through the set’s nine doors and 12 windows. Designer Tracy Grant Lord has provided the perfect ultra-busy, over-the-top set for all these entrances and exits. The resulting show can be a bit exhausting to watch, but fun nevertheless – and you’re not likely to be bored.
Fortunately, this “Barber” offers more than just fast pacing and high energy levels. Headed by the charismatic performance of John Moore in the title role of Figaro (a.k.a. the Barber of Seville), Saturday night’s opening cast offered excellent singing and persuasive acting from all three principals – also including the pertly charming Rosina of Sabina Puértolas and the ardent Count Almaviva of Matthew Grills. They all have distinctive voices; Puértolas has an agile top register in a role that also asks for plenty of low notes, and Grills’ elegantly produced tenor was accompanied by a stylish and comic stage presence. Moore’s Figaro was the standout here, however, with a handsome timbre, unflagging energy, and an easy command of the stage.
This well-matched trio worked together with split-second timing on opening night, as they schemed to outwit Rosina’s guardian Dr. Bartolo and pair her up with the Count instead. Their Bartolo was the excellent Kevin Glavin, whose bluff-and-bluster bass and shrewd stage sense were ideal for portraying this hapless villain. The resonant bass Daniel Sumegi’s clueless Don Basilio provided deft comic touches and some of the production’s strongest singing. Ryan Bede was a fine Fiorello; actor Marc Kenison (a.k.a. Waxie Moon) was fun to watch in the non-singing role of Ambrogio. And mezzo-soprano Margaret Gawrysiak, as the servant Berta, shone in her powerhouse aria (“Il vecchiotto”) about the craziness of people in love.
On Sunday, three new principals in the alternate cast took over the roles of Rosina (Sofia Fomina), Almaviva (Andrew Owens) and Figaro (Will Liverman). Fomina displayed a stellar array of coloratura flights and high notes, along with plenty of charm; Liverman’s warm, agile baritone was enhanced by a suave and savvy stage presence. Owens sounded decidedly underpowered and was often difficult to hear.
From the familiar overture to the sparkling finale, conductor Giacomo Sagripanti sustained the show’s forward momentum with speedy transitions and deft support of the singers. He allowed the cast plenty of expressive leeway in the arias so well known to opera lovers. Sagripanti also provided the musically authentic and essential fortepiano continuo that deftly knit together the score.
Guitarist Michael Partington, who appeared on the stage to accompany key arias, gave the performances both musical expertise and genuine period flavor. Daniel Pelzig’s Spanish-accented choreography and Matthew Marshall’s imaginative lighting enhanced the look of the show. The chorus, prepared by John Keene, looked snappy, and appeared to be having a terrific time. And so, judging from the applause levels, did the audiences.
The Seattle Symphony Orchestra and Chorale, with Giancarlo Guerrero conducting;. Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”) and Berlioz’s “The Death of Cleopatra.” Benaroya Hall, September 21, 2017.
By Melinda Bargreen
It’s an administrator’s nightmare: the grand opening of a concert season, and no conductor.
When the Seattle Symphony’s music director Ludovic Morlot sustained a leg injury that would keep him off the podium for the opening-night gala and the orchestra’s first subscription program, few could have suspected how successfully this emergency was overcome. Last weekend’s gala went off beautifully under the baton of the orchestra’s associate conductor, Pablo Rus Broseta.
And Thursday night’s subscription season opener was saved by Giancarlo Guerrero, a five-time Grammy winner whose charismatic conducting and attention to detail brought to life the Mahler “Resurrection” Symphony in a performance that drew sustained cheers from the audience. (The Costa Rican-born Guerrero, music director of the Nashville Symphony, also will conduct the repeat performances on Sept. 23 and 24.)
Vigorously cueing the orchestra with incisive and emphatic gestures, Guerrero left no doubt about the depth of his acquaintance with the Mahler. He commanded great intensity (and often great volume) from the orchestra, particularly in the apocalyptic first movement, but was equally adept in creating an atmosphere of gentle warmth in the second, and jaunty woodwind passages in the third. Tricky tempo changes, offstage ensembles, and precise entrances all were managed so smoothly that it was hard to believe the conductor and the players had only just met.
The Mahler is crammed with spectacular orchestral solos from the leaders of nearly every section, far too many of them to credit here, but all of them remarkably good. And a hearty “welcome back” to flutist Demarre McGill, whose playing was downright magical.
The opening work on this program, Berlioz’s “The Death of Cleopatra,” is a comparative rarity – and a work that demands alacrity, power, and lyricism from the mezzo-soprano who portrays the suicidal Cleopatra. Christianne Stotijn proved a remarkable and intelligent soloist, easily handling the wide vocal range and illuminating Cleopatra’s angry passion. She returned in the Mahler for the beautiful solo passages of the fourth movement, and was later joined by soprano soloist Malin Christensson and the Seattle Symphony Chorale for the sublime finale of the “Resurrection” Symphony.
Listening to the choral and solo voices rise with the full orchestra, all underlain by the hall’s mighty Watjen Concert Organ, was a peak experience for any music lover – well worth the enthusiastic ovation. Catch this inspiring program if you can.
The Seattle Symphony Orchestra’s Opening Night Gala, with Pablo Rus Broseta conducting, and Renée Fleming, soprano soloist; Benaroya Hall, Sept. 16, 2017.
By Melinda Bargreen
There is nothing like a grade-A, platinum-quality diva to launch an orchestra’s concert season in high style. Seattle Symphony audiences were treated to just such a launch on Saturday evening, when soprano star Renée Fleming arrived in Benaroya Hall for a opening-night concert that even had the listeners singing along (at her invitation).
This opening night was different from the usual format in several respects. First of all, the music director, Ludovic Morlot, was missing in action, having sustained a leg injury that kept him off the podium. His replacement, the orchestra’s associate conductor Pablo Rus Broseta, acquitted himself admirably in a complicated program full of bits and pieces, and one that involved the sensitive task of partnering a famous diva who might have strong ideas of her own about how the music should go. Fortunately, everyone seemed to be on the same page; the partnership worked remarkably well.
Also different: the orchestra members’ attire, with the women players wearing beautiful gowns in every color instead of the usual variations on black; the stage looked festive and dressy. Opening the program was an unannounced substitute for the usual standard version of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” in a John Williams arrangement that sneaked up on an unsuspecting audience when the “Oh say, can you see” theme emerged and the listeners straggled to their feet to sing along.
Rus Broseta conducted two brief and energetic orchestral works to start each half of the program: Samuel Barber’s Overture to “The School for Scandal,” and Verdi’s Overture to “La Forza del Destino.” The rest of the program was devoted to selections with Fleming, an unusually generous representation of the soloist. She turned her warm soprano to the evocative lines of Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915,” in an expressive reading that showed signs of strain only in the ending phrase (“. . . but will not ever tell me who I am”).
Next up came a remarkable departure: two songs of the Icelandic singer/songwriter Bjōrk: “Virus” and “All is Full of Love,” performed with a microphone and a full orchestra. (Like Barber’s “Knoxville,” these songs are represented on Fleming’s new album, “Distant Light.”) “Tell me if you like these,” she urged the audience. For this listener: not so much. The musical content was minimal, and while Fleming is adept at singing popular music, these songs seemed to hit an awkward point in her vocal range.
But the well-loved songs and arias that concluded the program (with the diva’s witty commentary) were vintage Fleming at her best. At 58, she still has it: that creamy sound and seductive phrasing that made the most of selections by Tosti, Boito, Refice, Catalani, Puccini, and Loewe (“I Could Have Danced All Night,” with the audience singing merrily along). She still has the willowy figure, too, displayed to advantage in two elegant gowns.
And finally, there was Fleming’s signature aria: the “Song to the Moon” from Dvorak’s “Rusalka.” She sang this in Seattle Opera’s landmark 1990 production of “Rusalka,” when Fleming was just beginning her meteoric career. How lovely to hear it again, 27 years later, to inaugurate a new season of music in Seattle.
“An American Dream,” opera by Jack Perla; presented by Seattle Opera, with Judith Yan conducting. Washington Hall, Sept. 7, 2017.
By Melinda Bargreen
There is a special symmetry in staging “An American Dream” in Seattle’s historic Washington Hall. In 1942 – 75 years ago – our region’s Japanese-American residents were sent to this very hall to register, in the tumultuous months following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Now Seattle residents have the opportunity to hear and see a heart-wrenching opera about the human cost of President Roosevelt’s executive order authorizing the incarceration of more than 120,000 West Coast residents of Japanese descent.
This is the second Seattle Opera production of the one-act opera by composer Jack Perla and librettist Jessica Murphy Moo, and it’s strikingly different from the premiere in the company’s usual home on the expansive stage at McCaw Hall. In the intimate confines of Washington Hall, located in the heart of the city’s Central District, the listener may be only a few feet away from the singers, and close enough to see the members of the pared-down orchestra take a breath before a phrase. The expressions of the singers – a raised eyebrow, a sudden frown, even an indrawn breath – are almost startlingly intimate.
One thing that’s necessarily missing from this show is the projected titles that accompany (and translate) all the McCaw Hall performances, and it is a little daunting to realize how much we operagoers are accustomed to having those handy words projected above the stage – even when the opera is presented in English. When singers’ vocal lines rise above the staff (and sometimes even when they don’t), diction often becomes secondary to vocal production. But in Thursday evening’s opening show, while listeners may have missed some fine points of the libretto, there was no lack of clarity about the story – the agonizing departure of the Kobayashi family forced out of their home, and the desperate worry of the German-Jewish war bride who leaves her endangered parents behind as she unknowingly displaces the Kobayashis.
The 90-minute show is preceded by short but telling film clips from six Japanese-Americans, and one Caucasian-American, relating their experiences following Pearl Harbor. This is an eloquent and moving stage-setting device. But “An American Dream” is an opera that would provide its own remarkable impact regardless of any introductions. Peter Kazaras’ staging, cleverly adapted to a smaller and less traditional space, puts the characters exactly where they need to be, with an excellent economy of gesture; Judith Yan, who returns as conductor, cues every singer and all her instrumentalists with alacrity, and realizes all the colors of Perla’s shape-shifting score.
The cast is uniformly excellent. Ao Li is a stoic but anguished Papa Kobayashi, and Nina Yoshida Nelson provides both vocal and emotional power as his wife. D’Ana Lombard, complete with a convincing German accent, is a remarkably strong Eva Crowley; Ryan Bede does fine work as her husband Jim, a conflicted opportunist who sets this tragedy into motion. (He also has the best diction of the cast.)
Yeonji Lee makes the most of the pivotal role of the Kobayashis’ daughter Setsuko, who returns after the war’s end to confront the people who displaced her family, declaiming with rising fury and power, “Don’t you recognize me?”
The look of the production is spare and simple. Julia Hayes Welch’s set design works admirably “in the round”; Connie Yun’s lighting is subtly effective, and Chelsea Cook’s costumes strike the right historical note. And so does the hall, doubtless the silent witness to the same anguish that fuels this memorable production.
“Madame Butterfly,” Puccini opera in Seattle Opera production; Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, August 5 and 6, 2017.
By Melinda Bargreen
It’s not often that you hear two singers sharing an opera’s leading-tenor role in the same evening. On Saturday, the opening night of Seattle Opera’s “Madame Butterfly” had a bit of extra drama: two Lieutenant Pinkertons.
Alexey Dolgov, who was scheduled to sing the role, was vocally indisposed, which became increasingly clear during the long first act (although he bravely landed the high C at the end of the duet). After intermission, company general director Aidan Lang announced from the stage that Sunday’s tenor, Dominick Chenes, was in the audience and would take over the remainder of the role. (Pinkerton does not appear in Act II, and has much less to sing in Act III than in Act I.)
“Madame Butterfly” is never short on drama: love, pain, hope, despair, death. In our own time, the drama includes concern about the cultural insensitivity of Puccini’s opera – a subject on which Seattle Opera has engaged the community through thought-provoking essays, lobby displays, website discussions, and an upcoming remount of its “An American Dream” production.
Many opera composers and librettists (almost all of them male) of earlier centuries were clearly intrigued by the idea of slave girls, courtesans, and exploited women, who were often depicted with a notable disregard for historical and cultural accuracy. Such is the case with “Butterfly,” which presents the 15-year-old heroine Cio-Cio-San as a “geisha,” a professional attainment that would have been highly unlikely at her age.
It is the music, with gorgeous arias and duets underlain by the passionate orchestral score, that has always drawn operagoers like a magnet to “Madame Butterfly” – and the musical values of this production are compelling indeed. On Saturday night, conductor Carlos Montanaro, a company favorite, led a large-scale, opulent performance that was beautifully paced, giving the singers plenty of interpretive scope and expertly building the drama. The Cio-Cio-San was the brilliant Lianna Haroutounian, who commanded the stage all evening with an all-out, full-voiced, big-hearted performance that brought out the bravos (and the handkerchiefs). What a singer; what an actress!
Weston Hurt was an empathetic and noble Sharpless; Renée Rapier a dignified, compelling Suzuki; and Rodell Rosel a wily and adept Goro. In a bit of “luxury casting,” Daniel Sumegi proved an unusually powerful Bonze; Ryan Bede was the hapless Yamadori, and Sarah Mattox gave unexpected and lovely depth to the small but pivotal role of Kate Pinkerton.
The production originated with New Zealand Opera (of which Aidan Lang was previously the general director), and the design is both simple and beautiful. Set designer Christina Smith created a house cleverly defined by movable screens, imaginatively lighted by Matt Scott with glowing lanterns that illuminated the Act I love duet to great effect. Kate Cherry’s staging was creative and lively, clearly defining the characters’ connections to each other, and giving Cio-Cio-San and Suzuki some memorable moments with the former’s child (alternating in that non-singing role are Scarlett and Hazel del Rosario).
It was a great idea to stash the Seattle Opera Chorus (prepared by chorusmaster John Keene) near the theater’s high box seats for the famous Humming Chorus, which sounded otherworldly.
On Sunday, Yasko Sato took on the title role opposite Dominick Chenes (this time singing all three acts as Pinkerton). Sato is a lyrical singer and an affecting actress; she can convey vivid emotion in a single gesture or expression, and watching her hopes slowly decline in Cio-Cio-San’s long vigil was heartbreaking. Chenes displayed a bright, well-focused tenor and an energetic stage presence. Neither Chenes nor Sato was comfortable at the top end of Puccini’s above-the-staff scoring, but both know how to shape a phrase packed with Puccini’s emotional punch.
The Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Festival, July 10.
By Melinda Bargreen
If you want a textbook example of what the Seattle Chamber Music Society does best, Monday night’s Summer Festival program is exactly that. You start with a perfect little masterpiece, Mozart’s Duo for Violin and Viola in G Major (K.423), with one of today’s supremely gifted violinists – Augustin Hadelich – joining the excellent violist Michael Klotz.
You conclude the program with an even more famous masterpiece, Schubert’s beloved “Trout” Quintet, with a feisty and expert crew of string players underscored by pianist George Li, an international prizewinner.
And, safely sandwiched in the middle, you present the world premiere of a trio underwritten by the SCMS’ Commissioning Club, composed by one of today’s top young composers, Lisa Bielawa. Written for the unusual combination of flute/piccolo, French horn, and piano, the new trio is called “Fictional Migrations.” In the program notes, Bielawa cites the late French composer Olivier Messiaen (to whom this trio is dedicated) as an inspiration; Messiaen was an ornithologist who incorporated elements of birdsong into his own music. (His famous “Quartet for the End of Time” will be heard in the July 24 festival concert.)
The Bielawa work is sophisticated, propulsive, complex, and often beautiful -- replete with birdlike trills and flutterings. It requires enormous dexterity of all three players, particularly of flutist/piccoloist Lorna McGhee, though the tumultuous and heavily arpeggiated piano part (Jeewon Park, who undertook this piece on short notice) and the complex music for horn (Jeffrey Fair) provided plenty of challenges. (McGhee’s piccolo, frequently deployed at top volume and near the summit of the instrument’s compass, sounded piercing enough to summon extraterrestrials.)
There were few surprises in the Mozart duo that opened the program, except for the fun of watching Hadelich and Klotz trading off exquisite phrases in a musical pas de deux that made you wish for several more movements. The spirited give-and-take, the advancing and receding of the violin and the viola, flowed just as Mozart once decreed: “like oil.”
The “Trout Quintet” – Schubert at his sunniest – was fast-moving and sparkling, with lots of byplay from the musicians (particularly violist Richard O’Neill and violinist Andrew Wan), underlain by the mellow, resonant bass of Joseph Kaufman. Ronald Thomas was the ensemble’s cellist; George Li brought a wealth of sonorities to the piano part, from warm lyricism to glittery cascades of sound. This was a “Trout” well worth catching.
The Seattle Symphony Orchestra with Thomas Dausgaard, conductor; Benaroya Hall, June 15, 2017.
By Melinda Bargreen
It’s always a thrill when the Seattle Symphony presents those late-romantic over-the-top works that require extra instrumentation. The current SSO program of music by Richard Strauss, unveiled Thursday evening, presents an orchestra of exciting proportions: extra woodwinds, a forest of French horns, exotic percussion (wind machine and thunder sheet), and massive brass (two tubas), all producing prodigious and sumptuous sound levels in two masterpieces.
The orchestra’s popular principal guest conductor, Thomas Dausgaard, was on the podium, opening with Strauss’ autumnal “Four Last Songs,” and concluding with the vividly pictorial “Alpine Symphony.” Luckily, Dausgaard brought along soprano soloist Gun-Brit Barkmin for the “Four Last Songs,” much to the delight of the audience. Barkmin, a German-born singer whose opera career includes a lot of Strauss and Wagner, proved a revelation.
Huge and supple, her expressive voice makes the music sound effortless, soaring above the staff with ease and warmth, and with obvious deep understanding of the autumnal songs (she performed these complicated, shifting scores without a score).
Dausgaard was the most closely attentive podium partner, watching and encouraging the soloist in every line of the score.
After the last song, the audience provided such an enthusiastic ovation that Barkmin returned for an encore: “Morgen,” one of Strauss’ loveliest art songs (especially with the participation of concertmaster Cordula Merks). Dausgaard proved adept at conducting the audience, too: when a few audience members began to applaud between the movements of the “Four Last Songs,” his raised hand in a “stop!” gesture immediately silenced the clapping. Nothing, however, would induce the audience to remain silent for several moments after the gargantuan musical journey of the “Alpine Symphony,” in spite of Dausgaard’s clear wish for a pause before the applause.
When the music is that exciting, it’s hard for an audience to stay in silent reflection after the music stops. The sheer scale of this 47-minute score, which vividly depicts an alpine ascent that reaches a mountaintop after dangerous trials -- including a very pictorial storm -- is almost overwhelming, especially when supplemented by the mighty tones of the hall’s Watjen Concert Organ (skillfully played by Joseph Adam).
The concert was preceded by a graceful tribute to retiring trumpeter Geoffrey Bergler, by his SSO violist colleague Timothy Hale. It was evident in the audience’s warm applause that concertgoers care about the “symphony family” and enjoy recognizing a career devoted to bringing great music to the community.
The Seattle Symphony Orchestra with Thomas Dausgaard, conductor; Pekka Kuusisto, violin soloist. Benaroya Hall, June 8, 2017.
By Melinda Bargreen
Chances are pretty good that you’ve never heard an encore quite like this one.
After bewitching the Seattle Symphony audience with the subtlest and most lyrical Mendelssohn Violin Concerto this listener has ever heard, soloist Pekka Kuusisto returned to the stage several times for curtain calls with conductor Thomas Dausgaard – finally returning alone, for an encore. The Finnish-born Kuusisto announced that he would perform “a traditional song from back home,” and proceeded to sing a catchy tune while playing arpeggiated passages on his violin. After several verses, he began strumming the violin as if it were a ukulele, explaining the humorous Finnish lyrics (about an absent shoemaker), and joking about the length of “this gripping tale.”
Well, you had to be there, but it’s hard to imagine a more charmingly unorthodox conclusion to the Mendelssohn concerto (or a more elegantly dulcet account of the concerto, for that matter). Dausgaard, the orchestra’s principal guest conductor, brought Kuusisto here two years ago for the memorable Sibelius Festival, and their rapport was evident again Thursday evening in a performance that was fleet and full of nuances.
The program’s opener was an atmospheric new work by Scottish composer Helen Grime (“Snow,” from “Two Eardley Pictures”); in Dausgaard’s brief spoken remarks, he noted that “the ink is hardly dry on the page.” This “Snow,” heard here in its American premiere, presents broad, expansive lines for the bass instruments, with sudden upward “snow flurries” of arpeggios for more treble instruments. There is little of the painting’s stillness in the busy, well-crafted score, which sounds both mysterious and ominous.
The centerpiece of the program was Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3, which Dausgaard conducted without a score. This colorful work is a study in contrasts. From the opening series of musical thunderbolts, the first movement was a wild ride, full of furious energy. The serene second movement has an unusual feature: two singers, who sing without words; those two soloists (soprano Esteli Gomez and baritone John Taylor Ward) produced beautiful sounds in their brief but expressive solos. It was an excellent idea to place the two singers in the organ loft, to their acoustical advantage.
The principal woodwinds had a brilliant night, and Dausgaard singled them out for some well-deserved bows.
For those who wanted a little more Nielsen, there was a post-concert dessert (on Thursday evening only): a spirited reading of Nielsen’s String Quartet No. 4, with SSO players Steve Bryant (first violin) and Timothy Hale (viola) joined by two University of Washington students, second violinist Erin Kelly and cellist Chris Young.
A Conversation with Seattle’s principal guest conductor Thomas Dausgaard
(May 2017)
By Melinda Bargreen
First of all, congratulations on the success of the Mahler 10 recording. It has all the immediacy of the live performance, which I remember as electrifying. Did you know right away that you and the Seattle musicians were accomplishing something very special together? Has this Mahler 10 resulted in requests from other orchestras for you to conduct it?
From the first note it felt special! Mahler 10 is such a masterwork, demanding the utmost from everybody performing and giving back a unique experience -- performing it is like living on a knife's edge. The Seattle musicians gave it their all - passion and excellence united in living dangerously for 75 minutes. Recently I performed it with Toronto Symphony and in August I am taking it to the Proms in London with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
Your upcoming programs in Seattle also offer some major landmarks: the Strauss “Alpine” and “Four Last Songs,” the Nielsen 3rd, and of course the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, with Kuusisto, who made such a spectacular impression last time. Plus a newer work unknown to me, by Helen Grime. Could you discuss these programming choices?
Last season we performed Nielsen 4 together, and I was blown away by the orchestra's performances - they owned it! So, absolutely last minute, we made sure that in this season we would expand on this Nielsen-frenzy by performing another great symphony of his, the often ecstatic "Espansiva", No 3.
As Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, we are commissioning a series of exciting works all inspired by something Scottish - culture, nature, history, legends or whatever the composer is drawn to - and in this case an athmospheric painting by Joan Eardley, called "Snow", has been the inspiration for the unique orchestral voice of British composer, Helen Grime. Pekka Kuusisto, who performed in our Sibelius Festival, is back with the piece he and I performed together for the first time 20 years ago: Mendelssohn's magical Violin Concerto, which will bridge the gap between the sparkle of "Snow" and the sweeping "Espansiva". In the Strauss program we bring together his last tone poem, the Alpine Symphony (more snow and expansiveness!) with his Last Songs, and the enchanting soprano Gun-Brit Barkmin will make her Seattle debut with them. Around this concert there will be an opportunity to immerse oneself in Alpine culture: in the foyer you will hear the gigantic Alphorn being demonstrated, and Bavarian folk dancers will show some of their traditional dancing, supplementing the Alpine Symphony!
Do you think there are parallels between the Mahler 10 and the Alpine Symphony? If so, could you discuss them?
On the face of it the Alpine Symphony is a vivid musical description of a day's journey ascending and descending a mountain, and of the emotions this stirs in the wanderer. As these emotions develop in the course of the music, you get a sense that this is more than what can be achieved in a day, and thus it’s more like a life's journey. Just like the Four Last Songs (1948) seem like Strauss looking back -- sometimes ecstatically -- on a life lived, the Alpine can also seem very much the same, though written much earlier, 1914-15. Not unlike Mahler 10 -- composed in similar Alpine surroundings just a few years earlier -- its ending is transcendental and allows us a glimpse into a world beyond.
In addition to your guest conducting, your other posts are spread very wide geographically: Scotland, Sweden, Seattle, and of course your honorary status with orchestras in Florence and Denmark. Do you mind the traveling? Do you have any desire to consolidate?
In fact, I love travelling! If only I could bring with me my family every week, it would be perfect. I am privileged to be working continually with wonderful orchestras with very different musical outlooks and backgrounds, and their contrasting qualities are a real inspiration for me. If by consolidating you mean narrowing my activities geographically, I don't have plans for this; after all, I also love performing in the Far East as well as in Australia!
Your relationship with the musicians and audience in Seattle seems to me very remarkable. In 40 years of reviewing concerts for the Seattle Times, I have never seen a guest maestro so warmly received by the audiences (and, I believe, also by the musicians). Do you feel this also, from the podium?
Indeed, when we did our Sibelius Festival two years ago one member of the orchestra told me how somebody on the streets of Seattle had spotted him driving in a car, waved to him and shouted "Sibelius rocks!" When we perform at Benaroya Hall, it feels like the hall is full of people like this person -- what more can you ask for? It is a fantastic audience!
7. Finally, as you know, the current Seattle music director Ludovic Morlot has announced his decision to leave that post in 2019. If asked, would you be interested in a closer relationship with the Seattle Symphony?
I was sad when Ludo told me he was moving on. He is giving the orchestra and the whole organization time to reflect on which direction they want to go. It is a great orchestra and it will be fantastic for whoever is offered the position. I am very happy in my role as Principal Guest Conductor, and we have lots of exciting plans which I am looking forward to tremendously.
Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” in Seattle Opera production with Julia Jones conducting, staging by Chris Alexander, sets by Robert Dahlstrom with Robert Schaub; May 7/8, McCaw Hall (two casts).
By Melinda Bargreen
Ask any Seattle Opera fans for their favorite productions of the past decade, and you’re likely to see “The Magic Flute” on the list. The 2011 production, a brilliant collaboration between the forces of design, direction, and music, has returned to McCaw Hall, much to the enjoyment of audiences for the first two shows this past weekend.
Returning stage director Chris Alexander has added several new touches to the clever, imaginative staging; the work of the visual team (designers Robert Dahlstrom and Robert Schaub, lighting designer Duane Schuler) continues to delight the eye. There’s a new conductor in the orchestra pit – the excellent Julia Jones, in her company debut – who gracefully supports the singers while crisply illuminating the score with all of its humor and pathos.
And Jonathan Dean’s wonderfully colloquial projected captions have a few witty new twists (a line that included “fake news” caused gales of laughter in the audience). The show’s charming visuals, heavy on pyramidal and Egyptian themes, are enhanced by the brilliantly colorful costumes of renowned British designer Zandra Rhodes, who supercharged every scene with vivid and iridescent images.
It’s always exciting when the Queen of the Night steps forward for her two killer arias, and Christina Poulitsi proved more than capable of Mozart’s stratospheric vocal challenges. She sang with uncanny power and accuracy right up to the high Fs, which were stunningly good; Poulitsi also is a powerful actress who knows how to use her voice as a weapon.
On the opposite end of the sonic spectrum, the resonant, resounding bass Ante Jerkunica made Sarastro’s arias among the high points of the production.
On Saturday night, the principals included Andrew Stenson as an ardent, animated Tamino, and Lauren Snouffer as an artful Pamina (her “Ach, ich fühl’s” was particularly fine). John Moore’s hilariously active Papageno provided an ongoing comic energy; Papagena was the excellent Amanda Opuszynski. Rodell Rosel found an admirable balance in the tricky role of Monastatos.
Taking over on Sunday were Randall Bills, a first-rate tenor who illuminated Tamino’s nobility and ardor, and Amanda Forsythe, a Pamina of lyrical delicacy and vocal subtlety. Craig Verm was an adroitly funny and vocally nimble Papageno.
The principal singers were discreetly miked for the spoken dialogue, according to Seattle Opera staff, but never for the singing.
The charm quotient of this production was raised by the supporting cast, -- particularly the Three Spirits, who dash about on their silver skateboards and advance the plot with beguiling humor (and excellent singing). On Saturday, they were Johanna Mergener, Emili Rice, and Isabel Woods; on Sunday, we heard the trio of Emily Amesquita, Alyssa Khela, and Barrett Lhamon.
The three ladies, all excellent, were Jacqueline Piccolino, Nian Wang, and Jenni Bank. Adam Lau was the Speaker; Eric Neuville and Ryan Bede were the Priests, and the two Armored Men were Frederick Ballentine and Jonathan Silva. The chorus, prepared by John Keene, sang admirably.
The show’s only false note came in the last moments of the triumphant finale, when a sudden bid for freedom in the midst of the celebrations felt tacked-on and ill-advised.
Seattle Opera suggests the production is appropriate for ages five and up, and I would concur – provided you have a five-year-old who can sit and pay attention for two acts of about 69 and 83 minutes, respectively (there’s a 30-minute intermission in between). It is also worth remembering that a child who does not speak German and is not old enough to read the projected translations will not understand what the singers are saying. In any case, advance preparation is advisable. This “Flute” is an enthralling show, the best possible introduction to opera for nearly all ages.
Review: “Behind the Baton: An American Icon Talks Music,” by Gerard Schwarz (with Maxine Frost). Amadeus Press, 7.99 (378 pages).
By Melinda Bargreen
From an 8-year-old transfixed by the sound of a trumpet, to an 18-year-old playing in Stokowski’s American Symphony Orchestra, and then the 21-year-old youngest co-principal trumpet in New York Philharmonic history, it was clear that Gerard Schwarz’s musical career got an unusually speedy start. But as he tells us in his frank and conversational new memoir, the young trumpeter soon found new worlds to conquer on the podium, where he became the music director of several orchestras: New York’s Mostly Mozart, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Eastern Music Festival, and the Seattle Symphony among them. As music director and creator of the All-Star Orchestra, composed of some of the best players from major American orchestras, Schwarz currently is bringing great music to the masses via PBS broadcasts and the free online Khan Academy.
It has been a stellar career: More than 350 recordings, over 300 world premieres, and a lengthy list of awards that includes six ASCAP Awards, five Emmys, and 14 Grammy nominations. But Schwarz’s memoir is much more than a catalogue of achievements; it is a revealing and often humorous account of an extraordinary life in music.
“Behind the Baton” is peppered with anecdotes and stories, including the 18-year-old trumpeter’s earnest conversation with Stokowski, who declared: “Never get married! It’s a terrible thing, it’s a terrible institution!” (This is one piece of advice Schwarz did not take: two early marriages, then a very successful third one with the former Jody Greitzer.)
Among Schwarz’s formative influences as a musician were his tours with the American Brass Quintet during his student years at Juilliard: he writes, “You rehearse and hear every little detail of ensemble, of intonation, the differences of articulation, the different musical approaches. It feels like you are under a microscope together, working toward a united end.“
This memoir is one of the best insider views available about what it’s like to be a conductor; how to work with players, with famous soloists, with composers and communities and donors. We also hear about the potholes in the highway: troubles in Schwarz’s relationships with the orchestras of Mostly Mozart, Liverpool, and Seattle.
His account of the 26 years in Seattle, and the legacy of recordings and premieres, is a pattern for orchestra building (and hall-building as well; under his leadership, Seattle Symphony’s Benaroya Hall was designed, funded, and built). The reasons for Schwarz’s success emerge clearly in this memoir: his unique blend of pragmatism, idealism, likeability, self-assurance, artistic vision, and an incredible drive to make music, orchestras, and audiences better than they were before.
Leif Ove Andsnes and Marc-André Hamelin, pianists, in duo recital; presented by the Seattle Symphony. Benaroya Hall, April 24, 2017.
By Melinda Bargreen
It can be a solitary world for the concert pianist, with solo recitals filling up a significant portion of their concert calendar. That’s why so many pianists love chamber music and create chamber-music festivals. But it’s more unusual to encounter a pair of top-flight international piano soloists who record and tour as a duo, for which the repertoire is enticing but not particularly extensive.
Fortunately for Seattle music lovers, Benaroya Hall was one of the stops on the current tour of the Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes and his Canadian duo partner Marc-André Hamelin. Both artists are at the top of their field; Andsnes is probably more famous for his lyrical musicianship and Hamelin for his technical finesse, but together they make an imposingly unified team. Their remarkable performance Monday evening under auspices of the Seattle Symphony proved that the two pianists can sound like a single keyboard orchestra while still preserving their distinctive individual voices.
It was an intense program for the listeners as well as the performers, dominated by the angular, propulsive scores of Stravinsky: the Concerto for Two Pianos, the great “Rite of Spring,” and two encores (the colorful “Madrid” from “Four Etudes,” and the jaunty “Circus Polka”). There was some minor audience confusion when the program mistakenly indicated that intermission would take place before the Debussy “En blanc et noir,” and several concertgoers had to nip smartly back to their seats when the dulcet impressionist sounds began to rise from the keyboards.
The two pianos were placed nose-to-nose so that the raised lid of one seemed to reflect the merged sound of both instruments. The two pianists traded places at intermission, with Andsnes playing the “Piano 1” part in the first half, and Hamelin in the second. The two of them know how to blend, and have clearly thought through the niceties of every phrase. While it was sometimes difficult to tell the two sounds apart, usually there was no mistaking Andsnes’ lyrical melodic line or the polish and finesse of Hamelin’s perfectly even passagework and trills.
Their first piece, a brief and seldom-heard Mozart “Larghetto and Allegro in E-Flat Major,” emerged with cheerful serenity. The propulsive and formidably Stravinsky Concerto for Two Pianos presented a more thorny universe with formidably difficult passages and a questing second movement that was particularly well done.
The three-movement Debussy presented a different sonic universe: beautiful layers of impressionist colors that give way to a more martial, unquiet evocation of World War I (underlain by hints of bugle calls and quotations from the Lutheran hymn “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”).
The duo’s conclusion, “The Rite of Spring,” was a knockout: the simplicity of the two introductory sections, the elemental power of the explosive accents, and the rhythmic excitement of two keyboard superpowers bringing this great score to vivid life.
Yefim Bronfman, pianist, in President’s Piano Series; Meany Theater, April 18, 2017
By Melinda Bargreen
Yefim Bronfman’s name is always on the short list of the greatest pianists in his generation. The opportunity to hear him in recital, however, doesn’t come around very often, so his performance Tuesday evening on the President’s Piano Series attracted an eager crowd of keyboard fans.
They were not disappointed. In a recital program Bronfman recently performed on tour in Italy and will bring to Carnegie Hall in a few weeks, he demonstrated artistic finesse and surprising grace alongside the fabulous, fearsome technique that has made the 59-year-old a keyboard legend.
And what a program! Designed to show a wide stylistic range and the breadth of Bronfman’s interpretive abilities, it offered Bartok’s Op. 14 Suite, Schumann’s “Humoreske” (Op. 20), Debussy’s “Suite Bergamasque,” and Stravinsky’s “Three Movements from ‘Petrushka’.” Modern, romantic, impressionist, neoclassical – this recital had something for every listener, and gave Bronfman a wide array of artistic possibilities.
The four-movement Bartok Suite, heard relatively seldom in recital, was given a scrupulously varied reading that ranged from the jaunty and cheerful to the propulsive and declamatory, with a finale as surprisingly soft-focus as an Impressionist canvas.
Schumann’s lengthy and mercurial “Humoreske” (Op. 20) came from a different sonic universe, and Bronfman gave full rein to the romantic melodies and the rapid changes in this score. And yet there was nothing excessive about his approach; if anything, the playing was rather understated.
Bronfman is not a pianist you typically associate with the gauzy scores of Debussy, so his performance of “Suite Bergamasque” was all the more surprising: wonderful clarity and evenness, with perfectly judged glissandi and a wide palette of keyboard colors. The Suite’s famous third movement, “Clair de lune,” was revelatory: fleet, clean, shimmering, and light on the sustaining pedal. It was startlingly effective and free of the usual interpretive clichés.
The program’s finale could not have been more different: the “Petrushka” suite, originally written for orchestra, was presented here in the most orchestral keyboard you’re ever likely to hear. The sheer power of Bronfman’s technique, the rapid-fire artillery of repeated notes, the cataclysmic crescendos, and the huge sonority were overwhelming. With these enormous, crashing chords, combined with startlingly tranquil contrasts, and rendered at top speed with an almost superhuman accuracy, Bronfman pushes hard at the boundaries of what is possible on the piano.
Not surprisingly, the audience leaped to its collective feet for a standing ovation. Bronfman returned to the stage for a single encore, offering the contrast of tranquil simplicity in Schumann’s familiar Op. 8 “Arabeske” (“Arabesque”) after the explosive fireworks of the Stravinsky. The piano, however, may need a rest cure at a clinic in Switzerland.
Seattle Opera presents “The Combat,” with Stephen Stubbs, musical director, in three-part Monteverdi/Couperin work; April 1-9 in Seattle Opera Scenic Studios.
By Melinda Bargreen
Seattle Opera has scored another success with “The Combat,” the second production in its new Community Engagement series designed to bring chamber opera out of the opera house and into the neighborhoods. Presented in the Opera’s South Lake Union scenic studios, “The Combat” engages timely subject matter in the oldest of operatic forms: Monteverdi’s 1624 “Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda.”
The involvement of musical director Stephen Stubbs, an early-music specialist who also leads Pacific MusicWorks and is senior artist in residence at the University of Washington, is always a guarantee of both authenticity and great quality. It was Stubbs’ idea to use the 20-minute Monteverdi work as the centerpiece of a show that is preceded and followed by two other short pieces serving as an introduction and a conclusion.
In the Monteverdi “Il combattimento,” Tancredi, a Christian (Thomas Segen), and the Muslim Clorinda (Tess Altiveros) are lovers, but both are disguised with armor when they encounter each other in a nighttime battle with fatal results. They are manipulated into combat by the poet Testo (Eric Neuville).
Preceding “Il combattimento” is a shorter staged Monteverdi madrigal, “Tirsi e Clori,” in which the lovers meet and fall in love. The final piece in this trilogy, following the combat death of Clorinda, is a François Couperin selection for two sopranos and continuo, from his “Leçons de ténèbres,” with a text from the Old Testament “Lamentations of Jeremiah.” The Couperin piece, beautifully sung by Linda Tsatsanis and Danielle Sampson, provides a sort of benediction to the tragic outcome of “Il combattimento.”
The three principals – Segen, Altiveros, and Neuville – are all compelling singing actors with distinctive, beautifully produced voices. Those voices are set off by a first-rate instrumental ensemble led by Stubbs (who also played the chitarrone, a bass lute), with Maxine Eilander (baroque harp), Henry Lebedinsky (harpsichord), and a string quartet (Corentin Pokorney, Brandon Vance, Vijay Chalasani, and Nathan Whittaker).
Dan Wallace Miller’s staging is imaginative and extremely effective, creating a graceful courtship in the first act, a tense and fraught second act with a deadly swordfight, and a stately processional for the third. The audience members, who stand in a peripheral circle for the entire performance (some seating is also available, by advance request), move from one room to a second between the first two acts. They hold randomly assigned discs identifying them as Muslim or Christian, and are routed respectively to opposite sides of the room for the combat scene.
That combat is lengthy and quite terrifying, thanks to realistic fight choreography from the expert Geoffrey Alm, who had many in the audience fearing a sudden change of scene to the Harborview emergency room. (Luckily this didn’t happen.)
What a relevant, timely, and thought-provoking production. For those who think opera is an antique, elitist art form with no connection to our own time, here is a show to change your mind.
The Seattle Symphony with Thomas Dausgaard, conductor, and pianist Alexander Melnikov, Thursday evening, March 30 (repeated at noon Friday and 8 p.m. Saturday (March 31-April 1), Benaroya Hall, Seattle; tickets from 2 (206-215-4747 or www.seattlesymphony.org).
By Melinda Bargreen
You can tell by the wild cheering emanating from Benaroya Hall: Thomas Dausgaard is back in town.
The Seattle Symphony’s highly popular principal guest conductor led the first of three all-Rachmaninov concerts on Thursday evening, galvanizing orchestra and audience alike with heartfelt interpretations of passionate music. The program offered two works: Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 1 (with the dynamic soloist Alexander Melnikov) and the Symphony No. 2, both huge in scale and long on beautiful melodies.
That some of those melodies were inspired by Russian Orthodox chant was made clear by short selections sung by the vocal ensemble Cappella Romana (Alexander Lingas, music director) that preceded each of the two works. These brief but highly atmospheric chants were an innovative and thought-provoking entry into Rachmaninov’s musical world.
Why does Dausgaard connect so powerfully with the audience? Partly it’s the tremendous enthusiasm for the music, manifest in the conductor’s every gesture and expression. And it’s also the clarity with which he shows both the orchestra and the audience how the music should go: how it waxes and wanes, how the melodic line blooms upward into a crescendo and descends to a whisper.
Every movement is a drama whose plot is unveiled from the podium. Dausgaard reaches beseechingly into the orchestra as if to grasp the sound and coax it from the players, and he brings out less obvious details: who knew the violas were so important in the interior movements of the Symphony No. 2? The players outplay themselves for him, and the excitement onstage is quickly transmitted to the audience.
In the Piano Concerto No. 1, an early work by a teenaged Rachmaninov already beginning to realize the height of his powers as a composer, Melnikov proved an impressive and impassioned interpreter. He knows how to command the keyboard thunder-power this concerto requires, and Melnikov has the technique to make it all sound easy instead of effortful. The audience, clearly thrilled, brought him back to the stage again and again, and Melnikov finally played an encore: the most exquisitely dulcet account of Rachmaninov’s ethereal Prelude in G Major (No. 5 of Op. 32). A greater contrast to the mighty concerto could hardly be imagined.
The orchestra gave Dausgaard its best in the familiar Symphony No. 2, with a performance full of drama and contrasts. The “big moments” of the rambunctious fourth movement were highly impressive, but what lingered in the memory was Dausgaard’s lovely shaping of the wistful Adagio movement with its subtle solos by several of the principals (most notably, clarinetist Ben Lulich). This is a don’t-miss program; catch it if you can.
The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, with Stephen Cleobury conducting; presented by the Seattle Symphony. Benaroya Hall, March 27, 2017.
By Melinda Bargreen
When a performing organization survives – and thrives – for 576 years, there’s probably a pretty good reason. The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, amply demonstrated that reason in a visit to Benaroya Hall on Monday evening, with Stephen Cleobury presiding over a program guaranteed to gladden the hearts of choral fans.
It is the impeccable quality, combined with musicianship that belies the age of its members, that’s the reason why this choir is so revered. The King’s College Choir (as it is more informally known) is composed of 19 boy choristers aged 9-13 years, and 15 male undergraduates, reading for degrees in various subjects. There are also two organ scholars, Richard Gowers and Henry Websdale, who took virtuoso turns on the hall’s Watjen Concert Organ.
Presiding over the lengthy and well-chosen program was the choir’s genial music director, Stephen Cleobury, who occasionally offered some charming informal commentary on the music. And what music! The program spanned the 16th to 20th centuries, and while many of the works were familiar to the choral community, music lovers with more general interests may have found much of the repertoire lineup to be uncharted territory. Some of the works were a cappella; others featured organ accompaniment.
The opening set, including works of Byrd, Gibbons, and John Mundy, showcased the choir’s clarity of diction, ease of vocal production, and unique blend. The choir sounds perfectly unified, yet the sound is far from homogeneous; individual timbres are clearly heard, though the overall effect is nonetheless quite unified. The singers have mastered the music so completely that many of them glanced only occasionally at their scores, focusing instead on Cleobury’s expressive hands and clear indications.
The two organ scholars were featured in imposing solos – Gowers in the Finale of Vierne’s Symphony No. 3, and Websdale with Kenneth Leighton’s “Paean,” which positively shivered the timbers of the hall.
Among the high points: a Messiaen rarity, “O sacrum convivium,” all subtle textures and otherworldly harmonies; Fauré’s serenely lovely “Cantique de Jean Racine,” and Purcell’s remarkable “Lord, how are they increased that trouble me.” Most impressive of all was the great Herbert Howells piece that ended the program: “Te Deum (Collegium Regale).”
The program was inspiring on so many levels: the chance to hear great and seldom-performed repertoire, the thrill of hearing new young talent in one of the world’s most venerable performing institutions; and the connection with a musical institution that was born between Chaucer and Shakespeare.
The concert was fortunately well attended, with a gratifying number of young listeners – all paying rapt attention to the music and offering robust applause. Cleobury and his singers came back with a single, lovely encore that was both a nod to their host country, and a hint that this was the evening’s farewell: the late American composer Stephen Paulus’ “The Road Home.”
The Seattle Symphony Orchestra with James Ehnes, Ludovic Morlot conducting; Benaroya Hall, Seattle, March 16, 2016.
By Melinda Bargreen
What a wild ride!
James Ehnes underscored his reputation as one of the finest of today’s violinists in the U.S. premiere of the new Aaron Kernis Violin Concerto, on Thursday evening – the first of three Seattle Symphony performances. Lengthy, complex, and assertive, the new concerto demands almost superhuman agility and stamina of the soloist for whom it was written, and Ehnes rose to the challenge.
He is well known as a player who can make his violin do anything, but even Ehnes must have been taxed by the dizzying array of double stops, complex fingerwork, and incredibly speedy passages throughout the instrument’s compass.
The new concerto is a huge work, scored for so many instruments (including a full complement of brass) that even the most assertive soloist would have to work hard to be heard. Conductor Ludovic Morlot did a fine job of balancing the instrumental forces, though inevitably Ehnes’ solo line was occasionally covered by the sheer density of the scoring.
Dotted with cadenzas that put the soloist back in the forefront, the concerto demonstrated Kernis’ command of the complete orchestral palette, from cataclysmic brass passages to otherworldly solo harmonics over hushed strings. He made imaginative and inventive use of percussion, harp, and tuba. And in the wildly eclectic third movement, Kernis pushed the soloist toward the frontiers of technique, with double-stop runs and a final cadenza so scarily difficult that audience members were gasping in disbelief.
The concerto was jointly commissioned by the symphony orchestras of Toronto, Seattle, Dallas, and Melbourne; its world premiere was given earlier this month in Toronto. It’ll be interesting to chart its future progress after the four premieres: one must wonder who else is able to play the concerto. It may prove an irresistible challenge as a proving ground for those who dare.
There could hardly be a greater programming contrast than the dulcet Debussy and serene Beethoven works that preceded and followed the bravura concerto. The opener, Debussy’s “Cortege et Air de danse” (from “L’enfant prodigue”), got a graceful performance of shimmering textures and some elegant flute solos from Jeffrey Barker. (This work replaced the previously announced Debussy “Printemps.”)
Beethoven’s “Pastorale” Symphony (No. 6) gave the audience (and the orchestra) a chance to relax a bit and catch their collective breath after the pulse-pounding concerto. Morlot kept the performance of this familiar classic light and fleet, creating a lot of contrasts in the dynamics. The pastoral woodwind solos, complete with chirping birdsong, were effective, and despite a few uneven entrances, the orchestra was in good form.
It is worth noting that the Kernis concerto and Ehnes’ solo performances were made possible by grants from private individuals (Patricia Tall-Takacs and Gary Takacs, and Dana and Ned Laird), along with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. For those uncertain of the value to the public of that latter agency, this performance should help clarify that issue.
Tafelmusik, Baroque orchestra in Meany Theater performance; March 11, 2017.
By Melinda Bargreen
All too often, the quest for baroque-era authenticity can produce sober, earnest results on the concert stage. Not, however, when Tafelmusik is in town. Famous for their multimedia concert presentations that link music with movement and visuals, this 15-member ensemble drew a rapt Seattle audience into the world of J.S. Bach with their “Circle of Creation” program.
The production, presented March 11 in the warm acoustic of Seattle’s 1,200-seat Meany Theater (on the University of Washington campus), first appeared two years earlier and has been presented in many venues, but it seemed as fresh and spontaneous as any premiere. Designed and scripted by Alison Mackay, the group’s double bass player, the all-Bach program combines informative and dramatic narration, strikingly effective images, innovative staging, and – of course – great music, played with considerable flair by the ensemble. Jeanne Lamon, the Tafelmusik director and first violin, gave her group subtle but effective cueing and leadership.
Narrator Blair Williams, a bit too resoundingly amplified, knit the program together with his introductions and segues, explaining details of the stunning images shown overhead on a large screen: artisans and materials from Bach’s time and from ours, historic maps and close-ups of instrument-makers’ work; beautiful and relevant artwork (including the famous Bach portrait by Elias Gottlieb Hausmann). In that portrait, Bach is shown holding a small piece of manuscript paper that includes the first eight notes of the bass line of the “Goldberg Variations.” Then, on the overhead screen, those notes were displayed and discussed – and the first variation was performed by harpsichordist James Johnstone.
Instructive tidbits were dropped into the narrative, informing the audience that (for instance) one-fourth of the human brain is devoted to the details of operating our hands. But one never had the sense of being in the lecture hall instead of the concert hall.
The program had its moments of levity, too. A performance of the “Sheep May Safely Graze” cantata’s Andante was accompanied by a succession of slides on the screen, depicting cute woolly sheep … safely grazing. Afterward, we see a pile of coils of sheep intestine, and details of the process that turns those intestines into gut strings. It’s a bit creepy, but fascinating. So were the images of artisans painstakingly hand-winding the brass strings used in keyboard instruments.
What sets Tafelmusik apart, though, is not just the brilliance of this show, with its confluence of history and art and artisanship. It is the immense zest and authority of their music-making. The 15 expert players have memorized all 22 works on the program, and they move about the stage as they play – often in a way that illuminates the structure of the music (for example, the two oboists stroll toward each other upstage as they play a prominent theme). Occasionally, a few players briefly stationed themselves in the audience for startling stereophonic effects. The happy listeners could almost imagine themselves in Zimmerman’s coffeehouse, a short walk from Bach’s Leipzig home, where some of this music was probably heard for the first time.
CD Review: Halvorsen and Nielsen Violin Concertos, Henning Kraggerud (soloist), with Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Bjarte Engeset, conductor. (Naxos Classics)
As the shouts of “Bravo!” rose in Seattle’s Benaroya Hall, symphony-goers turned to each other in amazement and exclaimed, “Wow! Who IS this guy?” It was the Norwegian violinist Henning Kraggerud, making his Northwest soloist bow in November of 2015 with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and its principal guest conductor, the Danish maestro Thomas Dausgaard. Many of us made a mental note to watch for more Kraggerud musical opportunities.
Now there are opportunities for everyone to hear this dynamic player: a remarkable new CD from this multi-talented musician, who is also a conductor, an artistic administrator (co-director of Norway’s highly regarded Risør Festival), a violin professor, a jazz artist, and a composer. The disc is the premier recording of a “lost” violin concerto by Johan Halvorsen (1864-1935), who was considered one of Norway’s finest violinists, conductors, and composers back in his heyday.
The concerto, dedicated to and premiered by the Canadian violinist Kathleen Parlow, disappeared after the premiere (and two repeat performances) and was believed lost for more than a century—until a manuscript copy of the concerto was unearthed in 2016 in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music Library. Parlow, a resident of Toronto, had bequeathed her papers to that university, but the concerto had been separated from the rest of her collection.
When the concerto came to Kraggerud’s attention, he decided to give it a 21st-century premiere at the International Musicological Society’s annual conference in Stavanger, Norway, in 2016. And now comes this new recording on the Naxos Classics label, which pairs the long-lost concerto with Johan Svendsen’s charmingly melodic “Romance” and the pastoral but powerful Nielsen Violin Concerto.
So what does the Halvorsen concerto sound like? It’s surprisingly lovely. The work has a typically 19th-century romantic idiom, and you might mistake it for music of the composer’s more famous countryman, Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)—especially when you hear the lyrical folkdance themes and the Hardanger fiddle effects (energetically rendered by Kraggerud).
This is a lucky revival indeed of the concerto, particularly because it has so long been considered destroyed. Halvorsen had been unhappy with the reception of his work; when he retired in 1929, he burned a number of manuscripts, and his widow later stated that the Violin Concerto was among them. If Kathleen Parlow’s manuscript copy had not been discovered in the Toronto library, the concerto would have been lost forever.
Halvorsen, Nielsen & Svendsen: Music for Violin & Orchestra (Naxos Classics recording). Henning Kraggerud, violin soloist; Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Bjarte Engeset, conductor.
This article originally appeared in the March 10, 2017, issue of The Norwegian American.
The Seattle Symphony Orchestra, with violinist Hilary Hahn; Ludovic Morlot, conductor. Benaroya Hall, Feb. 10, 2017.
By Melinda Bargreen
Special to The Seattle Times
She was one of the violin world’s most astonishing prodigies – and two decades after her rise to teenage stardom, Hilary Hahn at 37 continues to grow as a star soloist. This season, Hahn is a “featured artist” with the Seattle Symphony, where she returned Thursday night for the first of three performances of the Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 under the direction of Ludovic Morlot.
Hahn’s Bruch, compelling and clean except for a couple of tiny misjudgments, is not as schmaltzy as we often hear it, played by violinists who want to wring every melody for maximum heart-tugging impact. Hahn let the music sing, shaping the lines with power and passion, but never overdoing the vibrato or introducing any interpretive distortions. It was a masterly performance of this often-played concerto, direct and unfussy and expert.
The audience responded with an extended ovation warm enough to bring an encore: the Gigue from Bach’s Partita No. 3 in E Major. It was this work (along with Bach’s other Partitas) that launched a teenaged Hahn to stardom 20 years ago, with her first album, “Hilary Hahn Plays Bach.”
The program played to the strengths of music director Ludovic Morlot, who provided attentive and supportive partnership in the concerto. Not surprisingly, the French-born maestro was also closely attuned to the nuances of Debussy’s “Prelude à l’après-midi d’un faune”; he made a great case as well for the final work on the program, Prokofiev’s exuberant Symphony No. 5.
Sensuous and shimmering, the Debussy soared past a few uneven wind entrances in the opening, on to a convincing performance with beautiful wind solos (Ebonee Thomas was the guest principal flute) and lots of subtle contrasts. Morlot and the orchestra created an atmosphere of dreamy intimacy that made this popular piece sound almost like chamber music.
At the other end of the scale, the Prokofiev Symphony No. 5 – composed in 1944, during World War II – uses the mighty power of the full orchestra to recreate the propulsive energy of its milieu. One of Prokofiev’s most successful major works, the Fifth recalls some of his famous ballet scores, with lots of verve and character and wit (and some tragic, yearning twists as well). This feisty music with its puckish energy and vivid orchestration has its share of anguish, in angular melodies that reach and fall again and again. Morlot and the orchestra underlined both the tragic and the triumphant elements with vivid performances from all the sections (notably the clarinets).
This is a program to make music lovers glad for the two repeat opportunities to hear Hilary Hahn -- and an orchestra worthy of her.
Review: The Seattle Symphony Orchestra, with Ludovic Morlot, conductor, and piano soloist Emanuel Ax; Benaroya Hall, Feb. 3, 2017
By Melinda Bargreen
One of the great pleasures of concertgoing is the chance to hear a classic masterpiece performed by an absolute master. Lucky Seattle Symphony fans had this opportunity on Thursday evening – and will have it again on Feb. 4, when Emanuel Ax returns to the keyboard for another round with Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto.
When Ax plays a concerto, it’s a collaborative event with the orchestra and conductor, not merely a star turn at the keyboard. Intently listening to and observing conductor Ludovic Morlot and the Symphony, Ax weaves his musical lines around the orchestral voices instead of always charging to the forefront. The bravura passages are consistently exciting and technically polished, but what is really interesting about Ax’s playing is the variety of timbres he coaxes from the keyboard: soft-focus, almost silky pianissimos, melodies of fragile delicacy, perfectly even trills, and a mighty rumble of crashing octaves when it’s called for.
Ax is so involved with the orchestra (including a particularly nice dialogue with principal clarinetist Ben Lulich) that you sense he’d really like to be playing all their parts on the piano, as well as his own. The rambunctious finale brought an enthusiastic ovation that drew an encore: Chopin’s serene Nocturne in F-Sharp Major (Op. 15, No. 2). As a Chopinist, Ax has few peers; this was a treat indeed.
The evening’s first half was a multimedia performance of Charles Ives’ “New England Holidays” Symphony, a work whose four movements (sometimes performed separately) depict Washington’s Birthday, Decoration Day, the Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving/Forefathers’ Day. Morlot, an Ives fan who has recorded three of that composer’s symphonies with this orchestra, considers this work “an American ‘Four Seasons.’” He led a rousing and committed performance that was accompanied by some unusual extras.
This multimedia Ives concert presentation, called “All of Us Belong,” is part of the Seattle Symphony’s ongoing “Simple Gifts” initiative. Seattle’s civic poet Claudia Castro Luna preceded the performance of each of the four movements of the Ives by reading poems she had written (each based on the respective movement). Luna’s poetry incorporated words and statements from several sources, including participants in three Seattle-based agencies for the homeless. While the orchestra played the Ives, a huge overhead screen displayed photographs and art by (and of) people experiencing homelessness.
In a way, these “extras” actually fit in with Ives’ diffuse, meandering, and sometimes chaotic assemblage of Americana in these four colorful movements -- each crammed with “name that tune” challenges in the form of snippets from popular songs, marches, hymns, and other quotations. This is music that accommodates well to audiovisuals. It was a memorable collaboration.
Review: Seattle Symphony Shostakovich Festival, January 19-20, 2017
By Melinda Bargreen
Special to The American Record Guide
It was Inauguration Day, with lots of police presence and an uneasy populace in Seattle – where the majority of citizens were displeased by the outcome of the Presidential election.
But inside Benaroya Hall, the big question was not politics but virtuosity: Would lightning strike twice in the same place? Would the three young stars of the Seattle Symphony’s two-night Shostakovich Festival dazzle the audience as resoundingly as they had on the previous evening?
The concept was an intriguing one. Three young masters of their instruments each played a Shostakovich concerto on two successive evenings with the Seattle Symphony, under the baton of another young master, the orchestra’s associate conductor Pablo Rus Broseta. All six of the Shostakovich concertos for solo instruments, in short, featuring an international cornucopia of talent with strikingly different backgrounds -- and equally different approaches to music. The soloists were violinist Aleksey Semenenko (born in 1988 in Ukraine), pianist Kevin Ahfat (born in 1994 in Canada), and cellist Edgar Moreau (born in 1994 in France). Broseta, the elder statesman of the group, was born in Spain in 1983.
You might think it was a fairly big risk for the Seattle Symphony to program two nights of solid Shostakovich – who can be bleak and sardonic, and still bears the dreaded “modernist” stigma to many mainstream audiences – without upping the populist ante by signing any big stars. Of the three soloists, only Ahfat (who won the Seattle Symphony’s only International Piano Competition in 2015) was a known commodity in that city. Furthermore, the two nights of the festival were both “work nights,” Thursday and Friday, for audiences.
But Seattle is a city that loves its festivals. An all-Rachmaninoff one at the Seattle Symphony in 2013 was wildly successful; Shostakovich is a tougher sell, but the January 19 concert drew a respectable crowd, and the January 20 one was nearly sold out.
What was immediately clear in the first performance was that in cellist Edgar Moreau, Seattle audiences knew they had struck gold. The reception for Moreau’s reading of the Cello Concerto No. 1 was explosive, and not because Moreau had overplayed his hand or indulged in theatrics. There was no rasping and scraping, none of the intentionally harsh gestures often employed in this killer of a piece by cellists who mistake aggression for excellence. Instead, there was phenomenal accuracy and an interpretive depth that drew the listener in to this thorny score and its moments of rhapsodic anguish. Traversing the score with half-closed eyes, speedy fingers, and an incredibly colorful array of bowstrokes, Moreau looked like a teenager and played like a young Yo-Yo Ma.
You could practically hear the programs rustle as audiences flipped to the bio section: who was this guy? The short version: started cello at age 4, currently studying with Philippe Mueller in Paris, First Prize in the 2014 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, Newcomer Prize in the 2016 Echo Klassik Awards. He also has two first-rate CDs on the Erato label, both of which I immediately bought. Watch for him in a concert hall near you.
But Moreau was far from the only star of the festival. Ahfat was first out of the gate with the Piano Concerto No. 1 (with the orchestra’s David Gordon as trumpet soloist), giving a performance that played down the concerto’s jokey ebullience with some surprisingly suave phrasing. The opening of the second movement was blissfully serene, with a final fadeout into a gentle reverie. Ahfat also summoned plenty of thunderpower in the big moments, but he clearly valued musicianship over mere showmanship. The Canadian-born Ahfat is currently continuing his studies at Juilliard with Joseph Kalichstein and Stephen Hough, but he already plays like a young pro who is ready for a bigger, post-conservatory arena.
The violin soloist, Alexey Semenenko -- silver medalist of the 2015 Queen Elisabeth Competition -- undertook the second Violin Concerto with a huge, pliant tone and a technique that quickly recovered from a couple of questionable intervals early in the performance. He gave a strongly characterized performance, riding easily over the orchestral accompaniment. But for all his passion and involvement in the music, Semenenko wasn’t playing to the audience – just to the score, with tremendous intensity. He attacked the cadenza with its forest of double-stops with a technique that sounded unforced and easy.
On the following evening, the three soloists returned to Benaroya Hall, this time with a larger and even more demonstrative audience. Perhaps not surprisingly, the soloists were even better and more assured on the second night. Upon their successive arrivals on the stage, all of them were greeted like returning heroes.
Moreau went first, in the dark and more mysterious second Cello Concerto. Listening to this gifted player gradually unspooling the strange, gorgeous score was an experience that brought the ambient noise level in the hall down to near-zero. Elsewhere, the Moreau had some fun with the jaunty Scherzo movement, but he was most effective at conveying the deep seriousness of the concerto’s opening and closing statements. The audience lost no time in leaping up for a fervent ovation; it was already clear that lightning was indeed striking twice in the hall.
Ahfat undertook the Piano Concerto No. 2 with a remarkable variety of touch – rambunctious in the pseudo-military opening Allegro, but alternating the fireworks with a silky touch that countered the bombast. He made much of the lyrical opening of the second-movement Andante, as lovely as anything Shostakovich ever wrote, and with the drama of the final Allegro, Ahfat brought the audience again to its feet.
Undertaking the massive Violin Concerto No. 1, Semenenko made an even stronger impression than on the previous evening, with a remarkable variety of sound production: eerily thin, then lusciously large. His intensity and obvious involvement in the music were evident throughout the performance, drawing the audience in with no attempt at showiness. This is a true classicist with a spectacular technique, ready for any challenge.
In many respects, however, the most difficult role in the festival was that of Spanish-born conductor Pablo Rus Broseta, the Seattle Symphony’s associate conductor, who has already amassed podium credits from Germany to Brazil. Accompanying three young players in six tough concerti was a formidable task. The clarity of his baton technique and cueing, and the equal clarity of his understanding of Shostakovich, made all this look easy, despite the metric and interpretive challenges that faced him.
It was clear that this quartet of young musicians is not just ready to tackle the big time: they are already there.
The Seattle Chamber Music Society Winter Festival, Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall, January 21, 2017
By Melinda Bargreen
The music is, of course, the most important thing by far.
And the music on Saturday night was impressive indeed, with performances of power and finesse from the musicians of the Seattle Chamber Music Society.
But there are other factors, too, that contribute to the experience of this festival. The intimacy of the surroundings lets you see when the players are visually consulting each other, when they’re working hard to support each other (or to stay out of the way), when they’re trading ideas or comically one-upping each other. By the time the performance is over, you feel you’ve heard some marvelous music put together by a family that includes the audience in its embrace.
The clarity and elegance of Mozart’s K.424 Duo, the sizzling surprise of Jennifer Higdon’s Piano Trio, the passionate eloquence of Fauré’s Piano Quartet (Op. 15) – all these are what the audience came for on Saturday night, and what brought them to their feet in appreciation. But it matters, too, when violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti makes an extramusical visual statement by striding onto the stage in a glittering silver gown; when she and violist Richard O’Neill exchange eloquent and quizzical glances at a witty turn in the music. It matters when you see Anton Nel lean into the string ensemble from the piano bench as he decides exactly which touch will best support them from his more powerful keyboard.
The concert lineup is a great example of director James Ehnes’ strengths in programming, with an emphasis on both variety and quality. The Mozart duo, all elegance and wit and beautiful timing, set the tone – which was immediately reversed by Jennifer Higdon’s jolt of fresh air in her 2003 Piano Trio. Here violinist Alexander Kerr, cellist Denis Brott, and pianist Natalie Zhu played the warm, neo-impressionist chord clusters of the first movement (“Pale Yellow”), followed by the wildly propulsive and energetic second (“Fiery Red”), which required huge feats of virtuosity and timing (Zhu was particularly impressive).
What a fascinating piece: proof that a composer today can write tonal music and still break new ground in some surprising ways. Programming the Higdon Trio is a fine illustration of Ehnes’ commitment to quality contemporary composers.
The evening’s closing work was the often-played Fauré Op. 15 Piano Quartet, which brought together violinist Ehnes with violist Cynthia Phelps, cellist Yegor Dyachkov, and pianist Anton Nel. Here the crucial, tragic third (Adagio) movement was sometimes a bit out of focus; some of the unisons and chords were just slightly askew. In the second (Scherzo) movement, Nel kept the keyboard light and almost pointillist in style; he’s a master of articulation and balance. Together, the four players fully realized the surging, questing elements in this arch-romantic score.
The Winter Festival is short – just two weekends – so next weekend’s three concerts are the finale. Friday night gets my vote: pianist Orion Weiss playing Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin” in pre-concert recital, followed by a Janacek rarity (“Pohádka”), the Shostakovich Piano Quintet, and Steve Reich’s eloquent, disturbing “Different Trains” for string quartet and pre-recorded tape. “Different Trains” contrasts benign memories of Reich’s transcontinental American train journeys during his World War II era childhood with the memories of Holocaust survivors on very different trains in Europe. It’s a work you won’t soon forget.
“La Traviata,” Verdi opera in Seattle Opera production; Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, January 21, 2017.
By Melinda Bargreen
Verdi’s “La Traviata” is one of the most popular operas of all time, filled with all the vital ingredients of a classic: beautiful arias, a romantic story line, a doomed heroine and a passionate hero.
And it poses an irresistible temptation to opera directors, who inevitably want to reinterpret this great repertoire standard in new ways. Seattle Opera’s new “La Traviata,” a restaging of German director Peter Konwitschny’s edgy production, does just that. It is thought-provoking, imaginative, striking, and well sung. Those are important positives.
But the production, revived here by director Mika Blauensteiner, also has its repellent aspects. Shorn of a lot of its music, and packed into about two uninterrupted hours with no intermission, the show distorts the opera in some significant ways. The character of Alfredo, the romantic and impetuous hero, is here a nerdy bookworm – the only partygoer who didn’t get the formal dress code and appears at the gala party in corduroys and a cardigan sweater, lamely paging through a book in order to come up with a toast.
More distressingly, Alfredo’s father Germont later drags in a daughter who is a little schoolgirl (not the libretto’s marriageable daughter who is in peril of losing her well-born fiance if Alfredo doesn’t behave), and Germont smacks the little girl in a scene that is more ugly than dramatic.
And in the end, Alfredo (who, according to the libretto, is singing that if Violetta dies, he will join her in one coffin) heartlessly turns his back on the dying Violetta instead, joining the remaining cast members out in the house where they sing together in one of the aisles.
Nor is the decor likely to inspire audiences hoping for a glimpse of Parisian high society: the set consists of a chair. And a stack of books, and many, many curtains.
On the plus side, there’s the singing, chiefly that of Corinne Winters in the title role. She is a beautiful and fearless Violetta, capable of both power and subtlety, and able to leap onto the lone chair during one of the most feared of all soprano arias, “Sempre libera.” (The high E-flat was not pretty, but it was indisputably there.) An affecting actress, she made Violetta’s exuberance, despair, and inexorable decline in health all very clear.
Her Alfredo, Joshua Dennis, gave a vocally smooth and well-schooled performance, singing with an assurance that was at odds with the character’s gauche staging. As Germont, Weston Hurt sang with resonance and warmth, giving a particularly nice account of the beautiful baritone aria “Di provenza.”
Charles Robert Austin’s Dr. Grenvil, Barry Johnson’s Baron Douphol, Karen Early Evans’ Annina, and Maya Lahyani’s Flora all made excellent impressions.
Conductor Stefano Ranzani gave a vital and energetic account of the score, supporting but never overwhelming the singers, and the orchestra played the Verdi’s glittering music with considerable finesse. The chorus of partygoers, prepared by John Keene, did a heroic job with some serious staging challenges and tricky choreography.
Does the compression of the three-act opera into a single shortened act really work? In some respects, it does not; besides doing some violence to Verdi’s musical intentions, the libretto tells us that three months have passed between the first and second acts, so there seems no compelling reason to stage them as a continuous present. Intermission-less opera performances are sometimes less popular with audiences than with stage directors.
But this brilliant score, and this timeless story, will appeal to audiences even if it is truncated, altered, and set on one of the moons of Saturn. Verdi had the right idea: love and death, and great tunes.